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phantom-of-the-501st · 1 year

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Thoughts on TBB 1x1

I've missed doing these analyses but I have started rewatching TBB from the beginning so I'm going to do some more breakdowns as I go through the series!

Discussion about random 1x1 moments down below! (Also spoilers for TBB S2)

Crosshair and Framing

I rewatched S1 a few times before S2 came out, so I was aware of some of the choices they made when positioning Crosshair in shots, but I didn't necessarily realise how often it happens! Right before Order 66 is given, Crosshair moves out of the frame. It's actually the last time that you see him until the order is given, meaning that you have a couple minutes of just the other four members.

What I find particularly interesting at this point though is what they are discussing. They are talking about what happens next, where they go from that point on. Now, in the context of the scene, they are discussing battle plans, but I find it interesting that they are talking about where they go from here and Crosshair isn't involved. He doesn't even contribute. Their entire conversation about what happens to them next does not involve Crosshair. He's completely out of the conversation, which I find interesting considering that the next major step that the Batch takes doesn't involve Crosshair being there. It's not necessarily a conscious decision by the Batch, but it's definitely a conscious decision by the writers to not have him involved in that moment.

But that's not the only time that Crosshair isn't in the frame! And even when he is, sometimes he's in the back and/or out of focus. (Images from cap-that.com)

Notice how he's also the only one with a helmet on here and how significant that helmet is when showing Imperial Crosshair.

This is just a selection of them, but you get the idea. Crosshair is frequently cut out, physically separated, or out of focus when the Batch are shown together. His detachment at this point is apparent.

But just to break your heart even more, guess who's the next to get cut out of a lot of the scenes. :)

Now Tech does appear in a lot more scenes than Cross and isn't cut out the majority of the time, but it stood out to me that the next person to disappear out of that first frame was Tech. I don't know if the writers knew for definite at this point what was going to happen in the S2 finale, but it's interesting how they seem to filter off in the same order that they do in the story.

The Bad Batch Being Irresponsible

This is less depressing to talk about but it made me laugh.

Hunter: "This is one meeting I don't want to miss."

Tech: "First time for everything."

As if it wasn't obvious enough that these lot are rubbish when it comes to following protocols, they straight up admit that they don't attend meetings. Imagine other members of the GAR trying to organise meetings with this squad to discuss missions and they just don't show up. They probably gave up trying to give anyone in this squad paperwork because it would never get filled out. I imagine that half of the mission reports are just second-hand accounts from other clones that the higher-ups had to talk to because none of them can actually track down any of the Batch to get information out of them.

Battle Report No. 7365-278

Accounts from multiple battalions claim that Clone Force 99 defeated the enemy by performing a series of unsafe manoeuvres that do not correspond with any of the plans laid out in the GAR regulations. Reasoning for the chosen methods is unknown as no-one has been able to contact Clone Force 99 to discuss these strategies. However, the battle was a success and all attempts to contact the squad have been abandoned by order of Commander CT-2224 who stated "You might as well give up now before you all get grey hairs trying to get them to do anything".

AZI and the Domino Twins

I said before during the S2 finale that seeing Echo with AZI reminded me of seeing him with Fives but what stands out to me even more is the fact that it is those two specifically who mark the last time we see him and the first time he is on screen again. The last time we saw AZI was with Fives. The first time we see him again is with Echo. The parallels between the domino twins are always there. :')

"Five are all that remain"

I'm hoping they touch on this in the final season because we've never really gone back to this. It makes me wonder a few things: how many were there? What were their capabilities? What happened to them? Did the Batch know them? It's all very intriguing but they've never really touched on it and I very much want them to.

Does Tarkin Know Echo?

I do wonder if Tarkin has any idea that Echo is the clone that sacrificed himself to help get Tarkin and the others out of the Citadel. I honestly think that he doesn't for a couple of reasons.

1. He doesn't seem to know much about CF99 in this episode, so he probably didn't do any reading up on them. I don't think he ever mentions their names either, so he probably doesn't know them, nor cares to know them.

2. Even if he did know them, I still don't think he'd make the connection. We've already established that Tarkin doesn't like clones, so I really don't think that he's going to remember Echo's name. I genuinely do not think he cares enough in the slightest to even try and remember him, let alone recognise him this much time later.

Wrecker with Crosshair and Tech

*Sigh* This makes me sad. Seeing all the wholesome moments between Wrecker and his brothers this episode just makes me think about how devastated he was about losing them. We know that Wrecker has very strong emotional connections to his family because he's the most open about them in the squad. Watching this episode when it was just Crosshair gone was devastating enough, but after what happened with Tech as well, it's all so painful.

