#nightsister kycina

[rulimaquina]

POV: they're judging you.

[angelica-cj]

Frames from my storyboard Birth of a Brother!

This mainly answers the question a I had on how do they actually send the babies to the males. And I wanted to visualize what I think they do, had fun with this one!

Watch Birth of a Brother

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[blackkatmagic]

OTP: Kycina/K'Sheek, the ship of canon mothers with fascinating motivations and hinted-at backstories who deserved so much more than the handful of references made to them, or dying due to their unacknowledged trauma.

[mutatiio]

thinking about how sidious took maul because kycina wanted to protect him - how she was trying to save him from talzin. from a life of slavery or potential death. and how sidious would warp that whole situation into something to keep maul indebted to him. a tale of how sidious saved him from his mother, a mother who saw shame in baring a son instead of a daughter. a mother who was going to abandon him. that maul would have been doomed to a life of slavery, where he was stripped of pride and agency. that he would have been viewed only as a thing for breeding with no other use. that the nightsisters would be displeased to see him as powerful as he is now.

and how all of that shaped him into thinking that his mother didn't want him. the jedi don't want him. into seeing any sort of sexual gratification as filthy and weak. and led to him only becoming more loyal to sidious because, to him, sidious is the only reason he escaped that life.

[sootyships]

📄 - What's their name? If you and your f/o picked it, how did you pick it? Or if they picked their name, how did they pick it?

For the fanchild ask game!

Ask meme

For the Ultron/Mikitta kid:

Her name is Sidzla. It was my suggestion and one that Ultron liked. It's an old-fashioned nickname of Cecilia, which is also the name of my 2nd great grandmother. We agreed to give her a combination surname as well, for a couple different reasons, using Ultron as a surname. So she's Sidzla Ultron-Karamäki. I was a bit worried that the name wouldn't be approved, but apparently my justifications were sound.

For the Savage Opress/Gi Kast kids:

Cuyan picked his name himself after he was adopted. He never did tell us his original name; we called him "Blue" until he asserted a preference. (He wasn't a big talker at first.) He still uses Blu or Kebiin (blue in Mando'a) as cover names sometimes.

Feral is named in the memory of Savage's deceased brother, the one that the Nightsisters had Savage himself kill while he was brainwashed by them. It was Savage's idea, but it took some convincing to get him to suggest names at all at first.

Nyn's name is basically a Nightbrother name in Mando'a, one we picked together. It means "hit, strike".

Nuhur is more of a hopeful name. It means "laughter, good times". It kind of just happened. Ironically he turned out to be more of a stoic personality as he grew. 😂

If we were to have yet another kid, we've considered the name Kycina, after one of the very few Nightsisters Savage has positive memories of... But we'll see.

[mayxthexforce]

Headcanons - Kycina

⚠️ TW: implied SA ⚠️

Since the character of Talzin is based on Zalem from Legends, and her relationship with Kycina in the earlier material is very similar to that of Zalem and her daughter, Ros Lai, I have the headcanon that —like with Ros Lai— Kycina's father was a Jedi human man who was captured and enslaved by Talzin, and with who she conceived Kycina. Later, she killed him by absorbing his life force to make herself more powerful. Kycina only got to speak to him when she was really young. She'd sneak away from Talzin to see him, curious of meeting a Jedi who also happened to be a man, since young nightsisters don't interact with nightbrothers at all, and was unaware that he was her father until after he was killed, but she always believed him to be a kind man who didn't fit the descriptions her mother gave of the Jedi and of men in general.

Finding out Talzin killed her father to make herself more powerful was the beginning of the resentment and distrust Kycina feels towards Talzin, and why she didn't trust Maul to be safe anywhere where Talzin might be able to reach him.

