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empire-at-war · 2 years

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KINKTOBER DAY 23

kink of the day: Hate sex

additional kinks/warnings: rough sex, humiliation, tentacles (briefly mentioned, blink and you miss it)

characters: Khenta and Ziig @starrealis

A/N: Khenta is the ghost of an ancient pureblood Sith. He escaped his tomb on Yavin by inhabiting the body of a young graverobber. Ziig is an old rival of his, who is still alive through Sith sorcery. I imagine their relationship has always been like this. XD

*** “My Lord.” Khenta spit out the words, but he bowed low and waited for the guards to leave until he lifted his gaze from the broken and decrepit tiles of the temple floor to stare defiantly at the Sith towering over him. His hands were balled into fists, his shoulders shaking from the anger that was rising in his throat like bile, threatening to consume him. The abomination that was Ziig smirked, obviously delighted by finally having his old rival at his mercy. “No need to be so formal,” he chuckled, dark robes swirling around him as he paced around Khenta in a circle, clawed fingertips clicking in the silence of the ruins. Like a bird of prey circling over a dying animal. Khenta held his breath. He wasn't going to give Ziig the satisfaction of losing his temper. As much as he wanted to insult him, Khenta knew it would feel like a defeat. And it wasn't going to accomplish anything. It would just be an admission of how much their current situation affected him.

The hairs at the back of his neck stood on end as the voice of his old rival suddenly came from behind. “There's no need to pretend with me. We are all alone here.” That sounded like a threat coming from Ziig's lips, but well, most things did.

Unfortunately Ziig was right. The tomb was empty, except for the troops guarding the entrance. None of them would dare and disturb a Lord of Sith, no matter how loud the screams that came from behind closed doors. “I don't know what you're talking about,” Khenta hissed, pulling himself up to his full height, turning around to face the ancient horror that was Ziig. Unfortunately his full height wasn't very impressive right now. His feeble new body only reached up to Ziig's chin, a fact that made Khenta's cheeks flush in an even darker shade. “How could you have forgotten,” Ziig mocked, his hands suddenly on Khenta's forehead, cutting into his skin with his sharp nails, mumbling an incantation in the old and forgotten language of the void. The room around them started to spin, darkness filled his lungs, but he couldn't move, couldn't do anything.

“Let me remind you,” Ziig's disembodied voice resonated in his head, and suddenly the temple around them changed, the ancient writings transformed, until they looked brand new, as if they were carved just yesterday. The dust and debris disappeared, and so did the equipment of the reclamation service that was strewn everywhere around the room.

Khenta looked down on himself and was shocked to see ornate robes, a broad chest. He raised his hands and inspected them. His own hands. Strong hands, bejeweled. Red skin. “What did you do?” That was his own voice too. Just as he remembered it. But how was that possible? His body was rotting in a grave on Yavin IV. It had probably long since turned to dust.

“Just an echo of the past,” Ziig's voice came from right behind him again.

Khenta drew a sharp breath and jerked around. His hated rival was so close he could feel his breath on his skin. His real, red skin. Ziig looked the same as he always had, dusky pink skin and glowing red eyes, captivating the hearts of all living beings with his ageless beauty. Terrifying them with the horrors they could glimpse in his eyes.

Before he could as much as blink, Khenta was pushed back against the stone wall by unnatural strength, his old body just as useless as his new one against Ziig's powers. Even if they were of a similar height now, the only advantage that gave him was that he didn't have to twist his neck at an awkward angle as his lips were captured, bitten until they parted and his mouth was plundered like the graves on Yavin. Khenta groaned into the kiss, if it deserved to be called that at all. It was as if his body still remembered how much he had always hated Ziig with every fiber of his being. Oh, Khenta hated most of the pretenders who called themselves Sith nowadays, but his hatred for Ziig was special, personal, even if he was one of the few who could rightfully claim that title.

He hated Ziig's unnatural strength and he hated his chilling laughter that made his stomach drop and set his nerves on fire. And most of all he hated himself and the way he felt when deceptively slender arms lifted him off the ground and pinned him against the wall. His cock was hard as soon as the robed figure pressed flush against him, and he couldn't even find it in himself to be glad about the familiarity of the sensation. He felt ashamed to realize that he was lusting for Ziig's dark power just as much as he had back then, no matter how many centuries had passed. But... if this was just a memory, there was no reason to hold back now, was there? Khenta bit the tongue in his mouth, hard, but all that accomplished was to spur Ziig on, make him increase his efforts. Something slippery and wet wrapped around Khenta's legs and he moaned, hating himself for how easily he was seduced, hating Ziig for how easily he made him unravel.

He had no idea how long this... illusion would last, but he wasn't going to bend over for his old rival. He was going to make the best out of this, he swore to himself, he wouldn't admit how wonderful it felt to be back in his old body, to feel the pressure and warmth rubbing against his groin, and then there was a long-fingered hand inside of his robes, sharp nails dragging over his balls... oh, how he had missed this. He realized the pathetic moan had come from his own mouth, his own voice unfamiliar after so many centuries. “I remember now,” he ground out, gasping as pain and pleasure flooded his senses. “I remember how much I hate you.” There was another low chuckle, and then the slippery appendage wrapped around his ankle moved higher and slid into his pants and Khenta forgot how to talk for a while.

