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frostycatblr-fandom-files · 1 year ago

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Nice To Meet You, Brother

Warnings and Information: Not a new story, just a more masterlist and reader-friendly format since I'm unable to make the edits I want to the original. What was written with the idea of being a one-off became the establishing story for the main bulk of my Clone OCs, so this was written at a time not much had been planned in advance. Reference/allusion to canon-typical violence, injury, death and loss. Several characters are not explicitly named as of this installment. Narrative and stylistic use of italics, capitalization, and colored text. No Mando'a here. Minor language. My takes on Clone culture and their brotherly bonds have more thematic and narrative elements than how it's shown in the series, perhaps, as a heads up.

Word-count: 3,264

"Get a load of these plastoid puppies…"

They're getting new Shinnies to bolster their forces, and Maker, these boys just look younger and younger every time they get more Seppy blaster fodder reinforcements… It makes the hearts of the commanding officers hurt seeing how fresh-faced and bright these boys are.

The armor looks fresh off the assembly line and fitted onto little children fresh out of their growth jars. But they're all children. These are babies in the eyes of the Commanding Officers.

And they know the numbers of these plastoid puppies who are almost afraid of getting their armor scuffed, but no names. So young. Too young, General, please, send them back for more training...

They were never Named by their batchmates or their brothers under the rains of Kamino. They'll have to find their names out here in the galaxy.

That will have to come later. But first it's the unofficial marring ceremony a Captain came up with before they were KIA.

Scuff the armor before they even see their first Seppy encounter.

If they get it over with now, or if they allow themselves to be scuffed by their COs, the sequential scuffs will be easier to accept. Take a knife, a wad of steel-wool used for weapon cleaning/care, or just a little rock and scratch your armor.

No really, you heard me. It's for, uh… good luck! Each deployment has their own traditions, in-jokes and superstitions. We scuff our armor for good luck. (Thank the Maker, they bought it.)

That's okay, rookie, you take all the time you need to scuff your plastoid. I can wait nearby if you need me to. (We want you to steal that first scuff for yourself so the Separatists do not have the satisfaction, brother.)

They worry about the young brother who takes an hour to decide where to scuff his chest plate. He might be the first of the Shinies they lose. One of the Captains wants to keep an eye on him, close under his command in place of the Marshal Commander's ranks. The effort is probably as good as a Separatist's credit out in Republic space, but brother looks out for brother. They're all glad most of the Generals understand that.

Sure, Captain. Take the Shiny. Show him the ropes. Keep him safe.

Took-an-hour survives their first encounter since the bolster of reinforcements; the Captain kept him safe. He's shaken. He's lost his closest neighbor-batchmate (the batch that was below his, in this case) and he's mourning. He's dropped his blaster in the mud of the trenches and he's having a hard time cleaning it now that they've pulled back their forces. His weapon is no good to him if it's jammed up with the thick, sandy mixture.

The Captain has to tell him to stop attempting to clean the DC-17.

"Forget it. Throw it in the dirty bucket next to the graffitied helmet on the gunship. Take a fresh blaster. Take a breath."

(Take yourself back to Kamino, please… You're just a kriffing kid. We're all just kriffing kids.)

There's a kid who's gonna get his paint design out of this inevitable ambush and he doesn't even know it. He's a plastoid puppy with two left feet when he's nervous and keeps following the General and the Captain like a second shadow. They keep pulling this kid out of the naturally formed pits of the planet by the "scruff" of his armor. They're impossibly patient with this Shiny. The Captain has given the kid his Name when he pulls this brother out of the seventh pit and says "It's like scruffing a rowdy Tooka kitten!" with a mighty heave.

(Heh, any guess what that kid's about to get from the Captain, General?)

(You mean other than "on my nerves", Commander?!)

The kid likes the sound of the word, but he wants to change it a bit, first…

Welcome to the galaxy, Scruffy. It's nice to meet you, brother. The whole unit celebrates Scruffy and his name and his new paint and his identity. He's no longer just a number. (The General takes the time and tells him he is and feels unique in the Force, like all his brothers the General has served with, to make the moment all the more memorable.)

