There is a scratch mark on the floor of the Council chambers that Mace has never noticed before. Not a deep one, mind, quite shallow. This matters because it’s making the white-hot pulse of agony stabbing through his eyeballs ebb momentarily. Then, he chances a glance upwards at the fidgeting Knight in front of them, and it returns in full force.
Huh, he’s never seen Oppo Rancisis’ face turn that colour before.
“Hmm”, Master Yoda hums, deep and scratchy. His expression is unreadable even to Mace beyond a baseline gremlinness, and the force with which he grips the edges of his seat is making his bones creak. Master of the Order you should become, they said. Follow the calling of the Force, you should. A fulfilling purpose, it will be. Mace is going to hunt the little goblin for sport when this is all over, and he’s going to laugh the whole time.
“Show us the livestream again, could you, Knight Parvo?” Yoda asks. Mace bursts a capillary, he’s pretty sure, and so does poor Knight Parvo, whose orange Mon Cala skin tips all the way into blood red with stress. “Most unusual, this is.”
“Absolutely not!”, Ki Adi intervenes before Mace has to, thank the Force for little mercies. Plo Koon’s tusks tremble slightly with either suppressed laughter or abject horror, maybe both, and Stass Allie has her head in her hands. “The holo stills should be enough”, Ki Adi proceeds to add, and Mace has to reconsider all feelings of grace he just felt towards his fellow Councillor.
He never wants to watch Yoda zoom in on someone’s abs again. Or Depa raise her eyebrows at the curve of thighs bent over the dripping front of a speeder.
“Speeder Wash For Our Troops”, his former padawan reads out loud from a still of what has to be hundreds of the things gathered in the public senate parking lot. “Fund Our Boys And Get A Wet Seeing-To!” The series of images features dozens of Coruscant Guard troopers in various stages of unkitted, gleaming and shining with soap suds and water. The fact that the whole thing is also massive shatterpoint after massive shatterpoint is, quite frankly, insulting.
“Well hello- oh dear”, Obi-Wan’s blue form crackles to life in his chair, followed by several sounds of choking that are definitely not him. Good, Mace thinks acidly. If he has to deal with this, then so does kriffing Skywalker. “I’m sorry, why am I looking at Commander Thorn using a washrag like a lasso on top of a speeder?”
“Oh, the Guard’s little fundraising project”, Bail Organa says, as he steps into the Council chambers. Normally, Mace likes the man well enough. Now, he just smiles and adds on, “I’ve already donated, in mine and Breha’s name. Remotely, of course.”
“The Guard’s fundraising speeder wash?”, Obi-Wan repeats, edges of his holo form flickering with what Mace suspects is Skywalker very unsubtly trying to edge in. Force, but the man really is horrible at any and all stealth, like kissing his secret wife in an open arena in front of his Master. “And they are fundraising for…?”
“GAR budget allocations have to come from somewhere”, Organa shrugs. “And with the tide of public opinion turning, they’ve been tending towards cuts. The Guard feels them more keenly than any other sector - they’ve been reduced from half to quarter rations, and medical supplies have not made more than a token appearance in the last draft. The Chancellor has cancelled three consecutive meetings on the matter, and thus it was agreed that a more hands-on approach was needed. Any surplus will go into the Army fund.”
“Surely it can’t be that dire”, Oppo protests, a slightly less concerning shade of purple now. Senator Organa shrugs again, jostling the smattering of cracks slowly building around his person in a way that makes Mace wince quietly. “It’s all publicly available data, Masters.”
It really can be that dire, as it turns out. And quarter rations is only scratching the surface of how dire, considering the Guard has apparently never had access to bacta in all their posting, and also includes requisitioning forms available to the Senate for reconditionings and decommissionings, two words Mace has only heard Ponds whispers amidst shuddering in the early days of the war before Shaak Ti went off and just about tore some throats out over it.
“Alright”, he concedes, rubbing at his temples. “Fair enough, we have failed to tackle a massive blind spot in the Guard’s well being. There is no Jedi assigned to Coruscant, and that’s an oversight on our behalf. But how in the everloving kriff did this get past the Chancellor and Commander Fox?!”
Who have both signed, black on white. Bail Organa smiles cryptically. “Well, if you scroll a bit past that one image, up to the industrial speeder in the back - Commander Fox is currently having credits stuffed into his codpiece in the back, I believe.”
“HE’S WHAT IN THE WHAT NOW”, Commander Cody screeches through the speaker of Obi-Wan’s holo image, and Mace has to summon every bit of Jedi-serenity he possesses in his body to keep from dropkicking a cackling Yoda through the chamber windows.
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Happy birthday to Albert Camus!
