#kamino monument

[the-baddest-of-batches]

We were children, and they sent us to war.

-------

[Alt Text: four image post beginning with a cadet running through the rain on Kamino, a puddle reflecting Umbara beneath him. There is text reading WE WERE CHILDREN and it follows with a bloodied clone trooper slamming a rifle into the ground where a broken clone helmet sits. He is screaming. There is text behind him repeating GOOD SOLDIERS FOLLOW ORDERS, GOOD SOLDIERS DIE. The next image is prceeded by the words AND THEY SENT US and depicts the same man in clone armor which is greyscale standing in front of a half melted skull. Lines indicate mandalorian armor on top of him, like a ghost of the future. He looks broken and sad and the text reads YOU HAVE BECOME SCARS, AND DENIAL...and above the last image is are the words TO WAR followed by a red dominated image of the same clone in green and yellow mandalorian armor now. He turns away from a lonely clone trooper helmet and dc-15s blaster which are set in front of a monument reflecting past clone's shoes. It appears he is walking away. The text in the image is YOU ARE MY DESTROYER.]

[clonehub]

The Clones, Kamino, and Relationships

I've long speculated on what the clones' values would be as a people regarding every type of relationship they could possibly have with others around them -- antagonistic, romantic/sexual, professional, platonic, familial, etc.

Often times when making headcanons along these lines, people tend to project their own social upbringings onto the clones with or without realizing; they rely heavily on a reality that doesn't exist for the clones and then try to justify it with the same reality. Their analyses and theories and hcs end up flawed (and, for me, really annoying to read).

I'm sure you've all heard the fanon/headcanons that clones don't have the necessary and nebulously-defined "life experiences" that are required to mark them as adults. People think the clones lack a certain amount of knowledge about themselves and their bodies, and then others' bodies and how those work. They think the clones have no social awareness; I even saw someone say that clones wouldn't have had rivals, frenemies, or any negative interaction with other clones.

This long form and hopefully structured rant is going to lay out everything I think about how the clones were raised, why they're raised that way, and what that means when they interact with one another and with non clones.

Antagonistic Relationships

The clones argue. They fight. They disagree. We see this repeatedly in The Clone Wars and all throughout the Bad Batch. They disagree with superiors, both Jedi and non Jedi.

Disagreement within a group helps foster social bonds, can strengthen critical thinking/reasoning, and has a few other benefits I don't feel like listing out right now. Regardless, managing disagreements in a group requires conflict resolution skills.

The General Relationship Structure on Kamino

The clones must be taught to be loyal, to be amicable, and how to resolve conflicts within squads and bigger and bigger groupings of clones. The clones are going to war. They're trained soldiers. They have to be able to work on a team. Team work isn't just following orders and it isn't just being friends. That also means swallowing pride, setting aside ego, and even speaking up.

They can get jealous, they can be envious, they can have a whole host of complex feelings and emotions that they need to work through. The Drill sergeants would thus be instructed to be aware of and teach the clones who to work through this (whether they choose pats on the head or a fist is up to them).

I'm saying this to say that fandom often takes clones' "guns n battle" education a little (waaayy) too literally. They're not just given a gun at 2 and told to start firing. They need to be told that you can't turn that gun on your brother just because he said something annoying or you think he's dumb.

The Galaxy Outside Kamino

The clones learn about the galaxy outside Kamino. They get a heavily censored and propagandized history of the galaxy that plays up the Republic and absolutely villainizes anyone else, but they definitely do learn about the galaxy in general. They learn about other species, where those species are located, etc.

I say this to say that people like to act like the clones are so sheltered that they basically gawk at the mere existence of anyone who isn't a clone (so like....racist via ignorance?) which....I don't understand, really. The Kaminoans want to deliver a functioning and high quality product. They can't do that if they don't tell the clones that there's people out there that look different frmo you and speak a different language. A lot of clones are bound to interact with civilians; what sense is there in not prepping them for it?

These history lessons wouldn't even take too long to learn or anything like that. Some people like to headcanon that the clones' education schedule is so tight that they can't learn about "unnecessary" things (i.e. anything that isn't about guns n battle). But the clones are also fast learners. I think they can handle like two days of lessons about the galaxy's species.

Learning about the galaxy also requires --

Social Awareness

I've often seen headcanons that the clones, in one way or another, lack social awareness. "Non clones are basically an alien species! They're bound to ask loud, rude, ignorant, offensive questions! They're not shy, so they'd totally just strip in public if they need to!" (yes, I saw someone say this)

This comes from people infantilizing the clones and refusing to write or see them as the adults that they are. This is also severely shortsighted; again, being aware of the fact that the Kaminoans want a product that can do its job, who is helped by the clones blundering through greater society and destroying the genpop's trust in and comfort with them?

The clones get taught the basics of social politeness. They wouldn't manage the intricacies of cross-cultural interaction from two like high level senators, but that's not their job. They're polite, they're professional, they're aware of what is and isn't rude. They're self aware. They're adults.

Personal and Bodily Awareness

Sorry to the people who are weirdly misogynistic, but the clones also get comprehensive sex ed. It's inevitable that some clones are going to sleep with a non-clone. It's bound to happen! Rather than pretend it never does, the clones are told in detail about two things:

The human reproductive system.

Basic contraceptives and STI prevention.

part of maintaining the health and safety of any given population is making sure that they don't get sick. STIs are a way of getting sick. Part of maintaining the health and safety of a given population is managing unwanted or unexepcted pregnancies. Condoms prevent that. I think the medics have them and distribute them as-needed when they go on leave planetside.

So they get consent training (they'd have to, in order to learn how to interact with anyone ever in a normal and healthy way). The contours of consent would interact with their lifestyles in a contradictory way because they're also rather explicitly told they don't have the right to give/revoke consent over their own bodies, but they're at least told about other's bodies.

But here's the thing. The clones rarely. RARELY. Do end up having sex or a relationship because of two reasons:

They rarely interact with non-clones who are viable for sexual or romantic relationships (as in, most of the non-clones they're in contact with are COs and Jedi)

They themselves do not value sex and relationships to the extent that we do in our society.

for the first point: they're in battle a lot, and when they go on leave they face a society that does not like clones. There are anti-clone protests, 79s is one of the few bars that allows clones in, and when they're at battle they're notably not interacting with civilians for obvious reasons. The average jedi and non clone CO is not going to seek a sexual or romantic relationship with a clone.

This also presumes that clones don't sleep with other clones. I'm not giving ground on this. It's clear within canon that the clones view each other as true family. "Brothers" is not just "brother in arms", but quite literally a familial term for them. Fives' "same heart, same blood" speech in season 3 is evidence. Sister being called/naming herself Sister is another (her being transfem alone isn't enough; if they didn't view their familial relationships as fundamental to who they are, they would have given her a regular name, not Sister). They also refer to one another primarily as brothers, even when there's bad blood -- like Slick insisting that he did loves his brothers. Not comrades or friends or squad mates. Brothers. The entire 501st.

Frankly, the "they're bound to do it" view that many people seem to have is very bizarre to me. Who cares about proximity? What are their values as a people? What have they been taught? What do they believe? Why assume that any given clone would do that? Plenty of people spend a lifetime around their families without ever developing a desire to sleep with them. Who you grow up with can absolutely influence who you're attracted to, but not to this degree.

The assumption that clones MUST sleep with one another relies on a rather wide series of assumptions that just do the thing I complained about in the opener, which is rely on our own culture's values to write the clones. Which ties into point #2 up above:

The clones don't value sex or relationships as something they need to seek out. Yeah, they'd get horny. They're adults. It happens! Part of life. But what's socially considered an appropriate release of those feelings would be different from what we see in today's world. The drill sergeants wouldn't impress upon them the importance of having a partner, because how does that help them? How does it benefit the Republic, the civilians, the clones?

The clones are soldiers who were bred for war and are focused, first and foremost, on fighting and fulfilling their duty. Their most important social values are fighting, duty, and loyalty. Hierarchy, warfare, survival, etc. Can a clone seek out sex? Yeah! Is that even like, remotely common given the points I made above? No! Does the average clone chase civilians or even dream about relationships, sex, etc etc etc? Nope. They weren't taught to value it.

(This isn't to say that wanting these things makes a clone bad at their job, or that having sex means they're breaking a rule somewhere. They're not. it's just like how the majority of college students go for the most common majors because they're taught that those are valuable and desirable things to learn in school. You'll get one or two who have a concentration in something you've never heard of. They're not wrong for that, but they're definitely outliers)

So the average clone is a virgin that doesn't even think about it because it doesn't matter to them. They know about both male and female reproduction, and they know how to interact with civilians.

They're definitely sheltered. I highly doubt that any clone is given the skills necessary to manage like, romantic relationship problems, especially the really gritty ones. They're not told about their rights as beings, their ability to say no to most situations that involve a military CO. But they know about saying please and thank you, solving interpersonal conflicts, and about pads and tampons. They know about boundaries, appropriate behavior in public, and how to use a condom. They know about girlfriends and boyfriends and partners, they just don't generally care about them. They're rare -- not socially shunned, just rare. like the niche college concentrations.

A really good meta to read that I personally love is written by @canichangemyblogname and linked in his pinned. @saga-ordsmed also has a few interesting metas floating somewhere on her blog. theyre not about this topic in particular, but she's got interesting insights into the Republic.

I hope this was coherent enough. I wrote this mostly because I saw a contradictory post that pissed me off and I was yelling about it with friends in discord lol. Basically, the clones are adults, but don't presume that they have the same values that we do, or that the poeple in charge of their care and upbringing share our values either.

[loverboy-havocboy]

i don't know what i want between hunter and crosshair in season 3. obviously i miss them being a happy little family. but at the same time? i want hunter on his knees begging for forgiveness only for crosshair to get to say he doesn't forgive him. maybe never will.

[cross-my-heartt]

Crosshair’s dialogue

I cannot overstate how important The Outpost was for me because we now have proof that Crosshair is someone who says things he doesn’t mean and that’s so so important. Which is why I’m going to talk about it.

“No point in carrying dead weight.”

“Remind me not to die on your watch.”

If there’s one thing we know about TBB it’s that plot heavy episodes (especially those relevant to the main story which we can safely categorize 12 as because of its ending and how pivotal Crosshair is to the show) it’s that they don’t waste time on frivolous dialogue. Even more so when it’s Crosshair’s dialogue given how taciturn he is as a character.

Now we all know how the episode ends and why the first line of dialogue is monumental here. But I’d also like to focus on Mayday’s response because it reminds us that most things Crosshair says, and that I’m going to reference here, are taken at face value.

We know that because Crosshair managed to provoke Rex enough to earn himself a punch. We also know that because his long speeches on Kamino convinced his brothers that he was fully committed to the Empire’s cause. Hold that thought for now.

Episode 12 shows us in a very non roundabout way that Crosshair will go to great lengths to ‘carry dead weight’ if that weight is a brother. That for all his remarks about regs and their disposability he cares enough to go through extreme hardship to try and save one and even avenge him with catastrophic consequences to himself.

But what if he’s only recently had a change of heart, you say, what if he literally changed his mind when Mayday pushed him out of the way to save him in the avalanche. That's certainly possible. Only we’ve seen this behavior with Crosshair before:

He says all those things about Echo and regs only for us to see a glimpse of him putting a reassuring hand on his shoulder. He implies that the batch will become his enemies if they refuse to join the Empire and then saves Omega and we’re given no indication that he’s reported their survival to the Empire.

All throughout the show we see instances of the writers trying to convey who Crosshair is, despite the things he says, through his actions and less obviously through symbolism and other more subtle means.

Which brings us back to Kamino.

How much of what Crosshair said on Kamino was the truth and not him posturing and deluding himself? How much of it was his usual bravado, the biting brutal cynical things that he keeps saying and people keep believing about him? How much of it was the refusal to show vulnerability and sympathy and just a damn defense mechanism?

You could see episode 12 as a sudden change of heart for him but I like to see it differently: to me episode 12 was a crescendo in the arc of a character that’s been slowly built up as someone who says cruel things and tries to convince himself of them (maybe even succeeds at points, because it’s easier that way, safer) but at the end of the day, when push comes to shove, his actions speak louder than his words.

Crosshair cornered himself into a situation where he had little choice. Obey or die. That’s something he carries responsibility for no matter what, even if we suppose everything he said on Kamino was a front and claim that the batch were wrong for taking it at face value.

Crosshair did have a choice on Kamino, he made that choice and it left him with two horrible options. And he opted to die (because what else can you expect when you do something as egregious as shooting a superior in cold blood) in the name of a brother.

Good soldiers follow orders but he spat in the name of that in one glorious moment of defiance. He called Lieutenant whatshisname just so he would turn and look him in the eye when he delivered the biggest ‘fuck you’ to the Empire.

Chip or no chip, change of heart or no, that’s one of the most bamf moments in Star Wars, period. And as with most things Crosshair, it was his actions that were speaking in that moment, not his words.

[silverwings22]

Caught in the Crosshairs: Chapter 43: Dead Man Walking- Jelly Roll

Series warnings: Smut, mind control, canon typical violence, childhood trauma, language, chronic illness

Chapter Warnings: racism against clones, depression, murder, Crosshair being a little shit

Previous chapter:

Next Chapter:

32 rotations. 32 days and nights mostly in the rain, on a platform on Kamino. At least he'd had water.

Crosshair had been livid the entire time, cursing every name on his former squad for leaving him there… except the Jedi. Every time he started to try to talk himself into hating her, he heard her voice. 

You can always come home, Crosshair. 

But he didn't want to come home. He'd chosen the Empire, chosen to be her enemy even when Hunter told him directly that none of them were his. So why, in the weeks following his rescue from the platform where he'd been confined to his bunk to recover, did he keep thinking of her? 

The loud, annoying alarm woke him, like every morning, and he groaned faintly when he sat up. He was recovered, cleared for duty as of yesterday, but he still felt like garbage. She was right. When you're used to having someone in bed with you, sleeping alone is garbage. When had she told him that? When she was stabbed by Ventress, the day he'd snuck into the Temple to see her… the first time he'd told her he-

That's over now. Stop it. 

He got up and headed for the mess hall for breakfast, telling himself it didn't matter. He didn't love her anymore. He couldn't, not when she was a traitor. Even if he did occasionally hear snippets of her voice when he was tired. 

He sat down with his tray at the table with two regs, giving them a cursory glance. Whatever they'd been talking about died in the air, and they both just got up and moved a table over. He was used to it, the rejection from regs. He'd lived with it all his life, but… he'd always had his brothers back then. Tech would huff and point out the average IQ of the table was increased by their absence. Echo would roll his eyes and mutter under his breath that 99 would have been ashamed, while Wrecker asked too loudly why they'd want to hang out with regs anyway. Hunter would just smile a little, shaking his head like it didn't bother him. Maybe it didn't, Hunter had always looked more like a reg before the hair and tattoo. Miria would have just slid a little closer to Crosshair, because she always knew when he was upset, and put her little hand on his knee. He could practically hear her voice. "It's alright, my darling. They just can't see that shining star in you, and it's their loss."

"CT-9904 please report to Vice-Admiral Rampart's office immediately." 

Crosshair glanced up at the PA speaker. Ugh… what did that rat faced bastard want now? He got up and left his tray behind. The regs had killed his appetite anyway. 

Rampart's office looked like a monument to his ego, polished and pristine. "CT-9904. I see you've been medically cleared. How long were you on that Kaminoan platform?"

"32 rotations." Crosshair drawled. Something about the use of his CT number bugged him today. It shouldn't have, everyone here used it. But… he had the strangest desperate desire to hear his name. The name she always said, the name she'd asked him for three years ago without even wanting to hear the number. 

He was thinking too much about her again. 

"Left for dead and you still returned. Why?"

"I'm a soldier of the Empire."

The answer seemed to please Rampart. "Your loyalty is to be commended. I have a mission for you."

"What squad will I be leading?" 

Rampart snorted, and it felt knee a slap in the face. "You're not ready to play Commander again. Your new Commander will handle it. Report to the War Memorial at 0900." 

Crosshair froze, fists clenching. Back to taking orders instead of giving them… what the hell?! What did Rampart know… had he somehow found out that Crosshair lied about the Batch being dead? If he had, why was he sending him on a mission instead of executing him? 

"You're dismissed."

Crosshair stiffly nodded and headed back to his bunkroom to get his armor. What had he done wrong? 

"He knows, you know. He's trying to decide if you lied in purpose, or if you didn't know."

Crosshair jumped, reaching for his weapons as the door shut behind him and a voice rang out. 

