#all the main titles but never a ton because they're always getting separated and stuff. and i feel it could even get WORSE now

[oveliagirlhaditright]

I was dreaming about Kingdom Hearts IV two nights ago... if only that dream had been real, and the game was out already. LOL

[itsclydebitches]

The Crosshair stuff is a symptom of the lacklustre character establishment of it's main cast. Crosshair is the only Bad Batcher with a defined character to pull from, even if it's wrapped in the cluster fuck of the show being indecisive about the Inhibitor chips's abilities. The rest don't have a developed enough personality to draw from, they're archetypes who'll voice the position the plot needs them to occupy at the moment. What they'll defend in one episode they'll decry the next.

TBB characters are definitely archetypal, though I'm not sure I'd agree that this is inherently a bad thing and/or that it's at the root of the Crosshair messiness. Archetypes don't necessarily equal a lack of a character, just a character that we've seen many times before. Unless you prioritize novelty in your storytelling (which many people do), there's nothing inherently wrong with taking the "dumb," but emotionally intelligent brute, the socially inept genius, the stoic leader, and the "evil" asshole, cramming them in a small ship together, and letting sparks fly. The reason that dynamic works — as it has worked many times before — is because it pits such differing personalities against one another, resulting in both great teamwork and amusing conflict: such as when Wrecker is gleefully stuffing Lula in a pissed-off Crosshair's face. The contrast is fun and that contrast stems primarily from keeping their personalities simple and defined. Unless you really know what you're doing, the more you mess with those personality boxes, the less individualized your characters feel. See: the RWBYJNOR team who have, over the years, lost both their specialized skills and their distinguishing personality traits. The person who just blushed sweetly and awkwardly rubbed a hand behind their neck... was it Ruby? Oscar? Blake? Yang? Jaune? Even Nora? Could be any of them because at this point their core personalities have flattened. Though it's definitely not to everyone's taste, the black and white differences between TBB was kind of refreshing. Throw out a line of dialogue and you can easily figure out who said it. There's something to be said for that level of understanding about a character, even if the understanding itself is simple.

Personally, I'd say the problem lies not in creating another team where everyone has a distinct skill and a stereotypical personality to match, but rather in severely underutilizing the thing that shook that dynamic up: Echo.

Look, I ADORE Omega. I was cheering for my fictional daughter through every step of this season (quite literally during "Replacements"). But—but—if we wanted to push things in the character development department, I'd relegate her to season two. Omega's character serves as the audience surrogate/newbie/hopeful optimist archetype and that's great... provided that you ignore how Echo was already positioned to fill those roles. He became the newest member of TBB, but we skipped over his integration to instead introduce another new member. And, as much as I love her, Omega doesn't push TBB the way that Echo could.

TCW introduced a severe dislike for the "regs," something the first episode of TBB re-emphasized through the cafeteria scene, and then what do you know, the newest member is a former reg. I was expecting there to be a lot of tension stemming from that as the group worked to overcome their prejudice, a prejudice we now know is born of harassment and, interestingly, a sense of superiority. That's one of the few places where TBB does something unexpected: rather than suffering severe insecurity about being "defective," TBB is proud of their differences. (Or, at least, they've embraced pride to cover insecurity.) But unlike a reg's haircut, tattoos, or name, theirs isn't an individuality that they chose. The Kaminoans made them to be different. "I like to blow stuff up because I LIKE TO BLOW STUFF UP" Wrecker roars, but it's a moment that foreshadows his eventual fall to the chip: "No one controls me." Except, you know, he is controllable. There's a story there about characters trying to remain proud of skills and personalities that they know are engineered, trying to embrace individuality when they know they're controllable, who long for the stability and connection of their brothers, but reject the uniformity of "real" clones... and then there's Echo, suddenly on the scene, a former "real" clone who now is nothing like the majority of his brothers, whose differences were also forced on him by another, who should likewise be grappling with embracing his individuality vs. hating how it separates him from what he once knew... that's a lot. Echo could have — arguably should have — been the catalyst for a ton of self-reflection within TBB, mirroring his own development, and resulting in archetypal characters who nevertheless have a secondary layer of nuance.

But none of that happened because Omega became the focus instead, a character who forced TBB to struggle with taking care of a child, not struggle with their own identities. I'd thought for a hot second that the conflict would be whether soldiers could raise a child at all — whether they'd have to change for Omega's benefit — but instead she rather quickly became a soldier of her own, despite how often the dialogue insisted she wasn't. Here's her weapon. Here's her memorizing orders. Here's her first mission alone. Here's her almost never struggling with the horrors that she's experienced; she's as emotionally sturdy as the men bred for war. Omega develops, which is fantastic to watch, but the downside is that everyone else, our title characters, remain pretty static. I think if we'd had a season of Echo joining TBB, perhaps taking place a little before Order 66, and then Omega came on the scene, we would have seen a bit more depth to their characters, simply by virtue of Echo being a character whose personality and problems would inevitably push them. Omega doesn't push them. She's wonderful... and from a writing standpoint that's kinda the problem. She's always optimistic, always compassionate, doesn't take long to get good at these complex skills, never wavers in being satisfied and happy with this life. TBB never had to change to care for her, Omega just did them the courtesy of becoming another elite-soldier capable of keeping up with their dangerous, crazy lives. Her presence is a constant joy and benefit to the team, adding only good things to the status quo they'd developed. Echo? His arrival should, theoretically, have shaken the status quo like whoa. Here's this traumatized reg trying to become a member of a four-unit team who have an Us vs. Them approach to life. That's a recipe for conflict and development.

However, just because I can see other possibilities for TBB doesn't mean I think what we got is wrong. Yeah, it's simple in many respects and as said, the comparative complexity of Crosshair's situation might not end well, but beyond that, simple isn't inherently bad. I found it a lot of fun to watch a found family of extreme personalities take in a wonderful child and go on adventures together. I don't need every show — particularly every Star Wars show — to be a deep dive into complex storytelling. It can be enough to just embrace predictability, especially since the predictable became predictable because lots of people liked those choices.