violadreamwalk

[violadreamwalk]

Is it weird that every spooky season I dig out one of my own stories to re-read? Maybe, but this is somehow like an episode of a comfort show, only I wrote it for myself. This is nearly 20 years old (!!) and if I wrote it today, I’d certainly do some things differently – but for the most part I think it holds up. 

For a decade or so of the 19 years since I wrote this, I haven’t really been active online (at least not like this) but this year I am, so I’m sharing it. 

So, if you like me still love The X-Files, in general, and the Lone Gunmen, in particular -- and you love a creepy Halloween tale -- here is: 

The Veiled Lady: Mulder and the Lone Gunmen spend the night in a haunted cemetery searching for the truth about an urban legend. Set during Season 2. 

[violadreamwalk]

Chapters: 1/1

Fandom: Star Wars: The Bad Batch (Cartoon), Star Wars - All Media Types

Characters: CT-9904 | Crosshair, CX-2 | Sniper CloneX2 (Star Wars), Omega (Star Wars: The Bad Batch), Emerie Karr, Background & Cameo Characters, CT-9902 | Tech

Series: Part 2 of Rain Instead of Sunshine

In search and rescue situations, a rescue becomes a recovery effort when there’s no longer realistic hope of finding a missing person alive, and searchers begin looking for a body.

[violadreamwalk]

I've always been my own main audience (and I think it shows).

Please share with others! I'm curious.

[violadreamwalk]

Halfway point seems like a good time to share this again...

So, this might not be the Bad Batch fix-it you’re looking for because it doesn’t fix that one big thing that most people looking for a fix-it want fixed.

But hear me out.

I watched this show with my kid and, at the end, she requested that I fix that big thing – among other things – which I’m happily doing for her. But the more I tinkered with those ideas, the more I thought about this.

So, if you found yourself like three-fourths of the way into the finale of this show going, “Ooo jump scare! ...Wait a minute, who tf even was that?” Well then, come over here and sit by me.

(Wish we had another image of these guys all together, but... you know.)

Shadows  

Summary: What does that make you? A believer.

1. Zero Series

2. Operative One

3. Washouts

4. Operative Two

5. Operative Three

6. New Recruits

7. Operative Four

8. Operative Five

9. Maintenance

10. To The Last Man

Fandom: Star Wars: The Bad Batch (Cartoon), Star Wars - All Media Types

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: Major Character Death

Characters: Royce Hemlock, Emerie Karr, Clone X, Original Clone Trooper Character(s) (Star Wars), CT-6922 | Dogma, CX-1, CX-2 | Sniper CloneX2 (Star Wars), CT-9902 | Tech, CT-9904 | Crosshair, CX-3, CX-4, CX-5, Clone Trooper Commander Characters (Star Wars), Clone Commander Mayday (Star Wars), CC-3636 | Wolffe, Background & Cameo Characters, Omega (Star Wars: The Bad Batch) 

Additional Tags: Mild Gore, Brainwashing, Gross medical stuff, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Assassination, Assassins & Hitmen, Torture, warning for language, So much fcking language, And for some not-overly-detailed discussion of past childhood abuse, Fix-It of Sorts, Fix-It, But maybe not the one you were looking for, This show is so messy, but apparently, I love mess, Not Canon Compliant, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ghosts in the Machine, Hauntings, Hallucinations, or are they?, Ghosts

[violadreamwalk]

The fact that reposts here go below the original content really messes with my brain, but maybe it's useful for things like this...

Shadows by viola_dreamwalk Chapters: 2/10

Chapter One: Zero Series

Chapter Two: Operative One

These guys deserved more story, right? Right.

Shadows

Chapters: 1/10

Fandom: Star Wars: The Bad Batch (Cartoon), Star Wars - All Media Types

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences 

Warnings: Major Character Death 

Characters: Royce Hemlock, Emerie Karr, Clone X, Original Clone Trooper Character(s) (Star Wars), CT-6922 | Dogma, CX-1, CX-2 | Sniper CloneX2 (Star Wars), CT-9902 | Tech, CT-9904 | Crosshair, CX-3, CX-4, CX-5, Clone Trooper Commander Characters (Star Wars), Clone Commander Mayday (Star Wars), CC-3636 | Wolffe, Background & Cameo Characters

Summary: What does that make you? A believer.

[violadreamwalk]

These guys deserved more story, right? Right.