Standing behind the door was a girl… a teenager by the look of it. She was leaning against the wall with a foot up, arms crossed casually. 

Crosshair eyed her. She was dressed in armor, similar to a clones but of a different metal he wasn't familiar with. It was painted gold and purple, with a fin on the left paldron. "Aren't you a little young to be a soldier?"

"Nah. I'm good for it." She chuckled. She had a strange accent, curling at the vowels like Coruscanti upper-class and staccato on the consonants like a Mandalorian soldier. "And I'm older than you are right now."

He huffed. "Who the hell are you, and how'd you get in here?"

"I'm Mayrin. You'll know me." She gave him a crooked smile. "And trust me. I can always find you. My ba'vodu made me a damn good tracker, and you don't really cover your tracks. I guess a ram'ser doesn't really need to, but still."

"You speak Mando’a." Crosshair started putting on his armor quickly, weirded out by her presence but sure she wasn't a threat."

"I'm Mandalorian. Funny how that works." She tucked a curl of her messy silver hair behind her ear. She wore it short, around her chin and framing a heart-shaped face and large lavender eyes. A natural tan just seemed to make them more striking. "On both sides, if you wanna get real technical. My dad's related to Manda'lor Jaster Mereel. Mom's a part of Clan Vizla."

"Huh. Bloodline." Crosshair frowned. "What are you hunting me down for?"

"Personal interest. I'm mostly just wondering how long it's gonna take you to get your head out of your shebs." She smirked. "Empire isn't doing you too many favors here, are they? Left you on that platform over a standard month, then demoted you?"

"The Empire wasn't the one that left me out there." Crosshair hissed.

"And I suppose you think it's Clone Force 99's fault?" She adjusted her stance, cocking a hip. She oozed attitude, more than any Mandalorian he'd ever met. It was at odds with the cute face. 

"They're dead." He said sharply

"Yeah right. Tell Command what you want, but you can't lie to me."

His scowl darkened. "What the fuck do you want from me?" He hissed. If this kid knew he'd lied, who else knew? He'd be up for the firing squad if it leaked. 

"Easy, tough guy. Your secret's safe with me." Mayrin laughed. "If you go down, so do I. It's not exactly in my best interests."

"So what do you want, then? I don't have anything worth blackmailing me over."

"I wouldn't call it blackmail." Mayrin shrugged. "But what I want is your company. I'll turn up whenever, and you're going to talk to me."

"And if I refuse?" Crosshair growled.

"You won't. You're lonely." Mayrin smirked. 

Crosshair huffed, securing his rifle and glancing at the chrono. He had fifteen minutes to get to the memorial. "Don't expect much conversation."

"I wouldn't dare. But tell me something?"

"Hm?" He shoved a toothpick in his mouth. 

"Why'd you lie?"

Crosshair froze. Why wouldn't be lie? The Empire would never stop hunting them if he didn't. They'd never be free or safe or- no. He wasn't supposed to care about that. "So I could stop chasing them and get on with my damn life." He finally muttered savagely and walked out the door. 

She followed him out, a half step behind. When they got to the memorial, he waited with his helmet tucked under his arm while she inspected the wall of names. "None of these are clone names." She finally said. "They all have first and last."

"What's it matter?" He shrugged. 

"Doesn't seem fair, does it? You clones did most of the fighting. Shouldn't you be remembered too?

Crosshair paused, glancing back at the rows and rows of names. All fallen soldiers, people who'd faced the same kind of hell he had and died for it. "Memorials are for the living, not the dead. Who'd bother to remember us?" He finally said bitterly.

"Your brothers." Mayrin whispered, touching the wall. 

"Crosshair." The sniper stiffened and turned as a reg Commander walked up. The man was in gray and white armor, a mourning color. Crosshair didn't recognize him until the helmet came up, revealing a scar across his left temple.

"Commander Cody. I didn't recognize you."

"A lot has changed." Cody agreed. "It's good to see you. I heard the rest of your team went rogue after Order 66 went out."

"Are you surprised?"

"Not really. Your squad was different by design." Cody said mildly. Crosshair couldn't help but think about the two regs in the mess hall, and his jaw tightened. 

"Regs have gone AWOL too."

Cody nodded. "I've heard rumors that more and more clones are… questioning the order."

"We're loyal to each other, not some Empire."

"You never even tried to come back. We'd have taken ya…"

"Incorrect. Locating you has always been the primary objective."

"There's nowhere else to go, Crosshair."

His brother's voices called through time and space, memories tinged sour by the aftermath of their escape. Mayrin was right, he was lonely. He missed the four clones, and the brave little woman whose last words haunted him constantly. 

"You can always come home."

He shoved the feeling down viciously, before it turned him into a treasonous bastard like her. "Then they're traitors. Like the Jedi."

Cody gave him a sideways glance, an unreadable expression in his eyes. Crosshair glanced over his shoulder to see what Mayrin made of the conversation, to display his resolve in case the kid thought his indiscretion about the Batch's survival was more than he'd claimed. But she was gone, vanished like she'd never been there at all. 

He frowned but didn't comment on it, turning to follow Cody to the transport. He was already regretting not grabbing the rest of his breakfast off his tray… he had a headache coming on.

Scrapping clankers felt good. It felt familiar, even if he wasn't with his old unit. Cody was competent and let Crosshair do his thing without micromanagement, which the sniper appreciated. He'd already taken out a tank with a shot directly up the barrel, a shot he was proud of. 

Top that, Wrecker. The thought gave him pause as he and Cody fought their way up a spiral staircase crawling with super commando droids. Wrecker wouldn't see that shot. None of the Batch would. They'd have been impressed, joked about it later, and Miria would have given him that doe-eyed look she reserved just for him when she whispered "Absolutely impeccable, my darling."

Maybe her memory was trying to kill him for revenge after what he'd said to her on Kamino, because the momentary distraction had him caught by the throat. His helmet was wrenched off, the sniper coughing for air as he gritted out the only name available to possibly save him today. Not his squad, to his dazed regret. He wouldn't have had to call out, if they'd been here. They always watched each other's backs… "Cody!"

The Commander turned and threw his knife through the droids head, sending it and Crosshair collapsing into the stone steps. "You okay?"

Crosshair coughed, checking his bruising throat. "Yeah. Thanks."

"Hang tight. I'll take out the tactical droid."

Crosshair handed him a mirrored puck from his hip. "I can make the shot from here. Just get me a line of sight."

Cody nodded, glancing back at another super commando approaching. "Where do you need the puck?"

"Just throw it!"

"How far?"

"As far as you can!" Crosshair hissed. Goddamn it, he wasn't used to this much talking on a mission. He and the Batch moved in sync, years of training making most communication just nods of a helmet. Cody was quick, probably the only reg he actually respected, but he wasn't his team. 

But he followed suggestions well, the hurled the puck as hard as he could. Crosshair lined up, took a breath, and fired. 

Direct shot to the tactical droid's head. "Nice throw." He muttered as Cody helped him up. 

"Nice shot." 

They walked into the belltower, guns up and ready. Over the comms, another clone was telling Cody the droids were scrapped. "Good. Fan out, find Grotton."

"There's no need." A female voice huffed from the darkness, a tall and short-haired woman stepping out with the Imperial governor in a choke hold. She had a blaster to his temple.

"Do something!" Grotton snarled. He had a high voice, suitable to a sniveling coward. 

"Easy, ma'am. Let's talk about this." Cody said calmly. "Let the governor go."

"I'm Tawni Ames. The rightful governor of Dexis. As soon as the Empire acknowledges this, Grotton and his men will be released."

"We have Imperial orders. We're not here to debate politics." Cody didn't like holding a gun on this woman. He knew she was trying to do what she thought was best. So was he. 

"If you were, you'd see how unjust your actions are." Tawni shook her head. 

"The Empire is trying to establish peace and order." Cody coaxed.

Tawni's eyes darkened. "I used to believe in peace… I even helped charter a bill with Republic and Separatist alike, that would have ended the war. But your Chancellor rejected it! That's when I knew that peace was never an option."

Cody had a snap decision to make, and years under General Obi-wan "The Great Negotiator" Kenobi's leadership. He took his helmet off and set it and his gun on the ground. "It's an option now. Let him go, and we'll negotiate for a peaceful resolution. We've both lived through one war, let's not start another." He waved for Crosshair to lower his weapon. "Do this for your people."

Crosshair slowly lowered his rifle, watching Cody from his peripheral. The Commander had his hands up, voice calm and composed. A natural negotiator.

"Where'd you learn to talk people down like that, baby girl?" Miria was curled up in his arms in their bunk, bandaging a cut on his forearm. She'd managed to talk them out of getting killed by a group of dugs on Malastare, after an ill-fated double cross by a fuel baron. He'd still caught a knife intended for her, but it was a small price to pay. 

"Fifty crechelings demanding a later bedtime will teach you a lot." She laughed, bringing his palm up to kiss it. "Obi-wan asked me to teach him, when he took Anakin as a padawan. My, that boy loves to argue."

"You're pretty good at it."

"The trick is to know what someone cares about. With little ones, it's easy. If they want to stay up late, you remind them that they'll be tired the next day and not have fun in the lesson they're looking forward to. Adults are harder, because what they care for is more complex. Those dugs were double crossing us for credits, but it's not money they love. It's their families they're providing for. Once I reminded them that their actions put those same families in danger of reprisal, they wanted to put an end to the standoff."

"How would you negotiate with me?" He smirked, pulling her closer.

"You're proud and independent, love. But you care about your brothers. And me. If you were doing something that endangered us, I'd only have to remind you." She said sincerely. 

"I was hoping you'd take your shirt off. That's more entertaining."

Miria giggled. "I suppose that might work too."

Crosshair twitched when Tawni let Grotton go. The man scrambled to Cody, eyes wide. "Well done. Now execute her!"

Cody looked stunned. "Sir, I promised a peaceful resolution-"

"You did. I didn't. Now execute her!"

Tawni sighed, resignation printed on her tired and war-weary face. "So much for peace."

Grotton was getting heated, voice raised as he threatened Cody over disobedience. Crosshair had no one left to protect but the former Marshall Commander, and the idea of Cody catching a brutal punishment turned his stomach. So he took the shot instead, and Tawni Ames slumped to the floor with a death rattle. 

Cody didn't look him in the eye as Grotton kept talking. "Put her body in the square. Let it be a warning to the rest of them."

Crosshair watched Cody’s shoulders slump, fingers twitching. He could reach out, pat his arm and tell him he'd tried at least… but he couldn't make himself do it. Instead he just turned to follow Grotton out of the belltower. They'd done what they had to do. They had their orders.

Good soldiers follow orders. 

Crosshair didn't know why he'd come back to the memorial. Maybe he was hoping to see Mayrin again, to have someone to tell his story to. It wasn't like there was a name on this wall he'd care about… the only names he'd have cared about would never be memorialized by the Empire. Not after what they'd done. 

Cody stepped up beside him, looking at the wall in silence for a while. He looked… troubled, to say the least. "This new Empire." He finally murmured. "Do you think we're making the galaxy better?"

"We're soldiers. We do what needs to be done." Crosshair drawled. 

Cody looked at the helmet in his hands. "Do you know what makes us different from battle droids? We make our own choices… and we have to live with them." He picked up his kit and turned, leaving Crosshair standing alone once again as he walked away. There was something… permanent feeling about the way he marched. Crosshair couldn't understand it, Cody was a hard-lined soldier from head to toe. The last person he'd expected to doubt anything. 

He shook his head. Cody wouldn't turn traitor. He wasn't like that… everything would be better in the morning. Maybe he'd even get to work with Cody again. Have a friend, a brother he could count on after his abandoned him. Cody was no Force 99, but it was better than nothing. 

He picked up his kit and headed to his bunk, laying his armor down and checking everywhere for any hiding sassy teenagers. Satisfied he was alone, he lay down and slipped into a restless doze. 

Why did he have to bring up what she wanted? She could never have it again, no matter how beautiful the dream was. It was stolen, ruined by filthy hands clamped tighter than a chokehold. She could focus on what she had to do, follow a path of expectation set by necessity. But want? 

"What I want won't ever be mine. I wanted to build us a home on Naboo. I wanted to keep our team together after the war. I wanted to live!” 

Her reflection in the shaving mirror was staring at her. Lavender eyes, tears in the corners, but not sorrowful. No, those eyes were angry, hotter than Mustafar. It bubbled like lava under her skin, nowhere to send it but out. And she hated that face staring back at her in the moment. That was the face that had failed. It hadn't saved those helpless younglings. It hadn't spared Anakin from the dark side. It hadn't saved the man she loved. 

Failure. Broken, useless, weak Jedi. Worse than nothing at all. 

Her fist was moving before she could stop it, hitting the image in front of her until it shattered under her hand. It should have hurt, but she couldn't even do that right. The shards warped the reflection, the red tinge in her vision going gray and listless. 

Blood welled up and rolled down her skin, the hot feeling kicking in at the wrist. Droplets trickled onto the sheets, muddy looking on the gray fabric. Another thing she ruined. Another thing she'd broken. 

The many eyes in the broken reflection widened, softened as the tears began in earnest. 

"Miri…"

"I'm sorry… I don't know what came over me."

Something was wrong with her. She was collapsing, sinking into the dark… 

How would she ever save him now? If she couldn't save herself, Crosshair was-

Crosshair’s eyes snapped open, minutes before his alarm. He lay in the dark, breathing hard as a disembodied fury he'd never felt so strongly burned across his skin. The rage wasn't his own, but he was swept up in it. 

Miria. It was Miria… something was wrong. 

He sat up slowly, rubbing his face as he shook the cobwebs from his mind. What the hell…

His knuckles ached like he'd hit something, a phantom pain the vision hadn't experienced. He examined them as the lights came up. There was a bruise between his first and second knuckle, deep and blackening. 

He elected to ignore it, putting on his gloves and armor before heading to the mess. At least he could try to eat and forget this weird Jedi shit. He was just sitting down when the PA went off. "CT-9904 please report to Vice-Admiral Rampart's office immediately."

Dammit. This time he was taking his food with him. 

He'd shoved it in his mouth before he got to the office, letting himself in. Rampart was kicked back at his desk again, and the deja vu was not lost on the clone. 

"Your actions on Dexis were most impressive. I'm sending you on another mission. Report to CC-1223 for your debrief."

Crosshair blinked. "Why not Commander Cody?"

"Cody?" Rampart snorted. Crosshair was, for a moment, confused. Didn't everyone know the man who'd been the Marshall Commander of the Third Systems Army? But… individual names had been deregulated. Of course. 

"CC-2224."

"You'll never be more than a number to them." Hunter's voice in his head was almost accusatory now. 

Rampart huffed. "Oh. It seems he's gone AWOL."

That took Crosshair by surprise. Cody? AWOL? "...I see."

"It seems clone loyalty is not as advertised anymore." Rampart mused, not missing the opportunity to compare them to commodities. "It's funny, all these clones around you seem to go missing."

Crosshair felt his fists clenching again, the bruise on his knuckles alerting him. Why? Why did everyone that might have kept the crippling loneliness at bay leave? First the Batch, then Howser on Ryloth for as annoying as he'd been, now Cody? 

"Is there a problem?" Rampart narrowed his eyes. 

"No… sir." Why did the honorific taste like ashes in his mouth? 

"Then you're dismissed."

Crosshair walked out slowly, stiff as durasteel. What the hell was wrong with him? 

During the infrequent times Miria had been on Republic flagships during the war, she'd always found herself stopping at a wall somewhere. Every ship had one, started usually in the dead of night by some brother who couldn't sleep because the bunk next to his was empty. So he'd find a unadorned expanse of wall, take his vibroblade, and carve his broken heart into the durasteel in the form of a name and CT number. At some point, it had simply become tradition to have a memorial on board. Clones left little trinkets to the fallen, paused on rotations to remember, and occasionally whispered a prayer to whatever faith the galaxy had offered them comfort in. 

Miria had always counted herself lucky there was no such wall on the Havoc Marauder. It was almost a mark of pride, in the way the guys preened about their perfect success rate. They'd never failed a mission. She'd never lost a soldier, never stood at the foot of a covered casket and bid a good man goodbye to a chorus of Mando’a. 

Maybe that pride was why the wall in front of the medbay hit her so hard. She'd gotten up early, heading for the galley to make tea and caf for the boys, when she saw it. 

