So, I Was Watching Randy Rainbow Videos On YouTube This Evening, And It Occurred To Me That There Would

Now playing: II-XIX. Know Thine Enemy

The final chapter of Part II, in which Vader's hope and Ahsoka's fear are confirmed, and Padmé realises the truth about her Imperial contact.

Now playing: III-XII. Rude Awakenings

In which Ahsoka bids farewell to Shili, Vader proceeds with his plan to dechip the clones, and Piett puts one and one and one and one together and makes four.

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."

hey so fun question, Vibe wise, Palpatine is dealing with a rebellion that is actually Wildly more competent/coherent out of the gate in a way? Ignoring just Anakin/Vader Power aand skill as a warrior, the fact that in sheer military experience Vader blew literally everyone else left out of the water did so much heavy lifting at first when folks are scrambling for years. reason why I enjoyed such things as them stealing Venerators and Super Charging them up because they KNOW their needs.

Yeah, I'd say he is! In this AU, we've got Padmé alive and working behind the scenes during the first couple of years of the rebellion, which was probably a major contributor in and of itself. She has a political motivation to take back the galaxy from an autocratic Emperor, but she also has a very personal motivation to take down Palpatine. So, she would have really pushed for things to get done, for alliances to be made and intelligence networks to developed. Add to that, then, the fact that she and Obi-Wan were both staying with the Larses, so she was able to pull him into the rebellion effort; there was probably a whole bunch of strategic input that came out of that collaboration, e.g. things like the Venator retrofitting program, and a more organized approach to the whole rebellion thing in general, especially with regard to the military angle. Meanwhile, Rex and Ahsoka's work regarding finding/dechipping/helping/recruiting clones post-Order 66 would have helped with strategy and organization as well, taking advantage of the clones' years of military training and wartime experience.

The Empire still has far more resources, in terms of money, ships, weapons, and recruits/conscripts, but the Rebellion in this AU does have a pretty solid foundation when it comes to experience and tactics, and they're able to use their personnel's experience and ingenuity to adapt and make the most out of their limited resources. They still have to be careful—they can't just take on the Empire in all-out war at this point—but they're in a much better position overall, with a unified movement already underway, instead of a scattering of independent rebel cells.

Whispers From Tomorrow

If you value anything you see around you, any of your brethren, if you love your padawan as I know you do—tell him.

The ghost of Ben Kenobi sees fit to meddle in the past, and Obi-Wan, about to leave for Utapau to face Grievous, suddenly feels a strange certainty that all is not well with his former padawan.  Conversations ensue, secrets come to light, and his relationship with Anakin will never be the same.  But that might just be a very good thing, indeed.

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.

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.

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.

AI in Quora, and in fandom spaces?

I just have to ask. Why does Quora have an AI tool now for some questions?

Isn't the whole point of Quora... you know... asking people things? Getting people's input?

And yet, browsing around through Star Wars stuff on Quora last night, I found this:

Like... how is this helpful, O Great AI Bot Writing Helpful Answers?

It's a subjective question to begin with, so why would an AI be offering information on it? It seems like a question to debate, not a question to answer. And the Quora answers from people, of course, were

And the idea of trying to have a nerdy discussion with ChatGPT is just... weird, like there's no interest or fascination or theorizing, you know? Just this clinical-sounding summary. ChatGPT doesn't care about the characters, or the stories, or the worldbuilding, or any of that. It probably just scraped through the opinions of people who do care, and then spat out a soulless regurgitation.

[Or, heck, who knows. Maybe ChatGPT took one look at the opinionated discussions and was like, "oh hell no. i'm not touching that with a ten-foot pole. make your own moral decisions, you stupid squishy human."]

Seriously, though. AIs in fandom stuff? Weird. Fandom stuff is so oriented around people and opinions and connection, and AI... eh... until AIs reach the point of, say, Artoo & Co., it just doesn't seem like a great fit.

Now playing: III-VI, The New Way of Things

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.