#GRATUITOUS KALLUS GUILT AND LOOKING FOR A GOOD PLACE TO BE

[egregiousderp]

Fulcrum X Fulcrum (With Spoilers for Season Three of Rebels if that wasn't Obvious. We good? Okay~)

Okay look. I know a few things after this year’s double punch of Rebels and Rogue One:

–Cassian Andor is a former Separatist and a former Fulcrum agent apparently involved with recruiting

–Agent Kallus is apparently really good at reprogramming droids.

–Even parts of the fandom that LIKE Kallus want to see him punched.

–That jacket and hair combo’s gotta come from somewhere

–I need these assholes to meet.

–The timeline technically meshes so it could happen.

And so I ended up writing Cassian/Kallus (Cassius?) pre-slash fic snippet I might never go further with over Clone Wars Politics, Kaytoo’s Sass, Namedropping, and my old favorite: “Sad Pan Kallus is Pan As Hell.”

For the record I blame Moon for not stopping me.

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“I’d heard a rumor some of the members of the rebellion held separatist leanings during the Clone War.”

It isn’t much in the way of conversation when you’ve been paired off with a strange man to fix an imperial droid. But it’s something considering theirs had been a conversation of false starts:

The information in this unit must be valuable.

The withering scowl back.

Kay has no information.

Or:

I didn’t catch your name.

It’s the same as yours. Fulcrum.

And his look.

That isn’t an answer.

Cassian. Cassian Andor, Rebel Intelligence.

Now Kallus is hunting for another thread, picking at the man’s accent. Rim world. Beta quadrant. Separatist territory–in Kallus’s youth anyway.

“We take what we’re given,” Cassian replies stiffly, not looking up. There’s a ways to look up for Kallus no matter what. “Wanting a droid to take the place of a man does not make a lesser rebel.”

He’s fiddling with the insides of his droid, brows knit deep and hard.

“We don’t choose where we’re born, I suppose,” Kallus defers.

“You’re from Coruscant,” there’s a scoff to the name of his homeworld, “Tell me, Captain Kallus, do they still teach the Separatists were terrorists and radicals, railing against democracy?”

He’s never told Captain Andor his name.

“It’s hard to argue with the image of a temple burning,” Kallus replies quietly.

To say the least of the horrific, withered countenance of the Emperor that had given Kallus nightmares as a child, a fear of Jedi that lasted long into his adult life.

“I don’t have to.” Cassian growls, face going hard and pinched before he’s leaning. Back down, fiddling with something in the back of his droid’s head, the lump of metal cradled in his lap like it’s the face of a child.

It’s personal, Kallus notices. This droid, this one droid matters to him or he never would have asked for the help in the first place. And it’s Imperial or any number of people probably would have helped, not just Kallus.

Kallus goes back to reattaching the droid’s right arm, to balancing the servos. He tests the motion in the metal fingers, letting the silence linger between them. He sneaks glances at the other man with the right afforded a tall, well-muscled person. No one wanted to upset him on first look, so often he could look where he pleased without issue.

Captain Andor knows he’s looking but seems bent on willfully ignoring him instead. He is a handsome man beneath the perpetual scowl, Kallus notes. Though he thinks many beings are handsome and he has no reason to believe the life of a rebel is an easy one though he’s barely begun his own.

Kallus wants to ask how he became a Fulcrum agent if he’s traveling in the company of an Imperial KX, but talks with the lilting accent of a rim-worlder.

Doesn’t

He lets his eyes slip away, bending so his head is lower than Cassian’s. The subtle quirks of body language worked into him in Imperial Intelligence. The unspoken cues that told a person to trust. To expect authority. To yield.

Cassian doesn’t look up, adding, “You should talk to Rex. About the Clone Wars. About being a clone.”

“I’ve already spoken to Captain Rex in gratitude for his service.”

“And in your texts on history was there ever a mention of his name? Of the names of any of the clones serving the Jedi?” Cassian’s accent apparently gets more pronounced when he’s riled. A dangerous trait in an agent, perhaps.

Kallus is quiet.

“…Did he really serve under General Skywalker?” He asks finally.

“So you think he’s lying?” Cassian shoots back.

