#i love the clone shenanigans

[art--harridan]

[Image description: A digital painting of Alex Rogan from the film The Last Starfigher. It is a head shot of Alex with a disbelieving expression on his face, mouth slightly open. You can just see the start of his starfighter outfit on his shoulders. His skin and clothing is painted in warmer colours while his hair is partially in cooler ones. There's harsh rim lighting around his hair, and some of his shoulders. The style of portrait is done with a lot of colour-blocking and hatching textures. The background is a light blue, with shooting star shapes littered about. These shapes look like the logo of the Starlite Starbrite in Alex's trailer park.]

Inktober - Day 4 (Exotic)

Film - The Last Starfighter (Nick Castle, 1984)

[wondersinwaynemanor]

imagine the brooding, intimidating Batman fighting criminals in the street when he hears this special ringtone in the comms and they're for specific people: his grandkids.

he has to hide in the shadows and goes Grandpa mode, clears his throat and coos lovingly to the comms to talk them.

Nightwing: Oh, he's cooing again.

Red Hood: Lian must have called and asked for more fruit loops.

or

Spoiler: B's doing that baby voice again, it's kinda creepy.

Red Robin: My baby must have dialed, he likes his grandpa's voice.

The rest of the batkids: WHAT BABY?????

Superboy: Our baby.

the batkids curse in different languages, confused and shocked.

***

when some of the rogues or criminals hear Batman in his Grandpa mode, they think he's gone soft.

nope. he's more determined, more restless, more protective, so he won't stop unless they're in Akrham or in jail.

but it's worth it when he comes home to little kids, who are excited to see him.

[licorishh]

she's everything, he's just ken, etc. etc.

[xxplastic-cubexx]

my ideal rogue & magneto dynamic is rogue and her weird slutty gay uncle that she constantly has to bail out of jail. like their relationship would have been so interesting to me if it had never been romantic

society if magneto got to be the anarchist uncle to all the x-men that they're mostly chill with until the annual dinner argument during the holidays

[themistymountainscold]

echo: if you don't apologise, i'm going to tell rex.

fives: i am an arc trooper, what can rex do?

echo: ok- REX!

fives: no wait! kriff! i'm sORRY!

[graylinesspam]

Rex and Ahsoka

Training / playing / watching movies / cuddling / literally anything I just love them you honor

It might not have seemed like such a pressing issue on the front lines. Ahsoka had already been taught to fly a fighter and how to drive a speeder bike. Both more common means of transportation on the war front. But learning to drive a regular old speeder was still a necessary skill, and a right of passage for someone her age.

She should be getting her license sometime soon. The jedi usually earned theirs a little earlier than the general public did. But there wasn't exactly a plethora of speeders on the front.

So their somewhat extended stay on a real military base. The kind with permanent barracks and a real mess hall and working equipment, much nicer than their usual mobile camps, came with an opportunity that Ahsoka was not about to pass up.

And as usual when it came to matters of training Ahsoka Rex got volunteered by his General. Anakin certainly didn't have the patience to watch Ahsoka be bad at driving without reaching over and trying to take the controls from her. And after the fiasco that was Fives teacher her to drive a speeder bike, a matter that ended in her hitting a downed tree and flying ass over end. Rex was the only one qualified to train her, aperently.

She'd picked out a little transport truck, single cab, passenger seating in the bed. Nothing too hard to hover around the base. Sturdy enough to take a beating and safe enough that she shouldn't be able to tumble out of it.

For the month or so that they're predicted to be here, Ahsoka has been assigned as his driver. Taking him everywhere he needs to go. Runing arrends. Even volunteering to haul men around anywhere they need to go.

It wasn't so bad in the beginning. She'd clutched the wheel too hard and veered into oncoming traffic a couple times but at a slow speed. He'd barely been clutching onto his seat then. She was always a fast learner. Eager too. By the time she'd been able to get from one side of the base to the other without incident she'd started volunteering to take anyone where they needed to go. Running data pads back and forth. Picking the medics up at the end of their shifts. Driving groups to the training ground. Even making supply runs to the warehouses.

