Corrie Lads Shenanigans

So the only reputation he has is ‘that bastard con artist who banked 19 years of aw-shucks-wormie-ness and used it to outrageously fleece everyone who’s almost anybody.’ Vader reading the report like…damn you Kenobi did you get HONDO to raise my son??

Jabba’s reaction to Luke’s message is INFINITELY funnier if we consider the idea that ‘Skywalker’ amongst the wretched local villainy (who mostly ignore imperial and rebel propaganda) is actually synonymous with TWO things - that brat who totally messed up the podrace bookies 25 years ago, and the infamous Anchorhead Con. Jabba gets this message about ‘Jedi’ and is like LOL i think the other Skywalker tried to pull some hotshit with that too before wimping out.

Everyone openly laughs like sure you’re a Jedi and I’ve got a bargain vaporator farm I want to sell you. 

“So this fucking—SKYWALKER, dude, have you ever heard the name Skywalker? You know what it means? A FUCKING ASSHOLE, that’s what it means. Like. The first one was bad enough, this little shit named Anakin who was fuckin’ NINE YEARS OLD and he just WON THE FUCKING BOONTA EVE PODRACE and set SIXTEEN bookies out of business and if I ever meet him I’m gonna set him on fire for it—

“And then this new one, Luke? Fuckin’ nobody, raised by his aunt and uncle out in the Wastes, little aw-shucks hick farm kid, the kind you could give him a five-credit piece and a ten-credit piece and he keeps taking the fiver because it’s BIGGER, that kind of simple, and then he comes into Mos Eisley one afternoon and sells his aunt and uncle’s moisture farm, right, I’ve been out there a few times, several of us have, and it’s a nice place as far as moisture farms go, mildly profitable, and the kid is fucking happy to get like two-thirds its value, so he sells the farm, right? TO NINETEEN DIFFERENT PEOPLE! Do you have any idea how much Jabba’s finance people had to do to get that sorted out? Nineteen fucking mortgages on ONE fucking property, puts every real estate con Jabba the Hutt’s entire CLAN ever pulled and we were on the WRONG SIDE OF IT! We had every pirate and smuggler from here to Corellia laughing at us! And THEN! And THEN—!

“So he pops up via hologram message acting like a DIPLOMAT from the REPUBLIC, claiming a title and rank from an extinct, defunct, ILLEGAL order and wanting to bargain with Jabba—are you fucking kidding me, BARGAIN WITH JABBA for a smuggler who’s up to his ass in debt when he’s responsible for that farm scheme, acting like he doesn’t even fucking REMEMBER it and expects that Jabba’s forgotten it too. Like. Absolute fucking idiot, and anticipating that Jabba’s just as stupid. And he offers a pair of droids as a gift. Like, built-in-the-Republic-era, random-ass droids that he probably picked up from the Jawas that morning for a few hundred credits and a junked ‘vaporator.

“I mean, Jabba’s seething here, but hey, free droids is free droids. Whatever. He takes the droids, throws things, orders a fight to the death between two gamblers who owed him money, killed one of his dancers at some point … and then Boushh shows up with fucking Chewbacca in chains—he’s Solo’s first mate, so Jabba was all happy about that, but not happy enough to pay the full bounty—and what’s Boushh do? Pull some gonads out from somewhere after all these years, and also pull out a fucking THERMAL DETONATOR! Going to blow us all to fuck if he doesn’t get his measley fifty thousand, and, well, there’s no arguing with crazy like that. 

“So now, if you’re keeping score, Jabba’s lost an absolute SHITLOAD of money and had his bookmaking industry fucked all to hell for like three years after the stunt from Skywalker the First, got screwed out of ANOTHER shitload of money in the farm scam by Skywalker the Sequel, got all but called an idiot to his face and insulted six times over by the same dude who’s apparently scammed so many people he’s forgotten who he has and hasn’t scammed, and got threatened out of fifty thousand credits by a second-tier bounty hunter IN FRONT OF HIS ENTIRE COURT.

“And then the next morning, what the fuck? Jabba’s favorite sculpture is gone, the one with Solo as its main ingredient that Boba Fett brought him. And Boushh is gone. And Jabba’s got a brand-new dancer chained up next to him. Night duty guy tells me Boushh unfroze Solo, and the new dancer girl IS Boushh, which, okay, you’re dealing with people like that and you look like that? You definitely need a helmet, but I feel like pretending she didn’t breathe oxygen was overkill. Anyway, then Skywalker shows up. All alone, no weapons, nothing, like he really believes in this Jedi shit. Arrogant little bastard, and we’re all laying bets on how Jabba’s going to kill him.