“I- No,” Kallus pushes at his hair, flattening it back, “My mentor, Colonel Yularen always…spoke highly of General Skywalker. Nothing more.”

The unspoken unease that two men who once fought for the same side so closely might face off again as enemies lingers with him.

He wonders how many times he undid the work of Cassian Andor’s hands while serving the empire.

Cassian glances at him for a moment then goes back to tightening screws with angry little jerks of his arm.

“Would you still have thanked Captain Rex if he had killed General Skywalker on command?” The Rebel snaps.

Kallus grimaces.

“I don’t know what I would have done.”

The honest answer.

Perhaps not the best one because Cassian levels a look at him, seems to peer at him.

He’s a sharp man, Kallus notes. Easily his equal and should be treated as such. Stubble and bags under the eyes like he’s been camped out in a jungle on his own, and not in the great ruins of Yavin with a company of rebels. Rough edges and hard choices.

Kallus looks back at him and is sure it shows in his face that he isn’t sure if Captain Cassian Andor, Fulcrum, is what he wants to become.

He looks at the way Cassian’s hands rest almost tenderly on the dome of the droid’s head, a throwaway pile of scrap with an Imperial logo still prominently on its arm, and thinks maybe he’s precisely what he should like to become.

Cassian’s hard eyes pinch.

“You should think carefully about programming, Captain Kallus,” his voice is very soft, a handkerchief hiding a vibroblade in a dark alley, “Not all of it is done to droids.”

“It has been thoroughly brought to my attention I ought to ask more questions. Do let me know if I bore you,” Kallus replies, keeping his tone as bland as if he’s at a core dinner dressed in gold braid.

The corner of Cassian’s mouth goes up in a humorless smile, a noiseless chuff of laughter.

He toggles a switch and the KX unit’s white eyes flick back to life.

A metal hand clamps almost immediately around Kallus’s neck.

Kallus chokes, instincts leaping hard. A second metal hand bats away his blows, unfolding limb by limb.

“KAY!” Cassian shouts.

The droid’s head swiveled to him immediately.

It paused a moment, then unclamped his metal fingers from Kallus’s throat.

“…Clear of Hostiles.” A male voice intoned, a little primly.

Kallus coughed, slumped on the stones of the temple floor.

“Are you alright?” Cassian snaps, dropping to his knees with a curse.

To his surprise, Kallus laughs under his breath, rubbing his throat and jaw.

He pulls himself to his feet, waving off the other man’s hands

“Now there’s the rebel welcome I’d expected.”

Cassian’s startled into cracking a smile, quickly trying to cover it. A quiet thing.

Kallus covers his staring by patting the droid’s metal arm.

“That’s quite a loyalty subroutine your KX has.”

“I am seventy percent certain I should find that response insulting,” the droid replied pausing and flicking its white eyes to him, “I’m K2-SO. I’m a reprogrammed Imperial Droid.”

“Kallus,” Kallus intones, “Formerly ISB-021, an agent of the Imperial Security Bureau, and formerly a Fulcrum Agent in service of the Rebellion.” He pats the droid’s arm again. “You could probably consider us kindred spirits.”

Cassian’s mouth widens.

“I will not,” the droid says, once again sounding smug, “My programming is far superior to a defective Imperial Agent’s, Cassian’s seen to it.”

“Kay.”

“Fine by me,” Kallus says, ruefully rubbing his neck, “Good Men like Captain Andor should be in good hands. Yours seem to serve more than well enough.”

Something passes into Cassian’s face that he can’t quite read.

Kallus quickly removes his hand from the droid’s arm.

“Everything seems in order.” He inclined his head in a formal bow, “Fulcrum.”

Cassian’s eyes flick over him before he nods back.

“Fulcrum.”

“Let me know if you need help with Imperial equipment. I’m here to do whatever good I can.”

Cassian considers this, dark eyes briefly flicking down to Kallus’s hands, then up again to his eyes. There’s fur in the lining of his coat even in the heat of Yavin, framing his face. He nods after a moment.

“I will.”

The droid turns to him.

“You will?” It repeats.

Cassian shushes Kaytoo, eyes still on Kallus. He says nothing.

