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kartaylirnaak · 3 months ago

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Might I be able to ask about Match the 212th ARC. Why the name? Do they like to match things? Or is it like matchstick and fire is their friend?

You most certainly can! I will very happily ramble on about him.

Match is my 212th ARC Trooper OC. He's a Sergeant and is in an ARC pair with Wooley, who is also an ARC in this AU. Match is quiet, reserved, and doesn't same much, if at all. There's a quiet, shuttered sadness to him and he can be a little intense sometimes. He cares and worries deeply but isn't always the best at expressing it. Match is an expert in wilderness survival, especially jungle survival, for Reasons (I put him through The Horrors). He's fairly lean and wiry for a clone and, when fighting, has a viciousness and brutality to him, along with a keen eye, sharp intelligence, and heightened situational awareness. But he wasn't always this way.

I have no idea where the name came from. It just sort of morphed out of thin air when I started coming up with him. Initially, I wasn't that keen on the name but it kind of stuck and now he's Match. I haven't come up with any in-universe reasoning behind his name yet but I have come up with plenty more backstory and information about him. I was organising my OC's in a spreadsheet to try and keep track of all of them and decided to open a new doc to collate my thoughts about Match. It wasn't going to be much, just a little more than what I could fit into a spreadsheet.

16k+ words later

I now have a lot more backstory and detail about Match and I'm still nowhere even close to finished. It also evolved from ramblings into actual chunks of fic. I'd love to be able to write a whole fic and more about him but that's be a mammoth undertaking that I'm not sure I'll ever manage. So now I have all these sections of fic about him that I wish I could share but there's no context to them so they don't make a great deal of sense in isolation.

Below the cut is the condensed version of Match's backstory, which is still over 2.2k words 😂 It's very rough so there's definitely some clunky writing in there.

I've also included a section of fic I wrote about Match's backstory, where I introduce a different OC, mention another, and the 212th's fandom CMO (Helix) also makes an appearance.

Match's backstory

Match starts off as a shiny in the 212th fairly early on in the war. He’s very loud, brash, cocky, arrogant and egotistical. Thinks he’s top shit and knows everything. He’s constantly getting disciplined and being dressed down by his CO’s for doing stupid shit that endangers his brothers, but it never seems to get through to him. During a battle, his squad is ambushed by droids and he and the commando droid he’s fighting are thrown off the path and down a cliff by an explosion. Match is badly injured but manages to survive and shoot the commando droid, who ended up wedged in a tree. He collapses and is then stunned and captured by Trandoshans, has his wounds perfunctorily treated while he’s out, and wakes up in a cage on a ship, dressed in civies, and with a bunch of other caged natborns. They’re all dumped out onto a beach near a jungle and then shot at, so Match and the natborns that survive all bolt for the jungle. (If this sounds like that episode from TCW, yes that’s where I pinched it from). Match then has to survive in the jungle all by himself while being hunted by the Trandoshans for sport. It’s brutal and terrifying and he has to do some truly fucked up things in order to survive. It’s a constant fight for survival, everything is life or death, and he’s constantly being hunted by the Trandoshans or creatures in the jungle. Match is forced to adapt in order to survive and stay alive. The experience changes him and he becomes quiet and withdrawn, not talking for days at a time. He’s completely alone and isolated and he knows he’s never going to be found. Match survives for over a year and a half in the jungle. He crafts his own weapons, armour, camouflage, supplies, gear, shelters, traps, and everything else he needs to survive.

The jungle forges him into something new.

Something different.

