#thedunesea

[bedlamsbard]

I was woken this morning by the AO3 email notification (I really need to catch up with down to the flood, and silence my phone before bed) and then fell asleep again and dreamt you had written a Natasha Romanoff/Obi-Wan Kenobi fic. To say I woke up confused is an understatement

ahahaha oh NO

however this does give me an excuse to link @shorelle's fabulous PT/CATWS art from many years ago! I still think about her Padme-as-Black Widow design because it's such a fabulous mix of costumes from both universes...

[dark--whisperings]

Fic Rec Friday!!! ❤️✨

There's so many FANTASTIC writers in the Star Wars fandom who put so much time and love into their work, so I thought it might be fun to celebrate their work and highlight and some of the fics that are living rent free in my head each week!

___

'Til the end, then hell and back

Author: thedunesea (@thedunesea)

Rating: Explicit

Pairing(s): Anakin Skywalker/Obi-Wan Kenobi

Summary:

“Thork here tells me you’re looking for passage to the Alderaan system." “Yes, indeed, if it’s a fast ship,” said another voice in a clipped coruscanti accent, and for a moment Anakin’s heart forgot how to beat. It can’t be, he thought. It’s impossible. But the Force was roaring in his ears — was it the Force or was it his blood? Or were they one and the same? — and, even though he had stopped trusting in it years ago, the Force had never lied to him before, not like that. Ten years after the Fall of the Republic, two parallel lines converge.

Read it here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/44775541/chapters/112655176

I'm absolutely not ashamed to say that I read this entire work in one sitting. I stayed up way too late and am relying on a disgusting amount of coffee to survive work the day after, but IT WAS ABSOLUTELY WORTH IT. This fic is such a unique take on Order 66 and what came after, and I literally cannot stop thinking about it. And the characterizations?! I'm drooling. They are bang on, yet match the new future the characters have found themselves in in this canon divergence AU. 1000/10. Will absolutely be re-reading this again. And again. And... probably again.

... and likely again.

___

somebody to lie in the dark with

Author: tideswept (@tideswept)

Rating: Explicit

Pairing(s): Anakin Skywalker/Obi-Wan Kenobi

Summary:

A lingering sense of duty tugged at him. Anakin’s steps faltered. “Why did you kill them?” Obi-Wan turned to look at him. His eyes were yellow like molten gold, smoldering with an intensity that left Anakin dizzy, overheated, an answering fire in his chest stoked to bursting. “They were in my way,” said Obi-Wan. He cocked his head. “Do you not trust me?” 

Read it here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50094883

Okay, tideswept's writing in general makes me feral, but this fic was SOMETHING ELSE entirely. Their possessive Sith Obi-Wan Kenobi is SO HOT, and the TENSION they achieved between Anakin and Obi-Wan.... urg. I think I need to go sit in the freezer for a while. And I can't forget to mention the absolute perfection and ambiguity of the last few lines of the fic. I'm rattling the bars of my cage and I wish that I could read this for the first time all over again! ❤️❤️❤️

[ragnarlothcat]

🤡 and 🧠 for the ask game!

PS I stumbled upon your time loop fic a few days ago and loved it, so you can imagine how stoked I was to see your new fic today! It was oh so painfully good 💕

Ahhh thank you!!! I'm glad people are largely being very sweet about how neglected that poor fic is because I do think about it a lot and feel very guilty! (For the fic ask game!)

🤡 What's a line, scene, or exchange you've written that made you laugh?

A lot of my writing makes me laugh because I am a barbarian who laughs at their own jokes (I do this in conversation too, to mixed reception) but I've just been re-reading my demon fic for Halloween so, from the very beginning:

Cody seems to sense the slight tension in the room and thumps Obi-Wan on the back. “Now all we need is to set you up with someone. There’s a guy at work—” Quinlan wrinkles his nose. “What’s he going to say at the end of the date? ‘Hey baby, want to come back to my place? Eleven people met their grisly ends in my house, and if you play your cards right, you and I can be numbers twelve and thirteen’?”

I really like the whole first chapter of that fic! I think it's funny but also a bit spooky. Halloween vibes!

🧠 Pick a character, and I'll tell you my favorite headcanon for them.

I just pick someone? Okay! I think it's a super common headcanon but I do believe that Anakin runs cold. To me it explains his giant dark coloured robes, his mitten sleeves and his need for constant attention and cuddles or else he'll immediately die. I think it makes sense given where he's from and because the dark side is cold, right? Anyway maybe Obi-Wan was hoping that setting Anakin on fire at the end of Mustafar would result in a Cremation of Sam McGee situation but instead he got a murder cyborg who torments the galaxy for twenty years. If only someone had thought to buy Anakin an electric blanket when he was a Padawan instead!

[gffa]

I'm sorry I'm late, but happy birthday! May the Force be with you <3

You’re not late!  It’s still my birthday here and you are very welcome to join in! JOIN ME IN LAUGHING AT HOW AMAZING THIS CAKE IS FOR INSTANCE:

[bedlamsbard]

People hated on gambit sparring scene?????? This world is full of idiots. Period. It's one of the best, if not THE BEST sparring scenes in the whole fandom, I loved Anakin vs. Luminara, and the Obi-Wan/captain Kenobi duel is chef's kiss. God people really suck. You don't even need to answer this, it's just that I love those two stories so much and I'm so grateful to you for them that every time you talk about the feedback you got I go into a rage and I want you to know that those stories are also loved a lot :)

Oh, people hated (and still hate) some part of every aspect of Gambit, I don't think there's a single element of that story that hasn't gotten some kind of negative reaction.