There's that moment during the battle simulation when Tech gets knocked down and Wrecker tells him to hang on. It makes me think of 2x9 when Wrecker makes sure Tech is safe from the storm. And then it makes me think about 2x16... Wrecker has always been so protective of his brothers and he was the one to try and help Tech in the finale. He has always been there to pick them up when they need it and to protect them and he probably feels like a failure for not being able to do it. In a life like theirs, it's practically impossible for someone to protect anyone forever but for Wrecker, he's now left with the knowledge that he couldn't do it. None of us blame him, but I know that he probably suffers from some pretty awful guilt.

"Change takes getting use to"

The exact thing I wrote down after this line from Hunter was "oh, mate... if only you knew :')" and yeah... I think that pretty much sums it up.

The Batch have had to go through a whole lot of change and that's one of their biggest challenges. Even though they don't stick to orders, they are still soldiers and their life still holds some level of routine. But suddenly everything goes wrong, everything falls apart and a lot of that structure disappears. What happens to them between 1x1 and 2x16 is the most change that any of them have ever had to go through and none of them could've anticipated it.

"Good soldiers follow orders"

So this line has already been talked about to death but I noticed something in one scene in particular. When they are in the brig, and Crosshair says this, he takes a step towards Echo at the "follow orders" bit.

It's interesting that he directs that line towards Echo, the rule follower. Yes, he's addressing all of them at this point, but I wonder if he directs that part of the line specifically at Echo because he knows that Echo, by nature, is more likely to stick to regulations. It's an attempt at making the point stick. If Crosshair can make him believe that he can only be a good soldier if he does exactly as he's told (like Echo believed when he was in training), then he can hammer the sentiment in.

But what's also stands out is that Echo doesn't flinch. There's no pain, hurt, fear, concern, none of that. His face is kept stern and I think it's because that line doesn't stick with Echo as much any more. If someone had told him this when he was a cadet, then maybe it would've hurt him, made him doubt himself. But after everything that he's gone through, he knows that following orders alone doesn't determine how capable of a soldier you are. It doesn't dig as deep anymore because he of all people knows the need to adapt to the situation, even if it goes against direct orders.

(Not to mention that Echo is one of the most morally-driven people in the group. He knows that killing Jedi is the wrong thing to do and he is absolutely not listening to whatever Crosshair is trying to spew at him at this point).

#I didn't cry watching this episode!#I was very surprised by that #but here are some thoughts #more will come out as I move through the show #but I realised I have a show I need to catch up on by next week #so that'll probably get the most of my focus rn #but enjoy these ramblings in the meantime #Steph rambles #the bad batch #tbb #tbb echo #tbb tech #tbb crosshair #tbb wrecker #tbb hunter #clone force 99

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lifeofclonewars · 3 years

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Fives and Echo in Clone Cadets

Okay, buckle in if you're gonna read this. I'm an English major and you can tell bc this started out as a quick rant with a few points in my head at midnight and turned into a full analytical essay on the Domino Twins throughout the entirety of Clone Cadets in one sitting plus some next-day editing. What can I say, I analyze everything I watch even when I'm not consciously doing so. Some pictures and links included.

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I get the whole “Fives and Echo weren't close until after Rishi” thing because of the poetic-ness of the narrative of brothers who aren't close going through trauma and coming out of it stronger and as best friends all that but listen to what I have to say.

We’ll start chronologically: with their final run-through before the finals. As you may know, I made a list (here) of who argues with whom during Clone Cadets. The other three constantly nag Echo about his habit of repeating things. Hevy and Cutup both call Echo, well, Echo but before he accepts it as a name and more as an insult. Cutup’s the first one to do it, literally almost right off the bat. Hevy does it to purposefully pick a fight after the practice test. DB responds to Echo's “stop calling me that” with “stop repeating every order.”

Fives argues a bit with the rest of Domino when they're all arguing, but he only says one negative thing toward Echo. But there are so many things that make it different from the things aimed at Echo from the rest of the squad.

He tells him “Will you shut up with instructions? You're not in charge.” Domino’s nagging Echo about the repeating, Fives... doesn't quite do that. The narrative makes it look like Fives is also mad about the repeating orders, given both DB and Cutup have at this point. However, what Fives says doesn't make a direct reference to Echo’s habit, at least. He's definitely frustrated here (they all are, they’re failing again), but, at least to me, he's frustrated because Echo's focused more on getting them to follow exact orders instead of moving forward or working together. And yeah, he snaps a bit while reminding Echo he's not squad leader and not focusing on the right thing. But he never mentions the echoing, and, after this one moment, he never makes a negative comment toward Echo again during Clone Cadets. Also, important to note, Echo wasn’t repeating orders or anything when Fives snapped at him, just saying they’re not following orders again (which is different).

