#Saw the original and IMMEDIATLY thought about these two lol

[cutie-pinay]

[original]

🫣

[crqstalite]

part 14, partner in crime #2 (torian && ba’shira)

bleh, this one’s kinda slow because it’s just torian thinking about ba’shira and ghenkl misaging them. probably will be re-written later lol.

written: 9.5.19. word count: 2,235

════ ⋆★⋆ ════ character song: miss jackson, panic! at the disco

character file: ba'shira cadera, champion of the great hunt.

-

when they first met, ba'shira had flipped him onto his back and held him at gunpoint. all with some clever quip too, which is what he remembers most from that experience. other than the fact that the noise could've attracted some unneeded monsters, but the verdant green orbs of her that glowed in the darkness of the transport station took his mind off of his impending doom immediatly.

"i just wanted to see you again." she says so smoothly, turning around slowly as her hair just barely covers her eyes. she's quick, agile as she kicks his legs out from under him and flips him over with ease. "now what are you doing out here?"

torian is sure that's when he first fell in love with the companion to the champion.

(he's also halfway sure that at that point, she barely even knew his name. and intended to shoot him if he didn't answer.)

companion is the wrong word, the charming (if not also brazen) female bounty hunter is much more than just a side character. even if she didn't take the shot to end their target, ba'shira has been part of theksevoy's crew since the beginning (well, mako holds that title, but ba'shira claims a close second). they have a special relationship (one he's jealous of if he's being honest), they always know what the other's about to say, when the other needs backup, exactly when the other's beskar'gam needs cleaning or repair. she was part of his crew when the great hunt was still in session, and apparently often accompanied him to targets. like a brother and sister, the two do not take shit from anyone.

it's amazing. watching two of the galaxy's finest piggy back off each other (sometimes literally, the smaller female leaping off the taller male with her jetpack and proceeding to incinerate the surrounding area) it's something different than when she and torian are out alone.

stars, he really needs to stop thinking about his boss like this.

however, the dark haired woman made it clear she didn't want to be just his boss anymore. from the sly looks and coy answers to his questions, ba'shira isn't exactly shy about her desires. his first major fear was that she wasn't exclusive to him due to her less than conventional tactics to earn her way to the targets' names and locations, but it seems that fear was absolutely baseless. after his confession, he's not even sure she looks at other men or women.

or, can keep her hands off of him.

it makes him nervous, he'll admit that. she makes him nervous. he hasn't really known many other women in a romantic sense, but meeting a woman who wasn't born or raised mandalorian changes his outlook on the galaxy. she interprets their culture as she goes along, follows laws as loosely as possible. but, she doesn't hold back when it comes to him. ba'shira just leads, and he follows. the armored woman isn't afraid to either, as she yanks him by his armor to smash her lips on his.

stars, she is strong. he knows this too, watching her train and as they spar. she's fast, but muscular as well. her loose clothing hides it, but once she's in little more than a sports bra and sweatpants, he can see their excursions have turned her into a very brawny warrior. as the sweat shines off her forehead during their brawls and she straddles him, she asks him to call uncle before she releases his arms from her grip.

he can see their future going far.

"she still isn't down yet?" theksevoy startles him out of his thoughts, though he keeps his poker face up. the man is a hulking 6"3 beast, dark skin with blonde hair and caramel brown eyes. he stands quite a few inches taller than torian himself, and can lift so much more. at this point, he can see why the galaxy's most wanted is such an icon, women nearly chasing him down at every outpost they stop at.  "thought you guys were supposed to be gone like an hour ago."

"trying to get rid of us, champion?" he asks as thek chuckles.

"i'd never, torian. guess we're playing by the no curfew game again tonight, huh?" the older male asks, winking as torian tries to catch on to whatever joke he's trying to get across. "when can i expect you back?" he asks, once he realizes his sly joke flew right over the young mandalorian's head.

"depends on her." he answers. "if she stays out, i stay out." and that's true enough. torian would never come back without her.

"cool. don't do anything stupid. ghen needs this job." theksevoy answers, tucking his hands into his lounges and heading back up the stairs to his and mako's quarters. torian's mind wanders to the slicer that's the closest in age to him other than his partner. he's curious what's she's been up to lately. but, he'll catch up when he and ba'shira get back.

torian had yet to meet this ghenkl, though he figured she wouldn't be too much trouble if thek trusted him and ba'shira to arrange the details. she'd only been described as meaning well, if not a little all over the place. a tall, buff pale zabrak woman in a cantina should be easy enough to find. the only things he knows concrete about this woman is just that, and the fact she'll probably see them first.