[interdimensionalhellscapeportal]

im really dumb so i don't know if i can reply to your tags properly but absolutely love your hc lol. i think it's actually pretty likely a decent amount of the sith have some ancient sith admixture based on the holocrons in kotor because it's implied they were genetically engineered into the genes of the dark Jedi who's empires descendants spread throughout the galaxy, and led to the growth of force capable humans via dispersion. and yeah, talzin needs to get better taste.. it felt. vaguely implied by how in the tcw gap comics after cancellation she talks about him betraying her after exchanging magic and studies with him by kidnapping maul

I am a Luddite & managed to miss this entirely when it came thru but I have found it now! & Thank you, I love positing weird/wild hcs for SW, I'm glad you liked it! A side note- I honestly can't stand how they've shifted Maul's backstory around over time, I think Talzin being like 'oh nooooo the mean Sith stole my babyyyyyy' is bullshit, she would have totally sold that baby for dark magicks lolol (I prefer Kycina tbh, the tragedy inherent in her desperately looking for someone to take her child and save him from Talzin & the Nightsisters and it ending up being Sidious is just *chef's kiss* but i guess that's no longer canon D: Anyways thanks for the ask, sorry I missed it for a million years!

[ironhoshi]

They talked to each other, they talked at Kycina and Jango, they just talked. She had no idea what they were saying, but it made her feel something warm in her chest anyway. Her boys were happy. Yes, they were not aware of the dangers they were outrunning, but that was fine. She wanted them to stay innocent as long as they could. She would not be like Mother or the older Nightsisters, she would not claw the innocence of a child away to mold them into something cruel.

They deserved better, they deserved more than she had been given.

That thought stuck with her while she did her best to adapt to the situation over the coming days, even if that meant subjecting herself to Jaster’s lessons. The man, it seemed, was big on knowledge. Knowledge, she knew, could be a powerful thing, but he was merely trying to teach her about Mandalore and its people.

A strangeness.

[kenobispunk]

happy mother’s day to kycina whom in the legends canon loved baby maul so much she couldn’t stand seeing him growing up as a nighsister’ slave so she defied mother talzin and begged sidious to take him out of dathomir to gave him a different life, little did she know that she was giving her baby to a monster that, in fact, treat him as a slave and a disposable weapon 

[morannon]

Who’s your mama?: The parentage of Maul, Feral and Savage Opress

I initially posted this on my old main blog, but given that that I have since moved here and Disney has not changed its tune of using deeply meaningful characters in awful ways to make an easy buck, I feel like posting an updated version of it here.

So there I was, contemplating a possible continuity conflict on my part, when I found one elsewhere. As I wrote in a post having to do with Maul’s adolescence, I had not yet seen The Clone Wars at the time of writing it, something that I have since corrected. But in any case, from all of the information available to me at the time, I was able to discern no more than two alternate versions of the matter of Maul’s birth and parentage. That is until An Unwilling Apprentice came out. But as I’ve already written here, this is a work I reject in its entirety. It’s again contradicting pretty much every prior source and undoing some of what is already established, including in Disney’s own canon.

The source to give the most detailed account of it is the 2012 book Darth Plagueis, that now belongs under the Star Wars Legends brand. It reveals that Maul was born to Kycina, a human witch in Talzin’s clan, and to a father that was a Dathomirian Nightbrother. It also details Maul being one of two twin boys. It’s also said that Savage is Kycina’s eldest son so this would make Feral Maul’s twin. The Wrath of Darth Maul doesn’t mention Kycina, but it does feature Talzin, with no implication whatsoever that she is his mother.

And then there is the version presented in the 2014 comic, Darth Maul: Son of Dathomir (especially issue #3) which as of right now belongs to Disney’s version of the canon that was established with the acquisition. This comic implies that Maul is Talzin’s son, with no mention of any Kycina whatsoever.

Prior to watching The Clone Wars I thought that was that. BUT. There is an interesting conflict of canonical information here, stemming from the fact that TCW was included into the Disney-era canon. So where does the conflict lie, you ask?

Talzin, Savage and Feral first appear in season 3 of The Clone Wars which aired in 2011 already, that way predating even the publication of the Darth Plagueis book. And the portrayal does more to support the version later presented in said book than to contradict it. A rather clear indicator of the original intention, I’d say. (+ Lucas himself was Executive Producer of the series.)

To be more specific, in season 3 of TCW, after the assumed death of Asajj Ventress, Dooku is in need of a new apprentice. Talzin contacts him with a well-timed suggestion to pick the new one from the same lineage as Sidious’ notorious former apprentice Maul. Establishing that all three men - Maul, Savage and Feral are brothers. But not once is there any implication that any of the three are related to her. Not in season 3 or later on. And perhaps more importantly, as Asajj arrives back from the Nightbrothers’ village with Savage, Talzin and Savage’s reactions to each other would confirm that they’re not familiar with the other. But not just that.

