cross-my-heartt - Tumblr blog

[cross-my-heartt]

I’ve been negligent in tagging spoilers and I apologize for that

life’s been a ride recently and my brain’s not at full capacity lol

[cross-my-heartt]

yeah that ship has sailed

I know there’s two episodes left but unless they give us an hour long finale

I am so sorry to you Tech girlies out there

y’all deserved better

[cross-my-heartt]

alright I won't get my hopes up... not yet

I took this several weeks ago. I said then that I was pretty sure they accidentally leaked the summary and runtime of the final episode.

Joel's tweet more or less confirms it for me.

[cross-my-heartt]

seeing the fandom transition from being hesitant about Rampart to openly stanning him has been a gift and a privilege

[cross-my-heartt]

I know there’s two episodes left but unless they give us an hour long finale

I am so sorry to you Tech girlies out there

y’all deserved better

[cross-my-heartt]

man literally looked himself in the mirror with that shaggy beard, decided ‘yeah, I can work with that’ and actually gave himself a hot decent trim

boo all you had to do was shave

the level of extra of this man, I -

[cross-my-heartt]

Rampart when the Batch is explaining their plan to board Imperial Station 003-

[cross-my-heartt]

I'd go with petty. it makes the whole exchange more impersonal and I love that but I wouldn't go as far as to say Crosshair is afraid of Rampart

used to be afraid of what Rampart could do to him maybe (remove him from his duties) but not of Rampart himself, seeing how he had no problem glaring him down in Solitary Clone

Crosshair has plenty of reasons to flinch away from the Empire at this point but I don't think he'd retroactively develop any trauma in response to Rampart, especially now that Rampart doesn't have any of the power he had before

if Crosshair had developed any fear response to Rampart under his command he wouldn't be as flippant with Nolan. his interactions with all of his superiors before Mayday were strictly business

Crosshair pointedly keeping his helmet on when speaking to Rampart is either a very petty move or he feels safer with all his armor on. One is funny and the other hurts

[cross-my-heartt]

very much with you on this. this season has felt very artificial so far, a lot of it feels forced and autopilot and I can't get into it like I used to. one and two will be in a different category for me, three has already disappointed me irrevocably

four episodes aren't adequate to wrap up Tech's arc and if that's not Tech we're seeing then the baiting is very much cheap and unwarranted

hopefully the finale will redeem it somewhat but for now, I'm not holding my breath, just focusing on the small parts I enjoy

I try not to write negative posts, but. . . man, TBB Season 3 has brought out the worst in me. I waited (hopeful, eager, naïve) an entire year just to be disappointed. Joy.

So. . . @techsbrowneyes expressed concern that they (they being the writers) made CX-2 resemble Tech in every possible way on purpose just to spark hope amongst Tech fans and keep them coming back. If this is indeed the case, then. . . shame on the writers! How cruel can you be?

This post isn’t to say CX-2 isn’t Tech. There’s still a good possibility—albeit a very, very slim one—that Tech is still alive. But. . . my hope is fast dwindling. Hope used to be a major theme in Star Wars. What happened to that? This season is far from hopeful. Far. It’s been nothing but dark and depressing and. . . dare I say. . . meaningless. It feels like we’ve been going around in circles.

TBB season 3 is inferior compared with its predecessors. Those seasons are masterpieces. This one? Not so much. And it isn’t just because Tech is gone. No. . . Echo has scarcely been in it. Hunter and Wrecker have taken a backseat. Hunter seems to be severely detached; it’s like he doesn’t really care anymore (I miss the old Hunter). Each time Tech is brought up, they act like he never mattered to them. I mean, c’mon! Show a little emotion.

This season hasn’t been very fulfilling. No longer do I look forward to episodes. I’ll watch the remaining episodes, but if the finale doesn’t end well, I may never watch season 3 again. I’ll continue to bask in the glory that is season 1 and 2, and the Bad Batch episodes from season 7 of the Clone Wars, but that’s it.

I was so looking forward to TBB seaon 3. Should I hope that the last episodes will be any good? Probably not. Nevertheless, I will, because hope is all I have left right now, and that’s what Star Wars is built on, right?

[cross-my-heartt]

yeah. he definitely listened to Tech the most.

[cross-my-heartt]

"Rampart Rag Doll" Item Condition: Slightly Damaged

[cross-my-heartt]

Poor fella

[cross-my-heartt]

No ration bar for you Rampart!

[cross-my-heartt]

okay so I slept on it... and as much as I hate to say it I think I'm disappointed with episode five

really disappointed

putting my thoughts under a cut, they're mostly critical but there's some praise in there too

I'm not gonna lie some parts of this episode were fantastic. I legitimately started crying when Crosshair picked up Mayday's helmet and started lining them all up. but as much as I wanted to feel the same way about the other emotional moments in this episode (and they were a lot) I just didn't and it's weird because they feel right from a storytelling perspective but execution wise?... yeah, I have some thoughts

for starters I'm getting really frustrated with Corbett and co's aversion to showing us characters reacting to major events. I fully expected this episode to pick up where we left off but instead we went straight to the timeskip, foregoing all the initial stages of Crosshair's reintegration into the team (similarly people have pointed out how disappointing it is that we didn't see Crosshair react to the news of Tech's death. or Echo reacting to the news of Fives’ death. can we see the pattern here?)

we're supposed to feel like this tension in the team has been going on for a while but instead we're just told that it has. yes, it makes sense for this to be the case but when you think that the whole thing is resolved in one single episode, you start to realize just how damn rushed it is

so much of this episode relied on clunky exposition to fill us in on what's happening instead of just taking the time to show us. imagine if instead of one episode we had three episodes to develop this story line. one on Pabu, one on Barton and one final one for the mission where Crosshiar and Hunter's tension comes to a head. just imagine.

