More Art For The Vaderkin Creative Exchange 2024!

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.

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

Thank you! :)

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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?

Mayday, mayday!

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

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

I feel like Harold Lloyd or Buster Keaton.

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

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

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

Just checking in and seeing how Fortunes Rule is going ❤️🙏🏽❤️🙏🏽🥹😅

It's going. Slowly, but surely! 😅 Nobody is having a good time in this chapter (except the twins, of course), and it's proving rather challenging to write for some reason.

Thanks for checking in! 💛

And here's a little snippet from the chapter :)

The second morning, Beru’s call came while Padmé was pacing her room and rehearsing the finer details of her cover story in preparation for the day’s meetings. “Have you found them?” Padmé blurted, the moment she answered her comm. “No.”  Beru’s voice was subdued.  “There’s still no sign.  No one’s even seen the speeder.  Of course, if they left it somewhere, it’s probably been picked up by Jawas, or some lowlife looking for a ride.” Unless, of course, speeder and twins been collectively taken possession of first.  Frankly, that seemed just as likely.  Padmé continued to pace. “Owen checked the slave markets in Espa,” Beru added.  “He didn’t see them there.” “That’s…” Padmé started, but she couldn’t finish the sentence. That’s good.  It was good, wasn’t it?  Owen hadn’t seen the twins in the Mos Espa slave markets.  That was good.  Unless it just meant they had already been— A wave of blank terror threatened to overwhelm her at the thought of her children being sold as slaves.  They couldn’t have been.  They just couldn’t.  But if they had… I might never see them again.  They might grow up as slaves.  Unless someone discovers what they are, and Palpatine finds out, and—

Characters keep getting ideas and running with them.

So, uh, Piett and Starkiller... yeah, this was definitely not the plan when I first decided to include those characters in Fortune's Rule. (Heck, they weren't originally supposed to be in the fic at all, but then neither was at least half of the story that's happened thus far, so....)

They were supposed to have pretty separate parts in the story, and they were both going to be much more minor than they're turning out. Until Piett apparently decided Starkiller needs a friend. And he's definitely not wrong, so who am I to say no?

The unfortunate thing here is that now I'm going to have to figure out how the heck Vader is going to deal with the news that his admiral and his apprentice are in cahoots behind his back.

*looks sternly at characters*

Do you see how much extra work you are making for me? Now, behave!

(This seems to have become a recurring theme in the writing of this story. Ahsoka and Padmé weren't originally going to have as close a relationship as they do, but then they decided to take the reins for just one chapter, and look how that turned out.)

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!

Why Vader calls the 501st clones in Fortune's Rule by their CC/CT numbers

One of the trickier things I've had to decide for Fortune's Rule is how Vader should address the clones who are still in the Imperial 501st. Although I was tempted to have him use their names, I ended up having him call them by their CC/CT numbers. It still feels weird and clunky, but it seemed like maybe he would actually do that because Anakin would of course refer to the clones by name. So, in distancing himself from his life as Anakin Skywalker, Vader might deliberately choose to do the un-Anakin-like thing and call the clones by their numbers.

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