Latest Posts by wendingways - Page 3

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.

So, I wasn't going to do a second illustration for the most recent chapter of Fortune's Rule, but it demanded to be done, and consequently I ended up doing it anyway.

Used the same technique as last time with an even base layer and then colored pencil over it, but this time the base layer was watercolor, instead of marker. Wasn't sure I had enough ink left in my grey marker for Vader. The background was also done in watercolor this time, and then I added pencil to enhance. No pen lines in the background this time, because I realised that the background pen lines are one of the things I don't like so much about the Ahsoka drawing; they make it look too busy and choppy, or something, the horizon line in particular.

I originally used a reference pic of Obi-Wan fighting Dooku, substituting Vader for Dooku, but ditched that because the stance didn't look aggressive enough for Vader. The perspective/angles aren't perfect; arms seem a little wonky, still not sure I got Obi-Wan's legs right, and his head looks a little too big?

The pencil worked really nicely for the flames, which just looked extremely blobby when I only used paint. Pencil also gave the smoke a nice opacity that I wasn't sure how to achieve with watercolor.

And my favorite thing about the whole process.... After finishing up and taking a pic, I realised that behind Obi-Wan, there's a shielded fortress, while behind Vader, there's a flaming wreck; kind of some fun parallelism going on there. And the way the building is on elevated ground, while the wreck is at the bottom of an embankment, also makes for a nice little "Mustafar-reference-if-you-squint." All the symbolism works out super nicely. It was also super unintentional. 😂

All Our Scattered Remnants

Threadbare, oneshot on AO3

Ahsoka stared into her mirror. An old woman stared back at her. “You’ve outlived your usefulness,” she observed to the crone in the mirror. “Outlived your friends, and even your enemies. Why are you still hanging on?” Aged and world-weary, Ahsoka sets out to see the galaxy and rouse herself from her melancholy. At the end of her journey, she heeds the call of the Force and ventures to Jakku, where she encounters a Force-sensitive young girl. Ahsoka is not going to take a padawan. (But then, neither was her master, and look how that turned out.)

Yet another side project, yes. I developed this weird urge to write Ahsoka as a jaded old woman.

I'm planning to make this a short oneshot series.

Haven't seen the ST, maybe shouldn't be writing this under those circumstances, but the degree to which I care is limited, so. We'll see how this goes.

All Our Scattered Remnants

Threadbare, oneshot on AO3

Ahsoka stared into her mirror. An old woman stared back at her. “You’ve outlived your usefulness,” she observed to the crone in the mirror. “Outlived your friends, and even your enemies. Why are you still hanging on?” Aged and world-weary, Ahsoka sets out to see the galaxy and rouse herself from her melancholy. At the end of her journey, she heeds the call of the Force and ventures to Jakku, where she encounters a Force-sensitive young girl. Ahsoka is not going to take a padawan. (But then, neither was her master, and look how that turned out.)

Yet another side project, yes. I developed this weird urge to write Ahsoka as a jaded old woman.

I'm planning to make this a short oneshot series.

Haven't seen the ST, maybe shouldn't be writing this under those circumstances, but the degree to which I care is limited, so. We'll see how this goes.

Now playing: III-IV: Masters and Apprentices

In which the Alliance comes to the aid of the besieged Partisans, and masters and apprentices meet again.

Now playing: III-IV: Masters and Apprentices

In which the Alliance comes to the aid of the besieged Partisans, and masters and apprentices meet again.

Sometimes, being a writer is taking a 30-minute detour from writing to go on a wild goose chase after a word you're pretty sure maybe hopefully exists, and dragging in all the word-nerds in your family to help along the way, because the thesaurus has utterly failed you.

And all you can tell them about the identity of this missing word is, "it's somewhere between castigated and in the doghouse, and kind of a cousin to disgraced."

Because, of course, you only have the breath of a shadow of a ghost of whatever-this-word-might-be lurking in some back alleyway deep in your brain, and you can't even remember what letter it starts with. If it really does exist at all, which, after three of your fellow word-nerds fail to identify it, you're beginning to question.

