#bail and breha are leia's real parents

[girlrandomstuff]

No I don't think a lot of people understand when I say Bail and Breha Organa are criminaly underrated.

This two knew the freaking most important and dangerous secrets in the entire galaxy. They BOTH knew about the rebelion, knew about important imperial figures that supported the rebelion in secret, they knew about the Alliance plans and next steps, they were SO DEEP into it. And they BOTH knew about Vader, they knew that he was once Anakin Skywalker, that he had a relationship with Padme and had two children together, they knew what happen on Mustafar, they knew the location of the other twin, they knew about Palpatine being a Sith, and they hide Leia from Palpatine and Vader for 20 freaking years, and they did it like it was nothing, like it was another family thing.

[anghraine]

Maybe it's just because I'm sleepy and my brain is tired and irritable, but I do wish fandom in general weren't so absolutely intent on casting all familial or quasi-familial relationships into some near approximation of US nuclear family idealization.

Acting as a caretaker for a child doesn't automatically make someone their "real parent" or "adopted parent" or "any parent at all" if the child doesn't see them that way. These caretaking relationships can be messy, begrudging, or essentially coercive (in both fiction and IRL, and in life, forcing children into situations where "they'll be taken care of" is often coercive and/or predatory).

And sometimes a caretaker adult, whether a natural parent, adoptive parent, some kind of guardian, or more amorphous caretaker, is ... bad, actually. It's understandable for the children they take care of (whether literal children or now-adult people who experienced it previously) to have had negative experiences they have complicated feelings about, to have complicated feelings about their caretakers that may not distill down to "real parents", to be capable of harsh criticism of their former caretakers, even if they love them.

Sometimes it is the simpler scenario where a child is adopted and it looks very much like a conventional "nuclear" relationship (though even then, the child can have more complex and inconvenient feelings than they're often supposed to have). But—okay, I may be biased from coming from a family that was licensed for foster care, which saw a lot of children essentially forced into foster care with varying complicated feelings about it that didn't always equate to "this person who looks after me is my mother"—even after a long time, sometimes.

And there's frequently a nasty pressure on children placed in "care" to either reach out to their birth or adoptive parents, or to wholly turn their backs on them and accept their current caretakers as the only parents who matter. But usually things are messier than that. You can care about a caretaker, you can respect and love them, and still not feel like you're their child. Or maybe you do! It just depends.

This can happen with siblings as well, especially when there's a big age difference—yeah, one of the siblings may be functionally filling the shoes of their parents as well as they can, but it doesn't necessarily make them actual parents in the eyes of their younger siblings (or themselves). It can, but doesn't have to. Or maybe it's something messier, like when the relationship is almost parental, but not quite, and the exact nature of the dynamic is hard to pin down.

There's also the case where the relationship may have been parental at one point, but one of the parties (usually the caretaker) burned bridges so badly that the child (often an adult at this point) cuts ties and doesn't deny that the caretaker filled a parental role back then, but wholly rejects it as any kind of current reality. This can happen with biological family, but also with looser caretaker relationships as well (esp the cultier ones).

I'm thinking of a lot of fandom examples of these kinds of indeterminate caretaker-child (or former child) relationships, where either we know or have good reason to believe the child doesn't regard a former caretaker as exactly the same as a parent, or we just don't know what the nature of the relationship is, and fandom will be absolutely insistent that the only possible way to read it is parent-child.

And also, sometimes there's nothing wrong with the caretaker relationship, but it's still not parent-child. It simply doesn't map onto this parental mold that fandom tries to box all adult-child caretaking relationships into, because family is more complicated than a single, very simplistic model allows.

[raointean]

I actually love the idea that Billy and William fused instead of just body-hoping. William would have died if Billy didn't come in and they fused! I love him saying that he has a mom because adoption right 🎉

Yes! The alternative is just too sad for me. As for the adoption thing, it's NOT just this fandom that struggles to understand bio vs. adoptive parents. I'm in the Star Wars fandom and there are SO MANY PEOPLE that refer to Anakin and Padmé as Luke and Leia’s "real" parents. Meanwhile, Owen, Beru, Bail, and Breha are called kidnappers or just ignored entirely (yes, I loved the Obi-Wan show. Why do you ask?)

I think the same problem is sometimes happening in this fandom too. We know Wanda and Vision as characters and we want them to be a happy family. We do NOT know Rebecca and Jeff Kaplan nearly as well, so there's a tendency to want to take the child from the characters we don't know as well and give him to the characters we know, like, and want to be happy.

On a slightly happier note, here's all my headcanons about Billy Kaplan's life (not Billy Maximoff or William Kaplan, but the entity that is both of them)

As William's heart stopped, his soul separated from his body and was on its way to wherever Jewish people go when they die

Billy M's soul, at the same time, was fleeing because it didn't have a body to support it

He found William's body easy enough to get into (because a soul had just left it) and close enough to alive to be fixed

However, William's soul was in between Billy M and the body

Billy M could have gone around and been the only soul in the body, but he was scared, okay?

