#and slx99 came up with the sith possession thing

[spell-cleaver]

Hey, You Should All Read Heir

This was a submission by my friend, HeartOfStars, and I am sobbing at how thoughtful it was, how sweet, and... just knowing that something I wrote could touch someone like this is unreal and so, so precious to me. Thank you so much, Stars, I love you <3

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So I’ve been following this story, The Heir, for a while, first by sneaking on Spell’s Tumblr and then also on AO3, and I started to really want to write something about it, because it has really started to affect me, and I love it so, so much. And if you haven’t read it, I’m gonna share with you right now why I think you should. Heir is an amazing, amazing fanfiction, in a number of ways; and it also is pretty unconventional. It does a lot of things that technically shouldn’t all work together in a story, except that they DO, because the wonderful SPELLCLEAVER is writing them.

And so I’m probably not going to get to say all that I want to say here, but this is the gist of it. Heir is crazy because it started out as a simple five-sentence prompt that happened to exceed the five-sentence limit. (By a lot of sentences, lmao. Mood.) But anyway, it started as one prompt that dealt with Luke being raised by Palpatine, which is, first and foremost, an absolutely horrifying idea. And initially, I confess it actually turned me off. I’m a softer person who’s always liked…fluffier stories, and while I do like angst, my brain has a limit for how much I could take. A story about Luke Palpatine was too dark for me, so I decided to pass.

But then, against all odds, Spell just kind of…ran with it. And kept taking more prompts for this amazing AU(instead of moving it to AO3, she kept it here on Tumblr, which is fantastic), she developed the story, and that’s when I realized the FIRST(of many) brilliant thing she had done. She’d made the Luke Palpatine story about the slow healing of Luke and Vader’s relationship. And that’s brilliant because…see, a Luke Palpatine story, in my head, would be dark because of all the stuff that Palpatine would do to Luke. It would show Luke being tortured, miserable, and succumbing to the Dark Side. It would be nothing but dark. But not only does this start after Palpatine has been killed, it focuses heavily on Vader trying to give Luke good things, and while it shows dark things in flashbacks, while Luke is unhappy for a lot of it, those are in spades. Essentially, it’s about a father trying to prove himself to his son(who is much younger than he is in canon), and that’s what I didn’t expect.

So when I realized that, I started to like the story. It was still dark…but I was starting to like it, because that aspect appealed to me. Then Spell did something that appealed to me even more. Following the beginning, which is incredibly angsty, and filled with poor fourteen-year-old Luke being terrified of everyone, and Vader not being able to be close to the son he loves…Spell did another brilliant thing. She introduced a plot point also known as Vader Gives His Son Stuffed Animals Anonymously. That was absolutely, wildly unprecedented. And that’s because this whole-ass fic, about angst, SUDDENLY INTRODUCED A PLOT POINT THAT IS NOTHING BUT FLUFF. And see, this is another thing that shouldn’t have worked, because it’s so fluffy it’s…almost crack. In a completely angsty fic. Darth Vader??? From Star Wars??? A giant cyborg?? Sending??? A child???? Stuffed????? Animals????? Unprecedented. But as I said, it works. Why, you ask? Because Spell makes it work. She weaves it into the plot, into the angst, and uses it to help develop Luke and Vader’s growing relationship. So, we’ve established that we have two things right now: Luke Palpatine(and all the angst and trauma associated with that), and Vader bringing his son stuffed animals. In the same fic.

Okay.

Then Spell did a THIRD thing. And this, this absolutely should not have worked with the previous two, because I’ve never seen this done before in any fic.

This thing is called “Sith possession.“ 

Spell absolutely made this up, and then wove it into the plot. (Because I forgot the thing that makes Luke Palpatine brilliant, and we’ll put it under the first point. Call it 1a. But the other thing that made it Not Too Dark was that Spell didn’t have Palps actually train Luke. Cause that tends to lead to Dark Luke, which can be too much for some people, like Soft Stars Over Here Which We Previously Established.) But Spell had Palpatine not train Luke, to chip away at his self-esteem, which until THIS MOMENT seemed to be for the purpose of making Luke’s relationship with Vader more heartbreaking; because Luke didn’t believe in himself, and Vader slowly, slowly had to convince him of it, which was amazing. But. Wait a minute. It turns out there was ANOTHER purpose, aka, Palpatine wanting to legiterally possess Luke and crush his soul. That was AMAZING.

But here’s the thing. That should’ve been too dark. For Soft Stars, and for other people. But it wasn’t, and that’s because Spell wove THAT into Luke and Vader’s relationship, and that is the brilliance of this fic. She introduces all these plot elements, the fluff, the dark stuff, the Clone Wars characters, but not a single one of them takes away from the heartbreaking relationship, and where it needs to go. Because the second the possession plot point was introduced, the focus becomes not "oh no, Luke will be possessed” but “oh yes, Vader is absolutely determined to do everything in his power to keep Luke from being possessed.” And that, in turn, built on Luke’s self-esteem. It allowed him to trust in Vader more, to trust in himself, and it keeps going from there.

The final two plot points only built on this, and these are a) Luke finding out that Vader is his father, and b) Luke vs Palpatine. I won’t tell you how it ends, in case you haven’t read it. But I’ll have you know that the way it’s done builds on all of these three(and a half counting 1a) Brilliant Things, and it is absolutely beautiful, and wonderful, and heartbreaking, and inspiring. And, beyond all of these things(I’ve used “thing” too many times. Not good), the thing that has drawn me to this fic is, as I’ve said, Luke and Vader’s relationship. Because here’s the thing. This fic has a sad premise. It has a really, really, really, REALLY SAD PREMISE. Luke is a fourteen-year-old kid who has no friends and who’s been tortured his whole life…by the man who’s actually his father. But the places it goes are hopeful. They’re beautiful. They’re emotional. They’re inspiring. Because Luke and Vader start at a sad place, but their relationship gets better, in beautiful ways. And some of the scenes between them have made me straight-up cry. And ultimately, this fic appeals to me because it deals with the basic themes of wanting to be loved, which both Luke and Vader feel, and which Spell makes sure the reader feels. From the beginning, I felt desperate for both of them to know who the other was, and to come close to each other, and to understand…and though it takes a while, Spell pays it off. Magnificently. Luke and Vader are both alone, but by coming close to one another, they form a bond, and each find someone to love in the other. And then, at the end(or the almost end), they do belong. They are loved. And this is something that, I think, speaks to all of us.

So. This probably comes off as a lot of not that eloquent ranting but I don’t care…because SpellCleaver, who’s one of my dear friends, has made this amazing, amazing story, that has inspired me, in terms of my fics, which are probably not as well done as this, but I try. And this has inspired them. But this fic, above anything else I have ever read(and that includes a lot of published novels), made me feel better about myself. I happened to be going through a rough time this summer but this fic helped me push through it. And if some of you haven’t read this, I hope this convinces you to go and read it. Because Heir is one of the most beautiful pieces of art I’ve seen in my entire life(and I’ve STUDIED art. Aka I put money into it), and it’s made my life better, and many times, it has brought me to tears. So thank you, SpellCleaver, for inspiring me, and for making me feel better about myself, and I hope you know what an absolute miracle you’ve worked.

~ HeartOfStars