Scruffy is still falling into pits and still getting pulled up by the scruff of his armor by his COs and his brothers, but he's no longer a Shiny. He's no longer scared to get his armor scuffed. He's actually helping others, much later on, get their armor scuffed when they step off the gunships, and the COs see that he's got the same 'oh by the stars these boys are just plastoid puppies' look in his eyes now too. He'll show these Shinnies his deliberate, superficial damage he's so proud of and carry on the new tradition of it's for good luck!

The kid the COs have been secretly referring to as Took-an-hour is struggling. He's the last of his batch now. His last batch brother was alive just last night and never woke up. Something about the food. Something spoiled. He won't eat anything out of fear. You can't have a hungry brother out on the battlefield. You have to do something. The appetite stims just make him sick. This is hardly the right set of conditions to cook food. The only thing that placates him is the General's rations that they themselves are in charge of.

They're different and better suited for the General's metabolism and nutritional needs, but it has to be better than nothing. The General takes the rations in field supplies marked with the CT's number.

It takes an hour for the man to take his first bite. He's almost sick immediately after because the anxiety is paralyzing. But he's assured again and again by the General that the rations will be safe, he needs his strength, eat.

Scruffy (of a different batch out of the bolster of Shinnies) just sits with this brother and fellow soldier until the food is gone. It takes an hour. It's one hour less of sleep for both of them. But Scruffy doesn't complain once. He's also now keeping an eye on this nameless brother, along with the Captain, the Commander, the General. He's falling into a few more pits than usual the following day, but he just blames it half-jokingly on something flying overhead distracting him.

This brother refuses Naming. He doesn't want to Be Named. He's certain he's not long for this galaxy. He's convinced he'll join the rest of his batch soon enough and Being Named will give him hope.

"I'm a string of two letters and four numbers and I'll never be anything else."

Not on Scruffy's watch.

Not on the watch of the COs.

Not on the watch of the General.

You will Be Named is not a threat. It is a promise. You are an individual, brother. Our paints, our tattoos, our haircuts are all signifiers: We've found our Name. We will help you find yours, brother.

More scuff marks are added to the plastoid. The scuff marks of his fallen batchmates. He won't add them in paint. He'll add them in the same ways that they did. It takes the expected amount of time to complete the task.

Welcome to the galaxy, Carver. It's nice to meet you, brother. He was inspired by the nameless brother who bares his batchmates scuffs in his own armor, and carved little etchings into his helmet with a vibroknife he picked up somewhere. He's quite good at it.

(Scruffy thinks it would be funny to ask Carver to add GRAB HERE in Aurebesh lettering in the ring of paint on the back-plating of his armor up near the neck, but the COs don't share the sentiment.)

Lots of troops ask Carver to, well, carve little pictures in strips of thick bark that have shed from the trees indigenous to the planet. Flowers they found pretty. That scary hellcat with four eyes they heard about once. The General cutting a clanker in half. No wait! The General cutting a TANK in half, that would be so cool! (Hey, Commander, here's the coordinates to rendezvous with the General. Once you've memorized them we can add it to the fire.) Do you think you can whittle? Guys check it out, Carver figured out how to whittle!

Oh the General is gonna love that little Mudhorn, Carver!

The General does in fact. They keep their little Mudhorn in their pocket at all times and regard it with love. When the sour tang of the loss of life feels too heavy in the Force around them, the General holds Carver's little Mudhorn and feels the deliberate shape of the gifted token as they meditate to clear their mind. This campaign has been hard for the peace-keeper, but the little things, like this whittled Mudhorn, are cherished when things seem bleakest.

Scruffy asks Carver to make him something he thinks might help the nameless brother (and others). He's not sleeping well because he's having bad dreams. Dreams about the brothers he lost. Heard about them on the Holonet somewhere, they're called worry stones. They look like this, they're small and discreet and will be easy to carry on his utility belt. They'll be easy to replace if they get lost and misplaced.

"Whaddya think? You'll do it? You're the best, Carver, thank you."

