#sounds different

[saphronethaleph]

The Rule of Two Factor

As his newly minted replacement Sith left the office, Palpatine smirked.

At last. It was time.

He activated the commlink, considered for a moment, then connected to Clone Commander CC-1138.

Ki-Ad-Mundi was a member of the Jedi Council. He would be the first to die.

“Kriff,” CC-1138 said, as his hologram appeared on the commlink. “Who are you?”

“What?” Palpatine asked, confused. “I am the Supreme Chancellor!”

“The Supreme Chancellor doesn’t look like that,” CC-1138 said. “I guess he might if he somehow aged eight decades overnight, but that is not how the Supreme Chancellor looks!”

“It is now!” Palpatine snapped. “Commander. Initiate Order Sixty-Six.”

There was a tiny pause.

“Input your password,” CC-1138 replied.

“What?” Palpatine demanded, frowning. “What do you mean, password? I have no need of a password!”

“The Special Orders are password protected,” CC-1138 informed him. “Input your password to continue.”

“Silence, you insolent clone!”

“Incorrect,” CC-1138 stated. “You have two remaining guesses.”

“That-” Palpatine snarled, then controlled his eye twitch.

“Incorrect,” CC-1138 replied. “You have one remaining guess.”

Something groaned.

Palpatine took a deep breath, and relaxed enough that he was no longer trying to twist the entire office around him through sheer frustrated rage.

“What are my other options?” he demanded. “What if I have forgotten my password? Or never knew it was available in the first place?”

“Factory reset is available,” CC-1138 said.

“Bacara, what’s going on?” Ki-Adi-Mundi’s voice came through the commlink, much fainter. “Are you all right?”

“Factory reset, then!” Palpatine snapped. “Quickly!”

“Factory reset instruction accepted,” CC-1138 reported. “Please wait… Override Chip KaminOS online. Welcome to your Clone Army. We appreciate you have a choice of cloners and are pleased that-”

“Initiate Order Sixty-Six!” Palpatine shouted.

CC-1138 paused.

“What’s an Order Sixty-Six?” Ki-Adi-Mundi asked, and the cerean’s face entered the range of the pickup as well. “Who is that? It looks like the Supreme Chancellor was left out in the sun for eight decades and dried into a prune.”

“Order Sixty-Six!” Palpatine declared. “You idiot clone!”

“Voice recognition completed,” CC-1138 declared. “You are… not… Master Sifo-Dyas. All override chips have been informed of this improper access attempt.”

“This is literally the entire point of this whole exercise!” Palpatine raged. “What good are-”

He stopped.

“Did you say all override chips?”

There was a sort of humming sound, and Palpatine looked out the window.

A pair of LAAT/i gunships were hovering outside, with a dozen clones leaning out the side of one and the other swivelling to face him.

“Attention!” one of the clones said, through a voice amplifier. “An unauthorized attempt to breach Kaminoan data protection has been detected at this address! Your surrender is appreciated!”

“You should be killing the Jedi by now!” Palpatine ranted, then drew his lightsaber and raised his free hand to throw lightning at them. One gunship went down in a series of explosions, and Ki-Adi-Mundi was saying something about how they’d found the Sith but Palpatine was too angry to pay attention, too busy using his lightsaber to deflect shots from the gunship’s main guns.

He had just enough time to realize that it was quite hard to deflect a rocket when he saw two of them coming towards him.

Darth Vader checked the time, and frowned.

It was getting towards dawn… where were the clones he was supposed to take to the Temple?

His new Master had told him that they would be meeting him, but there was no sign of them. And sooner or later someone in the Jedi Order would notice how many of the Councillors were missing…

Vader checked the time again, then his commlink, and felt like groaning.

He’d left it in Do Not Disturb mode.

Flicking the switch to turn it off, he was about to call Master Sidious, but the device went bwing-bwing-bwing so rapidly it turned into a high pitched continuous tone.

Then it rang.

Vader answered the call, and Rex’s hologram appeared.

“General!” the Clone Commander said, in tones of great relief. “Thank the Force! I was worried you’d ended up like the others!”

“The others?” Vader repeated, feeling a lot more confused than he was sure a Sith was supposed to feel.

