#Modern Standard Version

[specialagentartemis]

cannot believe this musical concept album gave me Real Feelings about a character from the Odyssey who appears, like, twice

[violencedistrictresident]

I don't even know which felt worse, discovering the sheer amount of work and ideas this mf stole or learning what the shit he and the cowriter actually (supposedly) wrote themselves is like. wtf holy shit you cant just SAY THAT

[llycaons]

most coffeeshop AU and generic rated e fanfic is bad BUT people who write it clearly enjoy it and there must be an audience for it...so that begs the question...is it really just a matter of personal taste...

[kareenvorbarra]

love to go in the iliad tag on ao3, filter out tsoa and hades game, and watch over half the fics in the tag disappear

[blues-corner]

Controversial take, commander is the worst format in magic the gathering.

[snekdood]

you can tell some christians just use jesus as a stand in for the Ultimate Man They Wish They Could Be by drawing him with a lot of muscles, a fat powerful sword and killing his Enemies. like its all fanfic dsjhhjgsdhg did you even read anything he actually said, i’m p sure hes not coming down here like hes goku yall hjbdhvg

[prokopetz]

I'm asking you because I've seen people ask you similar questions before. Why are kobolds, as a fantasy creature, so nebulous?

Generally when people say orc, goblin, elf, dwarf, werewolf, vampire etc. a person can have a pretty solid idea of what traits that animal will have. I guess because they're usually copying that species from the same similar source works?

What happened to kobolds? I used to know them as a kind of german folklore creature, but then also as a short lizard person, and most recently there's been Dungeon Meshi, which gives the name kobold to anthropomorphic dogs.

Well, the trick is that none of these terms have a standard definition. In folklore, the words "elf", "dwarf", "gnome", "troll", "goblin", "pixie", etc. are used more or less interchangeably – all of these words might refer to the exact same folkloric critter, and conversely, the same word might be used to refer to several completely different folkloric critters, even within the same body of regional folklore, to say nothing of how their usage varies across different regions and over time.

Literally the only reason any of these terms have "standard" definitions in modern popular culture is because one specific piece of media got mega-popular and everybody copied it. For example, Tolkien is responsible not only for the popular media stereotypes of elves and dwarves: he's responsible for popularising the idea that "elf" and "dwarf" are separate kinds of creatures to begin with. Similarly, while Bram Stoker's Dracula isn't solely responsible for cementing the idea of what a vampire is in popular culture, it did standardise what vampire magic can do, and it helped cement the idea that a "vampire" and a "werewolf" are different beasties, which hasn't always been the case.

So the short answer is that there's just never been a mega-popular work about "kobolds" to provide a standard template for the type. Most modern depictions in Anglophone popular culture ultimately point back to the interpretation set forth by Dungeons & Dragons, but D&D itself has gone back and forth on the whether they're tiny dog-people or tiny lizard-people, with the tiny dog-person version being the earlier of the two, so even folks who are directly cribbing from D&D will vary on this point depending on which particular edition they're name-checking.

[fem-lit]

In the current epidemic of rich Western women who cannot “choose” to eat, we see the continuation of an older, poorer tradition of women’s relation to food. Modern Western female dieting descends from a long history. Women have always had to eat differently from men: less and worse. In Hellenistic Rome, reports classicist Sarah B. Pomeroy, boys were rationed sixteen measures of meal to twelve measures allotted to girls. In medieval France, according to historian John Boswell, women received two thirds of the grain allocated to men. Throughout history, when there is only so much to eat, women get little, or none: A common explanation among anthropologists for female infanticide is that food shortage provokes it. According to UN publications, where hunger goes, women meet it first: In Bangladesh and Botswana, female infants die more frequently than male, and girls are more often malnourished, because they are given smaller portions. In Turkey, India, Pakistan, North Africa, and the Middle East, men get the lion’s share of what food there is, regardless of women’s caloric needs. “It is not the caloric value of work which is represented in the patterns of food consumption” of men in relation to women in North Africa, “nor is it a question of physiological needs…. Rather these patterns tend to guarantee priority rights to the ‘important’ members of society, that is, adult men.” In Morocco, if women are guests, “they will swear they have eaten already” or that they are not hungry. “Small girls soon learn to offer their share to visitors, to refuse meat and deny hunger.” A North African woman described by anthropologist Vanessa Mahler assured her fellow diners that “she preferred bones to meat.” Men, however, Mahler reports, “are supposed to be exempt from facing scarcity which is shared out among women and children.”

