#but what if that was something the watchers did

[abstractppsychopomp]

—on sacrifice and conditioning

"Clones being programmed- nothing controls me!" "Wrecker, it is a logical conclusion that your affinity for destruction would stem from your conditioning." "You take that back!" "I'm merely stating a scientific hypothesis based on factual data." "Oh well I've got a fact for you. I like to blow things up because I like to blow things up!"

Wrecker and Tech, The Bad Batch season 1 episode 1 "Aftermath"

(disclaimer that here I'm talking headcanons, and while it is all based on my personal analysis of canon events, nothing here is 100% canon!)

So.

Reconditioning exists. I first read about it, obviously, on Archive of Our Own, and later researched more for other reasons, to find almost nothing on the topic- one of the most interesting ones regarding the clones, for the simple reason that it is called a reconditioning. To be conditioned again, twice.

What made me really think about this was the fic I wrote, that resolves around Echo's time after Skako Minor, as he deals with grief and loss, and a brief interlude about Dogma and his reconditioning.

So, Wrecker and Tech's conversation is put there before a (n almost) comical situation, them fighting in the cafeteria against the regs, which distracts a bit the watchers from it- and it's a pity, because it's one of the few things The Bad Batch gave to regular clones.

Tech proposes the idea that clones are engineered to be the way that they are, and Wrecker hates the idea, saying that he's his own person and no one made him that way- and it's the most reasonable response, isn't it terrifying to think that you're not a real person but what someone else made you, that what you are, what you feel you feel because someone else wants you to be that way, to feel those things?

They're, of course, both right.

One of the things I liked the least about The Bad Batch was that they gave us a whole show about clones, but defective ones- which is a huge huge deal, and handled "regs" in a really bad way, at least for me.

Not because regs were the "bad guys"- people who are mistreated can mistreat others, I'm not that naive, but they chose to not explore at all the differences between Echo and the others- and I find that the biggest difference is their perception of death.

My whole fic was born because of this- I imagined Echo, after Skako Minor, learning that Fives is dead, that Dogma and Tup and Hardcase are dead, that so many died while he was imprisoned, and the Bad Batch is watching him grieve from the sidelines, knowing nothing about grief.

Yes, they did mourn 99 when he died, but they aren't like other clones, who consider every clone close family and think that dying for them is a duty and honor. They're a tight-knit group, and while they understand sacrifice they're not part of a group of a thousand clones- they're four, they're clones, they have a thing called Plan 99.

Echo has seen thousands die, and is ready to die any day for the Republic, and the Bad Batch in the meanwhile is almost no used at all to the loss of loved ones.

It's enough to compare two sacrifice scenes, Hardcase and Tech, to understand the difference between Echo and the others, and the difference in how the writers perceive regular, ordinary clones and defective, unique clones.

Hardcase sacrifices himself, and Jesse and Fives are clearly sad- but they accept his sacrifice, because it was Hardcase's choice, and they would have done the same. It's a choice made in the moment, but still a sudden thing that they're all ready for- a juxtaposition that for them is the norm.

When Tech dies, they have a plan for just that- self-sacrifice to make the team survive, Plan 99, and they all oppose to that, they all try to stop Tech, they're, not to be mean, way more emotional.

Yes, we spend more time with Tech than with Hardcase, of course his death is written as something way sadder, but we're here to work with what they gave us, so we have two sacrifices.

One accepted in a minute, a name said twice before, a character made to die and make us empathize and suffer for his death, one that left such a deep mark in everyone around it.

Well, it's telling.

In The Clone Wars, we had some arcs dedicated to clones specifically, but most of them were pretty rushed (I have a beef with the way they wrote clones in the animated shows- except Rebels, but Rebels is the My Only Exception the Paramore spoke of), when The Bad Batch was all about clones.

Just not the regular ones.

So we have Echo, and we have the Bad Batch.

Echo, who's more prone to self sacrifice, just like Hardcase and his other brothers, and the Bad Batch, who has a plan made just for that, I repeat.

The Bad Batch received a different treatment from the kaminoans than the regs, which is why they think that regs hate them just because they are what, stronger, more efficient, different?

The so called 'regs' hate them, they do, and they hate them because their defections are called desirable.

(let's not talk about the word 'regs')

If they're clearly called desirable, there are defections that aren't desirable, and what happens to the clones who have them?

