#So like there are some damn good clone wars arc

[heart-0f-a-rebel16]

see I think like the main problem with tcw is that it has this sitcom energy where everything is set back to zero after every arc which absolutely demolishes any sense of progression or character development

[eriexplosion]

Tech Lives: An Ungodly Long Essay

(AKA: Turns out that my Tech Lives compilation post comment was actually a threat.)

There have been hundreds if not thousands of posts since Plan 99 aired wondering if Tech might have made it after his fall - it's probably been brought up more than any other hanging plot point, even after season 2 scooped up Omega and left us on a massive cliffhanger. Now that season 3 has started, though, Omega and Crosshair are home (for now) but we have received an almost aggressive lack of Tech info. So, I've gathered up some of the stronger Evidence for why Tech might be fashionably late but still on his way back from The Void!

THE LEAD UP

So to start, let's go back to what came before the whole Incident. This will focus mostly on season 2, seeing as that was definitely Tech's season to shine, but with bits about plotlines in season 1. Which brings us to our first bit, that's not really evidence so much as some gentle push-back on a common argument.

Doomed By Character Development?

We've all seen this particular situation before - a character is slated for a tragic death, so just before it happens the writers gives them a little extra relevance to the plot to make sure the audience really feels it when the time comes. The Clone Wars was especially good at this, giving characters like Fives an arc of his own that ended in his tragic death. Season 7 gave us a better look at Jesse, first in the Bad Batch's intro arc and then again through the Siege of Mandalore, all to bring us to the chip activation that led to his ultimate death.

When season 2 started off with one of the two intro episodes spotlighting Tech and our first breather episode of the season also spotlighting him, people started to get worried. So is it fair to say that his spotlight in season 2 was setting him up for a permadeath?

Looking at it, I don't think so, for multiple reasons. For one, Tech didn't just get a spotlight episode, his development dominated a good chunk of the whole damned season, often taking priority over the other characters that wouldn't be dropped into the mists. While giving a little bit of character development to a doomed character can be a good move, giving ALL your development to a doomed character ends up feeling like a good portion of your season was actively pointless.

The Bad Batch is not an open ended show. It seems to have been planned for the three seasons it got, and they would have gone into it knowing they had a set amount of time to work with. Dedicating so much time to developing Tech in preparation for a character death takes away all of their opportunity to develop, well, anything else.

But, along with the amount of time that was dedicated to Tech as a character through season 2, they also didn't develop him in the ways that most often get used for a doomed character. Namely...

That Sure Is A Lot Of Open Plot Lines

And not one of them got tied up. Currently, Tech has two open plot lines to himself, both started in season 2, as well as a key place in the overall show narrative arc. As the overall show narrative arc takes precedence, we'll start with that.

The Bad Batch sets up a few different narrative arcs very early. One is if clones can be more than soldiers - this is the central thing that we see them struggling against from the start, they've been created to be soldiers and don't know much else about how to function in the world. Theoretically this arc can be fulfilled with one or two of them still dying as soldiers, as long as a few of them make it to find a new life for themselves.

The arc that can't be fulfilled without everyone though is the ongoing thread of reuniting the batch. Much of the show is geared towards making the viewer want this specific end result, as soon as they talk about Crosshair, Omega says they'll just have to get him back and complete their family. The end of season 1 teases us with this only to pull it away at the last moment, then season 2 teases us with it again only to yet again pull it away, this time seemingly permanently.

Ending one of your key narrative threads you've been using to draw audiences in only 2/3rds of the way into the show and without ever resolving it... well it would be a choice. If Tech is gone for good then the last time we saw everyone together would be the end of season 1. Rewatches would lack impact because something that was made to seem so vital ended up going nowhere, and the series finale would never quite reach the height that hearing the full batch theme kick in over the team fighting droids together did. It absolutely destroys the central narrative to leave him gone without ever having reunited the family.

And then there's his personal plots.

Let's start with the obvious one. Tech got a whole potential love interest this season and they absolutely did not resolve a damn thing about it.

Again, this takes a trope that we all know - the young army man that's going to go home and finally marry his girl, who has his whole life ahead of him, but dies tragically in his final mission - and seemingly intentionally subverts the beats. Because what makes the trope work is that the plot line is resolved as soon as that young man decides how he's going to move forward. He can't die uncertain of if he's going to marry his girl, he has to make a decision, and the longer we spend on the relationship to his girl the stronger the decision has to be to consider the narrative line resolved and free him up for some tragedy.

Tech/Phee is a tentative little 'will they or won't they' romance. They're flirting, they're feeling each other out, they're seeing if they're compatible. To tie up this narrative line we would have to find out if they are or not, get a yes or a no on the question. Will they or won't they? We simply don't know because the writers didn't put a resolution in.

We do get the traditional pre-mission scene with them, which would normally be when we get the first kiss or perhaps the promise of a date, either of which would have had me digging Tech's grave for him to fall into from the second it happened. Or even a 'we can't do this right now, but maybe some day it will be the right time' which would have been a kind of lukewarm resolution but would have at least represented a decision.

Instead we get a scene that almost aggressively refuses to resolve anything. They have an awkward interaction, but not one that says they won't get together, no promises are made for the future, no decision point is reached, and the plot line is still dangling wide open when Tech falls to his supposed death. If we truly leave it off here, well, what was the Tech/Phee subplot for? Why did we spend precious time on it when it could have been spent on something else, if it was meant to make Tech's death hit harder why did it not go further?

A second subplot with Tech is that he certainly made the most progress on seeing options outside of the Empire - it starts early on in Ruins of War when he meets Romar and gets his eyes opened to the idea of cultures that existed unconnected to the war. Serenno existed before the war and before the separatists, and Romar introduces Tech to that idea of an ongoing culture. He gets a taste of racing in front of a cheering crowd, leans further into his teaching of Omega and gets new insights from her regarding their lives as soldiers, his relationship with Phee picks up right when he finds out that she is interested in the preservation of cultures. It's a quiet little subplot, but Tech was seeing the full scope of what the galaxy contained beyond being a soldier in a war.

But, like the Tech/Phee, it never resolves. He never decides to settle down, he never chooses to stop being a soldier or even openly discusses the idea of what life will look like after. Rescuing Crosshair isn't positioned as a final mission that they have to complete in order to give up their lives as soldiers. Without that decision point being reached, the plot stays open, we never find out what he Would Have Done so we don't get a sense of the future that he would lose by dying, which is what the purpose of these types of plots is for a planned permadeath.

The Kaminoans don't create without purpose and writers working on a three season timeline don't typically write without it either. So if we spent the time on Tech/Phee but Tech is dead before it ever went anywhere, if we spent time on Tech's relationship with being something other than a soldier but he never really pursues it, what is the payoff?

Too Much of a Survivor To Die?

There's also the matter of how they chose to build Tech's character this season. Namely they beefed that man's skills up incredibly high making it intensely unbelievable that he's dead without seeing some sort of concrete proof. Things we know about Tech as of the end of season 2 include:

Incredible pain tolerance - Tech fractures his femur in Ruins of War and seems shockingly unbothered by it. The femur is frequently listed as one of the most painful bones to break. This is not a broken toe the man is hobbling around on, he fractured the strongest bone in the body and kept going through the woods. He physically fought and killed a man with that busted femur.

Lightning fast mental processing - this is of course on display nowhere so much as Faster where he's put up against droids and wins by taking calculated risks that no one else is willing to try.

A cool head in stressful circumstances - this one is hilarious because he outright says it, but Tech does demonstrate time and time again that when it comes down to it, he's able to keep calm no matter the circumstances.

Essentially, we spend the entirety of season 2 setting up why Tech is the perfect person to drop out of the sky and have him survive. He has the ability to keep calm and come up with a plan in seconds and he has the grit to keep moving even if he's grievously injured once he hits the ground. When you set a character up like this, you can still kill them, but you have to work harder to do it convincingly. Leaving Tech not at the moment of death but with probably at least a minute to act in and then not showing us the body is the exact opposite.

We have a moment in The Crossing showing us Tech's precise aim, and it comes up again to brutal effect when he shoots out the connection on the rail car. If moments through the season were used to set up that particular instant of the finale, then we can't discount the numerous scenes demonstrating his survival skills as being irrelevant to his chances.

Plus, looking back at Ruins of War - one of the big moments in the episode is towards the end, where Romar tells Tech, "I'm a survivor. Remember?" The camera then lingers on Tech for a long moment. It's not the kind of action that demonstrates his capabilities as above, but it works to associate the words with Tech in the viewers mind. Romar is a survivor, and Tech is a survivor too. And when you intend to kill someone off, it's kind of an odd choice to spend that whole season setting them up as a survivor.

THE FALL

Which brings us to the scene itself. Plan 99, implied to be one of the last ditch plans that they have. It's absolutely a heartbreaking scene, and one that can be tough to analyze when it's so well done, because it's rough to watch repeatedly. But, it's worth doing, because the scene itself is FULL of questions, some structural others more based in the visual presentation.

What is Plan 99?

Well, that's just it, we don't actually know.

We know what it's implied to be, a self sacrifice plan where one of the batch gives their life for the others to get away. But in show it's never actually defined, leaving the full meaning of Plan 99 up to interpretation. It could be as simple as what it's implied to be, but that brings up questions like 'why not provide any lead up or foreshadowing for it?' and 'does killing yourself actually count as a plan?'

Removing the assumptions from it gives us room to speculate. Is the plan actually that they leave him behind, dead or alive? Hunter ordered them to do so without a plan number in season 1, but he is the sergeant, so plan 99 could easily be something that bypasses his authority - if a batcher calls a plan 99, you go and you don't question his decision. It's certainly closer to a plan if there's something they are supposed to be doing from their end rather than just an announcement of intent.

It's not strictly evidence one way or another, but it is something of note when Tech's entire sacrifice is based around a plan that we're not privy to the details of. TBB has hidden its twists in ambiguity before, so it would not be the first time that it let us assume something only to pull the rug out later. But ambiguity is not the only thing that makes this scene stand out in the raising questions department.

Pacing Goes Out The Window

Generally speaking, a self sacrifice is the climax of an episode. Think Kanan, Hardcase, Gregor, Hevy, etc - Even a minor character sacrificing their life tends to make up the most climactic portion of any given episode, let alone one of the characters from the title squad. It gets to be the big central moment, the big rush of music and feeling, the pinnacle of the viewers attention.

Tech's sacrifice is not. It happens around 5 minutes into the episode, is rapidly moved past with barely a moment to think, and then the actual climax is Omega's capture on Ord Mantell. They even repeat the music when Omega is captured, except much stronger this time, making it clear that this is the emotional crux of the episode, this is the scene that is supposed to stick with you.

The opportunity to make it the climax of an episode was certainly there. The storyline could have been adjusted to put Tech's fall at the end of The Summit, allowing more time in Plan 99 for processing his loss and making it feel final. The pacing choice is one that doesn't allow the viewer to process the loss, only giving us maybe a couple minutes of time with actual emotional reactions before we're barreling off to the next plot point. Why was Tech's death de-emphasized within the episode if it is indeed our last moment with this central character?

Tarkin, Eriadu, & Saw Gerrera

A lot goes into the set-up for Plan 99. We have Tarkin's base on Eriadu as the setting they're working within, going up against Tarkin for the first time since early season 1. This is the big leagues, and something that's come up in multiple interviews is that when going into the den of one of the franchise's big bads we have to have consequences, something to demonstrate that Tarkin is not to be trifled with.

Sounds reasonable enough. Except Tarkin doesn't actually do anything in either of these episodes. The thing that actually threw them off was Saw's planning mixing in with their own.

All Tarkin does upon finding out that the batch is stuck on the rail is order an air strike and ignore that this would kill many of his own men. This is certainly evil, but it's standard Imperial evil. Rampart would have given that order. Hemlock would have given that order. The guy in Tipping Point that we know for 5 minutes before he fried himself would have given that order.

So if the point of this finale was to demonstrate Tarkin's power, then bringing Saw in both complicates the plot and devalues what they're claiming they are trying to show. So is the point to get them to Tantiss? No, because they fail in that. They don't plant the tracker, they're no closer to finding Crosshair than they were before.

By all accounts the point of the whole endeavor is in fact just to drop Tech off a sky rail for reasons unknown and injure Omega to force them to go back to Ord Mantell. These two things could have happened anywhere in any way of course, so why choose Eriadu and why choose to complicate the plot by introducing Saw rather than letting Tarkin handle the job?

They're questions we don't have answers to yet, but they're very hard to get answers to if Tech is dead and completely out of the picture. Having a dead body on Eriadu is fairly useless to the plot, having a living Tech on Eriadu though? That has potential to move them huge leaps forward in a very short amount of time once we bring him back in. Especially given his conversation with Saw prior to everything going downhill - Tech was in favor of gathering intel from the facility rather than destroying it.

And what about Saw, anyway? If he was genuinely there to cause problems and fly away, again, that's a plot wrinkle that isn't needed and took time away from everything else. If he's there because they needed someone to pick Tech up though? There's potential there.

Did Tech's Sacrifice Mean Anything?