There wasn't much else for her to do at the time.

It was around a week in to her volunteer service that she started getting....confident. She wasn't a reckless driver exactly. She stopped at every crosslanes. Kept her eyes on the lanes and other traffic. Never hit anything. Or anyone. She just got comfortable traversing the same roads all the time. She knew them well enough that she knew exactly where to put her speed. Where to swing into a turn and where to coast down a hill.

Getting into the speeder with her now was what he imagined a typical teen driving experience was.

They had a meeting over the comm table in the main building first thing in the morning. Him and most of Torrents leadership. Which really meant Ahsoka's main Vod.

She'd pulled up five minutes early, Swung by the caf machine and whipped up some foamy shaken monstrosity, and sipped at it while they kit up.

They all piled into the back, pulling the canvas divider back so the men could lean into the cab and badger them. No one fought Rex for the front seat. He wishes they would. Give him an excuse to sit in the back.

Fives sat right behind him leaning over the divider to nudge him as Ahsoka started it up. "Should we strap in?" Fives joked, smacking the back of his hand against Rex's back.

Ahsoka cocked her head not bothering to look at him while she hooked her personal data pad into the sound system. The music kicked on with the engine. A syrupy sweet lady singer with too much base in the background for first thing in the morning.

Rex catches the glance jesse throws to the front of the speeder. Looking like he was considering bailing.

"She'll do fine." Echo knocked his leg into Fives' admonishment.

She shifts into gear and eases into the empty lane just fine. The base was quiet at this time. Only a couple vehicles moving in the whole place. She kicks up the speed in the straightway. Still following the posted rules. Tapping her fingers along the wheel to the beat of the music. She sips at her drink with one hand as they get to the hill, slowing to a reasonable speed before she lets the vehicle free drift down the incline. It isn't startling....just slightly blood pressure raising. The way their speed steadily increases. Her eyes remain on the road as she rests her cup back on one thigh, mouthing the lyrics.

The vehicle doesn't jerk. Just decelerates and turns with the curve of the road at the same time. The momentum tugs on them slightly. Makes Rex's head bend to the side just a bit. His hand bracing against the ceiling out of instinct.

She maintains proper speed all the way through the turn, straightens out cleanly and slides her hand over the wheel with too much confidence. Pulling the vehicle into the next turn just as smoothly.

It isn't recklessness. It's just- a lack of caution that sets his hair on end.

She has to tilt her chin up over her shoulder to check her blindspot while making a turn. Too short to see it without craning her neck a little. Alternates sipping her caf and glancing around. Checking her mirrors, her blindspots, and all the intersecting lanes as they coast through. Her foot a little heavy on the gas but never enough for him to correct her. She decelerates when turning, just not enough.

Hardcase starts singing along to whatever song is playing and there's a gentle breeze sweeping through the vehicle that should be so pleasant. Ahsoka belts out the lyrics with Hardcase. A horrible duet. And when Appo complains Ahsoka settles her drink between her thighs so she can turn the volume up with that hand instead.

The music isn't blaring, it's just chafing.

The speeder decelerates again before turning and dropping down another hill and Rex feels his stomach roll.

He's been tossed around worse in gunships. he shouldn't be reacting so harshly to Ahsoka's driving.

He just doesn't trust her.

Ahsoka follows rules to the letter but never to the spirit. And that's all over her driving. Always toeing but never crossing the line. For whatever reason, this time, it bothers him.

He cringes as she throws her head back and sings, her hands nudging the wheel into the subtle curve of the lane. Slowing down as she rounds the front of the building, pulling out of the lane and swinging the vehicle in the opposite direction he expected. She backs into parking spot. letting the men unload right onto the curb.

She throws the speeder into park and Rex has to lean his head against the door for a moment. Letting the knots in his stomach loosen.

They all unload from the vehicle, some looking more relieved than others. Hardcase asks her to send him her playlist and Echo slaps her on the shoulder. "Good driving."