Poor guy was only a couple days old, alone for the first time ever, and his mom had just kinda killed him and the rest of his family

Long story short, Billy M crashes into William and drags them both into the body

Billy M fixes the body just enough to keep living, but doesn't bother too much about the head injury

Meanwhile, William is stuck to Billy M like silly putty when you have two different colors and, by the time they get to the hospital, the two colors have blended entirely to form a new color

There's no way to differentiate one from the other

Billy Kaplan is born!

Because Billy M didn't fix the head injury, they both have amnesia

Billy K wakes up and it's literally "no thoughts, head empty"

(Except for some lingering sensation of loneliness... like there should be something someone? else there)

But not for long because he soon discovers he can hear other people's thoughts!

Which is really funny because he doesn't know that other people can't hear his thoughts

Poor guy genuinely thinks that humans communicate via telepathy for a solid 24 hours before he gets enough weird looks that he puts two and two together

(His parents are totally aware of this

There's only so many times your kid can answer exactly the thought going through your head without you catching on

Also, this is the Marvel universe!

Shit like this just... happens sometimes

They figure he'll come to them when he's ready, and until then they'll think nice thoughts and be supportive)

Billy K spends a solid four months trying to remember who he was before, stealing memories from his parents' heads, and pretending to recover from the amnesia

(Rebecca and Jeff try so hard not to make him feel like they're just waiting for their old son to come back but...)

Four months in, Billy's at the mall with his mom on some errands and that's where he sees it

Hot Topic

He begs his mom to go in there, and it's the first really normal teenage thing he's done since the car crash so she lets him

For the first time in four months, Billy forgets all about car crashes, and memories, and hospitals, and expectations

All that exists is spiky jewelry, ripped black skinny jeans, and a million of those cheap and hilarious pins

Over time, the family settles into his "new normal" and chalk most of it up to teenage experimentation

In that three year period though, Billy can't shake the feeling that something's still missing

He feels out of place in his body, even with the new aesthetic

(He sees that one tumblr comic about the coocoo bird and cries-- a lot. It's the closest he ever gets to telling his parents about his out-of-place feeling)

He doesn't tell them though

Instead, he digs and digs into the weirdest, darkest, most demented corner of the internet

Reddit

[marvelstars]

Does it bothers you when people are like "Leia is so Anakin coded" or "Leia is so alike both Ani and Padme" while completely reducing Luke to "Padme in a boy's body". I have seen a few edits of the twins on tik tok lately and always when the video is about the parallels between Anakin and Luke the comments go "No. That is wrong. Luke is like Padme and Leia is like Anakin", or "you get the twins right, anakin-Leia, luke-padme".

And I have tbh, that pisses me off a bit, mostly on Luke's behalf since he is my fave, cause while I totally agree Luke has a lot of similarities with Padme, he also is alike Anakin in so many ways. And it upsets me a little people just trying to erase everything they have in common just to support this narrative. (Main reason why I don't like the reverse AU, or Senator Luke fics. The ones I have read just straigh up pushed this narrative, putting his love to fly, his passion, and many things that makes Luke be Luke to the side only to make him be a version of Padme)

It is also upsetting for Leia, since she is far away from being 100% like Anakin. They are both passionate and determined people, yes, but this doesn't make her be "Ani 2.0". And this narrative also completely dismiss the existence of Bail and Breha on her upbringing.

Both twins share a lot of similarities with both of their parents in different and intricated ways, with a lot of their own personality on the mix, what makes them unique. It baffles me see them being reduced to charicatures of their parents.

I agree with you, I understand fandom wants to have fun with memes but sometimes they go too far, Leia and Luke ultimately are their own persons and tbh those takes also do a big disservice to Anakin and Padme characters´reducing their arc and personality terribly and ignoring Owen, Beru, Bail and Breha influence on the twins emotional development.

But I will focus on Luke and his relationship to Anakin here.

Luke is a strong force sensitive with a good aptitude towards mechanical work, he is passionate, short tempered, idealist, has big dreams for the future, excellent pilot and soldier who cares more than anything for friends and family and causes he considers just, he is also kind and compassionate even if this doesn´t come easily to him, just like Anakin was at his age.

That said, he is also down to earth, pragmatic and has a no non-sense actitude when it comes to other people, see his reaction to Han trying to scam them on their travel to Alderaan, he doesn´t suffer people trying to make him feel inferior because he knows his own personal value, those are characteristics he got for being raised by his uncle and aunt, sure they lived on a desert planet full of Hutts, slavers, criminals and bounty hunters but they lived an honest way of life and didn´t believe they owned either group an ounce of their honest work, they only ever owned it to their family.