In universe, Tech's sacrifice means everything, of course. It's a decision made in the moment to risk everything to save his family. It's a noble deed and one he does without hesitation. But pulling away from that narrow scope of an in universe perspective, what did we accomplish narratively with his fall?

Well... not much actually! They got over the bump in the road that they encountered all of five seconds ago and promptly crashed headfirst into another, different bump in the road. Tech's dramatic sacrifice didn't allow them to escape unharmed, it didn't allow them to find Crosshair, it just allowed them to move a few steps forward, after which Omega is almost killed and then captured, which is a fairly weak reason to sacrifice a whole major character.

But not every character death is exclusively about narrative, sometimes it's about the character arc itself. So does this close out anything for Tech's character development? Again, not really. Tech has always been completely loyal to the squad and would have risked anything for his family. He never had a choice not to fall, it was either just him or the whole team, and he is an endlessly logical actor. The action would have played out the same had it happened in the series premier or the season 1 finale, or any other time in the show. If anything it's a backtrack on his character by putting him solidly back into the soldier box that the show is trying to let the clones grow out of.

Maybe it's not about Tech's character though, maybe it's about everyone else's! Does his death change anyone's trajectory? Again... no, not really. We'll get into season 3's lack of mentioning Tech later, but in the immediate aftermath of his fall, no one's course or actions is majorly changed because of his loss. Hunter wants to go back to Pabu where it's safe, the same thing he wanted to do before they ever left for this mission. Omega puts herself in danger to save her brothers, which has been one of her defining traits since season one. Wrecker is following Hunter's lead, same as he always did. (We get very little of what Echo hopes to do, but the opening of season 3 reveals that they went back to work with Rex, exactly like they were doing before.)

So narratively nothing required him to die, the character's arc isn't completed, and the other characters aren't motivated to change. If Tech dies here, it's the picture of a shock value death. It doesn't complete or inform his character, it doesn't need to narratively happen in order to put Omega on the path to being captured, and thematically it exists just to give the viewer an unnecessary gut-punch when just the failure to rescue Crosshair and the loss of Omega would have been enough.

Framing is Everything

In a death scene there's nothing more powerful than our final shot of a character. The very last we'll ever see of them, the image that will linger in our minds when we think of that character from then on. This is especially important in animation where everything has to go through several iterations before deciding on what that final look will be. You want it to be impactful, you want the audience to have one final connection to the character before they're gone for good.

So why does Tech die with his helmet on?

If there's one thing TBB is good at, it's their expression work, and a death scene is a perfect place to show off their full range, which is why most deaths meant to have a heavy impact occur with faces unobscured. Crosshair loses his helmet and takes Mayday's off so we can see both of their faces as Mayday dies, Slip, Cade, even Clone X and Wilco, all die helmetless. Looking into older series you have Kanan dying without his mask, Fives, Hardcase, Waxer all dying helmetless with one last good look at their faces and expressions.

And while Tech's helmet gives us a good look at his eyes, the rest of his face goes unseen, and Wrecker's face as he watches this happen is completely obscured. We're denied a look at a lot of their expressions as the decision is made and Plan 99 is executed, rendering it less personal than it otherwise could have been. Tech could have lost his helmet in the blast that knocked him from the rail, Wrecker could have had his helmet knocked off at some point to give us a good look at his expression. TBB isn't known for pulling its punches, so why leave our final look at Tech's face back in The Summit and not here?

Then there's the framing choices. We get some absolutely amazing shots of Tech during the fall, from taking the shot to falling backwards towards the cloudy cover - but here's where some interesting choices are made. Rather than letting our last shot of him be a face up shot that keeps eye contact with the camera as he falls, they make the choice to have him flip over, and we hold the shot as the rail car goes down after him, partially obscuring him.

Which means instead of our last glimpse of Tech being something like this.

We end up with something closer to this.

Which, while we all love those Tech crotch shots is somewhat less impactful emotionally. These frames go through multiple departments and get multiple eyes on them before going through final animation, and no one thought that leaving him face up and unobscured until he disappears into the fog would stick more firmly in the viewer's memory?

The Flip Might be Intentional

And I don't just mean out of universe, as every detail of animation is often intentional, but in universe as well. If you look closely at Tech as he falls, he seems to roll his shoulders back in order to begin flipping over. It was a specific enough detail to send me searching for a reason and I found it in instructions on how to survive a long fall - the first thing that you're supposed to do? Get into the arch position like a skydiver to slow and control your fall.

The flip was important enough to not only include but to include the small detail of Tech intentionally flipping himself over into said position. It's not a confirmation but it's an interesting detail, and one that has very few other reasons to exist.

THE AFTERMATH

Image chosen because even thinking he's alive I didn't want to pull from Omega reacting to the fall on Ord Mantell. Looking at her makes me Sad. So the fall has happened, the rail car has rushed forward and crashed, and Omega fades in and out of consciousness until finally waking up on Ord Mantell to the bad news.

"What if he's hurt?"

Omega is our POV character for the show. We may sometimes see things she doesn't, but emotionally she remains the center of the narrative, the character that the target audience will see themselves in. Her ultimate thoughts on a situation are the closest we have to a clear indicator of our intended takeaway.

So it's interesting that the first thing we hear out of her, having heard that Tech 'didn't make it,' is a firm denial. He can't be gone, he might be hurt, he needs them and they need to go back for him. And, despite Hunter continuing to talk with her about it for a bit, we never actually hear Omega explicitly take it back or verbally acknowledge Tech as dead. The closest we get is 'lost' which she also uses for Echo in The Crossing.

Now, here's where the interpretation between the adult and child audience will likely differ. From an adult perspective, this is a reasonable reaction for a child her age. It comes off as very natural that she doesn't want to accept it and that she doesn't have time to really process that it's true before the scene moves on. It makes sense from an in universe perspective.

However, the main audience is still children who actually are Omega's age and who are being presented with her as their window into this world. And their takeaway, seeing that same scene, is likely to be that Omega is correct. They don't know that Tech's dead, just because an adult says it doesn't make it true and just because Hemlock says it DEFINITELY doesn't mean it's true, they have to go back and check.

If they wanted the main audience to think that Tech is dead for sure, they could have had Omega be the one to say that he's gone, with Hunter simply confirming it for her. Alternatively, Omega accepting it when Hunter tells her would also function in the same way - ultimately, as the POV character, if Omega doesn't accept it there's a strong possibility much of the audience won't accept it either, especially without other evidence.

No Body?

And, as we all know, we simply don't have other concrete evidence. Not only are the batch given no time to look for Tech's body or any confirmation that he died, but we get a whole scene with Hemlock and the goggles where he also confirms verbally that he doesn't have a body either. There's very little reason to have him say this outside of putting a bug in the viewer's ear that he might not be gone for good.

Not only do we have that verbal confirmation, but we have multiple places where a body could have been included or implied without adding much to the runtime.

Easiest place would probably be when Omega passes out - there's a trooper's corpse right there in front of her, and it would have been very easy to make that identifiable as Tech. Have one of the boys check his pulse like Crosshair did with Mayday and then be forced to leave after confirming he's dead. Would it require a little bit of fudging the details of how he landed so close to them, sure, but it would have been narratively streamlined and easy.

Have Hemlock bring his helmet rather than his goggles (and damage it in a way clearly incompatible with survival) or confirm that he did find a body but has no use for the goggles.

Put the body in Hemlock's lab when Omega is brought there at the end of the episode. Have a sheet covering him even if you want and just one of his hands hanging out, especially the one with the distinctive light on the back of it. Give us her reaction to that.

These are just the ones that don't involve adding scenes or making major changes - instead, in a franchise known for bringing back everyone and their grandmother especially if there's no body, they chose to leave it extremely vague.

Reused Score

The soundtrack for Tech's sacrifice is fantastic, I don't think anyone can argue that. In fact it's so good that it's used occasionally used as a reason for why he's dead for real. If it's a fakeout, why go so hard on the music?

It almost sounds like a reasonable argument, except that the music isn't even unique to Tech's fall. We get the same motif later in the episode with Omega's capture, and it actually comes in even harder and more impactful there than it did with Tech falling.

Reusing bits of the music has two results. It lessens the impact of hearing it with Tech if it is in fact his Death music, because it makes it clear that he is not the central feeling of the episode but rather, Omega's capture is. As mentioned before, deaths are usually the climax of their own episodes partially to avoid them being upstaged by any other plot points, but here Omega's capture is fully prioritized over the loss of one of our central characters.

The second result is that it changes the meaning of the music. It's no longer meant specifically to underscore a tragic death, but rather a more general one of loss and separation. And if it's simply about that separation, then it no longer requires Tech to be dead to have that same impact. They're apart from each other, and that's painful enough.

SEASON 3 SO FAR

Which of course finally brings us to season 3! We're five episodes in as of the posting of this, so a full 1/3rd of the season down, which gives us a good idea of how they're handling the whole grief aspect of this scenario.

They Aren't!

That's right, we simply have not directly acknowledged or dealt with the whole 'watching your squadmate fall to a presumed horrible death' thing even once in five episodes. Tech has been mentioned by name twice, we've seen his goggles once, and Wrecker makes one sideways reference to him having not made it back.

In universe, there is a several month timeskip and it seems to be implied that the majority of the grief milestones happened in that gap. For example, we don't see Crosshair finding out from Omega, we don't see Omega grieving her brother, we don't see Phee finding out (more on her in a bit) despite her fledgling romance. Months of grieving and processing skipped over and what comes out the other side is single line mentions that go by in seconds.

This is especially apparent after episode 5, where we got something to compare it to. Crosshair has a long, painful moment of grieving with Mayday's helmet when they return to Barton IV. It's deep, personal, and intimate and we take a minute with him gathering up the helmets of Mayday and his men to set them up on the crates the same way that Mayday had honored them.

Mayday is a one episode character that was important to only a single character, Crosshair - Tech is a core member of the team present through two full seasons and shown as close to every member of the squad. Yet the single scene grieving Mayday is longer and more emotionally gripping than every short mention of Tech so far in season 3.

Narrative Grief

Seeing characters grieve their loved ones onscreen is about more than just the characters themselves. It's also part of the viewer experience - through the characters' grief, we're able to process our own grief at the loss. It makes it feel real, it makes it feel personal, and the amount of grieving needs to be proportionate to the character's importance in the story.

This is especially true in a show written for children like The Bad Batch. Kids don't typically have the same experience with death as adults, and a well written main character death within a children's show will need more time and energy spent towards making the loss feel real. We see this with deaths like Kanan's; it wasn't Jedi Night that told the viewer that Kanan was really, truly dead, it was Dume, where the characters mourned him and dealt with the aftermath.

Currently, with Tech, we do see holes in the team that make us miss Tech but they remain completely unaddressed by the characters. We see Tech's goggles, but Hunter isn't looking at them, he's looking at Lula. Omega mentions Tech having taught her all the plans, but without any real sadness on her or Crosshair's part. The closest we get to actually bringing it up are Wrecker saying 'not everyone came back' and Echo mentioning the datapad would be difficult without Tech, and both of those are only seconds long before moving on. They don't serve as any kind of catharsis for the viewer, relying more on gut punch impact and keeping the wound open rather than allowing it to heal. The difference between the treatment of Tech's death and Mayday's just makes it more stark.

How Do You Like Yearning?

Interestingly, though, it strongly resembles the writing team's handling of another situation: Crosshair's departure from the team in season 1 vs Echo's in season 2. The show even drew a lot of flack for the lack of discussion on Crosshair's betrayal, as outside of a couple conversations the matter often went unremarked on. Echo leaving, on the other hand, got a whole episode dedicated to processing the loss immediately after it happened.

So what was the difference? Crosshair's departure is part of a long term plot point. We're supposed to want him back, we're supposed to want the team to talk about him, anything that would ease the tension. The writers on the other hand want that tension to remain until it's time to actually resolve the plot. So we get those slow drips in between bigger encounters, we get opportunities for Crosshair to come home that he doesn't take, and we don't get the catharsis of the team actually talking about any of it. We're left to want and imagine it, using the yearning to keep it on people's minds more than anything.

If Crosshair had been discussed on screen long enough for the characters to actually come to terms with his absence, though, that would have made the plot feel more settled and resolved early on. It might be conversations we want to see, but it doesn't keep the viewer on edge and craving a resolution. Best case scenario we're just not as desperate for Crosshair to come home - worst case scenario we accept that he won't be returning and find the fact that he eventually does to be unrealistic.

Echo on the other hand gets their absence processed immediately, because their absence from the team is not meant to be a huge plot point. It's something the team has to deal with, yes, and the viewer wants to see them again just like Omega does, but Echo returning isn't meant to be a maybe, and it's not supposed to keep the viewer wondering and worrying. It's a when, not an if.

Similarly to Crosshair, Tech has never felt like a resolved plot point. We don't get confirmation on his death, we don't get any long term grieving, and we get drip fed acknowledgements that pry the wound back open. If we actually see the team discuss and come to terms with their grief and loss, the plot point closes, the wound closes and we begin to fully accept a team without Tech in it, which makes it harder to reinsert him into the storyline if he is in fact alive.