It was a small shelf, mounted at about head height for her. Clearly the team had been in on it, judging by the trinkets left there. A box of toothpicks from Hunter, a detached and heavily modified rifle scope from Tech, a miniature whiskey bottle from Echo, and a single unlit cigarra from Wrecker sat tucked in Lula's lap where Omega had offered her up after Wrecker gave her the toy. The doll was listed to the side, button eyes scuffed and well-loved as it waited for someone to pull it into their arms for comfort. Etched into the wall just above the little shrine was the name. The only name, the only soldier Miria had ever lost.

Crosshair. CT-9904. 

Her knees buckled before she realized it, the Jedi sinking to the floor with a ragged little noise. Her palms pressed into the durasteel, fighting the shakes and losing. 

"Miri?" Omega whispered behind her. 

"He isn't dead…" Miria sobbed. "He isn't dead, Omega."

"I know. But… Echo thought it would help." The girl walked over, putting her hand on Miria's shoulder. "Don't cry, Miri."

Miria didn't want to cry. She wanted to scream. Crosshair wasn't dead! He didn't belong in a memorial to the fallen! She wasn't giving up on him! "This feels like surrender." She finally whispered, swallowing her tears before they could steal her tenuous breath and have her hacking up her lungs here on the floor. 

"Nobody's giving up." Omega said with an adult firmness that startled Miria. "Wrecker said, if we all left something, that maybe it would bring him back. Like a call."

Miria looked up at the shrine again through wet lashes. "A call?"

"We've tried everything else. He's got to make the choice on his own, but maybe it'll reach him. You said the Force works in mysterious ways." 

Miria wiped her cheeks. "You're… you're right, little love." She finally croaked. "I'll leave something too."

"Good. I'll turn the caf maker on, you go wash your face." Omega helped her to her feet. 

Miria shuffled to the fresher slowly, splashing cool water over her stinging cheeks before creeping back to the bunkroom. The rest of her friends were sleeping, in various states of sprawled out, so she carefully opened Crosshair’s old footlocker and pulled out the envelope of his letters. There was a small stack of blank pages at the bottom, future letters for her that he hadn't gotten to write.

She picked them and a stylus up, sitting cross-legged on the floor with the locker as a desk for a moment before pressing the ink to the page. Her handwriting might not be as good as it once was, but why should that stop her now? 

My darling,

I've read every letter you wrote me-

[thelreads]

huh. i'm not sure that this is what they meant when said "duplicates". quirks are just genes, literally. im like 100% sure that what ujiko meant was that they created a copy of his quirk genes, but the original quirks can be very much stored in those little plate things the same way as duplicates. duplicating is what they do when they just need more of the same quirk, not the only way to store a quirk.

Yes, they are genes, but remember, they also bring forth physical changes to a person, even if some are subtle. They can clone Ojiro's quirk, but it would be a monumental process to add the physical change of the tail on a Nomu, but All for One can remove every single physical change the genes bring as well when he removes the quirk from someone.

And the logistics problem is that the ORIGINAL OfA can't be stored and passed to another person, nothing do far pointed at that being possible, to just put a quirk into a dish and use it as needed, from what we know it needs to be directly transferred by AfO, because the doctor can't transfer a "real" quirk, he can only implement a copy of it.

If AfO made a duplicate of his own quirk, he could receive it from the Doc after he gave the original to Shigaraki, but he can't drop the original in a box for later use and then walk around with the copy. Shigaraki needs to have the original in him before AfO goes to jail after the events of Kamino, otherwise this whole thing doesn't make sense.

[oriigami]

Ultra Analysis: Kamui Woods

Type: Ranged/Support

Stats:

B+ in Power

A- in Speed

C in Intelligence

B in Technique

A in Binding Force

Summary: A newer pro hero with a serious countenance and a strong sense of justice, he greatly respects All Might’s superiority. Breaking into the League of Villains’ hideout in the vanguard together with All Might allowed him to demonstrate his true power! That show of power at the Kamino incident caused his popularity to rapidly increase. After the incident, he received an invitation from Edgeshot to become a personal teammate. His joy lasted for only two hours before he started sobbing. 

Relationships:

All Might: Pro hero coworker

Edgeshot: Team member

Recovery Girl:

Mt. Lady: Mentor/mentee and....?

[snippy-tano]

Hi there! I absolutely adore your writing it makes me smile everytime you post something new and brightens my day... that being said I'm going through a tough time rn and was just asking if you could write something comforting with any clone really ( I literally love them all 😅).

Wow it’s been a while since I’ve posted. I’ve been crazy busy and time kinda got away from me. I’ve still been writing, just other things. But for some reason, I just decided to revisit some of these asks and then this happened. I’m not sure where it came from, maybe I just needed to hear something like this and it all just came out. I’m not sure why I picked Fives either, he just seemed like the only choice for this. I hope that’s alright.

Either way, I hope you enjoy this anon! I hope this helps makes things easier and makes you smile. Things will get better. It may not be right away, but they will. I believe they will. :))

((there wasn’t a specific song I had in mind when I was writing this, but after the fact this song came on shuffle and I think it was meant to be. I’ve linked it here, but it doesn’t have to played while reading. I just think it fits and it’s where the name of the one-shot comes from. Just make sure you turn on subtitles if you want to know the lyrics :) ))

Masterlist is here.

Taglist is here.

Tagging: @pro-fangirls-unsocial-life @marvel-starwars-nerd @mackstrut @dissapointingpancake @ahsokatano-thetogruta @welcometothepedroverse @lightning-wolffe @fractiouskat @mandaloriandin @lussyyung @lowkeyodinsong @Str-wrs-fics @bantha-shit @badbatch-simp24 @katelynnwrites @s1st3r @leotatombs @torchbearerkyle @rain-on-kamino @the-navistar-carol @bombshe77 @lucyysthings 

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Lonely St.

For the first time in almost 12 hours, you stepped out of the makeshift med tent. 

Every breath you took felt like a monumental effort and your very bones ached. Your hands trembled slightly as you rested your hands on your hips. You let your eyes fall shut and your face tip up to the dark sky. 

You took a shuddering breath, feeling yourself sway slightly. You forced your eyes open as you glanced around. Most of the camp was quiet, save for the tent behind you. 

The sight of your stained hands drew your attention downward. Your stomach turned as you looked away. Your feet followed suit and soon you were stumbling towards the nearby showers. Your boots sunk into the mud with every step, making your legs ache with every step. 

You finally stumbled into the empty showers and turned on the water, picking up a small dry rag and scrubbing violently at your hands. You sniffled as you used more force than was probably necessary, trying to rid yourself of the physical reminder of your terrible shift. 

After what felt like hours of scrubbing, you stopped, seeing the skin of your hands and arms had been rubbed raw. The water turned off and you brushed a hand under your eyes. You shook out your hands and ringed out the damp rag. With another sniffle, you turned and headed for the medic barracks. 

You didn’t pass many others on your way, after all, it was the middle of the night. Your fellow medics had practically kicked you out of the tent, despite your protests. Even though you were beyond exhausted, you weren’t sure if you’d be able to sleep and would much rather be productive. But you’d been kicked out, probably rightfully so. 

The walk was a long one, but the quiet was nice. After spending hours in a high stakes situation, the silence was almost deafening. 

Your eyes began to burn and you quickly bit down hard on your lip. 

No. You were not going to cry. 

Not here.

Not now.

Your nails dug into your palms, causing you to wince slightly. You couldn’t reach your bunk fast enough. All you wanted to be was alone.

But the sound of your name from to your left halted everything. 

You instinctively turn, surprise evident on your face as you face the equally surprised Fives. 

He looked just as tired as you were, dirt covering his armor and face. Even though it was late, you could clearly see the deep circles under his eyes. 

“What are you still doing up?” He asked quietly, taking a step closer. 

“Uh- I uh-“

You thought hard, eyes squinting as you tried to remember what you were doing. 

Fives called your name again and you swallowed thickly. “I just got off, so I’m uh, heading to my bunk to get an hour or so of sleep before I go back.”

Fives sighed. “You need more sleep than that.” 

Your jaw clenched painfully. “I'm fine. You should rest. I’ll see you at breakfast.”

“Woah hey.” Fives said, reaching for you as you tensed. “You okay?”

It took you far too long to spit out a yes and he noticed. 

The ARC trooper sighed again before wrapping an arm around your shoulders. “Come on. I’ll walk you.”

You tried to push him off, but after such a long day your effort didn’t have any effect. Eventually you gave up and let Fives steer you towards the makeshift medic barracks. 

He held the flap of the tent open for you and you ducked inside quickly, noting that it was mostly empty. You headed immediately for your bunk in the back corner and dug out your small bag from underneath. When you looked up, Fives was nowhere to be seen.

You tried not to be disappointed. 

Without letting yourself think about it too much, you quickly changed out of your soiled uniform and pulled on something clean and more suitable for sleeping. It wasn’t warm enough, not by a long shot, but it was better than nothing. 

You were just hanging up your uniform when you saw movement out of the corner of your eye. You looked up to see Fives had returned. 

He moved quietly, careful not to disturb anyone else. As he got closer, you could see he had washed the dirt off his face and was carrying a small bundle of fabric in his hands. You watched with narrowed eyes as he stopped beside you, bending down to whisper quietly in your ear. 

“Climb in, I’ll be right there.”

Your heart thudded loudly in your chest. “Wha-“

“Hurry up. It’s kriffing cold.” 

A shiver wracked your body and you were moving before you could protest further, crawling under the flimsy blanket in your bunk. You pulled the covers close under your chin and glanced over at Fives as he quickly took off his armor, without making much of a sound. 

The light was minimal, but the light of the two moons peeking through the cracks of the tent bathed him in a soft light. 

You’d become close with Fives not long after arriving as a medic. At first you didn’t really talk with anyone else, sat alone in the mess aboard the Resolute, preferred to just go about your duties and not get attached. But Fives had plopped right down across from you at one lunch and never looked back. On the surface, you two were totally different. On paper it didn’t make sense.

But you couldn’t imagine your life without him. He made you smile on days when you needed it the most. He always seemed to be able to read your mind, much like tonight. You didn’t want to bother anyone and planned on coming back to your bunk to lay in silence for an hour and then go back to work. You didn’t want to sleep. You didn’t think you could.

But somehow, Fives just knew.

He knew what you needed the most was someone to keep you company. 

Yes you preferred to be alone, but that didn’t mean you wanted to be lonely. 

Especially on a night like this.

Fives piled his armor in a small bunch against the wall of the tent, tossing part of the fabric bundle at your feet. You buried your face into your pillow, cheeks warming as he grabbed the back of his blacks and pulled it over his head. 

Now was not the time for this. 

There was some shuffling and you looked up to see Fives spreading another thin blanket over you. Then he motioned with his hand. 

“Come on, scoot over.”

“But-“

“Move before I just lay on top of you.”

If your face wasn’t burning before, it definitely was now. But you did move quickly, scooting to the very edge of the incredibly small bunk, facing away from where Fives was moving. There was a brief moment when the blankets shifted that you felt a rush of cold air, but it dissipated quickly and was immediately replaced by nothing but warmth.

You squeezed your eyes shut tight, feeling the bed shift as Fives got himself comfortable. Well as comfortable as he could be crammed on a bunk meant only for barely one person. 

Sleep. Come on, just karking fall asleep already.

You were trying your hardest to will yourself to fall asleep, but nothing was working. 

You were jolted out of your spiraling thoughts when you felt an arm snake around your waist and pull you backwards. Your eyes snapped open and you tensed. 

“Relax.”

“Fives-“

“I said relax. Just go to sleep okay? I’m not going anywhere.”

His breath at your ear did nothing to calm you down, nor did the way his feet tangled with yours. Despite him telling you to relax, you just couldn’t seem to do it. 

His arm tightened and you felt him press his lips to your hairline, speaking softly. “Please. Get some rest.”

All at once, the fight in you left in an instant. Your eyes burned and you curled in on yourself, or tried to. Fives seemed to anticipate this and held on tighter, not letting you push away. 

“It’s okay. I’m not going anywhere.”

You slumped against him and grabbed onto his hand, holding on for dear life as the day's events caught up with you. Fives never once let go and continued to whisper quietly to you. 

Eventually, you must have dozed off because you awoke to sunlight streaming through the crack in the tent. The tent was still quiet and nearly empty, but you could hear the camp waking up outside. You rubbed a hand against your face and let out a breath. 

There was a grunt from behind you and you tensed as the arm around you tightened. The events from the night before came rushing back and you felt a blush spread across your face at the thought of spending the night with your best friend that you probably, most likely had developing feelings for. 

Now would be a great time to get out of here. 

You started to move, only for Fives to clamp down even harder. His forehead thumped against your head as his nose brushed the skin of your shoulder. 

“Five more minutes.”

You relented, knowing that when it came to sleep, Fives didn’t mess around and if he wanted to stay, you weren’t going anywhere. 

He drifted back off behind you and you took the time to think back on the day before. It had been a hard day, one of the hardest you’ve had in a long time.  And it would continue to be hard for a while. But you’d get through it. You had to. So you would.

A few minutes later, Fives began to stir. He sighed deeply, pulling himself even closer, despite you thinking that wasn’t possible. 

“Mornin’” he rasped and you laughed lightly.

“Good morning.”

“Feeling better?” 

You sighed. “Yeah. I am.”

He grunted in response. “Good.”

“We really need to get up Fives.”

“No we don’t.”

“Yes we do.”

“No. I’m an ARC trooper, I can do what I want.”

You snorted before checking your small watch. “Alright fine but I need to get up. My shift starts soon.” 

“No you don’t. I forbade it.”

You couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across your face at his whining. Fives must have noticed because you could feel him smile too as his nose brushed the underside of your jaw. 

“Fine but don’t say I didn’t try.”

Your smile faded slightly. “Thank you Fives.”

“Hmm, for what?” 

You rolled your eyes. “For last night. I didn’t realize how much I needed it.”

He hummed softly. “Anytime. Seriously though. I slept great so I want to do it again.”

Your face warmed and you gave him a playful shove. He laughed quietly, squeezing just a bit tighter. He shifted abruptly and you turned to see him hovering above you. Your heart thumped loudly in your chest. His eyes searched your face and you felt totally frozen. 

Then he leaned down and your eyes fluttered closed without thinking. His lips pressed against your forehead and you let out the breath you had been holding. He pulled back slightly, but still lingered for a moment. Your hands fisted in his blacks, wondering if you should just forget about your shift just to spend a few more moments here, right now. 

Fives pulled back before you could act on that impulse. You opened your eyes and he smiled at you. You smiled back and then he was moving, standing up and stretching. 

You flopped back down against the pillow, watching as he gathered up his armor and began putting it on. He sat down on the edge of the bed and began clicking his leg armor on. He stole a glance behind and poked at your leg. 

“Come on, we’re both going to be late.”

You gave him another shove before climbing out of bed yourself. Together you got ready with hushed whispers and quiet laughs. 

And yesterday’s troubles slowly eased and were replaced by nothing but warmth and him. 

You knew that days like yesterday were only going to get more frequent and more intense. And you didn’t know what this was with Fives. But those dark days didn’t seem all that scary when he was smiling at you. Those days wouldn’t haunt you as much as long as he stayed by your side. 

Your future was uncertain.

But as long as Fives was there, you knew you’d not only survive, but live. 

[alderaani]

Gathering

summary: fox and the other commanders of the coruscant guard rendezvous for five well deserved minutes of R&R. AO3 | Series

a/n: hi hello am momentarily back from the dead and have miraculously found the post button. risked my duolingo streak to get this one finished so i hope you enjoy loll. this one is actually partly inspired by this very lovely piece of art by @bladelei 

-

Fox clung to the emergency escape ladder on the side of the GAR barracks, 0300 hours closing in around him.

Frankly, the chrono had long ceased meaning something. It could have been two in the afternoon. It could have been 8 in the morning. Fox’s office always looked the same regardless, and so did the lower levels, where nobody seemed to know how to sleep either. At this point he figured he was practically a native.

Except...he never could quite get used to the dark, to the cramped, damp stench of the back alleys and crawlspaces that riddled Coruscant’s underbelly like wood-worm. His chest always felt that little bit too tight down there, on levels so deep that the comm-relay went patchy. Stone’s claustrophobia was worse, though, so he usually volunteered to lead any raids that required going under.

There hadn’t been any for two months, until today. Fucking spice runners. If there was a bottom to this planet’s moral depravity, Fox had given up hoping they’d ever find it.

