#comentter

The scene where Obi-Wan and Anakin make their way through the Jedi temple in Wake lives in my head rent-free!

Well @comentter I certainly did offer (and thank you for taking up the challenge), so let’s get started! This gets long. Sorry, not sorry.

2: What scene did you first put down?

The first scene I put down … I’m not sure. I wrote all of the Origin chapters (and I mean all of them) before I even started posting the story, but … I’m pretty sure it was the ‘Kasmir death’ scene. That, or the ‘Kasmir describes the sky to blind Caleb’ scene. (You’re about to start seeing a trend here lol)

3: What’s your favorite line of narration?

My favorite line of narration … uh, that’s hard out of 250k worth of content but … probably this entire paragraph out of Chapter 7:

The Kalleran continued to tell him about the sky and what it looked like, what the colors were as they bled into one another before fading into inky blue, and in Caleb’s mind, in his imagination, he could see it, all of it. He knew it was embellished by all the memories he’d collected of the night sky across the galaxy, on all the planets he’d visited. He knew his imagination paled in comparison to seeing the real thing … but it was alright. With Kasmir’s help he imagined something almost real, and he valued the fabrication as much as he valued the real thing. He was quietly thankful to Kasmir for painting the sky for him, the first sky he had experienced in almost half a year. 

There was a certain pure and innocent magic that came with writing this particular bit that has always been one of my favorite parts of the entire story, and still sticks out in my mind. It’s the final beautiful, happy moment Caleb has in his new life before it all begins to tank. It’s very special.

4: What’s your favorite line of dialogue?

Ah, this one’s easy because it was the most tailored and emotionally loaded bit of story I wrote (next to the entire Forgiveness chapter in the temple, which is its own affair entirely).

“I like it,” Kasmir finally said, a small, satisfied smile pulling at his lips as his body fully relaxed. “Kanan.”

The Kasmir death scene butchered me, but these four little words are my favorite bit of dialogue because it’s essentially Kasmir baptizing Caleb into his new life as Kanan, which is the final act of his life. I sobbed writing this particular bit (this entire chapter in fact). When I was done writing it, I’d conned myself into believing that’s what actually happened in canon.

I’m always very relieved Kasmir is, in fact, still alive in canon.

5: What part was hardest to write?

The hardest part to write in Blackbird, by far, was the Thrawn chapter. You guys don’t even know how many hours went into planning and orchestrating Chapter 25 so it would be as clever and as brilliant as I could make it and Thrawn (this was before I’d gotten a more solid handle on Thrawn’s character too). I was so worried about that chapter and if it would fly or sink. You have no idea.

It did encourage me to write more Thrawn though.

11: What do you like best about this fic?

What do I like best about Blackbird? Frankly, it was getting to interact with you readers and learning better how to be a part of the fandom (something I’d never done before). It was kind of a springboard into that. This fic helped me find and make some pretty great friends :]

That, and it taught me I could finish an epic-length story while also teaching me about the editing process. It’s its own other post about all the things writing this fic taught me. Hopefully one day I’ll convince myself to write about it lol.

12: What do you like least about this fic?

There’s not really anything I didn’t like about this fic, to be honest. I wrote it as best I could to the best of my ability, and I wrote it my way. It’s hard to feel ashamed about anything in Blackbird when it was literally all I had to give as a writer and creator. 

The only thing I really disliked about the fic was how long it took to write it. I’m an impatient person and I usually like to have projects done in about three months. This took its sweet time (over a year) to complete. Staying motivated and on track, reconciling my limitations when I had to take breaks and hiatus’s, and not aborting the story during those times it felt like no one in the world was reading it was the probably the thing I liked least about this fic.

J: Write or describe an alternative ending to [insert fic].

Backbone never had an alternate ending, neither did Wake. Gambit at one point was supposed to end with a version of Code Word Retribution/Order 66 being carried out in the Gambitverse, so basically massacres in the Naboo throne room, on Alderaan, at the CIS Congress, but I thought it was too depressing and couldn't figure out what to do with the Wake trio there. Kept the Naboo throne room massacre but it ended up not being Amidala there, obviously, and that's in the middle of the fic.

Normally I don't write so stories can have alternate endings -- because of the way I have keystone scenes I don't tend to write to a point where I can actually end in a different way. (I mean, I'm sure there are ways all of these stories could have ended differently, but that's not how I think of them!)

R: Are there any writers (fanfic or otherwise) you consider an influence?

oh, for sure! there are def fanfic authors who influenced me but I can't...think...of any...right now... though like, to some extent I still write my fanfic the way that was very common in the early/mid-'00s -- mostly in HP fandom during the Three Year Summer, but you saw it in BtVS and a few other fandoms too, which was a tendency to do very plotty fic that I feel is slightly less common these days, and that was when I started in fandom so that's the fic genre I write.

Lothal: Favorite scene(s)

Kanan revealing himself as a Jedi in Spark of Rebellion will forever be one of my favorite scenes in all of Star Wars.

Natasha Romanoff had been decidedly uncertain about the whole Captain America thing at first, but by the time they were two minutes out from Stuttgart she decided she liked Steve Rogers, at least inasmuch as she liked anyone on such short notice when they hadn’t yet had the opportunity to have their hands in each other’s guts.