Anakin´s experiences shaped him differently on this matter, given his life as slave his mother teached him the art of bend,dont break by keeping his identity intact, this made him more susceptible to be ordered around by the Chancellor, the Jedi Council, the Republic sometimes even Padme even if this meant sacrificing his original hopes of freeing his mother, the slaves of tatooine and having a family.

Anakin developed low self esteem issues when he got separated from his mother because he no longer had her unconditional support and knew the reason why he was trained by the Jedi was contingent to his habilities and what he could do for the Order, not because he as a person, was important or would have been chosen for himself as a Jedi if he wasn´t so strong in the force but he learned to keep his real self buried and protected from outside forces while using the systems controlling him to his advantage. Palpatine managed to break him but even Vader was able to keep part of his real self alive despite the Emperor´s many efforts to turn him completely to the darkside ,which Luke noticed thanks to his bond to his father.

Those characteristics Luke got from his Uncle and Aunt served Luke well when he confronted the Emperor, Obi-Wan and Yoda, he already was interested in being a Jedi because of his father but this didn´t mean he was going to blindly follow whatever order Yoda and Obi-Wan gave him as much as he personaly appreciated and loved them as people and masters in the force and he certainly wasn´t going to act as if the Emperor wasn´t trying to destroy his familiar bond to his father when he didn´t even know the guy, took his father from him before he was born and was the rebellion´s main adversary, all Palpatine was for Luke was an objetive to kill on sight and Palpatine knew this, that´s why he temped him to the darkside by giving him the oportunity to kill him. Luke is also of the mind that if he doesn´t agree with something and that something is the source of great pain for others he is 100% justified in destroying it, see Jabba´s palace, the death star, the Empire. Anakin´s style is more "I know the system doesn´t work, it sucks but I will be damned if I don´t try to fix it or work around it" because he often feel as if he had no other choice.

Many fans take for granted the fact Luke forgave his father as his main personality trait when the opposite is the truth, Luke wasn´t a stranger to violence because he lived on a planet in which if you didn´t learn to take care of yourself you could die and as part of the rebellion he wasn´t a stranger to killing imperials and losing loved ones to the cause, the interesting thing about Luke´s CHOICE of saving his father isn´t that it was part of his nature all along, it´s the fact that´s pretty much agaisn´t his natural temperament, saving Vader went agaisn´t his natural care for family, Vader may be his father but he hurt his friends and Leia, saving Vader was the least pragmatic choice acording to his identity as a rebel and Jedi, saving Vader went agaisn´t his own feelings of abandoment and yearning for a father feeling betrayed by Anakin´s turn to the darkside.

Still Luke made this choice because he felt how utterly isolated and broken Vader was and he cared enough for the image of the father he never knew, a father he knew could still be there, to show him some uncomplicated, familiar love once again, the kind his aunt and uncle showed him, if only for Luke´s own peace of mind that he truly tried everything to make his father feel better, while his pragmatic side took care of things by letting Leia know about his mission and telling her they had to attack the DSII anyway even if he was there because the cause of freeing the galaxy from the Empire was still more important than his personal feelings and issues with his father.

The narrative gives Luke the victory, saving his father from the darkside which lead to the destruction of the Emperor and the Empire, for being loving and compassionate despite this not coming natural to him but as part of his personal grow and maybe, as the legacy of the two women who shaped his family without him meeting them, Shmi and Padme and the person his father used to be.

Luke and the Skywalker family in general are waaay more than some fans give them credit.

Thanks for the question anon

[walkawaytall]

Which AU should I write first?

So, I’m working on a short(ish) follow-up for Purpose of Heritage, which I expect to be done in the next week or so. But after that…okay, look, I have three AUs that I’ve started over the past year and few strong feelings about which one to pursue first because I like them all for different reasons. So…which do you want to see next (keeping in mind that I reserve the right to change my mind whenever I want)?

You’re Not My Real Dad AU (working title): due to reasons that people who are hardcore Obi-Wan fans are going to probably hate, Vader finds out Leia is his daughter roughly a year after the events of the Obi-Wan Kenobi TV series. He wants to keep this information from the Emperor — mainly because he’s pretty sure if a Skywalker with all their limbs shows up, he’ll be immediately thrown down a reactor shaft — but also wants to see his kid. It goes…pretty terribly (for him. The Alliance gets all sorts of intel they wouldn’t have had for years otherwise). So far, this has been written from Vader’s and Bail’s POVs, but I plan on including Leia’s and probably Breha’s as well.

Dameron and Solo (working title, but also…probably the actual title): When Shara Bey unexpectedly dies, Kes Dameron leans heavily on Han and Leia for help with raising Poe. This leads to some complicated emotions in both Poe Dameron and Ben Solo, who end up with very different relationships with Han and Leia as a result. So far, this has just been from the POVs of Han and Leia, but I expect to add Ben and Poe in as the story progresses and the boys age. My intent with this one is to create enough tension that Ben looking elsewhere for familial affirmation makes sense while not demonizing Han and Leia as parents because…the situation is complicated. (Also, the Space Divorce still isn’t a thing. I hate the Space Divorce.)