He hitched his heel over the side of the barracks building and hauled, his joints protesting as he slid ungracefully onto the roof. Alpha-17 would have beaten his hide had he ever seen such poor form. But Alpha-17 was a very long way away. As things were there was only his own pride to worry about, and he’d stopped being overly concerned about that a long time ago. There were too many little brothers around to have an ego, and too many people to fight for scraps over on their behalf.

That was perhaps the only other thing he’d inherited from Coruscant that he liked: no shame.

Fox prised himself to his feet, rain drumming off the plates of his armour and sitting in murky pools on top of the rusting durasteel. No doubt Thire would be bitching about it when he arrived. The thought made him smile.

Coruscant was different when it rained. It made it possible to almost like it. Not like during the artificial summers, when dust storms formed in the hot, dry air tunnels in the lower levels and the stench of the alleys was so thick you could taste it. The city looked too exposed in sunlight, too much like the patched, lumbering beast that it was. A cloner’s nightmare, he’d always thought - stray blocks mashed together and on top of each other into some shambling sort of order. There was no finesse, none of the streamlined, wasteless perfection that Kamino had bartered away its soul for.

Not that he thought Coruscant necessarily had a soul. But it couldn’t be denied that it had something.

The holocasters called it a monument to a long legacy of intergalactic diversity. Fox called it a testament to hypocrisy, a hollow veneer of glittering expense on top of dereliction.

Nobody truly knew what went on in the depths of the planet’s underbelly. Nobody really cared - and that, in essence, was the whole problem.

It was impossible to understand how anyone could look at the millions of people crammed, poor and scavenging into the limitless dark, and think the Senate was anything but rotten at the heart. The rain blurred the city’s raw edges, let the buildings bleed into each other, and made the neon lights glow a little warmer. It allowed you to see it the way the dreamers did, if only for a moment; where skyscrapers were credit chips and sidewalks were red ribbons of destiny, leading you to something bigger. Fox paused on the roof edge for a moment and released his bucket seals, looking out across the skyline before tilting his head towards atmo and shivering as the first drops made contact with his skin.

Viewed like this, he could almost believe that Coruscant had a heart.

That was how it got you.

“Caf’s getting cold.”

Fox turned his head and gave a lazy salute in the direction the voice had come from. He spared a last, lingering glance for the GAR plaza and the distant hulking shape of the Geonosis monument, before turning his back and vaulting over a protruding stretch of vent piping, pushing away the heavy dread in his gut. Thire was always first there, somehow - had beaten them even that time he’d been on the Chancellor’s protection detail and the Banking Clan representative had filibustered on the senate floor for 12 hours. They’d long since given up trying to work out how he managed it.

He always made the best caf, and as usual, had a pot of it waiting on the field stove they’d gerryrigged to feed off the building's mains.

“You know I’m not picky how I drink it,” Fox said, making his way to the squat, crumbling overhang Thire was wedged under, his legs crossed and head in one hand, caf mug in the other.

They never had figured out what this thing had been, originally. The GAR buildings themselves were old converted warehouses, completed in a hurry and obvious about it. Thorn had asked why the Republic had been so unprepared for them, when they’d ordered them and known they were coming, but Fox found it hard to be surprised that nobody had wanted to make room for the clone army until they had no other choice.

Still, there were perks. Like this strange, dilapidated little lean to, shaped like one of the public shuttle stop shelters. Whatever it had once been, Fox was grateful. If anyone looked on their trackers all the commanders would be exactly where they were supposed to be, tucked up in the barracks. But if a trooper thought they might follow up on that, they wouldn’t actually be able to find them.

It was the only place his head felt truly quiet, empty of everything but the indifferent hum of the distant skylanes.

“At least take your fucking boots off,” Thire griped, not even looking up through his fingers as Fox stepped under the welcome shelter of the corrugated roof.

“Too sodding wet,” Fox said, setting down his helmet instead. As it made contact with the duraplast he heard a muffled ping, and instinctively he paused, reaching his hands back out towards it.

“Don’t even think about it,” Thire said, peeking up to glare through the gaps in his fingers.

Fox smiled weakly and reached for his wrist comm instead.

“Usually, I would listen to you,” he said, ignoring his brother’s dismissive snort. “But I haven’t heard from Cody.”

Cody, who was pinned down at Point Rain in the last chatter from the brass he’d heard. Cody, stuck on Geonosis, the place where clones went to die. Fox had been dreaming in visions of red dust for days, could feel the memory of blistering heat in his lungs. It was times like this that made him feel useless, that made the armour against his skin feel like a lie. What good was he here, the Chancellor's puppet, when out on the war front his little brothers bled and died for the little comforts this place didn't think it could live without?

The silence on the roof immediately changed quality, gaining a tight, alert edge. Thire’s gaze sharpened, his dark eyes glinting through the slit in his fingers.

“You want me to take it?” he asked, quiet, and then when Fox shook his head, nodded and turned to the stove, the clinks and gentle roar of the flame settling against the night.

Fox swallowed the lump in his throat at the gentle provision of privacy and opened the message, reading it several times before the words sunk in. He read it again for good measure, and then couldn’t stop the laugh that bubbled out of him, or the salt that burned his eyelids.

Thire turned back, a steaming mug of fresh caf in his hands, and passed it over with a grin, that terrible tightness dissipating from his demeanour.

“He’s alright then?”

“Yeah,” Fox said, sliding down the wall with both hands wrapped around the mug, then thunking his head back against the brickwork. He laughed again, his breath streaming up around his face. “Lucky bastard.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Thire said, clinking their mugs together and resting one closed fist against the side of Fox’s thigh plate. It was a comfortable weight, one that kept him grounded as a layer of crushing worry stripped away, leaving only exhaustion behind.

When his mug was empty and his belly was warm, Fox shuffled a packet of cigs out of his utility belt and flipped open the top, running his nails across the top of the tightly rolled tubes. A present from Bly on his last shore leave, some wanky brand of tobacco that tasted cleaner, sharper than the cheap shit that was available on a trooper’s meagre ration packet.

Thire made a funny sighing sound, and Fox rolled his head towards him, a smirk colouring his lips.

“Come on, I deserve it.”

“You always say that,” Thire grumbled, but still lit the cig on the lit stove and passed it back.

Fox took a long, savouring drag, held it, then blew out the smoke, relaxing further at the way the sharp smoke contrasted with the smell of the damp air.

“That’s because it’s always true,” he said, then dodged the elbow Thire threw towards him. “Long shift?”

“The fucking worst.”

Fox watched as Thire refilled his caf cup, taking in the slant of his mouth, the limp curl to his hair. He’d been on prison duty the last tenday, in one of the rowdiest cell blocks. Fox found it difficult not to worry about how hard Thire took the bad days, how personally the punches landed. He’d still not settled into ranking at Commander, still mentally stuck in the rat-race of the lower echelons and the need to distinguish oneself, whether that be through marks, appearance or notoriety. He reminded Fox of himself so strongly sometimes that it hurts.

“You wanna talk about it?” he asked, tapping away the ash on his cig end and knowing the offer was useless.

Thire grinned, crooked, flash-fire warmth lighting up his eyes and for one brief moment reinstating the boyhood he’d never properly gotten to enjoy. “Nah. Same shit, different day, right?”

“Ain’t that the truth,” came a call from behind them, followed by sharp footsteps and skittering debris. “Smoking that shit’ll kill you, you know?”

Before Fox could even protest, the cigarette was out of his hands. Thorn examined it, shrugged, and took a drag.

“Where the heck did you get this? Tastes whack,” he said, dumping his helmet off to the side and nudging Fox with his boot toe. “Budge up.”

Fox rolled his eyes, kicked him back, and reached for the packet again.

“Give it back if you don’t want it.”

“Never said that,” Thorn said, landing heavily with a groan. He pulled in another drag and tilted his head. “Yep, I’m used to it.”

“Stone on his way?” Fox asked, lighting his new cigarette and leaning out of the way as Thorn discarded armour in his usual theatrical, busy pantomime.

“Yeah,” he said, cig hanging between his teeth as he wrestled first with one vambrace and then the other. “Told me to pass on that you can go fuck yourself for leaving him with that report on seized slug slime aphrodisiac shipments.”

Fox smirked again and crossed his arms, settling in to wait in anticipation for the tongue lashing he’d get when Stone finally showed his face. Cody was fine, the rain was falling, and his Commanders were gathered around him.

For this moment, at least, everything was as it should be.

[jessepinwheel]

Hey so if you’re still taking prompts for sequential logic how about some Jedi/clone interactions (not involving anakin bc while I love seeing him actually experience consequences I despise the dude) something like plo and the Wolfpack or luminara and her clones maybe?

okay I fixed it now

Sometimes, Mace wonders what he ever did to deserve being the Head of the Order during a war. He looks over his stacks upon stacks of datapads that seem to be reproducing now that Dooku has signed the ceasefire agreement, then sighs deeply. He's not getting anywhere with these tonight, and besides, there are more pressing matters at hand.

He finds Ponds in the cockpit, looking over the navigation console and looking uncharacteristically restless.

"Is everything okay, Commander?" Mace asks.

Ponds doesn't respond immediately. He flips through another couple screens as he gathers his words, then says, "Yes, sir. Just nerves, that's all."

Mace pulls up a seat. "Is Kamino so frightening?" he asks.

Ponds grimaces. "It's not that. It's just...so many terrible things happened to us there. To me. The kind of terrible things I didn't even know were terrible until I was deployed into the real world and met you, sir--I wouldn't wish Kamino's training on anyone, not even my worst enemies," Ponds says. "But at the same time, Kamino is my home, and in all honesty, I miss it sometimes. Things were simpler then. At least I knew what to expect, and at least my brothers were always there by my side."

"Your brothers will still be with you now that the war is over," Mace says. "You're safe, now."

Ponds is quiet for a few moments longer, then says, "None of us expected to survive beyond the end of the war, sir. For a lot of us, the war ending is a lot scarier than the war itself--the prospect of dying without fulfilling the purpose we were made for."

"There's no shame in living a life without war," Mace replies.

"I...I think you misunderstand me, sir," Ponds says. "I don't mean we're scared to live without fighting. I mean the understanding for many of us growing up was that, once the war was over, we would no longer be necessary, and would be disposed of accordingly."

Mace goes cold all at once. He had known on some level that the clones feared obsolescence--it was obvious in the way they operated, the way they felt it was necessary to be useful at all times, but he had hoped, perhaps naively, that those fears would be resolved with the end of the war.

"We would never do that to you," Mace says. "You know that, Ponds, right? No matter what, we wouldn't...execute all of your brothers."

"I know that. Everyone who's met you knows that," Ponds says. "But all those millions of clones who were never deployed? Kamino is all they've ever known. After doesn't exist for them, and that's...it's terrifying, sir."

Mace feels heavy, like the very air is dragging him down. The hum of the hyperdrive, taking them to Kamino, feels more foreboding than ever. The task that looms ahead will be more complicated than Mace ever anticipated.

Ponds clears his throat. "I just wanted you to know what to expect, sir."

---

It is not raining when they land--it's such a drastic change from when Mace had first discovered the clones six months ago that it makes Kamino seem like a different planet entirely.

"No rain is a good omen," Ponds says.

"Let's hope so," Mace replies.

The two of them go in. Today, they have one simple objective--to officially announce the ceasefire to the clones and begin the process of moving them properly from Kamino into Jedi custody so they can begin new lives as civilians out in the galaxy. A monumental undertaking, considering clones are not yet considered citizens of the Republic, and, as Mace is becoming increasingly aware, their background has in no way prepared them for civilian life.

"How do you want to approach this, sir?" Ponds asks, settling in parade rest. "If you like, we can speak to the Kaminoans first to negotiate the logistics of transporting brothers and transferring the relevant personnel data. Alternately, I can give you a tour of the facilities--I know you've visited once before, but I understand you had been a bit short on time then."

"That's one way to say it."

"Or, if you prefer, I can message the battalions to assemble so you can speak to them," Ponds says. "Any of these will be appropriate actions, sir."

Mace considers the choice before him. It doesn't make that much difference in the end, because they are all things he needs to get done, but still. He's the Head of the Order. The first impressions he makes now will reflect on all the Jedi.

"Would it be possible for me to speak to some of your brothers without the assembly?" Mace asks. "There will be time for formal arrangements later, but I want to meet the men on level ground, first. I'll get a better idea of who we're working with, that way."

"Yes, sir," Ponds says. "I can message them ahead so nobody's caught unawares. Surprises make the shinies nervous."

So the two of them begin visiting the undeployed troops. Ponds leads the way because he knows his brothers more than Mace does. It's...enlightening. There's over two million clones in Kamino, an incomprehensibly large number of people to begin with, but they're not just the older clones Mace has become accustomed to--they're a wide range of ages, down to the youngest batches who are about six years old and look...well, like younglings. It's impossible to think of them as anything else, when they're so small with wide eyes and baby fat on their cheeks, looking barely as old as the youngest Padawans.

"The Kaminoans anticipated the war would last three to five years," Ponds says. "So they generated batches accordingly, so that the last batches would reach fighting maturity by the third year of the war to replete our numbers."

"This is horrifying," Mace says, looking out over a live fire training exercise being run by younglings. Shaak would have assuredly stopped this if she’d known they were still running these exercises after the ceasefire, but two million men is simply too many for one Jedi to manage. "They're too young for this."

Ponds is silent for a moment, then says, "We all went through this, sir. We begin with live weapons when we're three."

Mace's stomach sinks. He'd known things were bad--it was impossible not to, after everything he’s heard and seen from his troops--but this is even worse than he could have imagined. "You shouldn't have. They--that never should have happened to you."

Ponds doesn't seem to know how to respond to that. He looks out over the cadets for a few seconds longer, then says, "Perhaps we should move on."

Ponds continues the tour in this way, showing Mace the facilities and letting him speak to some of the clones. A lot of them are nervous to see him, a nervousness that Mace can't entirely dispel.

"Please don't hold it against them. A lot of brothers find the Jedi frightening," Ponds says. "The cadets hear stories about all the things the Jedi can do. You can't really sort out the lies from the truth when the truth is already so strange."

It's not hard to imagine how that could come to pass. For these young clones, the world beyond the walls of Kamino may as well not exist. Something like the Jedi and their powers in the Force could easily seem monstrous.

"Do I frighten you?" Mace asks. "Or the men?"

"No, sir," Ponds says. "You've proven yourself nothing to be afraid of. I would trust you with my life, and the lives of my men without hesitation."

That was true enough--Ponds had already shown so much trust and loyalty that Mace would never doubt it. But... "There's something else, isn't there? That's not all."

Ponds pauses. "Well...sometimes the things you do are terrifying, sir. Sometimes when you use the Force, we can feel it like a wave across the battlefield. And then you lift up tanks and break droids apart with your bare hands and it feels...it's like there's some kind of invisible monster on the field." He looks aside. "I trust you without question, sir. But sometimes it's hard to trust your Force the same way.

"It's not the same for everyone," Ponds continues. "Some brothers think it's really cool, and for the record I'm glad that if there's a force like that on the battlefield, it's you using it to protect us. I'm just too much of a pessimist to not think about if it were the other way around. Even if I know you'd never use it...it doesn't change the fact that you could kill any one of us with your mind, sir."

It's not the answer Mace had wanted to hear, but it's the truth. Mace can't change the abilities that he has, nor can he control how his men feel or really have them experience for themselves the Force the way he and the rest of the Jedi understand it. The clones will learn to not fear the Force over time, or they won't. That will be another struggle to deal with down the line. "Thank you for telling me, Ponds."

"Anytime, sir," Ponds replies.

Ponds' tour lasts until late afternoon, and Mace feels exhausted just from everything he's seen. The clones are good people in such deplorable circumstances that it makes his heart hurt to think of how much they'd suffered to come to this point. He wonders if he'll really be able to give these people the fulfilling lives they deserve, but at this point...anything would be better than this.

"I think that's everything, sir," Ponds says. Mace can feel his exhaustion in waves, though he's hiding it admirably. It must be an ordeal of an entirely different nature for Ponds, to see his home and the things he had experienced with fresh eyes.

"We haven't visited the medical wing yet," Mace says. "Shouldn't I talk to them, too?"

Ponds doesn't respond right away. "I don't know if that's the best idea, General."

Mace's brow furrows. "Why not?"

Ponds grimaces. "Medical is...they're different from the rest of us. They keep to themselves, and what happens back here isn't really..." he trails off. "They're pulled out of most combat modules and get trained directly by the Kaminoans. They don't talk about what goes on there with outsiders."

Mace isn't sure he likes that. He doesn't think the medical clones would do anything to harm their brothers, but the secrecy and the disconnect between medical and the rest of the clones makes him uneasy. "I'd like to try all the same, Commander."

