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Poll Results and the Next Event!

The results from the poll are in! The month selected is June! So keep an eye out here on the blog for April 1st, the sign ups for the exchange will go up then. Assignments will be sent out May 1st. And the posting date will be June 15th.

@swfandomevents @clonefandomevents

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Summer Exchange Interest Check

@swfandomevents @clonefandomevents

Since the last exchange went really well, there will be another exchange coming up for the summer! Just to make sure everyone gets a chance to have a long creation period (1 and a half months) we're gearing up for the next one. So please vote below for which month works best for you, the one with the highest votes will be for the next event.

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The Senate regulation were clear - no animal was allowed on the premises, unless it was a Guard hound properly marked as one, and accompanied by a handler in uniform.

No one yet dared to argue with Fox if the Commander of the 104th Battalion fit this definition.

for @whispersweetnothingstome as a part of @clone-exchange

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My piece for the @clone-exchange my recipient is @wolviecat I hope you like it, I had fun with this one :3

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Now that the posting date has passed, thank you to everyone who participated in this year's Valentine's exchange!

If you didn't get your gift please send a message here or to the event email that sent out your assignments. Everything will be cross checked and a pitch hitter will be assigned if needed. Pitch hitters have until the 24th to post your back up gift.

Keep an eye on the blog, there just might be a second exchange this summer!

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Dear @loving-the-cambridges - I'm so sorry that your gift is late! It got away from me in the planning stages, but here's a teaser, and I'll update with a link to AO3 as soon as it's posted with the rest (it got so long )

I chose 'Favorite flowers' -- it's hard to tell in this exerpt orz

Obi-wan’s vambrace comm crackles to life at the same time that Cody’s head lifts up.

“Report,” Cody says.

“Command, this is Davijaan. Recon squad has finished our second search pattern. Still no sight of the target. Should we fly a third?”

Cody’s helmet tips toward him. “General?”

“…The report did say that the comms array might be camouflaged in the canyon.” He says it like a riddle, turning the words over as he speaks as if they were the same as the stones and chips of loose scree around them.

“It’s got to have something above-ground, or it wouldn’t be much of a comms array,” Cody points out.

Obi-wan scans what is visible of the skyline.

They’re marching down a lip of one of the canyons that breaks through the dry land of this remote moon– a precarious jut of rock that can fit four men side by side, barely. When they first descended into the canyon, the path could support six abreast, and an AT-TE well in the rear. But the TE had been forced to climb back to the top of the rock walls an hour back, and ahead Obi-wan can see the path continuing to narrow….

Thin columns of glinting rock rise up from the ravine floor far below, knobby insets of harder rock supported by thin necks of the limestone. They look like ornaments. Or spikes at the bottom of a trap.

A scan should reveal a camouflaged comms array among them– should, and yet their intel suggested that the rocks had a way of baffling scanners.

And yet, this mysterious resource didn’t stifle the communications array?

He reaches out to the Force, and finds only unease and a sense of imbalance. Something is wrong, but something has been wrong since this war began. The Cosmic Force is vast, and so is its warning. It’s warning him of something larger than this one moon, this one speck in the void– it calls his attention out, out further than he can perceive, a divide between his mind and the body that is marching, hot, exhausted.

The moon feels like a dozen other dry battlefields, and he knows it is a distinct and thriving place but the sunlight through its atmosphere seems artificial and the richly colored layers of clay and stone feel flat. Plantlife clings to the canyon walls, stubby waxy vines and rockplants with defiantly bright colors that must attract the insects that drone past his ears, but all of it is half-real.

Even this seemingly barren landscape is rich in the Living Force– he knows that, but he can barely feel it.

Perhaps it is a small blessing, that he connects so much more easily to the one aspect of the Force than the other. Perhaps it is why he functions better in a warzone than so many of his contemporaries who are more in tune with the Living Force and the way war bends and distorts it.

“General?”

He jerks back to himself. “Your call, Commander.”

“Any bad feelings?”

“Unease. Something on the tip of my tongue…” he shoots a wry look sideways. “Nothing actionable.”

“I’ve learned to stop asking that,” his commander says wryly. He glances around and leads Obi-wan a few strides ahead out of casual earshot.

“Do you think there’s actually a secret Seppy comms station on this rock?” Cody pitches his voice down, low and soft through his vocoder. He’s become bolder about questioning the quality of their intel, but he’s too good a soldier to do it where his troops can hear.

