Latest Posts by wendingways - Page 4

So, I've got a question. In an AU where Padmé survives, fakes her death, and goes into hiding, are she and Vader still legally married? Or was that dissolved upon the registration of her death? Or, since her death certificate was falsified, would that mean that all her legal contracts would remain intact? Or would it be a legal question that would have all the experts perplexed because there's simply no precedent, and would result in a lengthy court battle? (Or a not-so-lengthy one, depending on the state of Vader's temper.) Would it even matter anyway, since she apparently didn't marry under her own name? Since neither of them married under their legal names, is it even a valid legal contract in the first place?

I'm probably going to have to end up BS-ing the legal stuff for Fortune's Rule, but if anyone knows if there's a canon answer (or Legends) to the question of whether they would still be married after she faked her death, that would be lovely.

Edit: The closest real-world example I can find is Enoch Arden laws, and while the Republic/Empire probably has something similar, those don't quite fit the situation, since they have to do with someone being missing, not faking their death.

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.

Was supposed to be writing, but oops, I got distracted. (Am I procrastinating working out Vader's reaction to what he discovered in the last chapter of Fortune's Rule? Absolutely.)

I had the rough sketch of Luke, Leia, and Mara (as kids) playing with glowsticks in Krita, and decided to see if I could make something that looked a little nicer. It worked! The clone layer + Gaussian blur filter worked quite nicely to make the sticks glow, too, and I had fun playing around with highlights to make the figures show up better on a dark background. Leia and Galen's hair could use some more highlights, but I'm quite pleased with how Mara's turned out!

Luke is supposed to be included in the detail picture, as well, but that will have to wait until another day. Three children in one day is enough.

(What the heck, Galen, really? Four glow sticks at once? Is that absolutely necessary?)

Just had a question pop up in my mind .. if padme steals Vader’s tie fighter…curious how she’s going to get back to base without getting shot down by the rebels. …☠️😁

Plus having a funny image of Vader calling Revanant and having his holographic image pop up on her dashboard while she’s flying away in his ship. ☠️😁☠️

Looking forward to your next chapter in the near future! And thx as always for your time and dedication 🙏

Oh boy, I'm now imagining Padmé calling Mon and being like, "Hey... so... a thing happened, and I need you to tell everyone not to panic when a TIE shows up over Yavin," and Mon just wondering in what outlandish scenario stealing one of the few hyperspace-capable TIEs became the preferred way home.

Lol! That would certainly make for some distracted flying on her part. This isn't the route I'm actually taking, but it would be kind of funny if he only caught up with her because she got pulled over in Kafrene realspace for reckless flying brought on by his distracting holo.

I'm hoping to get the next chapter out by Sunday night!

Petrichor, Chapter 4

It's not abandoned! There's just been a severe idea drought for... oof, the past few months? (This is my other SW fic, a time travel fix-it focusing on Obi-Wan and Anakin.) I guess the upside of struggling with the last chapter of Fortune's Rule Part II is that it led to the productive procrastination that resulted in this chapter?

Chapter 4. In which first thing in the morning is a bad time for delicate discussions.

I fell asleep last night to the comforting sounds of Anakin working away at repairing my appliances.  It was the most restful sleep I have enjoyed since the commencement of the old war, and now I feel unusually refreshed—fortunately so, for today I shall be required to soothe my fractious padawan’s anxieties anent returning to his own era.

Anakin slumbers still.  I rise and set about breakfast preparations; when they are complete, I take a moment to study him.  In sleep, he is peaceful, and despite the deep shadows under his eyes, his youthful features pretend an innocence to match that of the boy who lives across the wastes.  A smear of grease adorns his cheek, and I obey an irresistible impulse to wipe it away.  My hand lingers to brush a few stray hairs out of his face. As he shifts like a sleeping tooka under the touch, tension melts away which I had not realised he was holding.  Even now, I cannot read him as well as I ought, and so I withdraw to the table with a sigh.  His presence in this time, beneath this roof, is no mere chance.  The Force has placed him under my auspices.