If he's truly gone for good, what is the point of denying closure to the audience? We know that they are capable of writing an intense mourning moment that feels completely in character for otherwise emotionally repressed men such as Crosshair, so why not give us that with the team mourning for Tech? A memorial, an intimate moment with the goggles, a short scene of Crosshair finding out about the loss, or anything at all really? Once again it's something that makes sense if he's alive and we're simply not being shown yet, but makes very little sense to not capitalize on if he's dead.

What's to Come

We have ten episodes of season 3 to go, and a lot to cover. Reviews have indicated that Tech is not explicitly brought up in the first eight, so the earliest we could possibly have a survival reveal is in episode 9. Will it actually happen? Maybe, maybe not. Though interestingly episode 9, The Harbinger, is almost exactly one year after Plan 99, just like The Return aired almost one year after The Outpost. Could mean nothing, but they do enjoy their anniversary dates.

One thing we do know for sure is coming up is Phee's inclusion - she's seen in the official trailer, as well as briefly in a recent twitter spot. This is interesting as Phee is, of course, Tech's teased love interest, and her connection to Tech has been emphasized multiple times, including on her Databank entry and the official 'what you need to know about season 3' guide. When she comes onto the scene, it's very likely that more information about Tech will too.

MARKETING, INTERVIEWS, & SOCIAL MEDIA

I wanted to keep this mostly focused on what can be seen within the show itself, but it's impossible to talk about whether or not Tech is alive without pointing to the absolutely bizarre messaging from the cast and crew, as well as the marketing choices surrounding his sacrifice. (Example: the Instagram Mourning Filter they layered over him in the official trailer, as seen above) I won't get quite as detailed here as in the above, but it does have to be mentioned.

Constant Focus

In between the end of season 2 and the posting of the season 3 trailer in late January, there were several posts on various official Star Wars media. The majority of them were about Tech and Plan 99. In fact, I don't think I ever saw anything mentioning the giant 'Omega's been captured' cliffhanger, just Tech. Over and over again.

Once a character is dead, marketing generally stops caring about them. They're forward focused after all, they want you coming back for what's to come not lingering on what won't be relevant again. So why the constant focus on Tech?

And it wasn't just the social media either - a huge portion of the trailers and reels included old footage of him too. For the most part this was from Plan 99 and bringing up his fall again to rip open those old wounds, but in one case they included action footage from The Summit. This was an interesting case, because the majority of people watching wouldn't have recognized it immediately. Fittingly, the entire comment section was full of nothing but 'Was that Tech?' style comments, which they would have known was going to be the case to start with.

So why are we so focused on a man that's supposedly dead? If he's genuinely never going to show up again why keep putting him in? Everything? While not even bringing him up all that often in the show? If he's dead, this is a truly bizarre marketing decision.

Never Say Die

In interviews or in official material. For several months the word 'dead' was never used for Tech anywhere, not in interviews, not in official material, nowhere. It took until January 23rd for all of the databank entries to be updated, and among all of the main cast he's only referred to as 'killed' once, and it's on Hunter's page not even his own. Then, the Friday before the premier, an interview came out referring to him as dead - on the part of the interviewer, not the creators themselves.

Everything else seems to use a variety of euphemisms. His sacrifice, his absence, his loss, he 'plummeted out of sight', he 'fell from a tram car', he did absolutely anything it's possible to do except outright die apparently.

It's an odd choice when there's known controversy over if he's dead or not. The standard operating protocol of course, in a planned comeback, is to refer to them as dead anyway and allow fandom to fuel its own speculation, but with a fandom as devastated as TBB's was, it's quite possible that the odd behavior had to be introduced just to keep speculation going. The only interviews that sound remotely final came out right before the episodes started coming out - if they had done that from the beginning, the chances of people outright refusing to come back to the show likely would have been higher.

Much like the marketing, this is not necessarily proof of anything - but in combination with the multiple odd things in the show itself, it's certainly suspicious. Speaking of suspicious...

What an Odd Thing to Say

The cast and crew themselves have not been skimping on making strange comments when it comes to the Tech situation.

There is of course the well known Joel Aron (lighting director for the series) tweet that came out the day of the Celebrations panel (AKA when the Tech trauma was at an all time high) and in direct reply to a fan that was having a hard time with Tech's death. It's hard to take it as anything but a reference to Tech given the timing, and it was certainly taken as being about Tech in the quote tweets. If it's not about Tech, why tease the fandom with it? And the specification for it being a mid s3 episode as well...

Also from the day of Celebrations, and from the panel itself, we have Michelle Ang saying in front of God and everybody, that Tech "doesn't come back... in this episode, at least." At the time there was a possibility she didn't know and was just leaving it open, but with that only being ten months ago and the extremely long timeframe of animation, it's almost certain that she would have been done with all primary recording by that point. If you know he's not coming back, how do you accidentally imply that he is with no one correcting it?

Dee Bradley Baker, when asked for a farewell message from Tech at a con, came out with "the life of a soldier is fulfilled by fulfilling his mission and supporting his brothers. And this was the end of mine. And that's a good thing." Which was a perfectly serviceable goodbye right up until he said that the end of Tech's (life? soldier's life? mission?) was a good thing.

During an instagram interview we have Deana Kiner, one of the composers, in response to the interviewer talking about the final episode containing a major loss, saying, "It's kind of a loss... It's complicated." The claim on twitter was that this was about Omega, because everyone knows that when someone mentions the major loss in Plan 99 they're definitely talking about Omega.

So is Tech alive? Is Tech dead? We still don't know. But while one or two of the above might be a coincidence, having all of them at once coalesce around this single character death is a lot to chew over. The Bad Batch team has shown willingness to address grief and loss prior, as well as a willingness to show us death onscreen and front and center. So why, with such an important character, sidestep it all in order to keep it vague? Why keep it from sounding final for so long, if the intent the entire time was for him to be dead for good?

We won't know until he either shows back up or the show ends. If Tech's alive, all of the above starts to make sense. If he's dead... well a lot of things will just never quite add up. I feel that this team has shown enough willingness to follow up on their trailing plotlines that they've earned my trust. Fingers crossed for a satisfying resolution for all of us, and for our boy Tech, whatever that resolution may be.

[invaderlynx]

There’s a common headcanon that Bly took his own life after realizing what he’d done during Order 66. My brain decided to make that ten times worse for some reason:

Bly is a very competent officer. He’s a marshal commander—and a damn good one at that. For that reason, I can’t see him killing himself on a campaign, either by enemy fire or otherwise. He wouldn’t want to leave his men in a lurch, make more trouble for them than he had to, or endanger them in any way. So I’d have to imagine that if he had suicidal designs, he’d probably act on them while on leave. And where exactly do most troopers end up on leave? Coruscant.

____

Fox gets the call early in the morning. The war’s been over for weeks, but he’s still bone-tired. The fighting may be finished, but Coruscant has never conformed to the war’s schedule. He’s just as busy as he was before, if not more so. It weighs on him. Heavily.

The message is simple enough. A clone officer was found dead in his quarters with a blaster bolt through his brain, apparently self-inflicted. Fox doesn’t blame him, the poor bastard. Force knows he’s seen his fair share of suicides. Hell, he’s considered it himself.

Since the clone was a high ranking officer of the GAR, standard protocol dictates that the military police examine the body to rule out any evidence of foul play. Fox is about to dispatch a forensic squad when he finally gets to the CC number associated with the request. His blood runs cold. CC-5052.

Fox doesn’t send the requisite medical team. He goes himself. He’d trust his men with his life, but he doesn’t trust anyone but himself to care for his brother. His vod’ika.

____

The last time he saw Bly was months before the end of the war. Months before the incident with Rex’s ARC, before everything fell apart.

It was the last time all four of them were together. Wolffe, Cody, Bly, and himself, all crammed into a little back room booth at 79’s. Fox can’t remember what they were celebrating that day. Perhaps it was just the fact that they were all together again. 

Bly was just on the wrong side of tipsy—his tattooed cheeks flushed red and glowing in the neon light—but he was happy. Cody was goading him on about something having to do with General Secura. Like he was any better, the hypocrite. Wolffe had loudly pointed this out and then promptly spilled his drink when Cody gave him a shove. 

Fox felt lighter that night than he had in weeks, the bone-deep stress of Coruscant dissipating in the presence of his brothers. Surrounded by the people he loved most in the galaxy with the warm thrum of liquor in his veins, the war seemed distant. The incessant demands of the chancellor and Senate could wait, at least for a few hours. The most pressing thing for him right now was trying to rescue his drink from Cody and Wolffe’s play-fighting. 

When the night was over, Fox was saddled with the task of getting Bly back to his rooms in one piece. The whole way Bly had gushed into Fox’s shoulder about “Aayla”, his face pressed into the plastoid of Fox’s armor as his brother carried him back. By the end, the sight of his quarters had been a relief. Fox was about ready to strangle him. 

Before he’d gone Bly had hugged him, pulled him in for the most uncoordinated keldabe Fox thinks he’d ever seen, and told him he loved him. Fox can’t remember now if he’d said it back. Maker, he hopes he’d said it back.

____

Fox hesitates at the door to Bly’s quarters. His heart thuds painfully in his chest and his hands shake worse than they ever did during the war. There’s a tight, white-hot fear that’s coiled in his gut, freezing him in place. He forces himself to take a few breaths, ignoring its desperate, keening warnings.

He punches in the door code and steps inside. 

There’s no mistaking the corpse that lies before him. Any lingering hope that his brother might still be alive, that there’s been a mistake, dies in his chest. 

He makes the executive decision to spare Bly the indignity of an autopsy. Call it commander’s privilege. He knows enough forensics to realize that the wound was self-inflicted. He knows enough about Bly too.

He handles the body like it’s the most precious thing he’s ever carried. He gently arranges his brother’s bent limbs, straightens his uniform, closes his eyes. It won’t matter, his remains will be cremated all the same no matter how he looks, but it matters to Fox.

____

He escorts the hover stretcher to the crematorium—an honor guard of one. He’s not sure whether Bly would appreciate the gesture. They hadn’t spoken since Fox had killed that ARC, since he had been summarily declared “dar’manda”. He’s certain he wouldn’t be Bly’s first choice of pallbearer, but their other brothers are scattered across the galaxy or else marching on. Fox will have to do.

The guardsman on duty seems nervous. He’s a shiny and has likely never been around an officer for this long before, let alone one of Fox’s rank. He looks like he wants to ask something. Fox hopes he won’t. He doesn’t trust himself to speak at the moment.

Fox waits as the body is incinerated, standing at parade rest as the flames cast shadows through the small transparisteel window of the capsule. There won’t be anything to take back. This crematorium was designed to handle clone casualties that were never meant to be buried. Whatever ash is left over will be sent to a Coruscant waste facility automatically. 

Fox waits anyway.

Even with the best technology the Republic has to offer, the process still takes about an hour. The kid informs him when it’s over, his voice barely above a squeak. Maker, he’s young. Fox thanks him, taking care to make sure his voice doesn’t shake. Were he and his brothers that young when they left Kamino? 

The walk back to his office is torture. It takes every shred of discipline Kamino ever instilled in him to keep from breaking down. He measures his breaths, his strides, all the way down to his very heartbeat to keep up the appearance of the dutiful commander he’s meant to be.

It’s a mercy when he finally arrives at his destination. The moment the office door is locked behind him his facade cracks. His legs give out at last and he braces his back against the wall, bringing his knees up to his chest. He rips off his helmet, letting it clatter unceremoniously at his side. He curls in on himself. His body shakes with wracking sobs. His vod’ika is gone. He’s gone marching on somewhere Fox can’t follow.

[kaaragen]

So, I've been mulling it over, and I now have my considered thoughts on Tales of the Empire!

First Morgan and then the bit that matters.

I thought Morgan's segment was entertaining, and I liked learning about another Dathomiri clan. But for real, she's never beating the 'damn we shouldn't have killed Pryce' allegations XD. And that's the problem. The whole thing had a feeling of canon welding, as the airplane rattles apart at 30,000 feet. Perhaps most egregious is the explanation for how she met Thrawn. Apparently, she's behind his favoured TIE fighter design! Does she have any knoweldge of engineering, orbital mechanics, astrophysics or anything else that might enable her to look at a TIE fighter and say 'hey, I know how to improve that!' If she does, the show has no interest in telling us.

Then there's the whole wanting revenge thing. Why? Againts whom? For what purpose? The only thing she takes revenge on in the episodes is a forest, and what did that do to her?

Okay, now the main event: Barriss.

I set my expectations really low, so nearly anything would pass it. Acknowledging that, I'd say this was about the best I would have hoped for given the constraints of canon, Filoni and such. It was really nice getting to see Barriss being the idealist, sticking to her values and having the courage to say no when it became clear where the Inquisitorious was going. And she never fully bought into it, showing she has learned from her prior experience. As a friend pointed out, even when she choked Dante her eyes never turned yellow.