Carver makes several, enough to give all the COs and General a worry stone, and slips the last worry stone into the nameless brother's things in the middle of the night. It's found in the morning and almost discarded, thinking it's debris in his drowsy stupor that he was about to toss without looking, but the smooth divot in the wood catches his attention. It… feels strangely nice to roll his thumb back and forth in this little space.

Okay. He'll keep the thing. He'll get rid of it if a CO tells him to. Except he later notices the COs also have one. So if they have "non-GAR contraband", he's not about to get into trouble for having it himself, right? Well then again they're COs and they'll be allowed more "luxuries".

He almost gets rid of it again after that thought. But the Captain catches it before it's kicked into the fire that night when they made camp and says it "was a close one, kid nearly lost the gift a brother gave him. That would have been a shame". Oh. Oh kriff. He nearly burned a gift? Carver made this?

Carver wouldn't have been mad if the nameless brother had burned it. He's made so many at this point. The nameless brother was always a little tighter on the rules than most other brothers, he'd probably have been reluctant to keep "contraband".

He and Scruffy had seen him using it on a few separate occasions. The tension seemed to melt right out of him, even just for a moment. He'd grabbed it at least once when he woke up from a nightmare. Carver wondered if he would be able to find the material to make a really small one and put it on some string so this poor not-a-Shiny would have a way to keep one on him, maybe under the armor, under the bodyglove, so he'd never have to worry about not having a worry stone on him if he really needed it. Sometimes just holding his worry stone was enough for the brother.

One not-a-Shiny claims the name Cairn finally. (He'd been given many nicknames, open to Being Named, but none had spoken to him until someone said the word "cairn" in front of him.) He's ended up with so many of his friends' worry stones one way or another that he'll build the little or big towers of wooden 'rocks' for the fun of it.

Sometimes the General uses gentle nudgings of the Force to make the towers take impossible, gravity defying formations. It boosts morale. It makes the men wonder if Cairn can find a way to replicate the upside down formations the General sometimes does with the right sized worry stones. Welcome to the galaxy, Cairn. It's nice to meet you, brother.

It takes an hour to get this not-a-Shiny to get out of one of the towering trees after a Separatist ambush. He made for an excellent sniper, to the surprise of the Captain who'd taken care of this nameless brother since he'd gotten there nearly a month ago. He's on the comms channel, voice high and tight with fear that if he comes down he's going to knock this bird's nest out of the crown on a branch he'd need to use to get down.

They're endangered. They can't fly yet, Captain. I don't want them to get hurt if I climb down. One already fell from the nest and-

Oh the General found it? Did it… survive the fall? Why is the General scaling the other tree with only one hand; did they get hurt in the Seppie ambush?

Oh the General is okay? Thank Kamino's rains. They… found the bird alive?

The bird is returned to the nest with the Force, and his General uses the Force to pluck him out of that tree and lift him over to the other one so he can crawl down, finally. He's sorry for getting worked up about some blasted birds but they just… He got kinda attached to them because he had imagined he was protecting not just his brothers and the General from the Seppies, but those birds too. He's sorry, General. It was silly.

The General assures the trooper that the compassion and empathy he had for the birds was not "silly". In fact, they were unaware that these birds they'd been seeing for so long on this planet were endangered. They thank the nameless man who takes a long time to do certain things for teaching them something that day. Maybe one day that thinking will make him a brilliant strategist, too.

(Yeah, the Jedi are a little weird. But that's okay, brother. Apparently when you come up in conversation now, the General hears the fluttering of these birds through the Force… Good question, don't know if they hear anything when our other brothers are brought up in conversation with the General…)

The nameless brother is just beginning to feel better, hopeful, the longer they've been taken care of by the likes of the COs, General, and Scruffy. Mostly Scruffy. Maker, Scruffy nearly cries when this brother, bearing all the scuffs of his batch additional to his own on his chest plate, asks the General if they want their rations, because he thinks he's ready to start eating his again.

He's not afraid to eat the rations meant for himself anymore, he thinks. That's a step in the right direction.

