Lately, I've been procrastinating writing a tricky bit of Fortunate's Rule wanting to draw a scene where Ahsoka has been knighted, and Anakin has taken on Starkiller as his second padawan.
This drawing began as a pencil sketch on a light day at work. (On printer paper. With a crappy eraser. It was painful.) And then I photographed the sketch, loaded the pic in Krita, and colored over it. Then found a Varykino pic to go off of for the background, since the trio seemed to require one.
I'm fairly happy with it! Really pleased with the shading on the clothes, and with Ahsoka's lekku in general. Shading Anakin's face was incredibly trying for some reason, however, and I'm not at all sure that he looks ~10 years older than in TCW.
Oh, and Krita has this cool impasto brush that made filling in the gravel on the patio so easy! There's also a nice sponge brush that made the water similarly simple.
(See below for OG sketch and pose reference credit.)
The OG sketch:
Based off of this pose reference that I found on Pinterest, by mellon_soup.
So, I was watching Randy Rainbow videos on YouTube this evening, and it occurred to me that there would probably be someone like Randy Rainbow in the SW galaxy, out there criticizing Palpatine, Vader, the Moffs, etc., with "interviews" and clever, witty showtune parody holos.
Sure, this individual would have to be in disguise and doing the holos from a super-secret location, but you know somebody out there would be doing it... and oh my, would I love to see those.
Or, how Ben Kenobi’s boldfaced lie prevarication saved the Galaxy (but not in the way he thought it would).
(See Part One, Part Two, Part Three)
Part Four
The Sith were a bit too clever for their own good when they made the clones’ biochips all but impossible to fully remove. If Marshal Commander Cody had been de-chipped when Order 71 came in, he wouldn’t have known what the fark Order 71 even was.
But because his chip was neutralized rather than removed, not only is Cody no longer compelled to obey Order 71, but he also knows precisely what Order 71 is… and thus precisely what he needs to do to in order to avert it.
Cody is quick and he’s smart and he’s tough, but most of all he’s adaptable. It’s not as though he attained his current rank and position by pure chance.
So when the hooded figure appears, he immediately starts recording the holo transmission.
He then takes the recording – and his realizations – straight to his General.
Here’s the thing:
The Jedi have a few recordings of the mysterious Sith lord, largely retrieved from abandoned Separatist strongholds. None of them still have audio, however, and despite their specialists’ best efforts, they haven’t been able to glean any useful information from them.
This is because Palpatine normally obscures himself very well on holo transmissions, in addition to ensuring that the channel is highly encrypted and the signal untraceable.
But he got sloppy this time, assuming that as a chipped clone, Cody was already on his side, so what difference would it make anyway??
Upon being presented with this new data, Obi-Wan Kenobi is gobsmacked.
The Chancellor is the Sith master they’ve been searching for all these years?
It… makes a disturbing amount of sense when he stops to think about it. Palpatine has always been there in the background, always conveniently around to benefit from bad situations. And he’s always been far too interested in Anakin for Obi-Wan’s comfort…
Anakin.
Shaavit.
Anakin is not going to take this well.
Keep reading
One of the fun things about writing is how, sometimes, you accidentally write things a certain way, and then, weeks later, you realise that what you wrote actually has significance to the story, and it adds a cool little detail to some aspect of the plot or characterisation.
In Fortune's Rule, I've written Starkiller bowing in the presence of his master. Just today, though, I realised that the more proper Sith thing would be to kneel. The true explanation for the bowing instead, of course, is that it was entirely unintentional and in fact carries absolutely no meaning whatsoever. I was a little sloppy and didn't think things through sufficiently.
However, in-world, it looks like some sort of choice on Vader's part. He taught his apprentice to bow (more a Jedi thing, I think?), rather than kneel (a Sith thing, and more subservient). Perhaps Vader's Anakin is showing a little bit, in not wanting to make Starkiller demonstrate the extreme subservience that a Sith master usually expects from their apprentice (i.e. that Sidious expects from him). At the same time, I think it also fits with Vader's character. He's a military leader, not a political one like Sidious, and as such probably prioritizes utility over ceremony. There's no need to bother with the whole kneeling thing, when a bow will do.