“No,” Obi-wan sighs. “No, but I have no proof that it’s not. No justification to deny a priority order based on official intel.”

“Understood.” There’s an edge of irony that rings true through the helmet’s vocoder. It’s gone when Cody speaks again, back straightened and head tilted ever so slightly in the manner he uses to indicate to Obi-wan that he’s speaking on his helmet comms. “Davijaan, come in.”

“Sir?” says Obi-wan’s vambrace.

“Fly a third, and expand the perimeter by ten kilometres. Run a full topographical scan over the EM sensors. Keep an eye inward, but don’t look like it.”

“Yes sir,” Davijaan says. Looking again to the skyline, Obi-wan can just see a glint of what must be the survey shuttle turning above them.

“Speaking of official intel,” Cody says, that touch of irony back to his voice, “I note that the planetary scans were taken before this ridge started shedding material. We’re going to have a bit of a detour ahead.”

“Yes. I don’t like our options. I think this route will only get narrower, but the bottom of the ravine is an ideal ambush point.”

“Suggestion, sir?”

“Always, my dear.”

“Let’s call an early halt; we’ve got a little shade now, and the men could use a refuel. I’d like to send a couple troopers ahead under full stealth to do a recce on both paths, and re-establish our maps based on Davijaan’s scans.”

“We’re quite exposed here, Commander.” Obi-wan prods the Force again. …it feels less tight with unease now. “But… perhaps it will do. Yes, this will do.”

Cody is watching him intently. The dark visor may obscure his eyes but Obi-wan can feel his focus. His troopers are a constant in the haze of this war, alive and solid, and Cody is the brightest in a sea of bright lights.

“Something on your mind?”

“Well, sir. Let’s say I’ve got a good feeling.”

Cody steps back towards the men, relaying the orders, and morale rises like a river in the rain. Even without the Force, Obi-wan thinks he would feel it– could see it in the way that weary shoulders lift, and the smiles on the troops’ faces as buckets come off and ration packs start to come out.

He busies himself setting up the portable holoprojector. Hurry, from Engineering, sees him struggling with the one fussy tripod leg and trots over to offer his wordless support. Obi-wan smiles his relief at him as he holds the rig steady so that Obi-wan can straighten the reluctant joint, and is rewarded with an answering smile back. He’s so glad that they’ve all found the comfort to step outside the expectations trained into them of perfect soldiers every waking minute. That they are willing to include him into these moments of open camaraderie…

It is perhaps the only constant source of peace for him, anymore, however undeserved when he may be leading them to their deaths. They understand what happens in war. They forgive with the ease of trained Exploracorps Jedi teams, with more grace than the combatants Obi-wan has had to fight beside in his life before.

Cody has pulled two of the ARF teams into conference a few meters away from the rest. Waxer and Boil are putting away a ration-bar apiece between words, with practiced efficiency– Cato is standing a little too straight, still, in his new armor, and Ajax is all but bouncing on his toes with eagerness to get to it. It will be Ajax and Cato’s first solo mission as an ARF team since their return from training. Obi-wan spares a plea to the Force that it be an uneventful one. Let them be disappointed in their need for action, let them be bored-- they will have their fill of danger before the war is all over.

Beside him, he sees Hurry signal for Cato’s attention: when he has it, he straightens up and puts his chin in the air, striking a somewhat heroic pose. Cato glares daggers at him– for the moment before his Commander draws his attention again and he pulls himself together with desperate poise.

“Gentlemen– I have the updated planetary scans ready,” Obi-wan calls, beckoning them over.

Hurry starts back to the cluster of Engineers with his trademark speed, but Cody catches him with a word.

“Eat fast, trooper. I’m going to want descent guides for our walkers set up at that decline over there.”

To his credit, Hurry doesn’t flinch at being directly addressed. He tracks the eyeline that Cody carves out of the air with two fingers, squinting down at the terrain in question.

“All the way to the bottom of the ravine, sir? We’ll need to double-back to get our equipment. We left it about half a klick back… and we’ll need to reinforce the ridge as a transition point if we don’t want everyone and everything on the bottom of the ravine, too.”

“Then you’d better eat faster.”

“Yessir!”

Cody passes him a ration-bar as they’re mapping the scouting path, and pushes two more onto Ajax and Cato– “You’ll want them before you’re done, take them–” and then finger-skates a route over the new topography. He doesn’t use the tracing feature on the holoprojector, pointing to landmarks on the display instead. Obi-wan is far from scoffing at the caution.