#kinktober 22 #kinktober day 23 #starrealis #sith pureblood #swtor ocs #khenta akar #ziig #oh I had so many candidates for today #love me some good hate sex #glad I picked these two #because nobody has as much hatred as an old sith ghost #sith ocs

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sticks-and-souls · 9 months

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Anakin & Letting Go

I always found it to be a little skeptical that Anakin could become a force ghost after it took Yoda, Qui Gon, and Obi-Wan learning and training how to do it, and I always thought “really? Anakin? Finding that level of peace and letting go?” But after this episode, seeing the care and lesson that he imparts upon Ahsoka that he learned so painfully, I understand it from him so much better. Vader was so stuck in his complete self-hatred that he allowed nobody who had known him before as Anakin to reach him (most notably Obi-Wan and Ahsoka) because of the overwhelming extent of his shame. It took his son, who had never known him and yet who still stood before him and believed in him, loved him, sacrificed himself for him, to call Anakin back from the depths of Vader. And this Anakin, let everything go to save his son and to allow his son to save him.

And it felt so impactful to get to see this mature post-Vader Anakin reaching out to Ahsoka to teach her this very hard-earned lesson that he took the very hard road to get. Because she has Vader in her. She is everything Anakin taught her, and we saw the behaviors that led Anakin to becoming Vader—the fear of losing his most cherished relationships—reaching out of Anakin very early in the clone wars (and before) and the two of them are both very aware that he imparted those lessons on her. And then we've seen across this season—and overtly in her clone wars flashbacks—that she believes she is inextricable from these traits.

I’ve always loved Anakin as a fictional character, getting to see his earnestness, his flawedness, and his intensity (to borrow Huyang’s very accurate adjective), but this episode brought a level of humanity to him that has moved me so deeply. Life is HARD, loss gets forced on all of us no matter what, and the lessons that we learn through mistakes that we made can be extremely painful because acknowledging and taking responsibility for hurting people is actually really painful for humans (not owning up to our actions is the emotionally easier choice and George Lucas has stated time and again that the Dark Side is about taking the short-term easier choices). But it ultimately means that learning from your mistakes is an actual choice you have to MAKE. And this is the core of Anakin’s lesson. He is teaching Ahsoka that she has to choose which lessons he has taught her that she will live by, but more than that, that she is empowered to be able to choose. Yes, she has everything that he taught her—the good and the bad—but she is not condemned to live out all of the lessons.

And the beauty of it isn't just the lesson, but that Anakin gets to be the one to teach it to her. The betrayal that she experienced in discovering his fall, the taintedness that she has been portraying that she feels about herself, gets specifically addressed because if he figured it out, then she definitely can too. If he is more than just Vader, then she is too. And THAT is what the "Is that what this is about?" line is actually about. It's so so important that we get to see pre-Vader, Vader, and post-Vader across her vision because the point is that yes, Vader is a part of him, and that brilliant shot of the two of them glaring Sith eyes across the blade at each other did it's job in conveying that Ahsoka is capable of that darkness too, but you are not only the darkness. You get to choose. ("You're more than [death and destruction] because I'm more than that"). And more to the point, you have to choose. Because if you don't specifically choose to fight the dark, then you're ultimately choosing to fall into it. "Fight or die."

So for Anakin to be able to reach out to her one more time, to be able to love her the way he, as Vader, had refused to the last time when they met on Malachor, and to open with “you’re never too old to learn”, because god if he didn’t learn that the hard way too. And to be able to pass on to Ahsoka how to actually let go because he himself had only just finally been able to learn it as well, feels so powerful and poignant.

And that look of pride and wistful sadness that he gives her at the end? That both she and Luke were able to learn so quickly what took him so long? And that maybe, he may have helped save her from the worst traits that he imbued upon her? That’s him having let go of his own shame. He feels grief, he feels guilt—we can see it on his face—but what has happened has happened and he has accepted that, and finally learned that letting go doesn't mean it didn't happen, it means it doesn't have to define your actions going forward.

And finally, it’s also him letting go of ahsoka. By teaching her that she will choose her destiny, he has to accept that he cannot control it either. And he has. “There’s hope for you yet.”

So yeah, Anakin learned to let go, and getting to see him here, in this headspace of acceptance and peace, practicing and understanding what it means to be a Jedi, was so unexpectedly cathartic and revelatory for me as viewer.

#listen this lesson IS HIS APOLOGY. he didn’t get it then but he gets it now so please ahsoka #here are the tools to break the cycle of fear and violence #i love you snips i love you snips i love you snips #i love anakin as a character but I never thought I would feel as proud of him as I do now #say what you will about filoni but to me this episode proved he actually gets the ethos at the core of star wars #I also finally feel like the show has earned the emotional sucker punch of an end credits score that kevin kiner gifted us with #ahsoka series #ahsoka meta #ahsoka show #ahsoka spoilers #anakin skywalker #snips and skyguy #ahsoka tano #darth vader #dave filoni #kevin kiner #my meta #ahsoka shadow warrior #man this was so much longer than i expected. let me tell you im a victim of parental abuse without telling you im a victim of parental abus #writing this out had me SOBBING y'all #ahsoka gets the reparation we all deserve

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radioactivepeasant · 4 years

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Fic Prompts: Star Wars Wednesday

Because Disney can pry the Finn Skywalker headcanon from my cold, dead, fingers. And because Disney can’t stop me from reworking their movies if I darn well please.

Most of the fortress had been picked over by scavengers years ago. Any Imperial memorabilia had long since been looted and either auctioned off or confiscated by the First Order. Really, that was the only reason the scout team had considered it as a potential base at all. It had already been gutted, and was pretty well beneath the notice of Kylo Ren unless he was up for sentimental tours.