So, basically: everyone’s arguing about everything. Everyone argues with Echo about various things. Fives is the only one that doesn’t go and make a comment about Echo’s repeating during it, though.

That signifies something. Fives has got a better understanding or acceptance or trust in Echo than the rest of Domino. He doesn't mock him for what makes him him. He gets why Echo does it, maybe. Even if he doesn't, he knows it helps Echo and that Echo repeating orders is his way of trying to help his brothers. And this comes into play at a point farther along in the episode that we’ll get to soon.

Next comes the, like, one moment we see the clones have some downtime. It’s when, once again, they start arguing. Despite DB being the one to tell Echo “stop repeating every order” during the run-through, we see them getting along here. We see them chatting with each other and 99 very briefly when Fives' gives his “you never even met a girl” line and Hevy comes barging in. Hevy insults 99, Echo tells the squad to follow orders, an argument starts, yada yada.

Then, Hevy gives his “care to repeat that, Echo?” line, which I mentioned earlier as Hevy doing it to purposefully pick a fight. When they start to fight, we hear the other members of Domino start cheering Hevy on. One says “Come on. Get him, Hevy!” The other says, “Smack that know-it-all.”

Here’s the thing, though. They show a shot of DB, Cutup, and Fives. Cutup can be seen pumping his fist but his accent isn’t heard. There are two voices speaking, but they’re layered on top of each other so it’s hard to tell who’s speaking and how many people are speaking if you aren’t paying attention. Together, this comes out to look like Fives and DB could be the ones talking, and Cutup’s not actually speaking.

However, as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, Cutup’s accent drops in and out all throughout Clone Cadets. Especially during impromptu moments. With this, it is also possible to conclude that he is speaking during the fight, just without a different accent, especially since he’s pumping his fist.

That leaves Fives or Droidbait as the other person speaking. As you can see, both of them seem to be watching. Now, you could argue that Fives is the one who said something. You can argue the DB is the one who said something. Since they’re showing the fight when the lines overlap (the “Get him” one starting about a second earlier), there’s no conclusive evidence for either. For the point of this argument, you can’t argue that it proves Fives and Echo were close, you can’t argue that it proves they weren’t.

Following that comes Colt’s speech before the final. As I’ve noted multiple times, nobody in Domino is happy with Echo the first time he makes a comment.

Going back and watching it happen in time reveals a bit more, though. They’ve all got facial expressions kinda similar to it when it cuts back to them after Colt speaks. Echo says “thinks he means us, boys?” Hevy seems to be the only one truly angry about the comment. The other three seem to be more of “what are you talking about, you know we’re not that great.” Plus, you know, they’re all nervous about their final. Even more so with how they didn’t make it through the day before. (Here’s a link if you wanna see it for yourself. 0:45; it’s all quick reactions, but you can see what I mean)

(Hmm so maybe I was wrong about that screenshot before. Go figure. There’s a reason screenshots aren’t always completely reliable sources for shows, since none of what I just talked about is visible in a standstill moment. This is why I’ve rewatched Clone Cadets 48209832 times. I’m still picking up new things about Domino while doing it.)

When Echo says, “well bravo for Bravo Squad,” some other things happen. Firstly, Echo’s rolling his eyes. He’s either being flippant about Bravo or he’s being self-aware enough to know it’s a bad pun and that his brothers don’t like his comments. But Fives actually looks over, concerned, when he makes the comment.

That definitely counts for something. Especially since the other three don’t look very concerned about how Echo’s feeling with the comments. (Hevy’s definitely not looking over here.) But Fives seems to be wondering how anxious Echo’s feeling or something along those lines and how Echo’s expressing it. Especially since Echo doesn’t purposely pick fights like Hevy. He’s just making comments that happen to aggravate the Squad more than he’s usually trying to use as his way of showing he cares about his brothers and how well they perform.

After that comes their first run of the final. And with it comes a moment I love so much. Echo’s standing at one of the cover blocks when Fives runs up to him. Not only does this happen, but Echo smiles so much at seeing his brother do so.

He’s just! So happy that Fives is there. I love that. Anyway, Fives tells him, “you flank right, I’ll flank left.” Then comes Echo’s lil pun moment. Fives rolls his eyes, but he looks more fond but exasperated than truly annoyed.