"of course, champion." he answers, the other male disappearing back to his quarters after nodding. thankfully, he doesn't have to wait long for the woman of the hour once he hears her her boots clank on the durasteel of the mantis. she isn't dressed up, which isn't surprising (he never expects her to, and she hasn't broken that expectation except for once). she's got a mischeveous grin on her face as she takes his hand in hers.

"you ready to go, torian?" she asks, shaking out her messy ponytail and letting the shaggy haircut fall around her shoulders. the tawny curls accentuate her face in a way he can't describe as her eyes twinkle in the dim light of the mantis.

"always."

-

carrick station is busy, as always. when they disembark from the mantis, ba'shira is (as always) attracted to all the shiny new blasters the gtn is advertising. of course, she's also wary. (the last two nearly killed her and left her face wishing that she hadn't been swayed so quickly.)

of course, the two youngest members of the crew get distracted by all the weapons on display. now, ba'shira knows what torian has his eye on for life day, and intends to sneak back out later to retrieve the vibrostaff. it's not even close to the holiday yet, but even she knows she's gonna forget when it is.

they head down the cantina after they've wandered the expanse of carrick station for a bit. pulling out her holo, the photo of the zabrak woman is compared to everyone she can see. humans, more humans, a few twi'leks and torgutas mingle among each other. in the dim light, she's considering just spending the rest of her night and allowance on drinks for her and torian to spend the night out. his pale skin nearly shines in the yellow lighting, and she figures it'd look better with a few kisses of her painted lips on it.

"oi!" a voice makes her turn, and looking up a woman fitting the description is waving at her from an alcove above them in the vip area. "come on up, would you?"

she and torian share of look of confusion before heading up the elevator. the bouncer gives them a look at first before turning away in a gruff of approval. a moment later, they step out onto the vip area of carrick station, turning this way and that to find the woman who had been speaking to them. eventually, ba'shira finds the scantily dressed woman who wears little more than a bikini and a jacket over a pair of greaves and boots. she's sitting with a dark skinned male, who gives her a small grin. "ba'shira, yeah?"

"that's me." she says, pulling out a chair for torian before taking her own. "i presume you're ghenkl?"

"you'd be right." ghenkl responds. she's tall, taller than ba'shira had originally assumed, and buff enough to go along with it. in the back of her mind, she figures this is why she and thek are friends. "alright, now this elusive job thek couldn't come down and give me himself."

ba'shira looks around once, then twice before handing over the datapad with the details. she's already technically trespassing (the entire crew of the mantis is, in fact, on republic soil) and there's no reason getting into unnecessary trouble because of one little slip up. her contact grins, handing the datapad back. "just like the old days then."

"i'm sure it is. you want in?" ba'shira asks. ghenkl nods adamantly. "tell thek whenever he needs me, i'm ready to jump in."

"great." ba'shira says, moving to get up from the table.

"hey, wait a sec kid." ba'shira pauses, as ghenkl gestures to sit back down. "spend sometime with an old woman for a bit, yeah? you're legal aren't you?"

"i am." ba'shira says warily. "i should really get back though."

"bah, you take after thek. always so quick to leave the party. given, corso and i were just waiting for you two. but sit down for a bit, lets talk. we're going to be working together anyways." ghenkl says, hailing down a passing server droid and ordering a round of some unpronouncable drink. once she and torian take their seats again, ghenkl asks, "how long have you known thek anyways?"

"a couple of years. least since the great hunt." she answers. her features are dulled by how her hair covers her face. scars decorate her face as she smiles, the lines under her eyes crinkling. ba'shira wonders how old she is. "why?"

"just curious. wondering why he wouldn't come down and see me himself, but that's none of my business." ghenkl says sarcastically. "it's been so long since i saw him last."

"i'm sure he had something else to attend to, captain." corso says. he has an accent that ba'shira typically associates with backwater planets. she wonders where he's from. "'sure he'd be here if he could be."

she's also curious whether she should tell the smuggler that no, theksevoy had nothing better to be doing today. but, he had promised mako he'd take a day off and spend it with her, so she figures he did have something important to be doing. "he'd be here if he could."