The nightmare that is AO3 tagging

Okay, so maybe that's being just a touch dramatic. Seriously, though, it seems like there's a lot of tagging advice on Reddit, etc., that talks about not using a lot of tags, only tagging the really major characters, keeping the tags relevant and useful for sorting, and all that. I've kind of freaked myself by reading those conversations, and then looking at my own fic like... oh... dear... you have so many tags... do people find that obnoxious?

I dunno. Personally, I love all the fun, silly, casual, chatty, cracky, creative tags that authors use. Maybe they're not much good for sorting, but they make me smile. I don't mind reading through a huge block of tags, because apparently mine is a bit of a magpie brain, but instead of shiny things, it wants words. Plus, when there are a lot of tags, there's that much more opportunity to find a fun one!

It's also usually nice when there are a lot of characters tagged, because then I can see who all is in the story, not just the MCs. Same goes for relationships. When it comes to tagging my own fic, of course, I'm like, "Major characters? Important relationships? But they're all important! I want to tag them all!"

So, I totally don't blame people who do this as well. And if you prefer to be efficient and tidy, that works, too. Seems like, it's your story, and you know how you want to present it, so why not tag away as you see fit?

**Now that I think of it, though, there could be one very valid caveat to this perspective. Do the majority of AO3 tagwranglers find it frustrating to deal with the zany, one-off tags?

A cup of tea, a bowl of soup, and AO3. Truly, the happy single girl's equivalent of a jug of wine, a loaf of bread, and thou. Or, to parody it better—— A bevy of fanfics on AO3, A cup of tea, a bowl of soup——just me!

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.)

Would like to suggest an alternative ship name for the Obi-Wan and Satine thing:

Satobi

Now, I know, it's not the most aesthetically or aurally pleasing word, but if you say it quickly, it sounds like "sad Obi," and that's just so appropriate.

(Disclaimer: I don't know much about the whole ship-naming thing, so apologies if this breaks any rules of nomenclature, but it was a fun way to play with sounds and meanings.)

The way Vader speaks differently from Anakin, not just accent but diction, makes me wonder how the heck he picked that up. Did Palpatine decide, "You must speak properly and menacingly, my disappointingly casual apprentice"?

Or, oh geez, did Vader actually start voluntarily looking up higher-level vocabulary and practicing stiff, formal sentence construction, just so he could avoid sounding like Anakin?

Well, he's nothing if not extra.

When Obi-Wan inevitably finds out about this voluntary study in the Force ghost afterlife, he really wishes he were sufficiently corporeal to bang his head on the wall, because how many years did he spend trying to help Anakin with linguistic skills, and now he decides they're actually useful?

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.

I love it! Yoda and Sidious as Dooku's feuding co-parents who hate each other 😂

Realising that, from a certain point of view:

Ventress is Anakin's lineage great-aunt, but he's also her lineage uncle.

Anakin is both Sidious' apprentice and his great-great-grand-apprentice. Or step-great-great-grand-apprentice?

Dooku is both Anakin's great-grandmaster and his lineage brother.

Savage is Dooku's apprentice and his lineage nephew.

Savage is both Anakin's lineage nephew and his lineage great-uncle.

Ventress is both Yoda's and Sidious' grand-apprentice.

Luke is Ahsoka's adoptive nephew, and her lineage uncle, and her lineage great-great-great uncle?

Luke is also Dooku's lineage brother.

And Ventress' lineage uncle.

Anakin is Luke's father, his lineage brother (sort of in two ways?), and his lineage great-great-nephew. Oh, and his lineage great-great uncle, in a way (Anakin = Sith lineage brother to Dooku, who's Luke's Jedi great-grandmaster, in addition to being his Jedi lineage brother).

I think all of this makes Padmé pretty much everybody's in-law???

And it might require a bit of a stretch, but I'm pretty sure there are also multiple ways for Maul to be Obi-Wan's lineage relative?

Now playing: II-XVII, Pitfalls Rising

In which Ahsoka gets closer to the truth, Vader has a lead on Revenant and a disturbing vision, and Padmé finds an important clue.