“Third World countries provide examples of undernourished female and well-nourished male children, where what food there is goes to the boys of the family,” a UN report testifies. Two thirds of women in Asia, half of all women in Africa, and a sixth of Latin American women are anemic—through lack of food. Fifty percent more Nepali women than men go blind from lack of food. Cross-culturally, men receive hot meals, more protein, and the first helpings of a dish, while women eat the cooling leftovers, often having to use deceit and cunning to get enough to eat. “Moreover, what food they do receive is consistently less nutritious.”

This pattern is not restricted to the Third World: Most Western women alive today can recall versions of it at their mothers’ or grandmothers’ table: British miners’ wives eating the grease-soaked bread left over after their husbands had eaten the meat; Italian and Jewish wives taking the part of the bird no one else would want.

These patterns of behavior are standard in the affluent West today, perpetuated by the culture of female caloric self-deprivation. A generation ago, the justification for this traditional apportioning shifted: Women still went without, ate leftovers, hoarded food, used deceit to get it—but blamed themselves. Our mothers still exiled themselves from the family circle that was eating cake with silver cutlery off Wedgwood china, and we would come upon them in the kitchen, furtively devouring the remains. The traditional pattern was cloaked in modern shame, but otherwise changed little. Weight control became its rationale once natural inferiority went out of fashion.

— Naomi Wolf (1990) The Beauty Myth

[emsartwork]

Hey yall im not dead!

COSMIX!!! I've officially redesigned all the transformations in the Winx Club TV series hell yeah

Lore and Design notes below

So Cosmix is a rather defunct transformation in the modern era. It used to be used heavily in the age of space exploration but since teleportation and hyper speed ships became common place, the Magix dimension prefers to use those. Essentially, in order to set up a teleportation center, the caster/s need to have been to both the origin point and the target point. Witches and Mages were the primary people responsible for setting up the teleportation system, but in order to achieve the spells requirements, they would require help from a Cosmix fairy. The primary function of Cosmix is the ability to fly through space with out detrimental effects. Cosmix fairies can take 1, maybe 2, people with them while they fly in a shooting star esc trail function. Cosmix is not great for fighting unless the foe is darkness/light based. Defense is strong against cold, pressure, and friction, but not most other kinds of damage.

Cosmix is also theorized to be the Magix Dimension's version of the elementix. So like Sirenix is the transformation that grants access to the Infinite ocean, Cosmix is the one that would grant access to the Magix Dimension if fairies were in the other realms. Because humans already belong to the Magix Dimension, and the transformation isn't required to earn Nymphix, it isn't considered a true Elementix. Some fairies (mostly Solarians) do experience biological changes when using the transformation, seen here in Stella, but it's not super common. The hair takes on the magic color and drifts into nebulous star dust and galaxy clusters. Solarians are located closest to Lumenia, a tightly clustered star formation, and frequent attract Lumens due to Solaria's binary star system. They have formed fast friendships with the Lumens and many Solarians carry a Lumen's Blessing (it's similar to the elemental companions' bonds in the elementix) in their bloodline which contributes to the biological changes when using Cosmix.

I'm still hammering out how seaosn 8 works plot wise but I'll add it to my show changes masterlist eventually.

