#i want to find more vods that have drastics together too. or all three of them

[mcytegg]

one of the key parts of the dualities dynamic to Me is they always have a lil comment to make, a lil joke to whisper to each other and giggle abt when theyre w other people and when theres nobody else around theyre more likely to bicker and make even Dumber jokes that are unfunny to anyone who isnt them

[aces-to-apples]

AO3

Warnings: Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Mind Manipulation, Mind Rape, Mind Control, Psychological Torture, Memory Manipulation, Flashbacks, Implied Sexual Roleplay

Chapter 1: ramikadyc

The clone resists, as is their wont.

Mandalorians prized strength above all else, but to clones, it was loyalty. To the wretched Republic, to the Jedi rotten to the core, to each other, it all amounted to the same thing. Pawns for Sidious, bodies to step over on the path to victory.

He will not give Maul the information willingly, but that is of no import.

Kast holds the belligerent clone still as he begins the process of probing his mind. The Force swirls around them in agitated eddies, but Maul pushes them aside, impatient to find what he’s looking for.

He screams—of course, he does—when his shields, no doubt shored up by Jedi interference, break against the might of Maul’s will. And then his mind is open, but it is chaotic, thoughts and feelings and memories irrelevant to his search clouding his search. A clever defense, to be sure; if an enemy breaches the walls, overwhelm them with numbers.

Maul wades through sense memories of battle, dust-filled air coating his mouth and choking his lungs, blood and broken bones ignored and left untended, the comforting weight of armor and weapons dragging him beneath the waves—

Traumatic, disturbing, upsetting as they are, he pushes them aside.

The buzz of a thousand conversations never had come next, less easily parsed as they converge upon him all at once, made all the more difficult by the similarity of the voices.

… hit the deck, that was close, what’s your I.D. number, who’s your captain again, I can’t believe he’s gone, local chow’s worse than rations, can’t hold you liquor, civvies are so damned weird, I’m hit, love you too, attention troopers, nice to see you again, we made it, what’s that smell, gods I hate these missions, so much for downtime, why don’t you kiss me and find out, Jedi are so karking weird, bet you my next shift I can hit that, what was that, what’s going on, someone’s in here, get out, getoutgetoutgetout…

These, Maul allows to wash over him without a struggle, and soon the voices crystallize.

“Good work, 5597!” Alpha-17 praises as much as he ever does, prompting a bloom of pride in his chest. “Keep it up and we’ll make a decent ARC of you yet.”

“I’m just doing it for fun!” Hardcase laughs as their trio careens through the atmosphere, nearly a parody of himself as the stress of the campaign becomes worse and worse. He was never so foolhardy at the beginning of the war, dammit. And then he’s out of his ship and telling them to get out, dragging the missile-launcher through to the reactor core and saying, “Live to fight another day, boys!”

“You know, we could get caught,” Kix protests half-heartedly as he presses open-mouthed kisses up the side of his neck. “The commander’s due for a growth-cycle any day now and—”

—there, yes, the commander, Ahsoka Tano—

The new commander is a shiny, cadet-sized Togruta all of seven years old to their eyes. Few nicknames have stuck over the years, Twinblade and Kih’verd chief among them, but she was eyn vod like any other. She even grew like they did, in fits and spurts, and she wasn’t perfect but she was a good soldier, val kih’verd…

“… Motir ca'tra nau tracinya… Gra'tua cuun hett su dralshy'a…”

No, that isn’t what he—

“… Aruetyc talyc runi'la solus cet o'r… Motir ca'tra nau tracinya…”

Ahsoka Tano, who is Ahsoka Tano, the little sister of their hearts, where did the memory—

… sorry, Kixy…

This isn’t what Maul is looking for, this isn’t what he wants, and he presses harder into the trooper’s mind. “Who is Ahsoka Tano?” he repeats, growling at the clone’s stubborn resistance.

“You want in,” he snarls in reply, face a rictus of pain, “then you come all the way in.”

And then his mind opens wide, latches onto Maul, and heaves.

.

. .

. . .

“I thought we agreed we wouldn’t do this after we left Pir’haran,” Kix says into his mouth, sly and victorious even as JesseMaul cages him in against one of the medbay cots. “Something about it being unprofessional to break formation now that the war’s on…”

JesseMaul grins. “I did,” he acknowledges, “but haven’t you heard? I’m a lieutenant now. You going against your CO’s orders?”