As Vader and Revenant both set course for the Ring of Kafrene, the countdown to the inevitable begins.

BBWHY

Random two o'clock a.m. thought of the day:

Just why. Why is the BBY system still such a thing in SW. Why is there apparently no standard calendar system that does not reference a date far in the future of the prequels? And how the heck has this remained the state of things for over 20 years now?

Just saying, it's particularly heinous when you're writing a fic where the Battle of Yavin will never even happen.

Do you ever have a writing idea that you're pretty meh about, and you're not sure you can make it work, and you're beginning to think you should just forget about it... but then you scribble out one scene, just to mess around... and it's adorable, it just works so well, it's like magic, and then you can't bear the idea of these characters not getting this scene, so you have to include it? And because you have to have that one scene, you're now totally sold on the idea that seemed meh just minutes before?

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've been listening to Brandon Sanderson's Wax and Wayne series at work, and the kandra naming pattern reminded me of Plo Koon in Star Wars, so then my brain was like, "PloKoon? Plo as a kandra?"

What if he takes a bag of spare bones with him on campaigns during the Clone Wars, and one of the Wolfpack finds it one day—

Trooper: "Hey buir, do we want to know why you have a bag of bones under your bed?"

Plo: "Ah... those were from Little 'Soka's first hunt."

Trooper: "Um... okay, that makes sense for the nuna bones, but some of these look human, and I'm getting a little concerned for the safety of the 501st."

And yeah, the nuna bones probably are from Ahsoka's first hunt. She gave them to him the way kids give grownups useless little things they find or make. Plo of course treasures them, and they're secretly his favorite bones.

Also, just saying, being a kandra would allow Plo to survive Order 66. He would just have to sneak off as a mistwraith.

(Not sure how you explain a Force-sensitive kandra, or how a kandra got out of the Cosmere and into the SW universe in the first place, but anyways.)

Now Playing: II-XV, Preparatory

In which Ahsoka makes a decision, Rex is too trusting, Luke and Leia get up to mischief, and Padmé and Vader argue politics over Zoom, er, holo. Again.

Behind the scenes...

The Paint Incident in Fortune's Rule II-XV was inspired by two separate incidents from my childhood.

Kids painting all over themselves comes from one time when I was two or three and drawing with markers. Was happily drawing with markers on paper, as intended. Mom turned her back for a couple minutes. When she turned back, I had somehow managed to cover most of my epidermis in purple and black scribbles. Fortunately, that was just washable marker. Of course, the Chaos Twins needed to take things up a couple notches, so for the Paint Incident, the paint became much more permanent. (Note: For years after the marker incident, I thought she was really mad about the incident, but then at some point in my teens, I found out that she actually found it funny.)

And the cadaver conversation, when Luke thinks it would be cool to see a body without skin in order to find out how muscles work? That was inspired by this one time when my brother and I were at Red Lobster with our mom, grandparents, uncle, aunt, and cousin. Our aunt ordered crab, and we somehow got ahold of one of the smaller claws. It still had short tendons connected to the base of it, so we were pulling on the tendons to explore how they controlled the opening and closing. It was super cool! So, I figure, the chaos twins might be fascinated and not super grossed out by the concept of a cadaver.

The crab claw exploration also totally grossed out our aunt, which was just an added plus. So, her reactions somewhat inspired Padmé's reaction when Luke wants to see a corpse.

What if ghosts regard séances as being haunted by the living? Or, what if that's how they view people visiting cemeteries or places where their ashes are scattered? And then when living people and ghosts bump into each other, they're both startled?

Maybe, during a social call with one of her spectral neighbors, one ghost confides, "There's an intruder in my house, Edna. I think he's taken up residence. He walks around, existing in some other plane, and he makes things go bump in the middle of the day, and it's really quite disturbing."

And Edna's ghost replies, "Oh, that's nothing! Cecily, my dear, there are children in my house, and they're the eeriest thing; I declare, I'm sure they can see me sometimes. They watch with wide eyes and secret, knowing little glances, and it's driving me quite to distraction!"