There's a few survivors from the first bolster who still don't have names, but only because they don't know what to decide on just like Cairn did. There's another bolster scheduled to arrive soon. They've decided on their paint patterns, at least.

The brother who takes an hour to do things when time allows is the only unpainted man of the unit. He looks like a Shiny, so out of place. Everyone aside from him is vying to find a Name except for him.

But it feels like hours or days after the COs welcome their new brothers who now have Names… they get picked off by Separatist forces. Hello, and goodbye, brothers.

"If I find my Name now, I'm cursed" is the new sentiment. The new anxiety that replaces my rations are spoiled and I'll get sick, I'll die if I eat them.

"I'm just two letters and four numbers and nothing else. Please don't name me. Please don't doom me, brothers…"

Maybe it's best that when the second bolster of Shinnies and other, more seasoned troops arrive, this brother is… sent back to the Jedi cruiser. We can't have him sent back to Kamino by now, there's no telling what the long-necks will do to him.

Wipe him clean with reconditioning? Decommission him? No chance in the galaxy they'll let their brother go through that. They'll turn him into a spacer instead before they'll let the Kaminoans decide.

So the COs are trying to find someone to go with this brother. Scruffy is willing, he's already done so much to take care of this brother, this will be a piece of meiloorun cake to accompany his anxious brother. If it wasn't a result of mistreatment at the hands of the… bounty hunters hired to be "Trainers", then it wasn't his fault something probably went wrong with his growth jar. It wasn't the fault of a brother who had a leak in his acceleration chamber that made him hyperactive and impulsive if the rumor mills are to be believed. They, all brothers, blame that on the Kaminoans. Or the Trainers. They do their best not to blame their brothers.

Brother looks out for brother.

"Took-an-hour" is used less and eventually abandoned. The COs call him the Unpainted Brother as a nickname, now. U-Brother, or just Brother, for short. It's easy enough to pass off as a general term of addressal.

He's far from a Shiny, he's not open to Being Named, he's clearly not finding his Name out here.

"General… please, send Brother back to the Jedi cruiser when the next reinforcements come." We're… scared for him that he's just getting worse out here and he'll get himself killed the next time the Separatists attack us.

"Another General will take him? And Scruffy? Thank you."

Brother, before you leave with Another General, we want you to take some of Our color. You may have been "unexpectedly" reassigned to another unit, but you'll always be one of Us.

Don't forget us, we won't forget you.

Carver and Cairn have a few little presents for you to remember us by. (A whittled nest of those endangered birds.) You take care of yourself, our painted Brother. Maybe your painted scuff marks will bring you good luck.

Maybe your brothers, Gunnar, Faro, Cryfar, Fluke, will bring you good luck. You, heh… kinda look like a paint canvas, now! All your batchmates scuffs glazed over in Our color. Your scuff on your chest plate is still naked, but that's okay. Maybe you can pick up the color of the unit of Another General and paint your scuff in that color, really make yourself look like a canvas.

…

What's that?

Oh.

(Oh, brother. Now? When he's about to leave with Another General?)

You kinda like that, eh?

Well…

"Canvas: it's very nice to meet you, brother."

Do you want to go, still, or do you… want to stay?

Will you stay? You know our brothers are going to want to celebrate you and your name. It'd break their damn hearts if you left now, Canvas. After all that's happened up to now, the experiences that shaped up to finding a Name for yourself and have marked your armor…

Of course, Canvas. You're welcome to stay with us longer. You're always going to be Our brother. I'll let the General know so they can let Another General know there's been a change of plans. They'll get it sorted out. Now, go grab Scruffy and let him know we'll need his skills with a brush. Need to add a little more paint to our Canvas.

Wouldn't ya think, brother?