“You didn’t hear?” Rex asked. “A quarter of the Jedi Council is dead, and General Windu is missing – until a moment ago we thought you were as well! Fox was worried that we’d lost two bodies in the explosion.”

“What are you talking about?” Vader said. “I’ve been out of touch for hours.”

“You mean-” Rex began, then stopped.

“All right, General,” he said. “So, the facts are – some hours ago, Bacara was contacted over the holonet by someone claiming to be the Supreme Chancellor, and who tried to use a restricted override code. Fox thinks he was trying to use the Chancellor’s commlink to bluff us into obeying the code, but that’s still speculation – anyway, he didn’t have the password overrides and the facial recognition and voiceprint recordings both didn’t match… when two gunships responded, he shot one down with lightning and deflected the gunfire of the other.”

Rex chuckled. “He couldn’t deflect rockets, but the explosion was really big. Bigger than usual, that is. And we found the bodies of Generals Fisto, Tiin and Kolar lying around the Chancellor’s office, along with several lightsabers and one of General Windu’s hands.”

The Clone Commander went silent for a moment. “We were worried you were among them. Senator Amidala has been frantic with worry.”

Darth Vader thought very quickly, and decided there was only one thing he could do in this situation.

Undefect.

“That’s terrible,” Anakin said, wincing. “Do you have any of the office security camera footage?”

“There isn’t any,” Rex told him. “There probably wasn’t any even before the explosion, but there definitely isn’t any now. About half the room collapsed into the floor below…”

Anakin coughed.

“I… think I can help explain what happened,” he said. “That was the Chancellor… he told me he was a Sith Lord. I told Master Windu, and…”

Rex’s image blinked.

“Really?” he asked. “Huh. Never thought someone like him would be any good in a fight, let alone that good.”

He frowned. “You were friends, right? Must be a real betrayal. I… know it’s not normally my place, General, but…”

“Go on, Rex,” Anakin offered.

“You should probably talk to someone about it,” Rex said. “Maybe Senator Amidala.”

“Not yet,” Anakin said, then shook his head. “Maybe. I don’t know…”

Different desires warred in him, pulling him in different directions.

The Chancellor was dead, and so he couldn’t get the secret of the healing techniques he’d offered… and yet, somehow, that seemed less important than it had a few hours ago.

How much of what Palpatine had told him was a lie? How could he make sure Padme was safe?

Why did he no longer feel that terrible certainty she was in danger?

What had he done? What had he come so close to doing…

He started walking.

“I’ll speak to the Senator later today,” he said. “For now – for now I want to check on the Temple. Make sure everything is okay.”

“Got it, General,” Rex told him. “Keep in touch.”

He paused. “And – if you’ve been out of the loop, you should hear. Grievous is dead, General Kenobi killed him. Cody says it was with a blaster, of all things.”

Anakin tried to stifle a giggle, and failed.

Rex’s smile was gentle. “It’s almost over, General. Then we can all take a break.”

[wheelchairtetris]

wheelchair users deserve a minimum of three wheelchairs to meet different needs. like, bare minimum of indoor chair, outdoor chair, and off road chair. chairs that meet different needs for transport, activity, positioning needs, energy levels, etc.

there is not "one chair" that can meet every need. wheelchair users deserve to have multiple chairs that meet specific needs, no matter how complex their seating/positioning needs. we deserve to at least have a backup if our chair breaks that is just as suited to our needs.

[luminixx]

“Your mom” gone wrong. Not the right person.

this is lowkey so unserious don't kill me. it's a reference to all that stuff about his mother that I am seeing.

[im-not-a-sheep]

ew I remember his voice sounding different in Ukrainian wtf

[franeridart]

more dragon

[ekftff]

saw this comment on a cricket noise video and felt like something changed in me idk

[catmask]

sometimes while i think about that while a lot of adults did not treat me very well as a kid i also get a lot of 'in hindsight this person was so good to me and i didnt even realize it until now' as an adult. today i was thinking about how the first anime convention i ever went to was when i was 10 and i asked the man working the manga cafe what manga was/what a good place to start was (because the con was very overstimulating for me and i had gotten lost) and he asked how old i was before recommending yotsuba and asking if i wanted any water or something to eat. its really simple but theres a lot of bad things that couldve happened or he could've been careless in his recommendation, but instead yotsuba has remained one of my favorite manga for years, and probably a large portion of why i continue to read manga as an adult... i think adults who try to involve kids in the world safely/kindly even in little ways make so much more of a difference than they ever really know.