(November 7, 1913 - January 4, 1960)
"In this light and silence, years of night and fury melted slowly away. I listened to an almost forgotten sound within myself, as if my heart had long been stopped and was now gently beginning to beat again."
Albert Camus, Lyrical and Critical Essays (Return to Tipasa)
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Hello again, sini, my fellow Zhongli enthusiast ❤️. A very happy belated birthday to you!
I got more Zhongli scenarios for you to consider. This one is a modern AU scenario and involves Pokémon.
Zhongli’s lover is a Pokémon fan and her favorite Pokémon are all Dragon types. So she buys games and collects merchandise of her favorites. How do you think Zhongli would feel about seeing more Pokémon merch than Rex Lapis merch 👀
I feel he would be respectful of his lover’s hobbies but probably feel a bit insecure about the devotion to plushies is greater than to him 🥺. But to reader, Zhongli will always be the #1 dragon in her heart and in her life ❤️.
(I feel Zhongli would love Pokémon associated with Geo like Groudon and Rhyperior but also Dragon Pokémon like Rayquaza and elegant ones like Mienshao and maybe Pokémon that resembles other Genshin characters like Bombirdier (Shenhe/Xianyun) and Suicune (Ganyu))
Thank you for the wishes! And ahhh this is such a cute scenario!! Pokémon and Zhongli go together like naan and cottage cheese (I might be a little hungry...)
I think he'd be super supportive of course, and I agree on the slight pang of jealousy he might feel - though he wouldn't express it for fear of coming off as too clingy. And hey, if you can't beat em, join em! Zhongli would totally ask to introduce him to the world of Pokémon, and he'd hold onto every word and commit things to memory like type advantages and different evolution methods and such.
When you're done raving, he might have a new understanding of why you're so attached to your favorite plushies! He'd buy some of his own as well~ side note: he'd be so dang good at competitive play if you're into that as well!
BIG AGREE on the last paragraph! Always saw Rayquaza (mega especially), Mienshao, Primal Groudon and also Gholdengo as very Zhongli. Ooh and imagine him seeing Pokémon similar to his friends and going "Oh that one looks like Ganyu :] and Ogerpon's masks remind me of Xiao :]"
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[The door swings, but no sound follows, just a cold breath. A slice of cherry pie sits untouched, the filling too red, too still. Coffee steams in reverse, the black liquid slowly rising to the brim. A plate of eggs appears, yolks swirling in impossible patterns. The jukebox hums a song you’ve never heard, but remember. Fries lie perfectly straight, their shadows bending the wrong way. A milkshake drips upward, forming a puddle on the ceiling. The floor creaks, but only when you’re not moving. A donut spins slowly on the counter, endlessly, never falling. A clock ticks backward, counting down to nothing.]
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my thoughts after the eighth episode of The Artful Dodger:
1. okay just bc i don’t trust Fagin doesn’t mean i want him to die!
2. what do you MEAN he fell asleep with his finger on her pulse 😭😭😭 don’t TOUCH me!!!
3. the ominous music instead of romantic music is just cruel
4. OH NO MAMA FOX 💀
5. Oh when Belle went off on Sneed about not believing her, god anyone with a chronic illness Felt That
6. DARIUS WORKING WITH OLIVER TWIST, THEY LITERALLY BROUGHT IN A PLOT TWIST
7. “you awakened something dark and glorious in me, Fagin. my passion, my genius for crime.” you should see the grin on my face this is so fucking funny
8. HETTY FOUND THE NOTES
9. “you love her, don’t you?” 😭😭😭
10. Hetty is too good for this world
11. oh god her SIGH when he leaves the room that alone nearly did me in, I CAN’T CRY YET IT’S TOO EARLY
12. the lotuses on Belle’s wall are lovely and also i’m crying for real now about the Fox sisters 😭
13. i love Fanny so much
14. oh the ticking clock in the background is just CRUEL
15. A NOOSE!!!
16. there is something about Hetty always being with Jack in surgery, in doing what he loves best, and how it’s what Belle loves best too, and now they’re together doing it to save her, idk it’s such an intense dynamic, like they took it further than just unrequited love and made it something more
17. Sneed finally admitting Jack is the better surgeon as if this scene didn’t need to be more intense!!!
18. oh Rotty’s gonna give it back to save her man!!!
19. IS SHE BREATHING
20. “you just sent the best surgeon i’ve ever seen to his death.” ABOUT FUCKING TIME SNEED
21. “and you was always my number one” oh that’s a dad
22. RED GOT TO KILL HIM HELL YES!!!
23. and he ran back to check on her ofc
24. JACK
25. he did a murder for you, Jack!
25. “thank you Fagin” “piss off”
26. UNTAPPED POTENTIAL
27. this instrumental version of joker and the thief is a banger tbh
28. I NEED SEASON 2 ASAP
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