“Copaani mirshmure'cye, vod? That sounds suspiciously like an abuse of authority,” Kix replies wickedly. “What if I were to alert someone? Tell them a lieutenant is trying to leverage his shiny new rank in exchange for… inappropriate favors?”

“Ooo-oooh,” JesseMaul groans, starting out mocking and trailing off into something far more pleasurable as Kix bites at his ear. “That what you want, baarur’ika? To come see me in the brig—cuffed and completely at your mercy. Sounds a bit heartless.”

Kix’s hands crash suddenly against his chest, and for a brief second JesseMaul worries that he’d gone too far with that one, but Kix continues shoving him until his back hits the wall, hard. “What I want is for you to stop talking,” he growls and begins tugging at their greys.

JesseMaul shivers. “Think you can order a lieutenant around, baar’ur?”

Meeting his eyes very deliberately, Kix leans over and slams his fist onto the door’s locking mechanism. Then he drags the flat of his knuckles around the skin of his left ear, like tucking away a lock of hair. “Haven’t you heard, lieutenant? Medical outranks everyone. Now, are you gonna respect the chain-of-command, ver’alor?”

His voice goes deep and rumbling with authority and JesseMaul shudders. “Yes, sir.”

. . .

. .

.

JesseMaul can’t breathe properly, but dares not shift to a more comfortable position.

He’s carrying precious cargo, after all.

“Will he be okay?” the voice of Torrent’s newest addition, Double, asks quietly. “I mean, does anyone have medical training?”

Their ragtag little fireteam all answer in the negative and all ask themselves the same question. What do they do when their medic is the one who needs help?

Kix’s head lolls to the side as JesseMaul staggers into their makeshift camp, knees buckling under the weight of his burc’ya and the pain of a few cracked ribs. Nothing he can’t take, but he wishes Kix was at least conscious to berate him for it. The other three, bless their hearts, can’t tell the difference.

“I don’t like just sitting here,” Trouble murmurs, nervously field-stripping her deece.

“Neither do I,” JesseMaul agrees, making her startle. “But the Commander said to wait for extraction, so we wait for extraction.”

Explosions and blasterfire shake the ground and light up the night, but cut off from the battle, they can do nothing but sit and wait. Later, at the medcenter after the battle is won, he watches Kix’s eyes flutter open and then narrow in suspicion at his tired smile.

“And here you keep saying that I’m the one who needs looking after, baruur’ika.”

Even beat up and barely conscious, Kix scoffs. “You do need looking after, verd’ika. S’why you got me.”

JesseMaul laughs brokenly. “Then how ‘bout we make it official, eh?” At his riduur’s stunned expression, he leans down and gently presses their foreheads together. “I don’t ever want to hold you in my arms like that, again—knowing that I could help you if we’d just got our heads out of our shebse and cross-trained earlier. What do you say, Kixy?

“Marry me?”

.

. .

. . .

The Alor’verd laughs himself sick when they turn in their “paperwork” for the union.

Grumbling, Captain Rex chucks a shiny gold credit chit at his head and glares at them. “Couldn’t wait another month, lads?”

Kix rolls his eyes but JesseMaul slings an arm around his shoulder and knocks their helmets together as he drapes himself dramatically against his vod’uur. “Sorry, captain,” he lies without a shred of remorse, “I just couldn’t help myself. I’m sure Commander Kote will give it back to you once Boil and Waxer submit their forms, though.”

“Don’t count on it,” the commander snorts. “Those two’ll need something drastic to make them admit to breaking formation.”

“Eh, give it time,” Captain Rex says, malcontent easing slightly at the prospect. “You two said your vows yet? Or did you wanna go the nat-born route? When te verd’ika found out that Sweets and Bitters went for a civilian ceremony, she made me promise to ask if she could officiate the next one.”

Blinking at the unexpected offer, JesseMaul and Kix exchange rueful grins. “We said them,” Kix says slowly, and JesseMaul continues, “But if Commander Tano is that keen on it, I don’t think we’ll mind saying them again.”