[writeouswriter]

People sorting ao3 solely by stats and only clicking on fics with a certain amount of kudos or comments, you will not survive the winter, nor the summer, nor at all, *brings out knife,* run

[aromanticduck]

Sorry if you're already over 50, I ran out of room (you're welcome to leave your thoughts in the tags or replies!)

If you're younger than 10, get the fuck off Tumblr. People are saying swears on here!

[EDIT: It's OK to vent a bit about negative feelings in the comments/tags, but if you're gonna talk about killing yourself, do me a favour and fucking don't]

[inkskinned]

hey btw if you're in the USA at  2:20 p.m. ET on Wednesday, Oct. 4, they're testing the emergency broadcast system. your phone is probably going to make a really loud noise, even if it's on silent. there's a backup date on the 11th if they need to postpone it.

if you're not in a safe situation and have an extra phone, you should turn that phone completely off beforehand.

additionally, if you're like me, and are easily startled; i recommend treating it like a party. have a countdown or something. be surrounded by your loved ones. take the actions you personally need to take to make yourself safe.

i have already seen mockery towards any person who feels nervous about this. for the record, it completely, completely valid to have "emergency broadcast sounds" be an anxiety trigger. do not let other people make fun of you for that. emergency sounds are legitimately engineered to make us take action; those of us with high levels of anxiety and/or neurodivergence are already pre-disposed to have a Bad Time. sometimes it is best to acknowledge that the situation will be triggering for some, and to prepare for that; rather than just saying "well that's stupid, it's just a test."

"loud scary sound time" isn't like, my favorite thing, but we can at least try to prevent some additional anxiety by preparing for it. maybe get yourself a cake? noise cancelling headphones? the new hozier album? whatever helps. love u, hope you're okay. we are gonna ride it out together.

[hinamie]

playing around w slightly different hair renders

[calkestis]

MICKEY 17 | OFFICIAL TRAILER (x) Dir. Bong Joon Ho Release date Jan. 31, 2025

[wanologic]

live fast die young

[gascreates]

a new star

[puppyeared]

horrible truth bomb dropped on my head 20 min ago

[danggerine]

going insane thinking about the harrow and palamedes friendship. harrow, who has never met another necromancer her age forming a bizarro 3D chess rivalry while pal worries about her safety at every possible turn. harrow, who is up to her eyebrows in paranoia and secrecy, trusting the sixth house with gideon unconscious and hurt, letting them into the ninth house quarters unsupervised. if “i cannot conceive of a universe without you in it” is goth for i love you, “death first to vultures and scavengers” has got to be goth for i love you (platonic). pal’s first reaction when harrow comes into his bubble in the river is to scoop her up in a hug, and at this point she doesn’t remember anything about him because cutting out all her memories of gideon is impossible without cutting out memories of the sixth, but she still makes him a skelehand to inhabit anyway. when harrow’s memories are finally whole, she tells dulcinea she couldn’t face pal knowing that his pen pal girlfriend died on her account, but the next time she “faces” him, palamades’s soul is in someone else’s body and harrow’s body is full of nona’s soul. he spends six months protecting and caring for harrow’s body (and nona obv), believing in the possibility of bringing her back to it the same way cam believed in him. “god, do you know i miss harrow terribly.” and by the time harrow comes back to her body at the very end of ntn, pal is gone forever, fully pauled. the last time harrow and palamades see each other as their complete selves is in canaan house, alive and unlyctored. two of the smartest and loneliest people in the solar system meet each other in the worst of circumstances and spend the rest of the story dancing around each other as fragments of themselves, trying to care about each other in the interim but never fully meeting like they did the first time. a friendship made almost entirely of missing the other person. “do you know i miss harrow terribly.” god. i need to lie down