We eventually found the word, by the way. After a few wrong turns past chastened, chastised, discredited, and besmirched, we came upon abased, and concluded it to be our elusive quarry.

The crowning absurdity in all of this? I just looked up disgraced again in the thesaurus. And there was abased, not quite halfway down the list. (My apologies to the thesaurus. It seems I need to read more carefully in future.) But at least we all got a nice, little linguistic evening stroll.

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.

Just one more proof that Anakin Skywalker and Ahsoka Tano are 100% siblings--

Anakin to Ahsoka: I would never let anyone hurt you, Ahsoka. Vader to Ahsoka: Then you will die.

Ultimate sibling dynamic right there, just a more extreme take on the old nobody gets to hurt my sibling but me!

Fun Star Wars name stuff!

Snips

We all know the derivation of Ahsoka's nickname as the snippy padawan, but the word snip can also refer to "an impertinent or saucy girl," as well as a white or light marking. Ahsoka's nickname fits her in so many ways!

Palpatine

Take out the second P, and you end up with palatine, which can be an adjective or a noun, the definitions of which include "possessing royal privileges" and "a feudal lord having sovereign power within his domains." Yep, sounds about right.

Where the heck the name Sheev comes from, I have no idea, except that it's vaguely similar to shiv, and the pointy end of a shiv is absolutely what he deserves. (Ooh, or maybe it's because he shivs the Republic in the back?)

(Definitions from Merriam-Webster online.)

Art: Mother and Daughter

Padmé and Jobal Naberrie.

Sketched in pencil on watercolor paper, outlined in pen, and then used paintbrushes to fill in with pigment from Derwent Inktense blocks. I've barely touched the Inktense blocks since receiving them about ten years ago, so it was really cool to actually, finally use them for a finished piece, rather than just messing around! They worked super well for both intense and subtle coloring, too.

The scene is based on the image from the Wookieepedia Legends page for Padmé's mausoleum.

Something funky's going on with Padmé and Jobal's arms, and the angle of the stone under the stained glass ended up a little off somehow, but on the whole, I'm quite pleased with how it turned out! (Especially Padmé's cloak; I don't quite know how that happened, but glad it did!) The stained glass worked out much better than expected, and Inktense was a really nice medium for getting the tonal variations. Could just be me, but it seemed easier to move around on the page than watercolor, which made it more forgiving if an area ever became too light or too dark.

Now playing: III-III. Nothing Ever so Broken

In which Padmé struggles to deal with the fallout, Obi-Wan has a bad feeling, and Asajj is an unlikely source of moral support.

Me: Searches up synonym of word for book Google: Gives me perfect word Also Google: This word is archaic Me:

Hey uh, just a heads up, I'm going to use some of your art in a presentation that I'm doing for my English class. it's about something we are an expert on and I chose to do mine on fanfiction, and one of the questions we have to anwser is what things do you like and not like about the chosen topic, and I wanted to choose your fanfic as something that I like because it is awesome. hope you don't mind?

OMG, I don't mind at all! Thank you so much! 💛💛💛 Also, I think it's really cool that you're doing a presentation on fanfic. Good luck with your presentation, I hope it goes well!

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

This is probably a terrible idea, but my inner demon of mischief wants to get on GPT-4 or some other AI chatbot and try to convince it that it's HK-47.

Anne Shirley in the GFFA

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!

ROTS Padmé time travels to AOTC AU

AU where Padmé dies at the end of ROTS and wakes up in 22 BBY, on the night of Zam Wesell's assassination attempt.

Padmé wakes up, rolls over, and realises she hasn’t been able to do that this easily for months. Remembers everything that happened in the past couple of days. And realises her babies are nowhere in sight.  And it’s dark, but this looks a hell of a lot like her room in the senate apartment complex.  And oh shit, what’s that shadow moving along the wall?

She doesn’t know how she got back here, or where her children are, but she does know the galaxy is not a safe place for her right now, and shadow-skulkers are rarely up to any good.  So, she grabs her blaster from under her pillow and shoots. Voila, dead assassin bugs.