Ponds nods. "If you say so, sir. I'll show you to the central medbay."

With that, he takes Mace down the corridors in grim silence. It seems that not only do the medical track clones not interact much with other clones, the central medbay is completely separate from the rest of the training areas.

"This is the Kaminoans' part of the facility. They grow the tubies here and do whatever research it is they do when they aren't breathing down our necks," Ponds explains. "Most clones aren't authorized to be here outside of medics and brothers needing urgent medical attention. If I weren't escorting you, I wouldn't be allowed to be here."

Mace finds there's a haunting feeling about walking through Kamino--not just the impersonal white walls but the feeling of nothingness wherever they go. In the Temple, there were always people no matter where you went, though less since the beginning of the war. There were marks of life, of art adorning the walls and an impression of comfort and safety sunk into the very stones like the Temple was a living creature protecting its wards. For all the people living in Kamino, it feels cold and empty, and Mace tries not to shiver from it.

The central medbay looks familiar the way all medbays look vaguely familiar. It's set up similar to the medbays on the flagships, though with much more space and equipment for complex medical operations like intensive care and surgery. It's busier than Mace thought it would be, with clones in medical uniforms moving between rooms and checking monitors and speaking with patients. Many--Mace might even venture to say most--of these clones, too, are alarmingly young.

"Why is there so much activity? The ceasefire was a week ago. People shouldn't be getting injured now," Mace says.

"Training hasn't stopped," Ponds says, as if training injuries bad enough to warrant this kind of care is commonplace and perfectly reasonable. "And they're probably handling long-term cases, too. Physical therapy and rehab for brothers who can get back to fighting condition. I don't really know all the specifics of what goes on in Medical--you would have to ask someone in medical track."

"Can we talk to anyone here?" Mace asks.

Ponds shakes his head. "They're pretty busy, so we won't bother them. Come this way--there's a workroom around the corner. There might be some people in there."

Mace follows Ponds out of the main medbay atrium into what looks like a small office. There's a number of holoscreens with patient monitoring information, as well as a few data terminals. Sure enough, there's two clones working on some kind of reports--not the youngest clones Mace has seen today, but unquestionably prepubescent.

"Medics," Ponds says. "Do you have a moment?"

The two medics startle, looking up at Ponds, then over at Mace. Immediately, the both of them scramble to their feet and salute. "Sir!" says one of them, with curly shoulder-length hair that's pinned back and a yellow tattoo of some kind of molecule under his eye. "We didn't know you were coming, Commander. General."

"At ease," Mace says. The two medics physically relax but Mace can still feel their anxiety clear through the Force. He thinks he understands more what Ponds means when he said surprises made the younger clones nervous.

"What do you--How can we help? Sirs?" asks the other medic, whose appearance is almost painfully regulation except that his uniform looks like it’s been slept in once or twice.

"General Windu wanted to see the medical wing and talk to some of the troopers," Ponds says.

"Is it--was there an issue? With the medbay operations? Sir?" the medic replies.

Mace shakes his head. "I'm not here to discipline anyone. I wanted to learn more about you and your brothers, that's all," he says. "What are your names?"

The medic with the tattoo speaks up first. "I'm Freeze, sir. My designation is CT-7721. My specialization is anesthesiology and pain management."

The medic without the tattoo says, much quieter, "CT-3122, sir. Advanced surgical operations and informatics. Sir."

"CT-3122 is your preferred form of address?" Mace asks.

CT-3122 nods. "Yes, sir."

This, too, makes Mace uncomfortable, but he makes no further comment. The clones are intelligent--CT-3122 is undoubtedly aware that many of his brothers have chosen names and that it is acceptable to do so, and has, for whatever reason, not picked a new name. That is itself a valid choice and it's not Mace's place to tell a clone how to express themself when they already have so little personal autonomy.

"Very well," Mace says. "Can you tell me about your work as a medic?"

Freeze nods and begins to explain the role of medical units.

"There is a finite number of combat units," Freeze says, posture stiff and formal. "A large number, but a limited supply nonetheless. Clones are expensive to manufacture and train, and the time from decantation to being ready for deployment is prohibitively long. Medical staff is necessary to reduce personnel waste and preserve unit function for as long as possible, both through medical care and analytics to determine efficient resource management." He glances at CT-3122. "'22 compiles a lot of the casualty reports that come back through Kamino. Sir."

CT-3122 nods.

The explanation continues in this way, deeply entrenched in the terms of manufacture and design and function--some of it sounds like it's recited, but not all of it. Mace has heard clones speak of themselves as units and expendable before, but never so frankly and matter-of-fact like this--it's not so hard to see where the disconnect between medical and the other clones comes from. Ponds looks mildly ill just listening to it.

"When do you start training as medics?" Mace asks.

"We get--um. We're assigned to different tracks at the same time as all other units. Sir," CT-3122 says.

"It's usually between the ages of three and four," Ponds supplies. "Clones are evaluated after exposure to live fire exercises and sorted to specializations that best suit their aptitudes and temperament."

"I see," Mace says. Even if going by physical age, six years old is much, much too early to make that kind of judgement. "So you two were selected for medical track because you had an aptitude for healing and helping your brothers?"

CT-3122 glances nervously at Freeze, then back at Mace. "I, um. I was selected for medical track because--um. I was insensitive to the sight of violent injury, and because I am--I don't get upset when I see my brothers die. Sir."

An awkward silence falls between the four of them. Ponds is very resolutely not looking anyone in the face, and CT-3122 has his fists clenched in the hem of his uniform. His posture stays steady, but his presence is curled into itself, like he expects to be struck and is bracing himself for the blow.

Somehow, Mace had thought things would be kinder in the medical wing, away from the sharp edge of the war. He is having many things disproven today.

"The trainers put me in medical track because I have a good memory and I wasn't scared of needles," Freeze says, subtly stepping in between Mace and CT-3122. "At least, that's what they told me, sir. I think sometimes they just pulled random units and made up reasons--I don't think the trainers spent that much time thinking about where we went."

"There's a lot of clones and not so many of the trainers," Ponds agrees. "Sometimes they just need to fill the numbers. When you're that young you can learn anything."

Objectively, this is a true statement, but Mace hates to hear it applied like this to the art of war.

"Is there anything else you wanted to know, sir?" Freeze asks.

"Yes," Mace says. "In light of the recent ceasefire, Ponds and I are arranging to transfer all the clones stationed at Kamino to other places. We have some options available already for you and your brothers--living in the Jedi Temple or in the new settlements in Alderaan or at one of our many Service Corps outposts, among other choices. But I wanted to know if there was anything you or your brothers wanted to do, now that the war is over. We can't promise anything, but we will do whatever we can to help you all achieve the lives you wish to live."

Panic strikes sharp through CT-3122's psyche, so much so that Mace has to force himself to not react. "We-We're getting reassigned? Sir?" he stammers. "But sir, we--these units still need us, if you assign us away, they'll--"

Freeze puts a hand on CT-3122's shoulder and makes a rapid set of signs with his opposite hand. CT-3122 watches, takes a deep breath, then replies with a string of his own signs.

It's not a sign language system for any language Mace knows--the best he can tell is that it's somewhat derived from standard military sign, but after that...he can't make heads or tails of it.

The silent conversation goes for about fifteen seconds longer, the two medics going through a whole rainbow of emotions, and then...

Ponds joins in, signing just as rapidly as the medics. Mace almost does a double-take. He had no idea Ponds knew whatever sign language system this is, much less that he was this fluent in it.

It takes about two minutes for the three clones to come to some kind of agreement, where Ponds pulls CT-3122 aside and tells Mace, "I need to talk to him in private for a little bit. We'll be right back."

CT-3122 still feels intensely upset, but it doesn't seem like he's scared of Ponds at all, just something about the situation.

"Of course," Mace says. "Take all the time you need."

Ponds nods and takes CT-3122 out of the room, still signing as he goes. Hopefully, Ponds can help whatever needs to be helped.

"General Windu, sir?" Freeze says.

"Yes, Freeze?"

"What you said about reassigning everyone in Kamino, is that true?"

Mace nods. "Now that the war is over, we want to help transition you and all your brothers into civilian life. Since you were commissioned by the Jedi, we feel it's our responsibility to help you the best ways we can."

"So this isn't...punishment?" Freeze asks tentatively.

"No," Mace says. "No, you're not being punished. None of you will be punished."

"Not even '22?" Freeze asks.

"No, I'm not punishing him--why would you think that?" Mace replies.

Freeze fidgets with the edge of his sleeve, then says, "You looked really upset earlier. When he told you why he became a medic. It's not his fault he's like that, sir. He's one of our best surgeons--he never panics no matter how bad it looks. He’s got the steadiest hands out of all of us."

"He said he wasn't affected by seeing his brothers die," Mace says, because he’s still not over the fact that CT-3122 had apparently seen at least one of his brothers die before the age of 4. If that’s any indication of how clones grow up in Kamino, then by any sane metric, every single clone must be horrifically traumatized.

Freeze swallows. "He's not--that's what the trainers said, not him. He doesn't show it, but that doesn't mean he doesn't care. He cares about us a lot, he really does."

Freeze is trying to protect CT-3122 from him, Mace realizes. Not just now, but earlier, too, trying to stand between him and CT-3122 as if that would make any kind of difference against a Jedi who, as Ponds had helpfully pointed out, could kill any of them with his mind.

Mace takes a deep breath. He hates to be treated like the kind of person who would abuse the men under his command, but these clones here in Kamino have never known anything else. Discipline was frequent and harsh, and every clone had to learn to stay in line or look like it well enough to pass the checks. He shudders to think what kind of damage that sort of upbringing would do to such young ones.

He supposes he will find out soon enough.

"I'm not going to hurt CT-3122, Freeze. I swear it on my own life, I'm not here to hurt any of you. None of this is your fault, and we just want to help," Mace says. "I know it's not easy to believe, and you've got no reason to take my word for it, with how you have been treated before, but we the Jedi want you and all your brothers to be happy."

Freeze looks at him with big amber eyes, as if sizing him up, then nods decisively. "Okay. General Ti kept her promises to let us grow our hair out and get tattoos without getting disciplined, so I'll believe you'll keep your promises too, sir."

"Thank you," Mace says. "I won't let you down."

Just then, the door slides open behind them and Ponds returns with CT-3122 pressed against his side. He's much more settled now--whatever Ponds said to him must have helped.

CT-3122 returns to Freeze's side, signing something that makes Freeze relax a bit more.

"I think we've stayed long enough," Ponds says. "We'll let you get back to your work, medics."

"Yes, C-Commander," CT-3122 says. "Thank you, sir."

"Thank you, General Windu, sir," Freeze says.

Without further ado, Ponds ushers Mace out of the workroom and out of the medbay.

"Was everything okay with CT-3122?" Mace asks.

Ponds sighs. "He was scared you were here to discipline him. He's never left Kamino--sending him away is about the scariest thing that can happen to him when he's still at least a year and a half out from deployment age."

"Were you able to explain things to him?"

"Not really," Ponds says. "There's...well, he's got reasons to be scared of disciplinary action--more than usual, I mean. It seems like some of the things medics do behind closed doors is behind closed doors for a reason."

Mace glances at him. "What, exactly, does that mean?"

Ponds rubs the back of his neck. "Sorry. I'm trying to explain it in a way that won't implicate anyone. It's not anything bad--it's good, what they're doing, it's just completely against regs, and if the people involved get caught, they could be decommissioned. Or executed by firing squad."

"The war is over now," Mace says. "Nobody's executing anyone."

"I know. I wouldn't have said this much if the war were still going, just..." Ponds shakes his head. "Never mind. Forget I said all that. The medics are saving lives in a way that would make some important people in the GAR upset, and 3122 was scared that someone had reported him. That's all you need to know, sir."

"I see," Mace says, though he doesn't really understand. He can't imagine why saving clone lives would make military officials unhappy--clones are, after all, a limited and valuable resource. "How did you get him to calm down?"

"I didn't," Ponds says. "I had to comm someone to explain things to him a bit better--CT-4444, or Carrion is his name. He's the chief medical officer of the 212th, and apparently he's 3122's big brother...sort of. Carrion’s older, so he got deployed way ahead of 3122, and 3122's been worried sick about it. Knowing Carrion's safe went a long way to making 3122 calm down about the end of the war. Carrion says he'll comm back later now that they're not on communications blackout, and that should help, too."

"Yes, I agree," Mace says. Hopefully CT-3122 and other similarly anxious clones can get some comfort in the coming days. He wishes he could offer some comfort himself, but the clones have only ever had the support of each other for so long that it would be the height of arrogance to think he could butt in on that. The sooner they can recall troops and reunite clones with the ones they care about, the better.

Speaking of CT-3122... Mace slips his hands into his sleeves. "I didn't know you knew sign language, Ponds."

Ponds nearly trips.

"It's very impressive," Mace continues. "I didn't recognize the sign from any major systems."

"It's...not from a major system, sir," Ponds says.

"I saw some similarities to military sign, but I couldn't tell more than that."

Ponds' presence is prickly and on-guard as he considers his next words. "There are some similarities, sir."

Mace takes a deep breath. "Ponds. I'm not going to punish you for knowing sign language. I was just surprised to see it, that's all. If I may ask, what system was it?"

"It's...it's our own, sir," Ponds says. "Clone sign. We developed it ourselves growing up here."

"You developed your own system of sign language?" Mace asks.

"Kamino has a lot of situations that require noise discipline," Ponds replies. "And the trainers were always listening in. The Kaminoans don't know the difference from military sign and the trainers didn't look closely enough to care. It's easier to conceal line of sight than earshot. Sign language was the natural solution."

"I've never seen any of the men use this sign language."

Ponds hesitates, then says, "We try not to use it in front of natborns, sir."

Mace supposes he can understand that. If the clones had come up with this sign language to communicate without the Kaminoans or their trainers listening in, it wouldn't make much sense to use sign right in front of them. "Could you teach me this sign language?" Mace asks.

Immediately, Ponds goes rigid. "Sir," he says tightly. "Sir, I can't do that."

"Ponds..."

"General, you...I trust you with my life, sir, but you have to understand. Growing up here in Kamino, we don't have anything to ourselves. The trainers are always watching, we don't choose our numbers or our clothes or our specializations or our bunks. We don't own our weapons or our uniforms or even ourselves. Sign language is the only form of privacy we have. Teaching anyone--even you--would be a massive breach of trust for all my brothers. I can't do it. Please don't--don’t ask me again, sir."

Ponds is practically shaking, and Mace sets a hand on his shoulder. He’s rarely ever seen Ponds get this...emotional. "Ponds. I'm sorry," Mace says. "I didn't mean to overstep like that. I won't ask again."

Ponds looks away. "Thank you, sir."

Mace starts walking again, heading towards the mess, and Ponds falls into step right by his side. The atmosphere is still awkward, but it eases with the silence.

"I think I have a better idea of how to handle your brothers, now. There's a lot of work we'll need to do to make sure we aren't just throwing all the men to the wolves out there," Mace says. He thinks for a bit, then says, "Maybe I should introduce Master Che to Freeze. I think she would like him."

"Freeze is a girl, sir," Ponds says.

Mace blinks. "Pardon?"

"You just called Freeze 'him'. She's a girl."

"Oh, my sincerest apologies," Mace says. He knows there are several clones who don't identify as male like their progenitor did, especially because the clones seem to have a foggy grasp on the concept of gender in the first place. With his battalion, though, someone had generally informed him beforehand. He tries to remember if anyone ever mentioned Freeze's gender, but he's pretty sure nobody had, and Ponds had already admitted he barely ever interacted with medics. "If it isn't rude to ask, how could you tell she’s a girl?"

"She notched her ID tag," Ponds replies. "Two notches in the left side to say she's a girl and wants to use those pronouns."

Mace can't even remember what Freeze's ID tag looked like. "And for CT-3122?"

"He's undecided, or doesn't care to say," Ponds says. "A lot of brothers are like that."

"Is there a system to...notching the ID tags?" Mace asks.

Ponds answers in the affirmative. "It's subtle enough the trainers don't notice. There's some similar kinds of markings for armor. If you're interested, that's something I can teach you. We don't really expect to get correctly gendered by natborns, but I don't think anyone would mind it if you did."

"I'd be honored, Commander," Mace says.

