Behind The Scenes...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!)

Kind of random: this cool, analytical article on the Papyrus font!

So, I had no idea that Papyrus is apparently a hated font? I thought it was pretty cool-looking when I was a kid. Trying to use it now, though, yeah, there's something just not quite right about it. Thought this article was fascinating because of its in-depth analysis of the font. Knowing nothing beforehand about font construction, it was really neat to see all the considerations that can go into font design.

In an nutshell: Papyrus, unlike Comic Sans, is actually a pretty well-structured/balanced font. The flaw is that it's too perfect: intended to look "handmade," yet every letter is identical the other letters of its kind, and so it comes off looking fake.

Design for Hackers

In Defense of Papyrus: Avatar Uses the World's Second-Most-Hated Font to Signal the Downfall of Civilization

The same reason you hate Papyrus is the reason it's the perfect font for the movie Avatar.

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.)

And yes, Luke's "blanket" is in fact Vader's cape. Love that trope!

Used Ohuhu Honolulu and Copic Sketch alcohol markers after outlining in black ink, plus Derwent Inktense blocks for the walls and floor. I like using alcohol markers, although the colors are more intense than I would prefer. Currently only have limited colors to work with, so I'm looking forward to getting some subtler shades and earth tones!

Am incredibly pleased with how the kids turned out, especially since I sketched them out late at night and without references. Turned out much better than expected.

Happy New year!! Hope you made it through grad school applications! Looking forward to that crazy call in FR! Cheers!

Happy very belated new year! I did make it through applications, with a couple acceptances, and am now just hoping the funding holds! And I am pleased to announce that the new chapter in Fortune's Rule is finally posted!

Now playing: III-XI. All Tangled Up in This Mortal Coil, pt 2

In which Obi-Wan and Ventress have a tete-a-tete or two, Obi-Wan gives Ventress a lot of sympathy for Commander Cody, and Vader is Having a Day.