How writing is going:

My brain: So, I got nothing for the current chapter we're supposed to be working on, but here's a really great idea on how to gradually develop the relationship between two characters over the course of the next twenty chapters after this one!

Me: Yeah, that really is a great idea, and we'll absolutely use it when we get there, but first we need to get there. And that means finishing this chapter before we can start on the next twenty!

Brain: Okay, what about this wonderful idea for a conversation between these two other characters?

Me: Is it for the chapter that's currently giving a terrific impersonation of an unfinished patchwork quilt?

Brain: Well, no. It's for the chapter directly after that. Buuuuut... I do have an art idea for the stubborn patchwork chapter! No words, but art! Go draw!!!

Me: :|

A Tale of Three Antivirus Programs

Aka, I somehow have three different antivirus programs vying for the privilege of protecting my computer? My laptop: *fan running loudly nonstop because it's probably been... a month? since I last restarted it.* Me: Oh, you poor thing! *restarts it.* My antivirus software, next time I open my laptop: Hey, so we're going to need you to restart your device so we can install this new update. Me: Well, should have thought of this sooner, Bitdefender, because I literally just did that, and it is not happening again until things get buggy. See ya' next month. Note: Chances are that Bitdefender will do the same exact thing next time I restart. Even if I restart on a weekly basis instead of monthly, it does this. It's like anytime I decide to restart, it wants to update. Why. Bitdefender, when my laptop connects to wifi: This is your home network, yes? Me: No. Bitdefender next time the laptop connects to that same wifi: This is your work network, yes? Me: No. Bitdefender, third time connecting to that wifi: This is your home network, yes? Me: *facepalm*  why are you like this. Also Bitdefender: OMG you're on an unprotected network, turn on your VPN! The network: *is private, password-protected* The VPN: *is an extra, offered by Bitdefender, which I don't subscribe to* Me: *is suspicious that this is just a ploy to pull in more money* The OTHER antivirus software that my computer came with, and still hangs out occasionally, just to be a pest (yes, McAfee, looking at you): Hi!  Turn on web protection! Me: Are you seriously trying to get me to use two antivirus programs at once?  Do you really think that's a good idea?  Or even remotely necessary? The THIRD??? antivirus software, which my computer also came with:  *shyly knocks on the door, by which I mean pops up a humble little notification when I first turn the computer on*  Hey, would you... maybe... like to... consider turning on Microsoft Defender? Me: *wishes I could post a "No thanks" sticky note on my OS like I can on my front door* Go away. To be fair, I could probably uninstall the McAfee thing.  But at the same time, it's kind of funny having these three competing programs, even if what they're competing for seems to be the title of Most Irritating Hypervigilent Software.

Fortune's Rule art: Chaos Twins!

A bit of chaos twins mischief for the next chapter of Fortune's Rule! (Which is currently in the process of being written.) Was the paint supposed to end up on Luke and Leia's faces? You bet it wasn't. But we can't let extra paint go to waste in the middle of a Rebellion, now, can we?

It was hard to decide whether I wanted to make this a nice, sketchy pencil drawing or go with clean pen outlines and a bit of color. Pen and color won, because I haven't used that style yet for an illustration in this fic. Plus, it's been a while, and seemed like a good challenge!

I'm mostly pleased with how the illustration turned out, especially the way the fabric wrinkles around the sleeves! Surprised myself with that one. The hands, though... oof. Hands. Why so hard to draw.

A lovely evening, cozily painting on the floor! (Oh, that sounds kinda bad, actually.)

Headcanon that padawans and initiates try to sneak into the Senate building when the Senate isn't in session, so they can play bumper cars with the hover pods. The 501st hears about the tradition from Ahsoka, and of course they also get in on it!

(Extra points if this somehow ends up with Palpatine accidentally assassinated by a speeding hover pod.)

Hear me out.

Kyberpunk.

Like steampunk, only it's a Star Wars AU or whatever where they've somehow learned to farm kyber crystals, and have all sorts of kyber-dependent inventions. Like, kyber-augmented hyperdrives that dramatically cut travel times. Kyber is used in podracer engines, OH GEEZ what a horrible idea.

