Title: Shattered Glass
Author: Padlei
Rating: T
Genre: Angst/Romance
Status: Complete
Fandom: Star Wars AU
Pairings: Anakin/Padme... kind of.
Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4831042/1/Shattered-Glass
Summary: ROTS AU. What if Padmé waited for Anakin to come back from Mustafar like he asked her to? But what Obi-Wan told her has shaken her and she quickly realizes the Anakin coming back to her is not really her husband…

So I've been on an Anakin kick lately, and I've been hunting for good redemption stories/post-Vader "back in time" style fics. This is neither, but I ran into it while looking for those (if you know any good ones, hit me up, please )

Be warned before reading: This fiction is slow and angsty, which is a pretty bad combination. It's fairly long at 170k words, and the pace is slow, but it picks up at the beginning.

This fic does an excellent job of portraying, above all, the Dark Side. It's not just an emotional tap or played lip service; it's legitimately Dark, and shows the struggle of resisting temptation - and the near impossibility of escaping once you're caught. It's an angst-filled adventure where Anakin taints everything he touches, and Padme can only do her best. The main point of divergence is Padme's survival; she stands by Anakin time and time again despite her better judgement, and suffers for it. It really picks up near the second half as it becomes clear that she's being touched as well. One good (or bad) thing about it is also that it focuses on the characters and their development; background events like politics and wars are given lip service at best, and combat scenes are only vessels to drive future development.

I love this as a character piece and as a display of the Dark Side as it should be - malignant, corrupting, addictive. It has its flaws, but I'm pretty desperate for SW materiel right now, so it's very possible that I simply glossed over them. I definitely recommend giving it a try; if you can stand the angst, it's a good read. 4/5

 

premise sounds interesting but your link is... slightly off.

 

That was... unusual. I fixed it.

 

okay. having read through about a dozen chapters i felt like i had to drop this. the premise is
fairly interesting and the beginning meshes well with RotS because you get to see canon dialogue in their altered situation which helps to ground it.

unfortunately that also includes lucas-style dialogue which continues well after the rails have been jumped. characters also leap to conclusions fairly easily and theres very little believable (to me) justification as to why padme is so reluctant to stick by anakin other than "he scares me but there is still good in him. deep down. really deep down. its hard to see but its there. honest. and that means i must try"

where the plot really derailed was nice to see but it could have used a lot more build up imo. the plot sort of does move along but the last development for where i read up to is really what made me put this one down.

tentative 2.5/5 from me, possibly higher if it gets better down the line but honestly the beginning just doesnt do it for me.