#so the sw hyperfixation is not stopping any time soon......

[imogenkol]

— WIP/MUSIC MONDAY WEDNESDAY

tagged by @cassietrn thank you lovely 💕

tag list (ask to be added or removed!): @adelaidedrubman @florbelles @marivenah @simonxriley @shegetsburned @voidika @kyber-infinitygems @inafieldofdaisies @statichvm @socially-awkward-skeleton @aceghosts @carlosoliveiraa @risingsh0t @unholymilf @thedeadthree @jackiesarch @gwynbleidd @shellibisshe @loriane-elmuerto @katsigian @captastra @simplegenius042

You only feel it when it's lost // Gettin' through still has a cost // Quietly, it slips through your fingers, love // Falling from you, drop by drop // What I had left here // I just held it tight // So someone with your eyes // Might come in time // To hold me like water // Or Christ, hold me like a knife

Note: feeling very unhinged about this song for very specific reasons and I will confirm that it is a Bix/Imogen song

—

And here is a flashback I've been working on of Inquisitor Imogen!

Imogen surveyed the crowd of civilians that her troopers rounded up, pacing like a patient, yet hungry beast. The small Mid Rim moon harbored an eclectic collection of beings with humble lifestyles. Some were farmers, others were traders, tavern owners, local law enforcement that quickly withdrew their control of the community once they saw Imperial ships land. To Imogen, it was the perfect stack for a needle to hide in.

Through the Force, she felt their fear – their anticipation for what she might do. The Inquisitor took the time to meet every single face with her focused gaze, searching for a connection or even a hint of a power greater than common rabble. She lightly prodded their minds with her own abilities and caught glimpses of memories, frightening images conjured by the imagination, and the barest conceptualizations of words left unspoken so as to not provoke her. 

Nothing stood out. At least, not here. But Imogen intended to turn over every stone.  

The quiet had been her ally. It helped fear to brew within those vivid imaginations at a steady rate, which could cause even the strongest nerves to buckle once the correct amount of pressure was applied. She only broke silence when necessary.  

“I find it disturbing that not one of you has stepped forward willingly to offer us any information,” Imogen said, shaking her head with her hands behind her back like a disappointed school teacher. “You know what we seek. You know that we root out any remaining Jedi traitors for your own protection. Where is your dedication to the Empire? Your loyalty?”

The entire crowd seemed to hold its breath as Imogen stopped before them and went utterly still, her intense gaze piercing through what felt like all of them at once. The very wind seemed to cease. 

“You should know that I do not leave my assignments empty handed,” The Inquisitor continued. Her voice grew gentle, almost as if she pitied these people. Inside, her heart pounded with the rush of power she held over them. “If I cannot have loyalty, very well. I shall accept subjugation. If I cannot have subjugation…” In a very casual manner, Imogen held her hand out at her side. The hilt that rested on her hip flew off of her belt clip and into her open palm. With a screech loud enough to make some of the civilians flinch, she ignited her lightsaber and became half bathed in the crimson glow of its plasma blade. The low hum vibrated in her veins, turning her blood to fire. “Then I will settle for taking your lives. The choice is yours.”

[mediawhorefics]

STOP omg you've gotten me so exited now!! have been scrolling through your blog and realising how dumb I am to only just now notice you like sw LMAO

im gonna be honest my old jedi fallen order hyperfixation has flared up recently so ive been spending all my time consuming anything with cal in it, as well as replaying the game for the 3rd time. have you played jfo??

and omg I don't know if I can pick just one film!! I had covid recently and binged all of the films and they all have their ups and downs. and I haven't watched any of the animated shows BUT I've been meaning to when I have the time :D

character-wise, my faves will always be luke, din, poe, grogu, cal seeing as my previous hyperfixations have been finnpoe, and then dinluke, and then jfo. BUT ALSO obi wam kenobi coming out soon and all the hype surrounding it is making me love anakin and obi wan even more ahhh

tell me about your faves too!! I'm super interested :))

hahah yeah i do blog about it a fair bit but it's more prevalent on my personal blog for sure! but i have been saying for YEARS that it's an absolute tragedy that hp aus are the popular aus when star wars aus should be IT !!!!!!!!!

ok so i'm not a gamer at all, never played anything in my life basically, but i've watched people play jfo on yt a fair bit so i'm totally with you re: cal. he's SO precious, i love him <3 him and bd-1 are too much and thrilla was SUCH a good villain. impeccable vibes.

that's totally fair re: the movies. they've all got their pros and cons. there are only a few that are personally really not to my taste (yes i mean rise of skywalker) but i mostly love them all! and the animated shows are so good. the only ones i haven't seen yet is bad batch & resistance, but clone wars and rebels? chef's kiss ! i'm personally a revenge of the sith stan first and a human second haha. but a new hope & rogue one are up there too. and anything vader related in rotj is everything to me.

solid solid character choices. i love it!!!! i'm also a big dinluke supporter (and a luke skywalker IS gay truther). i actually started an ~undercover cop type dinluke fic a while back where din is like an undercover new republic agent trying to take down a Mandalorian crime sendicate and luke owed a lot of money to the hutts to pay off his aunt's medical bills and his debt was sold to the mandos so he's working off his debt there and then .... romance happens. i should pick it back up at some point, it had potentially haha. also finnpoe.... we could have had it all rip. thank you oscar isaac for your service.

my own personal fav is and has always been anakin. he is my space drama queen and i'm SO excited to see him in kenobi!!! but other favourites include din, kanan jarrus, luke, ahsoka, padme and my man obi. i was a prequels kid so I'm a bit biased towards those characters though ahah. i mean anakin & obi wan's relationship is everything. their relationship changed the fate of/influenced 20 years of galactic politics who ELSE is doing it like them????

anyways, i'm super obsessed with it, i could probably talk meta all night haha.