The two of them settle in for an especially bland dinner in the clones' mess and Ponds begins to explain the finer points of how he and his brothers express themselves. There's a lot more to it than Mace realized, even after six months of fighting by their side--a depth of surreptitious signals and markings meant to make themselves known to each other but anonymous to the overseers constantly looking over their shoulders.

If there's anything today has taught Mace, it's that there's so much he needs to learn when it comes to the clones, their background, and their culture--and he will. He’ll do whatever he can to make sure he does right by them.

He promised, after all.

[skyvaikers]

end of an era [ crosshair ]

SUMMARY — the pain of loss is not particular to one, it is a universal feeling that both crosshair and y/n feel.

WARNINGS — angst, fem!jedi!reader

———

YOU WERE WITH THEM when kamino fell. you grew up there, trained there and saw the very men before you grow up. you became close to them, and they became your brothers.

every good thing has to come to an end, that’s a fact. as a jedi, you accepted that, to a point. but as the cloning facility crumbled beneath your feet, sending horrific vibrations throughout your body, you knew it was the end of an era.

the dust cleared, and the seven of you stood on shaky ground. you, finally coming to the realization that you’ll never see your father again, felt tears roll down your cheeks. everyone else spoke quietly, trying to figure out a way to get out, all except crosshair.

before the fall of the republic, you two had harbored romantic feelings for one another. though you two danced around it, it was obvious to everyone else. when cross fell with the republic, it shot another hole through your wounded soul.

you stood, arms crossed and trying to keep a straight face. the weight of reality kept you from speaking, and kept your eyes freshly lined with tears. you felt the fall now, seeing the facility you grew up in collapse due to the canon fire of cruisers.

you watched as crosshair sat by himself, and you knew that his brothers were skeptical of him. they had every right to be, but with how sensitive you were you couldn’t help but feel conflicted yourself.

you let out a shaky breath, looking around the old lab. you’d been in nala se’s private lab before, but seeing it in a different light made your chest fall.

the others must have felt the turmoil in your chest, the deep sadness that took root in your heart. omega didn’t know you were a jedi, you hadn’t told her yet. the others haven’t said anything either, and you were relieved.

“y/n?” omega called. she took note of the way your face had been constantly screwed into a tight expression, one that looked like you were fighting yourself.

“yeah?”

“are you alright?”

“i’m fine,” you brushed it off. your eyes flicked over to crosshair, and before you could reason with yourself, your feet were moving in his direction. you could feel the others’ eyes on you as you sat down next to him.

crosshair didn’t want to be around you at all. he didn’t know what happened, but it didn’t take a genius to see you were hurting. crosshair couldn’t bring himself to say he was sorry; his pride prevented him from doing so. but it didn’t prevent him from remembering all of the times you’d been so so good to him. it was monumental that you were sitting there next to him, a man who supported the killing of the jedi.

“they don’t know,” you started, looking down at your hands. crosshair didn’t look up at you, but he knew what you were talking about. the others didn’t know what happened to all of the jedi.

“they deserve to know, but…i can’t tell them.” she didn’t know why she was talking to him, maybe it was her love for him that was pouring out of her, maybe it wasn’t.

“you shouldn’t be talking to me,” he spoke with a hard tone, his words laced with venom. you could see through that, seeing his guilt and his pain.

“they think i shouldn’t be, but if you wanted me dead as badly as the empire did, i would have been dead by now,” you pointed out, lifting your heavy eyes to look at him. your finger’s twitched as you watched his face, your eyes scanning his body. your heart pounded in your chest, but your desire to have your lover back was greater than anything else.

you reached up, giving his cheek a gentle touch. he flinched, gave you a look of confusion. you pulled your hand away; of course it was bad idea. crosshair grabbed your hand, pushing aside his pride and the wall that he’d built up. when he grabbed your hand, he blew up the wall inside his mind.

he collapsed into your arms, his arms wrapping around your torso, squeezing you and bringing you closer to him. you embraced him, cradling the back of his head and rocking him. your soul was elevated to the highest of highs, and tears rolled down your cheeks.

crosshair poured his soul into you as he hugged you tight. the pain, his guilt, everything that had built up on his shoulders over time he poured out to you. he didn’t care his brothers were watching, he only cared that you, of all people, were there and were hugging him. tears poured out of him as he silently sobbed into your chest, massive amounts of pain and guilt staining your shirt.

“i’m so sorry,” he finally whispered. the small confession, the small apology, it made you cry a little harder. you kissed the top of his head, turning your head to rest it on his. you knew this was hard for him, and not just hard, it seemed impossible up until now.

“it’s ok, you’re safe, you’re home, and we’re not leaving you. i’m not leaving you.” you whispered back, keeping him in your arms. crosshair has never felt safer other than being with you, right in that moment. your scent, your undying forgiveness and just you. maker he missed you, and he’s never fought the thing inside of him harder; maybe he still had the chip.

“do you promise?” the innocence of crosshair, the little boy that hated kamino, that hated the regs, it bled through the stone facade that he’d spent so long building. crosshair looked into your eyes, his eyes red and puffy, his cheeks stained with tears. you kissed him on his forehead, and pulling away you nodded.

“i promise,” he knew you meant it, because he could recall several times where you promised to do something, and you did.

he nodded, keeping his face in your view. he held your hands, his whole body still shaking from the amount of emotion that just poured out of him. he sniffled, feeling your hand caress his face. your touch was so soft, was so graceful that he felt hot tears sting his eyes again. he fought it; he wasn’t going to cry again.

“let’s get this thing out of your head, shall we?” you hummed. you knew the chip was still there, you knew a lot of things. he nodded his head, admitting that the empire lied to him, tricked him. yes, he was angry with his brothers for leaving him behind, but you? you had every single right to run, or kill him, but you didn’t. you sat there, opened your arms and told him “i’m here.” crosshair would never forget that moment, and if he was honest, he never wanted to. as much as he’s built up his wall, tearing it down was the most relieving feeling in the universe.

———

lol i’ve had this in my drafts a while, and i’m still on the whole crosshair-has-his-chip train. enjoy this and have a lovely night/day everyone!

[jediheretics]

presenting the sprawling masterpost...

core jedi ocs

the heretic: shae is a young jedi who is about 16-19 during the clone wars. they are strongly against the war and refuse to participate, earning them the ire and disrespect of their peers and teachers. they spend most of their time in the archives where they run the children's part of it. they have always had unconventional ideas about the order and spend their life battling their ideals and their place in the order and community.

the hollow: dreode rosier is a jedi knight who fell to the dark side slowly and gradually and is now doing everything she can to hide her mistakes and immorality. she is naturally deceptive and presents herself as the perfect jedi as the gnawing emptiness inside grows. her incompetence and deceit is exposed during the clone wars in which her actions and arrogance result in growing casualties throughout her battalion. eventually, enough is enough and she gets what's coming to her in the face of max, via her own lightsaber.

the helpless: filti is a member of dreode's lineage and was trained by the same master as dreode: telenan. however, due to telenan's declining health dreode has to unofficially take over her teaching. faced with the deterioration of her lineage sister's morality and mind, filti keeps dreode's secret despite the older jedi's aloof cruelty. filti is then knighted before the war and by the end she has lost both her master and dreode, faced with the grief and helplessness of her life she turns to the dark side, desperate to regain control of her life.

side jedi ocs (part of the backgrounds for the core)

telenan - dreode and filti's master, a steadfast and well meaning jedi whose love for her padawans was not enough to save them.

core clone ocs

max - the commander in dreode's battalion, max is the one who keeps it all going. he tempers dreode's cruel arrogance and convinces her to accept strategy suggestions. he's a patient, unyielding and steadfast man who cares deeply for his battalion but feels the weight of responsibility on his shoulders.

slasher - a member of the coruscant guard who would much rather be, and often bunks off, to ghost hunt on coruscant. misunderstood by his fellow guards he struggles to explain his sense of impending doom that seems to permeate coruscant. enthusiastic but impulsive and easily distracted, he is banned from working with senators.

side/underdeveloped clone ocs

java - stationed on kamino, java has an eye on everything technological on kamino. known for locking people in corridors with the security system when they annoy her, she is not one to be crossed. however she is fiercely loyal and ambitious, desperate to use her skills outside kamino.

shriek - the head medic of max's battalion, shriek is reluctantly cheerful and often screamed for in the battlefield, hence her name. she is also named due to her and her sibling hawk's love of the shriekhawk. she is consistent but often flounders in situations she cannot fix immediately.

trouble - an engineer on 'the just' (max's battalion's venator) trouble's nature is in their name. he is an avid experimentalist which often leads in explosions. she holds little belief in the war, more interested in rewiring battle droids than fighting them.

miscellaneous ocs

chiron - a charismatic blacksmith that encounters max in the early months of the clone wars, chiron is friendly and likeable and makes an immediate impression. he keeps correspondence with max offering a way out of the war for the commander as the two slowly fall in love.

pekkala - once a jedi initiate, pekkala's lack of control led to her being sent back to her home planet. feeling betrayed by the order and isolated from her family, she takes comfort in a mysterious monument, soaked in the dark side, that calls to her with the force. eventually pekkala is reduced to a mere town legend of the evil witch in the mountains. that is until a jedi running from imperial forces by the name of shae lands of her planet.

[masterjedilenawrites]

Quick Headcanons about the "Memorial Wall" in Kamino...

So in my Crosshair fanfic, I came up with this concept of a memorial for clones who died before leaving Kamino:

It was barely considered a room, more of a corridor that was meant to connect this hallway with another. A motion-sensor light flickered on as they entered. Miscellaneous boxes and crates had been pushed up against the wall on the left, dusty and unimportant. It was the righthand wall that gave this space significance. It had long been reduced to its concrete foundation, and chiseled crudely over most of its surface were names and numbers. The largest script was in the top left corner, only two symbols.

"Ninety-nine," Joan read out loud as she stood in the center of the room and looked over the wall in reverence. "This is a memorial."

Crosshair nodded. "All the clones who've died here, never stepping foot into battle. Most of them defects, like 99. Their names won't be found anywhere else. This... is their only legacy."

This wall is a personal headcanon of mine that exists even outside of this story, and I wanted to share a few additional details somewhere:

In TCW, we briefly see a memorial on Coruscant for all the clones who died in the first battle of Geonosis, and it's possible there are other similar monuments around, or at least records of the clones who gave their lives for the Republic in battle.

I'm sure the Jedi generals do something in honor of their fallen troops, too, as well as their fellow brothers-in-arms.

But what about the clones who never made it off Kamino? Who had undesirable mutations and were rejected in adolescence? Who failed their training and were relegated to non-combat roles? Who never had a battalion or a commander to learn their names? Clones like 99?

The Kaminoans wouldn't hold any ceremonies or even dwell on the matter. They cremate/incinerate the dead out of efficiency and move on.

But the clones... they would want to do something.

It wouldn't happen for a while, not until 99 gave his life to defend Kamino.

Rex would be plagued by the fact that such a courageous person could be lost to history, with nothing to commemorate his sacrifice. Cody would bring up the countless others on the planet who were never given the chance to show their bravery and loyalty, either.

Along with a few others, they would create the memorial for their unfortunate brothers. They'd find a rarely-used wing of the facility, and within that a small, unassuming room with an exposed concrete wall. A place Kaminoans and droids wouldn't stumble upon.

They chisel "99" in large letters as sort of a header. And over time, more and more names and numbers would be added.

Perhaps Cody and Rex give the responsibility to one person, a training sergeant or an up-and-coming captain. Someone still on-planet with a high enough rank to hear about the clones who don't cut it.

Once that clone gets deployed, he passes the mantle on to someone else, etc.

Eventually, it's Hunter who inherits the job. He takes Clone Force 99, another symbol of 99′s legacy, to help carve the names of their batch-mates that didn’t survive.

In my imagined world, my OC Joan would take the responsibility after the Bad Batch deploy. Outside of that, it can be someone else...

It's not wide-spread knowledge on Kamino, but enough (trusted) clones know and occasionally visit the wall in a quiet moment of humility.

Maybe Shaak Ti knows? Maybe not.

And any time Cody, Rex, or the others who’ve left happen to return to the planet, they always take the time to go see it. To feel the names of their less fortunate brothers. To say a little prayer for the ones who may still have a chance....

[star-wars-scribbles-ff]

Clone Log Series | 1 | Trapper

(click for better quality 👀)

Note: This is the beginning of a new series I want to write that was inspired by a short scene from Star Wars: Tales from The Clone Wars Webcomic Collection Season 1 - Prelude: Cold Snap, you can find more about that HERE. 

The first Clone I’ve chosen for this series is Trapper! For those who aren’t familiar with this fellow, Trapper is an ARF Trooper with the 212th Recon Division and served at the Second Battle of Geonosis. He was the only survivor alongside Obi-Wan Kenobi when their LAAT/i crashed on Geonosis, en-route to RV Point Rain. 

Taglist: @divergent-llamas-03​ @remadster​ @tallyquark​ @thisistheendtimes​ (There was an update to the taglist options, so please feel free to revisit it HERE if you’d like to make changes to your form 💗 )

Note/Disclaimer: This fic contains both canon and fanon material. Trapper doesn’t have a canon CT number, so the one listed is entirely fanon and not official by any means. Lance is a clone OC of mine.

I’d heard stories about the Battle of Geonosis from veterans. It was the first time the Grand Army had seen combat, and apparently despite simulations training, nothing could quite prepare them for the hell that was Geonosis. I wasn’t there - wasn’t even a year out from graduating - but my former CO, Commander Ponds… he was there. Every clone knew- you didn’t inquire about previous campaigns unless it was logistically necessary, especially from a Commander, but on occasion he’d share bits and pieces. 

Following the GAR’s first sight of war, countless changes were made to the training that clones received on Kamino. Apparently there were things we just weren’t thoroughly being prepared for, but despite that fact, they were rushing us off the assembly line so fast most of us never really finished out training anyhow. Not completely at least. 

I still remember when we graduated, Lance. It all happened so quickly. We were on a cruiser heading for Coruscant before any of us really got to process the first accomplishment of our lives. 

I don’t know why I’m addressing this to you, Lance. I guess… It’s just been a while since we got to catch up. Before we even landed on Coruscant we all got word of our placement in the GAR. You were off to the 212th Attack Battalion, I was transferred to the 91st Reconnaissance Corps, and the rest of the squad stayed together under the 327th Star Corps. I never thought I’d hear from the others again, and I thought the same about you.

As long as I’m writing this to you, I might as well fill you in. Things were pretty slow in the 91st Recon Corps for the first month or two, that is, until we got deployed to Malastare. That was my first time seeing combat. I still remember staring down the Separatist line. They outnumbered us ten to one. I lost a lot of brothers in that massacre, despite not knowing any of them for very long.

Somewhere along the line, whispers began to spread. It was no secret we were losing the battle. The Separatists had launched a hefty operation to drain the Republic of its fuel supplies that were made available by the current treaty with the Dugs, and they were doing a hell of a job pushing us back to the Capital. 

I wasn’t in the know, but I’d overheard from a Sergeant that the Republic was issuing the use of a prototype bomb to be used as a last ditch effort to push the Separatist line back. Sounded like a long shot. Word spread fast and eventually all military forces on Malastare were debriefed on what was to happen. Commander Ponds issued a statement to the 91st Recon Corps forces, that we were to hold the line until the bomb’s drop. The bomb was said to produce an electro-magnetic field that would expand from the impact zone. It had to be a hell of a bomb to match the diameter of the Separatist line. 

When the bomb hit, the electro-magnetic pulse emitted from it knocked out the clankers, but did hell to the sound dampeners in our buckets. Few boys had their eardrums burst. I guess that wasn’t something they accounted for. 

Despite that fact though, the bomb did do its intended job, and wiped out ninety percent of the Separatist forces; I have to admit I was impressed and would have remained so… If not for what came after. While the electro-magnetic field resulted in the deactivation of all Separatist forces, the detonation of the bomb created a sinkhole bigger than the underworld portals on Coruscant. It swallowed what was left of the clankers along with countless men… too many to count. I was close to the sinkhole and managed to outrun its increasing diameter as it swallowed everything in its path… I can still hear the screams of those who weren’t so lucky.

Victory wasn’t a word any of us were able to consider. Not after that. For those few seconds before the crater began, a rush of relief washed over all of us; you could almost see it in the way our postures relaxed, and some of us even let out relieved chuckles or held breath. The Dugs were already celebrating the victory in the following seconds before it happened. It sounded like a crack of lightning coursed through my body; the ground jolted so hard some of us lost our footing. Seconds. It wasn’t more than thirty seconds between the bomb’s detonation and the crater’s formation, although it felt like so much longer.