Seeing her as a Jedi Master at the conclusion also felt special, and not going ot lie, I did shed a small tear when I saw her free and at peace with herself after so long. And I love the fact that she defeats Lyn, not with badass lightsabre moves, but by being relentlessly kind and compassionate. Or, essentially, allows Lyn to defeat herself and so open the path back for her. It's a rare display, in Star Wars, of a character actually using the Force for knowledge and defence and not attack.

I loved the implication the reconciled with Ahsoka and made her peace with Luminara. And I don't mind those not being shown on screen; honestly I'd prefer they get time devoted to them in a novel or a comic, rather than 2-5 minutes in what are some already quite rushed episodes.

I'm 80% sure she's dead, and honestly I'm okay with that. She died to save a child and redeem a nobody (in meta-terms with Lyn), and there's something truly Jedi in that. There's something beautiful in that.

That said, there are two caveats.

The first is on Ahsoka. I'm getting increasingly frustrated with the way that Barriss' importance to Ahsoka is getting airbrushed out of the story. Because it is an important component. What sells Ahsoka on leaving the Order is not just the Council's lack of faith it's because she agrees with Barriss. Not in the method she chose, but in her critqiue yes. How can she not? She's just seen her good friend, a paragon Jedi in her eyes, fall to Darkness in fear of what the Order was becoming and she never suspected a thing.

And from Barriss' side the persistent question is why did she target Ahsoka and no one else? I'm starting to suspect that Filoni has worked out that only reasonable answer to this one is Barrisoka one and because he's allergic to writing relationships (a friend pointed out how much he seems to dislike physical displays of affection in his stories), but also specifically with reference to Ahsoka.

The second is on the bombing, and murder of Letta and clone troopers. Like, I'm happy that eleven years later it's been decided that having the Muslim-coded girl become a terrorist was a bad move. And I'm happy to take Barriss' gentle portrayal here as something of an apology note. But ultimately, Filoni made that decision so he doesn't get to employ fanfic rules to handwave it.

And the thing is, addressing it in the text would make the arc stronger. Because it's a fascinating flaw in Barriss' character that, for all her idealism, piety etc. when push came to shove she was too afraid to take the role of martyr and got someone else (willing or not) to do it. We need to see her grapple with that fear and work through it. We do see a strain of this (she does initially turn a blind eye to Lyn's massacre of the vilalge), but it's not really developed. Because it makes her triumph at the finish all the more important.

Barriss at the finish is not a Jedi Master because she can dance around lightsabre blades and spout wisdom laced in sarcasm (though those are cool!). She's a Jedi Master because she's transferring (so it's implied) her life energy to heal others. She's a Jedi Master because she allows herself to potentially be sacrificed to guide another back to the Light.

She's a Jedi Master because she's finally surpassed her fear and let go of her final attachment.

[anidaladefencelawyer]

The "B..but...Muh Two Marriages!" argument from Jedi Positives/Uncriticals gets problematic the more you think about it

Old but good analysis particularly regarding how the choice between love and duty, and Anidala being unequipped emotionally to make that choice in a way that would allow them to find happiness together, or even have the means to even want to step away from the galactic chessboard altogether, while facing peer pressure to focus on their duties(and I don't mean in a way where they can achieve the best of both worlds together) and being brought up in environments where they can't really say no; this ultimately leading to tragedy.

On this note, I do not know where this argument crawled out of, but I going to say on that note that I've never found the arguments from modern Star Wars Jedi-positive/uncritical fans that Anidala is inherently toxic because of the fact that supposedly, to paraphrase said fans, "when you get down to it, it's an asshole with a inherent fascist impulse from day one and his moral depravity enabler(yes, this is literally what some of the more virulent Jedi-uncriticals reduce Padme to when literally Palpatine is around the corner) literally wanting to have everything, duties be damned" to be very compelling, and I frankly find it really problematic given the state of modern society.

So many of us, as the contradictions of capitalism drive the world to the abyss, have to work extremely tough or low paying jobs, or have to spend so much time doing what society expects of us, are we somehow assholes if we decide "ah fuck it, I'm going to try to have both". I've personally found Anidala to be the struggle between following one's heart vs. adhering to the dictates of society at large—which is honestly really relatable in the era of late stage capitalism, and being stuck in a situation where one is unable to harmonize passion with duty(which resonates a lot considering how multiple canon and EU material show them to be a very good team, but they are always separated) albeit one that ended very tragically. While others may have the emotional control to hold as long as possible, not everyone can go down that path.

Overall, I don't even consider their marriage decision(which likely came from Padme tbh) selfish even through the idea of selfishness is framed into the narrative, it's less "selfish" and more "shortsighted" for me, shortsighted because they get pulled into a war and never get to truly develop as a couple, leading to them having no time to talk to each other, growing paranoia, and eventually the tragic conclusion of their story. But is it the sign of a toxic or selfish belief that existed from day one because of an powerhungry asshole with a fascist gene embedded into his DNA wanting everything? I honestly don't think so.

[crowhoonter]

The problem with how Mandalorians are currently written

I have a lot of gripes with "The Mandalorian" and how the new Star Wars canon has handled Mando culture in general, but I think the biggest problem with all of it is how they made the Mandalorians good people. The show, for example, has treated the Children of the Watch as just being a normal group in its later seasons, and not like the fucking cult that it is. For some reason, everyone is just okay with this? Like, the first season of the show really set them up as a dangerous, fringe, and generally insane cult that a few people followed, but it dropped that really quickly in favor of having all Mandalorians be the good guys because people can't handle protagonists not being saints I guess. Same thing with Bo-Katan actually. Bo-Katan is one of my favorite characters in Star Wars, her arc through Clone Wars and Rebels was really well handled, but Mandalorian has really fucked the dog with writing her. She is not, and should not be a good person. Sympathetic yes, understandable yes, but not a morally upstanding person. She was a part of a fundamentalist terrorist cell that aimed to destabilize a peaceful democracy in favor of returning to the "old ways," and she somewhat succeeded in that until Maul messed everything up. She continued to vie for power during the imperial era, and it ended with a near genocide of her people. But sure, somehow she's now an okay person who's gonna unite the people for real this time. Also, going back to the Children of the Watch thing, having her faith in the cause restored from watching Din be a fanatic for a bit was... certainly a decision. She shouldn't be a well adjusted normal person, she should be a fucking insane wreck. Mandalorian's, the real gun-ho warrior ones, aren't good people. They aren't puppy-kickers or anything, they aren't pure evil, but they are pretty damn far from being good. These are mercenaries, criminals, warlords, so on and so forth. They are still clinging to glory from the Mandalorian wars, a conflict that ended well over 3000 years ago. As it was said in KotOR, they are warriors, and most of the galaxy fears these Warriors for good reason. KotOR really had the best mandalorians in terms of writing hands down, if you want quality stuff with them go play that.

[literallyjustanerd]

A Perfect (Life) Day - Echo X Reader, Life Day Clone Fic Exchange!

For @rinwritesfics , hope you like it and happy Life Day! This was such a good prompt to write for.

Thank you so much to @cloneficgiftexchange for organising this! It was so much fun to write, made my holiday season so much brighter :)

Pairing: Echo X Reader Prompt: Clones celebrating their first Life Day Words: 2,239 Content: Nothing too spicy, some suggestive content but mostly just fluff!

I wrote Echo as pre-Skako Minor bc I can't deal with angst and wanted him to have his brothers to celebrate with :)

The streets are bustling. More crowded than usual, which for Coruscant is not a statement to be taken lightly. People flood the narrow streets, their voices raised high just to be heard. It’s not usually your style: noise, crowds, bright lights, it can all get a little overwhelming. But then, the hand in yours tightens its grip, squeezing for just a moment. When you glance to your side, the wonder on Echo’s face instantly washes away all your agitation, and reminds you why you’re braving the Life Day markets in the first place.

He hadn’t understood at first. Weeks ago, when he had told you the dates of his next block of shore leave, your giddy reaction had confused him. Even after you had explained that he would be with you for Life Day, he didn’t seem to grasp why you were so excited. 

“You… You’ve never celebrated Life Day, have you?” you had asked, cautiously. Echo’s gaze had dipped a moment, as though in shame, like it did any time he was faced with natborn customs he wasn’t familiar with. After a beat of hesitation, he shook his head.

“I’ve heard of it. Don’t really know what it is, though.”

You had made your mind up in that instant to give Echo the best first Life Day you could. The two of you had been an item for only a few months, but already it was clear: if a man this kind, this gentle, this thoughtful and selfless didn’t deserve a real, bona fide, downright magical holiday, then nobody did.

From the look on Echo’s face now, your plan had started off well. His eyes are shining, darting frantically from one thing to the next. The lights, the musicians, the stalls with their gifts and comfort foods, he’s as eager as a tooka pup to take in every little detail. You love these moments with him, when you get a glimpse of the young man underneath the soldier, buried beneath layers of war. The two of you pass through an ornately-decorated archway, garlands of fresh foliage climbing the canopy, bright sprays of flowers and winking lights nestled among the green. Despite the crowd, the tension eases from your shoulders, and you find yourself smiling right back when Echo looks your way.

“It’s beautiful,” he says. The usual crease in his brow has lifted, and his smile is easy. “I’ve never seen so much green in the city. Is it like this every year?” You nod, trying not to look too starstruck by the twinkling lights reflected in Echo’s eyes. But damn him, he’s not making it easy. He looks gorgeous, dressed in the first of the gifts you had gotten him: a pair of slacks, a dark shirt and matching deep blue jacket. 

“Something to make you feel more at home when you’re on leave,” you had explained as he had opened the parcel in your apartment that morning. “Less bulky than your armour.” Self-consciousness had quickly set in on you then, to make you worry you were being too forward, or too presumptuous. But just as you had started babbling about having the gift receipt and Echo being able to exchange it if he wanted, he had cut you off with a swift, deep kiss. Tender but firm, the way he always did, the way that had you melting into his embrace. You were glad for his arm around the small of your back, or your knees may have given way.

“You always make me feel at home,” he had said, before a boyish grin spread across his face. “But you couldn’t pay me anything to return these.”

While you had always loved seeing Echo looking proud and polished in his ARC trooper armour, it’s nothing compared to how he looks now, huddled into his new jacket and draped in one of your scarves. He looks relaxed, almost domestic, and happy. It’s hard not to be infected by his excitement, and soon you’re feeling like a child again, almost giddy with the holiday spirit. The two of you wander a while, passing choirs of people singing familiar holiday tunes and small children weaving frantically through the crowd. You pause a moment to admire a vendor’s table, your eye caught by a display of etched glass flowers. They’re beautiful, catching the coloured light and throwing it back as though lit from within, intricate and resplendent. You try to call Echo to look at them, but raise your head to find his attention is elsewhere. There’s a stall nearby selling mudhorn eggnog, the warm, spicy scent hanging thick in the air. While Echo tries not to look distracted by it, you catch his slowed steps and lingering eyes and tug him back over to get you both a cup. You can’t help but laugh when he lights up like a child after taking the first sip. He downs the whole thing in minutes, while you’re still nursing yours the whole train ride home.

It’s a relief to be home, both to get out of the cold and to get a break from the crowds and the noise. Your apartment is warm and cosy inside, trimmed with its own decorations, albeit much more modest than the market. Sweet-smelling flower garlands hung by the door greet you when you enter, rich red with gold ribbons tying them together. As you step through the door, Echo takes your hand in his and holds it tight.

“I want to thank you,” he says softly, turning to face you. “Really. For all of this.” He takes your hat, and you can’t help your smile.

“You don’t need to thank me. I couldn’t let you miss the markets. And I had fun, too,” you tell him. “Besides, it’s not over yet.”

The main event of the day was indeed yet to come. The most important part of Life Day, you had told Echo, was spending time with family, with loved ones over an entirely-too-big meal.

“You sure you’re okay having all of them over?” Echo asks you with a nervous chuckle. “They can get a bit… much.” 

“They’re your family,” you reply, without a hint of hesitation. Echo has told you stories of his brothers. Lots of stories. He never stopped talking about them, in fact. Fives, especially. It never stops being cute how excited he gets whenever he has another piece of gossip or misadventure to share. From what you can gather, this dinner is sure to be an eventful one. “Besides, if they’re anything at all like you, it will at least be as fun as it is chaotic.” 

Echo laughs.

“I’ll do my best to keep them in line. ARC Trooper’s honour.” He flashes a grin, and you pause a moment just to admire it in the soft, warm light, and to thank whatever god is on your side that you get to be part of this man's family. 

“I really do mean it, though,” Echo insists. “Today has been perfect. Not just because of the markets, or the gifts, or the dinner. It’s perfect because I get to do it with you.”

For a moment, the two of you are caught in something strange, something beyond words. Echo’s gaze is intense, but you can’t seem to look away. Slowly, he reaches out, gentle but sure as ever, and tugs at your scarf until it falls from your neck. Your lips part, and Echo takes his chance.

“Think we could make it even more perfect?” he murmurs, and you barely have time to give a shaky nod before his lips are on you. Your scarf falls to the floor, his hands more eager to find grip on your waist, pulling you flush against his chest. You move slow, shedding your jackets in a pile by the door, kisses growing slowly deeper, longer, more hungry with every snatched breath. Echo’s hand dips below the waist of your pants, gripping tight to your hip. He uses the hold to walk you backwards toward the couch, edging you back until you’re perched on its arm.