[hellowkatey]

post-finale thoughts on the bad batch below the cut

[I'm specifically focusing on story and characters. this doesn't even begin to address the issues with their animation design, coloring, and the whole lot of racial, stereotypical, and ableist themes that show up, they are important to be aware of and speak out against. resources that I have found helpful are linked.]

@revenge-of-the-shit has a great compendium with lots of resources for both TBB and SW as a whole | change.org petition

okay.

As a SW fan, I am no stranger to putting up with meh writing because of my love for the characters. I love found family and I love the protective space dad trope with all my being, so TBB caught me by the hyperfixation... but not until the last few episodes of the season.

I loved Echo and Tech from the beginning. As someone who is neurodivergent, I relate to Tech a lot. And I've had a soft spot for Echo since TCW. Wrecker and Omega are more neutral for me. I like them but don't connect to them as much. My like for Hunter decreased as the season progressed, and I disliked Crosshair until episode 15. After part 1 of the finale, I went back and rewatched TCW backdoor pilot and actually began to understand Crosshair.

Coming into the 2nd part of the finale, I sort of expected them to discover Crosshair still had his chip despite claiming to already have it removed, remove it, and they fly off in the Marauder into the sunset, brothers again.

Obviously that is not what happened. But I'm not mad about that. I'm actually glad this didn't happen, though it hurt to see that wide shot of Crosshair standing alone on the platform as his brothers flew away.

I do think Crosshair still has his chip. I think the Empire tricked him into thinking they removed it. It's a mind game. Because Crosshair thinks he had the chip removed, he stops fighting the impulses to support the Empire over his team. He genuinely believes he has chosen this.

And, because Crosshair by nature is severe and unyielding (as Tech says), his natural personality is not far off from the aggression and standoffish shift that chipped clones display. But compared to how Crosshair was in TCW and the first episode, he's definitely not all there imo. The fact he remained loyal to the Empire after they destroyed Kamino with him on it (and the scenes of him still having headaches-- I mean, hello, how did the boys miss that??) is why I believe he is still chipped.

But I am glad Crosshair did not go with them even though it messes up the premise of a fic I wrote between ep. 15 and 16 (rip). The finale was important for bringing the boys back together so they can see they all still care about one another, but there's a difference in ideology. And there's a breach of trust on both sides.

Crosshair needs to see for himself that the Empire has been manipulating him and he needs to come to that conclusion on his own. The Bad Batch, mainly Hunter, needs to realize that they did abandon their brother because as soon as they figured out about the inhibitor chips their primary mission should have been getting Crosshair out of there.

In terms of the conflict between Crosshair & himself and Crosshair & The Bad Batch, I think the show did a good job. It's an extremely complex issue, and they depicted the characters as true humans that make mistakes and have to atone for them. I hope season 2 focuses on what they need to work on individually to be ready to come back together as a team.

That is why I think I watched the show but didn't really connect to it until we actually got back to the main conflict from the first episode.

But this was a 16-episode season. They filled half a season with cameos and odd-jobs which were hardly used it to advance the characters' arcs. (At least when the Mandalorian S2 did this, the cameos contributed to the journey in some way.)

Tech, Echo, and Wrecker basically got no development when there were lots of opportunities to explore this-- I mean, we have Echo who was a POW, the last of his squad, pretty well acquainted with the Jedi, and the only "reg" among them. Before he was taken by the Techno Union, he was a huge advocate of following orders and doing things by the books. I feel like he would have had a hard time with learning about the chips and Fives' death amongst other things. Tech and Crosshair were depicted working together a lot in TCW, and he is one of the few that (sort of) defends Crosshair in the finale, but that dynamic isn't explored much either. And Wrecker's chip actually activated and he hurts his brothers. Yet, there's not really any sort of fallout there either. I also feel like they alluded to Omega having some sort of special ability at the beginning and then we just never touched on it again.

I point out these things not just as a fan, but as someone who studied writing and storytelling in college. You can have your round and flat, dynamic and static characters, but they still should have a complete arc. And they all can't be flat. Especially as being part of the main cast. I think they focused mainly on external struggles and forgot about the internal ones, which would have been much more profound. If The Bad Batch was an anthology of their missions during TCW I would be a little more forgiving of the mission-to-mission episode format, but this immediately following Order 66. One of the most emotional moments in the SW franchise.

Don't get me wrong, I loved moments of the show. It's inspired me enough to read (and write) fic for it. And I've read some really kick ass writing that has fulfilled a lot of the desires I had for the show in terms of addressing internal conflict and character development. I'm well acquainted with the fandom by this point to know emotional depth is not often a priority in SW. But I did not expect the show to lack basic character development for main characters. I've browsed The Bad Batch AO3 tag a few times now, and a very large portion has to do with creating character development and backstory that doesn't exist in canon yet. I think that says a lot on its own.

This is long so I'll stop but my overall opinion of the show is bittersweet. If someone asked me what I thought of it in one sentence, I would say "it has potential". But since S2 is confirmed, it sounds like they should have time to see fan responses, take the valid criticisms to heart, and I think TBB has the potential to join the club of a beloved SW show with a rough first season.