Fives meanwhile is suspiciously quiet, and Jesse looks like he's looking for somewhere to reject his morning caf.

"Yeah, good job." Rex says as he slams the door closed behind him. He will keep the nausea off his face.

He will.

[handless-and-dangerous]

Some brotherly validation is the perfect cure when you're feeling down.

-Wing

[mamuzzy]

“Got a package got a a clone, uhh, no CT number here, but the message reads ‘Happy Birthday Dreadbolt!’ ”

“Could someone please pick up the parcel?! I’m gonna get squished flat under this humongous thing.”

hope I’m not late, happy birthday :D

It's never too late! Thank you so much for thinking about me and for the present too <3 (i hope the corries will give it back soon).

Currently I only have my sketchbook at hand, on train to go visit my parents for a few days. But I wanted to draw something silly with Fox =D

[toastydoesthings]

Is there a Star Wars equivalent to Elton John? There should be. How else is my Padawan OC going to annoy the shit out of Cody with Waxer and Boil if crocodile rock is not involved???

[oliviaeatworld]

Ok you all are aware of my love for Echo but since we only got a few episodes of it during the Clone Wars there’s a very special place in my heart for The Bad Batch that is just Hunter, Tech, Wrecker and Crosshair. Just those four. I don’t know why but I particularly just like them together and Echo separate? I don’t know why? Like during the Bad Batch series I loved seeing Echo with them but now that I’m left to ponder after the series ended I’m usually just thinking about the og CF99

[hardcase-ct-yolo]

2 things, Hardcase.

1, never ever say you're just an ordinary Trooper. That's never the case. Each of you are unique, including yourself.

2. The nail biting. Did you do that because of anxiety or was it a stim? I ask because I used to chew my nails as well!

<3

I've been called unique many times 🤣, but thanks!

Just meant that I'm no ARC or Medic. Just an average, if a little weird, heavy trooper. The Cap has threatened me with ARC training though, but ARCs don't get to play with the big guns often.

My nail biting, that was a stim. But like any stim it would be worse with anxiety. I'd chew them down pretty bad. Kix, well he bandaged up my fingers a fair amount from it and he worried I'd end up with an infection or worse. I mean we were cadets, he didn't have real injuries to worry over. Anyway he helped me eventually switch to other stims and of course the gloves helped eventually. Now I would only have to worry about the one hand! But I don't get the urge often.

[matchademi]

Falls:*sitting around in the corrie guard medbay*

Corries:*obvious yelling and chaos and obvious sounds that they started it*

Falls:not my circus not my monkeys, not my circus not my monkeys.....

Torrent company:*even louder chaos*

Falls:Oh...*gets up quickly* My circus my monkeys my circus my monkeys!!!

[eobe]

🤩✨ A sneaky Fooooox 🦊 and in the last frame – ooooh 😈 I FEEL that he's glaring to me like a cat who is about to paw a full glass of water over the edge. "Look at me, give me attention or I'll overwrite your game saves!" 😱😡🦊

Such a cute Fox art, dear 🫠 I love the paper you drawing on and his cute little pawsies 😂🥰

Please be welcome to The sneaky fox.

But it's not completely what I'm thinking about him so here the whole collection of this arts. Be welcome to create your own sign for them and tag me.

[squirrelno2]

So my intent once the two sw fics I'm doing are done is to work on the time slip sequel and hopefully also finally get back to that han solo time travel thing I was threatening forever ago, but I also really want to keep playing with my more niche oc centric things, so.

