This chapter is just... so beauitful. Your writing is poetic and visual. The story is incredibly compelling. Thank you for sharing this with us. My god, it's probably my favourite LukeVader fic!

Just WOW

Hey i just wanted to tell you that this story is one of the best I never read

I spent an entire week doing nothing during my free time but this. I just don't have the words to express how incredible this story is. Incredible in it's complexity, in the character's perfectly developed psychology, in that bittersweet ending which tore out my heart, in the relationships between every character, in the subtle politics, in the way you deal with addiction, in the way each detail is carefully thought out and researched. You are an amazing writter. Have you ever thought about publishing a book? If so, I would really like to know which one!

Wow! Others have put it more eloquently, but my god that was a good read! That ending was simultaneously heart breaking and freeing. Utterly perfect. Thank you for writing!

Wow. I just read the last chapter, and I am trying to slowly come back to reality. You certainly know how to create suspense and hold your readers on tenterhooks. I stayed glued to the screen for the last few chapters, unable to put it down until I finished this.
You are an exceptional writer - the story masterfully composed, the characters genuine and your language superb.
This story was everything I was hoping to read, and then it wasn't. The end satisfies as much as it doesn't, and I don't know whether I should be happy about the outcome or discontent about all the devastation.

There were many a time when I grew a bit restless and frustrated with the stories slow pace, hoping that the characters would finally realize a thing or two, hoping for a few mysteries to be finally revealed. But of course that was your intention; you took your time developing the characters, to grind into us their beliefs and their backstories, just to take these made assumptions from us in the last few chapters. That was brilliantly done! What we suspected about the Organas - wrong. Indo's son - wrong, and the shining happy end I was unconsciously expecting, including the tearful reunion of father and son and brother and sister, snatched from under our very nose.
You know the very idealistic and naive part of me wanted to have this happy end where Vader lives and reconciles with Luke, where the Alliance wins and everyone lives happily ever after. Of course that's not how things would go in this story which is in all its brutality in the end of the day only brutally realistic. You showed people, most of them wretched and broken yes, but in the end of day people with all their flaws and how live is never fair. No heros and no fairy tales in the real world right?
There were many a times when I flinched at the inhuman treatment of Luke and the pitiful state he was reduced to by years of abuse from Vader and Palpatine, only to think that sadly such abuse is common in our normal world (despite there being nothing like Sith Lords), and that you portrayed the fractured and broken soul of an abuse victim masterfully (especially how he would hold on to his loyalty to the Emperor to the very end, despite everything that has been done to him).

I loved how you drew up that growing friendship between Luke and Han, how the characters developed and learned, and I loved how you spun the intrigues and took them sometimes nearly past the endurable for the reader, only to culminate everything in such a furious finale. There were many moments when I thought I knew how the story would go, only to be surprised yet again.
The most brilliant thing though is, and I only realized that now reflecting about the whole thing, is how you managed to destroy and alter every single character's preconceived view of the world in this story. Everything they believed in, what they thought was right and wrong, who they thought was friend or enemy was taken from them, and they were forced to change their point of view. And they are all left standing in the middle of the broken bits and pieces of what they firmly believed in for years.
It's not a happy scenario, and therefore it's fitting that there wouldn't be a traditional happy ending. Apart from that the wounds inflicted and the scars acccumulated over the years could never really heal properly. I see that, and I know that the outcome couldn't realistically haven't been any different, still I mourn a little for all these broken people - Luke, Vader, Indo, Kenobi, Leia and Han - and I would have wished them a little happiness and the ability to salvage something from the mess.
I think this story will hang with me for a long time, especially because it's so disturbing at times, and because it denied me the easy satisfaction that everything is going to be alright in the end. That's how it normally is, or not? Challenging stories move you to think, and that makes them so good. This is certainly one of the best Imperial Luke stories I've ever come across, and big kudos to you for writing it and sticking with through all its (incredible!) length!

5/10 The Story is very slow.

Now I understand that I'm 7 years late, but I have to comment. That was the most amazing description of a lightsaber fight I've ever read. Although I disagree with how it ended. While Luke is more agile and has a better raw Force connection due to Vader's injuries, Vader would win essentially every duel against a 16 year old Luke. Vader is undoubtedly a better Force user and duelist at this point. Anakin during RotS would beat this Luke, and Vader 16 years later is a good deal stronger than Anakin. I don't know if you are included in this list, but I feel as if a lot of people think that Vader was always weaker after RotS. If Vader had top of the line cybernetics and if his suit wasn't extremely sensitive to Force lightning, there's a very good chance that he would be able to beat Sidious in single combat.

This story is so well done I just keep coming back to it. Starting my 3rd read through now...

holy shit this is so good

Oof. Great story. Not as viscerally satisfying as your previous trilogy, but given the premise, how could it have been? The addiction and abuse was deftly handled, and you've polished your prose and surpassed some frankly bizarre obsessions with certain iconography and turns of phrase- I was worried that blue eyed boy was gonna be the next wolf or mismatched eyes but nope, most of your poetic excess was left to fight scenes. Moving onto the sequel immediately.

That was awesomely epic. Thanks! Looking forward to the sequel, and trying to predict where the villain would be coming from...

I like the more Vader development a lot-I might even linger a little longer on his past with Padme, but I am a sap. I wasn't expecting g Han to contact him, but it's one of those plot moments that locks into place really, really well-it unexpected as it is, it also seems obvious when it happens. the best way out, the continuation of the epic...

wow, that was a great chapter. I love the way the pieces came together about Luke's past, and the horrible choice-and his emotions. You've done a great job of bringing the narrator into his head.

I don't think it's easy to write real tragedy well-it can get too histronic-but I never felt that here. This seemed like a very real, very painful, very raw moment.

haha, that was an almost humorous reveal. I loved getting a glimpse of Vader's personality here-something beyond his usual, festering pain.