The general didn’t find that very likely.

Mustafar was far from a hospitable world for most species, but the heat shielding of the fortress was still highly efficient. The scouts had set up a base camp in what looked like it had once been some kind of audience chamber. Nobody had felt like exploring alone. The whole castle just felt...off.

The young leader of the scouts sat on a pile of rubble, head tilted like he was listening for something. He frowned and glanced down at his team.

“What, Trache?” he asked.

The Twi’lek raised his brows at Finn. “I didn’t say anything.”

Finn seemed confused. “You sure? I could’ve sworn-”

Finn?

Finn looked up again. "Rose, you heard Trache call me just now, right?"

Rose Tico set down a power lamp and plugged it into their Artoo unit, then shook her head. “Sorry Finn,” she said, “All I heard was Artoo.”

Finn.

He whirled, squinting into the darkness of the derelict fortress. “There! You guys heard it that time, right?”

Rose fidgeted awkwardly. "Finn...I didn't hear anything."

Finn.

Finn turned again. He felt as though someone had tied a string around his soul and was pulling. As if under some other power than his own, the boy began to stumble into the shadows.

"W- what are you doing?" Trache hissed.

"Gotta check something out," Finn mumbled. He could just make out what looked like a figure, standing at the end of the corridor. "It's...it's okay. I think it's the Force."

His scout team's protests faded into static behind him. There was nothing but the voice.

Finn. Come to me.

Finn slowly reached down and loosened his blaster in its holster. There was a possibility that he was hearing this voice in his mind. And that had to mean enemies.

"Where are you?" he asked, tensed and ready to fight.

The shadowy figure he had glimpsed before reappeared, further away. It stood, as if waiting. Then it raised one arm, beckoning.

Finn didn't sense anything particularly hostile about the stranger, but he was wary nonetheless. He eased forward, following the dark shape into another chamber. The closer he got, the more he realized that it wasn't made of pure shadow after all. A faint flicker of blue light outlined the person, if a person it was, slowly illuminating more details. A black tabard. A heavy gauntlet. A cape that fell to the floor and seemed to swallow all light that touched it.

The rhythmic hiss that Finn had taken for some kind of machinery in the fortress took on a new volume.

It sounded like breathing.

Finn stopped dead in his tracks. He had seen that shape before. In the First Order barracks, as a little boy, he had seen that shape in the propaganda forced down the children's throats.

"Aren't you dead?" he blurted out before he could stop himself.

The giant inclined his head -- or, well, his helmet -- regally and turned. He gestured to one side.

"Walk with me."

The authoritative voice brooked no argument.

Finn knew he should have been running. That was Darth Kriffing Vader, or his ghost, or a clone, or something. But...he didn't sense the kind of painful storm he'd always experienced around Kylo Ren. There was no hatred, filling the air with danger. Just a strange echo of regret.

With one hand firmly on the butt of his blaster, he gritted his teeth and stepped closer.

"The Force is with you, young one," the late Sith Lord remarked, "but you are not a Jedi yet."

That rankled a little bit. Finn knew he couldn't do all the things Rey could yet. The General had told him that his connection to the Force was more like hers than Rey's, but he still didn't know what that meant. That didn't mean he wasn't learning. He was just going at his own pace.

"Maybe I'm not," he said, "But I will be."

Will I be?

Darth Vader began to walk. Hands clasped thoughtfully behind his back, steps slow and measured. Relentless. What did he want? And why was he even here?

Reluctantly, Finn followed a half step behind.

"I'm not hallucinating this, right? Because my team can't see you." Getting lured into the depths of the castle by the ghost of a Sith probably wasn't a good thing. "Why'd you call me?"

"I have been expecting you for some time," Vader said, tipping his helmet down as if observing Finn. "It was inevitable that you would find me here."

His footsteps echoed on the stone, but did not disturb so much as a single mote of dust. The hair on the back of Finn's neck rose when he looked down and saw only one set of footprints behind them.

"You know who I am." It was not a question.

Swallowing hard, Finn nodded. His mouth was dry, and despite himself, his fingers trembled. Like a death sentence the name fell from his lips.

"Darth Vader."

Abruptly, the man turned on his heel. His cape flared out around him as he raised a finger almost in warning.

"That name no longer has any meaning for me," he said sternly.

"Then..." Finn wrinkled his brow and tried to remember the legend. "You're um, you're a Skywalker-?"

His companion nodded. "I suspected that if I had chosen my true form, you would not have known me."

He raised his helmet as the chamber emptied out into another set of corridors. "Come. There is something I must show you."

Well. This was going to make an interesting story to tell the General later. Finn pulled the collar of his jacket up and shivered.

"Dar- I mean, uh...Master Skywalker? You didn't answer my question before. Aren't you dead?"

Anakin did not slow his steps. "The Force, young one, is a pathway to many abilities that some may consider to be...unnatural."

A wry chuckle wrenched itself from Finn's lips. He shook his head and took a jogging half step to keep up with the ghostly warrior. "You're telling me."

Anakin glanced down at him again. Finn wasn't sure how he knew the ghost's eyes were on him, but somehow he could guess where to look.

"You show remarkably little trepidation in the face of the impossible," he commented.

It was strange, but Finn was almost beginning to feel comfortable with the conversation. He shrugged. "Nobody ever told me how the Force was supposed to work. How am I supposed to know what's possible and what's not?"