“You looked so gorgeous under all those lights,” Echo says against your mouth, combing a hand tenderly through your hair. “Wish it could be like this every day. Just you and me.” Your heart stutters in your chest, both soars and plunges through your stomach. You ache. How did a man this perfect end up being yours?

But for all his suave, romantic charm, Echo also has a downright devilish streak of mischief in him. He knows he’s got you hook, line and sinker. You’re floating, hanging on each kiss, every touch sending shivers across your skin. A warm hand creeps up under your shirt. You gasp. Echo smirks. And then, just as quick as it had started, it stops. Echo pulls back, laughing softly when you lean forward to try and chase his lips.

“Come on,” he says, his tone downright smug. “We’ve got a lot of cooking to get done before dinner.”

You try to glare at him, but it’s hard when you’re still trying to both catch your breath and fight the flush on your cheeks.

“You’re a jerk.”

“I’m your jerk. “ 

He pulls you into the kitchen, then leaves you with a lingering peck on your cheek. You jump when he drops his arm to pinch a handful of your ass.

“I’ll make it up to you tonight. Promise.”

And as much of a tease as Echo can be, he always keeps his promises.

Hours later, you‘re left with a mountain of food, the two of you covered in splotches of spilled sauce and dusted with flour. There’s far too much to fit neatly in your kitchen, and soon the plates are stacked on the counters and in the chiller.

“Are you sure we’ll need all of this?” you ask, lifting a roasted tip-yip out of the oven and struggling to find a free space for it.

“Trust me, we’ll get through it,” Echo laughs. “You’d be surprised how much the boys can eat.”

As if on cue, you hear voices from down the hall, raucous and quickly getting closer. It’s all the warning you get before they’re at your door. They’re everything Echo had warned you of; loud, boisterous, and overwhelmingly energetic. But they’re also just as warm and kind as Echo. It seems Echo has told them about the traditions of the holiday, too: as they enter, Kix presents you with a bottle of wine, and Jesse, a small potted plant. Fives offers a box of fancy-looking chocolates, as well as, much to Echo’s humiliation and his brothers’ glee, a box of less-fancy-looking condoms. Echo looks like he wants to sink through the floor, his face flushed bright red. Despite your own sheepishness, you can’t help but find it almost heartwarming how his brothers instantly treat you like one of their own, childish jokes and all. You even find yourself laughing along.

Somewhere in the distraction, things must have changed hands, because when the commotion dies down and you turn around, Echo is also holding a small box. He offers it to you, bashful in a way you haven’t seen from him before. It’s clear why when he gets a chorus of teasing ‘ooh’s and ‘aww’s from his brothers. You pull away the ribbon around the box, breath stolen from your lungs when you open it. The blue etched glass flower is just as beautiful as it had been displayed in the market stalls.

“I saw you admiring it,” Echo says with a timid smile. “So I comm’ed the boys for some help. I– I hope it’s–”

“It’s beautiful. I love it,” you interject, trying to fight off the prickle behind your eyes. You have no hope, however, of fighting down your smile: it’s so wide your cheeks ache. 

The flower takes pride of place as the centrepiece of the dining table as you all sit down. The meal is everything a Life Day family dinner should be: loud, messy, happy, and long. You get to know Echo's brothers well, through three courses, dessert, a cheese board, and caf. And as a bonus, you get a whole lot of new stories about Echo that they're all too happy to regale you with. Many that, judging by his reaction, Echo is a little less than pleased to have shared. Luckily, another mug of eggnog is enough to placate him.  There's even time for a cheesy Life Day holo-film before the hour gets late and the others have to leave. 

The hour is late, but it’s finally just the two of you once more. You're nestled into Echo's side on the couch, warm and fuzzy from the rich food and the pleasant company. Your eyelids are getting heavier by the minute. 

“I want this every year,” Echo says suddenly, and you can't help but hold him tighter. He presses a kiss to the top of your head, one that starts sweet and chaste. But soon, his lips are travelling down to your temple, then your cheek. Maddeningly, he skips past your mouth and dips instead to mouth at your neck. You give an appreciative hum, leaning into the touch, your heart beginning to flutter. As close to sleep as you had just been, you're wide awake when Echo speaks into your ear, sending shivers across your skin.

“But for now…I still have a promise to keep.”

[bitchin-witchin]

CW in tags too but this post will contain mention of like... cosmic non-con (lack of bodily autonomy), mpreg (he's afab but he's a guy so, mpreg) and fpreg, and miscarriage happening with one underage Anakin. And like... cosmic incest? Anakin force shenanigans. Just tread with caution if any of these things sound upsetting.

about halfway thru under a space themed text divider is some stuff about an alternative timeline with some Tatooine slave culture where Anakin leaves the order and returns to Tatooine to start a revolution. I might post separatly so people dont have to wade thru the weird preg stuff to get to it.

Erm. That one hc where Anakin is something more like a clone of his mom but not totally bc of genetic variation from the forces influence. Or like a stem cell baby. The force didn't really do much for him phenotypically, so they're not total copies but appearance wise... but very similar.

We won't get too much into the nitty gritty bc it's just an excuse to get him pregnant like his mom did bc he got the organs for it from her >:3c

The first time he doesn't even realize it's happened. he's barely a teen, still in the midst of his padawan training. He has been feeling cramps and notices clotted blood, but it's so early that there's been very little symptoms and it doesn't feel or look too different from his normal cycle. he's never been good with tracking it anyway so he just assumes he's menstruating. The force had been feeling different around him but he doesn't recognize it for what it means and has a whole mess of other adolencent concerns he's focused on like his relationships with other padawans and jedi, his temple studies, the genesis of his festering mental illnesses... kdbvhjf.

The second time is, of course, during the passing of his mom and Geonosis (the process of miscarriages happen over a period of time like a few days to a few weeks depending on the situation). chronic stress, dangerous and excessive exercise (like killing a lot of Tuskens), lack of sleep, bad nutrition, it's a whole concoction (yes irl miscarriages are rarely from any of these things but hard to explain the magical baby being misdeveloped when it worked great the first time (birth of Anakin)). This time he DOES know, recognizes the feeling of the force as a new life form, has more obvious symptoms of pregnancy, and he is very scared and confused because he would have been a virgin when the egg was conceived. And when he sees Padme he's all self conscious about how his body might look, is it as obvious to her as much as it is to him? Will she be disappointed or disgusted if they have sex and she doesn't see what she expects? sexual intimacy scary.... if she finds out will she believe the truth of the situation? Or will she think him unfaithful? ;w; much to agonize over

The third time is during the war once its in full swing. Idk a specific timeline. could be really evil and say Rako Hardeen or Ashoka leaving arc. HMMMM. Ashoka leaving would ofc hurt.... Can't keep any of his damn kids. Somehow the "second" time feels worst than the "first". The guilt and anger and hopelessness compounded. Why does the force keep doing this? Is he not loved even by it? Cannot he not be in control of his own body even now? He is supposed to be free.... (why does the force do this indeed. My excuse is that maybe it's a well-intentioned-but-nevertheless-fucked-up-way to guide Anakin onto a different path, except even the force cannot get plans to go right when they revolve around anakin. it is both a most beloved and mourned aspect of its child.)

The next time kids are a potential future, it's Padme! Maybe they did the stem cell baby procedure, maybe it was the force again. maybe they were rubbing off on each other and fingerbanging so the force manipulates Anakin's makeup to make it possible for Padme to be impregnated. lmao. weird magic makes for many possibilities. If the force is responsible Padme would ofc also feel extremely violated. Either way, choice or not, Anakin has too much birth trauma to do it and out of the two of them shes least often in active war zones and such. So Anakin is like, surely nothing bad will happen now. And it looks like the war will end just in time so he can leave the Jedi on a good note and have his wife and kids! Oh no, what are these nightmares? and so goes the rest....

🛸　.　　•. 　🌎　°　.•　🌓　•　　.°•　　•　🚀 ✯. •. . •. 　.　•　★　*　　　　　°　　.　　🛰 　°·　　•. ๏ .• 🪐 .　•　•　° ★　• ☄. ๏ •. . •. . •. . •. • ▁▂▃▄▅▆▇▇▆▅▄▃▂▃▄▆▇▇▆▅▄▇▆▅▄▃▁▂

Alternative timeline perhaps: After Ashoka and after Clovis, Anakin is like no one loves me I hurt everything I touch everyone leaves me in the end time to go die in the desert I was born to. So he goes to Tatooine, gets a speeder, goes out into the dunes, directionless, no supplies, fully intending to never come back. But being who he is, he stumbles upon or falls into an ancient temple that has long forgotten ties to the force (Inspired by the idea of Tatooine being an old af planet and having old af strong relations to the existence of the force (it is where the chosen one was conceived after all)) and goes thru the painful but liberating process of spiritual renewal. He leaves the desert with revived dreams and newfound courage to live on to create a better world and change to be a better person. and!! this time he gets to choose to have his babies when he decides he's ready to try again. but first, he is going to accomplish his dreams freeing the first family he knew, help lead his people to free others, and eradicate slavery from the galaxy. yayyyy. Sometime here he has the twins bc a galaxy-wide slave revolution is a long ass thing. He'd be waiting all that time otherwise. Perhaps once Tatooine's freedom is achieved, then. Here he knows his children will remain free because he has done and will continue to ensure so as long as he lives.

He reluctantly returns to Coruscant as the people of this union of freed planets agree to elect him as a representative. Not as a senator though. The union wants to stay separate from the republic, but is willing to coexist. Anyways, his return allows for Padme and the Jedi (Obi-Wan!!!!) to meet the bebes, now like 4, 5 years old. Padme and Obi-wan only first see him in the senate rotunda tho and wow! what a shock that is. emotionally unrepressed and matured Anakin is crazy to see. Also his clothes FUCK. learned from him wife. Padme has moved on bc like, he LEFT. but it does hurt to see him again. and doing well without her. But they come to an understanding after a big conversation and then Anakin is like "wanna meet my kids?" LOL

Less fluffy and more in line with Anakin's political philosophy shaped by his childhood, he kind of ends up being a warlord. Not out of bad intentions, he wants to bring peace and stability but believes that is best achieved through certain sacrifice. There is no such thing as a bloodless revolution when the oppressor uses fear and violence to keep you oppressed through generations. Also. Dukkra ba dukkra. For those who might not know, the fan language Amatakkan (tatooine slave language) uses the same word for freedom and death. So I like to think by slaughtering slavers he believes he is freeing them from the chains of greed and corruption. He still has his babies and family is his everything. One of his primary motivators as a warlord is the control he gets to protect them. And it would make for a juicy senate meeting. Like yeah. this guy is unapologetically a killer and feels justified in it!! The senate, Padme, Obi-wan, and the Jedi order aren't really reconciling with that. And if the Republic refuses to let their union of planets conduct their own affairs they are ready to protect what is theirs. Dukkra ba dukkra. They will be free.

Just to go wild with this idea, Anakin has figured out Palpatine's identity as a sith lord during his time on Tatooine and spearheading a revolution (probably some key stuff revealed by the force when he ungoes his spiritual renewal and more discovered through his own research following those key reveals). Palpatine invites him to his office bc like, his would-be apprentice is stronger in the force than ever and is now a warlord lol. He needs to get a grip on things again bc this could fuck up his plans more than Anakin leaving did. Palpatine tries to manipulate him into compliancy by bringing up he knows about Anakin's kids but he doesn't realize Anakin figured out Palpatine was trying to groom him before and so no longer holds a scrap of loyalty to him for that. Anakin's love was his only protection from Anakin. And when Palpatine threatens the wellbeing of his kids? His family? That seals the deal. He will end this tyrant's reign too. Of course this doesn't go over well with the Republic and the Jedi order but palpatine's deception and crimes are gradually revealed, so it's... a smidge less bad. but still bad.

Anyways. I think i'll stop here. this post is so long 😭😆

[illuminatedquill]

Shin Hati vs Sabine Wren:

Sharpen the Blade

So.

Let’s talk about them.

Now, as a disclaimer: I’m firmly in favor for a Sabine and Ezra pairing.

Speaking from my POV as someone who did not ship them during Rebels, watching the trailers for Ahsoka and then seeing the actual show definitely gave me vibes that things had changed for both of them.

So, I am a convert and standing with the good ship Sabezra.

. . . But, I do see the appeal of Sabine and Shin. I’m not blind. I get it.

Filoni loves some good parallels in his Star Wars. I’ve posted before how Sabine is presented as very similar to Anakin in this series; she’s a huge emotional mess, absolutely driven to succeed at her goal, stubborn, loyal to a fault, loves fiercely and fights just the same. She’s a warrior, through and through.

And, also like Anakin, she damned the galaxy for a chance to save a loved one.

So, if Sabine is being set up to be Anakin, then what role will Shin be playing in her life?

Well, let’s look to the past and re-visit another female dark side user that frequently crossed blades with Anakin Skywalker - Asajj Ventress.