Right after that, Fives runs off again. Which means he took Echo’s comment about staying on the same side and went with it, even though that wasn’t his initial plan. He’s trusting in Echo’s combat planning there. After DB gets shot down, we can actually see this happen as they meet Hevy at another one of the blocks. They come from the same side, Fives, then Echo. So, it worked out successfully.

When Colt tells them they failed not too long after that, another thing happens! Fives and Echo share a look. They didn’t have to — Hevy was behind Fives and Cutup was in front of Echo. They could’ve shared a look with them. But they didn’t. It’s definitely an “oh crap” kind of look they share with each other. Something that’s usually shared with those your closer to in situations like that, ya know?

“But wait!” you might say. “These are mostly examples of Fives being a good brother than of them being close.” Well, that’s where Echo and Fives talking to Shaak Ti about transferring squads comes into play! Of course, since I’m going chronologically, it’s not the immediate next point on this, but it happens during this conversation.

The two of them talking to her is a pretty big deal, especially since constantly up to that point we see Echo not getting along with the squad. He definitely wouldn't do it with Hevy, who he fights with most. Cutup and Echo don't fight as much as Echo and Hevy but we don't see them actually talk to each other besides whenever they do the sim, right before the second final, and Rishi. And Rishi is Hevy and Cutup making fun of Echo a bit. (Main difference then is that they do understand each other better to some degree and it doesn't escalate like it once might've.) DB, I touched on some points earlier.

But there’s a reason it’s Echo and Fives here, and it’s more than just Fives fighting with him less.

When they talk to Shaak Ti Fives trusts Echo to do the talking for them (he only speaks up twice with small comments then). While it’s a short conversation, most of the talking is done by Echo. The duo most likely had a conversation beforehand about what they were asking and why. While we don’t know who asked the other if they wanted to do it, they’re both there, and Fives trusted Echo and his memory and ability to repeat the points they wanted to make. It's the exact opposite of what the squad has been doing. Instead of mocking the repetition, he gives Echo a chance to do it without judgment and as a positive thing.

Echo also goes on to do some things that show it’s not just Fives being a good brother, it goes both ways with them.

There are only two instances where we see Echo touch someone. One is when he fights with Hevy (and Hevy starts it). The other instance is with Fives, during this talk. The two of them had been standing at parade rest and Echo — who's whole thing as a cadet is following orders — breaks it to set a comforting hand on Fives' shoulder!

He's the one to do it! Echo’s the one that takes the opportunity to comfort Fives and Fives doesn’t shy away from it. And not only did he recognize what Fives was feeling, but he also acted on it. They know each other well enough at this point to understand each other’s emotions and how to react to them accordingly.

And it's not like the other clones don't nudge and pat each other on the back and whatnot. Hevy pats 99 on the head (condescendingly smh Hevy you know better but whatever that's not the point).Both Fives and DB nudge Cutup for a comment he makes.

Echo just... doesn't do it during Clone Cadets. (I will point out he gives 99 a light excited punch on the shoulder during Arc Troopers — but that's after he's been with Torrent and trusts 99 even more than he did on Kamino for helping Hevy out) But he does voluntarily set a hand on Fives' shoulder. He’s comfortable enough with Fives to do it when we don’t see him do it with the rest of Domino or even 99.

Also, we all know Fives smacks some of his brothers, we've all seen that post by now. But he never does it with Echo. Instead, he lets Echo do what he's comfortable with. I just think that's important to note.

There’re also multiple times in this scene where they share looks while they’re speaking or when Shaak Ti says something. If you watch Arc Troopers or the first half of the Citadel Arc, even some parts of Rookies, Fives and Echo have a lot of nonverbal communication. This is just planting the seeds for that.

This scene can also be used for some “Fives and Echo aren’t that close” arguments, especially if you go with the “they are literal twins” hc. The whole “they wanted to stick together because they were twins, not necessarily because they got along better” argument. There are some other points here, like the fact that Fives did say something rude to Echo, or that Fives was talking to Cutup in their downtime and Echo with DB.

The thing is, with these things I've talked about, it shows that they were close on Kamino, regardless of that hc. I highly doubt LF and Filoni actually write them as twins (they probably would've mentioned it by now if they were). So while I personally like to take some of these things as them being twins, mostly they just show that either way, they were close. And the points Echo makes while asking Shaak Ti come into play as well.

Echo states, “Which is why Fives and I are looking out for each other,” when told that the clones, like the Jedi, have individuals and the group be one and the same. He makes it a clear point that they’re looking out for each other, that they’re trying to make the decision they think is best for the other. That’s! A big deal and sign that they’re close, if you ask me.