“So he talks a little, and fwoop! goes the trapdoor, and okay, everybody who bet on “Rancor” is doing a little happy dance, but then! BUT THEN! He fucking KILLS THE RANCOR! Drops its own cage door on its head and punches right through its skull! And—fucking NOBODY bet on that, which is a damn shame because everybody else would’ve just torn the winner apart out of sheer rage at that point and we coulda used some good bloodshed then, y’know? I mean, I dunno if you’ve ever met Jabba the Hutt, but he’s the kind of boss that’ll just go off and kill you for failing him or just because he’s angry at something. Just complete fucking asshole. I mean, he was pissed enough that everybody was worried for their safety, and so somebody dying messily right then would’ve calmed him down a bit.

“So Jabba’s big mad, and he gathers Skywalker and Solo and Chewbacca all together and says he’s gonna feed them to the Sarlacc, which is a nasty tentacled carnivorous plant out in the desert, so we all board the sail barge and have a nice little pleasure cruise—have you ever been to Tattoine? I’m fuckin’ kidding, it’s brutal. But hey, we get to see Skywalker executed, right? Wrong.

“Jabba offers them the chance to beg for their lives, and Solo calls him a slimy piece of worm-ridden filth, which, I mean, I could do better, y’know? If I’m about to die? Anyway, Skywalker goes up first, gets prodded to the edge, flips a salute off to who-knows-where, and does this little twist in midair, catches the fucking plank, and fucking SPRINGBOARDS himself back onboard, CATCHES HIS LIGHTSABER FROM MIDAIR where the one DROID shot it to him, and starts sending guards over the side, usually in pieces.

“So more guards rush forward to help, and there’s this huge fight, and fuckin’ BOBA FETT falls in, and while that’s going on? The fucking dancing girl has grabbed her chain and is FUCKING STRANGLING JABBA WITH IT! Like, I look over and he’s bucking and struggling and she’s pulling on that chain like anything, and then somebody hits me over the head with a bottle of Corellian brandy, and by the time I look again he’s pitched over dead! And nobody freaking bet on that!

“And then? Off they fucking go, Skywalker and Solo and Chewbacca and the dancing girl and the droids and one of the guards who I played sabacc with the other night and he owes me twenty credits! And that fucking Skywalker just cost me my job, and if I see him again I’m going to burn him to cinders myself!”

The man subsides, eyeing the gigantic ebony figure in front of him who, except for a couple of momentary starts as though he might say something, has been silently listening to him all this time.

Size-wise, Darth Vader has nothing on Jabba the Hutt, but somehow, he is scarier.

Finally, the dark form speaks. “You said you could do better.” A moment’s silence, and he clarifies. “If you were about to die.” He gets the impression that whatever monster lurks behind the helmet is smiling. “You are about to die now. Because you are a criminal, and because of what you have said about my son, Luke Skywalker. You have an opportunity to do better. Use it.”

The so-condemned criminal, late of Jabba’s palace guard, lets his jaw hang open unflatteringly for a moment while his brain catches up with events. HIS SON, which means …  

“YOU’RE Anakin Skywalker’s HUSBAND?”

The steady, hissing rhythm of Darth Vader’s rebreather actually stops dead as the Dark Lord straightens up as if stabbed with an electroprod.

so someone does a minor in art first, maybe one of the captains? someone who isn’t quite so pressed to get so many qualifications as soon as possible in between all their other work.

The other corries start off like well kriff, their armour paint is improving by spades, and they like that someone is actually documenting vod art outside of the goran’e and they come back from class saying that the professors actually fully respect the armour art, and it’s actually started a phase of people researching mandalorian art traditions, and seeing hiw the clones are creating their own culture and style—even different sub-styles between battalions and deployments.