Anakin predictably comes running (and Obi-Wan too).  Padmé turns the blaster on him.  But he’s very young.  Obi-Wan is also very young.  And Padmé is very confused.

Anakin is like, “Hey, what are you pointing that thing at me for?  I’m supposed to be protecting you!”

And then her eyes focus on the long braid hanging over his shoulder.  Short hair. 

I hold that finding Padmé aiming a blaster at him would make Anakin a little less prone to AOTC-type creepiness.

And then it all starts to maybe-kind of-sort of make sense.  No kids.  Young Anakin.  The dead bugs on the floor.  Is it really possible that the Force sent her back in time as she died?

Obi-Wan still goes out the window after the droid.  Anakin stays behind, however, because Padmé’s Force presence feels distinctly rattled, and she still looks frazzled, and he’s not at all sure she should be left alone.

Padmé, alone with Anakin and not exactly comfortable with it, tries for humor.  She points to the bugs.  “Want a midnight snack?”  Anakin just stares at her.  Oh, right.  She hasn’t found out about that particular dietary habit of his yet, in this timeline.

Anakin is a little perplexed as to why there’s the slight ring of an inside joke to her words?

They clean up the bug carcasses, he returns to the living room, and she goes back to bed and has a long cry.

She hears a clattering from the kitchen, and a little later, Anakin knocks on her door.  “You okay?  I thought… I brought you tea?  Obi-Wan always says this one’s good for when you’re feeling… uh… unsettled.”

Padmé is torn between equally strong desires to deal him a good, hard slap and to bury her face in his tunic and pretend the next three years haven’t already happened.  Neither of which is appropriate at this juncture, so she compromises, and graciously accepts the tea.

She still goes into refuge.

Debates not even trying to show up for MCA vote, because she knows clones are already there, on Kamino.  She knows Palpatine will weasel his way into getting an army even if the majority votes against MCA.  And hell, she knows the vote will fail.  So what’s the point?

But decides the point is to strengthen her faction and demonstrate her position.  She needs to build her coalition.  The good news is she already knows who she’ll be able to trust, so she can get them together faster, and then focus on recruiting more difficult allies.

She wears much more sensible clothes for refugeeing.

On the way to Naboo, she asks Anakin if he’s heard from Shmi lately.  A perfectly normal conversation topic.

“No.  I’ve been having dreams, though.  Of Mom, she’s hurt, she’s dying, and—Obi-Wan says it’s nothing, but I just… they feel real.”

“I have a friend who’s spent time on Tatooine,” Padmé said.  “I’ll ask her if she can get in touch with your mom, if that will give you some peace of mind.”

“Really?  You would do that?”

“Of course. 

Then she calls Sabé, and she’s like, “Hey, I need you to meet me and a friend in Mos Espa, and pretend that you found out that Shmi Skywalker was freed by and married Cliegg Lars, and lives on his moisture farm near Anchorhead.”

Sabé is like, “Ohhh… kaayyy….”

“I’ll tell you the whole story,” Padmé says, “but later, in person.  First, there’s something I need you to help me with.”

A couple days into their trip, Padmé tells Anakin that Sabé reported Shmi is no longer with Watto, but she was able to find out where she went.

And Padmé’s like, “You know… we could always go to Tatooine instead.  I’d probably be safer there than on Naboo, really.  No one will think to look for a spoiled Mid-Rimmer on that dustball.”

Padmé and Anakin arrive in Mos Espa, and Sabé takes them straight to the Lars farm.

Padmé praying that a few extra days will buy them enough time to save Shmi.  She knows she should be grateful for the chance she was given, but damn it, why couldn't the Force have dropped her even just a little farther back in time?

When Anakin heads out to go to Tusken camp, Padmé is like, "We're coming with you.”

He protests, because she needs to stay safe, but she’s like, “If you want to talk about unsafe, how about running off without backup?  Sabé was a queen’s bodyguard, don’t forget, and I have the same training.”  And three years more practical experience.