Organa Twins AU (working title): What if Bail took both Leia and Luke? How would that alter the events of A New Hope? So far, I’ve got an opening from Obi-Wan’s POV and some bits from Luke’s. (This is the least developed idea but it does currently have the snappiest dialogue and at least one pretty fun scene so far 😂.)

[snippyssnippets]

Do You Remember Your Mother?

“Leia, do you remember your mother? Your real mother?”

“Just a little bit. She died when I was very young.”

“What do you remember?”

“Just images, really. Feelings.”

“She was very beautiful, kind...but sad.”

From this

Through the years, there were many duties Tsabin took up as Padmè’s second. She’d sacrificed anything if her queen only asked. Her career, her identity, her life if it were necessary, and all too often, it was only luck she got to keep it. It was bittersweet when it ended. Her life may have been safer, but it left her lost and confused. What purpose did she have? Who was she without Padmè? She’d been Sabè for so long that she had to remind herself of her name every morning. Sabè was a role they created, a life lived and now gone. Tsabin was the woman she was left with, a life she abandoned at sixteen. 

They had been so close that it stung to hear of her passing through a hurried commlink. Of all people, it came from Bail Organa, and of course, it came with a request. One last mission for her queen, but not one that could be discussed in the open. She needed to make it to Alderaan to find what it entailed. A baby. A little girl named Leia, she learned. Padmè’s daughter. 

Bail was hesitant to separate from her, but they couldn’t keep her at the palace. The family needed to draw up an official adoption, which meant they needed a mother to adopt from, as well as someone to care for the child until they were cleared. The girl couldn’t just appear out of nowhere, even if they were the ruling members of their world. It was one thing she knew endeared Padmè to her friends on Alderaan. The royal couple remained incredibly humble and transparent, which gained them such loyalty from their people, but created a terrible problem when they got into a mess like this one. Tsabin was troubled by the idea, but she had sworn loyalty to Padmè, and even if her queen was gone, this was when Padmè most needed her. And so, Leia traded arms, and Tsabin became her mother.

It was perhaps her most difficult mission for Padmè, which was fitting that it would be her last. She hadn’t much experience with children, let alone newborns, but she learned quickly, mostly from necessity. Leia depended on her for everything, and Tsabin only enjoyed being needed. She was sure there were better caretakers the royal family of Alderaan could find, but Leia’s history required discretion. She wasn’t told why in exact words, but she didn’t question it when the funeral pronounced her and her child dead. Notably absent was any mention of her husband. It was all suspicious. Padmè was healthy and young. Childbirth couldn’t have killed her. For it all to happen the day the Empire came to power and her Jedi husband went missing was most damning of all.

But, Tsabin didn’t have time to raise questions of political conspiracy or murder. She had a baby to raise. Leia was growing faster everyday, and she could see so much of her mother in her little face. Both Breha and Bail would visit regularly, of course, always between meetings or travel plans, sometimes for minutes and sometimes for hours, though never together. They took care of any need either of them had. Leia was well cared-for and always well-dressed for as small as she was. The parents hadn’t even spent a full day with the girl, and she was already living like a princess. It made her smile as she toddled around the apartment in a frilly white dress, tinted pink at the collar from her berry-filled lunch, inspecting various items until she found one worthy to bring to the woman. Tsabin took the candle from the tiny hand while Leia struggled over her “m”s, working out a babble of “mba-amamaa…mam-ma”.

“Mama?” She repeated, putting the little candle on a shelf above her chair with a dozen more items Leia had done this with. “I’m only ‘mama’ for a little while, sweet girl. Your mama should be coming to see you soon. Maybe the forms will finally be ready for you to go home with her.” She tucked a little curl off her forehead. When the little girl’s arms stretched up, Tsabin pulled her into her lap with a soft smile that didn’t make it to her eyes. “You know, you have quite a few mamas who love you so very much that you don’t even know yet. I wish I could tell you.”

Leia hadn’t yet made a full year, and already, Tsabin could see her mother’s obstinance, her curiosity, her passion. If she became anything like Padmè, she was sure to do well in politics, especially thinking of what Breha and Bail would teach her. She wondered if they would ever tell her of her birth mother, how much she longed to meet her child, how hard she worked to create a better world for her to be born into, or how deeply she believed in the good of all people. Padmè was an idealist to her core, and maybe that was what killed her because it would have been too strong a lesson to pass to future generations. She always had hope, and so Tsabin had to hold onto it for little Leia. Hope that she will continue her mother’s journey. Hope that her future will be brighter than their present. Hope that she will know the women who loved her.

