#Watto

[stealingpotatoes]

gigachad qui gon would never leave shmi in slavery. source: i said so

(commission info // kofi support!)

[mostly-funnytwittertweets]

[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)

[stljedi]

Sure Grandpa Watto

[padawanlost]

Anakin's nightmare

“Do you know where [Shmi] is?” “Why, I should expect she’s at Watto’s junkshop. I’m afraid he’s had her doing quite a lot of work there, ever since you ran away.”

Anakin winced. “But I didn’t run away,” he said. “I left. To become a Jedi.”

“Oh, of course you did, sir,” said C-3PO, his voice filled with good cheer. “I never meant to suggest that you abandoned any responsibilities you might have had here, when you were just a child. After all, we’re so very proud of you and your achievements. Not that we actually know about what you’ve accomplished in the past nine years, since we’ve never received any messages from you, but I do get the distinct impression that your mother still cares very much about you. And she does have a vivid imagination, so she very easily assumed that you must be…”

The droid was still talking as Anakin ran out of the hovel and into the broiling radiance of Tatooine’s twin suns. Although it appeared to be afternoon, when the city of Mos Espa should have been teeming with street vendors and pedestrians, there was no sign of life.

Anakin felt a sense of panic. He ran as fast as he could through the empty streets until he arrived outside the tall, bell-shaped structure that was Watto’s junkshop.

Like his own hovel, the junkshop appeared to be exactly as Anakin remembered it. Yet when he ducked through the shop’s entrance portal and entered the cluttered interior, he found that Watto had added something new: In front of a workbench, there was a low cage with thick metal bars.

A filthy figure, clothed in dirty rags, was huddled within the cage.

It was Shmi Skywalker. Anakin’s mother.

She looked up at him with fear in her eyes. “Who are you?” she asked. Her voice sounded old and tired.

“It’s me, Mom,” Anakin said, dropping to his knees before the cage. “Anakin. Annie. I’m grown up now. I’ve come to rescue you.”

“Anakin?” Shmi said in disbelief. She slowly shook her head. “But you can’t be. You can’t be here. You’re gone.”

“I’ll get you out, Mom,” Anakin said as he gripped the bars. He looked around. There was no sign of Watto.

“It is you,” Shmi said. “It really is you.”

Anakin tugged at the bars with all his might, but they would not yield. Then he remembered he was a Jedi. He could do anything!

He reached to his belt, expecting to find his lightsaber, but his fingers slapped against his side. His lightsaber was gone. He tried to recall if he had clipped it to his belt before leaving his hovel, or if he had even brought it with him to Tatooine.

He tried to remember when and where he had seen it last. He felt confused. How had he arrived back on Tatooine? He could not remember.

Desperate, he glanced at Watto’s tool shelf and saw a fusion-cutter and power pry-bar. He grabbed for them, but he could not pick them up. He tried again, tearing at them, but the tools would not budge. It seemed they had been welded to the shelf.

Anakin collapsed beside the cage, his head smacking against the bars. “I swear, I’ll get you out!” he sobbed.

Shmi reached between the bars and pushed her oil-stained fingers through her son’s blond hair. “Oh, Annie,” she said. “Don’t cry. Please, don’t cry. I’m fine. Really, I’m fine.”

“Mom, look at you! Watto left you in a cage!” Anakin said, outraged.

“No, he didn’t, Annie,” Shmi said sadly. “Watto didn’t leave me. You did.”

Suddenly, Shmi, the junkshop, and all of Tatooine were swept away from Anakin’s vision, and he was engulfed in darkness. It wrapped around him like a cold, black shroud that cut him off from the entire galaxy.

Unable to see, his only awareness was of the steady rise and fall of his own breathing.

Something was wrong.

The breathing sounded mechanical and labored, as if it were being done through some kind of respirator. Anakin wondered if the breathing were his own, or if he had been mistaken about the sound’s origin. Perhaps, he thought, I’m not alone in this dark place. He held his breath and listened to the void. The sound of mechanized breathing stopped. And then Anakin felt his throat constricting.

The darkness coiled even tighter around him, working its way through his skin, seizing his lungs and veins and muscles and bones until he knew it was about to consume him.

Then the dream ended as it always did, with Anakin trying to shout but fearing that no one, not even he, would ever hear his cry. And then he awoke. [Ryder Windham. Star Wars Adventures - The Hostage Princess]

[marvelstars]

Shmi, Anakin and the Sun - Dragon

Often, however, Watto was unkind, understanding that nothing could stop him from doing what he wanted because Shmi had nothing valuable to trade, besides her son whom she would never trade. Thus, Watto took advantage of this frequently , requiring the boy to podrace, much to Shmi's anger. During one race, she watched in horror as Anakin crashed once again, but was surprised when he had not been thrown from his podracer for once. Watto approached her, yet again dismissing her concerns that Anakin could be seriously hurt before flying off. She made her way down to the racing pit where she reunited with Anakin and saw that his legs had become twisted from the crash. While she knew that Watto would pay to ensure his slave's legs recovered, Shmi held onto her son's hand to comfort herself. Before the rustic, yet effective, medical droids made Anakin unconscious to work on his legs, Anakin promised he would always be with her, yet Shmi privately wish he would one day leave her for a better life.