Perhaps at the beginning of things he would have said it smacked of paranoia not to leave a digital record.

This has been… a very characteristic mission. They were given a simple objective, a rather over-specified plan of attack that required the objective being where the initial surveys placed it– and implied that if the 212th were as competent as their reputation, it should be an easy victory like so many disastrous missions before.

There is no objective here, may never have been, and they are operating on an unknown agenda. GAR command is not immune to the Senate funding committee’s whims, and the funding committee is… full of politicians.

What mining magnate might have wanted this moon and its useful mineral deposit under Republic control? Who might have needed attention in this system instead of another nearby? How petty is the reason his men have been set to thankless march, maybe to death if there are Separatist forces here? Who has been given access to their reports, their tactics?

No, there does not need to be a record of these small details.

Cato and Ajax opt to rappel down the cliff instead of taking the decline ahead– Boil and Waxer stroll ahead along the lip and vanish in the broken colors of the rock walls.

Obi-wan watches them both along until they are out of sight, and then sits against the rock wall to make an attempt at meditation. He can calm his body, his mind, but the Force is still hazy, distant from him. At least it’s a rest, and though he finds no guidance the Force does provide the strength to bear him up, to ease the ache in his feet and the dull pounding of his head that the heat and hours of direct sun brought on.

Cody holds the men back until they can see the Engineering corps starting work, AT-RTs repurposed for draft work bustling around at the top of the cliff.

He comes to to stand by Obi-wan, companionably, comming the survey team again; “All right, boys, if it’s all clear come set down by the Engineering Corps, lend a hand.” He clicks his back teeth twice, jaw pulsing, and casually adds: “You can power down; doesn’t look like we’ll be seeing action.”

Obi-wan pushes himself to his feet. “…Commander, that looked for all the world like a helmet control action.”

“Did it, sir?”

“Coincidence, certainly. Out of curiosity, which one?”

“Mute, sir.”

…hmm. Which might well mean disregard the orders following.

“Has anyone told you you’re untrusting?”

“Alpha-17 did, once.”

“I daresay he meant it as a compliment.”

“He did.” Cody gives him a tiny smile, a roguish little twist of his lips that’s there and gone.

[clone-exchange]

Please enjoy my piece for @clone-exchange

https://archiveofourown.org/works/63087949

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My @clone-exchange gift for @catbuirs-alt you can find the full image here on my bsky

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Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Star Wars: The Bad Batch (Cartoon), Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars - All Media Types Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Crosshair & CT-21-0408 | CT-1409 | Echo & Hunter & Omega & Tech & Wrecker (Star Wars: The Bad Batch) Characters: CT-9901 | Hunter, CT-9903 | Wrecker, Omega (Star Wars: The Bad Batch), CT-9904 | Crosshair, CT-9902 | Tech, Batcher the Lurca Hound (Star Wars) Additional Tags: Starship Havoc Marauder | Clone Force 99 | Bad Batch’s Omicron-class Attack Shuttle, Flowers, Flower Crowns, Early Mornings, CT-9902 | Tech Lives, Post-Season/Series Finale, No Angst, Comfort Summary:

Omega disappears in the early morning after the batch landed on a planet for the night. The batch goes searching for her, but Tech knows where to look first.

Happy Clone Exchange Valentine’s day! This story is for @binkyisonline! I hope you enjoy your story!

This wonderful event is hosted by @clone-exchange. 

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Shifting, shifting

Happy Clone Exchange Valentines day to at @sidhebeingbrand !

Hosted by: @clone-exchange

Echo paced from one end of the hall to another. In an attempt to keep himself from worrying too much about Rex, he focused on replaying their recently concluded mission.

Gregor and Howzer had been sent to Zeltros for an information exchange with a minor official assigned to the Senate. The plan had been for Echo, Rex and a small team to pick them up before making their way to a rendezvous with one of Chuchi’s informants.

Everything had been going well, timelines were on-track and there was no sign of the Imperials. Then the hotel where Howzer and Gregor had been staying was bombed. Echo couldn’t remember Rex ever losing his composure the way he had when that piece of intel had come in.

Echo could tell from the look on Outboard’s face when he got the comm that it wasn’t good news, but he hadn’t blanched enough that Echo figured the situation was salvageable. When Outbound had relayed the information to the rest of the crew, the five of them had, per usual, turned to Rex for next moves, but Rex hadn’t been standing in his perfect parade rest, ready with a plan immediately. Instead, he’d been frozen, face frozen in horror. His jaw had been moving, but no sound had come out.