Commander Kote snorts again. “I’m sure you won’t,” he says, shaking his head. “I’ll send out a leave-wide comm, ask if anyone else wants to attend. Only you Torrent vode, I swear…”

The captain chuckles, refusing to be insulted. He taps his comm and says, “Commander Tano, are you available to come down to the barracks in about an hour?”

“Of course, Rex,” her voice crackles across the airwaves. “Is there a problem?”

“Sure is, sir,” he says, winking at them. “Same one Bitters and Sweets had last leave, if you recall the particulars.”

Commander Tano’s gasp and muffled, “Excuse me, Master Plo, I have to go!” has the lot of them smiling at each other. “I’ll be there as soon as I can, Rexster! Don’t let it start without me—”

. . .

. .

.

Finally wrenching himself out of the ver’alor’s—the lieutenant’s—the clone’s grasp, Maul bares his teeth in triumph. “There she is,” he hisses, and follows the thread to the information he seeks. The clone thrashes in Kast’s grip but in his effort to obfuscate any information about the former Jedi, he’d given Maul just the opening he needed to find it.

He shrieks in her grip as Maul delves deeper into the recesses of his mind, chasing every scrap of memory about Ahsoka Tano, and Maul feels a stirring of pity. When he finally relents, content in what he’s found, he gestures for Kast to release him.

“You have heart, lieutenant,” Maul says, crouching down to meet the slumped trooper’s gaze. His face is blotchy and contorted with residual pain, tear-tracks stark against his skin. “I believe I may admire that.”

The lieutenant, Jesse, shudders at the words, cringing away from him.

Carefully, gently, Maul brushes his fingers against the clone’s temple and a compulsion against his pain-filled mind. “Now, be at ease, lieutenant. You’ve done marvelously.”

[dalegoldberg]

Will movie theaters be relevant in a post-pandemic world? It's now up to you.

On Monday, the beloved Arclight and Pacific Theaters announced they’re closing for good. ArcLight Cinemas is arguably Hollywood's most cherished theater and Pacific has been a mainstay in Los Angeles since 1946. The announcement of their closing shocked many as another casualty of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In the company announcement, they said "This was not the outcome anyone wanted, but despite a huge effort that exhausted all potential options, the company does not have a viable way forward." One can understand how a movie theater might go under in the middle of a pandemic but I did find it interesting that they felt there was truly no way forward.

One might've expected some members of the Hollywood elite to come clamoring forward with a bucket of cash to at least front the company long enough to sustain it through the pandemic so that it could reopen when the time was right.

Back in 2014, Kodak faced a similarly dire situation (for different reasons, obviously) and was ready to close its doors. That was until J.J. Abrams, Christopher Nolan, Quentin Tarantino, Judd Apatow and other filmmakers banded together to save the floundering company. Their shared love of film compelled them to save the dying medium and, thanks to those filmmakers and their studio backers, the company is still alive today.

But that hasn’t happened with these theaters. I'm not saying that can't happen, of course. The announcement just came this week so time will tell. I will say, however, it sounds like the company may have already exhausted their options (in light of the no "viable way forward" statement).

The death of ArcLight Cinemas and Pacific Theaters may not just signify another casualty of the pandemic but may actually be a sign of the times. Even prior to the pandemic many were wondering, amongst cord cutting and increasing interest in streaming content, how much longer would movie theaters stay relevant?

The pandemic has shifted the world in general, of course, and one of those big changes coming post-pandemic may be a world where movie theaters have a drastically different business model. Perhaps, one that makes them unrecognizable to us as we know them today.

Does that seem like too bold a claim? Perhaps. Let's just look at the state of the business now.

The state of the business pre-Covid

Prior to the pandemic, movie studios were beholden to the theaters to release their movies in theaters for a certain period of time. So if Warner Brothers wanted to release "Godzilla vs Kong" in theaters, they would have had to wait 90 days before releasing the film on Blu-Ray or to a streaming platform. There was a bit of flexibility on this when it came to digital rentals but otherwise 90 days was the standard. Now, movie studios did have the option of by-passing the theatrical exhibition altogether if they wanted and just going straight to people's homes. Why didn't they?