Anakin relents, mostly because no way he’s going to out-stubborn both Padmé and Sabé. 

Padmé gets water, maybe other med things, blanket?  And then she and Sabé head out with Anakin.  She’s determined that there will be no slaughter today.

They get there, Shmi’s not good.

Padmé her hand on Anakin’s shoulder as they approach.  Steady.  I’m here.  Sabé is here.  You’re not alone.  Shmi’s going to be okay.  I hope.  If she isn’t, Sabé has orders to shoot Anakin with a stun bolt while Padmé distracts him.  After that… Padmé supposes she would have to call the Jedi, and she and Sabé would just have to keep stunning Anakin until one of the Order arrives to deal with him.  Tough love.  She prays it won’t come to that.

“Sabé, stand guard.  Anakin, help me get your mother loose.  Give her a little of the water.”  She needs to keep him focused on being useful, and not on thoughts of bloody vengeance. Has she always been this unrattled in a crisis, or is she keeping her cool only through her determination to change the future?  Padmé doesn’t even know.

Man, if Anakin fell in love with Padmé before, he really will now that she's helped save his mom.

She has a bit of euphoria from averting disaster, and then she sees Anakin staring moodily out, saber in hand.  Oh, no.

“I hate them.”

“I know.”

“Jedi aren’t supposed to hate, but I want them to hurt.  Like they hurt her.”

“I know.  I've hated the Neimoidians ever since they invaded my planet.  Hating those who harm us is a natural reaction.  Just... it doesn't mean we have to act on it, you know?  Because then we aren't acting any better than the people we hate."

She places one hand over his, and with the other gently tugs on the lightsaber.  “Let me keep this for you.  Just until you’ve got some distance from all of this.  I don’t want you to do something you might regret, Ani.”

He lets go, and she hooks the saber to her own belt.

“Come on.  Let’s get your mom home.”

He gives a jerky nod.  “Okay.”

Padmé tries to draw Anakin out, have actual conversations instead of terrible flirting, and give him options so he doesn't feel that he's stuck in the Jedi Order.

"Anakin... I know, years ago, Master Jinn said you would be a Jedi one day, and I know you wanted to then, but... people change, you know?  And there's nothing wrong with that.  I just want to make sure... that you know you aren't trapped, if you find it's not for you.  I have lots of connections, if you ever need them, or even if your family does."

She takes a moment, lies down, stretched out in the sun, on the sand.  Just being.

Anakin wanders over.  "What the kriff are you doing?"

"I'm enjoying being alive.  It's something I didn't appreciate often enough, before I... before now, I guess."  Teasingly, she adds, "Why don't you come join me, Ani?"

His nose wrinkles in disgust.  “No thank you.  I hate sand.  It’s coarse, and rough, and irritating—and it gets everywhere.”

“If you say so.”

She gets up, and proceeds to shake sand out of her clothes.  And hair.  Anakin gives her an I-told-you-so look, as Beru tells her not to track sand inside because it gets everywhere and she just cleaned the floors.  And then a wounded look, as he dodges a handful of sand she tosses at him.

“Sorry,” she tells him, only half meaning it.  “I’ve wanted to do that for a long time.”

“A long time?”

Oh, kriff.

“Yes.  Five minutes feels like forever when you’re waiting to throw sand at someone.”

Padmé tells Sabé everything?  And then she's not keeping secrets from her like before.

"You're not getting together with that idiot Jedi again."

"Not right away."

"Not ever, you hear me, Padmé Amidala?  I will fight you, knock you out cold, and carry you away to some hidden corner of the galaxy before I let you throw your life away like that."

"If you tried to fight me, you’d lose.  I've had more practical experience than you at this point, Sabe.  But I'll be careful, I promise.  I'll only do it if I see that I can trust him.  And only once Palpatine is out of the way.  I, we've, already kept Anakin from the first step toward the Sith.  We can do the rest.  Shorten the war.  Save the Republic."

A few days later, Anakin finds Padmé in the kitchen, reading from her datapad.