“This one is strong!” Talzin muses, as she lets her hand travel around his torso, fondling his pecs, shoulders, neck and jawline. Exclaiming “the perfect male specimen!” as she’s finally done with the hands-on tour of his body. The sexual undertone of her attention is a little too out there to go undetected. I’m sure that Dathomirians may have some unusual customs, but I doubt that either Disney or Lucasfilm would want to imply that incestuous tendencies is one of them.

Then there is the fact that after Savage’s enhancement by the Nightsister magick, the final step of the test to see if he’s a worthy mate for Ventress, is to kill his brother Feral in front of Asajj and Talzin. Surely, not something a mother would permit for the sake of matchmaking one of her sons? Even with the Dathomirian males mainly fulfilling the roles of fighters/breeders for the Nighsisters, this would have been too great a sacrifice.

That still leaves an assortment of other things. First, it is only in #3 of The Son of Dathomir comic where Talzin refers to Maul as her “flesh and blood”. Him calling her “mother” alone would not confirm the link, because in TCW Talzin is called Mother also by all the Nighsisters, all Nightbrothers, Asajj and even Obi-Wan. Secondly, TCW reveals that Talzin also knew all along where Maul was (Lotho Minor), something that is consistent with The Wrath of Darth Maul, for example. And if he really was her precious son, why not save him sooner? Why not attempt to save him from Palpatine who had crossed her… or even later, before Maul had spent something like 10 years, wandering around, going mad on that literal dumpster fire of a planet.

Therefore… there is ample room to argue that the case of Maul’s parentage, and by extension that of Savage and Feral, is not at all closed. And if it’s not obvious enough, the motivation for this post was also linked to my pursuit of that possibility. While both versions have their own implications, I prefer the original version by far. There is tragedy in both, but only one has any consistency and integrity to it as a part of Maul’s backstory.

[uvanym]

/slinks in Hello! I love your art, and I’m dying to hear more about Ire if you have anything you’d like to share! He has such a cool design & premise I just keep thinking about him haha

the character referenced is from this post

hi!! thank you so much! :') i'm so happy you like him, i was reluctant to post anything about him initially but i'm really glad i did— i have an embarrassing amount of thoughts on him, given how briefly he's existed in my mind:

he was the first child of Kycina (Maul's mom in legends, which is my default canon), she had Ire when she was pretty young (maybe 18-20) but although she grew attached to the male child and loved him, she let him be raised by his village. he was cared for communally, as well as by his father for a short period of time.

was really excited when Kycina had Savage, because he finally had a little brother! he was a teenager when Savage was born, but took on the role of Savage's primary caretaker for as long as he was alive and Savage took after him in a lot of ways. he'd often play with the boy and encourage him to come out of his shell with mixed results, but the most relaxed and carefree Savage was, was when he was with Ire.

just like with Savage, the birth of Maul and Feral was a very happy occasion for Ire— he fully expected to raise all three of them with the help of his village and took on a fatherly role for them, however briefly for Maul and Feral. he put everything he had into ensuring life for his little brothers was easy and good (as good as it can be for a nightbrother): he put extra effort into hunting so his brothers could eat well, he played with them and quietly sang them to sleep, he took on more responsibility and always did more for their sake. i think at some point the line between 'older brother' and 'father figure' blurred.

reasonably protective of his brothers, but not overbearing like Savage would grow to be. on some level it was due to his lack of concern for the future, and him being prone to trusting too easily (which i wouldn't say is necessarily him being naive, but more the idea that no one he knows could intentionally mean him and his brothers any harm) as well as his easygoing and carefree attitude.

extremely scary if he thinks you mean his brothers harm, though. the shift in his mood is immediate and on the rare occasion he feels threatened or he loses his patience (almost never, and never with his brothers) you'll absolutely be aware that you've crossed a line. few have ever pushed him past his limits because he's so nice and doesn't get in anyone's way.

was kind of a blueprint for Savage regarding his behavior (Savage remembers Ire best, while Feral could remember just his face or his voice, and Maul probably remembers even less), in the exact opposite way of what you might assume: Ire was carefree, so after his death Savage grew up to be tense and closed off; Ire's protectiveness rubbed off on Savage but it made him overbearing bordering on paranoid— his logic being that if Ire did all these things and still died, Savage would have to double down to make sure Maul and Feral were alive and safe, so he was obsessively watchful over them. (later just Feral, who was all Savage had in the end.)

