Anghraine

I honestly thought the people who were outraged that the future Darth Vader was, gasp, in love with his wife were... um, missing the point of his entire character arc. Though I don't think it was about character arcs so much as an epic badass beloved of dudebro fanboys the world over getting girl cooties on him.

Not that I'm cynical about fandom, or anything.

Anakin's 'how is this possible?' is pretty lulzy -- like, how can he not know how it is possible to have a child if he was, you know, fathering a child? But on rewatching, it's clear that he does know, because he mentions Luke by name earlier. And it's just as clear that he hasn't chosen to enlighten the Emperor on the subject, so I assumed he's just bluffing.

In light of the prequels, though, it actually makes more sense (lol, not a statement I find myself making very often). Since it was Palpatine who told him that his child died with Padmé, 'how is this possible?' becomes a perfectly reasonable response to Palpatine.

There really is very little not to enjoy about Jedi!Padmé. But thank you about Arissa! I did originally plan on making Padmé basically what Arissa turned out to be, but Padmé-as-not-Leia's-mother wasn't right. I am kind of tempted to do an OT-compliant Revenge AU, though. Hmm.