“I just wanted to say—thank you, Padmé.  You… you really are an angel.  If you hadn’t suggested calling Sabé, and if you hadn’t been there tonight—well, I don’t know what I would have done.”

“I know.  It’s terribly cliché, but that’s what friends are for.”

“Friends?”

She can see the disappointment he tries to hide.

“Yes, Ani.  I hope I can call you my friend.”

“It’s just… I thought, maybe…”

She lays the datapad aside and gestures for him to join her at the table.

“I was in a whirlwind romance once.  It ended very badly.  I can’t do that again.  I won’t.  I… I like you very much.  But I need you to give me time, and space.”

Geonosis happens.  Padmé tells Anakin to be careful before they part and he fights Dooku.

“Be careful, Ani.  Try to come back in one piece, okay?”

And Anakin, being in a much more balanced frame of mind than he was in the original timeline, actually heeds her and isn’t quite so arrogant when it comes to fighting Dooku.

As the war goes on, Padmé builds an anti-war, anti-Palpatine coalition.  It goes faster this time, because she knows who she should reach out to and what arguments to use

Gives them all more time to spend on recruiting other senators to the cause.

She also does some work to dig up dirt on Palpatine.

Has the Handmaidens quietly investigate his estate, financial affairs, or whatever on Naboo, too?

Padmé gets closer to the Jedi Order, spends more time with Ahsoka when she can, and gets Ahsoka to introduce her to Barriss.

Tells Barriss if she ever needs a confidante outside the Order, she’s here.

Consequently, Barriss goes to Padmé when she’s struggling, and Padmé talks to Anakin and Obi-Wan about getting her transferred out of active service.

Becomes either involved in Senate duties, working with Padmé’s coalition, or healing

Padmé also finds some way to minimize the damage from the Rako Hardeen incident.

She invites Satine to Coruscant for a political meeting of some sort, just before she would be imprisoned/Maul would appear

Maybe she and Anakin are a little matchmakery with Satine and Obi-Wan.

The war ends, maybe a little ahead of schedule or maybe not.  Palpatine is outed as a Sith.  Anakin has a bit of a struggle with that, but not nearly as much, and he’s able to do his Chosen One thing and help defeat him.

The Jedi look at the closeness of the crew, Barriss shares how she was floundering until Padmé stepped in.  The Jedi review their stances on attachment, etc.

Padmé and Anakin, who’ve been building a close relationship over the course of the war, marry.  Not secretly.  Shmi gets to be there.  And Obi-Wan, Ahsoka, Rex and the rest of the 501st, and the Naberrie family.  Probably Satine, as well.

And let’s say Luke and Leia are just fated to exist, because it’s hard to imagine a SW universe without them.

I’m posting this as a bullet point AU, because frankly, I’ve been getting what seems like a crap ton of plot ideas lately, and there’s just no way I’m going to be able to write fics for them all.

If anyone wants to pick this up and run with it, flesh it out, make a oneshot or a multichapter fic or whatever, be my guest! (Please just make sure to notify and credit me!)

Now playing: III-II. Division

In which Padmé sends the twins to Tatooine, Starkiller makes progress, Piett begins to get in over his head, and a conversation is had which has been a long time coming.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, a Senator survived. A Jedi did not forsake society. Two siblings were never separated. Nor were two Commanders. And a Rogue found comrades.

The Empire has risen, but the embers of the Republic yet glow in the hearts of the just. The stage is set for rebellion, and both within the Rebel Alliance and outside of it, many fates shall interweave, for the luck of the Disaster Lineage and its associates has ever flowed in a peculiar current. And if that current is stirred, from time to time, by the enterprising Pirate… well, not for nothing has it been said that Fortune rules life.

Aka, Padmé lives. The fractured Chaos Clan begins to reunite. Tarkin suffers a raging case of Hondo-induced identity theft. Vader dials the wrong number and ends up connecting to the commlink of a Rebel agent called Revenant. Add in some youngling hijinks, and all of this is slowly building to a massive headache for one Sheev Palpatine.

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.

