#the other clones are slightly freaked out by gregor

[xecutivecucumber]

Executive Cucumber's thoughts on the Bad Batch: Season 3x06 and 3x07 (I'm pretty sure I'm formatting this differently every time. Oh well)

Okay, there's a subject I'm going to have to postpone until the end of the post because I want all my thoughts on that to be together: the main operative clone. And the rest might be slightly out of order. I'm also doing this before I see anyone else's thoughts, just so we get the pure version.

Let's go!

I honestly thought that Senator Singh and Riyo were dead meat. But no, they're fine because REX IS COOLER THAN ANYONE. Ugh that man. Freaking throwing the grenade back at him.

Clones are beautiful. That is all.

THAT'S THAT ONE PLACE FROM THE OG CLONE WARS MOVIE!!! TETH!!!

Howzer I love you but if you touch Crosshair we will be having words.

I am actually really proud of Crosshair and his restraint this episode. He could have been really cutting to Howzer.

OMEGA WITH THE TOOTHPIIIIICKS and Hunter is jealouuuus

EDIT: ECHO AND THE CROSSBOW HE'S SO SWEET

WHAT DID THEY DO TO YOU CROSSHAIR

It's really nice to see normal clones being normal again. (Too bad it doesn't last)

There's something up with Omega. I'm not going to lie, I think that she and Rex are going to plan to get her captured in order to track her back to Tantiss.

HOWZER STOP DISTRUSTING CROSSHAIR THIS MOMENT

I appreciate that Hunter doesn't seem to distrust Crosshair during this point.

...they really shouldn't have brought that operative back.

Rex is considering stealing Omega, I swear. I love that he gets down to her level.

WOOOOOOOOOOOLFFE (Plo would be so disappointed in you)

It's...odd to see these normal troopers with him.

It's also strange that he cannot comprehend that the clones could be traitors at first.

STOP DYING YOU BEAUTIFUL REGS

'She only bites half the time' I'm pretty sure Omega is lying here but I don't care.

CROSSHAIR IS SUCH A WORRIED DAD HOLY CRAP. 'Oh, I'm much worse' I LOVE YOU

And this just gives such a little insight into how the Batch was when they were together. I have a feeling that Crosshair was a fusser and a nagger.

And I love how Howzer's natural and correct conclusion is: 'no one evil could love that child.' (Unless you're Nala Se)

Hey, actual candor from Crosshair. I keep saying this is who he always was under it all, but I do think he's healed somewhat, at least towards regs. The healing power of Omega.

'Too bad' I LOVE THIS MAN

STOP DYING REGS

Rex talking down Wolffe reminded me so much of him trying to talk Jesse down. So ow.

Okay, what ROCK have they shoved Wolffe under for the last YEAR??? YES THE EMPIRE WOULD GET RID OF THE CLONES YOU DOG BRAINED IDIOT

(Plo would be proud that you let them go)

...they just killed all of Rex's clones, except Howzer and Gregor. And I have a bad feeling about Howzer. STOP TAKING THINGS FROM REX HASN'T HE LOST ENOUGH???

Okay here we are, at the big topic. Hold onto your pants.

That operative clone. Is. Tech. Because if he is not, they are purposefully using the narrative to deceive us.

I might miss a few things, but that's because I'm up past my bedtime and I've been up too late the last few days.

1. The falling and water parallels. This clone falls a LOT during this episode and dives into a lot of water. He even falls into mist. This time it's to kill and capture his siblings instead of save them.

2. The injury. This clone is hobbling around a lot after his injury, which was immediately reminiscent of Tech's broken leg at the beginning of season 2. Both of them are forcing themselves past their limit to achieve a mission. Specifically with injured legs.

3. General attitude and demeanor. In combination with the stealth and injury, this clone has a more hunched posture. His speech patterns are more formal, though we haven't really heard a lot of other clone operatives talk with their helmets on. But he's also apparently allergic to orders. I first thought that he'd be out of the chain of command, but they would have told Wolffe that he wasn't in charge of the operative if that were the case. Or the operative would have straight up told him 'I don't take orders from you' instead of staring awkwardly at him. Instead he runs off and does his own thing. While injured. Not to mention the buttons on his gauntlet. The other clone operatives don't have those.

4. The cybernetic legs. Now we don't know for sure if Tech would have cybernetic legs, but it seems likely for a severely injured trooper. And when Crosshair is looking at the heat signature, you can see that his legs are blue instead of yellow or red. No heat. Not organic.

5. What he says to Crosshair. 'You could have been one of us.' 'You chose the wrong side.' Yes, he's talking about Crosshair resisting the re-education. But flip it on its head real quick. 'You could have been one of us. One of the Bad Batch.' 'You chose the wrong side. The Empire.' Those lines very easily have double meanings.

6. An interesting one is when he starts moving rocks after the explosion. Why would he do that? Why not immediately go find another way in? He's moving only the smaller rocks. There's a large one in the way that he couldn't move himself. And he doesn't get the rest of the troopers to come move it when they arrive. He almost seems confused.

Like he's somewhere else after an explosion, having to move rocks. Like in the Crossing.