Tears pricked her eyes and she blinked them away, not needing to start this again after all the months she’d spent with her baby girl. Instead she pressed a kiss to the girl’s forehead, feeling a tiny hand reach for her cheek, and a much more assertive voice reached her ears, calling her “Mammma.. Ma.. mamma.” 

This time, she let a tear fall. “Mama,” she repeated softly.

~*~

“Leia, do you remember your mother? Your real mother?”

The question startled her as she looked over the man, whose questions only concerned her more and more. Still, it was Luke, and as much as he’d grown, he was still that sweet farmboy who rescued her simply because he wanted to help. He only ever wanted to help. She trusted that much about him. “Just a little bit. She died when I was very young.”

“What do you remember?” He pressed, and she sighed, finally giving in.

“Just images, really. Feelings.” She tried to dig back into her memories for the woman who raised her before her parents. She was a vague, fuzzy picture that only popped up when she would find an old dress or rifle through archived documents. Leia never could pin down a face. Each time she tried to picture her mother, her jaw was less sharp or her eyebrows too round or her nose more narrow. Her face always changed, but she knew a few things. She could feel them through the scattered images. “She was very beautiful, kind… but sad.”

[adelcrait]

I just finish all of your "Lost and Found" fanfic and I love it! I love your writing. its history, Luke and Anakin's relationship. All! I love all. I also like how Leia and Luke aren't siblings. I'd rather they weren't from the same family, as I can't imagine or appreciate Anakin being her father. Being Luke's dad already, I love it! I think it's because I like fathers taking care of their boys. I'm looking forward to more chapters! Have you ever thought of writing a story about Anakin meeting Luke earlier? Like, being a baby or a small child. Or even after everything that happened at the end of Star Wars, but while everyone thinks Darth Vader is dead, he is being taken care of by Luke?

Or even, Luke not being Padmé's son, but only Anakin's? Like, Luke is a miracle of the Force. Which made Anakin concede, as he was in a situation of great darkness, After everything that happened and he lost a lot of his body, so the Force gifted him with Luke. And unfortunately, Anakin has to hide it for quite some time of the others. As he tries to come to terms with everything his bizarre body went through on the gallows, he still has to protect his magic and wonderful son.

Sorry. these are great ideas I had in my head!

Thank you so much, anon!!!! I chose not to make Luke and Leia siblings in Lost and Found because, as you said, I have a hard time imagining Leia being Anakin’s daughter. I know it’s canon, and if I squint real hard I could see some similarities in personality, but it’s difficult (although it’s something I often think about). However, I can see Luke and Leia as siblings... but of different parents? In my head, and since I’m a big ROTJ fan, I associate Luke as Anakin and Padmé’s son, but Leia as Bail and Breha’s daughter... and I think Leia would be fine with that tbh.

I also love the trope of grumpy old men with repressed emotions being the parental figure of an overpowered child. My absolute favorite! Found Family! Angst! I eat that shit up!!!!!!!!!

As for your ideas,

“Have you ever thought of writing a story about Anakin meeting Luke earlier? Like, being a baby or a small child.” I have thought about this, but never wrote anything because I don’t know how to / don’t like writing children. All the Luke & Vader stories I have written (and never posted) have always been of Luke being at least in his late teens. This way they can talk about life, share opinions, train in the Force, argue about "grown-up" things, etc. I just can’t see that happening with young kids, and I haven’t seen a baby up close in probably decades. Although the idea of baby!Luke is really cute.

“Or even after everything that happened at the end of Star Wars, but while everyone thinks Darth Vader is dead, he is being taken care of by Luke?” OOOH I have read a lot of fics like this! It’s really angsty and bittersweet. Especially when they fix Vader’s torture machine (his suit) and Vader slowly starts to physically heal. I don’t think I’m writing this because of the problems Luke would have to go through: restoring democracy, pretending that Vader is dead, taking care of Vader somewhere the Rebellion can’t find them, processing everything that has happened… I feel like it would be a lot. Also, I don’t really know what mental situation Vader would be in this scenario. From the post-rotj Vader!Lives AU fics that I've read, Vader is miserable and thinks he doesn’t deserve "redemption" because the only good thing that he’s done was killing the Emperor, so it’s hard to get him out of that stupor. Even now just thinking about how I would write Vader's internal monologue is sending me into hell loops of mental acrobatics that I don’t know how to untangle. It’s definitely an interesting idea, that’s for sure. If you want fic recs with this idea, tell me!

“Or even, Luke not being Padmé's son, but only Anakin's? Like, Luke is a miracle of the Force.” Now, this!!!!!!!!! I think even in canon we can agree that Luke is a miracle of the Force. He’s an eldritch type of cryptid with a power that can shatter entire planets if he’s not careful. Blame his dad, sure. Maybe Padmé’s humanity is the only thing that’s preventing him from going full God Final Boss Mode. See it this way: if Anakin is the literal child of the Force, but still had a biological human mother, can you imagine how batshit powerful Luke would be if the Force created this child and based the genetics on The Anakin-fucking-Skywalker, the first eldritch horror monster of the galaxy? I’m literally shaking just thinking about it. Luke would be unstoppable.