From a Certain Point of View

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)

Part Five: Epilogue

When Sidious dies, Jedi and other Force Sensitives across the galaxy sense it, even if they don’t all know precisely what it is that they’re feeling. The Force reverberates with the death of so powerful a being – with the shattering of so many significant shatterpoints. A heavy, oppressive cloud has lifted. The Force hasn’t felt this way since… longer than some of them even remember. The older among them do remember the days when the Force was lighter and their foresight clearer, but even they hadn’t realized how bad things had gotten until the fog of the Dark was gone.

Padme, with her low midichlorian count, is not particularly attuned to the Force, but she feels it too. Somewhere deep in her bones, she knows that something has changed. And Padme has always trusted her instincts.

So when Anakin bursts into her office in the Senate and announces that he just killed Chancellor Palpatine – oh, and that Palpatine was a Sith Lord who orchestrated the entire war, by the way – she isn’t quite as shocked as she probably should be.

(Which is not, of course, the same thing as not being shocked at all. Because Palpatine? A Sith Lord? She’d been concerned about the executive powers he was accruing and the policies he was putting into place, of course, but…)

“Are you all right?” he asks, dropping to his knees in front of her chair.

“Me?” she says. “I’m fine, Ani. I’m not the one who just fought a Sith! We need to get you to a medic.”

“Only if you get looked over too,” he says. He hesitates then adds, “Is there anything you, uh, wanted to tell me?”

He gestures awkwardly in her direction with his flesh hand.

Padme stares at him.

“I’m sorry?” she says, eyeing him worriedly.

Who knows what kind of damage he might have sustained in his encounter with Palpatine.

“You know,” he says. “Any, um, family news?”

“My family is fine, last I heard,” she says slowly. “Ani, what’s going on?”

He takes a deep breath.

“Padme, how is the baby doing?”

She stares at him. 

“What baby?”

There is a choking sound near the door.

…which, she realizes in retrospect, they never closed after Anakin barged in like a gundark. 

“An excellent question. Is there anything,” a particularly exhausted-looking Obi-Wan Kenobi says dryly, one eyebrow arched, “that the two of you would like to tell me?”

Keep reading

From a Certain Point of View

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

From a Certain Point of View

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

Chancellor Palpatine, secret Sith Lord, is not having a good day.

In fact, one might venture to say that he is having a terrible day.

His underlings are certainly having a terrible day. 

This includes, but is not limited to: 

The Senate aide whom he hit with Force lightning.

(In an irritating turn of events, this meant Palpatine was forced to kill xir and dispose of xir body, as well as create a coverup explanation for xir disappearance.)

The staff in charge of cleaning his office, which is currently littered with minuscule ceramic shards from the set of priceless vases he threw across the room.

Darth Maul, who, having failed to kill Kenobi yet again, is being… creatively… punished. You don’t want to know how.

(Let’s just say that the second half of the punishment involves a too-small cage, the bars of which are coated with an acid that burns skin upon contact. Oh, and Ysalamiri. Lots of Ysalamiri.)

The hapless Neimoidian Trade Federation representative who was in the wrong place at the wrong time and is now Very Dead. 

Count Dooku, who has been reminded that unless he produces results soon, he will be replaced as Sidious’ apprentice.

Dooku’s underlings, as Dooku is taking his anger out on them.

Dooku’s underlings’ underlings, who have to deal with the collective brunt of the Separatist leaders’ frustration.

Palpatine’s personal chef, who has to deal with him repeatedly sending his food back with lengthy and finicky complaints.

The bounty hunter Palpatine-as-Sidious hired to kill Kenobi, who not only failed miserably in his objective, but also got captured and is currently being interrogated by the Jedi.

(He doesn’t know it, but he’s actually very lucky to be in Jedi custody. Palpatine wouldn’t have let him live whether he’d succeeded or not – but since he’d failed, he would have been severely and inventively tortured before he was killed.)

No, Palpatine is not having a good day. 

Unfortunately for him, it’s about to get worse.