Imagine being scared of being different, of sticking out, because it would mean only bad things and danger (for the people who love angst and aren't scared of suffering termination) for them, and then see someone so clearly different and so 'beloved' for it.

Clones are brothers, sisters, siblings, yes, and not only in the way that makes them fluffy and miss each other.

What happens when, let's say, an older sibling sees their younger sister do what they used to do and used to be berated for by their parents, and not suffer any consequences?

In the worst situations, it ends up creating jealousy, hatred, and ruins the relationship as a whole. Or it simply strains it.

This is what they have.

The Bad Batch had a different upbringing, they had a different life, and their chip didn't work.

(Let's not think about Wrecker and Crosshair for a moment, and focus on the others. Hunter and Tech's chips didn't work. Whether it was wanted or not, they didn't. Why? Their defection, again.)

And they're not prone to sacrifice.

That's not the first thing they think about, that's not an easy answer they can give.

Sacrifice is difficult for them.

(less difficult than for a nat-born, more difficult than for a reg)

Now, sacrifice should be difficult for anyone, but it isn't for the clones, who were trained to fight and die for the Republic.

"Live to fight another day" not fight to live another day, because regs have to fight and fight and fight, and sometimes die- die is considered fighting. They were trained to do it, to fight and to die.

And the only reason this could have happened, is conditioning.

There were nat-borns on Kamino, that they met and interacted with, and they studied nat-borns since they had to one day work under them, so they know an alternative to their life, they have the tools to find out that they aren't being treated right. They were conditioned to accept their situation, their life, this life of fighting and dying, because otherwise why would they? Why would CC-8357 choose to die for a Republic who bought him, if he isn't absolutely sure that he is something made to be bought?

so yes.

Does this make Hardcase's sacrifice less important, less genuine? No, it doesn't because conditioning isn't something infinite.

Can we consider it his choice? Yes, I think so, but not a fully rounded one- in the way their choice to fight isn't a real choice, since they had no other options.

Does this make clones less human? Absolutely not, because with every second they spend outside of Kamino they learn and evolve, and this makes any part of their personality ten times more special- imagine being witty, broody, annoying and short-tempered, and imagine being witty, broody, annoying and short-tempered despite having humanity trained out of you.

the clones are so interesting because they should exist in the middle between droid and human, but can't help but be so human that people created enough lore that if someone wants to read on ao3 about them they have to research beforehand! The Clone Wars writers didn't deserve them but we do.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

License to Kitty.

[greenieflor]

Hey maybe a group of creatives deciding that they want control over their content and don't want to waste time and resources begging for ad revenue is like. A good thing

[spiltcandycoatedpunkblood]

so was that legitimately fake outrage at Watcher being "greedy capitalists" that people are now gonna go watch the try guys who are doing the exact same thing?? where's the outrage at their wealth and how they spend their money? why does Keith get people just watching him eat at expensive restaurants, but it's terrible seeing Steven go to expensive restaurants to eat food? it's got nothing to do with "the try guys did it better!!!" it's the fact that you got so outraged because of how much the economy is in shambles and people can barely afford food, let alone another streaming service, and now suddenly it's a great thing seeing the try guys be able to improve their situation with one!! I thought the whole point was that we didn't need another one!! what is it???

it's just obvious that they've both done similar things, but people are taking more issue with the creators of colour for daring to grow and move forward. EVEN AFTER THEY ALTERED THINGS AND GENUINELY APOLOGISED even whilst being fucking eviscerated online. and instead of being helped and understood by their white friends, they get fucking shaded by their friends with a sofa joke and "not to name names" bullshit

what is it with people of colour being left in the dirt by their white friends and/or costars???

[0xeyedaisy]

Random stuff

[tapakah0]

I HAVE NO IDEA IF I'M FITTING FOR THIS I HAVE 0 PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE, DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO WORK WITH SOMEONE WITHOUT EXPERIENCE?? I MEAN I AM READY TO DO SOMETHING IF I CAN DO IT BUT I HIGHLY DOUBT THAT I REALLY CAN DO SOMETHING FOR IT I HAVE TIME, ENOUGH TIME, I DON'T NEED MONEY, BUT I'M JUST SCARED THAT IT MIGHT BE DIFFICULT DUE TO THE FACT THAT I HAVE NO EXPERIENCE AND LACK IN A LOT OF THINGS I AM AN ENJOYER OF THIS SERIES, NOT A CREATOR, I AM EXITED TO SEE THINGS FOR IT, I DON'T KNOW IF IT IS GOOD OF ME TO GET INSIDE OF IT LIKE THIS