For almost thirty minutes the crater was surrounded by a massive cloud of dust too thick to breathe. Most of us couldn’t speak in the time following the proton bomb’s encore. Talk about a slap in the face, Lance. Most of us thought it was a sick joke. Price of victory, eh?

Well apparently that wasn’t one of the outcomes the Republic accounted for either. Following the settling of the new geographic monument, I was chosen alongside a couple other troopers to investigate the crater. Word was that high command had lost contact with the rescue team, and General Windu accompanied us, as did Commander Ponds to look for the lost search party. 

Its all a bit blurry from there. We ended up finding the rescue party but… We didn’t end up getting any of those men out of there. It became apparent rather quickly that we were trespassing on a certain creature’s territory. It all happened so fast; the General had a few men stay behind with what was left of the rescue party while we searched the area. By the time it became evident of what we were dealing with, we were running towards the extraction point, and General Skywalker was distracting the creature with his starfighter… We left all those men behind. Granted it would have been close to impossible to extract them all without losing men, but… We didn’t even try. Aside from the General and the Commander, Hawkeye and I were the only ones to make it out. 

We all have those moments, when that guilt always rears its ugly head. I just wonder if the officers ever feel the same, or if its just us foot soldiers who feel it.

The creature we encountered was called a Zillo Beast. I’ve sure as hell never heard of it. No one else seemed to have prior to its unexpected appearance. We ended up taking the damn thing too; back to Coruscant no less. I’ll tell ya, Lance… Sometimes I question the sanity behind some of these decisions. It isn’t my place, but you can’t help but consider it. 

I don’t know where you were, but I was on Coruscant when the Beast got loose. I wish I could describe or explain the chaos that ensued, but we felt like a bunch of loth cats trying to wrangle a rancor; it just wasn’t plausible. 

Cleanup after the Zillo Beast incident was thankfully, not our job. It was within the week following that event that I got news of my transfer. Apparently something big was going down somewhere, and troopers were being shifted around to handle a coming campaign. 

While I wish I could say I felt something when I got the news, I’d lost so many comrades that there were few left that I was truly acquainted with in my company. Ninety percent of the company was made up of new batches coming in, so when i left, I admit I wasn’t completely against it. 

I was transferred to the 212th Attack Battalion’s Recon Division, under General Kenobi and Marshal Commander Cody. Gotta admit… I felt a bit hypocritical joining this Battalion. Everyone talked trash about other battalions, especially the 212th and even the 501st Legion. It was all in good fun, but they were pretty photogenic. They were the face of the Republic Military on the HoloNet news and saw some of the biggest battles of the war. 

Joining their ranks, I don’t know how I felt. Out of place was one word for it. Everyone was welcoming enough. Transfers happened all the time, it wasn’t customary to alienate other troopers just arriving, but it was always awkward. Every Battalion had its own way of doing things. 

I was on the Venator-class cruiser, The Negotiator, as soon as my transfer was put in and we were off to… somewhere. Arriving at the barracks, the last thing I honestly expected was seeing you across from my bunk, Lance. 

I wouldn’t have said it out loud, but I liked it better not knowing where you were and whether or not you were alive. Now I knew I’d either see you go down or you’d see me. You probably noticed my hesitation to be content to see you. Thankfully the arrival of the new armor sets prevented anything awkward, although now I would give anything to go back and have interaction, awkward or not. 

ARF armor… That was one way to tell someone they were receiving a promotion of sorts. Although I assume they just needed to outfit the foot soldiers in something that resembled the terrain we would encounter. Whispers were saying Geonosis, but I was one of the few that didn’t believe it. We’d conquered Geonosis, there was no reason to go back, right?

Heh, wrong. Commander Cody debriefed everyone in the hanger. We were heading to Geonosis. There we were briefed on the plan, and our teams. At the time, I was thankful we were both on a gunship together. I’d give anything to go back and have you put on a different transport. If we crash I’ll need someone to drag my body out of the mud. You have a really sick sense of humor y’know; always have, even during cadet training. I remember when you joked about getting a ninety-five percent on one of our firearms performance tests: Guess I’m getting terminated, you had joked. You di’kut… Can’t believe you made it to graduation considering how often you talked smack. 

Oh, di’kut… It means fool. Yeah, I learned that from this uh… Girl - a retired mercenary - working with the GAR. Apparently she’s held up with the 212th more often than not, so maybe you know who I’m talking about. 

Loading onto that gunship, I remember feeling surprised when General Obi-Wan Kenobi headed for our LAAT/i with Commander Cody at his side. You’d knocked my arm to get my attention, like I wasn’t already looking. 

When we’re on the ground you better watch my six, you’d said. I’d rolled my eyes. First time we’d seen each other in months and you were already back to your old games. I’m warning ya, Trapper, my aim has improved since cadet training. 

So I only have to carry half of your weight now- I’d countered.

When the General had climbed aboard the gunship, most chatter quieted but continued. After taking off, it got quiet. We knew the landing zone would be hot, and there was no doubt many of the shuttles would be downed on the initial assault. 

Despite the odds, you never think its going to be you. You can’t afford to think like that, so you don’t. That is, until your LAAT/i is hit, and you find yourself holding onto whatever you can as your gunship hurtles uncontrollably towards the ground. 

I remember hearing the General yelling out over the comms, getting word to the Marshal Commander.

We’re hit- We’re going down! It felt like an eternity as our shuttle crashed. It was probably the first time I was truly terrified. Everything was out of my control. At least when a creature the size of a large-class freighter is coming after you, you can run out of its way. This was different. I’d heard a horror story or two of troopers crashing in gunships. Details I couldn’t stop replaying in my head as we hurtled towards the ground.

You were next to me, I think. Somewhere along the line the stabilizers gave out, and the gunship went into a sort of barrel roll. I don’t remember the impact. 

The holovids always depict death, or even near-death experiences like this peaceful, dreamlike state. I thought that was bantha fodder, but it almost makes me laugh - because it actually was, Lance. It was just like that. 

I remember it only in simple terms, but for some reason, before waking up, I remember hearing General Shaak Ti’s graduation speech. Her words, as brief as they were, inspired us. We all felt like we were going out to make a difference, restore peace… be the good guys. 

The naivety of it makes me chuckle. 

Canon fire landing in the dirt a few meters from our downed LAAT/i was what interrupted that dream-like state. The pressure on my chest was the first prominent thing that invaded my mind; it was sharp and intense. Broken ribs most likely. It took a few struggling moments before I could recover a breath, and even longer before I was able to get my vision to focus. Concussion most likely. The Medic had told me my half-conscious state most likely kept me from going into shock, if I had, my broken ribs may have punctured a lung. 

When my eyes had finally focused, and I was able to loosely make out what was around me, it was dark. Slivers of light illuminated the space enough for me to know we were on the ground, but something wasn’t right because it was too quiet. My first thought was that they’d mistaken me as dead and moved out… I wish that was the reality of the situation. Maker knows I would give anything for that to have been the case.

By the time my HUD came back online, I was coming to terms with reality. I could see the troopers scattered about the gunship. With the blast doors closed, there weren’t many places to go. One trooper was draped partially over my legs, and others covered the ground of the ship. What startled me most was when I turned and saw General Kenobi seated next to me, head hung over. He was unconscious. 

At that point I was just surprised to be alive, and maybe even relieved… Then my HUD began reading vital signs. One by one all of the troopers came back negative. At first I couldn’t find you, Lance. Part of me didn’t want to, why would I? The odds weren’t great, so I may have avoided looking towards the other side of the LAAT/i for a while.

With a series of blinks, I accessed the Officer's frequency channel for communications. I don’t know how long I spent trying to contact someone, anyone. Priority was to inform the next in command that the General was incapacitated.

From the sounds of cannon fire, it seemed we were right in the thick of it. I could distinctly hear our AT-Te cannons, but I could also hear enemy munitions from behind us. We weren’t in a great spot, that was for sure. 

As the minutes passed, the pain became more prominent. My neck hurt, and the rest of my body was sluggish to respond. I could move my legs, thankfully, but a trooper pinning them prevented me from doing much. 

With little to do about the fact, I had no choice but to hold tight and keep trying to contact command. It felt like auto-pilot. Maybe it was just me trying to ignore the fact that I was surrounded by dead men… maybe something else. At that point I just couldn’t… I couldn’t consider you being dead too. I knew there was a good chance you were, but part of me continued to hold out hope that you went for help; maybe woke up before I did, realized comms were down before going to get the Commander for support.

By the time the General awoke, I had given up trying to get word out. He had begun to stir and I’d spoken up, inquiring if he was alright before his eyes had opened. 

A slight twitch in his expression and crinkle around one eye revealed he was in some sort of pain. Later it was obvious he had sustained similar injuries to myself, but in the moment I had no way of knowing how far off he was.

His gaze was alert rather quickly however, and he cleared his throat before confirming my question. I suppose I could be better, he had let out a strained chuckle. He craned his neck to look around before he looked at me. 

I have to admit it was odd, to have a General’s attention on me and me alone. Are you alright? He’d asked. I hadn’t spoken one-on-one with a General before. The most I could throw together was a nod before I finally got a hold of myself and confirmed I was fine. 

A cannon blast struck nearby, and the rumble of the ground shook the gunship, causing dust and sand to fall from nooks in the ceiling. 

It appears I’ve had a late start, The General had surveyed the area before he turned his attention towards me, and I prepared to tell him we were the only survivors.

Trapper isn’t it? The question had caught me off guard. I’d been a part of the battalion no longer than one standard rotation, and the General knew my name… Almost made me chuckle on the spot.

Yes sir, I’d said. Comms are down; something’s interfering. Sir, I can’t get word out to the Commander of our status. 

Well if I know Cody, he’ll be keeping an eye out for us. Not to worry. He was trying to reassure me, that was evident. We’re the only ones. It’d been a statement, and observation. The Jedi always had a way of knowing it seemed.

...Yes sir, I’d responded. 

I’ve yet to experience something quite like my time in that crashed LAAT/i; knowing the fight was raging around me, I had to be on my guard incase the fight came to the crashed gunship, but in the majority of those moments, the eerie silence of the enclosed space far surpassed that of the sounds of blaster and cannon fire outside. 

At that moment I’d tested moving my legs. I was able to, but I didn’t want to disturb the body of the soldier, my comrade and brother, just yet. Now that the General was awake however, the reality of the situation suddenly dawned on me in a different light.

With some effort, I sat forward and proceeded to move him to the side so he was lying on the ground near my legs. After making sure his body was settled, I rested back against the wall, letting out a controlled breath. I didn’t know his name. Part of me was glad that I didn’t.

Cannon fire continued to rage on both sides of the transport as the minutes passed, and one thing that was becoming clear, was that the enemy fire seemed to be coming closer. 

Sounds like the enemy is making headway, I tried to break the silence in the most respectful way possible. The General didn’t look to be in the best shape. The only plea I had was that the General not die before I do. I’d hoped the universe would spare me that much. The number one rule amongst us clones is to never let the General go down on your watch, I know you know that much, Lance. If you did leave to get help I sure as hell was hoping you’d get back before then. With how the General was looking, he was having difficulty remaining completely aware.

It appears so, Trapper, The General had responded, craning to listen for a time before he turned his gaze towards me. He looked weak. It was hard to witness a General, a Jedi, in such a position.

I knew I needed to get up and go get help. I knew no one had gone and I was the only remaining trooper from the transport capable of bringing help, as much as I didn’t want to acknowledge the fact that I was alone. It was just a matter of being able to support my own weight long enough to get the blast doors open.

I admire your determination, Trapper. The General’s words yet again caught me off guard. But you are in no condition to take such chances, just as I am. I believe our best chance is to wait a bit longer. 

I didn’t know if the General was right in the head, but Jedi had their ways. And safe to say- as much as I wanted to, I wasn’t going anywhere. Not on my own power alone at least.

If you say so, sir. I appeased him, but quietly questioned his clarity. He probably knew I was too, but he didn’t go to speak about it thankfully. 

I admit I was hesitantly surprised when the doors to our down gunship were pried open minutes later. Two troopers I didn’t recognize were responsible, not that I was complaining. 

Waxer, Boil, The General didn’t seem to need more than a moment to identify them. Another thing Jedi were good at. General Windu once told Hawkeye that our- what was the word- aura? Or maybe an impression? Yeah. Like all living things, we left an impression in the force that made it relatively easy for the Jedi to identify us. I guess that has a ring of bittersweet irony to it; we may all have the same face, but our Jedi generals don’t need physically distinguishable markings to identify us, because as he put it, through the force, we’re all rather different. 

Am I glad to see you. Trapper and I are the only ones still alive.

Good to see you, sir. 

I wish I could say I was paying attention when my two comrades hauled us up to our feet. But I knew in that moment that I was about to break my promise to you. Is it cliché to say I felt completely helpless? If not for my condition you know I’d have dragged whatever was left of you back to the RV point. 

Before we left that gunship, I saw you… Hunched over at the head of the transport space. I knew you were there the whole time; knew my HUD had identified you… I’d just hoped I wasn’t right in the head. But I knew I was the only trooper leaving the gunship alive. I just wish I had known when I got on that gunship, what was coming. 

Waxer was the trooper who got me back to Point Rain in one piece. I don’t know how we did it, but it felt like it took an hour to get back to the square. Thankfully we still had a hell of a fight ahead, and I didn’t have time to mull over my situation. When the reinforcements finally arrived at the last possible second, there was still a lot to do. It wasn’t until the Separatist energy shield was destroyed that they started rotating out spots of leave to us troopers, and I finally got the break I was dreading. 

I’m starting to feel stupid writing to you, Lance, I gotta admit. Its not like you missed much in that gunship but… Turns out the company I was assigned to was completely wiped out on Geonosis. Another gunship transporting a portion of the company crashed, killing everyone, and the rest died defending RV Point Rain. I had to report to the Marshal Commander for instruction on who to report to. I don’t wanna brag, but you know I’m gonna - he kept me pretty close for the remainder of the campaign; even brought me along on a lovely rescue mission of General Unduli that I’d rather not talk about. That’s a whole ‘nother story. 

Sitting alone in the mess on the cruiser after the battle came to a close, Commander Cody approached me… told me he was going to reassign me soon. Before leaving he told me writing is apparently a good way to speak what we can’t verbally put into words. I guess he knew I was… on my own. So you’re stuck listening to me ramble I guess. Serves you right for leaving me here along, mate. I know you’d hit me for feeling guilty about leaving you there… You know I’d have dragged you outta there if I had been able to hold my own weight, let alone yours… 

I hope you don’t mind, but I’ll keep you updated on things going forward. Commander Cody assigned me to Ghost Company, so I imagine I’ll be seeing some action. You’d be jealous beyond words, I know, so don’t worry - I’ll keep you posted.

CT-4473, Trapper 212th Attack Battalion, Ghost Company

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[proheromidoriyashouto]

hey how pissed and and fucking distraught do you think Endeavor is after Kamino Ward not because of All Might's retirement but because of the realization that All Might had this comic book villain life long arch-nemesis who embodied true evil all this time, and the best Endeavor did his entire career was catch more small time purse snatchers than anybody else.

the two don't even compare in scope and scale and that's just the perfect reflection of the unbridgeable gap between the Number 1 and Number 2 spots.

it shouldn't be such a surprise then when Endeavor struggles against AFO and the League/Meta Liberation Army, because he never had an enemy that ever pushed him to the limit-- Endeavor has rarely if ever had to "Go Beyond" and grow stronger through direct confrontation and now everyone knows that.

he ends fights as quickly as possible because he's under constant threat of overheating and physical exhaustion. sure he's fast and experienced and against the Noumu in Hosu city he did well, but those Noumu were just terrorizing the city in general and not fighting like later High Ends who were ordered to kill heroes specifically.

Endeavor knows this and started his eugenics projectfamily for the express purpose of creating someone to close that gap for him so he could vicariously overcome All Might, but he's probably only realizing what a truly monumental task that is now that he's been beaten so thoroughly, and the literal children brought for support had to take over the heavy lifting in the fight against AFO's forces, and did more damage than he did.

supposing he gets time to reflect now, he knows he doesn't fill the role the same way. the hero, Endeavor, is not worthy of the task. being Number 2 isn't just a step down from being Number 1. it's an entire grand canyon apart and how much of a breakdone do you guys think he's due for cuz i can't wait

[dereksmcgrath]

The League of Villains are not the easiest people to root for. But censoring how violent they are, and how violent their opponents are, is not making it easier to see them as compelling antiheroes, at least not as easy as it was in the manga.

