Beyond - Legends Saga "From Such Infinite Space" | UDC X; Multi-era, Ensemble Cast

Love them all. Ahsoka and the Kaminoan healers perfect. Rex isn't a specimen

 

A marvelous, lovely use of all the prompts as they weave together the feelings and relationships amongst the characters. All tied together by your unfailingly lovely writing!

 

Okay, it's probably going to take me forever to get back around to replying to everything I still need to reply to, but I noticed this immediately and have to ask... is this from "Make This Go On Forever"? Because I love it. (And lol, I just pulled up my list of potential song lyric fic names and found this on there. Great minds again! )

 

What a lovely set! You capture the characters beautifully. I especially love Ahsoka's intuition that Anakin is going to self-destruct.

 

Lovely sets! Also, Neruda really is the best, isn't he?

I love how you've depicted everyone here. Zaed fighting back his dark past to stay on his new path, Obi-Wan's insight that Qui-Gon would forgive him, Anakin's complicated feelings about accepting Zaed while also sensing that he came very close to the darkness himself. And of course, Luke and Mara.

Looking forward to reading more!

 

Very nice sets with Obi-Wan, Anakin, Luke and Mara and Zaed about the dark

 

These drabbles! That poem! Like water for chocolate are your words flowing through me. Factual statement this: in all universes, Luke and Mara are friends, and so much more.

 

Finally here

With all these NJO ones, I want nothing more than to shake my fist at the profic It's interesting to look back on the NJO now, both remembering what it was to read it at the time and seeing it from a distance, and after reading the books that followed it, that were so much darker, yet also so much more poorly executed. In retrospect, I think that the NJO set for itself an astonishingly ambitious goal and, overall, achieved it surprisingly well. That said, it still had plenty of flaws, and it was darker than I would have preferred in profic (which is tricky to explain since I'm perfectly fine with darkness in the pro stories, and since I'm well aware that the NJO's basic premise and length really did require more darkness than the usual story; I think it may boil down to the length aspect, that the darkness had to last for so many books at a time that it just began to feel so hopeless even when the narrative still offered hope), and in these drabbles you touch on some of the parts that bothered me most, which triggers the fist-shaking reflex

Such as this: even though I had never read Tenel Ka in anything before the NJO, it was easy to see how much weight was on her shoulders, and what an impossible burden it truly was, and this poor girl really needed a moment like this now and then to alleviate all that.

And then there's Chewie *sigh* I understand what they were trying to accomplish with Chewie's death. I maintain that it was the wrong decision. Yeah, sure, in a real war no one is safe. This was a fictional one, with a relatively small core cast even at this point in the EU (at least in the context of a galaxy-wide war that would span nineteen books), and every author could and did come up with new minor characters to die in each book, and the core cast still suffered serious losses and mental and emotional and physical injuries. It wasn't necessary to kill any of them, and I don't think it served the narrative to do so (Zahn's said that each character killed means so many potential stories cut off at the root; sure, sometimes a character has to die, but never take that decision lightly), and I think it made a number of readers wary and unhappy right off the bat, and also I notice y'all killed off a character who was more of a challenge to figure out what to do with than a lot of others, ya bunch of cowards; y'all literally do this for a living, so you could have figured out things for the Wookiee to do

Watch me just rant about the NJO through this whole set; you have brought this upon yourself, Mira

This, of course, is what upset me most about the NJO: how the Skywalker/Solo family became so divided, in so many ways. And again, yes, sure, that's realistic. In times of such immense stress as this, even close bonds can be tested. But I guess it's related to the length of the series again, that so much of it was drawn out for so long. And I didn't agree with the way a lot of it was handled. And the tension between Han and Anakin was one of my least favorite parts of the NJO.

Don't even get me started about no Skydaughters and then being separated from Ben almost immediately, and for so long

Feedback for the actual story, right One of the things that the NJO did more right than otherwise was Luke and Mara's relationships with their nephews and niece, and I love Mara's reflections here

We should have had more moments like this, though *shakes fist*

This is so completely in character for Jaina

ANAKIN *shakes fist* But so beautifully written *chef kiss*

I'll give the NJO this: it did show more of the realistic impacts that being soldiers in a war would have on teenagers than the OT did. More than TCW, too.

lolol

I mean, how else would a child that age react? Poor Ben

Ben is such a smol sweetheart

I love Ben having Mara's expressions and body langauge

Awww

I love it

Good call, Ben

Right??

Yeah, that would be daunting

The Jedi Order clearly didn't take into account the level of trauma this boy was dealing with. Everyone in this galaxy needs therapy.

Get her, Rex

I love Obi-Wan

You know, we often see Padmé's achievements framed as a laudable thing - after all, look how smart and talented and capable and dedicated to serving others she is. And she is all of those things. But. Wasn't she in the junior legislature something or other at 8yo? And mayor of Theed at 11yo, iirc? And elected queen of an entire planet at 14? And then went straight to being a galactic senator when she was done being queen? She barely had more of a childhood than Mara had. That's not actually healthy. So, yeah, little too much pressure here on one too young to really bear it, who's already been bearing it since she was a literal child.

Basically everything about the clone army was deeply immoral, and I don't know whether Lucas specifically meant it to be interpreted like this, but I see it as a sign of just how badly the Jedi have lost their way, that they ever thought that it was an acceptable thing to lead - and therefore grant their stamp of approval to - an army that is literally created for that purpose, thousands upon thousands upon thousands of sentient individuals who never had any choice at all, or were ever even meant to have any other life but this, until it killed them. Sure, more of the Jedi than not treated their troops with respect and concern and even affection, but that doesn't change the fact that this whole thing was inexcusable from the very beginning.

And yet, those emotional bonds that we know existed really made Order 66 all the more painful and tragic, so good job constructing that narrative arc, Lucas

This feels like an excellent summary of their dynamic in TCW

Yeah, child soldiers are bad, guys

He's not wrong

I can definitely see that memory being especially painful for Anakin through all of this

Well, that's not good

Even stars die out

Gosh, I love all this science-art writing

That's my girl

I will never not be amused that whatever slanderous things Maul might think about Obi-Wan, Ahsoka is always "Lady Tano"

You go, smol!Mara

I really like this plant, Mira

I feel like this, specifically, has been one of the primary messages of SW all the way back since RotJ. The culmination of the OT is one of the most memorable villains ever choosing to turn away from the dark. If someone is genuinely willing to make that choice and do the work necessary to support and maintain it, then yes, the light is reachable.

Ouch, but also, yeah.

Now that has the ring of perfect truth.

Perhaps a bit impatiently?

Excellent Mara characterization

This boy, always seeing the best in everyone

That's right