#esp as the person who said it has been in sw fandom for a lon time and has no doubt read way more fic and many of them may have been
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I’m sorry I’m still so bewildered by a certain conversation last week where someone said they don’t want anakin x consequences aus because they’re all about punishment, and I was like …what?
from where I’m standing, the whole point about character x consequences aus aren’t purely about punishment. punishment generally does happen, but at their core, the better ones are more about focussed on peeling away the narrative bias inherent in heroes journey type stories or just popular media, and saying ‘actually let’s all slow the fuck down and take a breath, because this huge thing was majorly glossed over in text, and I want to take a moment to look at what that action would have wrought out on people and the world’.
if it was just a ‘this person get’s arrested au’ then I could see that attitude; but it’s not. it’s about consequences. acknowledging that actions have consequences and that big actions have not just big consequences but a thousand little ripples go out into the world and have their own consequences, which then affect other things and other things etc.
feeling positive about seeing a skilfully written Anakin x Consequences au when it comes to the outright massacre of an entire village of sentients before the war even started, and being like ‘no look we have to dig into this because what the fuck?’ is natural, because lucas moved on very quickly and basically put it in there for the sake of narrative symmetry. a good au will be fairly neutral on the perpetrator, and not being all like ‘donging a bell while marching them through the village in shackles’ but instead will hold their face gently but firmly so that they can’t look away when they are shown what their actions are really were, and how significant and weighty and consequential they were.
Anakin feels guilty and torn up but his guilt is more about himself falling, and how could i have done this rather than ‘these people suffered at my hand and I should make as much of an amends as I can, how much damage can I reverse or how much can I try to enact positive change to possibly make up for my actions that I made with full knowledge and consent as the adult that I have been arguing very loudly that I am.’
and in a complex story like this, there isn’t just one perpetrator, either. anakin made those choices and did those things but there were a lot of things that went ary at that time, and reasons his grave acts weren’t discovered, acknowledged or followed up.
a good consequences fic is generally quite salty, but still manages to tease out a thousand ripples and show a situation in a much more complex way than the authors of the source material did. a good consequences fic will have nuance to them, and not have the pov be outright hostile to the main subject, but instead let their actions speak for themselves as they lay out the true consequences of their actions.
so when the punishment is eventually laid down, everyone is clear on why.
I also get that we don’t always want to read these fics about our little meow meows, because while I wouldn’t class them as purely bashing fics, they’re certainly in the same family. but saying ‘they’re just about arbitration and punitive in nature’ is not something I agree with either. because it’s not about the satisfaction of seeing them hit, it’s the satisfaction from the ‘truth’ being told. it’s saying ‘look at what you have done. see it clearly.’
and there are many in the tag that are saltier and genuinely bashing fics, and those can be satisfying (if you agree with the pov), but often when you’ve finished on it you want another. After a good, cathartic, character x consequences fic you feel thoughtful, a little tired and sore, scrubbed clean, cleansed and a little weepy, and generally are not as thirsty for more salty salty fic (that will of course only make you more thirsty haha). not everyone can write them. I don’t really feel up to it, as my brain is slow and being able to untangle threads and find the ones that will make the story good is hard, and I just do not have the spoons or mental fortitude to chase ripples so attentively. the one I got any headway into was a tony stark one (even though I’m very much anti mcu steve rogers lol).
the cathartic stories I write tend to be judgements by innocents or acts of magic or some other force that are ungentle and generally hurt a lot of people when they swipe the subject with the proverbial massive hand (usually written when I’m bedridden and in a bunch of pain, and inspired by things like the ending of snowpiercer as like such a stellar, fantastic, amazing way to finish that movie, my god!) but that’s not what I’m talking about here.
here, it’s humans (or in this case, mortal sentients) that need to judge, and the reader is generally shown lots of povs, and given things that are like ‘hmmm, perhaps palpatine should maybe not have been given time alone with a kid wtf?’ esp if they find out what palps had been doing with him (even talking him to bars was suss af)
the prize for anakin x consequences aus that I’ve seen so far—and admittedly I haven’t found a huge amount in this fandom—is as yet incomplete. we haven’t even gotten to the trial yet, and the camera hasn’t even been with Anakin or his prosecuting Jedi, but instead with the 501st who he left behind when he was taken in, and their stand in Jedi. but there are quiet, subtle ripples already being acknowledged. the biggest one that points to it being an excellent quality ‘x consequences’ fic is that padme has already been…I don’t want to spoil it, but she has already seen consequences to her cover up. and as padmè is one of the author’s acknowledged faves, I’m like oh awesome. we aren’t flinching are we?
anyway that’s my two cents. not coming for anyone or trying to start any drama. these are not fighting words. but as this is one of my favourite tags and fic genres, I felt like I wanted to net it out and explain why I like i so much so that if I ever enthusiastically put that on a post or something you can know what I meant. also, frankly, I’d love to see more anakin x consequences fics, and ones for other characters, because there are a lot of things that happen in star wars that get brushed over in a massive way, lmao, and lucas isn’t really one for digging in to say the least.
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