exceptionally skilled at clothesmaking and weaving, and wood carving (which he taunt to Savage as well, but Savage was less talented in it). his free time, when not occupied with caring for his brothers alongside the frequent visits from Kycina, was spent practicing his skills and making clothes, blankets, tapestries, and toys for his brothers and a few for his mother. he used to make Savage all his toys, which would later pass to Maul briefly, then to Feral after Maul was taken by Sidious; and after Feral grew older they were given to some of the younger boys in the village. Savage kept a few of them as a way to remember Ire. Kycina occasionally wore some of the clothes her eldest son made, but she rarely had the liberty of wearing anything other than nightsister garb — Ire never held it against her, though.

good singing voice, too; but he didn't have a lot of practice with anything other than lullabies and folk songs accompanied by one instrument. he taught a lot of them to Savage, and would sing to Maul and Feral too— Feral might remember his voice and his face, but Maul would probably remember even less.

Ire really, really wanted children of his own one day. he had names picked out and everything; and would've been happy even if he had a daughter who would not be allowed to live with him but would be raised with the nightsisters: Ire's belief was that seeing this hypothetical child just once would've been enough, no matter how much he wanted to raise them.

when he was chosen to take part in the selection, Ire calmed and consolled little Savage, who was too young to understand what the nightsister wanted from Ire and the other nightbrothers but knew it was dangerous. Ire assured his little brother that he'd be fine and promised he'd be back by morning, lightheartedly asking Savage to keep an eye on Maul and Feral until then, who were still babies. Ire was killed during one of the challenges and never made it back home, breaking his promise. it was only when his body was retrieved for the funerary rites that Savage found out what happened and had trouble accepting the reality of his brother's death due to his young age and the traumatic manner of his death. he did insist on helping with preparing for the funeral, though, which wasn't common for a boy so young but Viscus reluctantly allowed it.

Ire was the only brother that Talzin didn't know of. Kycina was shaken by her eldest son's death, and it was the catalyst to giving away Maul to Sidious so he wouldn't have to live in slavery and grow up knowing he could be murdered any day without warning.

[arterstrashbin]

I just found my unfinished drawing from the previous year and omg, how I could forget about it-

So, I just finished it, adding these wolves and background.

Feral, when he was a child, he actually lived in Nightsisters’ Lair, along with his mother Kycina. Feral was a skillful child- energetic, learn-loving and a bit spoiled. He visited Nightbrothers’ village every summer, where he could do whatever he wished. Of course, being a child means being still in development, so Feral was still developing his sense of magic and Force. 

@arwenkenobi48

[taule]

Maul, part I: Broken Boys - early life trauma, survival & Ben Solo parallels

This is going to be an evolving meta that will be posted in a series of installments as I make my way through the various sources piecing the picture together and also attempt to tackle the various themes that pull at my heartstrings. I haven’t attempted to write anything in quite this way before, so there will be inevitable cross-referencing happening and it’s likely that I will come back to certain things later on.

There is something that stood out to me right away, as I started reading The Wrath of Darth Maul, and those are Ben Solo parallels. That doesn’t mean that I equate them in any way, but it does point to certain circumstantial factors that shaped their lives and I believe that what we know about them individually can inform us about the other. 

In both of them we see the effects of what it means to be a victim of the Dark side. The destruction of an innocent, impressionable mind being subjected to unimaginable, systematic cruelty with no protection and no hope of escape. Being taught that everything happening to them is their own doing, and a just punishment. They are the Lost Boys. Both their lives could have been very different and neither went down a path they laid for themselves through choice. And in Maul, especially, the connection to the Dark side is not an inherent one, and was about his environment and matter of birth, more so than something he manifested independently, in contrast to what we know of Ben, whose internal conflict had been apparent from the beginning. 

My interest and inspiration here is to look at how the loss, trauma, deprivation, enduring compassion and capacity for love come together and fit into place in the making of this man. I don’t plan to descend into proper psychoanalysis, but to try and open Maul’s path and mind through some of what we know about Ben, who has been presented as a much more sympathetic character. In fact, hardly as a villain at all. And although I already said that I don’t equate them, I hope to show that the patterns and psychology of it is very similar, even if circumstances differ.

