variiawrites

[variiawrites]

i should have turned and ran like hell last time i got the taste of you.

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(I DIDN'T.) you reply.

to defeat monsters: become the greater monster | m.a.w @dvoyd

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@prequelsnet prequels appreciation week: day 5 — found family

↳ The Disaster Lineage

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here are some interesting surnames I have seen on old graves:

*they’re not inherently “weird” or “rare”, they’re just names I noted for possible future use in my writing

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i hope you write (i hope we both write)

[variiawrites]

If zombies were real, you wouldn't first be warned by the approaching horde by their smell, by their groans, not even a cloud of smoke of the dust they raise coming closer from the horizon. It would be the flies. Hordes and hordes of insects, corpse-flies laying eggs on the carcasses of people who still walk, eating the eyeballs from their sockets, climbing across their unfeeling leathery skin. And the buzzing. The inescapable, deafening buzzing. Everywhere. Like you did not just kick a hornet's nest, but the very ground you walk on was a hornet nest, and each step caused another explosion of insects.

Insects, corpse flies, the buzzing. Their swarms blacken the skies, more horrifying than their migrating meals. The deafening cacophony of constant buzzing, the horrid noise of the living who feast on the dead who feast on the living. The buzzing.

The endless, inescapable buzzing.

[variiawrites]

In case anyone needs it, I have the "library" of every clone that has an official name in the Clone Wars.

It's a sheet of gifs but it still has everyone (except the newest characters from Bad Batch they haven't been added yet.)

A gift.

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Planets and Moons of the Star Wars Movies

↳Part 4/7

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mostly because by my (very bad) calculations an Arcobaleno is only about as big as a two-tier cake

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What was it like to be a Jedi during the Clone Wars?

The Dark is choking the galaxy and every day you feel the pinpricks of light (that used to be beacons) that are your brothers and sisters be snuffed out en masse and all around you life is extinguished and your men are so brave and so tired and you save as many as you can but the enemy keeps coming and you know that you can't block every single blaster shot and anyone could be the next to fall but all you can do is block this shot and the next one and save as many people as possible and keep choosing the Light every single minute of every day even though the Dark keeps getting stronger and pulling at you and you need to keep holding on and you are so, so tired and you've lost so many people and you've seen Masters grieve their Padawans and Padawans weeping over the bodies of their Masters and you know it should never have been this way but you couldn't leave the people of the Republic to be slaughtered in droves so was it really a choice?

So you pick up your saber and choose the Light and save a hundred more men and three hundred die and you wonder how the Order can possibly survive but you can hardly think about the future when the civilians need your help here and now-

And that final bolt slips by you and another pinprick of Light is gone from the galaxy.

[variiawrites]

[variiawrites]

Alpha-17 and Obi-Wan being friends (derogatory) on 17's part and friends (threatening) on Obi-Wan's part is such an underrated dynamic

They could be so funny and terrifying, like Obi-Wan went through a soul shredding experience with Alpha-17 as his only company. They're friends because what else are you gonna be after you witness each other at absolute rock bottom from torture.

It's like 'dog put in cage of cheetah who's threatening to go crazy', except the dog is a grizzly bear and also threatening to go crazy.

Emotional support trooper except the trooper in question has never done any sort of supporting in his life and is actively an emotional distress trooper to a great number of the CC batch.

I want them texting everyday, I want Obi-Wan mailing handmade BFF bracelets to Alpha and Alpha sending pics back of him flipping off the camera but still wearing them, I want Alpha using Obi-Wan to keep track of and occasionally terrorize his cadets, I want 17 ending problems in the GAR (like Krell) before they begin because Obi-Wan has him shipped out on a personal transport at the first opportunity, decked out with slug-throwers Obi-Wan got him for his decant-day.

Natborn officers think this is all just an odd indulgence of General Kenobi, the Vode, however, correctly identify it as a goddamn threat and their danger assessment of Obi-Wan ticks up significantly.

When Alpha arrives on Kamino, Shaak Ti presses a shiny new comm into his hand. It has the Jedi Order symbol painted onto it alongside a smiley face sticker, and it pings immediately with a new message: Hello! I hope you're settling in well!

Alpha stares at the message, stares at the singular contact named 'OWK' and then stares Shaak Ti in the eye as he pitches the comm straight into the ocean. Shaak Ti's serene smile only grows larger as she calmly reaches into her robes and pulls out an identical comm, only this one has a frowny face sticker, and presses it into his hand. It lights up: I'm afraid we've bonded, Alpha :). Alpha shuts it off and pockets it with resignation.

Cody arrives on Alpha-17's personal recommendation.

A-17: He's the most difficult little bastard I have. You're perfect for each other. OWK: Thank you, he's very handsome :3 A-17: No. Stop.

The first thing he asks once he gets comfortable is who his general is texting so much that has him swinging his legs and twirling his hair. Cody assumes it's Anakin, given they seem joint at the hip anyway, but little does he know Obi-Wan's ability to consistently have the Weirdest Relationships Ever.