...Also it would be hilarious if Luke was a toddler and accidentally exploded a spaceship because he threw a tantrum or something. I think it would be interesting seeing him grow up and adjust his powers to a non-destructive and functional level. That is, if Anakin is not a Sith in this AU. If Vader is raising him…. well, I don’t think the galaxy would be seeing peace any time soon... or Luke would still grow up to be good because he’s the literal manifestation of the Force and the Force has had enough of Vader’s bullshit… Yeah anon, I agree, this idea is super cool.

I admit that I’m guilty of overusing the Force in my stories, but these two are literal space wizards that are capable of so so so many cool things that my brain is salivating at the creative possibilities. 

Thank you for this ask! Have a nice day wherever you are!!!!!!!<3

[typewriteringalaxy]

i think Sabé really wanted Miramir to married Luke but she falls for Dathan

Hello dearest anon! I think you're right and I'll take this chance to expand upon the Miramir as Sabé's daughter ask and the Dathan Kenobi ask :

First, I think Miramir would be older than the twins. Perhaps not by much, but Sabé would feel a strengthened sense of responsibility after Padmé's becoming a mother—and her handmaidens were the only ones aside from Anakin to know of her pregnancy, since they also helped her hide it—and a protectiveness that would extend to the twins, so I don't imagine she'd willingly have children of her own after that.

Now let me try to do some math that no one asked for. Obi-Wan Kenobi and Satine Kryze had the chance rekindle their old flame in 21 BBY, which could be the time of conception for Dathan. Luke and Leia are born in 19 BBY. Miramir however would have to be born before the assassination attempt on Padmé's life on 22 BBY, before perhaps the Separatist Crisis that started in 24 BBY and which would heighten both Padmé's preoccupations and her handmaiden's duties—because again, I can't imagine Sabé making a "selfish" choice such as motherhood in such dangerous times, and before those events, Padmé might even encourage and support her to make it. To be safe, I'd place Miramir's birthday in 25 BBY, in the transitional time between Padmé stepping down as Naboo's queen and becoming a senator.

Canonically, Satine died in 19 BBY. If Obi-Wan knew of her pregnancy and the birth of his son, he'd try to save the latter from Bo Katan and the rest of Satine's (and his) enemies. If we add to the fact that he likely knew/suspected of Padmé and Anakin's relationship, we have a very positive scenario in which he trusts both of them enough with his secret, they trust him in turn, Anakin voices his worries about Padmé's possible death at childbirth and Obi-Wan helps assuage them enough that he doesn't fall to the Dark Side and the twins are raised together with Dathan by the strong trio. A nice, happy family, right?

Well, perhaps not. It's same to assume that since the handmaidens were the ones helping Padmé hide her pregnancy, they would also help her juggle motherhood and politics—since Padmé would undoubtedly keep fighting against the Empire. And while they couldn't say anything about the twins, Dathan was not strictly her responsibility, and why deprive him of a chance to be raised with more stability? So, in a spin complimenting canon, Dathan could be fostered by Bail and Breha Organa—and I think Obi-Wan would agree to it, if he didn't suggest it himself. (Though I also think he wouldn't resist the urge to tell his son the truth eventually, so adult Dathan would know he was a Kenobi).

Dathan Organa (Kenobi) and Luke & Leia Amidala(-Skywalker) would grow up as playmates and close friends, being close in age and understanding the struggle of having loving but politically involved parents (and hidden Jedi Master fathers). But Miramir would be 6-4 years older than them, an age gap negligible in adult relationships but quite the obstacle in childhood ones. Sabé would likely project her own role into her daughter, drilling into Miramir the duty to cherish and protect the twins. But in trying to paint Luke as the perfect boy, the real Luke, a clueless toddler in Miramir's eyes would clash horribly with that, and teen Miramir especially would rebel against that idea of her mother. (She might even become a little resentful of the twins for monopolizing her mother's attention—the drama!) In this scenario, falling for Dathan would occur in their twenties, perhaps when Miramir is sent to be his bodyguard before the destruction of Alderaan. (0 BBY: Miramir 25 yo, Dathan 21 yo and the twins 19 yo).

In a less positive scenario, where both Satine and Padmé die, Sabé would likely not know that Luke was Padmé's son and where he would be. However, if Luke was the one taken in by the Organas and she did know, she might leave 6-year-old Miramir in Alderaan to be trained as his bodyguard and grow up alongside him—and I imagine she'd do the same if it was Leia, too. Meanwhile, Bo Katan might've taken Dathan and raised him as a warrior if only to spite her pacifist sister (or bc of a hidden streak of familial love between them). And whether Miramir would remain loyal to the Organas, following the will of her mother, or betray them for the Empire to spite her, or even go rogue and try to find herself, she would meet Dathan when they'd be older.