The shit coming out of the logistics vod’e, for instance, is fascinating, because they do not give a shit.

suddenly there is interest in stained glass and mandalorian textiles and even the ancient taung bone crafts that satine kryze hadn’t been able to stir up, particularly after the art class corrie mentions the way troopers carve old armour as a hobby craft and gift their work to their siblings and friends, sometimes even jedi.

so the next round, there are more corries signing up, and when Fox gets a chance, he surprises everyone by also signing up.

they shouldn’t be shocked, as they saw his phase one armour. like the guy has a very steady hand and an eye for style and is nuts enough that he’ll sit and paint really minute details for hours if he has the chance (it’s very meditative).

anyway, his art is really good and makes people feel things. he discusses several types of things in his work that semester, but there is clearly a depth of emotion many people who don’t know fox are shocked by.

while it’s tempting to think of goya and the way the wars he bore witness to, there area few directions we could take. but yeah. people are like holy shit, even though this is like the first glimpse into his potential. first year student work.

one of the panel members for his final assessment is jocasta nu, and while others are polite about being like ‘please don’t give this up. you have it,’ jocasta is more like ‘you’re going to stick with this, you’re one of mine, now.’

fox actualky gets a little worried, like you have one professor telling some senator at a party that fox is wasted in the army, which is stupid as hell to say, but shit like that really riles up the ‘clones aren’t people’ crowd and this guy is trying to start trouble a bit

the chancellor doesn’t hear of it, thankfully, because that would have really caused some serious shit, considering the man is from naboo and supposedly cares about art

so they all decide they need to chill out with their classes because they don’t want to be told to stop or like punished for having nice things in their life (or for like the wrong senator to notice that these qualifications blow the kaminiise arguments about sentience and sapience out of the water too early, because they really want to win the case when they go for it and they want to be ready.)

anyway jocasta is like…she takes an interest in the corries’ art and keeps bugging them about it, even as shit gets more stressful, and they’re having to cover more ground and more roles, and they don’t really have time to be studying non essential stuff.

They miss exams, and jocasta is like ‘I spoke to your professor, they’ll allow you to sit it at the archives under my supervision when you have a moment, and I don’t mind getting up at two am to make this happen for you.’

the corries are like ‘I finally understand what my batchmates mean by jetiise being crazy, but this was not the way I thought they’d be crazy.’

Jocasta is also emailing Fox with things to think about, like ‘you can’t study a full course anymore but I saw this work again this week while looking at something else, tell me what you think of it, I think you’ll find this interesting.’

he is annoyed because she’s so pushy, but it is interesting, and it’s something to contemplate while on guard duty.

there are a few directions this can take but the one I was thinking of today is that when fox’s replies start getting weird because CC-1010 is answering, or they don’t happen at all because CC-1010 doesn’t answer them, or something like fox remarks upon a work of art jocasta knows is in a private collection of someone who just got politically assassinated and even her shadows can’t solve the case but she ends up finding out about their treatment and gets her saber rifle out, or perhaps pulls off her own unsolvable assassination

either way, she’s like these are some of the greatest minds of this generation, they’ve pissed me off in their essays more than I have been in quite some time, I’m not going to allow the senate to eat them alive before they meet their potential!!!!

and the corries are like ‘this woman is the most annoying sentient in the galaxy and we would die for her’

Good Cop Bad Cop / Bad Cop Worse Cop

Requested by @rooksunday - palette #4 - Fox, Maul, Din, and Grogu - The Importance of a Kitchen

I think that the Commanders of the Guard all have something they are uniquely good at hiding—specifically from their brothers. All of the Guard are fantastic at hiding things from outsiders, but from their brothers, their fellow Guards, the ones who know them best? It’s a little harder to hide.

Fox tries his level best, but he can’t hide when he’s hurting, or when he’s concerned for his brothers—but he can hide when he is afraid. When he is terrified, panicking—that is when he can hide. Partly because he grew up under the thumb of a constant fear that means he has more practice hiding when he is afraid than hiding any other emotion, and hiding it from his batch at that, but also partly because as the oldest clone and the Marshall Commander of the Guard, his little brothers look up to him so much that they almost can’t conceive of Fox truly being terrified down to his bones and so what little tells might slip through on occasion, they miss. He is petrified, constantly, but he hides it.

Stone can’t hide that he’s feeling, but he can hide what he’s feeling. Stone’s way of disguising his emotions in front of both outsiders and his brothers is to hide behind a mask, either emotionless or genial but blank underneath. His brothers all know this tell, though, so he can never hide when he’s trying to hide, but if he’s really trying to hide, nobody can see down through the mask to find exactly what he’s hiding, whether it’s grief or anger or fear or hurt or whatever else, even if they all can tell that something is wrong.

Thorn hides when he’s hurting. His worry, his anger, he can’t hide those, but despair? Guilt, shame, self-loathing, grief, all those little internal hurts? He projects sunshine and cheer and is the shoulder to lean on and hides all the dark stuff deep deep inside himself, hidden from the light, where it festers quietly. Unlike all the rest of his fellow Commanders, Thorn can hide from his brothers when he’s breaking—until he breaks, that is.

Let them rest <3

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