And what if there's a difference between typical farmed kyber and "natural" kyber, like from Ilum. The Ilum kyber is purer, or more powerful, or more efficient, or whatever, so of course there are people who aren't satisfied with farmed kyber and try to raid Ilum. The Jedi are pissed.

And every so often, a Jedi doesn't find their crystal in Ilum, because it's Force-only-knows-where, growing happily away in a farmer's kyber beds. And then there's a wild goose chase all over the galaxy with a gaggle of initiates and their chaperone or a master and padawan hunting down every single kyber farm until they find one with an unusually powerful farmed crystal. Once it's found, they have to convince the farmer that they shouldn't have to pay for it, because it's meant for the baby Jedi. Nice farmers will cooperate. But some are unscrupulous and decide to jack the price.

And don't even get me started on the counterfeiting issues. You can find people selling anything that vaguely resembles crystal as kyber. It's a major problem. And everybody thinks the Jedi should be the ones to take care of it, because kyber is "their thing." The Jedi are not only pissed, but also very tired. One particularly desperate individual even tried grinding up some [farmed] kyber in case it might make a good headache remedy. [It didn't. But some padawan got a holo of it, and now ground kyber is the latest holonet sensation of the year, a la Tide pods and Nyquil chicken. The Temple healers are livid, by the way.]

(This idea is free to a good home, because I will probably never write it. If anyone adopts it, though, I'd love to see what you do with it!)

Yellow is an interesting color choice for Sith eyes. Red eyes are quite common for fictitious "bad guys," but I don't think I've seen yellow much, except for Sith. It's cool for two reasons:

One is that yellow links nicely to the whole "fear-anger-hatred" thing because of the classic association between the color yellow and cowardice.

What my nerd brain finds is cooler, though, is that yellow can also mean danger in the natural world. Like bees, wasps, etc. So Sith are following a sort of Müllerian mimicry: looks like something that can hurt you, and it will. Sith are totally the yellowjackets of the Force user world. (Either that, or yellowjackets are the Sith of the wasp world....)

The Prosaic, Now-Perennial Paper

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.

Realising that, from a certain point of view:

Ventress is Anakin's lineage great-aunt, but he's also her lineage uncle.

Anakin is both Sidious' apprentice and his great-great-grand-apprentice. Or step-great-great-grand-apprentice?

Dooku is both Anakin's great-grandmaster and his lineage brother.

Savage is Dooku's apprentice and his lineage nephew.

Savage is both Anakin's lineage nephew and his lineage great-uncle.

Ventress is both Yoda's and Sidious' grand-apprentice.

Luke is Ahsoka's adoptive nephew, and her lineage uncle, and her lineage great-great-great uncle?

Luke is also Dooku's lineage brother.

And Ventress' lineage uncle.

Anakin is Luke's father, his lineage brother (sort of in two ways?), and his lineage great-great-nephew. Oh, and his lineage great-great uncle, in a way (Anakin = Sith lineage brother to Dooku, who's Luke's Jedi great-grandmaster, in addition to being his Jedi lineage brother).

I think all of this makes Padmé pretty much everybody's in-law???

And it might require a bit of a stretch, but I'm pretty sure there are also multiple ways for Maul to be Obi-Wan's lineage relative?

Now playing: Part II, Chapter XIV. Midnight Oil

In which Ahsoka and Padmé have an impromptu Girls' Night (of a sort), important decisions are discussed, and Padmé and Vader hold another verbal sparring match via commlink.

Mo Ghile Mear, by Órla Fallon—I've listened to other versions of "Mo Ghile Mear," but they've all been kind of slow and tranquil, whereas this one is so vibrant and dynamic, it's like jubilation in a bottle, and I can just see a scene playing out in my head, and all the characters, and the mood, and... hgnghgrhfh, just can't wait to write the chapter that goes with this song!

Seriously, words cannot describe how much I'm looking forward to writing and sharing this part of Fortune's Rule Part IV. At least, not at this hour of the night. morning. whatever. Anyway! I'm SO EXCITED!