Re your tags on my post about Wobani building Death Star parts, I absolutely agree that Death Star parts were being built in all imperial factory prisons. When the cruelty is the point rather than the efficient extraction and processing of resources, some random beuracrat will be less likely to notice that they all the products seem to be going into a money pit. But I also think retroactively those same lines from Rebel Rising also establish that prison labor is being used to make parts for the Exegol fleet. We know from the Darth Vader comics that the surprise Star Destroyers had already been started in 4ABY. That's just what the line in RR that it felt like Wobani had made enough Star Destroyer panels for a whole new fleet made me think of. This isn't really related to Andor, I just know you're someone who can understand a Rebel Rising theory.
Also I really like the content of your blog.
yep i think you're right about how cruelty being the point can lend itself to officers/imps in the field not really knowing/caring/thinking about what the fuck they are working on (and also by the time they would find out, they'd be so brainwashed into accepting the premise of the empire being for security and order that it wouldn't even occur to most of them that it's horrible).
although i hate exegol i hate the sequels i hate 'somehow palpatine returned' (and i hated it in legends too btw its ridiculous) and i very much refuse to include any of that nonsense in my rogue one thoughts XD
Any headcanons you have about Freyja during the timeframe of the book series?
Do I ever... I outlined a post-Hogwarts timeline in this part of the MC through the years challenge, but I’ve added extra bits in this post for Added Drama.
1991-1992
Jacob commits murder to save Freyja, resulting in him being sent to Azkaban
This increases tensions between Freyja and her dad, ending in a massively hurtful argument
Freyja moves out of her grandma’s house, cutting off all friends/family
1992- 1994
Freyja chases thrills and excitement in the Muggle world
She enjoys lifestyles she never had, thanks to the people she meets
When things get too complicated, she Obliviates them and moves on. It makes for a lonely life.
1994
Freyja is convinced to go back home and mend bridges with her father
Before she gets home she is taken in for questioning by the Ministry about a Death Eater attack on her grandma’s home
Her father is missing, and her grandma is in hospital.
According to her grandma’s statement to police, Freyja had come home the previous night, and started a fight with her father
The next thing she knew she woke up on the floor, seeing Freyja dragging her father out the back door, before losing consciousness again
It’s believed by the authorities that Freyja cast the Dark Mark to make it appear as a Death Eater attack. Why? Because she couldn’t handle not being in the limelight anymore after Jacob’s incarceration. So she staged this “Death Eater” attack on her home, abducting her father - a Muggle-born - to add to authenticity.
She’s held in custody awaiting further interview/interrogation, and is visited by a Hit Wizard. He explains that he and a group of others believe that many recent Muggle attacks have actually been the work of Death Eaters. After the Quidditch World Cup Final attack, the attack on Freyja’s home is the first to have the Dark Mark so obviously displayed.
This Hit Wizard breaks her out on the proviso that she join his underground rebel group, the Flight, hunting down Death Eaters and watching over Muggles. The Order of the Phoenix has not been reunited at this point
1995-1998
Freyja joins the ranks of the Flight, learning to be less dependent on her wand. Hand to hand combat and utilising potions prevented spells being traced back to her.
She kept a low profile as she was technically still wanted by the authorities. Though at this point she wasn’t much of a priority for the Ministry - it had been slowly infiltrated by Death Eaters, and their first priority was the Potter kid.
While the Flight had similar goals to the now operational Order of the Phoenix, their tactics were a little less forgiving
1998
She encounters the Death Eater who kidnapped her father, a Metamorphagus who assumed Freyja’s form to gain access to her grandma’s home.
This Metamorphagus was in the same house and year level as Freyja at Hogwarts - and built up a huge hatred and resentment towards her over the years
They were also the one who convinced Freyja to go back home in 1994, playing the role of a thoughtful stranger who just happened by. They didn’t even try to assume the appearance of someone else at this point, because they knew that Freyja was so wrapped up in her own little world at school that she wouldn’t even remember them.
After the Battle of Hogwarts, Freyja gets her name cleared in relation to the Death Eater attack on her home
Unpopular Opinion: Even if the bioparents of a Force sensitive child don't want the Jedi to adopt them, if said culture doesn't have their own Force tradition, the Jedi are still morally right in taking the child as a matter of public safety and for the child's own wellbeing.
strongly agree | agree | neutral | disagree | strongly disagree
Force-sensitivity isn’t inherently dangerous enough to warrant it, which is why the Jedi won’t do it. Force-sensitive children can (and are shown that many did) suffer without training, but it’s because something always feels quietly off about them, as well as they can be in danger if bounty hunters find out about them, they’ll want to kidnap the child and sell them off.
