#@ing feels sort of presumptuous so instead i will tag

[lonepower]

ok outlaws/kd5 girlies(gender-neutral), what are the postgame thoughts? I have Ideas™ for things I think would be fun, but nothing concrete or connected enough to turn into an actual story yet, and I'm curious how the other people who've been in the fandom longer than I have see the Trailblazer crew continuing on from here!

(own musings under the cut-)

There's a lot of potential in Jet Kordo and the Miyuki Trade League imo. If I do end up writing any sort of plot-focused fic, it'll almost definitely involve them. I think Kay would be a good fit for them - they're clearly not strictly above-board, but they seem to operate independent of the syndicates and have their own practices & codes of ethics, which I think would suit her. And I think she would be interested in catching up with Kordo, if for no other reason than to meet the man behind all the messages. (Also, more importantly, they're an invention of this game, which means I don't have to worry about contradicting 5 million years of convoluted and already-contradictory lore.)

I think they would suit ND as well, actually. He's left a lot of his Separatist programming behind, but not all of it, and he's no fan of the Jedi or the Republic. I can see him slotting the trade league in as a surrogate/successor for the trade federation (which, if it weren't for Dooku meddling in it, sounds like it wouldn't really have been that bad... (<- hasn't watched the clone wars and doesn't plan to)) 

Related, I'm really curious on where we all stand re: what ND actually likes and wants. The game leaves a lot of it up for interpretation; his whole arc is about regaining agency and coming to terms with the fact that he's not just "a tool to be used," (😫😭) but that's... sort of where it ends? He knows what he isn't, now, but I'm not sure he has any more idea of what he is or what "freedom" means than Kay does. He says he enjoys having a purpose, but... what would that be? Lots of potential. Much to ponder.

I do think he genuinely enjoys traveling the galaxy. All of the comms dialogues where he sounds the most interested are about locations, land features, the people therein (for all that he professes to prefer solitude - he doesn't like interacting with people, but he seems interested in observing them). It's another reason I think he'd actually be happy continuing as a smuggler or trader. But people are complex, that can't be his only source of fulfillment. For some reason I got it into my head that he'd be a surprisingly good artist, but I'm curious what others envision for him (◡_◡)

Kay says that having the Trailblazer isn't enough to be really free, but as mentioned it's a recurring theme that she has no idea what being free actually entails (and Qira certainly isn't helping. go pull that cryptic shit on someone else). I think once the death mark is off her shoulders, she'd start to realize that maybe she can just live as she has been, and maybe Nix and ND and the Trailblazer and all the new friends she's made are enough, at least for the foreseeable future.

Speaking of: in-game the death mark is sort of left as a case of No Ontological Inertia, but there's a drabble/plot bunny somewhere in there where it's explicitly Vail who calls it off. Just imagine how that would go. Imagine how smug ND would be. It would be so funny. please

After the wild cards dlc, one of her more Kay-like goals is "get rich enough that I can enter the competition legitimately". ND is actually in the audience this time. Along with Nix, to prove a point, because I'm still salty a) that ND was surprised by my being good at sabacc, and b) I won that goddamn game without framing anyone. I freaking HAD THEM when that bomb went off, I am so mad-

It's a bit of a stretch, but I also really want Kay to be the one who smuggles R2 and 3PO up to Jabba's back door in the beginning of ROTJ. (Lando knows her! Presumably he knows she broke in & out of the palace once already! It could be plausible!) This is mainly because I want to inflict R2 (chaos incarnate even among astromechs) on ND (vocally hates astromechs). Also Kay would be super weirded out by Luke even without knowing the Jedi thing and it would be fun to make them interact.

They still would do their best to avoid the rebels. When the Empire falls 6ish months later, how do they react? How much would life even change for them as smugglers (who would presumably find themselves at odds with any sort of organized government, even an ideal/democratic one)? Does the sudden power vacuum mess them up, or does it make life even more profitable as people struggle to function without structure in a transitional period?

I don't have actual full-fledged fic premises for any of these points and I really do want to know what (if anything) the other handful of people in this fandom have come up with, so if you have additions/objections/other ideas, this is your cue. pls come yell i'm brainrot about this game........