A brief history for her: Set up as a rival to Anakin, she gave him that infamous scar on his face. Ventress wasn’t quite a Sith, despite her desire to be one.

She was trained by a Jedi Master, who died at the hands of the criminals he was fighting. She succumbed to the dark side and ended up ruling over them for a time. That went sideways sometime later and then Count Dooku found her and started training Ventress in the dark side of the Force.

Count Dooku was a former Jedi. Baylan Skoll was a former Jedi. Do you see what I’m getting at?

Dooku later abandoned her and she sought revenge on her former master. She spent the rest of the Clone Wars trying to find her place, keeping ahead of Dooku, and sometimes helping Obi-Wan, Anakin, and even Ahsoka when their interests coincided.

Eventually, at the end of the Clone Wars, she met Jedi Master Quinlan Vos. They fell in love but, during an assassination attempt on Dooku, Vos was captured and tortured, resulting in his fall to the dark side. Ventress rescued him and redeemed him, only for Dooku to kill her while doing so.

Her redemption of Quinlan Vos and subsequent sacrifice in doing so led her to being honored by the Jedi as a true friend.

I’m sure after reading some of this, you can see similarities between Ventress and Shin. Both were initially power-hungry but, really, they were just looking for a place to belong.

Despite being a rival to Anakin, Ventress had a more interesting relationship with Obi-Wan. They had to pair up more than a few times during the Clone Wars.

Remember the scene where Ahsoka tells Shin that they can help her? How scared and confused she looks before running off. Baylon had just abandoned her and the enemy was offering her a place to stay.

My personal belief is that Shin is clearly being set up to be a more personal rival to Sabine, but I think if Filoni is really intent on giving a redemptive arc, then it should be the Ahsoka/Shin interactions we should be looking out for.

Not to say that Shin and Sabine wouldn’t be as interesting. Ahsoka replaces Baylon as a mentor, but she also needs a friend. I see them as maintaining the rivalry, but losing the “I want to murder you” edge from their battles.

Rivals are great foils for a protagonist. Ever since Sabine met Shin, her combat skills have improved dramatically. I feel like they could really push each other to greater heights in their abilities and understanding of one another.

Rivals can also teach you things about yourself that a mentor couldn’t. As a dark sided user, maybe Shin could recognize the growing signs of darkness in Sabine and maybe try to point it out to her. Which would be a great step in their journey towards becoming friends.

And . . . maybe something more.

Filoni would have to do it justice, though. It would be great to have a powerful recurring antagonist - not a villain, an antagonist - who slowly realizes over time that they’re fighting for the wrong side.

Or he could have Shin go full fledged dark, which would also be riveting to watch. I’ve already said that she could be an excellent foil for Sabine, but she could also serve as a dark mirror for the young Jedi.

He has to do it right, which means giving it the proper screen-time. Which, I don’t know if he can. He’s already got a lot of spinning plates in the air for a theoretical season two.

One thing’s for sure: Shin is the wild card for this show. Very excited to see what happens next and where she and Sabine take this rivalry.

[andmaybegayer]

Last Monday of the Week 2024-12-02

It's beginning to look a lot like December the second

Listening:

Got the soundtrack to Paradise Killer at last, which is all hits all the time. Hard to beat the first track for an introduction

Winter is better with hilariously out of place pop jazz.

I also read the artbook that came with this and it's really funny how much this game was made by like four people. Ruthlessly optimized development process by which we mean every corner that can be cut to make this a manageable workload was.

Reading:

Finished the Book of All Skies, which once again confirms that Gregan can write a good drama based on a semi-fantasy science concept.

One thing I like about Gregan is that his characters often only kind of understand the world they're in, which adds verisimilitude! I also don't know that much. If you asked me to talk about fundamental particles a lá Scale, you'd get a similar kind of "Well the last time I was really into this was six years ago, is it leptons or bosons, well, either way, the one that protons are, so yeah the strong force scales with..." kind of half assed kinda correct partially incomplete explanation.

Working through the ROS2 tutorials and reading a lot of things about robot architecture as a result. Now that I suddenly have 1.5 3D printers I don't need I'm going to be trying to hijack their control boards for Robot Shit.

Got back into The City and The City after putting it down for a while. Love an Okay Detective. Tyador is not an exceptional cop, he is definitely not a good cop, but he is, trying, so hard. Poor little meowmeow candidate.

Hard to imagine a book making a more pointed case about borders. I feel like having now half-assedly followed some Euro politics for a year I get the various weird right wing groups more thoroughly.

Watching:

Watched Miami Vice (2006) because I downloaded it at some point and was like huh sure.

This is a mixed bag. It's shot really well, it manages tone and pacing clearly and cleanly, the vibes are impeccable. The actual plot? Okay! There's gay and there's whatever these two have going on. I have not seen the TV series.

Apparently this is mostly digital? Pretty impressive for 2006, Clone Wars was only 2002, given how dark some scenes are, although I'll say we pick on DP's for lighting all black people like Moonlight these days but it's a damn side better than what we did before! Absolutely crushed skin tones in some of these scenes. A movie with a lot of very poorly lit black people.

Started and then stopped watching The Driver (1978) in Czech. It opens with a solid 15 minute car chase that works pretty well! Got distracted in the middle though.

Playing:

Very busy week here:

Got through a couple loops of Elsinore, the Hamlet time loop game where you play as Ophelia. It's okay! It struggles a bit with managing all the things you can do, and it lacks the best part of Hamlet, which is to say the text, but it's fun to mess with Hamlet and pull on weird threads. What happens if you convince Laertes to hang around. What if you don't let Polonius get killed!

There's an added story running the background that is novel to Hamlet, mostly to help make the Time Loop work out, which is okay except for the fact that it's really easy to figure out.

The game doesn't handle its information the best. Unless someone directly tells you something you often can't act on knowledge you see in the world, nor can you update other people based on things you've witnessed. If you follow an arc that makes Lady Gertrude leap from the battlements to her death, you can see this happen in person! But you have to wait for the body to be found, you can't tell the guards about this. It's a little odd.

Haven't hit an ending yet. Getting there.

Beat World of Goo 2, the 15 years later sequel to World of Goo. A noticeably harder game that is making a lot of references back to World of Goo, some fun new mechanics and generally much more complex levels that you have to make your way through. Also some very fun meta stuff that gets a little Stanley Parable Deluxe about sequels. Worth playing! But play World of Goo first, it'll make more sense, and it still holds up.

Started Cyberpunk 2077 which is... hmm. I chose Corpo because I find the concept of "Corporate ladder climber cast out on their own" to be a really compelling concept, definitely not because that's an anxiety I have. It's not like the medical program my new employer pays for costs more per month than I used to pay for a year of the one I used to have. Haha. Wouldn't that be silly. I love satire.

Anyway kind of miffed that they don't let you do the "build yourself back up" part of the roleplaying, I think it would be fun! I love roleplaying in my roleplaying games, I was looking forward to playing V as desperately holding on to the comforts of corporate life that she can no longer afford. Shame.

The gunfighting is good! One of my favourite parts of Cyberpunk the RPG is Friday Night Firefight, which is a tremendously deadly combat system. The gunplay is a little more gamey in here but you still go down fast and staying in cover and taking every advantage you can get is still important, at least as low level.

Why is there a crafting system. I saw that menu entry and recoiled physically. This is a city I exchange eurodollars for goods and services.

Making:

As mentioned, ROS2 tutorials. Many of my ESP32 projects end up reinventing message passing architectures from scratch so I figured I should just cut out the middleman. I will need to figure out a good source of embedded Linux ROS2 host, but I'm very interested in the MicroROS/ROS2 system.

ROS2 is a very *nixy approach to software, you have a lot of litle daemons and environment management and directory-heavy build system shit going on. I'm running this all in an Ubuntu Distrobox on my Arch system to keep it contained and happy which is working well.

Tools and Equipment:

You ever steam eggs? You should steam eggs. Steaming eggs is a very quick and efficient way to get boiled eggs without having to deal with a large pot of boiling water. It's much more consistent as you increase the number of eggs and you don't get any eggs bumping around in boiling water, so you can do it in very small pots or with a very large number of eggs.

A nice hardboiled egg takes about 12 minutes of steaming, and you can get a softboil out in 10 minutes. I've used bamboo steamer baskets and stainless steel vegetable steamers for this.

[spacemagicandlaserswords]

The Clone Wars 4.07 ‘Darkness on Umbara’ Reaction Take 2

I’m doing this post and the rest of these second watch reaction posts to the Umbara arc in the more live-blogging style reaction posts I’ve done for other episodes like 1x5 ‘Rookies’, 2x10 ‘The Deserter’ and 4x5 'Mercy Mission'. So much happens in these episodes and I feel like I missed a lot of it in my first reaction posts because I was going through all the emotions.

“Just like old times, Rex” WHY AM I SAD ALREADY

That is some very cool looking nose cone art on the 501st LAAT/i behind Fives. Can’t quite tell what it is but it certainly looks cool.

More Anakin and Obi Wan snark. Excellent. Business as usual then.

Well that’s not ominous at all

Naw, Rex checking in on Tup. I read somewhere that Tup was a shiny on Umbara but I can’t remember if this is canon or fanon.

The clone piloting the LAAT/i is named Hawk! Or at least he is according to the captions. Hey Hawk! More named clones! :D 

“Time to lock and load” CACKLING

The walkers just leap backwards out the back of the low flying LAAT/i’s? How is this a good idea? 

BOING. Yeet the walker.

I think this is the first time we actually hear what the clones are saying on a battlefield. Usually it’s just dialogue between the main characters but now there’s so many of them shouting and cheering and screaming and dying.

Rip the poor clone that jumped out of the LAAT/i and didn’t even make it onto the ground before being shot.

“The enemy could have the whole place rigged with traps.” Dammit Anakin you jinxed it.

“I can’t even see the enemy” Oh that’s going to come back and bite everyone in the arse really badly.

“It’s just a vine” Oh dear.

It’s the Umbaran sarlacc!

Fives being a badass and taking out the monster like it’s nothing. That was quite clever thinking in terrifying circumstances for him to keep his head and figure out he needs to get the monster to eat the explosive.

That shot of the trenches definitely reminds me of WWI and II. They’ve even got the troopers leaning against the sides with their blasters poking above the top.

“Maybe… back in the day” Dayum Rex, there a lot of feeling in that one. 

Surely an ambush and skittering assassin bugs would be something that Anakin would sense in the Force?

Lmao @ Hardcase trying to take out the bug with the blaster equivalent of a rotary canon. That’s like taking a flamethrower to a spider.

Fives have you been gargling gravel or something?

Well at least Anakin got rid of the assassin bug. Again.

That shot of the bombers and Odd Ball bombing the ridge and the ensuing explosion definitely felt like a reference to the Vietnam war.

Ah great, fuck face has arrived. Fuck off Krell.

Lol the ominous music at Krell’s arrival was definitely not foreboding at aaaaaaaaall.

“You won’t find a finer or more loyal trooper anywhere.” DAMN STRAIGHT

How dare you impune Rex’s honour. How dare.

Cackling at Fives look at Rex immediately after Krell buggered off. He is so unimpressed.

Something about Fives’ voice is very… husky. 

“The men don’t need rest” ah fuck off

Oh you did not just address Rex by his fucking number

Is this where Rex got his dramatic flair for disappearing into the fog like he did in ‘Battle Scars’ in The Bad Batch?

I just had a heartbreaking thought. Is Fives here because Echo is gone and he doesn’t have an ARC partner (and twin) anymore? So Rex is doubling as his ARC partner for now until Jesse ends up as the other ARC in Torrent and the 501st? Do ARCs have partners and come in pairs? More angst for this already angst riddled arc (in more ways than one). Yay.

Is this Phase 2 clone armour? I think it is.

Poor Rex is trying to be diplomatic and balance dealing with Krell while also showing his men that he understands their concerns as well. I do like Fives’ view on this. He’s very ‘wear your heart on your sleeve’. I also loved that little exchange, you can really tell all of their different personalities just from that conversation. Hardcase is so gung ho, bless him.

“It’s too quiet out there.” Tup you precious anxious little bean

Rip Oz and Ringo

“You wanna piece of this” Hardcase living his best ‘blast everything’ life 

“I think Hardcase made ‘em mad.” CACKLING

Damn, Tup just taking out that Umbaran with a flip and a point blank blaster rifle shot to the face

“Make ‘em eat heat!” Hardcase is definitely in same vein as an 80s action hero

Rex just casually dual wielding with a horizontal grip like it’s nothing. Sir, you are showing off.

I would let Fives flip me over his shoulder and pound me into the ground. And then thank him for it. I have watched that part multiple times and it does not stop being hot. And the way he just casually stands up all cool and deadly and puts multiple blaster shots into the Umbaran. Sir, please contain your badassery. @nobie also has a fantastic gifset of this moment

Rex’s little flippy roll straight after this made me realise that he and Fives are fighting together. Oh Echo.

It’s almost jarring how noticeable it is that there isn’t a Jedi fighting alongside the clones. I couldn’t quite pick what felt off the first time until someone (Fives, I think?) mentions it later but it’s so obvious now. 