Either way, I don't think Miramir would fall for Luke because of what he'd represent to her—someone held up by her mother, to protect and idolise. Either she'd idolise him platonically and focus on her own function as the protector, or rebel against the idea entirely.

(Side note: the same applies to Leia x Miramir. The analogy with Sabé x Padmé is very direct and admittedly quite appealing shipping-wise, but I would like for Miramir to be her own person, and a romance with Dathan would be more conductive to that).

[foreverkmc5]

PREACH

Adoption is not just a document signed. Adoptive parents are REAL PARENTS. Vader had nothing to do with Leia's upbringing. She is her parent's daughter, and her parents are Bail and Breha Organa.

Leia Organa, princess of Alderaan raised by Breha and Bail Organa, is not the strong and sassy character because she is the child of Anakin & Padme and her genetics somehow overrules everything.

Leia Organa is all that because she is the daughter of Breha and Bail Organa.

This biological essentialism is annoying.

[girlrandomstuff]

I never know how to start a post, but okay long story short, I heard this song a few days ago and remember the Organas.

First I thought of the song as Leia thinking about her parents, but I ended up thinking as a song about the three of them.

The three of them took the best out of the others, not saying that before Leia, Bail and Breha were bad, no, they were already incredible persons, but after Leia arrived they gain an insane amount of strenght and bravery to fight a war for 20 years. And not saying Leia was bad from birth or anything like that, ofc not, but being raised by Breha and Bail made her the incredible child and woman we all know, and it was all Breha and Bail, some people would say that Padme and Anakin would have also raised an amazing child but personaly I really have my doubts.

The fact that Leia taking her parents pain and worries away just for being their daughter is real, they loved Leia SO MUCH “she thought she made them happy just for existing” and Leia being the only Skywalker to not being tempted/sucumbing to the dark side (Anakin, Ben even Luke almost killing his nephew) and Luke actually calling her “the strongest of them all” is really just the result of how Bail and Breha raised her, Leia was stronger than she thought, and she would become stronger Bail and Breha will ever imagine.

Not even to mention how much Bail and Breha supported each other so much and took out always the best of the other as both person and leaders

[anghraine]

wind-sage replied to this post:

it is a really fun compare and contrast between Leia I am FULLY an Organa and Luke I am a Skywalker. Neither is Wrong, just important to respect the others choice with it.

Yes, I agree! Their experiences and identities wrt the family members who raised them are often framed as equivalent, but in the OT, they really do seem to relate to each of their families in very different ways.

Leia is not indifferent to her biological parents; she has a tie to Padmé through the Force that lingers with her and matters to her, and it's very upsetting for Leia to find out her natural father is Darth Vader. But the Organas are no less her parents for that. To Leia, "my father" means Bail Organa as much as it invariably means Anakin Skywalker to Luke. She is Bail and Breha's daughter and heir in every way that matters, the princess of Alderaan to her fingertips. Even her blood relationship to Luke only reinforces the close friendship that already exists between them, and would probably matter much less to her without the pre-existing relationship and accompanying Force bond.

But all suggestion in the OT is that Luke was raised as a beloved nephew with his father's and grandmother's name, not a son in the way Leia is a daughter. And it's a potentially dangerous name, at that, which only reinforces the importance in that family situation of honoring Anakin and Shmi in how Luke was brought up to think of himself. Luke's powerful consciousness of himself as Anakin's son doesn't seem just his own thing or conflict at all with how Owen and Beru talk about Luke's tie to Anakin, but rather, reflects it— they say "your father" or "his father" to refer to Anakin and are extremely aware of Luke's legacy from Anakin (and presumably Shmi).

The fostering of a relative's child within the family can often be complex in that way, even IRL, so this isn't even improbable. And given that Owen is Luke's uncle because Owen's father bought and then freed and married Luke's grandmother who died horribly later on, it's not surprising that they would have qualms about erasing the Skywalker history or that the general family dynamic might be a bit more fraught. Luke pretty emphatically does not see Beru as his mother, despite his affection for her; he refers to Padmé as Leia's "real mother" and adds "I have no memory of my mother. I never knew her"—clearly he can only mean Padmé. It seems to me that he's digging for information about Padmé because her absence represents a different kind of loss for him than it does for Leia herself.

And yeah, I could see the disparity in their experiences being something they have to navigate later on, but ultimately the only way to fully reconcile that, IMO, is for them to realize that their family dynamics and sense of legacy were fundamentally not the same and they're not going to relate to their parents the same ways.

[queenaryastark]

I wanted to wait to watch the Obi-Wan show until all the episodes were available but all this bb!Leia content I'm seeing all over the internet has me tempted. It looks way too cute.

