#this is being brainstormed in a discord rn i may report back

[jianghushenanigans]

Sikong Changfeng comes up to Baili Dongjun and asks him for a favour. Baili Dongjun is just sipping his wine like ‘alright lets hear it’.

‘So Grand Master Tang is a massive creep and has made it clear that he Wants Tang Lianyue’s teenage disciple for himself (but not as a disciple). So Maybe BLDJ my old friend my old pal you would be willing to. Uh. Marry a seventeen year old you’ve never met.’

‘Sikong Changfeng. Are you insane. I don’t want to marry anyone after my beloved died let alone a seventeen year old I’ve never met.’

‘But what else are we going to do?!’

‘Why is this the only option?’

‘Blah blah Old Master Tang is an old man and a creep and there’s no way he’s going to let Tang Lian just leave.’

‘ok what about all of Tang Lianyue’s other disciples won’t they just be the next victims?’

‘oh no Tang-xiong didn't take any more disciples. Because he knows old tang is a creep. But xiao-Lian’s parents died and he couldn’t just leave him there.’

‘right. This is fucking batshit. I won’t do it. But I’ll help you work out another way to get him out of there.’

**jump cut to Baili Dongjun and Tang Lian’s wedding**

‘look kid I’m not going to sleep with you because you are, in fact, a child, and you’re here because we’re trying to get you out of a situation where you’re forced to sleep with a creepy old man, so sleeping with you would be bad. We’re going to have separate rooms. It’s going to be fine. Call me shizun or whatever if you call me husband I’ll fucking kms. Ok goodnight.’

Tang Lian left alone in red and gold just. Shaking.

Next morning tang lian is woken up by excitable bundle of ten year old. ‘hey you’re my new uncle’

tang lian: audible befuddlement and silent screaming. Qianluo does not notice this.

‘or well, kinda, because you’re married to my shibo, but a-die said that you’re not like really married it’s just because your shigong was weird. So. Hmmmmm. Maybe you can be my shixiong. Do you want to be my shixiong?’

‘I… I’m sorry I…’

‘Qianluo!’ SKCF bursts in ‘There you are what are you – oh shit! Tang Lian!’ notices that tang lian looks about 2 seconds from bursting into tears. ‘haha my beautiful daughter sikong qianluo I see you have met the newest addition to xueyue city. I now have an important task for you. Go sit on your bobo until he makes breakfast’

Qianluo is like ‘hell yes annoying bldj AND breakfast!’ and zooms out of the room. And then changfeng goes FULL mother hen like ‘I know he said he wouldn’t touch you but I can’t believe he left you completely alone oh no you’re freezing and you don’t even know where anything is and … ah shit’ and then he sits down beside tang lian and holds his arms out and tang lian just folds into him and cries.

At some point bldj posts his head through the door and scf does the ‘i’m watching you, bitch’, motion. Bldj grimaces and backs away. Some quiet squealing through the door as he picks up qianluo and then runs away to the kitchen with her.

Eventually TL calms into a state of not having a breakdown and SKCF is like ‘come on get dressed and then I’ll give you a tour and we can find some breakfast’

TL gets dressed, then ‘I thought you’d sent sikong-guniang and, ah,… … … for breakfast.’

‘first thing to learn in xueyue city, xiao-Lian. The only consumable thing Baili-xiong can make is alcohol. Don’t eat anything he cooks.’

SKCF gives TL a tour and they find edible food and slowly TL relaxes a little bit.

‘he told me to call him shizun’

‘of course he did. He’s such a -’ skcf cuts himself off with a sigh.

Eventually TL is like ‘i’m glad I’m not going to get attacked by old master tang because he’s old and a creep. And I’m glad that first city master isn’t going to attack me. It’s all just. A lot.’

‘yeah kiddo I can imagine. You’ll get used to it. welcome to Xueyue City.’

[phoenixyfriend]

Time-Traveled Clones Give Anakin a Mental Breakdown

So @purronronner​ suggested the below on discord:

mental time travel au but it’s only clones (definitely Cody and/or Rex, possibly others)

Which we obviously all took and just... ran with. Contributors include Purrs, @the-lunar-system, and @atagotiak.

Initial brainstorming was just us trying to figure out how many clones did the mental travel, from when, etc. - Ended up deciding on 'significantly post-O66' and 'some but not all' - Mostly it's the angle that the only people who have an idea of what’s coming are the ones who aren’t even seen as people by most. THey have very little leverage to work with but they’ve gotta do something.

(I personally like the idea that Boba travels because Jango has to deal with the fact that His Baby Boy is suddenly much more adult and serious and also telling him that the whole Kamino thing is going to Destroy Everything Including Mandalore, And Revenge Against The Jedi Won't Be Worth It, but that idea got scrapped because he's got too much influence via dad.)