"good to know. alright, i asked you one thing. got any questions for me?" ghenkl quizzes.

"how do you know theksevoy?" ba'shira asks, curious. it doesn't seem like the two of them would be good friends exactly, especially hearing that ghenkl is allied with the republic for the time being.

"we were lovers for a period of time. partners in mostly general crime now." she says lazily. the droid rolls back over to their table with drinks in it's metal claws, placing all four down on the table before rolling away again. "you drink, kid?"

"i'm not a kid." she feels like she's had this conversation with her boyfriend before when the words leave her mouth, but doesn't overthink it too much. "and not really."

"really?" she cocks an eyebrow like she doesn't believe her, turning her gaze to torian, who looks more bored than anything. "eh, suit yourself. who's this kid?"

"still, not a kid." ba'shira answers before torian can cut her off.

"ya'll look younger than you should be, alright?" ghenkl shrugs, sipping on her glass of alcohol. "too young to be involved in a war."

"torian cadera." her boyfriend answers before ba'shira can give a retort, "we're not kids."

"hey, didn't mean any offense." she says.

"how old are you?" ba'shira questions, crossing her arms over her breast plate. "calling us kids."

"thirty three." ghenkl throws back her cup, putting it back down on the table. "i'll be thirty four in a couple of months, why?"

ba'shira admittedly had not believed the smuggler would be that old. she'd assumed there had only been a few years seperating them, not nearly a decade. ghenkl definitely didn't look that old either. "what about him?"

"who me? twenty-six." corso answers. damn. he's still older than both of them. both she and torian were only twenty-two (torian was turning twenty-three soon), making them both really the youngest.

it's silent for a while longer before ba'shira really does make the motion to leave. "it's late, i think torian and i are just gonna go."

"alright then. don't be a stranger." the zabrak woman responds. "hope to see you around!"

ba'shira doesn't wave back. she's not scared of her, how much damage can she do to her, but rather wary. something she typically isn't of anyone. but, she's working so closely with them now, ba'shira can't help but be cautious.

"don't be too afraid." torian says just before they step back into the hangar, lacing his fingers into hers.

"i never am." she says, turning to face him. "don't worry too much about me, cyare."

"of course, shira." he responds, pressing a kiss to her forehead as she smiles, but not before pressing her lips to his.

[rainbowravioli]

(1/2) Related to your recent post: I swear, sometimes I feel like Kubo must often be thinking of an earlier version of YOI that was much more focused on the Yuri/Yuuri rivalry, a version we never saw, because she always focuses *so much* on their relationship in interviews, and how they constantly fuel and drive and feed off of each other, and seems to especially talk about Yuuri practically being fixated on some kind of strange 'sometimes friends sometimes rivals' intense connection there...

(2/2) and I’m always just like ??? Literally where was that on screen?! We saw *none* of that, Yuuri hardly gives any thought to Yuri over the course of the show at all- even Yuuri and Victor’s VAs responded to a question about what their chars. think of Yuri with something like ‘I don’t think they really think about him much at all to be honest’. It’s just such a weird dissonance between how she talks about the connection between Yuri and Yuuri, and how they were portrayed in the show

I love this conspiracy theory 

Seriously though, you’re so right, anon. And so is @angryfishtrap with what they say here. 

This dissonance is part of a series of oddities in Kubo’s interviews and how she talks about canon. Sometimes it feels like she’s describing a completely different series, and it’s particularly apparent when she’s talking about Yurio. 

Contrast how Sayo conceptualized YOI from the very beginning (as far back as 2010) to be about the bond between a Japanese skater and a foreign coach, with how Kubo seems much more focused in the (in canon one-sided) rivalry between Yurio and Yuuri and how she keeps dismissing the importance of Victuuri moments.

And it’s not simply that Sayo had just this vague concept by the time she met Kubo. Kubo herself said that Yuuri and Victor’s concepts (roles in the story and personalities) had already been created before she came into the project. They were the whole starting point. On the other hand, Kubo created Yurio. It’s not that much of a stretch to say she would be particularly attached to him. 