Design! The initial concept was "man i wanna draw some chunky ass boots" and i kinda ran with the cyber punk look from there. I was also adamant that Cosmix is a pants transformation, both out of practicality and spite because they made everyone so hyper feminine in season 8. I referenced the actual cosmix designs and their "space travel" oufits for the general shapes for these, but obviously there aren't a ton of similarities since I went in such a different direction haha. Also my first time drawing Aisha with twists! I almost gave her a fro cus it would mimic an astronaut's helmet (and lowkey a nod to Garnet from steven universe) but i like how the twists came out haha

Cosmix includes! Hair up and out of the way, a mesh base layer with light veins and stars, a body suit or shorts and top, a padded armor torso piece with some tubing ports, so many buckles and straps, a clear plastic portion(usually part of the torso peice, sleeves, or around the waist/hips), wrist/arm guards, and chunky chunky boots. The wings are also larger than most transformations (rivaling Butterflix/Faunix) and trail more of the fairy's magic color than usual. Simple geometric designs are standard.

[tvickiesims]

Myshunosun's Witching Hour Set 4t2 Conversion

A 4t2 conversion of Witching Hour set made by @myshunosun. Includes a functional cauldron, a functional spell book (1 slot), a deco spell book (1 slot), a cabinet (6 slots), a rug, 2 functional book piles, deco herbs and 3 deco potion bottles.

Cauldron comes in 4 versions:

Tvickiesims_Myshunosun_ClassicCauldron - standard version.

Tvickiesims_Myshunosun_ClassicCauldron_CustomPotions - incorporates @midgethetree's Better CC potions mod (you still need her mods).

Tvickiesims_Myshunosun_ClassicCauldron_CustomPotionsFasterReagents - incorporates Midge's Better CC potions mod (you still need her mods) and her edited version of CJ's Faster Reagents mod.

Tvickiesims_Myshunosun_ClassicCauldron_FasterReagents - incorporates CJ's Faster Reagents mod.

Spellbook Stand incorporates @lamare-sims material fix for spellbook.

All objects are quarter tile placeable.

To have nicer looking water inside the cauldron, I recommend this water replacement by @pforestsims.

Special thank you goes to @lottes-little-place who made a very cool modern witch set that inspired me to convert cauldrons and spell books as custom objects.

Compressed, clearly labelled, picture and collection file are included.

✨🪄🧙🏻‍♀️Download at SFS🧙🏻‍♀️🪄✨

[twinsimming]

Mattresses & Frames Conversions [Pt. 3]

Here's my third set of converted mattresses and bed frames! The conversions are from the following packs: The Sims 4 (#4), The Sims 4: Snowy Escape (#1), The Sims 4: Cats & Dogs (#5), and The Sims 4: City Living (#6).

I also converted the mattress and bed frame from the SIMKEA Furnishings Stuff Pack (#3) and the bed frame from the Tiny Living Plus - CC Addon (#2) by @illogicalsims.

The bed frame and mattress from The Sims 4: Cats & Dogs are longer than the others to leave room up top for the pillows, but I've also included "standard" versions that can work with other mattress/frame combinations. And I edited the bed frames from The Sims 4: Snowy Escape and The Sims 4: City Living to convert them from singles to doubles.

The mattress in Preview #1 can be found here, the mattress in Preview #2 can be found here, and the mattress in Preview #6 can be found here.

Links to Mattresses & Frames Part 1 and Mattresses & Frames Part 2.

Comfort -> Beds

Monster Free Bed Frame [edit by twinsimming]: one channel | §500 |

Not So Murphy Bed Frame [by illogicalsims]: two channels | §600 |

Sömlös Double Bed Frame [by illogicalsims]: one channel | §3000 |

Sömlös Double Mattress [by illogicalsims]: four channels | §850 |

The Barnish Bed Frame: three channels | §400 |

The Barnish Mattress: four channels | §220 |

Modern Colonial Bed Frame: two channels | §1500 |

Modern Colonial Bed Frame Standard [edit by twinsimming]: two channels | §1500 |

Modern Colonial Mattress: four channels | §700 |

Modern Colonial Mattress Standard [edit by twinsimming]: four channels | §700 |

Modern Colonial Bed Pillow: two channels | §50 |

Space Blanket Bed Frame [edit by twinsimming]: two channels | §500 |

| All TS4 presets included and base game compatible |

Credit: meshes by EA, meshes by illogicalsims, The Sims 4, Sims4Studio, TSRW, Blender, Milkshape, Photoshop, and Gimp.