I don't think the sparring scene got a lot of dislike, but it got enough that it sticks in my head years later. (I mean, it could just be one or two comments, but with Gambit it all builds up. People tend to delete their critical comments too, so then I just sound crazy talking about them because often they aren't there anymore. Not always, like, the "you are advocating female violence against men" and "all the loose sex is repulsive" comments are still there, plus many others.) The sparring scene in Gambit is one of several sequences that's been labeled as self-indulgent on my part before (another one is the Lake House plot line in Backbone, where I got accused of "showing off my worldbuilding chops"). It's why I'm very hesitant about sparring scenes or similar these days. I went through a lot of internal drama about the blade dance in Yonder and I'm still not sure I made the right call keeping it.

Thank you for reading and letting me know. <3

[bedlamsbard]

For the ask meme, what's your favorite novel?

I tend to read series rather than singlets (and I don't tend to count those individual books on their own) and I don't know that I have one absolute favorite, but I've got a few of the standalones I return to on my desk right now for various reasons and they are

Spindle's End, Robin McKinley

Stranger at the Wedding, Barbara Hambly

Dogsbody, Diana Wynne Jones

Bride of the Rat God, Barbara Hambly

(Stranger at the Wedding is set in the same universe as one of Hambly's other series, but isn't about the same set of characters, so it counts as a standalone now.)

[bedlamsbard]

If I can be so greedy as to ask three... c, i and k. And thank you for your stunning writing.

Thank you!

C: What member do you identify with most?

I'm assuming this means "character"... probably still Hera Syndulla, tbh, but there's nearly always something in every character. With Hera, there are for sure a few scenes in canon where I know a lot of people responded with "wow, this is really out of character, she doesn't behave like this, no one behaves like this" and I was like "this is perfectly in character and makes perfect sense, because I do that all the time." Backbone!Hera is probably the most like me of any character I've written, but a lot of that is definitely rooted in canon!Hera despite the AU.

I: Do you have a guilty pleasure in fic (reading or writing)?

For writing, I get really self-conscious about scenes I'm worried about being self-indulgent (I've been called out on being too self-indulgent in fic before, yes, it was Gambit, it's always Gambit -- actually, in this case it was both Gambit and Backbone), so even though I try not to really think in terms of "guilty pleasure" there are definitely scenes that fall into that category -- fight scenes (I love writing fight scenes), things like the blade dance in Yonder 7, flashbacks, too-extensive worldbuilding or extraneous characters, too quippy banter, etc. I try really hard not to think of them in terms in guilty pleasures, but...yeah, seriously, once you've had a couple of readers tell you "oh, you just put this in because you wanted to or because you wanted to show off your worldbuilding or because you think fight scenes are cool" there's always that fear in the back of my head when I'm writing things like that. (These are all comments I've gotten.)

Reading...I do, and again I try not to think of them as guilty pleasures, but that's also stuff I'm not going to talk about publicly lol.

K: What’s the angstiest idea you’ve ever come up with?

I know with the benefit of hindsight Yonder (presumably) seems like a hopeful and triumphant story, but the original plan for it didn't involve Thor coming back and ended with Loki still pretty miserable! Other than that...probably the Yonder prequel, which is a lot about dealing with the Snap and the aftermath of it and everyone's emotions around it. (This is planned to be mostly a Steve POV.) I feel like I don't write a lot of pure angst because I don't find it particularly enjoyable; I always do want my stories to end on hope. (Plus, I tend to do complicated plot, which doesn't lend itself to being very angsty in and of itself.) I guess the premise for Backbone is actually pretty angsty.

[renlyslittlerose]

For the ask game, 6 (any fic of your choosing!), 13, 23! 💗

Thank you, peach!

For this ask game~

6. What’s one fact about the universe of [insert fic] that you didn’t get a chance to mention in the fic itself?

I honestly don't know? Haha. I try and slip in all the 'facts' that I can throughout the story.

13. Are there any tropes you used to like but don’t anymore?:

Enemies to lovers (unless it's Spuffy). I now prefer friends to lovers (and then occasionally to enemies). I just like when two people who are super close become even closer. And then are ripped apart and feel as if they've lost a part of themselves 😊

Also not one for a lot of fluff as of late. I enjoy fluff mixed into a story, or if it's a smutty oneshot or something. But I don't often go out seeking a story that's just fluffy fun. Nothing against that, of course! But it's not been the vibe for the past little while in terms of my reading choices.

23. What’s a trope, AU, or concept you’ve never written, but would like to?

I'm going to be dipping my toes into the GFFA universe, but writing an Alternate Timeline fic which I've never done before. I'm quite excited to try my hand at that, even though it is awfully intimidating. I'd also like to write something strictly horror based, but I've not been in the right headspace for it as of late.