[herearedragons]

tag the oc that's most likely to get stuck in a time loop and what kind of time loop it would be

[starving-mimi]

remember that one drawing with terrorbeak wilson transforming backwards, so what if you did that with shadow creature maxwell :3

Of course i remember! this is what you mean right? :))

[bandzboy]

there needs to be nuance in this situation it’s so obvious that the media is jumping on yoongi because they saw an opportunity to join a smear campaign of a bts member and i wanna preface by saying this nobody is saying what he did wasn’t wrong and i know that’s what is going around a lot. dui is wrong and i think everyone can agree on that. in this situation, he didn’t injure anyone else and fell on his own while being drunk and he did acknowledge this TWO times at this point but obviously using this situation to cover up other news in south korea will come in handy

hybe is nothing doing anything to ease any of the damage and when this came out initially, bang pd was caught in LA with girls half his age who people found out later on were cam girls and so that’s why they used yoongi’s situation to protect him and the company because, if there’s anything this situation showed once again is that companies will do ANYTHING to protect their image and would never do the same for idols in fact, they would throw idols under the bus to do so

this situation is going too far and it’s getting ridiculous to the point he had to apologize twice and honestly what else can he do in this situation? when he probably will face the consequences and know what he did is wrong. people are asking for more when there’s nothing else to explain here when the facts were given and people still wanna make up their narratives because they hate bts. it’s just all seems insane to me atp

[robo-dino-puppy]

horizontober 2023 | 7: pass

[petricorah]

[life-winners-liveblog]

Gives Grian a ‘Pizza’ the lama plushie to cuddle!

Grian: Where... Where am I- no... I can't be back here...This is a dream right? I fell asleep ,yes, now I just need to wake up... to wake up ... wake up?

[bergoose]

does anyone else think it's kinda fucked up how the watcher fans basically bullied their creators back on a platform they didn't want to use anymore?

[quaranmine]

random firewatch au detail that has basically no impact on the story unless you want to psychoanalyze fw!grian even further than i did as the author, but it's very intentional that i always refer to both of mumbo's parents but only grian's mom. did i give him daddy issues? i guess so, but not in a way where i really deeply examined the implications as meaningful to the story. it was just a detail i stuck with from the beginning as a way to keep fleshing out the story's background subtly. the idea behind grian's dual citizenship was always that he was born in america to an american dad and british mom, and that his mom moved back to the UK when he was very young since she wanted to be closer to her family. perhaps his dad didn't go with them? or perhaps his dad did, and then later they split and he went back to america? whatever the cause, grian never even mentions his dad in the story, and it wasn't because i intended him to be dead (because that would have come up in a story about grief) if you get me

[limerental]

i actually enjoyed a lot of twn s3 but i see it repeated fairly often that it followed the books fairly closely (or at least more closely than s2) but listen. having freshly reread time of contempt, in my opinion, s3 somehow followed the books LESS than other seasons.

s1 and s2 were both often working with original content in between book canon scenes. but s3, as much as it did seem to go beat for beat following time of contempt's plot... somehow ends up changing almost every single plot point in some way.

yennefer travels with ciri and geralt together. geralt is pissed at yennefer and doesn't speak to her for a whole year. ciri wounds (maybe kills?) elves at shaerrawedd. yennefer calls ciri "ugly one" without the follow up context of their "you're already pretty" convo. geography is ?? travel is ?? the politics is flattened out to redania vs nilfgaard. the scoia'tael conflict is flattened out. aplegatt's story gets repurposed with none of the actual consequences that made that story in the books have an emotional impact because there is none of the same geopolitical plot.

tissaia stands with and frees vilgefortz out of love for him instead of standing against both the genocide and warfare of the northern kings and the imperialism of nilfgaard. the coup plot seems to be a last minute decision by philippa based on what?? who knows!! the last vilgefortz joins emhyr in nilfgaard??? yennefer calls the conclave and heads up the lodge????

so yes, it pulls some lines and scenes directly from the books and nods to them fairly often but in no way was s3 a closer or more faithful adaptation of the books than s2. it truly, fully misses something huge in almost every story beat.

[hauntedorpheum]

first time people tell a content creator GIVE US MORE ADS