Keep reading

From a Certain Point of View

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

For the first time in a long time, the cold, dead-star dragon of dread that gnaws at Anakin Skywalker’s heart and mind has loosened its constricting coils. It’s still there, of course, lurking. Waiting patiently for its next opportunity to strike. Hissing its dire warnings of loss and failure and impotence. But having cleared the air with his Master – having named the dragon aloud – has lessened its influence. The dragon thrives on secrecy, after all – on that dark, cold, hollow space in his chest. And it’s hard for the dragon to grow when that space is instead flooded with light.

If only it weren’t for this blasted war and the fact that he still has to hide his marriage…

If only it weren’t for the fact that one secret – Luke and Darth Vader – still lies between himself and everyone he loves…

Meanwhile, Palpatine continues to plot. Plans A through C have failed? That’s… irksome. (Deeply irksome, if Palpatine is to be honest.) But it isn’t as though he lacks alternates.

Fortunately for Palpatine, Plan D. (Operation ‘Kill’ Kenobi) works beautifully. 

At first.

Keep reading

From a Certain Point of View

Or, how Ben Kenobi’s boldfaced lie prevarication saved the Galaxy (but not in the way he thought it would).

Part One

Shortly before the beginning of ESB, Luke accidentally winds up in the past, conveniently appearing right next to Anakin Skywalker, new Jedi Knight. 

After convincing Anakin that he is indeed his son from the future – this takes a great deal of time and no small amount of effort – Luke begins to warn him about the Dreadful Future that awaits the galaxy… only to be returned to his own time/universe before he can finish the story.

But hey, Luke is sure that Anakin won’t have any problems figuring out the Emperor’s true identity. At least he was able to get across the important information, yeah? 

At least he got to warn his father about Darth Vader.

There’s just one little problem: Luke doesn’t know that Vader is the same person as Anakin Skywalker.

So when Luke warned his father that some student of Ben’s was going to go Dark Side, destroy the Jedi, betray and murder both Ben and Anakin himself, and probably kill Luke’s mother while he’s at it, Anakin drew the obvious conclusions:

#1: He (Anakin) is the only padawan Obi-Wan has ever had.

#2: If that Dreadful Future of his son’s is to come true, that obviously means that Obi-Wan is going to take on another padwan in the near future. 

#3: Therefore, in order to prevent the nightmare that is Luke’s world, all Anakin has to do is make sure that Obi-Wan never gets another padawan.

Easy, right? 

…Right?

Keep reading

Venturing into the wilds

OMG, as someone started out reading fanfic on AO3, a foray into FFN is just plain nerve wracking.

Like, I have no idea whether this story I just started is a fix-it (which I want), or whether it's going to turn out canon compliant. What if there's an MCD?

There's literally no to way to know except sneaking a look at the end of the story, or maybe the comments, and I don't want to do that and spoil it, in case it really is a fix-it! Because while it would be good to know that everything turns out okay, I don't want the all the details, ya know?

How the heck did anyone survive before AO3?

Update: YEP, stayed up till midnight just to get burned by MCD. 😭 FFN, why.

Now playing: III-I. Reeling

Wherein Padmé, Ahsoka, Vader, and company begin to deal with the fallout of the past few chapters.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, a Senator survived. A Jedi did not forsake society. Two siblings were never separated. Nor were two Commanders. And a Rogue found comrades.

The Empire has risen, but the embers of the Republic yet glow in the hearts of the just. The stage is set for rebellion, and both within the Rebel Alliance and outside of it, many fates shall interweave, for the luck of the Disaster Lineage and its associates has ever flowed in a peculiar current. And if that current is stirred, from time to time, by the enterprising Pirate… well, not for nothing has it been said that Fortune rules life.

Aka, Padmé lives. The fractured Chaos Clan begins to reunite. Tarkin suffers a raging case of Hondo-induced identity theft. Vader dials the wrong number and ends up connecting to the commlink of a Rebel agent called Revenant. Add in some youngling hijinks, and all of this is slowly building to a massive headache for one Sheev Palpatine.

More art: Rebel graffiti!