Download (SFS, package) | Mirror (MEGA, package)

If you like my work, please consider tipping me on Ko-fi.

Experiencing issues with my conversions? Inbox me. Enjoy! 💙

[cottoncandiescupcakes]

OFMD is funny because Ed fancying Stede is treated as like the cool sexy guy fancying this foppish dork but

In reality

Ed is crushing on the male beauty standard of the time. It's like a modern day version of a criminal robbing a bank and finding an unconscious Chris Hemsworth

Stede has everything a man of his day and age wanted, like shapely legs, fluffy hair and cherubic features, aristocratic, so to Ed, it'd be like finding someone so beautiful he'd only seen statues and paintings of it LMAO

[prying-pandora666]

The Cast and Crew Don’t Deserve Your Hate

I know many of us feel hurt and betrayed by NATLA. I know this. I feel the same.

Please stop cursing Albert Kim and the production crew. The fact is, he inherited a huge mess that was already behind schedule. Studios nowadays want the fastest turn around possible and are willing to pour money into projects.

But not time.

I’ve said it before, but LOTR is the absolute gold standard for production. They took years of pre-production time to hand craft their costumes and props and wigs. They hired artisans to hand make tunics and chainmail by hand. They sourced and layered real human hair for their hair pieces. It was incredible.

GOT also attempted something similar though not nearly at the same scale.

That’s why both of these productions have such fantastic and realistic feeling costumes, wigs, and props.

Modern studios just want fast turn around. They’ll pour in money but they want it fast. That’s why the modern takes on LOTR and GOT (ROP and HOTD) look like mediocre cosplay by comparison. The stylists are doing their best, but there’s only so much you can do with so little time.

That’s exactly what’s happened here. You can tell in how awful all the wigs and beards look, even compared to the Shyamalan film of all things! It’s why you can see machine stitching and the fabrics aren’t thick enough to pass for animal pelts. It’s why Iroh’s beard looks like it’s going to fall off, and Yue’s hair looks like a Lego piece, and Azula’s bangs are visibly attached extensions of a completely different sort from the rest of the synthetic wig. It’s why Zuko’s scar looks like a birthmark and not a burn.

It’s why the bending, despite having impressive animation, doesn’t line up well with the actors’ movements and feels pasted on. Almost as if the artists and fight choreographers didn’t get to communicate and plan together.

It’s why the scripts are a poorly juggled mish mash of plots, with threads left to hang in the wind while others are so oversimplified that it feels like a playschool version of ATLA rather then the “adult” version it’s supposed to be.

And it’s why the the Chinese writing is grammatically a mess like they just ran it through Google translate.

I have nothing but respect for Albert Kim and the cast and crew that worked tirelessly to bring this disaster to life under these conditions.

I worry about the poor crew being put through some awful crunch time for this show…

Yes it’s bad. But it’s not only bad as a piece of media. It’s bad as an indicator of what studios prioritize now, and it’s neither audiences nor their own staff.

[mask131]

I want to briefly adress another BIG misconception about Greek gods that has (quite recently) been going on around the Internet. And it is again part due to the Percy Jackson TV show. I insist on the "TV show", because as we now know, the TV show made some changes to the book's original plotline when it came to the gods interacting with their children (like Athena's move with Echidna *cough cough*), and as a result here is what I have been hearing here and there.

"Yeah, well the Greek gods were all assholes, right, but what PJ REALLY got right was that they were especially assholes to their own children and the worst abusive parents ever".