He jumped when Anakin tipped back his helmet and laughed. It was a deep, rolling sound, utterly at odds with the mechanical whoosh of his respirator.

"Indeed! Do not lose your open mind, Finn. It will serve you well."

"Did anybody ever tell you," Finn huffed, "That you make even compliments sound ominous?"

Another low chuckle. "Yes. Your father did."

His father?!

What was the ghost talking about?

Finn scowled at him. "Whoa, hold on. How do you know my father? I don't even know my father!"

Under his breath he added, "I don't even know what I'm doing here."

Abruptly, he began to sense a complicated tangle of emotions from the ghost of Anakin Skywalker. Regret, anger, concern.

"You remember nothing, child?"

Sometimes Finn thought he did remember. But they were just images. Feelings. A woman's voice and strong arms. A man's smile. Sometimes he heard snatches of a song in his dreams, always just out of reach by the time he opened his eyes.

Other times, the dreams were not so kind. Flashes of an old man, reaching for him even as he was shot in the back. His own tiny hands reaching desperately for an old woman screaming a name he couldn't hear. He wondered sometimes if they had been his grandparents.

The Resistance was his family now. Rey and Chewie were his family. Poe and BB-8 were his family. The General was his family. But in his heart, Finn still wanted closure. To at least know where he had come from.

"I...remember my grandfather dying." Finn said haltingly.

"Not your grandfather," Anakin corrected him. "Your mother's cousin. Your grandfather died long before your birth."

He quickened his pace before Finn could insist on an answer. Through stone galleries and ominous archways he continued with a single-minded determination. He did not stop until he had reached what had once been an impressively secure door, long since reduced to ruin by looters. Inside sat a strange dome-like structure that reminded Finn of an egg.

"Did you see that in my head? Is that like a thing you can do?" Finn demanded. He was determined to get the truth. Maybe he could "sense" it somehow. "How did you see it if I can't?"

Anakin did not immediately answer. He waved his hand over the dome, and with a rumbling groan it separated neatly into two halves. It was an old-fashioned hyperbaric chamber. A few lights still flickered dimly inside. Anakin reached down to touch one small screen, and a hologram sprang up. A young man in Rebellion era fatigues smiled up at them from the hologram. Old though it was, the holo was still recognizable.

"What the- That's Luke Skywalker!" Finn realized.

Anakin nodded. "He was no older than you are now when my spies brought me this image." He seemed almost lost in nostalgia for a moment. "Truly, I would have torn the very fabric of the universe apart to find him."

Finn watched the ghost, noting that he cupped the hologram in his hands as though he held something infinitely precious.

"You...kept a holo of him in your chamber?" Seemed a little odd for a Sith.

He was pretty sure Ren didn't keep holos of his parents.

"Of course." Anakin did not look away from the tiny, grinning face of Luke. "He is my son."

Finn sat down carefully on the seat within the chamber. His feet didn't even touch the floor. "Hey...Master Skywalker?" he asked, "How did you know my grandfather died before I was born? If it was before I was born, I wouldn't have had any memory of that. Buried or no. Did you...meet him in the afterlife or something? Do all ghosts know each other?"

He sensed hesitation as Anakin answered, "No, I...I was...there."

That could mean a lot of things. "Did you kill him?" Finn guessed, "Like, was he a Rebel? Or a Jedi?"

He heard the creaking of leather as Anakin's hands tightened into fists.

"He was a rogue and peasant Sith. A knave who chased after power at the cost of his kin," Anakin snarled.

Finn jolted back. A Sith?

A horrible thought slid into the back of his mind. What if his family had given him willingly to the First Order? What if they expected him to follow in his grandfather's footsteps?

"So...what does that make me?" he rasped.

The tension drained quickly from Anakin's shoulders. He turned away from the hologram of his son and raised a spectral hand to rest against Finn's cheek. It did not pass through him, as he had expected it to. Instead, it lingered, like the brush of a curtain.

"You are," Anakin said, almost reverently, "A valiant son of a worthy father. And the beloved grandchild of a grandmother who deserved a better life than she was given."

The Force was almost screaming at him that the answers to his questions were at last before him, but Finn was afraid to believe it. Afraid to get his hopes up and be wrong. If, after all this, his growing suspicion was wrong, he wasn't sure he could bear it.

"Master Skywalker, please," he begged, "I don't know why I'm here, I don't know what you want from me. Just tell me the truth? Did you know my grandfather?"

The other glove rose, and Finn found his face being gently cradled by an ex-Sith Lord.

“No,” Anakin answered, quiet and inevitable. “I am your grandfather.”

#star wars wednesday #star wars au #fix-it au #sequel trilogy #sequel trilogy fix-it #finn skywalker #star wars finn #darth vader #anakin skywalker #and his mom is Nakari Kelen who is NOT DEAD because we do NOT fridge ladies in this house!#if The Mouse doesn't want me unfridging her that's his problem #and yes. Anakin is STILL the biggest drama llama in space #sneaky shakespeare reference #fic prompts #writing prompts

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reliciron · 4 years

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Notes on Redeeming Arcann: Part 1

Ok, here are my thoughts on redeeming Arcann. This is just my own current analysis of his character and where I might take him in possible future fics. If someone has a different interpretation I would love to hear it as my own ideas on him continue to shift. If anyone is struggling with his character, I hope this might give you a starting point or jog some new ideas. And if you’re just reading this because you like character analysis (I do too), then I hope you enjoy it and it’s not too incoherent.