Does it feel early to post this? Perhaps now, but I'm feeling eager with the time slip fic just needing its epilogue, and the cody/oc fic is surprisingly easy to write (so far, I say, knocking on wood). By the time this is finished it'll be a useful time to start considering the answer

[mostlysignssomeportents]

“If buying isn’t owning, piracy isn’t stealing”

20 years ago, I got in a (friendly) public spat with Chris Anderson, who was then the editor in chief of Wired. I'd publicly noted my disappointment with glowing Wired reviews of DRM-encumbered digital devices, prompting Anderson to call me unrealistic for expecting the magazine to condemn gadgets for their DRM:

https://longtail.typepad.com/the_long_tail/2004/12/is_drm_evil.html

I replied in public, telling him that he'd misunderstood. This wasn't an issue of ideological purity – it was about good reviewing practice. Wired was telling readers to buy a product because it had features x, y and z, but at any time in the future, without warning, without recourse, the vendor could switch off any of those features:

https://memex.craphound.com/2004/12/29/cory-responds-to-wired-editor-on-drm/

I proposed that all Wired endorsements for DRM-encumbered products should come with this disclaimer:

WARNING: THIS DEVICE’S FEATURES ARE SUBJECT TO REVOCATION WITHOUT NOTICE, ACCORDING TO TERMS SET OUT IN SECRET NEGOTIATIONS. YOUR INVESTMENT IS CONTINGENT ON THE GOODWILL OF THE WORLD’S MOST PARANOID, TECHNOPHOBIC ENTERTAINMENT EXECS. THIS DEVICE AND DEVICES LIKE IT ARE TYPICALLY USED TO CHARGE YOU FOR THINGS YOU USED TO GET FOR FREE — BE SURE TO FACTOR IN THE PRICE OF BUYING ALL YOUR MEDIA OVER AND OVER AGAIN. AT NO TIME IN HISTORY HAS ANY ENTERTAINMENT COMPANY GOTTEN A SWEET DEAL LIKE THIS FROM THE ELECTRONICS PEOPLE, BUT THIS TIME THEY’RE GETTING A TOTAL WALK. HERE, PUT THIS IN YOUR MOUTH, IT’LL MUFFLE YOUR WHIMPERS.

Wired didn't take me up on this suggestion.

But I was right. The ability to change features, prices, and availability of things you've already paid for is a powerful temptation to corporations. Inkjet printers were always a sleazy business, but once these printers got directly connected to the internet, companies like HP started pushing out "security updates" that modified your printer to make it reject the third-party ink you'd paid for:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/ink-stained-wretches-battle-soul-digital-freedom-taking-place-inside-your-printer

Now, this scam wouldn't work if you could just put things back the way they were before the "update," which is where the DRM comes in. A thicket of IP laws make reverse-engineering DRM-encumbered products into a felony. Combine always-on network access with indiscriminate criminalization of user modification, and the enshittification will follow, as surely as night follows day.

This is the root of all the right to repair shenanigans. Sure, companies withhold access to diagnostic codes and parts, but codes can be extracted and parts can be cloned. The real teeth in blocking repair comes from the law, not the tech. The company that makes McDonald's wildly unreliable McFlurry machines makes a fortune charging franchisees to fix these eternally broken appliances. When a third party threatened this racket by reverse-engineering the DRM that blocked independent repair, they got buried in legal threats:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/20/euthanize-rentier-enablers/#cold-war

Everybody loves this racket. In Poland, a team of security researchers at the OhMyHack conference just presented their teardown of the anti-repair features in NEWAG Impuls locomotives. NEWAG boobytrapped their trains to try and detect if they've been independently serviced, and to respond to any unauthorized repairs by bricking themselves:

https://mamot.fr/@q3k@hackerspace.pl/111528162905209453

Poland is part of the EU, meaning that they are required to uphold the provisions of the 2001 EU Copyright Directive, including Article 6, which bans this kind of reverse-engineering. The researchers are planning to present their work again at the Chaos Communications Congress in Hamburg this month – Germany is also a party to the EUCD. The threat to researchers from presenting this work is real – but so is the threat to conferences that host them:

https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/researchers-face-legal-threats-over-sdmi-hack/

20 years ago, Chris Anderson told me that it was unrealistic to expect tech companies to refuse demands for DRM from the entertainment companies whose media they hoped to play. My argument – then and now – was that any tech company that sells you a gadget that can have its features revoked is defrauding you. You're paying for x, y and z – and if they are contractually required to remove x and y on demand, they are selling you something that you can't rely on, without making that clear to you.