... No?

In fact this is almost a counter-interpretation of Greek mythology, because in Greek myths and legends, the whole point was that, when a god was being an "asshole" as you say, they were an asshole to everybody... except their children. One of the reasons the Greek gods can look "bad" by modern standards is precisely because they had an habit of favorizing their own children, and taking care about them more than about other beings.

The most famous of these myths is of course Demeter's immense love and hyper-protection of Persephone - just look at the trials she went through to find her back after she disappeared.

Another famous example is how Poseidon turned on Odysseus and plagued him with curses and monsters for blinding his son - Polyphemus the cyclop (and the whole point here is that Poseidon favorized his son, despite his son being the actual criminal and monster in the case)

Ares, who was not one of the best gods, still went on an avenging mode every time his children were attacked, from the dragon slain by Cadmos to the rape of Alcippe.

There's how Apollo went berserk after the death of Asclepios. There's how Herakles had planned to be favorized by Fate since his birth thanks to Zeus, and how the entire reason Zeus inflicted on his wife the atrocious torture of hanging chained up by the sky was because he had enough of her constantly tormenting Herakles in the worst ways possible. Even Athena ended up taking care of Erichthonius as her own child despite her not being his true mother - showing that even the virgin, sexless, childless goddess has a mothering side to her.

It all goes back to Gaia, and how she keeps turning against Zeus for each time vanquishing her children - from the Titans, to the Giants, to Typhon - despite these children being again, bad news and even hurting Gaia herself. Another example of "primordial motherhood": Nyx shelters Hypnos from Zeus' wrath in the Iliad, and not even Zeus would dare anger such an elderly mother-goddess. And if we push beyond the boundaries of Greek mythology and into the very late Roman literature, we see this trend continues with Aphrodite's smothering-mothering of Eros during the Psyche legend.

A good lot of conflicts and feuds and problems in Greek mythology was precisely due to how much the gods loved their children, and how protective they were of them - with the problem that the god had the tendency to be blind to whether their children were good or evil, victims or criminals.

This is why, for example, Zeus and Hera's relationships to their children were especially important and unique in Greek myths, in the light of this god's tendency to favorize and spoil and protect their own children.

On Hera's case, her action of, for example, throwing Hephaistos into the sea at birth just because he is "ugly" is meant to come off as massively shocking. Remember that in a good bunch of Greek myths, Hera had a negative, evil, dangerous side to her, that popped up in various ways - from her jealous, vain, angry personality to how in some versions she literaly gave birth to Typhon... Unlike Zeus, who was the "ultimate father", Hera wasn't (in myths, I insist) seen as a postive mother, and was more of a mother-of-monsters avatar (after all, she did command a lot of Greek monsters), or an anti-mother (she was the one who prevented Leto from giving birth, a powerful symbol).

On the other side, Zeus was also seen regularly punishing or being very harsh to his children, but there was the secret to his character: Zeus had to act both as a father, and as a king. He embodied the all loving ancestor and the all powerful father, but he also had to act as the embodiment of law and of justice, and those two aspects of his personality clashed a lot. We see him punish his divine children regularly, but almost always because his role as the enforcer of the law primed over his role as a father - for example when he wanted to throw Apollo into Tartarus because he had caused a Cyclop genocide out of anger. But he still had this same "over-parenting" side as the other gods. Again, Herakles was one of his favorite children and he tried to arrange everything so that he could have the greatest life ever - but his official side as the "political" and "civilization" god caught up to him when Hera tricked him into swearing away the gifts he had intended for Herakles. Despite Zeus' immense love for his son, his oath and the law he embodies took over and prevented him from sheltering Herakles from Hera's hatred. The most revealing case of this "father vs king" aspect of Zeus' personality comes from the Iliad: it is the death of Saperdon.