Right at the end of the scene, Fives once again shows his trust in Echo. After hearing that they’ve been given another shot at the final, he looks skeptical. What does he do right after? Look at Echo. He didn’t need to, he could’ve stared at the wall, ground, given Shaak’s back a funny look. But he looks to his brother for comfort again. And we see Echo look back at him, doing so, right as it transitions to Cutup’s scene.

(“Wow this is really long, you must be obsessed with Domino Squad,” you might also say. That would be correct lol. We’re almost done, though.)

The next time we see either of them is when they think Hevy hasn’t shown up but then does. This is a nice little moment. Domino must’ve had a conversation or something because Cutup, DB, Fives, and Echo seem to be more at ease beside the whole missing Hevy thing. I should write that conversation someday. Echo even repeats what Fives said and nobody makes a comment about it.

Hevy eventually surprises everyone with his dramatic entrance and marches through their bench area to head to the simulation room. After that, the three of them turn and look at Echo, who shrugs. Not really a moment between Echo and Fives and more about the whole squad, but it’s there. Domino’s getting along better as a whole, matching more of what the dynamic between those two has been the entire time.

And finally, the second final. Like how the practice test is slightly focused on Echo’s comments and the reactions to it, this one’s focused on Hevy being the natural leader he is. Also, just, Domino Working Together.

When they take cover in the little slit thingies, Fives and Echo take cover in the same one. Part of it was probably which one was closest. Part of it definitely was production trying to make it easier to fit more of them in the same frame there. But also, it says something about how they trust and understand each other on the battlefield. Partially from growing up training together, partially they've got the trust and understanding the whole squad is just finally starting to get within the rest of their dynamics.

The only scene in this whole episode I don’t know who’s who is during the medal scene. If we base it on where Hevy stands, Echo and Cutup are the ones to talk. However, the second clone doesn’t have Cutup’s accent and it’s not one of those situations that Cutup tends to drop his accent. So I’m not really sure, other than that Domino is very clearly all proud of each other. I’m not really sure why I wrote this paragraph then… aNyWaY, that’s the episode!

TL;DR Throughout the episode, the Domino Twins show multiple signs of them being close to each other. I really think that the episode is supposed to show us that they're close from the beginning and Rishi just made them form an even stronger bond. Paraphrasing Shaak Ti, their journey is about them connecting to the rest of their squad throughout the episode, not necessarily about them also learning to connect with each other. They’ve got that down, after all.

#b talks #arc trooper echo #arc trooper fives #domino twins #domino squad #echo #fives #clone cadets #star wars meta #clone wars meta

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ninastarkov · 3 years

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ok i started a chronological rewatch of tcw and got to “clone cadets” and besides that it made me way too sad that episode is exhibit a of why tcw is so good.

it has all the elements of good tcw in just one episode: humanizing the clones and emphasizing unity/brotherhood among them, giving us a look into the jedi, giving us little scenes and lines that come back to haunt us later.

shaak ti is a main player in this episode and i love her a lot. one thing i noticed is that not once in the episode did she refer to any of the clones by their number, which felt very purposeful bc some of them (hevy, droidbait, cutup) hadn’t even chosen names yet, and at one point i think echo(?) calls fives CT-27-5555 which is so unnecessary that it’s funny. other characters (ex. the bounty hunters that help with training) have no issue calling them by number. one of them especially, bric, is a prime example of the people out in the galaxy who see clones as objects more than anything. the other, el-les, cares more for them as people. they’re the opposites on the spectrum, their purpose to show a good side of humanity and bad, and work pretty well in that role.

also on shaak ti, at one point she meets with a kaminoan (lama su) and makes clear how the clones are people, not objects, to which this moron says “you jedi show too much compassion.” so much insight into two characters just from a line of dialogue. the portrayal of lama su shows just how little the kaminoans care for the clones—the clones are just products to them, which comes back into play once again in the chip arc with fives in s6.

twice in the episode, someone makes a speech to all the clones that are about to be shipped off to war. first time, it’s colt, an arc trooper. his speech is all about unity, brotherhood, working together for a common cause. the second speech is by shaak ti, right as all the clones are leaving kamino, essentially wishing them well. but after her speech, we get a shot of all of them marching out with ti standing alone in the middle. this, combined with music that seems mournful, is what got my attention. this should be a proud moment, and it is, but it’s overshadowed by the knowledge that all of these men are going to go fight and inevitably die. the music reflects that, and so does the image of ti standing alone, still, as the clones pass her by.

and on foreshadowing and scenes that come back to haunt us. someone on bravo squad (the good squad, making fun of domino) says “watch the dominoes fall” which made me s c r e a m because that’s exactly what we the audience have to do over the course of the show. honestly, if ahsoka and rex are the main characters of tcw, domino squad is right below them. also, towards the end of the ep, hevy gives 99 his medal, promising they’ll see each other again. of course, that never happens, and 99 and hevy both die in sacrifice for their brothers. 99 is another amazing part of this episode. he’s the one to push hevy to bring his squad together. without 99, hevy would have deserted and domino would have failed. again, brothers coming together.

