Seconding Jean. "Single destined soulmates" is something that immediately makes me nope out, because while it's not a concept that I think there's no way someone could play that I would find interesting, what I would find interesting is not something 99.99% of soulmate AU fic is interested in writing, and what they are interested in writing often feels to me like a shortcut around most of the parts I'd actually care about. Stories about destiny where the inciting incident is Destiny, you know that Destiny is going to win in the end, know what that looks like, and that's an outcome you're supposed to be cheering for are a tough sell for me; I need more ambiguity and room to be surprised to care much. Stories where people have soulmate AU mechanics connected to everyone important in their lives, on the other hand, feel more like a way of externalizing the interpersonal relationships that are already there, which makes it work more like a vehicle for character study.
Speaking as a shipper I can appreciate a good "the destiny is telling these two to get together" but, like. IDK how else to explain it other than it being the emotional equivalent of a ravishment kink. "Sorry your self-esteem sucks, but the universe is literally handing you someone who will never ever get tired of telling you they love you. Get over yourself xoxo" is just a really funny thing to put a character through, but it's not exactly escaping the your partner vs everyone else trap. I just feel like that's a distinctly different genre of popcorn romance entertainment than soulmate stories that grapple with the idea of A Destined Partnership For Good Or For Ill and all of the various baggages therein. Or at least I experience it as a different genre of entertainment. I approach it the same way I approach high-concept kink, I'm not here to analyse the worldbuilding, I am here to experience visceral gratification of the blorbos kissing lmao
they're the same AU. geese were introduced to deal with the roach infestation in the soulmate system and the rest is history
so this fic series is just. phenomenal. i love it so much. however. midway through the series, the characters inexplicably start swearing by "the maker", in some sort of religious fashion. why. half these characters are Jedi, if anything they should be swearing by the Force. most of the rest are clone troopers (no order 66 happy ending au), and the series goes into detail about how they have cobbled together their culture from (mostly) bits of Mando and Jedi culture, which they have changed and evolved and made their own. so i would be expecting them to swear by the Force or the stars or their fallen vode, not the maker. wtf. Have i somehow missed some big thing in the star wars universe? is there a "maker" people talk about like they're saying "god"?? like when Obi-Wan Kenobi says something along the lines of "all the maker's creations are equal", rather than something like "all beings are equal in the eyes of the Force". I start to question things.
...did they have a religious conversion midway through writing the fic or something? did they get really into dragon age all of a sudden? wtf
they've written other star wars stuff outside of the series since they started that, and they make no mention of "the maker", so who knows. Maybe they were misinformed, somehow, and by the time they'd realized that they're wrong they felt like they had to keep it up for consistency. I just really wish they would not.
Maybe the entire fic is narrated by C3PO, who's taking some liberties with the verbiage (Edit to clarify: C3PO does swear by "the Maker" sometimes, tho I think he's the only character to do so)
Tfw a fic very clearly sets up the groundwork for pairing A/B, and then runs a poll in the comments about what ships to write in. Upon getting the results, they abruptly pivot to A/C with little to no lead up.
once more i am clearly team 'i am writing this for me but you can read it too i guess' Never in my life would i let people poll on what ships i write in the middle of a fic. what the fuck
the story looks very interesting, and I've liked the author's previous work, but the story begins with a key explaining that there are five different timeframes labelled in the story, some of which overlap and some of which are being written non-chronologically, and I don't think my noggin can handle that right now. Spoiler: the labels Scenes and chapters labelled "Now" are all chronological. Scenes and chapters labelled "Before" take place during Airplane's first life, in the modern world. These are not chronological. Scenes and chapters labelled "Then" take place during Airplane's second life, as Shang Qinghua. These are not chronological. Scenes and chapters labelled "Soon" take place later than whenever the nearest "now" is set. Eventually Now will catch up with Soon. Scenes and chapters labelled "Not Yet" take place signficantly later than whenver the most recent "now" is set. Presumably Now will eventually catch up with Not Yet.
Then is written non-chronologically, so never, but also the first Then entry might be the "last" one in the chronology? When the guy dies for the second time. it's very complicated. edit: nope the "Then" timeline keeps going after the guy dies, I have no fucking clue how this is going to all weave together
So I have encountered another Star Wars fic which uses "the maker" in this way in the wild! Completely unrelated to the previous fic, by a different author and everything. Why.