When Zeus looks upon the Trojan War and sees that his son will soon die, he is very heavily tempted from interfering. He explicitely wishes to save him, and to change the scales of fate to avoid his impending death (because remember in the Iliad Zeus was still the god of fate who literaly weighed humans' destinities in his scale). That's his "father" side showing up. But then Hera, who is by his side, who is his queen and thus his "political" side, reminds him of his duty as a king and of his role as ultimate judge of the world and ruler of the gods. She points out he would break the very own law he imposed of not interfering with the mortal conflict. She reminds him that, as the setter of examples, if he saved Sarpedon, he would create a precedent and other gods could also start saving their own children from the war. She reminds him that he has a role as the god of law and fate, and that he can't allow his personal feelings to interfere in the matter, else he would be unfair and unjust. And thus, Zeus resignates himself to let his son die before his eyes - but he still shows his immense love for him by both sending a shower of blood as a sign of his grief, and then ordering Apollo, Hypnos and Thanatos in person to carry Sarpedon's corpse away (predating future legends about great kings and heroes taken into the afterlife by supernatural figures, like Arthur collected by Morgan and the ladies of Avalon).

In conclusion: having the gods act as if they were all bad, abusive, absent parents not getting involved in their children's life or not caring about them is actually going against what the mythology originally said in terms of characterization. The untold rule of Greek mythology was that, if gods were bad parents, it would be because they were too loving, too protective, too smothering, too spoiling, interfering too much. Not the other way around - unless you were Hera, of course. Meanwhile, having the gods act as "assholes" and bullies towards OTHER GODS' children, now that would be accurate to Greek mythology (this is the very basis of Hera's cycle of legends as a persecuting goddess). But the gods usually stuck by the side of their own children - a bit like how in a school's football or soccer game the parents end up fighting each other because of what their children did or did not do in the game.

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

so i'm a graduate student at a prestigious university in north eastern united states and one of my professors recently made a very oblique announcement to the class to the effect of "i've noticed some people using chatgpt. won't say who though. won't tell you if it's you i am talking about. but just so you know. i can tell when you do it."

and like the anxious person i am, i have started doing the student equivalent of when you are in the airport security line and wonder if you accidentally packed a gun and a kilo of coke. "what if this essay i wrote accidentally sounds like chatgpt and she hates me now"

from your point of view: is this possible? i have never once used chatgpt, i don't think i even know how, but not every single one of my academic contributions is as stellar as i'd wish (ya girl is sleep deprived). please help me shut down the anxious brain that is saying i am somehow being suspected of using chatgpt when i hand in just plain old, home grown mediocrity.

Haha! It's extremely unlikely that you would accidentally false-positive flag as using ChatGPT. You kind of... get your eye in for this stuff? So generic bland writing isn't enough by itself.

Here's a very quick list:

Fake references and citations. MASSIVE giveaway

Factual errors. But like... BIG errors, and errors that build on each other (it's called hallucination). So first it claims that coal spoil makes poor soil because of drainage (true), then it's because it's sandy soil (false, bad drainage in the wrong direction) and then before you know it it's recommending palm trees and mangroves for planting (wtf)

Sentences of the same/similar lengths in same/similar sized paragraphs

Maddeningly vague topic coverage. Zero analysis. Everything is broad strokes, no real examples or case studies given. If one is given, it turns out to be fake.

And, the standard hallmarks of cheating. If the offending piece was only partly written with an LLM, there's a difference in writing style/language that's super obvious among other things.

The other thing, though, is that you can protect yourself to an extent by saving your assignment on OneDrive (or whatever equivalent your uni offers) and working on it from there, with auto save enabled. This is because modern OneDrive Word allows you to access a file's version history. It's much easier to see when a file has been genuinely written line by line Vs copy-pasted in a block from destinations unknown. So, if you are challenged, you have a bit of a backup if you can go "Here's my version history for you to explore, here's my planning doc, have fun."

But, genuinely, I can assure you that lecturers are actually more accustomed to reading mediocre work than anything else lol. We know what that looks like. It's staggeringly unlikely that your work could be accidentally mistaken for an LLM generated piece.