(but also wtf was with cutup’s random accent???)

#chronological rewatch #long post #tcw meta #sw meta #shaak ti #domino squad #arc trooper echo #arc trooper fives #clone trooper hevy #at some point i had to prioritize what i wanted to talk about in this there’s still more but that’s just too long #my meta

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oceanera12 · 4 years

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Fives has the Force (AU edition)

“Ooooh... meteor shower.” - Hevy (Rookies)

Part 2: Rookies

The Rishi Outpost is… boring. Which is good for Fives. This is something everyone agrees on. Away from Jedi, away from the battles, away from other clones. Fives is hidden away, safe and sound. As such, no one complains, despite how boring and dull the routine becomes.

It also gives Fives time to read through and practice the notes General Shaak Ti left him.

Domino takes turns helping Fives with the exercises. Most of them involve just sitting on the ground and clearing his mind. But even if clones are trained to sit and wait (ambushes, scouting, etc.) just sitting on the ground, eyes closed, and focusing on breathing is so boring.

Of all the Dominos, Droidbait is the one most willing to sit and do nothing. Actually, he grows to enjoy the “meditation” things.

After a week on Rishi, Fives wakes up in a cold sweat, holding in screams and tears. He wakes up Echo in a panic and the next hour is Fives shakily explaining he saw Droidbait get shot, Cutup get eaten by a Rishi eel, and then the Rishi station blow up in a massive fireball with a bunch of droids and Hevy inside.

Echo’s pretty sure it was a nightmare at first. Obviously not fun to watch and concerning. Then Fives has it again a few nights later. And then again. And then he snaps out of one of his “meditation sessions” with it. And now Echo is researching Jedi abilities again and finds something called “Force visions” and he’s just “WELP. This might be a problem.”

Course they can’t tell their commanding officer about it because “clone’s don’t have the Force.”

Also, they don’t know exactly what’s going to happen or how to really prevent it. Or if they even can prevent it. But Force curse it all, they’re going to try and at least be prepared to fight or something!

So Domino is now doing a lot of target practice during their freetime, looking at battle tactics and strategies of invasions of the base, and familiarizing themselves with all weapons and ammunition on the base.

Cutup and Echo team up on researching the Rishi eel’s and also other giant animals looking for ways to kill them.

Hevy and Fives practice hand to hand almost constantly, getting tips from Sergeant O’Niner who has never seen shinies throw themselves into this much training on a station outpost.

Droidbait throws himself into medical procedures and practices. Some of them he learned on Kamino, but most of them new.

And unbeknown to all, Fives is trying to lift things with his head. Or at least nudge them. Tripping a droid or edging a grenade closer to it’s target seemed like a good idea. At first, he practiced alone, in his barracks, using a training ball clones used for hand-eye coordination practice. But when he started making progress, he tried tripping anyone who walked by him in the commander center. Sometimes, it worked. But mostly, it didn’t.

It was a month, maybe two later.

Meteor showers happen often on Rishi. About once a week. So Fives doesn’t know exactly why he was on edge. It didn’t help when the sentry didn’t respond to the Sergeant. Droidbait and Nub are ordered to find him.

Out of pure instinct, Fives grabs two blasters and tosses them to Droidbait and Nubs. Nubs looks confused but takes the blaster anyway. Droidbait is immediately on guard.

“DROIDS!”

Twelve Commando Droids vs seven clones (and pretty much zero battle experience on the latter’s account)

Nub goes down almost instantly. Droidbait was able to back up and get towards the command center before getting shot through his arm. He was grabbed by Sergeant O’Niner who threw him back into the room and to cover.

The rest of Domino is able to take out four of the Commando droids before the Sergeant goes down. With that, it’s just Domino. Cutup manages to close the main doors and hardwire it shut. Hevy and Echo carry Droidbait behind the control panel to better cover while Fives readies the emergency supplies the squad had hidden around the base (aka, the backpack of droid poppers and thermal detonators in the ventilation shaft, along with a Z-6 and sniper rifle)

Echo starts working on cutting the all clear signal just as the droids break through doors. Two Commando’s go down instantly from Hevy’s Z-6. The other six began to press in. One manages to get through but is heavily damaged and taken down quickly by Cutup and Droidbait, both covering Echo. The next follow suit. Two more are taken out by droid poppers and some well placed shots.