I know that this hardly seem like iron clad evidence. But in the language of story telling, it's practically screaming in our faces.

And I'm so glad he's back. I missed him. He won't be himself for a while, but I legitimately believe we'll get one last fight with the Batch all together. Because brain washing is a heck of a lot easier to fix than being dead.

My sister is doing the good work and creating a tik token about it, and I'll probably share it here when she's finished.

(We're getting the episode 'Identity Crisis ON MY BIRTHDAY and so help me if that's about Tech)

Honestly I thought I'd be more excited, but I spent the entire two episodes forcing myself into not having expectations and also I might be in shock.

[mwolf0epsilon]

Whumptober Day 8: Everything Hurts and I'm Dying

Prompt: Back From the Dead

Summary: On Abafar there were old macabre tales. Ones depicting the bereaved getting desperate enough to walk out into the Void with a coffin in tow. Upon returning from those cruel desert wastes they would be accompanied by lost loved ones, now returned to them living and breathing once more... But something would always be wrong...

[In which Gregor experiences ableism and isolation and it's as lonely as it sounds.]

THIS STORY IS ALSO ON AO3

---

On the day that the medics prescribed him his medication, Gregor had been besides himself with excitement over finally having something to help slightly control his unpredictable mood swings.

Getting the right tools to sort out a problem was always a great feeling. Be it being handed a small bottle of anti-depressants, or a pint of anti-grease dish detergent that actually got the plates clean of all the horrid gunk.

Nothing could quite compare with progressing a task. The influx of serotonin was pure bliss. It made his tired bones almost seem like they ached less.

So of course he was happy that he had a way of sorting his fits. Mostly because while the giggling was manageable there was no denying it caused him a little bit of frustration (and embarrassment) when he got caught off guard. It also got people staring which made him a little uneasy.

That said, the news that he was on meds to help with the side effects of his TBI didn't seem to bring as much joy to others as it did him...

It was funny really (in a tragic sort of way) that he could find similarities between the so called natborns and other clones. Where both kinds of people only seemed to focus on the obvious differences, Gregor could very easily tell where they met on the same terms. And it wasn't the good sort of commonalities.

Natborns and clones alike seemed to have the same kinds of taboos against mental illness and mental disabilities. Mostly that they were frightened by them due to lack of understanding and lack of education on the matter. To the point where any sort of reminder of their existence made them act a little weird.

Misinformation was a terrible thing. Finding common ground on misinformation was even worse. Especially when you were at the top of the food-chain so to speak...

The medics, bless their souls, were at least trying. They were only ever trained to treat physical ailments and not ones relating to the intricacies of the mind. But they were out there actively learning about TBIs and psychological disorders so that they could help their fellow clones. Because Gregor wasn't alone (there were others like him and others in even more difficult positions).

The commandos on the other hand... Yikes...

Gregor held no ill will towards any of the 212th commandos. He knew they were still adjusting to his (the shadow of a clone '39 had become) unexpected return. Still he couldn't deny that their behavior towards him wasn't... Ideal.

They spoke in hushed tones whenever they thought he couldn't hear. Tried to avoid being around him outside of any assignments they were forced to partake with him. Looked incredibly uncomfortable when he broke out into a sudden grin, or began to fret over things they couldn't understand.

Afraid that somehow he might be contagious.

He was the double terror. Damaged goods and civilian talk. The most un-clone-like clone in all of the GAR.

Another commonality between natborns and clones was their fear of what they couldn't understand. The commandos, as specialized and elite as they were, had never been trained to deal with anything that wasn't fixable with a bit of surgery and a slap of a bacta patch. Therefore he was as alien to them as the most alien-looking and sounding of species.

On Abafar there were old macabre tales. Ones depicting the bereaved getting desperate enough to walk out into the Void with a coffin in tow. Upon returning from those cruel desert wastes they would be accompanied by lost loved ones, now returned to them living and breathing once more... But something would always be wrong...

Back then (when he wasn't aware of his true origins), Gregor hadn't really paid that much mind. He wasn't a fan of horror stories. Preferred the really sappy stuff or a good action holo. Maybe a combination of both sometimes.

But now he couldn't help think about those tales...

Someone you loved coming back from the dead acting wrong. He supposes that to these unquestioningly frightened men that that was what he was.

The commando who returned from the dead acting wrong.

'39 had died in the sandy hellscapes of Abafar, his men equally consumed by the Void. And then the corpse of the captain had risen and become someone that would never belong in the GAR. Never belong with his kin. At least not in the way that their memories of a dead man told them he should.

He wore the face but he carried not the personality of their brother.

As he takes his meds and considers his reflection in the mirror of the all too empty 'fresher, Gregor muses that his little horror story has a rather vague tragic ending. One born of misconceptions and Kaminoan propaganda.

For all the galaxy cares he'll end up alone one day, and not by his own fault. It's how these sorts of stories usually end.

[mwolf0epsilon]

👀 very nice AU you got there you won’t mind if I- *pulls out question parchment*

I see this taken differently in a lot of AUs but would Cross still be slightly bitter at the Batch? Like, would he get an inkling that he was mad at them for something before or that even them ‘leaving him behind’ led to his execution? Or would that come with more memories? Or not at all?