This first part will focus more on redeeming Arcann. The second will be my thoughts on his character motivations.

Part 2

Alright, this is going to be very, very long, so strap in.

Ok, so since I don’t have a lot of experience writing, I felt my own grasp of what it takes to redeem a villain was a little too shaky to do Arcann’s redemption justice on my own. He’s admittedly a pretty horrific character at his worst, and the game itself really doesn’t do a very good job of giving him a believable redemption arc. I feel it would be very easy for an inexperienced writer like me to fall into character apologia and try to ignore what he’s done in favor of ‘it’s not his fault’. Fiction is full of men who act like jerks and excuse it with daddy issues, and I’m really trying to carry that awareness into his redemption so I can avoid that pitfall. The atrocities he committed were his choices, but understanding why he became a character who would make those choices does not mean that he wasn’t ultimately at fault for what he did.

So with that in mind I did a quick search, looked through a few guides on redemption, and eventually settled on this one.

In an effort to make this smooth, I have copy/pasted the major points from the article and put them in brackets with my responses following each one.

[Realism is derived from a multitude of factors, but one of the most important is having authentic motives. Villainy is a dark path for a reason – it’s hard to come back from – which is why you need a super-bright ‘why’ torch to help your baddie see the light.

The best way to create a ‘why’ (or a motive) is to understand where it comes from. For example:

Maybe your villain wants a bigger pay off and this is how he thinks he will get it

He could be taking an order from someone more powerful

A more emotional reason might be that the hero appeals to his heart by saving someone the villain cares about

Or perhaps the villain just wants to right a wrong or past mistake]

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Ok, so Arcann has a little of the last 2 of those reasons. Now that he’s gone through the Force Healing dishwasher, he wants to try and make up for all the horrible things he did (Mostly the people he killed for shits and giggles while hunting down the Outlander. War is war, and he might not beat himself up over the people he personally killed on the battlefield. They made the choice to be soldiers/Jedi/Sith, and they knew they might die when they went up against him.)

He was also swayed by the Outlander letting him and Senya go, and how they cared for her while he was figuring things out.

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[Whatever the plot point for justifying your villain’s redemption, you can create added depth to their motive by linking it to an old wound in his past.]

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His mother left, and it’s possible that he still wonders what would have happened if he and his siblings had gone with her (I can’t remember if he touched on this in one of his cut-scenes during KOTFE). But more importantly, no one has ever come back for him except his brother. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t expect Vaylin to care about him enough to help him unless it benefits her, so after Thexan’s death he feels like he’s alone and nobody would miss him if he died. And that’s… really not a good place to be.

He doesn’t feel connected to his people since I doubt he ever saw much of them while growing up, so it’s easier to treat them like dirt if he can’t empathize with them. Also, the closest person to him, and the only one he seems to care about, is Vaylin, and she’s even more messed up than him so they just echo each other’s cruelty and drive each other to new heights of awfulness.

So that’s why it’s so important to him and game changing that his mom shows up after he’s been defeated.

Now the scene in KotFE goes like this: Senya finds Arcann dead (unconscious) and pinned under a bunch of debris. She drags him out and cries because she thinks he’s dead. Then Vaylin shows up, and while Senya is focused on her, Arcann blinks awake. Vaylin starts to attack, and Arcann stops her. Blah blah blah, Senya saves Arcann because he tried to protect her and she “feels the good in him”.

Ok.

(Keep in mind, my computer chugs much worse if I have the background music on, so I always play with it off. So scenes that maaaaay be relying too much on the music to carry the emotional weight, don’t have that crutch to lean on when I see them.)

Putting aside some dumb stuff, like why didn’t Senya sense that he was alive, and why didn’t she “sense the good in him” until after he pushed Vaylin away, here’s a few tweaks I might make:

Senya finds Arcann badly injured and pinned under debris. She realizes that he’s still breathing so she drags him out, sits down, and cradles him in her arms. She fully expects that he’s going to die, and her resolve crumbles. She rocks him gently and sings to him, her voice breaking here and there as the ship comes apart around them. She left her children once, and she refuses to leave Arcann again. She’s going to stay with him until he succumbs to his wounds, or the ship disintegrates.

To her surprise, he begins to wake. He turns his head into her chest, instinctively remembering her voice and the way she’d sing when comforting him and his brother after a painful day of training. He opens his eyes blearily with a mumbled “Mother?”. And now, finally, after years of being apart, she senses the conflict in him. Buried under years of pain and rage, is the tiny flicker of the boy she used to know.

The ship shudders underneath them and she makes her choice.

She hauls him up and throws his remaining arm over her shoulders. He can barely support his own weight and is fading in and out of consciousness as she drags him off the dais. They’re almost to the door when Vaylin appears and cuts them off.

Senya pleads with her, but Vaylin refuses to see reason and moves to kill her. Senya tries to throw Arcann out of the way, but the minute his arm is clear he manages to force push Vaylin away, where she appears to be crushed under falling debris.

Senya can’t save both of them, but she didn’t feel any conflict in Vaylin. So she chooses Arcann and takes him to the shuttle.

After they’re far enough away, Vaylin comes to in a rage, only to find that she’s missed her chance. She too, escapes in a patrol vessel.

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[Epiphany Redemption

Sometimes we don’t realize we have bad habits until someone tells us or we suddenly become aware of them. One of the most famous epiphany redemption examples is Scrooge going through an awakening. With the help of the Christmas ghosts, he’s shown the impact of his actions which causes him to see that he’s been leading a terrible life. The end of the story show him as a changed man, being kind and charitable to others.]