Over a year and a half after Match was captured, he’s watching the latest batch of natborns be dumped out onto the beach and spots that one of them is different, likely a Jedi. They drop down silently in front of him a day later and as very little gets the drop on Match in the jungle these days, he nearly puts a knife and axe through them. Turns out the Jedi is the 212th’s padawan (Jedi OC), who joined the 212th after Match was captured. Something something “will of the Force”, picture a bunch of Commanders rolling their eyes at their General’s here. Bit clichéd but let's be real, it’s not as bad as some of the nonsense that happened in TCW. Anyway, Match now has a baby Jedi. Accidental ad’ika acquisition has been foisted upon him. He teaches them how to survive in the jungle and looks after them, fiercely protecting them against everything. The baby Jedi looks after Match, helping with jungle survival but also helping him slowly remember a little of what it’s like to be around others again. He has someone to talk to now and he relearns, in a way, how to talk again (rocks don’t talk back to you). He has to learn to deal with touch and human interaction again, for when they have to hand things to each other or help each other through the forest or huddle for warmth when the wind picks up and the storms rage and the temperature drops. This lasts for about a month to six weeks until they enact the padawans' plan to escape. There’s a bit of angst around that because Match knows he’ll never be found but the baby Jedi keeps going on about hope and plans, which is all just futile to Match. They have a bit of a fight about it but reconcile and then go and steal the transponder and some electronics from the next Trandoshan ship that arrives. The padawan gets a message out to the 212th, who turn up and rescue them. Match gets shot protecting the baby Jedi during the rescue and nearly dies.

He wakes up in the medbay on the Negotiator, having had surgery and spent over a week in bacta. He’s survived but his body and mind are fucked. He could never find enough food in the jungle so he’s skin and bone for a clone. The results from all the tests the medics ran on him are all over the shop. He’s covered in scars, has a bunch of old injuries that didn’t heal properly, and picked up all kinds of mystery jungle diseases and parasites. Match is also deeply traumatised from everything he’s been through. The jungle never leaves him and it’s always there in his mind. He still thinks in terms of relating everything to the jungle and has to actively remind himself that he’s not there anymore.

But the jungle is always there.

Waiting.

There aren’t many clones left who remember Match from before he was captured. When Cody visits him in the medbay, Match apologises for how he behaved before and asks to be punished, to which Cody’s response is ‘absolutely the fuck not’. While Match is deeply fucked up, he’s still functional, so he has a long recovery as he heals and gets back into shape. He’s never able to fully return to the baseline body mass of a CT and he stays wiry and lean for a clone. The jungle also shaped him into a brutal fighter. He’s now fast, ruthless, and lethal, easily capable of putting down most clones quick and hard, even while recovering. He struggles to adjust though, still stuck in the mindset of the jungle where everything is a fight for survival. There is no room for practice or training in the jungle. There is only life or death. It causes some problems initially but Match was put in Waxer’s platoon for a reason (he often gets the tough cases) and everyone tries to help him adjust as best they can.

Match has changed. The arrogant little shit of a shiny from before is gone. Replaced by a quiet, reserved, and watchful clone who doesn’t say a great deal and often falls back on protocol because he doesn’t know what to do in social situations anymore. He’s a highly effective and efficient trooper now but outside of that, he struggles with a multitude of issues, including hypervigilance, dissociation, overtraining, and nightmares. He’s also filled with an immense amount of shame and guilt at how he acted and behaved as a shiny before he was captured. Match doesn’t paint his armour for quite a while because he thinks he doesn’t deserve it. That is until Boil basically shoves a can of armour paint at him and makes him turn up to an armour painting session.

Match ends up having to be an acting Sergeant in the field during a battle because two squads both lose half of their members and he’s the oldest left and he has four shocked and injured vod’ika staring up at him. So he cobbles them together, gets them through the battle, makes his report on what happened to Waxer, and then goes to make sure they’re all as ok as possible and looks after them. It’s only when they won’t leave him alone that he realises he’s accidentally acquired vod’ika. He ends up being promoted straight to Sergeant of his cobbled together squad because they worked quite well together and bonded as a group, plus Match performed well under fire. Match doesn’t think he deserves it because he just did what he always did in the jungle. Survived. But the vod’ika keep looking at him like he’s hung the stars and there is no way in hell he’s behaving like he used to, so he takes on the responsibility and teaches them what he knows.

Cody’s been keeping an eye on all of this and has been conveniently dropping by with various other experienced clones when Match is doing his own training. Match can last the longest out of the standard CT��s when sparring with commanders, ARCs, or commanders, like Cody, Wooley or Gregor. This is how Match meets Wooley, who will end up being his future ARC partner, even if Match doesn’t know it yet. He likes Wooley and has a healthy respect for him and his skills, even if he does think he’s too bright and cheery and talks too much.

You can’t talk in the jungle.

They’ll hear you.

