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[spatz]

Well, I'm back on a Star Wars kick (again? always), as you may have noticed, so everything is Star Wars this month.

THE MANDALORIAN

Shadow and Apprentice by @aureutr / Aureutr_Accoredge (Din/Luke)

Din Djarin has served Mand'alor the Ruthless as Alo'prudii for nearly a decade. It hasn't been easy, the Mand'alor is even more mad than the stories say. And he seems to be slipping.

Dragged along to Tatooine for the Mand'alor's vengeful whims, Din ends up skirting his vows to make another promise.

He doesn't expect much in his life to change. Everything does.

Mildly obsessed with this AU where Maul kept control of Mandalore, and Din has been raised to be loyal to him but is miserable about it, and starts questioning things (and falling in love) when Maul kidnaps Luke.

bright centers of the universe, in orbit by CaroGolden & EmilianaDarling (Din/Luke)

After one of his first solo jobs goes sideways, Din meets Luke ten years early in a holding cell on Tatooine. Luke's buyer, someone powerful enough to threaten the Hutts, has left strict instructions not to lay a hand on him.

They use Din to hurt him instead.

MIND THE WARNINGS on this one, it was brilliantly hurty but pretty rough going. Lovely hopeful ending, though.

Five Things Din Djarin Learned from the Mandalorians and One Thing he Didn't by @orockthro (gen)

“Your pilot’s dead,” he says when the comm clicks through.

“What--”

“No more jobs with pilots who don’t know when an engine is about to blow.”

He clicks the comm off, tosses it into the corner of the room, and sleeps for two days.

Nice slice-of-life backstory piece.

PREQUELS/CLONE WARS

In Want of a Hyperdrive by Tassos (gen)

In an AU where as a boy Obi-Wan never met Qui-Gon Jinn and was instead abducted by slavers, the events of The Phantom Menace take a different turn when Queen Amidala's ship lands on Tatooine in want of a hyperdrive.

Qui-Gon and Padmé meet two Force-sensitives, find a way to raise money for the hyperdrive that doesn't involve a podrace, and get caught between the powerful forces of Tatooine's slave-owners and the Dark Side pursuing them.

I looooved this! Amazing read, fantastic AU premise and plotty action-adventure ensemble piece, and the characterization is wrenching and complex and so good. Special love to her inclusion of fialleril’s Tatooine slave culture worldbuilding, Qui-Gon’s hubris being called out, Obi-Wan’s trauma and love and badassery while having to fight monsters in gladiator pit cage matches, and Artoo being the chaos gremlin we all love.

stars sing my name, scars tell my story by whymylife (gen)

Anakin wasn’t sure how to ask, so he didn't.

Instead, he waited until Master Kenobi fell asleep and stayed up to tinker in the dark, building his own scanner out of parts stolen from the trash.

The chip was in his right thigh.

In which Anakin holds onto the lessons of his enslaved childhood more tightly, and thereby changes the path of canon and the fate of the clones. Satisfying fix-it. (also reminds me of ain't no life to live like you're on the run, which is sadly gone off AO3 but still available archived.)

The More I Live the More I See this Life is Not About Me by K_R_Closson (gen)

After touching a mysterious artifact, Cody's general is suddenly a child with the memories to match. Cody has to coax a suspicious adolescent back to base without alerting the nearby Separatists of their presence.

Reversing his general's age an easier fix than Cody thought it would be, but he didn't factor in the possibility that Obi-Wan might not want to give up his self in order to become General Kenobi again. It'd be easier to think if he didn't have an insidious voice in his head, whispering to him to distrust the Jedi.

There's a fair number of de-aged Obi-Wan fics out there, but this is the rare one that really balances 'this traumatized kiddo needs to be protected' feels against 'this prickly suspicious stubborn teenager has superpowers and a nose for trouble.' (pour one out for Cody, poor man. this one's gen but he's so devoted to Obi-Wan here, it's great) Plus, solid fix-it plot!

Through a Glass, Darkly by glimmerglanger (Obi-Wan/Anakin)

Obi-Wan had gotten to within an arm’s length of him. But it wasn’t...really Obi-Wan. He wore robes similar to his usual style, true enough. But they were splattered with something dark and wet. His hair was longer. His face was clean-shaven. He frowned across at Anakin, tilting his head to the side, and started, “Anakin, are you--”

OR, the one where Anakin gets lost in a universe that isn't... quite right and has to find his way home.

Excellent mirrorverse story where canon!Anakin swaps with Anakin from a universe where the Sith took power years ago. Balances the personal and the plotty aspects well as the switch causes big ripple effects in both universes, and glimmer’s strong characterization really nails that tropey pleasure of ‘what is essential and what is not in this character’ that I love with people meeting alternate selves. (there’s also a number of related snippets in a prompt collection here)