But it's worse than that. When a tech company designs a device for remote, irreversible, nonconsensual downgrades, they invite both external and internal parties to demand those downgrades. Like Pavel Chekov says, a phaser on the bridge in Act I is going to go off by Act III. Selling a product that can be remotely, irreversibly, nonconsensually downgraded inevitably results in the worst person at the product-planning meeting proposing to do so. The fact that there are no penalties for doing so makes it impossible for the better people in that meeting to win the ensuing argument, leading to the moral injury of seeing a product you care about reduced to a pile of shit:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/25/moral-injury/#enshittification

But even if everyone at that table is a swell egg who wouldn't dream of enshittifying the product, the existence of a remote, irreversible, nonconsensual downgrade feature makes the product vulnerable to external actors who will demand that it be used. Back in 2022, Adobe informed its customers that it had lost its deal to include Pantone colors in Photoshop, Illustrator and other "software as a service" packages. As a result, users would now have to start paying a monthly fee to see their own, completed images. Fail to pay the fee and all the Pantone-coded pixels in your artwork would just show up as black:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/28/fade-to-black/#trust-the-process

Adobe blamed this on Pantone, and there was lots of speculation about what had happened. Had Pantone jacked up its price to Adobe, so Adobe passed the price on to its users in the hopes of embarrassing Pantone? Who knows? Who can know? That's the point: you invested in Photoshop, you spent money and time creating images with it, but you have no way to know whether or how you'll be able to access those images in the future. Those terms can change at any time, and if you don't like it, you can go fuck yourself.

These companies are all run by CEOs who got their MBAs at Darth Vader University, where the first lesson is "I have altered the deal, pray I don't alter it further." Adobe chose to design its software so it would be vulnerable to this kind of demand, and then its customers paid for that choice. Sure, Pantone are dicks, but this is Adobe's fault. They stuck a KICK ME sign to your back, and Pantone obliged.

This keeps happening and it's gonna keep happening. Last week, Playstation owners who'd bought (or "bought") Warner TV shows got messages telling them that Warner had walked away from its deal to sell videos through the Playstation store, and so all the videos they'd paid for were going to be deleted forever. They wouldn't even get refunds (to be clear, refunds would also be bullshit – when I was a bookseller, I didn't get to break into your house and steal the books I'd sold you, not even if I left some cash on your kitchen table).

Sure, Warner is an unbelievably shitty company run by the single most guillotineable executive in all of Southern California, the loathsome David Zaslav, who oversaw the merger of Warner with Discovery. Zaslav is the creep who figured out that he could make more money cancelling completed movies and TV shows and taking a tax writeoff than he stood to make by releasing them:

https://aftermath.site/there-is-no-piracy-without-ownership

Imagine putting years of your life into making a program – showing up on set at 5AM and leaving your kids to get their own breakfast, performing stunts that could maim or kill you, working 16-hour days during the acute phase of the covid pandemic and driving home in the night, only to have this absolute turd of a man delete the program before anyone could see it, forever, to get a minor tax advantage. Talk about moral injury!

But without Sony's complicity in designing a remote, irreversible, nonconsensual downgrade feature into the Playstation, Zaslav's war on art and creative workers would be limited to material that hadn't been released yet. Thanks to Sony's awful choices, David Zaslav can break into your house, steal your movies – and he doesn't even have to leave a twenty on your kitchen table.

The point here – the point I made 20 years ago to Chris Anderson – is that this is the foreseeable, inevitable result of designing devices for remote, irreversible, nonconsensual downgrades. Anyone who was paying attention should have figured that out in the GW Bush administration. Anyone who does this today? Absolute flaming garbage.

Sure, Zaslav deserves to be staked out over an anthill and slathered in high-fructose corn syrup. But save the next anthill for the Sony exec who shipped a product that would let Zaslav come into your home and rob you. That piece of shit knew what they were doing and they did it anyway. Fuck them. Sideways. With a brick.