"Oh, it's Alpha-17, I understand you're familiar with each other?" Hmm. OK. Cody.exe is experiencing a processing error, please hold. He exits the room instead of answering. The next day he peeks over the General's shoulder when he's texting and sees walls of rambling messages from Obi-Wan. Alpha-17 replies every hour with a single text: Lose this number. Obi-Wan giggles. "He's so funny." he says.

When Obi-Wan meets the rest of the CC batch, Cody makes sure to stand perfectly angled so that he can record the reactions when his general cuts off their introductions with "Oh, no need, Alpha-17's told me all about you." It's always immediate FEAR.JPG followed by a slow spiral of What The Fuck.

What do you mean by that General. What does that mean Cody. What do you mean they text. No. Cody. What the fuck is happening, Cody. Alpha-17 doesn't have friends he has enemies and enemies he tolerates enough not to shoot on sight.

OWK: Wolffe reached for his vambrace? when I mentioned you A-17: That's where he keeps his spare knife. OWK: Hm that does explain the way he eyed me up, ambitious. A-17: Clearly not enough, he should have followed through. I taught them better.

[variiawrites]

Mando'a Dialects in- and out-of-universe

Outgame (irl) there are several different versions of Mandoʻa: The Shadows of the Empire Soundtrack version (Notron Cant), the Republic Commando Soundtrack version (Jesse Harlin's text), the Old Republic version (as seen in SWtOR or KotOR), the Republic Commando Novels version (Karen Traviss' version), the Mandoa.org version (their forum members made up a lot of extra vocabulary), several different tumblr versions, and the Disney version (as in the TV-series Star Wars Rebels). They all have distinctive similarities (the Notron Cant is an exception), but unfortunately, they also all somewhat differ. Since Karen Traviss published her Mandoʻa version online, complete with a dictionary, the Mandoa.org version and most tumblr versions are based on her version. Her version in turn is vaguely based on Jesse Harlin's version-the first Mandoʻa on file, so to say. I myself see them as different dialects or development stages of the same language.

See, Karen Traviss' Mandoʻa and also most of Mandoa.org's Mandoʻa uses Basic (i.e. English) grammar with a Mandalorian vocabulary, so I call that version Soldiers' Pidgin. It's obviously (ingame) a creole language that came into existence after the Mandalorian diaspora. It is this Soldiers' Pidgin that Kal Skirata taught his children (the Nulls) and possibly also the language that the Alphas taught other, younger clones (e.g. the CC class or the ARC-troopers) as a "secret" language to hide from the Kaminoans. If it was used by the clones in such a way, the GAR should have its own dialect. The different internet versions of Mandoʻa all seem to be based on Karen Traviss' dictionary, so I see them as different dialects of the Soldiers' Pidgin. The same reasoning can be applied to Disney's Mandoʻa.

The language of Vode An, Graʻtua Cuun, Darasuum Kote, etc. on the other hand uses a grammar that differs from Basic. It is an older form of Mandoʻa, probably the Mandoʻa spoken on Mandaʻyaim before the Excision - seven-hundred years ago. It's a lot more interesting (for me, at least). I propose calling it Classic Mandoʻa. It has its own grammar; it has a similar vocabulary as Soldiers' Pidgin, but with distinct and sometimes varying pronunciations (sometimes depending on the rhyme or rhythm of the song); it has a lot of epitaphs and kennings and references and can have very flowery phrasing. It's used, in or around the time of Palpatine's Empire, predominantly in older songs and poems. An irl-equivalent could be Shakespearean English.

We can probably view the (archaic) tOR version as vaguely translated into modern Mandoʻa (Soldiers' Pidgin, probably) since there is exactly no way that the language changes so little in over 3000 years. I also propose that the Basic back then has very few similarities to the Basic that's spoken during the Skywalker Wars.

Missing is a sort of current, modern version of Classic Mandoʻa. I think that is (sadly) very realistic. A society that is so broken up by something like orbital bombardment would likely, over the centuries, develop several different creole versions and try to keep their original language as unchanged as possible, leading to exactly the combination described above.

Here are some other people's thoughts:

[variiawrites]

pssssst hey. hey. free and expansive database of folk and fairy tales. you can thank me later

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filterable picrew database!

hey pals!! i'm working on a filterable, tagged collection of picrew i like. right now there's about 60 picrew (and other such makers such as those from neka or meiker) in there with tags for things like fashion, hair options, skin colors, specific features like horns or headscarves, and body types. you can search for multiple tags at a time and filter out tags you don't want. the whole thing is organized in a big grid of sample results from the picrew in question, so you can see the style at a glance and click it for more images and the url, but you can change the view and organization system however you like.

the link is here!!! feel free to share this wherever. i'm still going through my folders and adding more makers, so expect lots of updates real soon.

i'm hoping this makes it easier for people to find picrew that suit them and their characters, especially in cases where it's unfortunately harder to find certain features like dark skin options and fat bodies.

have fun!!!! i hope this is helpful for people!!!

[variiawrites]

“but AI art lets me create my OCs!” YOU WILL USE PICREW AS GOD INTENDED

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In case you writers ever wondered. Made by Carrie Patrick on Facebook.