“Ha, ha, ha! Where ya goin’?” Hardcase is having the time of his life atm

Did Krell just shoulder check Fives?!

You can't jab Captain Rex in the shoulder like that!

Fives saying what everyone is thinking there. Also, what kind of Jedi threatens a clone with a lightsaber? Oh that’s right, a Sith.

Rex being an absolute badass

“I think he almost complimented you.” CACKLING

Fives and Rex just casually snarking while in the middle of a battlefield

[sayakxmi]

[Magi reread] Night 66: Holy Palace's Aladdin

It almost feels weird to return to Aladdin right now

Weird thingies

Idk, just that giant head is kinda silly

Also, damn, Aladdin's wobbly legs

Nvm, they aren't Schehe's clones. But it still confuses me a little, cuz I feel like it's sort of implied later on that they are? But I might be misremembering thing - I'll comment on it when I get to the Magnostadt Arc. For now it's just a bit ?? Like, it's a real possibility Ohtaka didn't plan that far ahead yet.

You look really sad about it for a guy who nearly murdered him in blind rage

Ok, to be fair, I can imagine him feeling bad about it after calming down. Still, weird choice to want to explain Alma Torran to Judar instead of, idk, Yunan for example. I feel like it would have made the whole dying-and-coming-back-over-and-over-again a little more bearable. To actually know the point of that. Bc when Aladdin and Yunan talk, Yunan admits that Ugo'd never explained anything, and in that form (the blob, probably) form he couldn't ask. So. That fucking sucked.

Anyway. Giving Solomon's Wisdom to Judar? Really? I think you're putting too much faith in that guy.

F

I... forgot that's what happened. I remembered they were the same guy, but that magic turning into one? Tbh, cool.

Pretty!

Hello there, characters nobody cares about, least of all Ohtaka

Don't worry, grls, I've got u.

Look at this annoyed Alibaba, lmao

F A T E

I mean, I jest, but it's pretty cool. Fate is one of Magi's main themes, that for sure, and to have it explained the way it is, I think it really works.

Black Sun

Honestly, I just love it being explained like that. Things becoming inverted, distorted.

Idk man, there's not much I think I can say about it. The explanation is solid on its own, and it's pretty damn cool.

Tho later Ohtaka will come and try to convince us that maybe falling isn't so bad after, yeah, sure, all these brainwashed people are a good proof of that...

That's... yeah. I was thinking about it lately, cuz I was thinking about the Kou Empire Arc.

Maybe that entire becoming more powerful god than the other guy then that guy becoming more powerful than you and then you becoming more powerful than him... etc didn't come out of nowhere here, bc Hakuryuu's falling feels kind of like that. Abra is fallen, so she works against fate, so she fucked up the fate for Hakuryuu, who then proceeded to, idk, +2 to that by also falling, and, since he's not returning things to the actual fate's course, he just makes even bigger of a mess... Which is ironic as fuck. He tried to destroy Al-Thamen by literally doing what they wanted to - sowing more chaos and disasters all around, which at worst could have led the world to an end (given Judar could cause Il Illah to descend, apparently). Idk man, put some make up on to the clown music, you fucking moron.

Like, don't get me wrong, I like Hakuryuu for the most part, but Jesus Fuck he's an idiot. This is why he's constantly painted as immature. Because he fucking is immature. He never thinks things through, has no patience to speak of once he snaps, and ends up just making everything worse for everybody and himself, and wakes up with a hand in the pot, because turns out he has no idea how to handle the aftermath of his stupidass choices, because he was too busy fucking up people's minds to consider what happens after the war.

Ok rant over.

Foreshadowing

(soon) RIP Alibaba

Honestly, that's such a cool moment.

It kind of looks cute

Idk man, awesome moment all around. The fact that all of these blobs are helping him up is really cute, too

That crying Aladdin : (

Also, not gonna lie, this feels like the theme of this arc, among other things. And I'll definitely talk about it more. It's about losing the people you love, but at the same time meeting new ones, too. Of course they won't replace them, but the point is simply you're not alone.

;;;

Honestly, it just looks aweosme

[brainrotlesbian]

Rare whump moments in cartoons

A lot of the media I like is animated, and as such, there’s not many whumpy moments in such cartoons or movies, but there are some good moments in them, so here is a non-comprehensive list of pretty good whumpy moments in my good Christian (/j) child cartoons:

True Colors (season 2 episode 20 of Amphibia). Not really until the last five minutes of the episode, but it’s well worth it. Sasha and Anne find out Marcy’s lied to and manipulated them, and also that King Andrias has done the same (not really whump but it adds to it I swear), Sprig is thrown out of a window. From a flying castle that’s nearly a mile above ground. Marcy is stabbed through the abdomen with a flaming sword and with her last conscious moments she apologizes then collapses to the ground presumed dead.

A Bug’s Life (idk the last 30 minutes?) Yeah, you read that right. A Bug’s Life. When Flik is beaten by Hopper. Good shit, good shit. The bruises, the groaning in pain, the attempting to push himself onto his feet only for his strength to fail and he falls down into the ground? Beautiful

Save The Cat (season 5 episode idk 2 or 3 of She-ra 2018). Yeah I know I said I don’t really like lady whump but like this is lesbian angst so it’s fine with me. I’m also a huge sucker for brainwashing/mind control especially when paired with said brainwashed person forced to fight a loved one

Yunan and Olivia (season 3 episode 7 of Amphibia). Holy mother of god I was not expecting that level of whump from the silly frog show. The screaming from Marcy as she’s digitally possessed by the core? Horrifying. Haunts my dreams. Oh and also there’s illusions of the three characters’ biggest traumas/fears/regrets and it’s great. If y’all thought True Colors was bad, you were right, but Yunan and Olivia is worse

The Mortis Arc of the Clone Wars (season 3) Yeah it’s kinda cheating to put an entire arc but like c’mon. 1. Lore about the nature of the force and the prophecy and the chosen one and 2. We had two different fights between the trio with one who was possessed (sorta) (Ahsoka vs Anakin and Obi Wan, then Anakin vs Obi Wan). Does this really count as whump? Ehhhh kinda sorta it’s more angst but whatever

I forgot the name of this episode but it’s some time in DuckTales 2017 season 2. Oh yeah. Fucking DuckTales. Donald gets captured by the moon people (it’s kinda funny they have this unique muzzle/gag thing they slap over his bill and he literally does not say an intelligible word until it’s blown off from an anger outburst). After discovering General Lunaris’s plan to invade earth and kill the triplets, he launches back to earth… only to end up on a deserted island for months without contact with the outside world. He kinda goes a little nuts once the family finds him

ROTTMNT movie. That’s it. The whole damn movie. Leo has the living shit beaten out of him. Raph is possessed. Everyone almost dies

The Bad Batch arc of the Clone Wars season 7. Again, cheating, I know, but holy hell, the arc around rescuing Echo and they find him half-dead, emaciated, white as a sheet, and connected neurologically to the computer system so the Separatists can search his memories for republic strategies? That’s good shit. It leaves a lot up to the imagination as to what, exactly, Echo went through.

Season 2 episode I forgot of Gravity Falls: when Dipper gets possessed by Bill. Not the whumpiest but still ok, especially at the end when he’s like “ohhh everything hurts” cause Bill wore his body out

[letitrainathousandflames]

Death Scars Pt 1 [Waxer]

inspired by this request for Waxer alive with the scars of what killed him in canon

Rating: T

Word count: 2.5 K

Summary: After waking up from the medical care that had saved his life, Waxer meets Kix and they both discuss the tragedy of Umbara

Tags: angst, hurt/comfort, canon-typical violence, umbara arc, survivor's guilt, pong krell mentioned, canon-typical death in flashbacks, ask to tag

“It’s gonna scar.”

“Which one?”

Waxer stared at the uneven circular burns on his stomach, the scabs within their core fresh and deep red rimmed by a sickening orangish-yellow shade that would lighten to a shade a couple hues lighter than his own skin closer to the very edge of the wounds. Jagged lines of protruding scar tissue crossed horizontally by narrow stitches stretched from the burns, some shorter enough not to need the stitches but just as stark as the larger ones.

He then ghosted a finger over the linear path embedded in his lower right stomach, feeling the rows of stitches keeping the incision shut. It didn’t look nearly as bad as the blaster bolts, but it was drawn in the same blemished tone as them, becoming darker close to the very center of the sunken line.

Kix blew out a sigh, looking up at him. The medic looked like shit, and if you told him that he would most likely take it as a compliment, his vanity gone after the first forty-eight hours of this damned mission and forgotten for good at this point. His eyes were red-rimmed and weary, the bags under them paired with the unshaven facial hair of the past days darkening his features making him look much older than his ten years – a nat-born’s twenty.

“All of them.” Kix said wearily with a shrug. “We ran out of bacta in the field as soon as I was done fixing you up enough for an op, so by the time we got access to these bacta tanks, the wounds had been open for too long. At least is healed enough that we don’t have to worry about avoiding infection. You should still keep it clean and avoid any friction on the area – trust me when I say you do not want to end up ripping these scabs off by accident.”

Waxer nodded, fingers still skimming the partially healed wounds. When Rex had spoken to him in the battlefield, he thought he was a goner. The pain of being shot at near point-blank range had been so intense his own blaster had fallen off his grip.

He had thought of little Numa, the kid he’d grown so attached to and would most likely never see again. He thought of his plans for after the war – because the only way to keep pushing through the nightmare of their lives was to keep your head up and believe in an after, believe in a future that would make it all worth it. He thought of Boil, and realized that if he had to die, he’d rather die not knowing whether he, too – his brother, his best friend – had perished in there with so many others, another victim of their own fellow clone’s blaster fire.

Even now, he didn’t dare ask. He couldn’t find in himself the strength to ask Kix whether his second-in-command had survived the massacre.

Kix patted him lightly on the knee, bringing him back to the present. To the bright white walls and the smell of disinfectant and cleanliness that would always end up reminding any clone of Kamino.

“This is the Umbaran base’s medical facility.” Kix supplied him, the medic’s eyes darting around the place before settling back on his while Waxer’s feet dangled awkwardly from where he sat at the edge of his gourney. “The equipment here is good. I was lucky to be able to continue your care here. Stars know the first aid out there in the dirt is as far from what I call ‘ideal conditions’ as possible.”

Waxer huffed a sound through his nose that he hoped would sound like a laugh. He knew the routine too well – a medic making light of a situation that most likely had been horrifying and burdensome to him in order to make his patient feel better about the whole ordeal. Hopefully to make himself feel better, too.

Which reminds him…

“Did you… did you save me?”

Kix’s eyes shift away from him, his feet shuffling a half-step back from Waxer’s personal space, the medic reaching for a datapad resting on a small table by his bedside.

“Your unity’s medics were busy patching up the other men.”

“Shouldn’t you be patching up your own?”

Kix shrugged, seemingly too interested in the charts on his datapad’s screen, wetting his lips and setting his jaw. His entire frame had shifted from a relatively relaxed posture to a tense, almost awkward one.

“You know how basic medic protocol goes. The ones screaming have enough strength in them to scream, they can wait. The quiet ones – the unresponsive ones, those are the ones in need of urgent care.”

“Or abandonment.”

The word sat heavily between the two of them, and Kix continued to stubbornly pretend to read a chart that didn’t have more than a dozen words in it. Waxer was having none of it, pressing on:

“I had at least two fatal wounds the moment I dropped, from what I could gather in that mess. I heard about you, Kix. You’re a kriffing good medic from the five-oh-first, which is led by one of the most reckless generals in the army – General Kenobi’s words, not mine. You are experienced enough to know when a man is worth saving and when he’s nothing but a waste of stim and bacta that will bleed out to death before you can do anything to save him. And you must’ve known, from your first glance at the holes in my armor, that I wasn’t gonna make it.”

Kix traces the words on his datapad’s screen with a fingernail as if he’s a cadet still learning to read basic. Waxer watches the lump in his throat bob up and down as the other man swallows thickly.

“Like you said, I’m a kriffing good medic. I knew I could fix you.”

Waxer took a moment to draw in a deep breath and keep his temper in check. He’d started having less and less patience for people trying to banthashit him the more he’d hung around with Boil.

“Fine.” He snapped, stepping down from the gurney and taking a moment to assess his balance; He was still a tad woozy from the bacta, and he blinked a couple of times to clear his head “Can you give me a sitrep? I need to get back to my troops.”

That got Kix to look up from the datapad and finally look at him in the eye.

“You are in no shape for combat, lieutenant.”

“That’s up for me to judge. Where’s my gear?”

Kix grabbed Waxer by his elbow, stopping him in his tracks.

“We’ve taken over the capital city! Everything is under control! Our biggest problem now is patching up the wounded and keeping shinies from shooting themselves after having this shitshow as their first incursion! Our- The general they sent to lead us in Skywalker’s stead is in a kriffing containment cell because he is a traitor!”