Kallus smiles.

“Thank you,” he says, meaning it.

“You actually like him?” He can hear the droid say too loudly as he leaves.

Cassian’s response is murmured too low for his to hear but Kallus’ smile broadens into a grin.

“Do you want to know how I feel about strange men touching me?” the droid’s offended voice is gradually lost to the ruckus of the cargo bay.

[norcumii]

Ruminating on Rebels, 2

I know I took awhile with this episode, but boy does it feel long. The pacing is off? Or my brain is just unhappy. No idea which. I suspect that’s just my brain, though.

SPOILERS AHEAD. REBELS CRITICAL. For details what this is about, here’s a post.  My relevant tag is “throwing popcorn at Rebels”.

Episode 2: Spark of Rebellion Part II

Overview:

Ezra runs into the Star Destroyer to warn the team, gets to Zeb and Kanan just before they get ganked at the cell block. Sabine cuts the gravity, leaves a lot of explosives at the control room, but Ezra gets caught on the way out. The Ghost crew makes it to hyper before finding this out from Zeb, vote on going back or not. Kallus makes a pretext of questioning Ezra (note: I think it’s meant as legit, but it felt lackluster), and then Ezra escapes as the Ghost crew arrives to rescue him. They meet up part way and book it, only to find that while escaping, Ezra overheard where the wookies REALLY were being held. Off they go to Kessel to save the wookiees! Fight scene at the spice mines, leading to Kanan using the lightsaber and getting ID’d as a Jedi, Ezra faces off against Kallus to save a kid wookiee, the team escapes. Kanan offers Ezra a chance to join up and learn to use the Force, and away they go to a  dramatic voice-over by Obi-Wan via holocron recording.

Random impressions:

These wookiees are AWFUL

PLASTIC FOR YOU, PLASTIC FOR YOU, BAD ACTION FIGURES OF EEEEEEVERYONE

I really, REALLY, R E A L L Y don’t like Hera. She’s advertised as team leader and Space!Mom, but all I keep seeing is manipulative bullshit. Apparently letting Ezra take the holocron was a test to see if he was Force sensitive. Her comment in the Ghost the last episode about “If all you do is fight for your own life, then your life is worth nothing” - aaaagh. That – I get what they’re TRYING to say, about having Purpose is good, but having been in A Very Bad Place where all I could do was cling by my fingernails and try to take care of myself because 1, no one else would and 2, that was literally all I could manage – that just smacks me in the face with guilt-tripping. I know it’s not meant to be that, just...UGH. At best, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I’m going to continue side-eyeing her until she proves she’s not ACTUALLY an asshole, and yes, that is apparently an uphill battle.

The rescued wookiees say that if the Ghost crew “ever need help, they’ll be there” - THAT BETTER PAY OUT BEFORE THE SERIES IS OVER. (spoiler: Wookieepedia indicates it does not. I am disappoint, though I will keep an eye out in case it’s wrong.)

I am totally convinced now that Ezra HAS actually been using the Force awhile. The way he somersaults over crates into cover – dodging blaster bolts – and then later over a trooper to get between him and a Wookiee kid – that’s something Ezra KNOWS he can do. Like, past experience doing that sort of leap. I want to see how this interacts with Kanan’s lessons.

Kanan dodges bolts a lot more than he reflects them, but when he does they tend to take out troopers effectively. Someone’s spent time practicing.

Speaking of, he goes WAY hard on the Stoic Holy Jedi (With A Lightsaber Up His Ass) thing. Ugh. I want the goofy smuggler more. That’s more fun, AND show’s growth away from his past. We’ll see how that interacts with right now he’s trying to Jedi because oh noes, it’s a padawan (WHUT DOOOOOO)!

When Kanan shows up to save Ezra, he’s is riding on top the ghost, which pops up alongside the catwalk. ....meaning Mr. Drama Llama opened the doors to a shipping crate in flight and somehow flipped his way up to the top of the ship, OR lightsabered his way an exit through the TOP of the crate, which I hope was done carefully or they took out parts of the magnetic seal keeping the crate attached to the bottom of the ship. ...Jedi. SIGH. WHY COULD NO ONE MAKE A CRACK ABOUT THAT? YES IT WAS IMPRESSIVE, BUT THEN AFTERWARDS IT MAKES A GREAT TENSION RELEASE TO MAKE IT CLEAR THAT WAS UNUSUAL. Meh. Ok, that one’s probably me being too finicky.