Shadows

Chapters: 1/10

Fandom: Star Wars: The Bad Batch (Cartoon), Star Wars - All Media Types

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences 

Warnings: Major Character Death 

Characters: Royce Hemlock, Emerie Karr, Clone X, Original Clone Trooper Character(s) (Star Wars), CT-6922 | Dogma, CX-1, CX-2 | Sniper CloneX2 (Star Wars), CT-9902 | Tech, CT-9904 | Crosshair, CX-3, CX-4, CX-5, Clone Trooper Commander Characters (Star Wars), Clone Commander Mayday (Star Wars), CC-3636 | Wolffe, Background & Cameo Characters

Summary: What does that make you? A believer.

[violadreamwalk]

I’m extremely late to the party on this discussion but it caught my attention while scrolling because, while I had a few notes on that final Bad Batch season, this was one of the really big ones. 

I, of course, really enjoyed this show overall and dearly love its charming characters – that's the reason I care in the first place. 

But the story throughout Season 3 is weirdly hostile toward victims, and that informs the story choices in ways I didn’t love. 

This example with Echo is probably the most overt, but we get several of these moments with Emerie. The writers lowkey give *Nala Se* the moral high ground in the one conversation Emerie has with her. That is a wild choice. 

Even Omega, while continually insisting that Emerie can be ‘saved,’ doesn’t really seem to have a ton of empathy for her. Crosshair just keeps shooting her (which, okay, that’s perfectly in character) but those two characters are actually perfect mirrors for each other and the fact that they never have a conversation about their similarities remains odd to me. 

The idea that people who ‘won’t’ fight back are villains not victims is all over that last season, with characters other than Emerie. 

Echo and Emerie

Okay maybe it's just me, but did anyone else think Echo was weirdly, unnecessarily harsh to Emerie?

He doesn't know her background, and Emerie has been raised by a guy like Dr. Hemlock for ages, and isn't going to be like everyone else.

Imagine if someone was an asshole to Echo after finding him hooked up to machines--"Why were you a tool for the Separatists!!?"

By the next scene, there's no trace of that attitude, thankfully, but it was just weird and off-putting, for him to take a fellow victim to task like that.

It's the one bizarre scene in an otherwise good finale to me. I don't know why the scene exists, and Emerie saying she thought what she was doing is right is interesting, because we've never actually heard her talk about the Empire in any way, positively, negatively, or neutral.

Her character is largely one of being someone dominated by Dr. Hemlock, and her life with him began BEFORE THE EMPIRE. Which is why it's such a weird scene, because the Empire is like 5 minutes old here. She's been Dr. Hemlock's satellite this whole time, docile and obedient, and not given over to forming her own opinions, to even say "I thought it was right".

I don't think Emerie has even HAD thoughts about the Empire, any more than cloistered cult girls on rural compounds had any thoughts to the given president at any time. Emerie didn't even know Palpatine was showing up.

[violadreamwalk]

Dear algorithm...

On Tumblr, do we do that thing where we ask the algorithm to send us content and/or people to follow? I haven't posted regularly to Tumblr since my kid was a toddler and she's a Sephora tween now so...

Dear algorithm,

Send me people who like...

Star Wars -- all of it, the OT, the animated shows, The Acolyte and more. Haters to the left.

Television shows in general -- I've got a special place in my heart for old school stuff and by old school I mean the 2000s

TV and movie reviews

Fanworks, specifically fanfiction

This works on Threads and Instagram, so 🤞

[violadreamwalk]

Chapters: 5/5 Fandom: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Bad Batch (Cartoon) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Characters: Emerie Karr, Omega (Star Wars: The Bad Batch), Nala Se, Royce Hemlock, CT-9904 | Crosshair, Background & Cameo Characters, Original Characters Additional Tags: Not Canon Compliant, in small but important ways, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, A butterfly can flap its wings on Bespin and on Naboo you get rain instead of sunshine, or how I learned to stop worrying and love the multiverse, Force-Sensitive Omega (Star Wars: The Bad Batch), Sort Of, Force-Sensitive Emerie, also sort of, Badass lady clones, Problematic lady scientists, It’s wild that we never really find out why Emerie exists, Fix-It, Fix-It of Sorts, Royce Hemlock is what you’d get if a red flag somehow took human form, so plan accordingly Series: Part 1 of Rain Instead of Sunshine Summary: Every well-designed experiment has a control group.

Emerie, before Tantiss.

[violadreamwalk]

How’d you think she snagged your dad

My very mainstream middle schooler’s reaction upon finishing a show we were watching together: Uh, I think we need to google some fix-it fanfiction as soon as possible. 

Me: Wait, do normies read fanfiction now? 

Kid: *shrugs* 

Me: Wow, social media really has changed things. 

Kid: But seriously, I need a fix-it. 

Me: I mean, I could always just write... 

Kid: Wait, what?? 

Me: Hold on. If we’re gonna do this, I need to delete some things off the internet first...