Three droids remain and Hevy’s gun overheats. Cutup and Fives take the fight to the droids, hand to hand. Droidbait takes a few pot shots here and there. Echo hurries to turn the all clear signal off.

Everything happens at once.

Droid #1 grabs Fives and throws him clear across the room with a very hard punch. Then the droid pins Cutup to the ground, his arm is snapped in two and then given a few broken ribs for good measure, before the droid reaches for his gun. Droid #2 yanks Echo away from the control panel and throws him across the room. Echo hits his head and falls unconscious. Then Droid #2 finds Droidbait, lifts him by the neck and begins to slowly choke him to death. Droid #3 shoots Hevy through his arm twice, then through the torso, sending the clone to his knees, then to the ground.

Pushing himself to his feet, Fives finds himself looking at a scene of certain death. He screams, “NO!” and reaches out his hands in desperation, like he can stop it. A shockwave spreads from Fives and it throws all the droids back (think Ezra in Rebels when Zeb is almost killed by Kallus).

Cutup manages to grab his gun in the confusion and shoot his would be killer. Droidbait ignores the pain in his injured arm, grabbing the commando’s head and ripping it from the body with full force (while screaming in pain). Fives is too shocked to recover from what just happened to help Hevy but Echo wakes up just in time to shoot the stupid thing.

No more droids left.

Echo heads to the medbay, leaving Fives to position the three injured Dominos and get Cutup to stay down. The two treat their brothers to the best of their knowledge (Droidbaits the best medic, but he isn’t exactly able to help other than give some friendly advice or things he’d read).

None of the Domino’s mentions Five’s Force push. Echo doesn’t even ask before he shoots the video surveillance module, effectively destroying all video evidence of the attack.

The radio was destroyed in the fire-fight and the “all-clear signal” button had also been destroyed, leaving it hard-wired at the moment.

Echo and Fives grab a blaster for each injured man, then take the Z-6, sniper rifle, and a few other goodies for themselves. Then they face the door and wait for whatever comes next.

With the radio down, no one receives the call from the inspection team.

When Commander Cody and Captain Rex find a dead deck officer, a few downed Commando droids, and a cut hole in the blast doors, they’re ready for anything. So it’s a bit of surprise to see five shinies (three of them lying on the hard ground, injured but alive, and two of them holding blasters ready).

General’s Skywalker and Kenobi is alerted immediately through the inspection ship’s radio and Rishi is secured in a matter of minutes.

Domino is taken aboard the Resolution, all five being placed in the medbay, despite some protests. Some bacta and rest for a few days fixes the crew right up, ready, and willing, to return to Rishi base.

Except for one problem:

Rex had asked Echo and Fives to explain what had happened on Rishi. Echo had done most of the talking (as Fives was a terrible liar) and even without the Force visions or powers, the tale had impressed the Captain.

He had told General Skywalker, who had also been impressed.

Which is how Domino squad finds they are now assigned to the 501st Legion.

Under a famous Jedi General

Around a lot more clones (which translates to eyes and ears)

And in more dangerous situations (in which Fives may or may not do something stupid, whether on accident or on purpose)

...

None of them can sleep that night.

((Random note that I noticed rewatching Rookies recently: Did anyone else notice when Nub and Droidbait went to look for the deck officer THEY DIDN’T TAKE A BLASTER? Seriously, they just walk down the stairs, come face to face with the Commando droids and yell “DROIDS!” as loud as they can and then they both get shot and die. I mean, I get nothing is supposed to happen on Rishi and they’re all relaxed but TAKE YOUR KRIFFING BLASTER, DANG IT. THEN YOU MIGHT HAVE LIVED LONGER.))

Part 3: https://oceanera12.tumblr.com/post/615352813810302976/fives-has-the-force-au-edition

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path-of-my-childhood · 5 years

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Taylor Swift: ‘I was literally about to break’

By: Laura Snapes for The Guardian Date: August 24th 2019

Taylor Swift’s Nashville apartment is an Etsy fever dream, a 365-days-a-year Christmas shop, pure teenage girl id. You enter through a vestibule clad in blue velvet and covered in gilt frames bursting with fake flowers. The ceiling is painted like the night sky. Above a koi pond in the living area, a narrow staircase spirals six feet up towards a giant, pillow-lagged birdcage that probably has the best view in the city. Later, Swift will tell me she needs metaphors “to understand anything that happens to me”, and the birdcage defies you not to interpret it as a pointed comment on the contradictions of stardom.

