i think she likes messing with jorgan sometimes -- and also is wildly oblivious that she's accidentally, definitely, cultivating a mutual attraction feedback cycle. sighs. this woman is an enigma on the best of days.
speaking of redraws earlier, i figured i needed a better reference of noa going forward especially of her cybernetics that i took eight years to draw in full.
as much as I love badass characters pushing through pain to fight, I also love when they hit a point where they just can't. something structural is wrong or broken, so they can't stand. their muscles are simply too weak and overworked to hold them up. their bloody hands slip off the handles of their weapons, they can't aim through their vertigo or tunneling vision, they shake from blood loss or exhaustion even if not from fear. they've just reached their limit, and no amount of willpower will change that!
Pondering Indesa's 'recovery' arc, esp in regards to reconciling herself with her past actions. She does manage to find peace in the light side of the force, but it's not as simple as a straightforward 'redemption arc' and ta-da! she's a good, morally upstanding person again. It's more complicated.
((This is also just a big ol' word vomit that I tried to edit into something readable and was about 50% successful lol))
Your status as a jedi in the Republic seems to let you get away with a lot in game. People assume that because a jedi agrees with a course of action, it must be right.
Indesa also fell into this trap. She’s a Jedi, she fights for the Republic, for the greater good. She doesn’t have time to doubt her decisions if they get the job done. She’s a good jedi.
In the case of swtor, you often don’t get a choice to avoid violence (RIP to the 500 npcs I killed just crossing the map, to the boss battles that don't give you the chance to spare the enemy when they're defeated). But the jedi knight story does give you the choice to be merciful every so often, to help rather than to harm. There are also options you have to sacrifice/endanger republic forces in the name of doing more damage to the Empire. (Specifically, I'm remembering the choice to ram Darth Marr’s ship into the zakuulan ones rather than let your own people escape – a decision which commander au Indesa did take.)
Which is all to say, Indesa was shaped into a weapon, into something to take down threats to the Republic, but she is still responsible for her actions, for the harm she caused. Many people died by her blade who did not have to. Some days she hides behind the "just following orders" excuse, she was doing what they taught her to do, what they asked her to do. Other days she knows that's a weak argument. She could have walked away if she truly wanted to. (But she valued her identity as a hero, as a jedi, as a good jedi, more. She needed to protect the Republic.)
She got away with war crimes (perhaps not by republic standards, perhaps the republic military would not even bat an eye, but still, she is not innocent).
Back to the present, the memories of these things still haunt her. She worries about becoming that person again. She hesitates to return to combat because she knows exactly what she is capable of. She knows exactly how easy it would be to slip back into the emotional numbness that cushioned her from her own actions. Simultaneously feeling too much and nothing at all. The muscle memory to keep going when you’ve left your heart behind.
As for the people who suffered as a result of her actions, she’s less inclined to try and repair that damage. She was not kind to the pilgrims on Tython, for example. There are people better suited to that job, to mending those bridges. (It’s easier to look back over an empty battlefield than to meet the eyes of someone she’s hurt.)
I've been calling them the zabrak siblings / the gladiator siblings but at the time they were actually fighting in the pit Seddhun and Afanir were advertised as the 'zabrak brothers', occasionally the 'zabrak twins'.
I think a lot of personhood was stripped away from them since early on, they're commodities to be traded, to be gawked at, to sexualise and objectify. Seddhun has been uncomfortable with the macho masculinity forced on them, it's feels far more like a mask, a performance, than who they'd choose to be. (They don't know what they'd choose to be. They'd choose to be themselves, to be free.)
They do confess this to Afan, in their quiet of their quarters. They're well aware that 'breaking character' in the public eye, or even in view of the overseers, will result in punishment.
Afan has not struggled with this. He wants to be free, but the part he plays in the pit does not feel out of place on him. Does not make him writhe in his own skin. (He wants to be free, he wants to be powerful, he dreams of being more than a slave but he doesn't dream of being more than a 'man'.) He supports Seddhun, but they're slaves, they don't get the luxury of choosing who they are. They are what they are told they are, what whoever has paid to see them wants them to be.