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This sounds like what happened to Arcann.

It could be that with his mind clouded with pain and a likely concussion, he forgets his anger enough to think that, if his mother cared enough to save him and feels there’s still good in him, maybe there is.

It could be worked into the healing ritual, instead of this nebulous “light sapping the dark from him while he lays unconscious” thing. It could be that the ritual lifts all of his emotional baggage up so that he can view his past choices through a clear lens. Kind of A Christmas Carol speed-run, where his actions flash by in his mind and the horror of what he’d become slowly builds and replaces some of the rage. So the healing ritual doesn’t cure him of the darkness, so much as it’s a cold dose of the reality of his actions without the rage and bad justifications covering it up. The pain and rage is still there, and he’ll have to deal with it naturally later (get that boy a THERAPIST), but it no longer gets in the way of his decision making and he’s free to make better choices.

This explains why he was so panicked when he woke up that he didn’t notice his mother was still alive. And her “death” was just one more horrible thing he’s done. That even in healing, he still manages to kill the people close to him.

(It’s also why I always take the choice to tell him that Senya’s still alive right before he flies away, to spare him from that extra self hatred.)

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[It takes time. Just as a hero takes an entire novel to overcome her flaw, it will take some time for a villain to make this monumental change. Don’t let them flip-flop like a beached fish between good and evil – the change needs to build slowly throughout the book.]

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I think this is the main issue that a lot of people seem to have with Arcann’s redemption. The healing ritual was such a hand-wavy “ok he’s better now” cop-out for what would normally be months or years of interesting character development.

I understand of course. This is a game, not a book series. There isn’t time to give Arcann the kind of focus that sort of development needs, and they weren’t allowed to weave his redemption too much into the story because not everyone spares him.

We can lessen the impact of this by ignoring some canon things and writing around others, but it would take a major rewrite of a large chunk of KotET to integrate this point.

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[Foreshadow, foreshadow, foreshadow. Readers don’t like to be cheated. You need to drop breadcrumbs throughout your story to let your reader know subconsciously that the villain is going to change, otherwise they’ll feel cheated. It doesn’t take much – the occasional soft glance from the villain, a nicely spoken sentence, and action that is ‘good’ rather than evil. Tiny clues.]

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There were tiny hints here and there, but not really enough for my taste and they were very easy to miss.

Some examples I can think of are:

He sort of yells at Vaylin at one point and without her saying anything, he immediately backs off, calms his voice down, and tells her that he’s not blaming her. She’s flippant about it, but it made it clear that he cares about her enough to treat her with respect and what little affection he’s capable of at that point.

@swtorpadawan made a good point in this post about how Arcann’s hesitation in destroying the Gravestone might’ve been because he sensed his mother’s presence.

And while I don’t think it was supposed to be hesitation on Arcann’s part, just the game forgetting about the time as we are shown Koth lining up the shot, he technically DID hesitate in killing the Outlander after he stabbed them (assuming you refused Valkorian’s power). There was a decent length of time where he had them, mortally wounded and defenseless, and he hesitated so long that Koth discovered the scene, figured out a plan, and shot out that big thing on the ceiling.

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[Don’t make it easy. It’s hard for the hero to overcome her flaw and likewise, it should be hard for a villain to overcome his. A quick way to make it harder for the villain to redeem himself is to catch him between two of his values. For example, while this character isn’t a villain, it still illustrates the point: Ned Stark in Game of Thrones values loyalty and wisdom – his wisdom tells him if he helps his King it will inevitably lead to his death, and yet, his loyalty forces him to help the King anyways.]

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This one is closely tied to the “it takes time” point, and is also horribly ignored in the story. Once he’s healed he’s practically a different person. Now I don’t know if it’s because they didn’t devote much time to his writing since he’s an optional character, or if they meant to write him like this, but it’s still unfortunate.

He strikes me as determined and ruthless (like his mom). His interaction with Thexan and his commitment to the Outlander seems to imply that he’s loyal once he’s found someone worthy of it. He’s intelligent, but can be arrogant sometimes (of course this will have been knocked down a few pegs since the Outlander kicked his ass).

An easy point of conflict between his values (especially soon after he joins the Alliance), would be between his loyalty to the Outlander and his ruthlessness.

He could be on a mission with the Outlander, and have an enemy defeated but alive. The Outlander might want to spare them, while his ruthlessness demands their death. He knows how people like this work, that sparing them is a good way to get stabbed in the back, and if the Outlander is too softhearted to look out for themselves then he will.

BUT the Outlander is showing him trust by letting him accompany them, both trust that Arcann won’t kill them and that he will follow orders. Their trust is extremely precious to him (especially if he’s already crushing on the Outlander) so he really wants to do as they say.

He’s forced to balance their trust against his need to protect them.

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[Don’t let them go soft. Villains are villains for a reason. Keep them authentic by retaining some of their sharper personality edges. Just because their actions are good doesn’t mean the whole of them will be.]

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I feel like this one is especially important, and also terribly overlooked.

Arcann learned some bad habits while being a villain and even when growing up, some of those should carry over into his healed self.

They might lessen with time and careful retraining, but he will always have sharp edges.

He will probably have a temper (although this must be handled very carefully to avoid making him look childish and abusive).

And if someone he cares about is threatened he may fly into a rage until they can calm him down. This rage may be followed by flashbacks of the battles he’s been through and the way the hatred felt in his gut, leaving him panicked and shaky once it’s over.