Meanwhile, the studios keep making the case for stealing movies rather than paying for them. As Tyler James Hill wrote: "If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing":

https://bsky.app/profile/tylerjameshill.bsky.social/post/3kflw2lvam42n

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/08/playstationed/#tyler-james-hill

Image: Alan Levine (modified) https://pxhere.com/en/photo/218986

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[eobe]

💕✨ Sugar shock, cuteness overload 🤩 I think Cupid is the most soft eyed clone I've ever seen so far and in your tender eyes artstyle that means something, my dear Lupe! 🫶

Have my new headcanon about CT-1402 as cupid flavored vod appreciation for doing one heartwarming event after another 😻:

(Domino Squad at the Barracks)

Echo: No! NO, I don’t want to!

Hevy: Vod, it HAS to be you!

Echo: This just... isn’t fair!

Droidbait: What‘s your problem, brother – I can’t do it, I‘d manage to get shot with this myself!

Cutup: And besides that you‘re not as half as cute as Echo!

Echo: (teeth gritted) hrrr… shutup cutup!

Fives: Echo, they’re right AND you’re the only one around who has the number CT-140...

Echo: (interrupting) YOU are the one who always echoes that were NOT our numbers, not me! Why don't YOU be named "Echo", huh?

Fives: (handing Echo the Cupid bow, doing huge puppy eyes) Vod – yes, we‘re not numbers, but being Cupid CT-1402 is actually a good thing and... not matter any numbers, you're just the best of us all.

💕🏹

Cutup: … And you really can’t hand this Droidbait!

All: Shut up, Cutup!

Hihihi 🥰🫶 I don't know if my humor is a thing, but I don't care in this case 😁 I'm too shy to do Cupid messages and absolutely too easy to melt into marshmellow puddle 🫠💗 but I have some visions to support your event and I hope that I find time to realize some of them 💞🤩✨

Sending warm (big comfy sweater) Echo hugs to yoouuu ✨🐺🦉✨ and to all who read this and maybe naaawwd a bit 🫶 and to the grumpys who didn't – a fortiori 😜💞

Please take Cupid's hand to me And find out what is meant to be

Event info below the cut (:

Before continuing, please know that I'm still working on all the remaining Meme Mania Event requests - I just wanted to drop the Valentine's Event, since it's slightly time sensitive (:

CT-1402, nicknamed 'Cupid', is ready for his next mission: he's here to deliver your Valentine's messages! During this event, you'll be able to send out messages to all the people here on Tumblr that are dear to you. Let them know what they mean to you, how much you appreciate their content or your online time together.

Also please check out this Cupid art by @ghostymarni <3

Interested in handing your message(s) to Cupid? Check out the rules:

RULES

You can send in messages until February 13 at 10AM CET

This event is all about love, friendship, kindness and appreciation (if there's something unkind in your message, I'll delete the ask and won't send it out)

Deliver your message by filling in the underneath form and sending it into my askbox

You can choose to stay anonymous towards the receiver (or go get creative and write your message as one of the clones!)

To save myself from drowning into too much work, you can choose between 8 clones (see list below) to accompany your message

You are allowed to send in as many messages to different receivers as you'd like (in one or multiple asks; whatever suits you)

I'll collect all received messages and will send them out in 8 different posts (one per clone) on February 14

Neither the sender nor the receiver has to be a follower of mine; just share some love during this event <3

Please use this form:

Receiver: (Tumblr username) Message: (what would you like to say to receiver?) Clone pick: (ONE per message; see options below) Sender: (leave open if you want to stay anonymous)

Clone art options: (you can pick ONE per message)

Rex

Wolffe

Fox

Fives

Hardcase

Echo (TBB)

Crosshair

Tech

That's it! So please go write your messages and toss them into my askbox and SPREAD THE LOOOOOVE ❤️

For this event I'll be using the following tag: #lonewolflupe's valentine