“Rex?” Echo had asked.

Nothing.

Echo, Outboard and Heron had exchanged looks.

“Okay,” Echo had said, “here’s what we’re going to do.”

The plan he’d laid out hadn’t been that dissimilar from the one the Batch had used when getting the Syndulla’s out of Imperial custody on Rytloth. They hadn’t even needed to do most of what Eco had laid out. They’d landed the shuttle outside of town and walked the few kilometres in. Rex and Outboard had stayed on the ship.

Gregor and Howzer hadn’t been hard to find. They hadn’t even been in the hotel when it had been blown up, having taken one last trip through the markets for some breakfast. When they’d heard about the hotel, they’d made their way back to help. If they’d still been apart of the GAR, Echo might’ve berated them for not immediately going to their rendezvous. A few months ago, he might’ve done that. Zeltros was a friendly planet though, and from the way that Gregor was shaking, toeing the line of being frantic. Echo could sympathise with the fear and adrenaline that came with being around an explosion, and the need to try and help afterwards.

The four of them had made it back to the shuttle without a hitch.

Rex had locked himself in his room. A routine that he had continued once they found the rooms Chuchi had set up for them on Pasher.

Which left Echo to his pacing.

And to being startled when the door slid open, revealing a very slouched Rex.

“What’re you doing, Echo?” Rex asked. His voice was scratchy, like his throat was raw.

“Checking in on you,” Echo said. He accompanied the statement with a shrug and wondered if he looked anymore like Fives when he did it.

Rex snorted derisively.

“You’re pacing.”

“I can do two things at once,” Echo said. “I’m highly trained after all.”

That almost got him a smile.

“You’re a bit of a shit, Corporal,” Rex sighed. “C’mon in.”

The room was identical to the one that Echo had been assigned. Simple, but the carpeted floor was soft, even under Echo’s boots and metal feet, and the bed was big enough for two. A small dent in the comforter at the foot of the bed was the only sign that Rex had been in the room for the last couple hours at all.    

Rex didn’t go back to the end of the bed. He just stood, swaying a little on his feet, facing the wall. Echo could see the twitching in his jaw.      

They were quiet, until Rex asked, “How’re Gregor and Howzer?”

“Both fine,” Echo assured him. “Sleeping it off down the hall.”

Taking advantage of the bed big enough for both of them to comfortably fit in.

Rex exhaled long and loud, looking around the room with a kind of fragile desperation. When he looked back at Echo, Rex stumbled forward a few steps right into Echo’s chest and planting his face in the crook of Echo’s neck. Echo gave himself five seconds to adjust to this clear departure from their previously established roles.

During the war, Rex’s behaviour might not have been so surprising. All the vod’e were tactile, prone to crawling all over each other having never really learnt what personal space was. Torrent had been no different, and Torrent had been Rex’s. Before they were the 501st or General Skywalker’s or the GAR’s, Torrent had been Rex’s and he had been theirs. They took care of each other. Closeness like this was expected. 

The Batch was even more tactile than Torrent had been, but Echo’d never joined in as much as he once might have. Spending over a year in the cryo-tube hadn’t done wonders for Echo’s desire to be restrained in any way, even if it was just a result of a cuddle.

“Okay, okay, hey,” Echo murmured, running a hand over the back of Rex’s head. It wasn’t the usual soft prickle Echo had expected. “You need a trim.”

Rex’s long groan almost made Echo laugh, but he swallowed it down. There were some things that Echo still couldn’t bring himself to do, less out of respect for Rex as his CO and more out of respect for a colleague.

“C’mon, I’ll do it for you,” Echo offered. “You’ll barely have to do anything.”

“I’ll have walk over to the bathroom,” Rex mumbled.

Echo was glad that Rex’s face was still buried in his vest so that he didn’t catch Echo’s eyeroll.

“I think you’ll make it, Captain. C’mon, no use putting it off.”

Rex huffed one more time but did peel himself off of Echo’s front and managed to slouch into the bathroom. Echo followed a step behind.

One of the perks of being put up by a Senator was that their suite was a little roomier than usual. There was at least enough space for two clones to fit between the edge of the counter and the frosted glass that enclosed the shower.

While Echo dug around in one of the drawers for the clippers, Rex peeled his shirt off, dropping it on the ground. It was such an un-Rex-like move that it convinced Echo more than anything else that afternoon of how tired Rex really was.