He probably has nightmares regularly, and care must be taken in waking him up to avoid a violent response, same thing with sneaking up on him: DON”T.

Honestly, the dude went through so much and did so many horrible things that I don’t see how he wouldn’t have PTSD. He certainly has self-hatred up to his eyeballs.

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One more thing:

Once he’s joined the Alliance, I think we need to be careful when writing him to make sure that his goal of trying to make up for the horrible things he’s done isn’t overlooked. I mean yeah, he’s helping by coming along on missions with the Commander, but that is super small time stuff compared to what he’s done and I don’t think he’d be satisfied with it for long.

He’s an intelligent man with experience commanding armies on the battlefield, and an extremely talented Force-user. At minimum, and when not accompanying the Outlander, he should spend most of his day immersed in Alliance reports giving tactical advice (once they trust him enough, of course) and helping with combat training in the Force Enclave. When they trust him more, he can maybe become the official liaison between the Alliance and Zakuul, using the resources and tech of his home world to help the reconstruction on the planets he bombarded and getting Zakuul what they need as well.

Of course, once the Republic/Empire war starts up again, his position will change and he may take on a more military role, commanding offensives on behalf of whichever side the Alliance has picked.

My point is, wallowing in emotional hurt/comfort and developing romance is really fun and satisfying, but don’t forget his promise to atone for his misdeeds.

#swtor #arcann #redeeming a villain #writing #relicwrites #kotfe #kotet #arcann tirall

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arwenkenobi48 · 6 years

Text

The Feral Opress Headcanon Masterpost

Now updated and expanded!

Canon Star Wars Timeline:

Feral was the youngest son of Mother Talzin. He was born almost two months premature and had a twin who died at birth. Feral himself almost died because he was very weak. Talzin rejected him because of this. However, the Nightsister Kycina believed there was hope for him and raised him in secret. Once he was strong enough, she delivered him to the Nightbrothers, directly to Savage Opress.

Feral was very quiet and shy as a child, preferring to stay Savage’s side. He would cry at the slightest thing, resulting in his peers calling him a crybaby. Savage would defend him every time.

There are a large number of blue moth-like insects that live on Dathomir, in the caves surrounding the Nightbrothers’ village. Feral watched them when they come out at night. They often settle on his nose and/or horns.

Feral was a late bloomer when he reached adolescence. He even still had four of his milk teeth. As a result, his markings developed later than other Nightbrothers and it made him very self conscious and physically uncomfortable. Poor little babby </3

Feral, like most Nightbrothers, was illiterate until he became a tribal leader, alongside Savage. Even now he can barely count past 23.

Feral was born on a leap year. Technically, although he should be 20, he’s only 5 years old. <3

AU: A Galaxy Far Far Away

Feral is never choked by Savage. Instead, he tags along with Obi-Wan and Anakin, is taken to Coruscant and starts a new life as a Republic officer. He becomes friends with Ahsoka and gets along very well with the Clone troopers. He and Rex also happen to fall in love, as well. <3

Feral has a crush on a fellow Nightbrother, Lash, but doesn’t meet him again until the latter becomes a bounty hunter and finds work on Kamino training Clone cadets.

On one occasion, Feral is captured by Separatist spies, frozen in carbonite and transported to the remote system of Tau Cheti. The planet of Tau Prime - located on the edge of Wild Space - is home to a race of hostile bird-like aliens who have a deep hatred for Zabraks.

Feral barely makes it out of there alive. Lash teams up with Rex, Ahsoka and Anakin to rescue him and they succeed! :D

After finding Savage again, Feral stows away on board the ship that takes them to Lotho Minor. He and Savage have a tearful reunion.

When he finds Maul, Feral is horrified, to say the least. He’s even more shaken up when he realises his home world is in ruins. After Maul is healed, Feral is further frightened by his lust for revenge.

After Obi-Wan is captured, poor Feral finds himself torn between his loyalty to his brothers and the Republic. In the lightsaber fight between Jedi and Sith, Feral loses his right hand to Maul’s lightsaber. He would have lost more if he hadn’t escaped with Obi-Wan and Ventress.

Feral later receives a prosthetic hand, but the poor bab is still very upset. He can’t stop thinking about Savage and Maul. During this difficult time, he meets Yoda and discovers that he is Force sensitive like his brothers. Although he is too old to begin Jedi training, Feral gets an idea of what it’s like from Ahsoka.

After having a vision of Savage’s death on Mandalore, Feral travels to the war-torn planet, much against the will of everyone else. There, he tries to persuade Savage to join him and the Republic. However, he is shot by a Death Watch Commando. The shot doesn’t kill him, but he loses consciousness and Savage, grief-stricken, believes he is dead.

Taken back to the Republic by Obi-Wan, Feral remains comatose for a few weeks. When he regains consciousness, he is heartbroken to learn that Savage is dead. He constantly blames himself for not being able to save his brother. Try as they might, neither Rex nor Ahsoka can console him. </3

When Ahsoka travels to Mandalore to fight Maul after leaving the Jedi Order, Feral goes with her and Rex. There, he and Maul fight once again. Maul ignores Feral’s pleas to join him. Feral bravely states that he has no hatred for Maul and forgives him, hoping that they may meet again someday.

Sure enough, Maul and Feral do meet again by the time of the Rebellion. After Maul’s redemption, he joins Feral in Phoenix Squadron. In that same Rebel cell, Feral reunites with Rex, Ahsoka and Lash, who has become an A-Wing pilot.