“(…)But after our first overseas research trip, the very first character I came up with was Yurio. Now that I think about it, the influence of anime from the latter half of the 1980’s pulsates strongly within me. Since that time, I’ve kind of liked brazen/cheeky characters with blond hair and blue eyes. So, since I was getting my hands into an anime original, I felt that I might as well go back to my roots and revive the characters I loved back then… In some ways, Yurio was born from entities that had become like my own flesh and blood, so he was very easy to write.” (x)

Kubo also keeps drawing attention to the Yuuri-Yurio rivalry and talking about it like it was the core relationship of the series when that’s really not what was shown on-screen. I’m reminded of when Yuri on Ice was first announced, it was said to be “the story of the two Yuris”, so much so that people interpreted the title to be about the both of them. But watching the series, not only is the title theory proven wrong in episode 4, but you quickly understand that Yuuri is the protagonist (even with Yurio + Victor being main characters too), and while Yurio is important and they do influence each other, Yurio is much more focused on Yuuri than vice-versa. Consider how Yuuri reacts in episode 4 when Yuko is giving him updated on Yurio.

He’s barely interested. And it’s not like he doesn’t care about Yurio - he clearly does - it’s just that, well Yuuri has more things going on in his life to worry about than his self-proclaimed 15 year old rival. According to Kubo though, he shouldn’t have. 

To me, these two quotes from Kubo say everything about her view on this (x):

“I had a hard time drawing the relationship between Yuuri and Yurio. Especially Yurio, I think he’s easy to grasp as a character and I was sure he would become popular, but for the same reason it was difficult to make him unpredictable. I wanted to depict him and Yuuri as rivals, however figure skating is mostly a battle against yourself, a sport where you fight to pursue your personal best, and after their direct confrontation in episode 3 they also become physically separated, so I was careful about the balance when making them think of each other.”

“(…)It was for the purpose of reinforcing the fated connection between Yuuri and Yurio, and to consequently cause the viewers to want to cheer on Yuuri in the Grand Prix Final. However, at the same time the bond between Yuuri and Victor became deeper and deeper, and as I couldn’t really find enough place to put the spotlight on the rivarly with Yurio eventually Yurio stopped moving inside my storyboard, to my surprise. In that sense, I had to struggle to depict Yuuri and Yurio’s relationship until the end.” 

“Fated connection” is really not something that was there in canon. At all. But Kubo seems to think this was a thing, and she says she struggled to keep depicting it until the very end. She really wanted them to be rivals, but it really wasn’t happening in canon. Yurio thought it was, but he’s 15 and angry and hurt over Victor leaving and doesn’t know how to deal with his emotions. But Yuuri? Yuuri is fighting himself and people’s expectations of him. And even for Yurio, later we have characters like JJ and Otabek that do a much better job at being a rival to him than Yuuri ever did.

It’s very interesting to think about the Victor part though because yeah, even in canon, Victor is constantly overshadowing Yurio when it comes to what Yuuri is thinking about. Meanwhile, Yurio is very much focused on Yuuri (and Victor). Let’s look at episode 4 again. When the assignments are out for the Grand Prix events, Yurio doesn’t ask for his own, he asks for Yuuri’s.

Yuuri meanwhile? Doesn’t ask about Yurio at all. He does think about him briefly when learning they will face-off in Russia…then immediatly focuses his attention on Victor. 

And then you have Kubo saying things like this

“I wanted viewers to remember “Hasetsu” as a place where Yuuri and Yurio could spend some carefree time” (x)

“I believe that, beside Victor, Yurio’s existence was also important in strengthening Yuuri’s feelings that he couldn’t end like that” (x)

“From Yuuri’s point of view it looks like Yurio suddenly has this new friend Otabek, and I think that he’d probably get really frustrated realizing that even if he’s not on the rink anymore Yurio will still be able to make other friends and rivals. Halfway through the story I often thought “Katsuki-san, aren’t you disregarding Yurio a bit too much?” (LOL)” (x)

So yes, it really feels like Kubo was much more interested in the Yuuri-Yurio dynamic and in Yurio overall.

I’m still 100% convinced that episode 12 was changed from what it was originally supposed to be. We can’t really know how those changes came about and why. But considering Sayo is a very busy person, considering Kubo has said she struggled with episode 12 the most to get scenes “right”, and considering episode 12 has that ridiculous sudden focus on the Yuuri-Yurio relationship to the point where it becomes the driving forces for Yuuri to decide to keep skating (contradicting Yuuri’s entire monologue during his FS btw), and everything Kubo has ever said in interviews about Yurio and the Yuuri-Yurio relationship…she was probably heavily involved in that episode, yes.