Echo promised, “I’ll be quick.”

“Just don’t make it uneven,” Rex grumbled.

“I’m not Jesse,” Echo said, some false offence in his tone.

He caught the ghost of Rex’s tiny smile in the mirror, and didn’t press. He remembered what had meant to be downtime on Imroosia. It had been another one failed attempt at diplomacy with the Seppies that had devolved into fighting. The fighting hadn’t been a surprise. Unfortunately, Jesse hadn’t been expecting the alarm to go off when he’d been helping Rex with his hair. He’d buzzed it so close that the only option Rex had been left with was going completely bald. Rex had not worn the look as well as Waxer.

Draping an unusually plush towel across Rex’s shoulders, Echo flicked on the clippers and got to work. A little pile of blonde curls started to pile up quickly. Echo fought back memories of Omega, her hair glowing, even under Salucami’s dull sun on her first trip off of Kamino.

To get his mind off his sister, Echo looked up at Rex’s reflection in the mirror. Rex had closed his eyes, and a new lump built up in Echo’s throat at the sign of trust. Then he had to keep himself from nicking the back of Rex’s neck when Echo noticed the tears that had started falling quickly over his cheeks. For half a second, Echo considered putting the clippers down, but decided that that would be worse. He did buy himself some time by brushing some of the hair off of Rex’s shoulders. It floated to the floor, and Echo turned the clippers back on.

Rex’s tears didn’t last long and Echo finished getting his buzz in order quickly as well. While Echo put the clippers back where he’d found them, he saw Rex roughly swiping the last of his tears from his face, leaving his face angry and flushed, tacky streaks still on his cheeks.

“Hop up,” Echo said, patting the counter top.

“What?” Rex said, eyebrows hiking up his forehead.

Echo patted the counter again. This time, Rex did as he was told.

“You’re as bad as the shinnies sometimes, you know that?” Echo told him.

Rex’s barked laugh was singular and brittle.

“Cody used to say the same thing.”

Echo winced, turning away from Rex to pull one of the small towels off the shelf by the sink. He soaked it in cold water and wrung it out. He stepped to stand in front of Rex, and started to dab the cloth at his puffy eyes. On a night that had been full of breaches of old protocol, this shouldn’t have felt as inappropriate as it did.

What, Echo wondered, was one more step across the line.

“I know you’re used to being the one in charge, keeping us all in line, making sure everything goes to plan,” Echo started, “but things have changed since the war. Hells, things have changed since you started trying to find our brothers. You aren’t going at it alone anymore.”  

Rex sniffled, said “Damn,” and pulled the towel away from his eyes as he started crying again. He started to lean forward, half aborted the movement, and then followed through, pressing his forehead to Echo’s in a keldabe kiss.

They stayed there, suspended in the comfort and tenderness and sadness of the moment until Rex again broke the silence.

“Promise?” he whispered.

“Yeah,” Echo murmured, “yeah, I promise.”

[clone-exchange]

For @tragedy-for-sale! I hope you enjoy!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/63067267

@clone-exchange

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I’ve got your back (and also your front)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/63064075

Aka my first foray into writing smut- I hope you enjoy!

for @pizzaboy-maul in the CE Valentines event!

@clone-exchange

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For the Chosen One, Anakin was sometimes exceptionally blind to anything happening around him.

For example the very non-subtle thing general Kenobi and Cody had going on.

Maybe, Rex should be happy for it. It would probably break Anakin's mind for good. But sometimes, he just wanted to grab him by the neck and shake him until all the stupid would fall out.

A Valentine's exchange gift for @encodyedmessages

@clonefandomevents

@clone-exchange

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𝕂𝕚𝕤𝕤 𝕞𝕖 𝕝𝕚𝕜𝕖 𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕣𝕖'𝕤 𝕟𝕠 𝕥𝕠𝕞𝕠𝕣𝕣𝕠𝕨

Made for @for-the-sake-of-color (Sith OC Nihlus and Medic Kix) 🖤

@clone-exchange

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"Senator! We have to stop meeting like this, people will talk." "Hello again, Commander! Let them."

For the Clone Exchange: Valentines Day hosted by @clone-exchange Prompt- Fox/Padme for @trooperlaugh

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Assignments have all been sent out! If you didn't get yours please send an email or a message here for your details.

Good luck on your work!

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Just a Few More Days!

Sign ups close on the 30th so make sure you get your profile submitted!

You can sign up here

Any further questions can be dropped in the ask box ❤️

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