But that’s still a choice for the bioparents to make, as long as the child isn’t harming anyone or themselves, then it’s up to their guardians to decide how to best handle the dangers they may face.
Without training, Force-sensitives won’t become what the Jedi are, that’s why even Anakin Skywalker, literally a Force baby, really only had extra-fast reflexes, that’s why Luke Skywalker never really knew he was physically different, just that he yearned for something/was extra skilled. Force use takes training and without that training, those skills won’t develop. That’s also why Ahsoka says maybe Grogu’s abilities should just be left to fade instead of trained.
Is it better for the child to have training to help them deal with that constant feeling of something being different about them? I think so, yes. But it’s still something the parents should decide for their child, because they’re not a danger unless they have a lot of training. The dangers the child will face (kidnapping, possible ostracization by their community for being ‘strange’, attracting the wrong kind of attention, etc.) are for the bioparents to decide.
The only exception I could see being made is something like if Karr Nuq Sin had been more dangerous/the Jedi were still around at that point: he had just enough training that he learned to use the Force and it was literally giving him seizures and making him pass out while screaming in pain and feel like his brain was on fire, in that situation, we could have the discussion if he should be taken to the Jedi to help him deal with that, if his powers had been something other than psychometric based (for memory, he wasn’t actually strong enough to be a Jedi, he was really only a danger to himself) and was dangerous to others, then maybe.
But kids who will never be trained won’t be a danger to others and if the parents feel they can handle the dangers their child will face, then that’s their choice, imo. And I think the Jedi seem to agree, that’s why they have a list at all, rather than just immediately taking the children!
Hey have you watched the Bad Batch yet? I'd like to discuss an aspect with someone familar with the Ascendancy trilogy, but I don't want to spoil it for you.
Plot twist, the in universe reason why you can't make your church catholic is because the pope doesn't believe in the Neath.
Pope Leo XIII be like “I’m pretty sure I’d know if there was a place where devils just walked around with regular people. London disappeared because of their many sins.”
I'm curious what your header image is from. I can't tell if its a joke or an actual anthropological diagram, or what "The Valley" refers to.
It’s from an Ursula K Le Guin book called Always Coming Home. The Valley is the Napa Valley but ages and ages in the future where society is unrecognizable, but in a positive way. It’s a weird little (well, not little, it’s like 800 pages) book. It’s not a novel at all, it’s a collection of descriptions of customs, texts from the future peoples, poetry, plays, recipes, folktales, autobiographies, etc. Anyway, for them, what distinguishes genres is not whether or not the text itself claims to be true (novels tell you they are novels and news articles, even dishonest ones, tell you they are news articles), but whether or not it’s realistic. They’re also very spiritual, so the supernatural is also allowed in the realm of realism.
I've always been interested about how alters can end up with backstories that aren't just what they remember of the body's experiences. Since you're willing to do open questions, do any of your system's alters have such backstories? And how did they comprehend a physical reality that wasn't consistent with their backstory? Did they always know they were alters?
Hi there! Thank you so much for asking!
So alters tend to have backstories like that because of something called Substitute Beliefs. Basically, the actual story of what happened is too horrific so your brain came up with a different way to process it. A great infographic was made by @clever-and-unique-name, you can find it here: x
Substitute beliefs are a major thing in my system, but for most of us it’s in the form we’ve taken and not really in a detailed backstory. We do have one alter with a backstory though, Cypher.
When I was 16 I ended up in inpatient in a really awful and abusive hospital. I had preexisting medical trauma, and being in an abusive medical environment when I was already unstable enough to need inpatient was kind of a nightmare. We split there and Cypher was formed. She looks kind of like a demon/vampire type kind of. And she has memories of having large wings, but then she was captured and her wings were surgically removed by evil doctors, and in her self image she has large surgical scars on her back. She “remembers” these events, even as we know they’re not really memories.
It’s kind of hard to explain the kind of simultaneous knowing and not knowing you can have with DID. I think on some level she has always known intellectually that she isn’t literally a demon, that she didn’t literally have wings that were amputated. But at the same time it’s always been true for her on a deeper level. At first she was more convinced that it was literally true and that this body was kind of a disguise that the doctors put her in so she would seem human. Over time as we’ve all learned about DID and understood more about what’s going on that’s faded, but the emotional truth of it is still there.
As for whether she knew she was an alter...I don’t think so? At least not at first. We didn’t have that kind of language. By the time I figured it out when I was 19 she had known for a while, but I’m not exactly sure when she figured it out.
Thanks again for asking, and feel free to ask anything else or ask for clarification if any of this was unclear!