Despite the horrors in which Anakin grew up, Shmi still tried to give him a normal childhood. She taught him how to fix things and fend for himself, since the Republic was never there for her. She taught him that he deserved more than a slave's life. Most of all, she taught him compassion.

On hard nights, Shmi would tell Anakin the Tatooine myth of the sun-dragon. The sun-dragon was a beast who lived inside the core of a star, guarding everything it treasured. It could survive through the hardest circumstances because it had the biggest heart in the galaxy, able to protect anything and everything it loved. Shmi told this story to her son to remind him that he was the sun-dragon. She never wanted Anakin to doubt in himself and the power of his love for others. Anakin recalled this story many times as an adult when he needed to remember what should guide him. It was something he kept close and told very few other people.

Sources:https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Shmi_Skywalker_Lars

[90smovies]

[masterjedilenawrites]

Discuss!

[star-wars-comics]

Darth Vader #47 (2024) The Phantom Menace 25th Anniversary variant cover by Chris Sprouse

[texasthrillbilly]

[darth-memes]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LIAM NEESON!!!

[s4lt-p3pp3r]

Random Star Wars What if..?’s I keep thinking abt

What if Anakin lost the race on Tatooine?

What if Watto didn’t agree to also place Anakin on the bet?

What if Obi-Wan died instead of Qui-Gon?

What if Ahsoka never left the order?

What if Palpatine was never elected Chancellor?

What if Rex or the other clones believed Fives?

What if Anakin died on Mustafar instead of becoming Vader?

What if Ahsoka had fought Anakin on Mustafar instead of Obi-Wan?

What if Padme didn’t die after having Luke and Leia?

What if Luke was brought to Alderaan and Leia to Tatooine?

What if Luke refused to leave Tatooine even after Owen and Beru were killed?

What if Cal trained Luke instead of Obi-Wan and Yoda?

What if Ahsoka had taken in Luke or Leia after the order fell?

What if Crosshair didn’t join the Empire?

What the bad batch didn’t take in Omega?

What if Tech had survived after going through with plan 99 on Eriadu?

[nomgeonmunchie]

Would Laois’ party eat Watto from Star Wars?

[phoenixyfriend]

Okay! So in order to add these images to a fic soon, I need to post them to tumblr for image hosting. So have at ye!

Might be the absolute nerdiest thing I've done yet.

Actual Google Sheet

[padawanlost]

Is there a Star Wars book when anakin watches Shmi get beaten up in front of him and if there is what book is it

We don’t get much in terms of Shmi’s pov. Most of what we know of their time with Watto comes from unreliable narrators, mostly Anakin. So, no, I can’t think of any scene right now where we witness Watto physically abusing her in front of Anakin.

That being said, we do have proof that Watto was physically abusive to Anakin:

“He wasn’t sure how he would feel about seeing the slaver, even if Watto had nothing to do with bringing any harm to Shmi. Watto had treated him better than most in Mos Espa treated their slaves, and hadn’t beaten him too often, but still, it hung in Anakin’s thoughts that Watto had not let Shmi go with him when Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon had bought out his slave debt. Anakin understood that he was probably just deflecting some of his own guilt about leaving his mother with Watto, who was a businessman, after all.” AOTC Novelization When Count Dooku flies at him, blade flashing, Watto’s fist cracks out from Anakin’s childhood to knock the Sith Lord tumbling back. [Matthew Stover. Revenge of the Sith] Physical pain he could have handled even without his Jedi mental skills; he’d always been tough. At four years old he’d been able to take the worst beating Watto would deliver without so much as making a sound. [Matthew Stover. Revenge of the Sith] “Anakin wasn’t entirely wrong about him. He’d never been a slave. He’d never been beaten for making a mistake. Never crawled beneath threadbare blankets, starving, and fallen asleep with his mother’s tears on his cheeks. He didn’t remember his mother. He’d been raised in the Temple, safe and loved. I have compassion. I have empathy. What I don’t have are scars.” Karen Miller’s Star Wars: Clone Wars Gambit: Stealth

One could assume that a being who has no problem slaving people and beating up a little boy wouldn’t have any problem beating up his mom.

So, I can’t think of any factual evidence that it did happen. However, considering their circumstances, I do believe at some point in his childhood Anakin witnessed his mother being, if not physically, at least verbally abused. Sadly, we are talking about slavery here and there’s nothing good or positive about it.

[marvelstars]

THE PHANTOM MENACE COMIC