One reason might've been the Paramount Consent Decrees. The Consent Decrees date back to 1948 when the Supreme Court ruled that movie studios had to separate their distribution operations from their exhibition operations. Essentially, studios were barred from owning movie theaters as it was seen as a monopolistic practice and not fair to consumers. At the time, the only way you could see a movie was in a theater. Gradually, over time, of course, that changed and technology enabled us to watch movies at home. We got VHS, then DVD's, then Blu-Rays, then iTunes Movies, then Netflix and so on. But the theaters remained as a mainstay. Why?

I know many of my friends would argue it's because there's no better way to see a movie than in a theater. If you said that twenty years ago I would have agreed. But today, I'd say that's become largely subjective given the technology available at home. From a purely business oriented perspective, though, there's a host of little reasons theaters remained important such as films not being eligible for Oscar nominations without a theatrical release and, possibly, because studios worried that bypassing theaters would result in further regulations by the courts.

But mostly, it's because we, the audience, were accustomed to theaters. It gave a film legitimacy when it was presented in a theater. It used to be that if a movie went “straight to home video” it was considered cheap and probably low budget. Because of that, even though the studios were giving up 50% of their revenue to the theaters, their gross still was greater than what home distribution netted them in the initial release window.

Even after the invention of Blu-Rays and iTunes Movies, studios were still sending movies to theaters (1) because it was a huge source of revenue and (2) because it helped market the movie. The movie’s success at the box office gave us a reason to want that movie at home.

A shift in Public perceptions

There's a growing number of people that no longer think that way. If a movie goes to streaming now (the new home video), we no longer assume the movie is cheap or low budget. The content on streaming is just as good as the stuff we're seeing in theaters. There’s been a massive shift in our perception of what great “cinema” is. Yeah, you might still wanna' see some things in theaters but it doesn’t cheapen the movie for you if you don't.

And that’s a big problem for theaters. The leverage they’ve had over the studios up till now has been the Consent Decrees and our perception of what great cinema is. Significant, no doubt, but those two things have changed. In August of last year, the Paramount Consent Decrees were terminated with a two-year sunset period on certain aspects of the Decrees all but ensuring that studios could now vertically integrate if they wanted to. Or just bypass the theaters altogether - as some studios already have been experimenting with.

Even at the start of the pandemic, many movies were removed from theaters and sent straight to streaming with studios reporting that the revenue gained from VOD and online rentals rivaled the profit gained from theatrical distribution. As various studios like Paramount and Warner Brothers enter the streaming game alongside Disney (Disney Plus, Hulu) and Netflix, they too are experimenting. As you may have heard, Warner Bros. is releasing all their movies this year on their streaming platform HBOMax on the same day the films are released in theaters (a practice known as "day and date"). No doubt, the bean counters at Warner Bros. will be looking to see if this is a practice that should stay. It’d be fair to say that these experiments are not true representations of reality given the state of the world we’re testing this new distribution model with. But it is changing our perception of how important movie theaters are.

Studios are altering the deal

During the pandemic, theaters have been brought to their knees and have been forced to renegotiate certain terms with the studios including the release window between theatrical and home distribution. Most studios now have negotiated a home release date that comes just 17 days after the movie debuts in theaters - far shorter than the original 90 days.

This, of course, can be argued to just be a by-product of the pandemic. Theaters don't have leverage now but once the pandemic is over they will and they'll renegotiate. Right?

That really hinges on whether or not audiences still think a movie has more value if it was presented in a theater before they got to see it at home. Does it enhance the movie for me if it gets shown in a theater or am I just as interested (or maybe even more interested) in seeing it if it is sent straight to my home?

Other big changes are happening

There's other factors to consider as well. One might be the massive shift of homeowners into the suburbs and away from the city during the pandemic. Many employers are making it possible to work from home (a trend that will likely continue post-pandemic as the internet improves and more businesses see the benefits of a remote workforce) resulting in a mass exodus from cities to suburbs. Living in the suburbs means you don’t have the same pull of massive audiences in large gatherings the way you used to. We’re also investing more in our homes to make them enjoyable places to not only live but play as well. It’s a shift in our culture.