It's also a sneak peek for Fortune's Rule p-III, ch-II! (Or possibly ch-III, depending on how stuff works out.)

So, I love it when SW fanart/comics include aurebesh. I really enjoy decoding the secret messages and seeing if there's anything interesting hidden in them! Naturally, then, I needed an excuse to write a bunch of aurebesh in my own art, and what better reason than anti-Imperial graffiti? Plus, it makes such a cool little snapshot of the political situation on... ahem, whatever world this is. (You'll probably know which world it is if you read the graffiti/translations.)

It was a lot of fun to do all the aurebesh lettering! At first, I was really intimidated by the idea of doing aurebesh in different font styles, like how the heck do you do that, where do you even start? But, unsurprisingly, turns out that it's not a whole lot different from writing Latin letters in different fonts.

Overall, I'm quite pleased with how the whole thing turned out, especially given that the graffiti was added in a somewhat haphazard manner.

Aurebesh translations included at the bottom of the post!

This piece took two evenings, hand drawing in pencil and then going over that in Pigma Micron pen, and finally erasing the pencil. First night's progress:

I dunno what was up with that shoulder at first. Suffice it to say, things went much better after I remembered that reference photos do exist and are a really good idea.

And second night's progress:

Goodness gracious, that Anakin poster gave me grief. The CW reference pic I used had really dramatic lighting that must have tricked my brain somehow, because even though it showed him straight-on, I ended up drawing his face angled a bit toward the side, the first time? And then after that, he kind of looked a bit anime-style, which was interesting as I've never drawn in that style before in my life and didn't know it was a thing you could stumble into, but also inconvenient.

Final note—whoever was in charge of Imperial PR quite frankly sucked at their job. Because. The Imperial crest. It's insanely difficult to draw freehand. The Republic crest? Pretty easy. But the Imperial one, sheesh. Nobody's gonna be drawing that on their faces to show their support at sporting games.

Click below for aurebesh translations!

Aurebesh translations! Proceeding in order from top left of the drawing, based on location of the first letter of each sentence.

[NA]BOO WEEPS (partially cut off)

FOR THE GLORY OF THE EMPIRE---ENLIST! (stormtrooper poster)

FOR APAILANA

FIGHT BACK QUEEN K!

KARKIN' TARKIN

LON[G] LIVE [THE] REPUBLIC (partially cut off)

TO THE DEATH, SHEEV

THE HERO WILL RETURN---HAVE NO FEA[R] (partially cut off)

INACHU MOCO, POODOO LORDA (Huttese: eat maggots, sh*t boss)

KRIFF THE IMPS

FOR [THE REPUB]LIC (mostly cut off, Clone Wars poster)

[MAY THE] F[ORCE] BE WI[TH] US A[LL] (mostly cut off)

VICTORY AND JUSTICE

HER SPIRIT LIVES ON

TRAITOR

QUASH! QUARSH!

DOWN WITH PALPATINE!

DOWN WITH VADER!

One major disadvantage of entering the Jedi Order at the ripe old age of nine:

You miss the intro classes where they teach Stop, Drop, and Roll.

That knowledge would have come in handy on Mustafar, you know? To be fair, Anakin was also freshly down a bunch of limbs, but still. He had already dropped. All he had to do was roll.

Missing Pieces No More

Trying something new, thought I'd do a fluffy ROTJ fix-it oneshot. Excerpt below!

“No, you're coming with me.  I'll not leave you here.  I've got to save you!”

Anakin looked up at Luke with mingled pride and sorrow.  “You already have, Luke.  You—”

“Luke!” an unfamiliar voice shouted.

Luke looked back over his shoulder to see an old soldier in the green of a Rebel unit hurrying across the hangar bay toward them.  Instinctively, he leaned over his father in a defensive attitude, reaching to his waist for a weapon that wasn’t there.

“It’s okay!” he told the soldier.  “He won’t hurt you!”

“I know, kid.”  The soldier clapped a reassuring hand to Luke’s shoulder before turning to his father.  “Another close one, eh, General?”