Match ends up having to be an acting Lieutenant during a later campaign when Waxer is injured and Match is the only Sergeant left because the rest are gone or too badly injured. At the time, Match does what he has to do. During a campaign or battle, the same mindset from the jungle returns. He does what he has to do to survive, just now it’s mixed with doing what he has to in order to keep as many other clones alive as well. Match has now somehow acquired more vod’ika but he absolutely does not want to be a Lieutenant. He still doesn’t think he deserves to be a Sergeant, let alone a Lieutenant. There isn’t a space for him to be promoted to anyway once Waxer recovers. Cody has been keeping an eye on all of this and decides now is the time to send Match to ARC training. Match has a massive internal crisis about this because he thinks he definitely does not deserve the honour of even being considered for ARC training, let alone being an actual ARC. Cody puts Match through his own preparation training for ARC training so Match spends his evenings being thrown around the mats by the Commander and Wooley, learning as much as he can, and getting to know both Cody and Wooley better. He still doesn’t think he deserves to be in this position but he doesn’t talk about it because that would involve Talking To People. Rocks never talked to him in the jungle. Both Cody and Wooley clock this and try to get through to Match that he does deserve this. Match still doesn’t entirely believe it but he can understand their more rational arguments that he now has the skills, ability, and potential to be an ARC.

Seventeen is inspecting all of the ARC candidates who are lined up in the training room at the start of this round of ARC training. He stops in front of Match, who internally is freaking the fuck out, but outwardly does not even fucking blink. Match is very good at staying completely still now, especially in the presence of a threat. The jungle beat that lesson into him. Seventeen just looks at him before stating, “You saved the little Commander” (referring to the 212th’s padawan). Match, who is looking straight ahead with a dead stare, having reverted back to survival coping mechanisms that he developed to survive on the island, answers with an automatic “Yes, Sir.” Seventeen gives him a look, grunts, gives Match the tiniest of nods, and moves on, which for Seventeen is high praise. All the other ARC candidates in this round of ARC training are internally freaking out and wondering who the hell this vod is that already has Seventeen’s approval. Match just wants to be left alone and avoid any kind of attention and make it through ARC training.

Match tops almost all of the categories in this round of ARC training and is top 3 or 5 in the rest. He sets a new record in jungle survival and is equal second of all time in wilderness survival. His main competition during training is a vod named Jesse from the 501st, who is far too friendly (idk what the timelines are doing at this point so we’re just rolling with it). At least the giant Republic cog tattooed on his head would help him camouflage in the jungle a little.

The jungle is always there.

Waiting.

Match lasts the longest in their final no holds barred hand to hand spar assessment against Seventeen and is one of the few that doesn’t technically lose because the Alpha Medic supervising the spars (which are basically just fights) calls an end to it because Match refuses to stop. He must survive. Match joins Jesse and another vod in the medbay later who also had their fights stopped before they were turned into paste. Jesse was quite pleased with himself, even as he bemoaned the reception he was going to get from someone called Kix, who is apparently going to kick his ass even worse. The other vod is completely out cold. Match paints his kama in a camo pattern similar to the camo pattern on the ARFs armour in the 212th, with only the barest hint of gold paint lightly brushed through it. It’ll help blend into dappled light. The rest of his armour might be too damn bright but at least some of his legs will be camouflaged.

Match and Wooley work as an ARC pair as part of the 212th and Ghost Company. They go where they’re needed and complement each other well. They’re also both part of the specialised squad that accompanies the 212th’s padawan on missions. There’s a pool of troopers in Ghost Company with various specialisations that are drawn on depending on the needs of the mission. This will pretty much always involve Match and Wooley because wherever their padawan goes, they go. The General has the Commander and their padawan has at least one ARC. They’re all very serious about keeping their jetii alive, Match especially so about keeping the baby Jedi alive. That’s been with him ever since the jungle and will never leave.

Just like the jungle.

It is always there.

—

Section of fic about Match Context: This is after Match has been rescued and is recovering in the medbay of the Negotiator.

Waking is easier this time.