A major difference between Maul and Ben though, is the age at which they began their training, and the fact that Maul was trained to use the Force as a darksider from the start. But the way that the Dark side methods and cruelty in his training contrast with his curious and accepting nature shows that while Darth Sidious took him for his strength in the Force, the same way that Snoke singled out Ben, the darkness wasn’t inherently dominating over the potential for Light in either of them. The question of age definitely plays into this matter, because Ben started training unusually late, and Maul on the other hand very early, and so he wasn’t old enough to have yet started manifesting the imbalance or struggle between Light and Dark the way Ben did.

Unfortunately a lot of the material that has provided information on Maul’s early life has been pushed to the Legends with the Disney acquisition. Which is a shame. Because that material was a source for a lot of insight. I’m not going to shy away from using it as a source here though, because it still shows the original intention in his depiction. And there is very little material that has come later that has overwritten any of what came before. It has mostly just left a hole.

But there are some inconsistencies that derive from the rebranding and restructuring because of later-established sources that no longer had to be consistent with published material. To me, one of the most important ones is the circumstance of his birth. 

The earlier information ( Darth Plagueis, 2012 ) reveals that Maul was born on Iridonia, as one of two male twins to Kycina, a human Nightsister mother from Talzin’s clan, and a Dathomirian Zabrak father that by Dathomirian tradition was killed soon after she became pregnant. Kycina was desperate to find a way to give at least one of her sons a life of freedom. Thinking Talzin was only aware of one of her twins, she offered Maul to Sidious to take as an apprentice, hoping that this would at least give her son a chance of a life free of the fate that awaited him on Dathomir.

The later version goes into no such detail of the circumstance of his birth that I have been able to discern, and it is merely established that Talzin was mother to all three boys (including Savage). And that Sidious had formed an alliance with Talzin, having promised to take her as his apprentice in return for her knowledge. It is when Sidious met Maul and sensed his strength in the Force that he not only broke his promise to Talzin, but also kidnapped her “son”. 

Personally, I remain loyal to the original version. Not only does it answer more questions, but I believe that it offers us valuable insight. I’m sure it was no small amount of consideration that went into giving such an iconic character a backstory. And for it to be imagined in this way tells us quite a bit about how the creators wanted him to be perceived, at least by those who would seek that understanding.

Not to mention the fact that there is no plausible child-parent relationship depicted between Maul and Talzin. And to insist that he’s her son would also mean to accept that this mother did nothing to aid this son of hers who was withering away on Lotho Minor... not before it became convenient and useful for her at least.

And as it is a certain development that Im trying to observe here, chronology is relevant to it. So in the following I’m going to look at the backstory that The Wrath of Darth Maul paints us, starting from his early years in captivity on Mustafar. 

Maul was only 3 or even two at the time, considering that he has already been on Mustafar for a while by the time the book starts. Page 1 of chapter I describes where, and importantly how he is being kept. In a small, featureless room, made of metal. With a single polarized viewport overlooking a river of lava leading to a sea of fire. He was completely isolated and left without any meaningful social interaction. A single droid looked after him, simultaneously serving the functions of his caretaker, teacher and punisher. The very second page in chapter I establishes how little Maul wishes he could escape this place.

He was left in complete emotional and social deprivation. Fed bits of raw meat through a slot in the door that remained shut. Then, forced to exercise until point of collapse. Let’snot forget that this is a toddler that we are talking about. Windham repeatedly emphasizes how small he is. For example, how his feet “only extend a few centimeters over the edge of a seat”.

We are introduced to the circumstance through a frightened child’s eyes. Trying to figure out how to behave in the right way that does not grant punishment. He is being actively conditioned in the most awful, cruel ways. Something that has been (with less written evidence) noted about Ben and the way in which it shaped his thinking for years to come, leaving behind marks that he may never entirely recover from.

“Maul hated the Man even more than he hated the droid. The Man frightened him.”

The book doesn’t describe the first few times that Maul met Sidious, but only that his fear of him was greater than that he felt for the droid that routinely hurt him. 

“Usually, the droid brought pain. Once, the droid had delivered a bright green and yellow snake that wasted no time in attacking Maul, sinking its venomous fangs deep into the boy’s arm.”