Another factor is that our perception of long form content has changed. Episodic television used to be where big movie stars went to end their careers after a career starring in movies. Now, it’s the reverse. A lot of stars are starting in television rather than finishing there because we (the audience) love binging on serialized content and when we’re not binging episodes we’re watching four hour movies (The Irishman, Zack Snyder's Justice League). Those experiences don’t work well in theaters where you’re stuck sitting in the same place and can’t hit the pause button.

Ultimately, the biggest factor might be what it usually comes down to - money. Before the pandemic audiences were already lamenting about the cost of movie tickets. A single afternoon of me taking my wife and kids to see the latest Disney movie in a theater could cost me $50 - $60 just for admission (not to mention the cost of food and drinks). But during the pandemic I was able to rent “Mulan” for $30 from comfort of my own home. Or, if I wanted, I could just wait three months and then see it as part of my regular Disney Plus subscription (which I was already paying for anyways so I could watch “The Mandalorian”).

As things open back up, many people are not necessarily swimming in money and, while I think the Covid relief packages have probably helped, a lot of people are still hurting and will be looking for any which way to save money. It seems unlikely that theaters will be able to lower their costs at this point given the need to recoup their losses from the pandemic and the probable need to make new investments in their facilities to stay competitive. They will need to get creative to show real value to audiences that might be reluctant to rush back in to theaters.

So what will happen to theaters post-pandemic?

For those of you worried I’m predicting doomsday for theaters - relax. I think theaters are probably here to stay regardless of what happens. They’re too much a part of what movies are to simply disappear. That said, they are a business and, currently, a failing one. What they look like post-pandemic doesn’t look great, from my perspective, unless the business model changes.

One possible scenario is that theaters become like playhouses or music festivals. In other words, they’ll still exist but in fewer quantities and will become more niche, featuring elevated experiences centered around tentpole movie properties which audiences are willing to pay a premium for (think “Top Gun: Maverick” or “Godzilla vs Kong”). I can see this form of adaptation working well in everyone’s favor.

Another possibility is that the studios buy out the movie theaters. The termination of the consent decrees has made that a real possibility. And then, once they’ve purchased them, build brand experiences centered around their properties. Something like miniature Disney Lands. They would most likely close a significant number of locations leaving only the flagships they felt would bring in a large audience and use them to promote the movies on their slate. A company like Disney with a large library of films could also use the theaters as a means of re-presenting old films from their library, borrowing a tactic from LucasFilm, and refresh old content to make it new again for theatrical. In essense, the net effect would be the same as in the first scenario: fewer theaters, more niche experiences.

I say this because it is somewhat unclear, to me at least, how the current model can persist if studios own theaters. Yes, they’d control theatrical distribution but they’d likely only be purchasing a theater to distribute their own movies. Would a company like Paramount, who’s only releasing seven movies this year, see the value of owning a theater chain? Even Disney’s slate only consists of 14 movies. To make the business viable (at least as it exists now), they would have to present movies from other studios. Would one studio trust that the studio in ownership of the theater was giving them a fair number of screens for presentation? It seems untenable under the current model.

What happens next is really up to you

The biggest change from the pandemic is that we as audiences have changed the way we look at movies. We’re ok with watching movies at home and, thus, the leverage theaters have to negotiate longer release windows between theatrical and home distribution has all but disappeared. The artificial pillars that made theaters a necessity are all but gone. And yes, the Oscars will likely still require that movies be released in theaters to be eligible for nomination but the standards of what a "theatrical release" means do not require as vast a distribution as you might think (see page 2, sub-section D of the General Entry rules). Plus, let's be honest - not all movies are meant to be Oscar contenders.

So really, the only thing to keep theaters relevant now is you - the audience. My prediction is that we’ll initially see some high demand for theaters as cities are re-opened and we try to return to our regular lives. But after we get back to a sense of normalcy (whatever that means in the future) we’ll see how much audiences really want to keep paying $20 per ticket to see a movie when they could just pay $30 once to rent it at home with the entire family or binge the new hot show on Netflix / Amazon / Apple TV/ Paramount Plus / Disney Plus / Hulu / Peacock / whatever else is out there.

At that point, the studios will do some math and if the profit they’re making from streaming outweighs the profit from the box office, theaters won’t have much of a leg to stand on. That is, unless audiences continue to demand theaters be a relevant part of the movie watching experience. Without considerable innovation on behalf of the theaters, though, I question how likely that is to happen.