Would the Batch be sad/horrified to meet him again? Knowing that he has no memory of them would they try to start over with him? Would he even go with them memory recovered or not?

Does he consider the new crew his friends? Are they protective of him? And if so would they get along with the Batch at all?

I’m a bit of a fan of memory loss/amnesia AUs and I adore yours especially the art for it!!

Y'all are really enjoying this work in progress of an AU, and it's really freaking flattering. Thank you!

These questions are where it really gets interesting from a nurture vs nature standpoint, but I'll give it my best shot to convey just what I wanted this AU to be.

---

Crosshair's situation is not unique. He's gone from basically being a super soldier who's known no life other than that of a trained weapon for a government that could care less if he lives or dies, to suddenly being a blank slate that's essentially being tended to by civilians.

Gregor went through a similar situation, only the person who found him exploited him because he was an easy target. Crosshair on the other hand is being tended to selflessly because the people who rescued him have a massive grudge against the Empire, as well as sympathy for the clones.

He ended up in a position where, suddenly, he can have a semi-normal life and he's not really trying to pretend he fits in. He just fits in because there's no real guideline in his mind for how he should be acting around people.

The way I see it, Crosshair's attitude is a product of both nature and nurture, in the sense that he's a naturally difficult person, but his aggressive attitude is his defense against a world that's basically treated him like a walking talking blaster with no rights. This is a key factor as to why he fights back so hard whenever the Bad Batch is in the picture. Between his indifference towards who tells him to shoot what (because honestly the Republic was just a sugar-coated fledgeling Empire with how corrupt it already was), the enhanced inibitor chip clearly causing some mayhem in his brain, and his brothers abandoning and seemingly replacing him with a child that has zero experience in the field, and then rejecting what mercy he was giving them despite it being a massive risk for him to act against the empire's wishes, I'm not entirely surprised that Crosshair would be angry at them. Sure, on a logical note he probably knows coming back for him was a suicide mission, but it hurt to see that they weren't even trying when they had the chance to get away with it. It must have stung even more when he was pleading for them to return to his side and they flat out refused.

Why is all this relevant to your first question? Getting to it!

Crosshair (or Cruz, as he's currently being called, since he doesn't remember his own name but he knows it has something to do with crosses) has very detached dreams where he occasionally has flashes of his previous life, and where he can still hear the inibitor chip trying to call the shots in his own damn voice... And compared the past to the present he's living in? A life where he has others who are patient with him, who are just as snarky and treat him like a person rather than a soldier bred in a tube to die for some war he never asked to be a part of? A life where he has a choice to pick who he gets to be? Yeah... He's come to the conclusion that he wasn't a great person. That the him from before was so apathetic and angry because of things beyond his control, that it lead to getting him publicly executed.

So he decided to let go. He might never really understood the circumstances behind confusing angry memories of brothers he can't put a face to that he both misses and resents greatly, but he's got the chance to start over and be better than before. Eventually it doesn't even cross his mind to be upset when it's finally time to meet them again. He's not the Empire's CT-9904 nor their Crosshair. He's Cruz, the snarky smuggler with a tooka named Lula. But he's willing to give them the benefit of the doubt as long as they answer his questions.

He's definitely grown as a person. And a lot of the qualities he hid behind a wall of snark and angry glares, shine truer than they ever had before. His playful competitiveness, gentle touches to steady others, even getting into spats with people that antagonize his new family/friends.

For the second set of questions... It's a bittersweet realization for the Bad Batch. Because Cruz isn't all that different to the Crosshair they missed terribly, yet has grown so much as an individual. And this only happened because they weren't in the picture.

It gives them this sense that they'd somehow managed to hinder any sort of personal growth beforehand, but also really hits home just how unstable their situation was, that their younger brother had to lose his memories and live with smugglers to really come out of his shell and finally start deciding just what kind of man he wanted to be. It also makes them wonder about whether or not the chip really was out (spoiler alert, no it was not), and how poorly they'd dealt with everything while on the run. Granted there was suddenly a child to protect and Hunter had prioritized Omega in various situations because she's an easy target.

Overall, Crosshair isn't the only one who's going to have to do a lot of introspection in this AU. The others need to make peace with their own decisions, personal demons and what not. They at least owe it to this new Crosshair to give him the answers he seeks. Maybe... Start anew? And be better this time?

Moving on to the third set of questions, the smuggler crew is definitely like a family to him, and they're protective. They've practically been there for him since day one. Of course they know he can handle himself but, even so, he always has backup when he needs it.

The leader of the crew wasn't overly eager for him to meet with the Batch again, but the mercenary who saved Crosshair has told her to not blame them too much. The rise of the Empire uprooted their lives, and Crosshair was just unfortunately caught in the middle of it all. He doesn't doubt they wouldn't try to fix it if they were given the chance, and Crosshair is a grown man. He can decide whether or not he finally wants to put a name and face to these brothers he's dreamt about. Their second resident clone needs that closure and she can't really prevent him from doing what's best for him.