Sabine left about 20 explosives in the control room. Just one of those has been shown to be enough to blast open doors and destroy a speeder bike. HOW MUCH BOOM DO YOU NEED? I mean, ok, this leads to a hole in the side of the super star destroyer (venting atmosphere! :D That was some LOVELY animation and there WAS squee about that!)

Zeb is a gods damned wreck. If he were less physically violent, I would pick him as a favorite, because interesting non-human and it’s clearly trauma and not knowing how to people that leads to him being...him. However, I can’t get over the way he’s THAT rough. There’s a line between “you’re dealing with old issues poorly, and that expresses itself through (at best) roughhousing and not gauging your own strength” and “you’re beating up on others and using your trauma as an excuse for it, and we all know how well ‘cool motive still murder’ works as a defense.”

When Ezra left, Chopper made sad bwoops and waved goodbye in a non-sarcastic way. Whut.

The animators are still not getting clear direction. The bit that really jumped out at me was when Ezra saves the kid wookiee, he’s shown hoisting the kid’s cuffed hands and looking all puzzled at the binders – and we just saw how he IMMEDIATELY knew how to pick those things open on the adult wookiees. Possibly just me being nitpicky again, but it’s very jarring to me.

The “I swear, if he gets left behind again it is not my fault!” bit showed up, and I can’t tell if that’s them trying to make the repetition is funny thing, or establishing a trend? I mean, I COULD see a longer running...not gag, but trend, of Zeb having to either leave or haul Ezra out of things and them bitching at each other over this for YEAAAAARS until it’s just an easy thing, a well-worn way to poke at a friend like an affable punch to the shoulder that is just a thing they do. Which could be cute, if done right.

Hopefully more coherent views:

The inter-group dynamics are wild, and I don’t think I mean that in a complimentary sense. Zeb is just...kinda broken, ok. Sabine was kind of a non-entity through most of this. I don’t have the spoons to count her lines, but the most memorable thing that she did was want to know how the explosion looked. Which...ok? I guess? Hera had more characterization, and we got the Competent!Pilot thing – along with the Manipulative Asshole thing, which yeah, I’m eyeballing a LOT more. Chopper came across as irritable and generally a cranky old man, which would fly better if Zeb wasn’t already trying to squat on that territory. It makes things feel more grating than perhaps they are. Kanan is your average Jedi but in better clothes, and I can’t tell how much sanctimoniousness is he doesn’t know how to teach, how much is just discomfort, and how much is I don’t like the manipulation of Ezra.

As for Ezra, he’s got some NEAT skills. I...kinda like the whole “nope, I’m not a hero, not running out there in a the middle of a blaster fight to save some rando” attitude because it’s hints of the hero’s journey having far to go, but there’s not enough heart of gold for me to give any shits. He’s TOO caught up in his own situation for me to care (and while I don’t blame him as a character for that, it makes him a third-rate Aladdin archetype. All the ‘in the rough’ but no ‘diamond’).

Kallus is satisfying to dislike, for all that he feels like a poor man’s Thrawn. The temper tantrum of kicking the surviving stormtrooper off the catwalk was gratuitous, but fine. We’re not supposed to like him. (Yes, I know about later, but I’m ignoring that at the moment.)

So. Yaye, I guess. We have our characters, we have our villain and our on-the-sidelines villain in the Inquisitor waiting to swoop in to be all mastermind badguy. We have our setup, and a few potential threads to follow back on.

End summary:

That was a weak (second half to a) first episode. I mean, again, that’s not a killer, but nothing about the show grabs me and goes “ISN’T THIS THING AWESOME???” There’s too much internal conflict without enough glue to bond people together, I have strong reasons to dislike almost everyone (and the rest are too undeveloped yet to really hit me one way or another). With the animation doing nothing for me, it’s...getting no traction so far.