AI In Quora, And In Fandom Spaces?

Now playing: III-XIII. Conspiracy

In which Piett continues to deal with his minor crisis, Ahsoka receives an interesting transmission over the Fulcrum channel, and a certain pair of bored twins begin to hatch a plot.

Fic recs: From the Sidelines

Fics revolving around the normal people who get sucked into the cyclone of drama and nonsense that surrounds the main characters of Star Wars. These all are on my main fic rec list, but I wanted to sort them out into a separate, genre-specific list as well!

Bioethically Speaking, Mr. Sheev; T, 10.5k, ONESHOT. The bureaucratic fallout and potential PR nightmare that result when a grad student follows up on some interesting records from the Grand Imperial Medical Facility.

The Agony of Tarkin; G, 4.8k, ONESHOT. "An extra in the Imperial Opera Company discovers he has been assigned the role of Darth Vader in its upcoming production of The Agony of Tarkin." Another hilarious fic in the vein of The Sith Who Brought Life Day and Accountant Non-Heroes of the Republic.

Accountant Non-Heroes of the Republic; G, 7.0k, ONESHOT. "Palpatine makes a choice to hide his fiscal manoeuvres in the Financial Department. The Financial Department takes advantage of this lack of transparency to do whatever they want. This saved the Republic." It's always fun to watch Palpatine shoot himself in the foot, and all the

PRojects IN Controlled Environments, version Sith; G, 5.2k, ONESHOT. "The overworked project manager on the redesign of the Imperial Lambda-class shuttle gets surprisingly competent feedback from an unknown official on Coruscant. She promptly decides that anyone bored enough to do a technical review of their own free will should be found proper employment for their own good."

The Sith Who Brought Life Day; G, 13.3k, COMPLETE. A rather entertaining take on how Vader found out who blew up the Death Star.

If you've got any more recs fitting this category, do comment below!

This is so cool!! A library is talking about fanfic on their website! Not only that, but they're publicly promoting both reading and writing fanfic! And they actually include links to fandoms on AO3 and FFN!

This has officially made my day.

New Haven Free Public Library

What is fanfiction and is it worth reading? | New Haven Free Public Library

By Rose Simpson, Community Technology Librarian Maybe you’ve been in a situation like this before: you just finished a popular young adult n

Art #1 for the Vaderkin Creative Exchange 2024! For @unlikecharlie; thank you for the prompt, I really enjoyed doing this one!

Done in watercolor on hot-pressed paper, with some white Derwent Inktense on the left where the clouds were being difficult. Inspired in part by a favorite picturebook from my childhood, and my mom's, called "The Winter Picnic."

Google, dear, we need to have a word about what you consider to be synonymous ideas. Because you've been bolding some stuff that has literally nothing to do with the search terms I entered. And it's annoying enough when I google something about RNA, and you bold the word DNA in every result, but I get it, they're both nucleic acids. I don't agree with you, but I get it.

However, this is getting a bit ridiculous:

Suggestions are welcome if anybody knows of a more accurate search engine than this stinker!

Now playing: III-VIII. Questions, pt 1

In which Piett is overwhelmed and Starkiller isn't helping, and Numa and Ahsoka have very different interactions with a raxshir on Shili.

Knight Tano art

Illustration for Fortune's Rule, done in watercolor (mostly Daniel Smith, which I adore for the saturated colors), and then enhanced using the Google Photos editor pop setting. (OG version shown below.)

I like the softer OG version, but the vividness of the enhanced version seems more appropriate for Ahsoka. Less passive, maybe. Something about the OG reminds me weirdly of a Victorian maiden. I think it has to do with the structure of the tunic/dress/thing? (Very vaguely reminiscent of the late 1870s/1880s natural form era dress style?) And maybe the downcast eyes and quiet expression? And I think the higher contrast and brighter colors of the enhanced version help to counteract that effect.