[FFF Masterlist] [Clone OC Masterlist] [Next installment]

#frostfics #Nice To Meet You Brother #star wars #*cleaned up version #tcw headcanons #tcw fanfiction #tcw ocs #clone oc: scruffy #clone oc: carver #clone oc: cairn #clone oc: canvas #clone oc: gunnar/faro/cryfar/fluke #clone oc: commander juke #clone oc: captain law #jedi oc: caelen #there's a reference to Hardcase because we love him here #*kept much of the same format but cleaned it up a bit to make it more readable than just a mess of bullet points and lack of punctuation

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new-berry · 1 year ago

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Okay there is some delulu under here. NUFC mad rambles .. like regular rambles, not special stories.

So people who don’t follow NUFC they are in a PSR hole, well they should be out of it now as they have sold two players Minteh to BHA (meh) and Elliot Anderson (sad!) to Wolves.

When they were trying to find a way out of the hole they apparently offered Anthony Gordon to Liverpool. Fell over for the fee and the player they wanted. It may be reserected depending on what happens in the rest of the window. (Let me say: I would be sad. But I was also sad over David Batty and Alan Shearer and dude… there have been plenty. I will be sad about Triopier in probably the next six weeks. I’m sad over Callum Wilson.)

Although the in no order, rose coloured glasses: a common comment is “wouldn’t AG feel betrayed / not supposed by club/ just seen as an asset. “ and actually I don’t think so. For one, the person who broke the story is someone who has interviewed him before.

Personally I think they would have gone to him and asked his if he was to be traded where would he pick?

Becuase he’s a lifelong Liverpool supporter. Like, I won’t stand in Bruno G’s way if he gets offered Real Madrid. It would suck if AG went to Liverpool I hate all teams that aren’t mine, but I would get over it and look at left wingers. I’m for anyone who gets their boyhood club. And I know that he has said in the past he needed to get out. But the Everton situation was poisoned at the end and he’s coming back an England international and a success. Like not with his tail between his legs.

I think it shows they know how valuable he is.

Also Isak to Chelsea, as long as we don’t fall for getting their offshoots dumped on us (we have Conor Gallagher at home he’s called Sean Longstaff) if they were going to pay 170 mill well, yeah. We can get a striker for that.

The thing is I get what people are really pissed about. We have all this money (let’s not front: Newcastle’s owners could fill St James with money and backstroke Scrooge McDuck style around it) and we can’t spend it.

Chelsea are owned by a hedge fund (which means they also have buckets of gulf money) but they have an “academy” which had about twenty branches and an industrial complex of players. Man City also an academy assembly line, it’s why NUFC is trying so hard to restart its academy. But I mean.

Can we not pretend that PSR is anything but protecting some clubs that have been earmarked as the favourites. Like it’s embarrassing to pretend it’s to protect some clubs from themselves or that it’s about a level playing field.

anyway, my other complaint is the injuries of last season continue to fuck us. Like Callum Wilson would have been moved in to a preferred club for him (don’t even say Saudi unless he wants cash, for one NUFC have to jump through hoops to sell there and for a second the “buy anyone for huge money” was as much a marketing ploy as anything else. They were the new gas station in town who offered rates 10 percent below everyone else to get you in the door.

They are not paying 150 mill to take Casemiro and Antony (the gross Man Red one) anymore. ) probably one of the slightly lower list Spanish or Italian clubs (where people who actually watch those leagues say he would be an adequate fit).

But he has to prove fitness. And Jamaal Lascalles probably would have gone to Betis but hey he’s injured. It’s just… transfer season sucks. But like it’s gets easier and you will always have new favourite players. You just have to do it every season, to mangle the Bojack quote.

But having to do it when the club has literal buckets of cash because man red has lots of international fans and it’s important for them to be in Europe so the super league doesn’t get successfully resurrected? Ug.

Everyone other club in England actually doesn’t want to be a supporting player to the victory myth of clubs that think they deserve it more.

It’s good that fans are passionate about keeping certain players. But the opposite of love is indifference (as another song goes). And the Prem can make as many rules to protect the sky six as it likes, but then you are piping cheering in. And wondering why kids these days would rather play Fortnite. / grumpy old lady rants.

#putting all my end of the first window rambles #in one place #this is. it bullet pointed #this is blurted #also: there will be a special stories version as well

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