we have so much room for side quests where these characters' conflicts can broil and stew and develop in the background and we can get a real sense of time passing and a sense of how this affects them. we got a whole episode dedicated to showing us what Omega's imprisonment was like on Tantiss, imagine if they'd put the same effort into setting up Crosshair's return the same way

instead this is really starting to feel like we're trying to get Crosshair's arc out of the way so we can move on to the next one (which I presume will be about Tech) and if we do get episodes where this could have been developed as a background subplot I will chew my socks off

also if I see another giant worm creature living underground in a star wars media, I will throw myself off a cliff

NO MORE FREAKING CREATURES. we're sick and tired of them. why, why do we have to waste precious screen time on a redundant action scene? it feels so old at this point. not to mention how obviously shoehorned it is because a) it messes with Outpost's plot and b) Outpost never mentioned this being the purpose of the sensors meaning this is obviously something the writers retconned into existence to hastily cobble the plot together

a very predictable one too, I swear to god I expected it to be a worm the moment they showed the ground shake, I swear

yes, it was supposed to show us the batch working together as a yay team moment but I personally feel it was pretty lackluster (none of them actually put their special skills to good use, I'm baffled by how useless Hunter's sense were here). imagine if instead of this we got an episode that was actually interested in exploring the conflict between these two

have them walk off to quarrel after Hunter sees Crosshair acting strange with the helmets (the one piece of setup I would praise) then accidentally fall through a weak point in the ice, plunging them underground. and instead of an action scene we get a long episode of them trying to get out of the maze, walking through the tunnels and struggling to cooperate in between bouts of bickering. have Crosshair internally freaking out because this is all so similar to him and Mayday crawling through the tunnels. maybe have one of them step on an old mine, echoing that same moment in Outpost

have Hunter ask Crosshair why he knows about these mines and who taught him to disarm them. have Crosshair completely reluctant to tell him

seriously there is SO much wasted potential here...

which leads me to the next point which is dialogue. the worst side effect of rushing plot is that most of your dialogue ends up being expository and it really showed. characters saying exactly how they feel, over explaining and pointing out things that could have been shown. it all feels even more egregious when you realize that Crosshair is the one saddled with most of the exposition making him not only weirdly talkative this episode but also nudging him into the out of character territory

because Crosshair has always been taciturn and roundabout in the way he expresses himself and I feel like this was sorely lacking this time. it's a shame because that's one of the main things that made him so complex and interesting to watch

call me crazy but we didn't need Crosshair and Hunter acknowledging their mistakes. a meaningful look or a silent moment shared between them would have sufficed. we didn't need Crossahir saying what he's done, we know what he's done, and knowing Crosshair that shouldn't have come out so earnestly either

I feel like the show has proved that it's really good at conveying these nuances in a subtle way but somehow it forgot all about it in its urge to hurry the plot along

I don't know if I'm wrong or right about this but I really hope I'm not. I'm not saying the writers are neglecting Crosshair as a character, there were moments where I could really feel how much love they have for him. but the telling of that story really fell flat

all in all this episode felt like 'finish crosshair's story arc: speedrun edition'. the right story beats are there - the hug, the confrontation, honoring Mayday, focusing on the tremor - but they're so rushed and the dialogue is so expository and clunky that they left me feeling hollow

(also are we really going to pretend it's okay for AZ to be there?? your sole chip removing droid and it's used as target practice by the man with a hand tremor and a 50% accuracy rate?? hello??? anyway, just a nitpick lol)

all in all there is a lot to love and in a sense we got everything we wanted but I do wish it had been done differently

[cross-my-heartt]

okay but this is actually a really interesting thought

I can see it going a couple of ways. one is she senses Crosshair's no nonsense attitude from the start and their 'business relationship' is more balanced rather than her treating them as gullible dupes and doing it again and again each time she gets away with it

two is she tries it anyway, gets a warning from Crosshair and backs off. In both cases this could either mean she treats them more warily and with more respect or as you suggest, she doesn't develop the soft spot she has for them in the show and instead starts seeing them as a threat that needs to be removed

someone who's actually willing to bite and isn't all bark, like Crosshair, could be a real nuisance to her knowing the way she operates. maybe she won't even hire them in the first place because her ways rely on the batch accepting her terms without complaint (because they're desperate and she threatens to report them)

I've said before that Crosshair can tolerate a lot if it's a good deal (he didn't punt Nolan the moment he opened his gross mouth and he put up with Rampart as long as they guaranteed him a position in the Empire which is what he wanted). but the thing with Cid is that she's not offering a fair deal so there's nothing holding him back

in this case I can see her taking more drastic measures to get rid of them (once she realizes one of them has no reservations about getting a little rough) but also is it worth taking the risk with Crosshair? in the event that her measures fail, she would have a royally pissed off sniper who could put a hole through her head from several miles away without anyone being the wiser for it

a guy who can shoot around corners and is about as killable as a cockroach

so idk, this really is an interesting question. my guess is that she'll be extra cautious, especially seeing how poorly equipped she was to get herself out of trouble that one time she owed money, implying she doesn't have much in terms of resources other than information

maybe she'll respect the batch more and still get close to them or maybe Crosshair's attitude will be a point of contention or maybe she'll even like him for it. either way it would have made for a very different dynamic for sure

I remember there being some discussion about whether Crosshair would have tolerated Cid's swindling if he were still with the batch

and now that we have this scene

I think we have our answer

[cross-my-heartt]

I remember there being some discussion about whether Crosshair would have tolerated Cid's swindling if he were still with the batch

and now that we have this scene

I think we have our answer

[cross-my-heartt]

STAR WARS: THE BAD BATCH — season 3 // season 1