I love things like this, because they show how, for all that a lot of planning and intentional symbolism may go into writing, sometimes what the reader sees as significant is just a surprisingly functional mistake. (And it also makes me wonder how much of the stuff we analyzed in high school lit classes was intentional, and how much was coincidental.)
Yes, you read that correctly.
You see, a very strange plot bunny has been lurking in my brain for months, now.
What if Anne Shirley, and maybe someone else from the Green Gables books, somehow ended up in the GFFA toward the end of the Clone Wars? Thinking maybe Anne of Avonlea-era Anne, when she's a teacher and Marilla takes in Davy and Dora Keith.
I just think it would be really funny, because of how Anne is always encountering twins, wherever she goes, and then Luke and Leia are born while she's in the GFFA, and... yep, checks out.
I wonder who Anne would find to be a kindred spirit. If she got to see Yoda's whimsical side, I almost think she might find him to be one? And possibly Padmé? I see a lot of Anne's idealism in Padmé.
She would get to the SW galaxy through the Haunted Wood, one dark and misty night when she's taking the twins back home after a visit to somewhere, perhaps.
Anne would find plenty of "scope for imagination" on Naboo, she'd find it absolutely delightful. As for Anidala and the Set and Veré scheme, she'd be in raptures over the romance of it all.
Oh Force help us, if Davy and Dora happened to be along for the ride.... "Davy Keith! Don't walk on the edge of the veranda, or you'll fall to your death!"
Davy's opinions on kriff, kark, fierfek, etc.:
"They're the bulliest swears, Anne, and they ain't blasphemous 'cause there ain't God here, so I guess it can't offend him."
"No, Davy, but they're coarse and vulgar in another way entirely, and little boys still shouldn't say them," Anne admonished.
And Dora, remarking on some of the people they meet:
"Mrs. Rachel would say they're ungodly and wicked heathens," Dora observed, primly.
"Oh, Dora, I don't think anyone can be wicked who's kind and wise."
If Anne is dropped onto Coruscant, Padmé takes her in, she becomes some sort of aide, goes to the Senate with Padmé. "I don't like that man," she told Padmé, watching the Chancellor. "He is NOT a kindred spirit. Something in his eyes reminds me of [Mrs. Blewett, or someone else unpleasant like that]."
Her patroness' wardrobe would also send Anne into raptures. "Why, it's just like the wardrobe of a princess from one of the stories the girls and I used to write! Oh, Padmé, I could live in here for eons with no sustenance but to feast my eyes upon the splendor!"
Nightmare night. Mid-conversation, Padmé and Anakin hear a crash from outside. Anakin immediately ready to fight someone, Padmé's just like "Davy!" Living room or kitchen, find Anne and Davy. Who's broken something or other on a midnight foray for food. Could lead to a more productive conversation that leads to Anakin being a little more rational.
Also, Padmé and Anakin get a preview of what the next several years of their lives will be like, with a child in the house. And they're like, "Oh, thank goodness we'll only have the one." (Joke's on them there, of course.)
Anne gets through to Anakin about Obi-Wan. "Maybe he's like Marilla. She's... well, I suppose she's most like an aunt. She adopted me, but I could never imagine thinking of her as a mother. She isn't at all the motherly sort. She's prickly as a thornbush, and she seemed oh-so-stern, austere, really, and it took simply ages to thaw her out. She was always disapproving of my messes and scrapes--and oh, there were a lot of scrapes, especially early on--but... oh dear, I'm rambling on again. Anyway, Marilla is not what one would call an affectionate woman, but I just know she loves me, because she's put up with all my scrapes, and if she does correct me, it's because she cares. She didn't care at the start, you see, not that way. She only cared enough to keep me so that horrible Mrs. Blewett wouldn't take me instead, which is really just what any good, upstanding person would do. And I think maybe your Obi-Wan is the same way. After all, it's a pretty difficult thing to raise a child and not come to love them in some way."