[phoenixyfriend]

Accountant of Theed

Read on AO3

After all is said and done, someone needs to balance these books, and nobody actually told the accounting department how they paid for this new hyperdrive. Mimi really hopes it's not a loan from the Hutts.

Disclaimer: I am not an accountant, but I work in an adjacent field (and have been considering getting a certification, but that's neither here nor there). While I did take some courses on it, I asked an Accounting Person to look over the excel sheet before I went forward with the rest of the fic to make sure it's internally consistent. Thank you to @gnomer-denois for confirming my balance on these works!

The reconciliation sheet does NOT follow contemporary guidelines in terms of format etc, but that is because it is:

In space! Standard practice differs from Modern United States or what have you.

Not the primary balance sheet, just the simplified version made to show to Queen Amidala.

If you'd prefer to view the Excel sheet in a more easily navigable form, there is a google drive link available. This is also your best option if using a screen reader.

-----------------------------------------

Theed is safe. They are rebuilding. There is even financial support, aid, from the Republic.

It comes with strings attached. Oversight. Auditors.

Wouldn’t want Naboo to misuse funding after that nasty mistake with the Trade Federation, right? Sure, Naboo wasn’t the one at fault, but one can never be too careful...

Mimi, as an accountant for the government of Naboo, does not in fact want to commit fraud, or enable corruption, but the rolling audits do feel a little like the Republic is punishing them for getting invaded.

“Hey, boss?”

That tone. Mimi does not like that tone. “Please tell me it’s not another unauthorized purchase with a missing receipt. Which account did they pull from this time?”

“Um... we don’t know?”

Mimi gives them a moment. No elaboration is given.

“You don’t know?”

“We don’t know,” the younger employee repeats.

“What do you mean?” Mimi asks. “People charge things to accounts or cards. They forget to submit receipts. We hunt them down for receipts, and make sure nobody is skimming off the top. That’s how it goes. Unless this is a purchase on a personal and we need to reimburse—”

“Um, maybe?”

“In which—what? That’s just... okay. There’s a process for reimbursements. You aren’t following it, which means... what? What do you mean, you don’t know? Did they use cash, or pull from an account?”

The younger employee looks down at their datapad. Looks back up at her. Looks baffled and a little scared. “Um, it’s... we still don’t have a receipt, but we also don’t know where the money for it came from? But nobody’s put in a reimbursement request and I can’t imagine anyone on the mission had those funds on them, not even the Queen herself.”

“The money for what?”

“Um. It sort of just... showed up?”

“So, it’s some kind of gift?” Mimi presses.

“Too big,” the younger mumbles, refusing to meet her eyes. “It would have to be disclosed.”

“I am giving you five seconds—”

“It’s a hyperdrive!” they yelp.

“...Explain.”

“One of the mechanics was looking over the Royal Cruiser, and found that there was unrecorded repair work to the hyperdrive. The ship took enough damage during the escape that he wasn’t surprised, but then he noticed that it was from an earlier run of the part, and when he checked, the serial number was completely wrong. The hyperdrive was completely replaced.”

Mimi closes her eyes and takes a breath. “The mechanic doesn’t know?”

“He said there’s nothing in the records that matches it at all, and it’s a big enough part that there’s no way it would just slip through the cracks, not when it’s that expensive and going on the Royal Cruiser.”

“So,” Mimi says, “we have a part worth almost as much as the rest of the cruiser combined, that just... came out of nowhere, and nobody claiming for reimbursement.”

“Yes, ma’am. That’s what it looks like.”

Mimi has no interest in fraud.

“Find out who was piloting when Queen Amidala escaped, and see if they have any answers,” Mimi tells them. “If we can keep it to just the hangar staff without drawing in the Royal Retinue, it’ll be easier on all of us.”

“Here’s hoping, ma’am.”

(Continue on AO3)