Match comes to a slow awareness of his surroundings. The white walls and bright lights and beeping machines are still there. The mask on his face is gone, replaced by tubes that fill his nose and do not feel welcome at all. Match think’s he’d prefer the mask back. He gingerly shifts his jaw and it immediately cracks, making his eye twitch and drawing out a pained grunt. His side twinges at the noise but the slicing pain from before doesn’t return. He carefully shifts slightly and is relieved to find that it doesn’t feel like he’s being stabbed again. Instead, there’s a deep penetrating ache in his shoulder, thigh, and ribs. The rest of his body feels like one big bruise. Deciding to risk a little more movement, Match turns his head to the side to confirm that, yes, there are machines next to him. There’s also the door along with a wall with a window that gives a view out into what looks like a larger medbay.

Why is he in a room by himself?

Turning his head to the other side reveals more machines, cupboards, and a chair for some reason. Match is pondering the existence of the chair when a vod with eye searingly bright blue hair and a splash of patterns on the side of his face pokes his head around the door.

“Eeeyyyyy, he’s awake!”

Yes?

The vod hollers out to the medbay at large with a string of words and letters that make absolutely no sense to Match and then bounces over to him.

“How you doin’ bud? I’m Fluid, but everyone calls me Flu because they all think they’re sooooooo funny giving a medic the name of something we can’t catch. Fancy heightened genetically engineered immune systems and all that.”

This vod is far too loud, in every sense of the word.

“But you managed to pick up some very interesting mystery jungle flu down there. That produced some wild results in the battery of tests we had to run, let me tell you.”

The jungle gave Match a lot of things.

It took away even more.

The vod keeps nattering away as he looks at a datapad and does things with the machines and rifles around in the cupboards like he’s trying to make every noise imaginable.

“So on a scale of being ripped apart by our friendly neighbourhood Force wielding Sith gremlin, to being thrown around the mats by the Commander for his sadistic pleasure, to stubbing your toe on that little lip of the door on the last training room that really shouldn’t be there because everything’s supposed to be standardised, what’s our pain like today?

What the fuck is a Sith gremlin?

“Are we gonna have to use numbers? Numbers are so boring. Utterly useless too, seeing as they don’t accurately convey pain and, despite us all being clones and all, we definitely process pain differently. But you try telling the longnecks that and just watch them get all pissy. That’s a recipe for being recon’d at the very least so let's keep that between you and me, pal.”

The loud, blue haired vod is looking at him expectantly so Match guesses this is where he’s supposed to respond.

“What’s a—”

His voice gives out, cracking into a rough croak and a hacking cough that makes his ribs really fucking hurt.

“Oop, one sec, here ya go, that should help.”

The straw from a hydro pack is brandished in his face and Match sucks down his first gulp of water that hasn’t come from somewhere dubious in the jungle.

It tastes plastic.

“Alrighty, howzat then? Bit better, yeah?”

“Thanks,” Match manages to croak out. Fuck, his voice sounds and feels rough. Flu seems to be of the same opinion and decides to make it known.

“Damn vod, that is some heavy gravel you’ve been garglin’. Don’t worry ‘bout talking too much at the moment, your voice is in about the same state as the rest of you, which is to say, pretty damn beat up.”

This vod has said more words in the past few minutes than Match has said in over a year and a half.

Repeatedly honed instincts mean Match doesn’t miss the movement across the window and his eyes track a familiar clone as they hand a datapad off to another medic and then walk through the door.

This is someone he remembers from before. And someone who remembers him.

“Flu, stop terrorising him.”

“Now, Sir, would I ever do something like that?” Flu answers, clutching at his chest and somehow managing to be even more dramatic.

A deeply unimpressed look is all Flu gets in return.

Match would be more confused at whatever is going on but right now he’s more occupied with looking at Helix in trepidation. He can’t run from a threat. Isn’t even sure how well he can move, and there’s only one way out of this room.

“Go be a menace elsewhere.”

“But at least I’m your favourite menace,” Flu replies, as he cheerfully slaps the datapad against Helix’s chest.

“No, that’s Pinch.”

A scandalised gasp.

“Wounded. Deeply wounded, Sir. So deeply and fatally wounded. I am in the death throes and seeing the light.”

“No dying in my medbay.”

Flu leaves with an exuberant “Yessir” flung over his shoulder as the door closes on his exit and finally brings about some peace and quiet.

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