[leia-adoption-fic]

I’ll be honest I completely forgot I sent this. For clarification;

- Yes, this is about killing off the Organa family and having Obi-Wan Kenobi adopt Leia during/after Kenobi. In-universe, all these characters are from fantasy space cultures that don’t really correspond to IRL.

- I want to continue their dynamic from that series, but pushing Obi-Wan into having to suddenly play dad full time, so I can’t just have her be adopted by him as a baby or him move to live with her family etc.

- I’m not going to just erase the Organa family or go “okay now go live happily with your real dad™️” - the fic is going to be about him helping her grieve. I very much want to keep the “adopted family is real family” message of the original and that strongly includes Leia’s relationship to Bail and Breha.

- Leia’s parents are killed off in canon as well, but she’s an adult by that point and doesn’t get adopted by anyone else.

- My friend AFAIK is white but I don’t know their exact heritage.

WIBTA for writing a fic after a friend told me not to?

👴so I can find this later - sorry for the online-ness of this but IDK where to ask. Hope it's okay.

Basically, in one of my fandoms, I've gotten attached to the dynamic between two characters. One is a lonely and bitter old man; the other a little girl he gets tasked with protecting for a while. The result is adorable (she even asks him if he's her bio dad at one point) and it really made me wanna write a fic where her parents get killed off somehow and he has to adopt her full time.

I talked about this to a friend of mine who's also in the fandom, and their reaction was fairly negative. This friend is someone who's very aware and vocal about serious issues in fandom; they weren't mean about this, I want to be absolutely clear they were just honest, but they advised against me writing it because to them the idea felt potentially-racist.

The point they made was that while both the kid and the old man where white, the kid's family who I'd be killing off are not (her dad is played by a Puerto Rican actor; her mom has had two actresses, one is Filipino-Australian and the other is half-Maori - in universe her family is adoptive). Basically, this friend said it would be problematic because I'd be killing off POC/nonwhite characters in order to have one white character adopt another, in a franchise where POC are already underrepresented.

I just can't get the idea out of my head though; it's been over a year and I still circle back to it. WIBTA if I write it anyway?

What are these acronyms?

[soulscatter]

hey uh bail and breha are leia’s ‘real’ parents and anakin is just a sperm donor thanks for coming to my ted talk

[kanansdume]

Thinking again about how Leia’s whole arc of coming to accept the fact that she’s adopted and doesn’t know her birth parents doesn’t just parallel Obi-Wan’s journey towards accepting Anakin and Padme’s loss, but parallels Anakin’s FAILURE to accept leaving Shmi and becoming a Jedi.

The amount of times we got the Jedi paralleled to the Organas in this show, the acknowledgment that the Jedi were a family to their children just like the Organas were to Leia, hammered home what Obi-Wan lost.

But it also really hammered home what Anakin was never quite able to accept. I know that in the novelization and early scripts, Anakin does call the Jedi his family, but he also consistently feels as though the Council doesn’t trust him, as if Obi-Wan is just holding him back for no reason, and, most obviously, is perfectly capable of just killing them all. And he kills them to save the person he cares about most: his wife. The person who most represents a more traditional family, especially after the loss of Shmi.

Leia feels uncertain as an Organa, she tells Bail in the first episode that she’s not a REAL Organa and sounds so hopeful when she asks Obi-Wan if he is her “real” father. 

But by the end of the show, Leia doesn’t need to hear about her birth parents. She doesn’t need to know Anakin or Padme or what traits of theirs she has seemingly inherited. She has a family and she knows exactly how much of an Organa she wants to be, what KIND of Organa she wants to be. She takes after her mother in her discipline and kindness, she takes after her father in her bravery and passion and dedication. Those two people just aren’t Anakin and Padme, they’re Bail and Breha Organa.

And that’s not something Anakin could ever really accept, he never seemed to truly accept the Jedi as his new family. For all that he calls Obi-Wan the closest thing he’s ever had to a father, he gravitates towards Palpatine as a father figure, he can’t let go of Shmi, he obsesses over and fixates on Padme (someone who definitely becomes something of a replacement for the place Shmi held in his life anyway). He can’t let go of his attachment to the idea of a REAL family, one that looked and felt like what he had with Shmi and can’t quite manage to adjust to being a Jedi, part of the Jedi family and the way that looks and feels.

Leia manages what Anakin never could. She parallels his failure and makes it her success. She’s going to change things, she’s going to change the world, and it’s not because she’s a Skywalker or a Naberrie. It’s because she’s an ORGANA.

[gizkalord]

one thing i really liked from kenobi was the emphasis that luke and leia HAVE parents. they are padme and anakin’s children and they were orphans, yes—but luke is also owen and beru’s and leia is also bail and breha’s. luke and leia have never been left wanting for more. they were loved, cherished, nurtured, and protected by their adoptive parents, and it’s so great to see an explicit portrayal of how adoptive families are just as real as any “traditional” family.