#I'm glad I'm not going to leave children behind to face the cruelty of this world in its current era of hate

[ooc-miqojak]

Today I looked at my youngest cat after a rant about the state of the nation (U.S.) - and world at large - and in my baby-voice I do just for her, I go "You have no idea what a fascist is, and dat must be so nice!"

And man... it must be nice. No concept of war, of bigotry, of slander, of fascism, no concept of racism, sexism, or hate. She just knows she likes to play in water, and I can make food appear from the sky, and sometimes I make the sun turn on or off - she knows maintenance men are scary, and crinkly sounds are fun, but overstimulating sometimes, too.

She knows a long nap is all you need at times, or a good bout of silliness and running around... she doesn't know there's a genocide. She can't be afraid of what the future holds for people like me, and my friends. And something about all that pure innocence really has me in its grip, right now.

Sure, it would be nice to be blissfully ignorant... but I'm not. I am glad, however, that my 'daughter' will never 'grow up' like a human child would. She'll never know what those things are, and she'll never have to face those things in her lifetime - and I'm oddly grateful for her innocence. I'm glad that she's free of it all... and I'm sad that I have to have such thoughts at all.

[the-artist-grimm]

HELLO first of all I’m literally obsessed with Anthea and your whole AU, it’s so well written and your art is wonderful!! I was wondering, if it’s ok to ask, how does Anthea deal with dissenters? Has that even been a problem for her since she treats her cult members so fairly?

All dissenters are usually sent to the lamb’s first follower, Nona! She was a mother and grandmother prior to losing her entire family to heretics, and while that plus her old age has made her rather gruff, it has proven to make her very effective at dealing with problematic newcomers. Dissenters are only really seen among newcomers who are converts from the other cults-namely former witnesses.

The cult’s first dissenter was Amdusias-he was angry about being defeated and had taken Anthea’s kindness as a sign of weakness, and thus spent his entire first week picking fights with people and causing havoc until, upon injuring Anthea while they were breaking up a fight he’d started, Nona decided she’d had enough and took over, requesting that he be placed to assist her in the kitchens. After working him pretty hard for a few hours (calling out every mistake he made when cutting veggies/meal prep, calling out his poor attitude, not taking his bait to start fights-essentially breaking his chops to show she wasn't gonna let him push her over), she eventually just cornered him and gave it to him straight-his faction had ruined all of the other followers’ lives including hers, and yet the lamb had given him mercy regardless. The lamb's kindess wasn't a weakness-if anything, they were stronger for not killing him on sight.

Prior to that interaction Amdusias had been able to kinda distance the reality of the Bishop’s cruelty since he had no names, faces, or really people to put to those that'd been killed, since numbers on a report were just that, numbers. But it’s a lot harder to ignore what you’d done when the survivors are right in front of you, especially in Nona’s case with her being so blunt about what his faction took from her. A few more days of her having him work in the kitchens, and him starting to pay more attention to those in the cult (A terrier breaking down in tears sobbing when the lamb returned with her injured brother after having been pacing before the entrance for days-and from there never leaving that brother's side, a rabbit with a cane and burns on one leg, a chicken easily sent into panics at loud noises, a yellow cat and their grandmother who’s eyes had been blinded by clearly magically-induced scarring, the various screams and cries heard around the tents late in the night, always followed by the sound of someone scrambling out of their tent to go check in-

Amdusias had never considered people were left behind when the ashes and smoke settled from the rubble of new territory. He had never even considered people outside the Old Faith being more than heretical vermin till he actually had no choice but to look at them)

He apologized to the lamb soon after that, and asked if he could perhaps assist with the struggling farm situation they’d been having, and thus from there, Anthea had all dissenters passed along to Nona. Where Anthea couldn’t bring themselves to be cruel, Nona could had no issues about being blunt about things, for Hell hath no fury like a mother scorned.

That isn't to say she's mean though! She's more-so just very strict-she has zero tolerance for misbehavior and has raised far too many children and grandchildren to be phased by empty threats. She can also be kinder depending on the case, such as when it was Narinder thrown into her care, she quickly saw that rather than bitter and angry he was remorseful and heavily depressed, and thus was far gentler with him as a result. Her strictness is for those who need a reality check, and her kindness, for those who need a mother's guidance.

(Also thank you! I'm glad you like the Au! :D )

[jackdaw-kraai]

I'm glad you drew a distinction between Obi-Wan cutting off Anakin's limbs in a fair and open fight to the death, and Obi-Wan leaving a defeated, helpless Anakin to burn to death, which was a horrifying, unnecessary cruelty by anyone's standards.

Obi-wan doing that and Anakin killing the younglings (which I think you've said didn't happen in the guides) were the two biggest things in Ep III that nearly ruined the franchise for me unless I erase them from my mental version of canon.

Honestly, while the narrative at the moment condemns Obi-Wan’s actions (And I do disagree with them as a fighter myself on principle. You don’t start fights you aren’t prepared to finish.) I, the writer, am very much sympathetic to Obi-Wan’s plight and how he was asked to do something even he knew he wouldn’t be able to handle. He shouldn’t have attempted to go through with it anyway, but by the time the decision was made no one was thinking clearly anymore in the tragedy surrounding them. He made a grave mistake, much like Anakin did (though obviously of a much smaller magnitude) and the consequences still ripple onwards to this day, but considering his world had just fallen apart at the seams in a manner I don’t think anyone could have dreamed of, I find it hard to blame him.

As for what happened with Anakin and younglings... He did kill children in the raid on the temple, I’m sorry to say. But from my perspective it was a roundly asinine decision for Anakin to have been the one tasked with murdering the little ones while the clones were left to deal with the fully-grown, fully-armed, and fully dangerous adult Jedi still left in the temple. It simply makes little sense as far as it goes to division of labor, and in the Guides at least, Vader was instead tasked with taking out the younglings’ last line of defense: the remaining adult Jedi in the temple. The clones would then mop up the rest.

However, mind you that none of that would have meant that he didn’t kill any children if they came across his path. He very much did, and most likely right after murdering whatever guardian the child still had left. The only change in the Guides to that fact is that it simply wasn’t his primary task, and that more often than not it was the clones coming in behind him who finished the task while the children were still staring at the still-warm corpse of their guardian.

The catch is that killing only a couple of younglings left a far greater mark on Vader than wholesale slaughter. Repeat something often enough and you become numb to it. Do it only a few times, and the horror never abates.

Never mind the fact that he had to watch the faces of his former compatriots as he turned his blade on them and slaughtered them mercilessly.

You’ll note that none of these changes excuse or diminish his role in the slaughter, this was simply a change in logistics to make the temple raid a bit less of Sidious’ Evil Plan To Speedrun Anakin’s Fall™ (Insert evil laugh here) and a bit more of a strategic decision often made in violent coups (which the rise of the Empire technically wasn’t, but tomayto tomahto).

And make no mistake, this decision is worse for you all as far as angst goes, because Vader’s primary task having been to take out the adult Jedi has some capital C Consequences further down the line. I’m not letting you all off that easily.