It's not until Seddhun is free of the fighting pits that they get to begin to truly explore this side of themself. The Great Hunt is an opportunity to build themselves anew, make a new name (and a new identity) for themselves.
wip i'll probably never finish. i think theron knows good and well what he did, and just didnt expect a reprisal for it. zanya is in the business of making good on them.
this is such a tiny thing to ask about but i just realised I've been mentally pronouncing afan and seddhun's names as if they are Welsh. or space welsh? let's go with space welsh as my welsh language skills are mediocre anyway. but the point is i'm reading their names in a very specific kind of phonetic setup and now I am wondering what they actually are pronounced like.
You're 100% correct their names are space Welsh <3
Afan with the hard 'f' sound, 'Avan' and Seddhun with the soft 'dd' sound, 'seh-thun'
(the 'u' probably isn't right if we're going full Welsh haha, it should probably be, perhaps an 'e' or a 'w' or a 'y' would be a better fit for the pronunciation I wanted, but it's passable even if you pronounce it as the Welsh 'u')
Anyways I have a deep love for when regional British accents pop up in star wars, not just the posh Imperial one. I get to go hey!! That sounds like someone I know!!
Horrible Brilliant new idea for the zabrak gladiator siblings,,,
When Afan's force sensitivity is discovered, the Sith who found him makes a proposal to the hutt that owns them to smooth over taking away one half of the pit's best fighters: one final show-stopping death match.
If Afanir wins, he gets his freedom, and is sent to Korriban. If he loses, he'll either be dead or executed shortly thereafter.
Okay okay. This is still a banger of an idea but I really need to work out the details lmao. I know how Seddhun lives but I'm still working out the Why.
Afan and Seddhun do not hold back on each other in the ring. Afan wants his freedom. Seddhun won't let him take it easily. (They're both aware that if it's clear one of them threw the match then it'd be both their necks on the line. But also, Seddhun is angry. They don't want to be left behind. If Afan wants a better life (without Seddhun) he's going to need to fight for it.)
There's also some lingering resentment here, they've had differing ideas for what lives they want for themselves for a while. It's complicated and I need to figure that out more for myself haha.
But back to the point, all attention is on Afanir as the match draws to a close. Seddhun has been knocked down, their face a bloody mess, one leg bent at an unnatural angle, a growing red stain soaking into the dirt around their head. Dead, or as good as.
The Sith's attention is on their newfound acolyte, the Hutt's is on the hefty profit made from the match. When Seddhun is dragged out of the pit, no one pays much attention. (The last Afanir sees of his sibling is them being dragged into the shadows, a trail of blood in their wake. Seddhun did not go down easily, Afan has injuries of his own. A likely broken arm and dislocated shoulder, broken ribs, countless scrapes and bruises from being bodily thrown into the ground multiple times.
Afan's control on the force is still precarious without proper training, but it likely saved his life in the match. Seddhun had been about to land a devastating blow when suddenly they froze, face contorting and eyes wide as Afanir grabbed them by the neck with the force and threw them back, hard, against the side of the pit. The crowd went wild, Seddhun did not get up.
As for Seddhun's survival, the core of it is that someone took them and patched them up (some new cybernetics and a prosthetic leg). Seddhun ends up joining the great hunt to pay off their debts to (medical bills/benefactor/whoever bought out their freedom from the hutt, etc).
Who would do that and why they would go to such lengths to salvage a pit fighter is currently beyond me 😅 (if anyone has ideas, come play in this space with me <3)
Whether there had been a deal for the 'other' zabrak sibling before the death match was proposed, someone wanting to take Seddhun on as a guard or a bounty hunter perhaps. Or whether Seddhun had been making plans of their own to get out, making their own deals on the side to buy their own freedom? Perhaps Braden saw something in them, wanted to give them a chance. Promised more money than he had to the hutt and now Seddhun's left paying off the man's debts.
In which Indesa reflects on who she has been, what she has done, and who she wants to be going forward.
It's done!! I redrew every aspect of this so many damn times 😌 I like how it came out though <3
I'm still working out what she gets up to once she winds up with the Alliance. Humanitarian missions, helping to rebuild and support a community would be good for her. However she'd balk at combat, even in the name of defence. Her lightsaber is kept locked in a box and out of sight most of the time; the cold heft of it makes dread coil in her gut.
I made this my phone background, and have been looking at it all day which has led to Thoughts.
What if I gave Indesa a big sister she didn't know about 🥺
(sister in question would probably not fall into one of the class stories but just be a Republic citizen. she remembers her little sister being sent to the jedi, and periodically searches news feeds on the holonet for mentions of a jedi named Indesa.)
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