“One of the first things he learned was not to cry. Crying never made anything better. Crying only made things worse.”

So these two quotes above should give an adequate idea about what his early childhood boiled down to. Not that we can really call this a childhood. Mind you, this is only from the first pages of chapter one so far, and his training, which is in reality conditioning, only became crueler as he grew. The objective was quite clearly to break him down completely, so he could be put back together in ways that served the abuser’s intended purpose. But there’s nothing vague about all the abuse he’s been described to go through. I wont be including the most graphic depictions of abuse here, but let me tell you it wasn’t easy to read.

I feel it’s been somewhat acknowledged that Maul has a backstory, and that there’s certain tragedy to it. But I’m just not sure in what depth it’s been looked at. And there’s the inevitable difference between how the origin story of the hero vs the villain is looked upon. Regardless of whether the dichotomy is really carved into stone in such a way, as long as it is perceived, it is also applied. 

That also extends to the sympathy with which their lives are viewed. I think we have an interesting case in Ben, because people obviously can’t agree on it. We’ve been sent mixed signals, and we can see how that has changed our perception of his becoming, and our willingness to see him as a victim. Because on one hand there’s the way that he has been initially presented as a villain (even though not explicitly defining him that way) and then there’s his ever-expanding backstory that explains how things ended up that way. And it’s the how that has the power to change... everything. Because it has the power to bring understanding which in turn inspires sympathy, that enables a shift in responsibility. Which can change how we view something to the very core.

“More than ever, Maul wished he were the free-floating boy who appeared to exist beyond the window in his own room. He tried very hard not to tremble as he slowly turned and looked up to face the Man.”

His wish to escape has been mentioned multiple times. And it’s more than about setting the tone, the feeling. It’s confirming over and over that this child didn’t choose this path or fate. Depending on whether we follow the original or the later version, he was either given up by his mother in hopes that this would be better than what awaited on Dathomir, or he was kidnapped. In either case, not there by any choice of his own.

“But he survived.”

And I think this is quite clearly establishes that it’s mightily unfair to talk about choices here. What we’re talking about is survival. Once it becomes about survival, it’s what reframes everything else involved, because we’ve stopped talking about choices. I guess what I’m arguing here is that if we can agree that Ben Solo was a victim of the Dark side, of abuse, conditioning and manipulation, Maul most definitely is. Not only were his circumstances likely far more severe, but he had not known a life outside of it. He had no point of reference for what the alternative could even be and no moral framework outside of avoiding cruel punishment. 

[blackkatmagic]

If you're still accepting prompts: breath deep the wild green wonder

After raising Agen and then training Mace, T'ra intends to take a good long break from training padawans, if only to let her stress levels go back to normal. She's entirely set on her semi-vacation of only dealing with regular Jedi stress, right up until she answers a distress signal from an uninhabited planet and pulls a Nightsister and her three sons out of the wreckage of their ship. Kycina is running from something, untrusting of the Jedi but too desperate to turn down T'ra's help, and her sons are in dire need of training. The only possible thing T'ra can do is offer her help.

[sl-walker]

ajax-daughter-of-telamon replied to your post “Maul and silence is another long-running theme. >.<  He learns,...”

(is it explicit about Iridonia being a lie, or is that just what all you've synthesized from other stories about him?)

Well, he’s pretty obviously a Nightbrother; depending on whether you go by Legends or current, either Kycina or Talzin are his mother, both of which who’re Nightsisters, Kycina in Darth Plagueis literally handed Sidious an infant Maul, on Dathomir, while trying to save him from a life of slavery (>.<), so I can’t see where or how Maul could have been born on Iridonia; I think Sidious just told him he was to keep him from learning more about himself.

[sootyships]

a little detail about the kast kids' names is that in a way they're supposed to represent healing. (except cuyan who chose his own name, but "survivor" does kind of fit in doesn't it? he would be between feral and nyn in terms of when he joined the family and chose his name.)

feral, in the memory of the brother savage was forced to kill while brainwashed.

nyn, for maul. (the brother who couldn't be a brother)

nuhur, happiness.

kycin who may or may not happen, ah, how do i explain this... like, kycina would be the only nightsister savage has positive memories of, right. so he's healed enough to acknowledge that? i guess kind of like, being able to look at the nightsisters and not only be reminded of his trauma?