I again am wondering what happened in the production of this season--and whether other studios should take over some arcs of My Hero Academia.

“Revival Party,” My Hero Academia Episode 109 (Season 5, Episode 21)

An adaptation of Chapters 218, 224, 225, 226, 227, and 228 of the manga, by Kohei Horikoshi, translated by Caleb Cook with lettering by John Hunt and available from Viz.

My Hero Academia is available to stream on Crunchyroll and Funimation.

Spoilers up to My Hero Academia Chapter 326.

Before I get started, I should put a disclaimer that has been largely unspoken in these reviews. I tend to capitalize “Hero” and “Villain” when writing about the literal jobs or legal titles given to characters in My Hero Academia. If I just meant what role a character has in the story, I would have lowercased it. For example, the League of Villains is made up of Villains, but in this arc, while they are not our heroes, they are definitely our antiheroes.

And that detail has made it even more difficult to write about an episode like this.

I delayed writing this review largely due to scheduling and time availability. Seriously, look again at the top of the post and how many chapters this episode is trying to cram in. Even with just a few pages out of each chapter, that’s a lot of content. I’m not asking for a One Piece pace, but there is something to be said about how helpful the two-chapters-adapted-per-episode guideline was in previous MHA seasons.

And those chapters also contained a lot of content for me to compare back and forth to really figure out whether the anime was censoring much from the manga. (Answer: the anime censored a lot, but even those chapters from the manga were not as bloody and gory as I remembered.)

All of that being said, while time availability has been a challenge this week, that’s not the only reason I delayed getting to this episode. I can’t lie that, given the difficult content ahead, this isn’t exactly fun viewing or entertaining writing. This is digging into the dark side of this series and what it says about larger societal concerns with mental health, corporate power, abusive families, gore, and what amounts to one-person natural disasters like Shigaraki. Not everything in the superhero genre is sunshine and lollipops. But I anticipated how much of a marked departure this arc was going to be in terms of violence and tone, given how far along I’m at in the manga: as this series is going, it’s going to keep being pretty grim until Izuku returns to UA. Engaging in that story is difficult, compared to how comparatively lighter the series has been up to now. And I’m even including All For One’s revelation at Kamino that he effectively kidnapped the grandson of the woman he killed--and now, looking at that grandson in this arc, we’re reaching the logical conclusion to that darkness.

It has been past time to really delve into Shigaraki’s origin story, and like what we learn about Toga in this episode, I feel underwhelmed. We’ll get to more about Shigaraki in the next episodes, but this one felt like it could have stood a little more room to breathe. If the opening could have been moved to the previous episode, if this one could have started with Toga facing Curious, and if the episode had ended with Toga passing out, I think all of that may have given Studio BONES more time to offer something more visually impressive than what we got, as well as add back content in the manga but cut from the anime, such as actually showing Re-Destro, Skeptic, and Trumpet mourning Curious’s death.

(And did the anime change Skeptic’s dialogue from the manga to make it sound like, in this anime, Skeptic doesn’t know Toga just murdered Curious? The man has surveillance everywhere and didn’t see that? But I’ll have a lot more to say about how incompetent the MLA comes off, and how that makes any victory by the League less exciting.)

As I said before, if you’re going to show how systematic change is needed and can be achieved, having one set of villains fight another set of villains isn’t the worst approach.

But it is also an approach that can obscure just what you’re supposed to be fighting against.

The Meta Liberation Army is shown to have its hands in various corporations, political groups, and mass media, all of which is not without its own set of unfortunate implications.

I hate the word “elite” used as an insult. by itself, the word should just mean the best of the best, yet, rather than “elitist” being a fair criticism against a system that elevates only the best at the expense of what is good for as many people as possible, the word instead usually is used to attack people who already have power but are in no way the best of the best. Seriously, how do you look at a post-2016 United States--or a post-W, or a post-Reagan, United States--and ever think these clowns at the top of the Republican Party are the best of anything aside from being the least pungent of all choices of horse shit that party puts in front of you? What I’m getting at is, lambasting the elites only works if the elites were the worst thing to fear. An argument can be made that the elites, when they are apathetic, are the problem; but when people with power, but who lack the skill to handle it expertly, abuse that power, those aren’t elites, they’re not the best of the best--they just suck at what they do, and their incompetence causes problems for everyone.

With all of that in mind, I can’t help but wonder if the MLA in MHA are elites or just incompetents.

When My Hero Academia presents the elite as the villains, that can be bothersome. Showing that the most influential and most successful in electronics, business, politics, and mass media also happen to run a cabal from the shadows is bothersome, as it reinforces distrust in such systems not based on evidence but on the worst suspicions we have about that power. It’s not like this is original to this series: fear of the shadowy forces working in the background have been pivotal to superhero stories, whether Cadmus in Justice League Unlimited or, showing that even the heroes can be bad guys, the Illuminati in Marvel Comics.

Mitigating the more problematic aspects of this portrayal is the fun Horikoshi obviously took with some details: you wouldn’t name Curious’s villainous mass media company after your own publisher without some biting-the-hand humor involved to poke fun at your own role in a power structure. You know, kind of like how I can’t pass up remarking how the villainous group in this arc shares its initial with the most notable literature and languages academic organizations in North America--even as I get the sense that academics won’t get my joke, given the continued separation between serious academic work and serious fan/pop culture work. Or the fact that a lot of academics have little to no sense of humor--myself not excluded.

But going back to “the heroes being bad guys,” this approach with the elite being the villains is not unwarranted. We’ve seen the best of the best in the forms of Pro Heroes and realizing they are not without their problems: All Might’s role as a symbol allowing others to not rise to the occasion when they expect him to save the day, and Endeavor is a domestic abuser. So it makes sense, after sticking with the Pro Heroes for so long, that we finally get a group of Villains that are really a legitimate threat, having operated in the shadows for so long until the time is right. That should be a monumental moment for this series. We reverse it to finally show Villains who are at the top of their game.

And the Villains at the top of their game are going to get their asses handed to them so quickly by a ragtag group of misfits. How disappointing.

It’s not unexpected: history and previous pop culture are full of the ragtag underdogs beating out those in power. But as with previous victories for the League, it feels less like they were really that much better than the MLA. Rather, it’s more so that the plot gave them last-minute power-ups (including revealing this late in the game Shigaraki’s back story to show us, no, he always had this power, this isn’t an author’s ass-pull, you’re imagining things). And it’s more so that the MLA is just foolish. It’s one thing to have Re-Destro be so overconfident to challenge the League in this manner; it’s another to not have better contingencies. Shigaraki brings a kaiju, Re-Destro couldn’t sacrifice a few bucks for a Trypticon? But perhaps I’m not being fair: I complain about All For One being too overly prepared, now I’m complaining about Re-Destro being so under-prepared.

It doesn’t help that I couldn’t figure out Skeptic’s plan. Is he cloning Re-Destro with Twice’s ability so that they can have a figurehead? That would make sense. Or is he cloning Re-Destro with Twice’s ability to keep Re-Destro always present? Because, if so, he does know that Twice’s Quirk cancels when he’s knocked out or dead, right? I mean, if he doesn’t, that helps clarify that the MLA is not as all-knowing as they seem--which makes Re-Destro’s goal to do what the government has not and take down the League all the more comical given how overwhelmed Re-Destro ends up being by these sidelined outcasts.

With the MLA, it’s too bad that, even when we get to see villains supposed at the top of their game, their portrayal is hampered by the series itself, whether by introducing the MLA so late in the run that their successes are going to immediately become pathetic (worsened by how the anime has handled adapting the manga this season) or by making the League losers for so long that, while we get behind them as the underdog in this fight, it can feel like too little, too late.

The League of Villains, when not benefiting from All For One’s resources and Shigaraki’s planning, have just been victims of luck: any victory has had its cost, given what happened to Magne, and there hasn’t been an obvious strategy on Shigaraki’s part for bringing in admittedly powerful members like Toga, Twice, and Dabi but who have their own flaws that get in the way of what the League could accomplish. Even the victory against the Shie Hassaikai and the Pro Heroes had more to do with how brutal the Villains were willing to be, less than some brilliant strategy, regardless Shigaraki’s game metaphors thrown back in the face of the now armless Overhaul. This arc was supposed to be a good opportunity to show some of the League unlocking their potential and showing how audience members like me underestimate them at our peril. And I don’t get that sense of peril, when Toga’s victory is thanks to a last-minute power-up, one that was already vague in the manga--“awakening” now being something Quirks can somehow do--and almost completely unstated in the anime--largely cut in this episode, along with Curious’s world-building information about “Quirk counseling” and other government assistance that I wanted to hear about in this series but keep having sidelined for under-animated action.

And speaking of under-animated action, I was really expecting something more brutal in this Toga story, and it wasn’t there. I should be grateful: I did say I was hesitant to watch this gory an episode. I went back and forth between this episode and the manga chapters to try to figure out what was being censored and what wasn’t. The wiki helped, but I also think the black and white colors of the manga somehow made how brutal all the damage was look more impressive. This anime needed to up what was already in the manga--and instead, Toga gets blown up a few times yet looks comparatively still together. I know Curious’s followers had their blood made explosive, so no wonder they died in such shiny (and censored) fashion, but Toga gets out of this largely in-tact and her outfit relatively fine? Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful this didn’t turn into cheap fanservice, but I expected something more graphic. Everything, even the blood, just looked so cartoony that I didn’t feel the dread I expected. I really don’t want to sound desensitized to violence, because I’m not: I just think BONES made a stylistic choice for how to mitigate the intensity of this kind of violence so not to turn away a younger audience, and instead they are not letting this show grow with its audience and show that, no, something this gruesome has to be made to look gruesome.

At least the choice for how to show Curious and others dying was visually creative. The manga showed the bodies largely in shadows as they hit the asphalt: effective, but not that creative. Here, the anime shows a spray of blood in the air--creative, although without the well-done parallels that could have happened (see Spy x Family making a spray of blood look like simultaneous fireworks happening nearby).

Too bad Curious is gone. I’m a sucker for criticisms of mass media, and yet another woman character gets frigid. Now we’re stuck with the other MLA members having largely little to no personality. Seriously, I’ve seen people do better with Skeptic by amping up his social awkwardness so that there is at least something there other than only “over-confident tech CEO.”

While the personalities of the other MLA members are less interesting, the acting and casting made significant improvements, thanks to better material to work with. Takako Honda and Tara Sands knocked it out of the park as Curious, bringing all the right beats of how a media mogul would talk, especially as on-air talent. I had initially had some concerns with the voice chosen for Ben Diskin’s performance as Skeptic, but it’s working for me now--very guttural, befitting his grunge Gorillaz-inspired design and theming. It was odd how the voice direction was trying to make the usually reserved Dabi more fiery. But it makes sense for the choice to have Geten sound so icey cold--especially as, of course, Endeavor’s son Dabi would freak out this much when hearing about another prodigy having their Quirk overworked since childhood and the stress that’s put them under. And Sonny Strait was given such a good dialogue with Giran that was really effective, bringing a lot more civility to this uncivil person.

But that still leads to the other problems with this episode: so much content has been cut from the manga that, as other writers online have said, we’re kind of thrown into the story just assuming we’re to know who Re-Destro is and what his deal is. Summarizing all of that with a narration by Izuku--and I’ll circle back to why having him having any role in this episode is just lazy--is far less effective than how the manga handled it. I can’t do justice to summarizing the problems when other writers online have done better, so, I’ll just say, go read the manga instead: Horikoshi’s allusion to The Killing Joke is excellent visual shorthand for understanding what Re-Destro is all about, imbuing him with sad clown details that complicate his overall thuggishness and make you question whether that’s all he is or whether he really does love these people. Given what we will learn soon about Geten, I do think he loves these people, all the more reason why cutting the scene where he is crying over Curious’s death a significant flaw for what is supposed to be contained in this episode. As I said, this episode should have centered on Curious and Toga--not a cliffhanger about Twice, not foreshadowing Shigaraki’s origin story and power-up, not starting the Geten and Dabi fight, just that woman and that girl, that’s it.

I don’t think the animation was up to the task. Today on Twitter, a few clips have popped up from the Re-Destro and Shigaraki fight, and while I see potential that is pulling from similar animation techniques used in the Sports Festival--the arc that, so far, has been the arc to beat for this series in terms of quality animation--it still felt like it lacked impact.

This episode as well has the same problem. I understand that an episode will pick the scenes to under-animate to save money, but when it is obvious which scenes those are--any time Deika residents stand frozen surrounding Toga--it is not longer a stylistic choice but one that takes viewers out of the episode and make them realize how cheap this looks. Given how intentionally cartoonish these Deika residents are, given their various appearances, the freeze-frame approach is drawing attention in the wrong way to what should be a unique feature of this series and instead fixates on those character designs at what should be a tense moment.

The overall animation has been suffering this season, and while making Toga in Curious’s arms look more like a painting was upping what is already in the manga, it also felt like a cheap trick, along with how bloodless Shigaraki’s attacks look compared to how brutal it was in his first use against Aizawa in the first season. Twice’s conversation with himself in the manga came across like a voice in his head, while the anime seemed to make it more an ongoing conversation he’s having in real-name, which is less interesting and leads to that really awkward scream face he’s making under his mask that wasn’t horrifying to me, it was just goofy. Even Re-Destro in his moment with Giran looked off and would have benefited from more thought as to how to position him to match a 3D model while also not looking so uncanny as to not be believable.

Season 5 of MHA has had far too many problems to sit through without griping on my part. This arc was the first time we were centering on only the Villains, and it has felt like a typical MHA episode. Only now did I finally notice the opening theme changes the card to read My Villain Academia--which is its own set of problems, originating from that same gag in the manga, as there is no school for these Villains for the re-naming to work either. For an arc this pivotal to the story, a new opening theme was needed; instead, we have an opening this season that combines parts of the Endeavor Agency Arc and the League vs MLA Arc. We needed another narrator other than Izuku to introduce Destro and to do the next episode preview--especially when Izuku shouldn’t be knowing this stuff. I understand that this narration is long after Izuku returns to UA after the PLF Arc, but if so, when Izuku still sounds the same age in these narrations, it doesn’t come across as “Izuku narrating from far into the future”: I anticipate Toho and Funimation could not have accounted for everything, but maybe telling the actors for Izuku, “Sound older,” would have been the approach to take. And as I said last time, Present Mic introducing the Villains’ Quirks is a missed opportunity to have Giran do that instead.

But I started this post wanting to talk about making the Villains and Villains fight each other--and I end this post conflicted whether anything worthy was accomplished. I know having Curious be so obsessed with getting the big story is supposed to make it humorous that she died, potentially biting satire about headline-obsessed sensationalized journalism. But it’s also a cheap way to have her die--her obsession makes her ignore her oncoming death, and it’s as if the story is trying to parallel her potential mental condition to Toga’s. I don’t know what to do with all of that from a disability studies perspective, as I don’t feel comfortable taking this argument further yet without more consideration. But the fact that Curious actually calls Toga “insane” in the subtitles only reinforces how awkward I feel talking about it. What was gained in this episode? We learned about Toga’s backstory--and it breezes by pretty fast, albeit buoyed by Curious making sure to emphasize how it is reflective of larger societal concerns, before we drop any further discussion about them so we can get back to action. None of that has me looking forward to how rushed and potentially un-gory Shigaraki’s origin story will be animated. We set up a potential storyline where we meet the proto-Izuku classmate she sucked blood out of--which, given how long it took the woman All Might saved in Kamino to show up again, likely won’t get a pay off any time soon. And we gave Toga a power up--that the video games already gave her years ago because otherwise her combat abilities, while impressive, are not going to do much against powerhouse opponents.

It makes me wish this episode had, as I said, more room to breathe, to actually adapt the manga instead of sticking so close to it, so that we could get more interiority to Toga to understand why she picked Ochaco’s blood (so she could be closer to someone she is obsessed with) and see her intelligence (she picked up really quickly on touching everyone despite having Ochaco’s Quirk just these few moments, and she knew how to deactivate it, too). While the production is obviously present, especially in animating Toga’s use of Ochaco, all of which was impressive and well-acted by all parties involved, this felt like a rush job. If Studio BONES is going to keep making original MHA films instead of trying to adapt the seasons well for TV, then either make the next arcs their own theatrical films and skip a TV broadcast (despite how unsafe that is during a global pandemic and how limiting that is for people who can’t afford that expense compared to monthly streaming costs) or, as I suggested before, have another studio take over some arcs for the sake of variety and theming.