Rex and the clones that died when Rex & Ahsoka were escaping 66. Because Rex would probably be very regretful he couldn’t save them. The others would probably be understanding of the situation and even worse some of them would be thankful that he stopped them. - Strategic mass desertion via faked KIA reports as medics smuggle people out to investigate what's trying to kill the Jedi through the clones - Also they can manage a lot by doing surgeries and reprogramming Med droids and stuff. At the very least Palpatine can’t manage such a sudden and decisive victory without subverting the clones. The political angle is probably still a complicated mess but he can’t just snap his fingers and do a genocide, y’know? - IMO at least Fives is definitely on the list of time-travelers.

The Krell Situation is, uh... handled. Quickly. - Sometimes friendly fire just happens, you know? Accidents.

Mass Distrust of Anakin Skywalker - He knows they don't like him but has no idea why. - On the one hand, they loved them some TCW Anakin. On the other hand, look where that takes him...

Anakin keeps feeling like the clones are mourning him while he's standing right there. More than the other Jedi, even! All the Jedi feel vague grief from some of the clones, usually in a way that makes no sense, but the vibe they have around Anakin is a mindfuck. - Some of them want to get away and fast, some of them want to figure out how to fix him, none of them are at all happy with this.

He does one of those somewhat concerning TCW things where Imperial March plays faintly in the background, and while in the first timeline the clones would write it off as him being a little bit angrier than most Jedi (and he never takes it out on them, y’know?), this time they’re reacting… poorly. - They're scared of him this time. - And lbr the clones... while they’re largely good, moral people, have less rigid ethical rules than the Jedi and are more used to thinking of things in terms of us-vs-them as well as the Jedi-know-best conditioning, so they probably wrote off a lot the first time around (and now blame themselves, just a little, for Vader).

They, uh, they maybe get a bit twitchy... and the specific fear a few of "Vader's Fist" feel is so similar to the fear Anakin sensed around slaves in Gardulla's that he starts having flashbacks. - Anakin at one point spirals so deep into a flashback that he mutters something about how "she" is going to eat him and nobody can figure out who the fuck he's talking about, because nobody knows about Gardulla, possibly not even Obi-Wan, since that was TODDLER Anakin and while Watto may have come up, Obi-Wan probably didn't even think Anakin would have remembered toddler-age stuff, so Gardulla was never really discussed. - All anyone knows is that Anakin is fine with Ahsoka, so it's not her, but she's the only person on board using she/her pronouns so far since none of the clones are socially transitioning yet. - (Apparently Gardulla just ate her slaves sometimes? And Anakin had to live with the knowledge that that was a possibility for him? Until he was three? Fucked up, bro.) - (I'm just really invested in AUs where Anakin's 'not going evil' path kicks off in part with a breakdown where he can't keep himself in denial about the slavery element of the clones anymore.)

"They're scared of me." "Sir--" "They're scared the way we all were at Gardulla's what did I do?"

This would be pretty soon after Return to Tatooine, and Tatooine Three: Electric Boogaloo so Anakin is like... peak slave trauma rn anyway.

Anakin has a breakdown much earlier than in canon, and in precisely the opposite direction, loudly and blatantly enough that the Temple has to ground him for a bit, and even Palpatine can't get that overturned until the medics say so. - Also one of the key points: Anakin doesn’t resent it in the same way. - It’s uh. Less. The “The Jedi are afraid of my power (and Palpatine says that’s why I can’t just do what I want)” and more “the clones are afraid of my power (arguably with good reason)”

people above you fearing (+ limiting) you: hits right in the slave trauma people under you fearing you: still slave trauma but flipped all the way around

This is just back to back: - Mom died because you couldn't save her, on Slave Planet - You slaughtered an entire tribe of Tuskens, including the children, and have been putting a lot of effort into convincing yourself you're not a monster - You got chained up and threatened with public execution via Consumed by Big Thing (and are abruptly reminded of toddlerhood, where you were at risk of being Consumed by Gardulla, a Big Thing) - Clone army, basically slaves, can't think about that too hard or you'll freak out - (Secret marriage, which is stressful but not hitting the slave trauma button.) - You had to save a baby Hutt -- You had to help a slaver Hutt -- ON SLAVE PLANET AGAIN -- WHILE THE HUTT IS THREATENING TO KILL YOU - (Someone just GAVE YOU A CHILD, which is stressful but not hitting the slave trauma button.) - Half the clones treat you like a more impuslive Obi-Wan, and half of them are... scared and wary and you don't know what to do about that - You did something kinda fucked up and now half the slaves clones are fine and the other half feel like they're waiting for you to kill them in your anger - Fuck - Fuck