Waxer turned to face Kix, watching the medic’s shoulders rise and fall with his breathing, his jaw tensed and his teeth bared as he continued:

“He is the one who sent your men the intel that the Umbarans were wearing our armor, and he told us that your men were Umbarans wearing their armor! He wanted us to kill each other, he was kriffing laughing about it when we confronted him-”

Waxer’s eyes widened in horror as he remembered that last glimpse he had before being shot – a man he’d just killed, wearing 501st blue, their helmet being partially knocked off his head as he fell, exposing brown skin and an all-too-familiar jawline.

In the chaos, one of his men had nearly tripped over the corpse, shoving the helmet further away and revealing a clone’s face underneath it, painfully young, open-eyed and dead. Killed by a brother’s hand. By Waxer's.

The moment his gaze locked with the clone’s glassy stare, two blaster shots burned through his armor, sending a vivid spark of molten heat to his lower stomach. His legs had crumpled underneath it, and he thought he’d heard a clone’s voice screaming somewhere in the distance.

They’re clones! We’re all clones! Hold your fire! They’re clones!

The armored man closest to him had lowered his smoking blaster, nearly tripping in his haste to kneel by his side. His helmet clattered to the muddy ground before his hands quickly shot down to pry Waxer’s own helmet off, the cold atmosphere of the Umbaran permanent night meeting his sweat-dampened face as he looked up to the clone medic of the 501st, Kix.

Kix had reached for his medpack, retrieving a stim from it and unceremoniously stabbing it into Waxer’s neck as he yelled out his Captain’s name.

“Rex! Rex, lieutenant Waxer is still alive!”

Waxer’s eyes had stung with tears as he kept hearing clone voices all around him, some screaming, others crying. He had ordered his men to gun down every creature dressed in 501st blue clone armor, as an act of revenge for their brothers... and it had been his very brothers that they had shot instead.

And now Waxer knew how that had come to happen.

Waxer looked at Kix in utter bewilderment, eyes wide and mouth dropping open as he tried and failed to understand it. A traitor general. A clone-killing jedi. How could this be?

Kix stared back at him, something deeply wounded in his gaze. Waxer shook his head, running a hand over his shaven scalp, a scalding fury climbing its way from his chest and up his throat.

“Where is he? We have to kill that kriffing-”

“He’s in a containment cell.” Kix held his hands up placatingly “One of our youngest troopers – Tup, he managed to lure him into a trap, and we stunned him. Rex is on his way to interrogate him now.”

Waxer nodded slowly, and Kix went over to a desk close to the gurney Waxer had been resting on, returning with a bundle of black cloth in his hand, offering it to the lieutenant. Waxer took his blacks wordlessly, shoving his head and arms in it and carefully pulling it over his scarred torso. His eyes must’ve been blazing with the same rage that scorched his insides, and he noticed the way Kix lowered his gaze at it.

His demeanor softened some, as did his voice as he spoke reassuringly to the medic:

“It’s not you I’m mad at, Kix.”

Kix scoffed, flashing his tongue over his lips, brows knitting together.

“You should be. I was the one who shot you.”

Waxer shut his eyes for a small moment, bringing his hand to his stomach. Even the slightest friction from the synthweave fabric as he breathed was making him wince.

“I know. I saw it. And I saw your face, after, when you- Yeah.”

Kix gritted his teeth, looking back at him. His eyes had a sheen of moisture, and Kix kept stubbornly blinking at it.

“I was so fucking proud. When I saw your armor, with that- that little green twi’lek kid painted on it, I thought, ‘this bastard killed 212th’s Waxer. Probably left his body for one of those kriffin’ reavers to gnaw at like the men we lost before’. And I wanted to make it hurt. I wanted that Umbaran incapacitated, but I wanted him to die slowly, so I aimed-”

Waxer let him speak. He knew the medic needed it, and he, too, needed to hear it. Needed to know the other man’s pain. Kix’s following words came in a frighteningly cold tone:

“Two blasts to the stomach, where the armor plates are thinner for mobility. At the right height, to make sure at least one major organ was permanently unsalvageable, and to hopefully cut clean through their spine on the blast’s way out. I took aim, I fired. But he- you-”

“I moved.” Waxer supplied quietly, and Kix nodded a couple of times

“Yeah. So the aim- it got compromised, and I hit your spleen and kidney instead. The second bolt grazed your intestines too, and… And when Rex screamed that you were clones, all that adrenaline, all that excitement, that victorious feeling, I just-” a sharp pant hissed through Kix’s teeth “I’ve seen so much shit, Waxer, had so many brothers die under my hands and I just push through because this is the job, this is how it goes, and I’m used to seeing them die but…”

“But never from your own blasts.”

Waxer finished it for him, and Kix let out a pained gasp, the tears finally spilling down the rim of his lashes before he screamed out, throwing the datapad across the room like a trooper would do a grenade. The thing banged loudly against the wall, letting a dented chip in the stark material, clattering to the floor with its cracked screen blinking some, its images glitching.

“I- we did everything right!” Kix gritted out, more tears running down his cheeks “We were outnumbered, their tech’s better, they have kriffing bioweapons, but we pushed through and we did the job, and that- that demagolka was toying with us all along!”

Waxer walked up to Kix, one hand grabbing at his nape, the other yanking him by the arm until he had the medic held tightly in a hug. Kix’s entire body was stiff with tension and trembling with rage, and Waxer held him in a durasteel grip.

“I’m sorry.” He uttered quietly.

“He… he made us shoot you!” Kix’s screaming subsided to breathless sobbing, the words being punched out of him with each shallow breath “He sent us in small squads to die, a-and then he sent us off to shoot you! Our own brothers, our-”

“I know.” Waxer rubbed his thumb at the back of Kix’s head where he held him by the nape “I know now. And I’m so kriffing sorry, vod.”

Kix’s entire body was shaking with the strength of his sobs, his cheek wet against Waxer’s own.

“I sh- I shot so many of ‘em, Waxer. So many before I got to you, and they are dead now and I… I…”

“Wasn’t your fault.” Waxer said firmly, shaking Kix some for good measure “None of yours. It wasn’t. You hear me? It wasn’t your fault, vod.”

Waxer could no longer understand Kix’s words at that point, mumbled apologies and pleas for forgiveness, for none of it to have ever happened, for this nightmare to end already. Once Kix’s frantic panting had slowed down some, Waxer pulled back enough to press his forehead to Kix in a keldabe.

“You did all you could. And you saved my life. I will forever be grateful for it, Kix.” He pulled back, letting go of Kix and forcing his own face into a smile as much as he could manage “Now, let me go round up my medics so that they can cover for your while you take a breather, okay?”

Kix shook his head, wiping at his eyes and swallowing down thickly, clearing his throat.

“No, I have to get back to work. Need to do some checkups on the survivors, have to see if there was progress with the-”

Waxer placed a hand on Kix’s shoulder, shaking his head.

“Five minutes. Take at least five minutes, and then you get back to it. I got this.”

After a long moment, Kix nodded.

“Five. Not one minute more.”

“Medics.” Waxer grinned, walking towards the medbay’s door. “You’re all the same, aren’t you?”

“That’s four and fifty-three seconds now.”

They both laughed, because they had to pretend they still could. And they both took a breath and told themselves they could still get back on their feet after this, because they had to pretend they could.

[bubblegum-blackwood]

🤲what do YOU get out of writing?

Ah good question. I feel like that's a complicated one that's not so straightforward to answer.

TL;DR - idk I like it :] and I like people

I've been writing fiction since I was nine years old. My teacher had us do some creative writing in class, and I fell head over fucking heels for the concept! It's crazy to see how much I've grown since then 😂 but I kid you not, I've known I wanted to write for a living since I was nine years old. I did it once and was like yeah . . . I like this. Funnily enough, I started out writing fanfiction, although at the time I hadn't heard of that word or that concept. My sibling and I had a game we called "Kid Wars" - essentially, we RPed being Star Wars OCs. My character was a female clone of Jango Fett (how did I come up with that as a small child and then The Bad Batch happened????????? will never get over that) who secretly joined the Jedi Order and fell in love with Obi-Wan 😂😂😂 ah, children. This origin story is never not funny to me. Anyway, over the years since then, it's slowly evolved into something nearly indistinguishable from Star Wars (I've mostly just kept something that vaguely looks like the Force and some OC names and arcs, but the worldbuilding is entirely original, and I had so much fun with it!)

But I digress.

It's ironic to me because even though my writing days largely started with terrible self-insert fanfiction I since then only wrote original works and even railed almost as vehemently against fanfiction as Anne Rice herself! 😂 But I spent some time on Tumblr and I caved and read Burden of my Days by @hekateinhell and have never been the same since. And now I have 36 fics and counting!

What originally drew me to writing as a kid is just the whole idea of making shit up. I've been making up silly lil stories in my head to keep my insomniac ass busy at night since I was in kindergarten, and when I realised I could write them down? When I realised I could get paid money for that shit??? Hell yeah! I can make a career out of doing something I genuinely love doing, and I'm so grateful that it's even an option for me because I have no clue what I would have told people I wanted to be when I grew up otherwise. As I've gotten older, I've understood more about what exactly I enjoy about writing (which allows me to take inspiration from the books and shows I like without copy-pasting every minute detail that I don't actually need) - it's people. I like people, I like knowing what makes them tick, I like watching them fuck up and I like watching them interact with others. It's part of what draws me to psychology and sociology, too. I just genuinely enjoy stories. I could eat a well-done character arc for breakfast, honestly. And that's what gets me about the writing. My books don't need big grand plots, the conflicts largely are not centered around big bads with large armies, it's all about people and the relationships they have with others within the narrative. (Don't get me wrong, though, I have fantastical elements - vampires and ghosts, especially, are quite abundant in my stories).

Plus, there's something about the actual process of writing that just gets me in a good mood. Sometimes the executive dysfunction or general life fatigue makes it hard for me to get myself to pick up the pencil, but when I feel motivated, DAMN, the juices be flowing! Sometimes I get in the zone and I just know what happens next and the words just come to me and it feels good, honestly good. I can agonize over it for hours sometimes, but crafting artful sentences to paint a picture with words is such a powerful feeling. I just can't imagine how my life would have turned out had I not discovered how fun it is to write.

And with fanfiction? To me, it's all about connection. To look deeper at the text, to identify what you like about events or characters or pairings and make it your own, to really know the book you love so much. But not only that, then also you get to connect with other fans! You get to get excited together, be proud together, maybe even make friends through it! You get to talk to people!!! And I think the value of that can never be understated enough.

Anyway. I've rambled plently now 😂 thanks for the ask!

[lady-of-the-spirit]

For the character thing, Sersi? And Anakin too if I may ask multiple? :P

of course i'm gonna do both my blorbos!!

Sersi

How I feel about this character: BEST CHARACTER IN THE MOVIE. she's chronically late, she talks to statues, she's a bad liar, she's a collector, she's horribly insecure and is such a sweetheart and is the heart of the whole movie 💚

All the people I ship romantically with this character: Ikaris (I love tragedy 😔), Dane bc she deserves a nice normal guy and he clearly loves her!! (or at least they think he's normal-), Thena and Gilgamesh in an ot3 because I thought of it ONCE and couldn't let it go

My non-romantic OTP for this character: I mean I could say all of the Eternals because I love their relationships but I'll be specific. Phastos! They are besties to me, I cannot be convinced otherwise. Also Druig. I'm pretty neutral on Druig but I love his relationship with Sersi, he clearly respects her and listens to her!!

My unpopular opinion about this character: I mean just the fact that she's my fave is kinda unpopular already. people don't really care about her :(

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: I wish she could have had a more solid leadership arc. Like she's clearly afraid to take control, everyone makes jokes about Ikaris not being the leader which probably isn't good for her self esteem (Sprite outright says she doesn't care about Ajak choosing Sersi instead), and in the end none of that is really resolved. I wish her internal arc had been fleshed out some more and gotten a more satisfying ending of everyone looking to her as leader (this is why it should have been a show and not a movie!!!)

Anakin

How I feel about this character: honestly my favourite character potentially from the whole star wars series, DEFINITELY from the prequels. I love a tragedy and Anakin Skywalker is the definition of tragedy.

All the people I ship romantically with this character: Padme, obviously. I've read some Rex/Anakin fics too but tbh I never watched the clone wars so I can't say I actually ship it.

My non-romantic OTP for this character: Obi Wan is his tragic brother/father figure and I love it. Also, again from someone who hasn't watched the clone wars but read fics, Ahsoka and also his clone trooper squad.

My unpopular opinion about this character: This is more an unpopular opinion about the fandom I guess but. Anakin was not misunderstanding the Jedi teachings when he talked about love. Love is forbidden for Jedi, that's literally the whole point of the story? It's not just attachment or obsessive love, it's all love. Why would Anakin have completely misunderstood the jedi teachings. If that were true that would say more about the jedi as teachers than Anakin, I think.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: I mean if I said what I wanted to happen to him, the rest of the series probably wouldn't even exist in the first place? But damn I wish someone in the jedi had been like Why the fuck does Palpatine want to spend so much time with our new 9 year old recruit and cut that shit out.

Or just. Him being a slave for his entire childhood being acknowledged at all after Phantom Menace because damn they did not acknowledge any of that shit at all.

give me a character and I'll break their ass down