Somehow, this all leads to Anakin not falling and Palpatine being properly disposed of.
I may actually try writing this one, because, weird idea though it is, I also think it could weirdly work. Anne Shirley has this way of improving all the lives she touches, and I see no reason why that wouldn't continue in the GFFA.
Any opinions on who Anne might find to be kindred spirits in the GFFA? I'm leaning toward Padmé and maybe Yoda (maybe), but I'd love to hear any other suggestions!
The Wookieepedia page on PROXY doesn't say what his specific origin is, but it does say he's a prototype created to help with training Vader's apprentice.
Headcanon time!
Vader made PROXY. Which, since Anakin also built Threepio, makes PROXY Threepio's little brother, from a certain point of view.
This started out as a vocabulary assignment way back in middle school, with the article "Venerable Citizen Exonerated: A Follow-Up to 'Mr. P.G. Tips in Hot Water.'" Then I ended up continuing it into a whole mini-newspaper personifying various teas in the kitchen, and their society and escapades. It's been an off-and-on project over... egads, the last ten years, I think. (Sheesh!) Anyway, thought I'd post the more recent issues of the paper (those from the past 3 years). The earlier ones are a bit sillier, the ads aren't as well-done, and the quality of the writing is lower.
In which Obi-Wan and Padmé contemplate, Shili seeks to join the Rebellion, Piett decides to befriend a homicidal child, and Vader faces his Master after the disaster that was Wrea.
A couple of questions that my biology major brain won't let go of this morning:
Okay, so I hate the midichlorian explanation and generally try to forget about it, but... if we say that midichlorians do exist, then... they're living organisms in one's bloodstream, yes? So, is there ever something akin to an autoimmune disorder, where the immune system tries to destroy the midichlorians? A person could theoretically lose Force sensitivity.
Force suppressants. How do they work? Are there drugs which target different pathways, or just one drug with a specific target? Do they have side effects? Have they been tested for toxicity? Is it known they are non-carcinogenic? How the heck would you carry out drug testing? Ask a group of Force sensitives if they'd be willing to test the efficacy of this thing that would take away their power—oh, that'll work real well.
Are there therapeutic applications for Force suppressants? Like, what if darksiders were put on suppressants? If it cuts off their connection to the Force, couldn't that, probably mixed with psychological/psychiatric interventions, provide a way to help them sort of reset and step away from the dark side? (And yeah, that's an ethical kettle of fish, right there. Drugging of individuals without consent, but considering that said individuals could be incredibly damaging to the galactic population if left untreated....)
Are there changes in midichlorian gene expression/physiology following dark side use? Are there drugs which could be used to reverse these effects, and would that in turn have any effect on the state of the Force user?
Any thoughts? Suggestions? Cool sw science questions to share?
Once, he had a blazing furnace heart. It has lain cold for many years, filled only with a burning frost. Once, a dead-star dragon dwelt within the furnace. It has slept these many years, and he has existed in its still, inky shadow.
No longer. The dragon stirs, awakened by the cries of the two apprentices. All things must die, but these are his apprentices, and they must live. A spark floats up from somewhere deep within. The dragon coils and hisses. The spark catches. The furnace ignites.
This is how the Emperor falls.
Aka, the one where Ahsoka and Starkiller stage an intervention.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/65300671
the more i think about it, I don't think Star Wars should be considered scifi. I know it already probably isn't by some, but i think that it should instead be thought of a space fantasy.
A hodgepodge of things relating to Fortune's Rule, my Star Wars fix-it fic: behind-the-scenes-type writing stuff, maybe some sneak-peekish bits, art that may or may not make it into the story, and thoughts and questions about the SW universe. Plus, probably, some memes and other random stuff as well!
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