I didn't do a pencil sketch, just started by putting down paint. This piece felt truly middle-schoolerish at first (and, okay, throughout most of the process), but I was pleasantly surprised by how much it [eventually] improved! The strictly-profile view added to the awkward, amateurish feeling, even though I actually wanted to do that view, but I think it worked out fairly well in the end. Her arms turned out a bit too short (or her torso is too long), but I'm super pleased with the shading, especially on the tunic/dress/thing!

Click below to see the progression!

I really do like you capturing that the galaxy is big and that Palpatine is of course wanting to pick every single fight that he can just cause blood suffering pain and death, spread it all around? kill jedi cant leave them to build roots anywhere but still. the not giving you the option to surrender to occupation, forcing a fight on you cause WANT the fight blood and death some of that being less capability to fight later and clean sweeps? but still galaxy is a huge place and Palps wants it all

Thank you! :)

He absolutely wants it all, and he's not going to think twice about a little violence (or a lot of violence, as the case may be) to get it! Plus, with the economic factors at play, that's just all the more reason to go full-on systemwide occupation instead of settling for diplomacy or surrender of the Jedi in the Sevret system.

And, after all, what's the point of having thousands of Star Destroyers at one's disposal if one doesn't intend to use them for a little bit of conquest every now and again? :P

On a more serious note, though, part of the reason that I made up a system outside of the Republic was that, apparently, a great many of the worlds in the GFFA were not part of the Republic, and I wanted to show how Palpatine is a threat, not only to the worlds that were formerly Republic and immediately became Empire, but also to any world with valuable resources or any world that harbors someone who could possibly be a threat to his power and his security.

And although the Jedi on Errece didn't pose much of a threat in and of themselves---allowing that ideology to survive, allowing them to exist anywhere in the galaxy and possibly go on to spread that ideology to future generations who could build up the Jedi? Who could perhaps continue the Jedi in secret, in the manner of the post-Bane Sith? He absolutely cannot allow that to happen.

(Also, just wanted to add that from a writing point of view, this chapter was pretty entertaining to scheme up because of how Palpatine thinks he's getting it all with the Sevret system. Destroy some Jedi? Check. Gain access to valuable raw materials for the Empire? Check. Humiliate his foolish apprentice? Check.)

Ahsoka!

All-grown-up Rebel Ahsoka! (Aka, another bout of productive procrastination to put off writing a tricky chapter. What else is new?)

This was supposed to be just a rough study type of sketch in pencil, but then it was going well, and really, why stop at rough sketch if it's going well?

Sketched in pencil, outlined in 01 Pigma micron pen (except the facial features, where I used 005), colored in Ahsoka with Crayola Supertips that somehow aren't dried up after I-don't-even-know-how-many years, then shaded her and filled in the background with Prismacolor pencils. (Ever so many thanks to my artsy mom, who suggested the pencil-over-marker technique!) My Prismacolors have been through the wars (aka 4 moves and a clumsy adolescent owner), and it's quite evident every time I sharpen one, only to have the tip fall out.

Drawing Ahsoka was interesting, because although I used a reference from the Clone Wars show, it wasn't quite in the position I wanted, so I had to take weird selfies of me holding a water bottle in lieu of a lightsaber in order to get the arms right. But, hey, it worked!

I considered leaving it at the middle image, just a finished figure on a white ground, but decided that a background provided context and made the picture feel more alive.

Mayday, mayday!

Characters have hijacked the chapter, and now the writer is just getting towed along for the ride.

I'm not sure what this chapter was originally supposed to be, but somehow it's turned into "Girls' Night: the ex-Senator/ex-Jedi-Sith's widow/ex-Jedi-Sith's padawan/Jedi dropout/Rebel agent Version," because Padmé and Ahsoka decided they wanted to hang out and chat.

I feel like Harold Lloyd or Buster Keaton.

My mom has zero sympathy. "Enjoy the ride! 😂" she says.

Teeny II-XIV spoiler below, don't click if you don't wanna know!

Oh yeah, and then Vader decided to stick his nose in, because why wait until next chapter like you're supposed to, when you could make a totally unplanned appearance in the current chapter, instead?