Anghraine

Oh, thanks about Revenge! I'm glad you still like Shmi. She was really the one that had the least amount to do w/ canon -- I mean, there are ties to canon, but she ended up more my own character than anything else and I felt pretty free to do whatever with her. But I could definitely see her being 'sweetie, think about your choices...' and it worked for the story, so.

I think the pain thing was influenced by SOTE, where he can't permanently heal himself w/ the Dark Side because he stops hating everything once he's no longer in constant agonizing pain. I didn't go there (he has plenty of other reasons to hate everything!), but I did like the idea of the Dark Side/agonizing pain being sort of linked. If only because he doesn't know *how* to heal with the Dark Side if it's even possible and isn't about to start experimenting on himself and Luke is corrupting (anti-corrupting?) him anyway, so yay Living Force. And that doesn't mess with his head, either, so it's pretty win-win.

Oh, thanks about my Anakin. I remember when I was writing, I was telling my betas 'okay, my Vader is SUCH A WOOBIE.' But he is!