Feral survives the Battle of Scarif, the Battle of Yavin, the Battle of Hoth AND the battle of Endor! :D He and Rex are overjoyed that the Empire has fallen and they both live peaceful lives.

Feral, Maul and Rex all pass away on the same day. About twelve years before the events of The Force Awakens, all three of them die peacefully in their sleep. (sry if this is too sad)

AU: Legend of the Night Watcher

Feral and Savage both live relatively normal lives on Coruscant, running a small delivery service.

However, Feral dresses up as a vigilante every night and goes to fight crime in the Coruscant underworld, earning himself the alias of the Night Watcher.

Nobody else knows the Night Watcher’s true identity except for Savage and Maul, who is the ruler of Mandalore. Maul is openly proud of Feral, whereas Savage is very protective and wants Feral to be safe, despite his risky job.

Feral is notably more confident and sassy in this AU, but he’s still the cinnamon roll we all know and love. <3

He and Rex are married as well :D

AU: At Home With The Zabrak Brothers

Feral lives a normal suburban life with his brothers and spends his days playing the guitar in the streets, singing Ed Sheeran songs and the like. He hopes to become a professional musician someday. <3

He is obsessed with Luke Skywalker and watches the Original Trilogy on an almost daily basis. He even has the Jedi’s name tattooed onto his abs in Korean script. XD

Feral vapes frequently, mostly just to annoy Maul when he’s reading so he can blow a huge cloud of steam into his face. :D

His relationship with Mother Talzin is shaky, to say the least. She barely even knows his name half the time.

Feral has a red panda plushie named Luke Skywalker, which he sleeps with every single night <3 In addition to his, he still uses a pacifier and Savage reads and/or sings to him at bedtime.

Feral loves Disney movies and listening to trap music. He always sings in the car when he and his bros are travelling somewhere. Savage now has A Whole New World stuck in his head for eternity XD

Feral has two exotic shorthair cats named Nightwish and Starset, after his favourite bands. Yep, Feral listens to some pretty hardcore music XD Those cats are spoiled rotten and Feral pampers them and pets them so much that he’s basically turned them into bratty sentient pillows that follow him around demanding treats 24/7.

Feral is addicted to junk food. When Savage bought a giant box of cookies, Feral snuck into the kitchen in the middle of the night and ate them one by one for about three months solid before he was busted.

He once mistook wasabi for guacamole, which eventually led to him and his brothers being thrown out of Itsu.

In this AU, Feral is basically a big kid. He eats messy, is super innocent and loves playing and having a good time.

AU: YouTuber Life

In this AU, Feral and his bros are youtubers, of course :3

Feral has his own solo channel, called Forever Feral. It’s basically a little like dangmattsmith. Video topics include mini-vlogs, reactions, life hack experiments and LEGO Star Wars gameplay. Feral has his plushie with him in every single video :D

A number of Feral’s videos contain little skits in which he plays three different characters: Luke Skywalker, (the plushie), Inspector Whitby, his Sherlock-esque British alter-ego and Tariq, a blue dragon that speaks in verse and lives in an Arabian magic lamp.

Feral also has a channel that he shares with his brothers, just called The Zabrak Brothers, which has vlogs, Battlefront 2 gameplay and sketch comedies.

Feral has a habit of making cute commentaries on everything and has become famous for his catchphrase: “Sheesh-kebabs!” which he says whenever something dramatic happens.

AU: Nightbrothers: Ghosts of Dathomir

This AU is basically an alternate ending for the Son of Dathomir comics, tied in to A Galaxy Far Far Away in some aspects, as Feral and the other Nightbrothers are all relatively safe there (well Feral is anyways) until the Shadow Collective and Separatists bring the war back to their world. Instead of being exterminated, however, the Nightbrothers simply escape and try to find their own place in the Galaxy.

During the age of the Empire, Feral returns with his brethren to Dathomir, only to find the entire place populated with Nightsister Ghosts. After Brother Viscus resurrects Savage via an eerie blood-theme ritual, Feral explains what’s been happening to his brother as best he can, but the poor bab is pretty much traumatised by all the spooky stuff happening around him. Nonetheless, he joins his fellow Nightbrothers as they basically become the Star Wars equivalent of Ghostbusters and seek to purge Dathomir of the Ghosts and leave the past behind.

Feral is rather skittish and meek in this AU, but has something of a boastful streak despite that. He’ll claim to be hard to scare, then cling to Savage screaming “Mommy!” Not ideal when you’re a ghost hunter XD

Misc/General Headcanons

Feral is gay and asexual. He’s been questioning his sexual orientation since he reached puberty and it’s taken him some time to come to terms with it, but he’s happy with it <3

Feral is also a demiboy and only feels vaguely connected to the male gender. He’s pretty much always known what he was feeling, but couldn’t find the words to describe it until recent years. Sometimes he worries that he ends up supporting the ‘flamboyant gay’ stereotype, but Savage and/or his S.O. reminds him that he’s perfect just the way he is <3

Feral will always be a kid at heart. He might have brief moments of cynicism but overall he has a very innocent and optimistic outlook on life.

Feral is on the autism spectrum (possibly Aspergers, but nobody’s really sure). He also has a bit of social anxiety, but the stronger his connection to someone, the easier communication is :)

Canon fact about Feral that few people know:

He was only 20 when a certain event happened... </3

So yeah, this is it, finally completed! Yay! :D Hope everyone enjoys this! <3 May the Force be with you, always :)

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