Swift, wearing pale jeans and dip-dyed shirt, her sandy hair tied in a blue scrunchie, leads the way up the staircase to show me the view. The decor hasn’t changed since she bought this place in 2009, when she was 19. “All of these high rises are new since then,” she says, gesturing at the squat glass structures and cranes. Meanwhile her oven is still covered in stickers, more teenage diary than adult appliance.

Now 29, she has spent much of the past three years living quietly in London with her boyfriend, actor Joe Alwyn, making the penthouse a kind of time capsule, a monument to youthful naivety given an unlimited budget – the years when she sang about Romeo and Juliet and wore ballgowns to awards shows; before she moved to New York and honed her slick, self-mythologising pop.

It is mid-August. This is Swift’s first UK interview in more than three years, and she seems nervous: neither presidential nor goofy (her usual defaults), but quick with a tongue-out “ugh” of regret or frustration as she picks at her glittery purple nails. We climb down from the birdcage to sit by the pond, and when the conversation turns to 2016, the year the wheels came off for her, Swift stiffens as if driving over a mile of speed bumps. After a series of bruising public spats (with Katy Perry, Nicki Minaj) in 2015, there was a high-profile standoff with Kanye West. The news that she was in a relationship with actor Tom Hiddleston, which leaked soon after, was widely dismissed as a diversionary tactic. Meanwhile, Swift went to court to prosecute a sexual assault claim, and faced a furious backlash when she failed to endorse a candidate in the 2016 presidential election, allowing the alt-right to adopt her as their “Aryan princess”.

Her critics assumed she cared only about the bottom line. The reality, Swift says, is that she was totally broken. “Every domino fell,” she says bitterly. “It became really terrifying for anyone to even know where I was. And I felt completely incapable of doing or saying anything publicly, at all. Even about my music. I always said I wouldn’t talk about what was happening personally, because that was a personal time.” She won’t get into specifics. “I just need some things that are mine,” she despairs. “Just some things.”

A year later, in 2017, Swift released her album Reputation, half high-camp heel turn, drawing on hip-hop and vaudeville (the brilliantly hammy Look What You Made Me Do), half stunned appreciation that her nascent relationship with Alwyn had weathered the storm (the soft, sensual pop of songs Delicate and Dress).

Her new album, Lover, her seventh, was released yesterday. It’s much lighter than Reputation: Swift likens writing it to feeling like “I could take a full deep breath again”. Much of it is about Alwyn: the Galway Girl-ish track London Boy lists their favourite city haunts and her newfound appreciation of watching rugby in the pub with his uni mates; on the ruminative Afterglow, she asks him to forgive her anxious tendency to assume the worst.

While she has always written about relationships, they were either teenage fantasy or a postmortem on a high-profile breakup, with exes such as Jake Gyllenhaal and Harry Styles. But she and Alwyn have seldom been pictured together, and their relationship is the only other thing she won’t talk about. “I’ve learned that if I do, people think it’s up for discussion, and our relationship isn’t up for discussion,” she says, laughing after I attempt a stealthy angle. “If you and I were having a glass of wine right now, we’d be talking about it – but it’s just that it goes out into the world. That’s where the boundary is, and that’s where my life has become manageable. I really want to keep it feeling manageable.”

Instead, she has swapped personal disclosure for activism. Last August, Swift broke her political silence to endorse Democratic Tennessee candidate Phil Bredesen in the November 2018 senate race. Vote.org reported an unprecedented spike in voting registration after Swift’s Instagram post, while Donald Trump responded that he liked her music “about 25% less now”.

Meanwhile, her recent single You Need To Calm Down admonished homophobes and namechecked US LGBTQ rights organisation Glaad (which then saw increased donations). Swift filled her video with cameos from queer stars such as Ellen DeGeneres and Queen singer Adam Lambert, and capped it with a call to sign her petition in support of the Equality Act, which if passed would prohibit gender- and sexuality-based discrimination in the US. A video of Polish LGBTQ fans miming the track in defiance of their government’s homophobic agenda went viral. But Swift was accused of “queerbaiting” and bandwagon-jumping. You can see how she might find it hard to work out what, exactly, people want from her.

***

It was girlhood that made Swift a multimillionaire. When country music’s gatekeepers swore that housewives were the only women interested in the genre, she proved them wrong. Her self-titled debut marked the longest stay on the Billboard 200 by any album released in the decade. A potentially cloying image – corkscrew curls, lyrics thick on “daddy” and down-home values – were undercut by the fact she was evidently, endearingly, a bit of a freak, an unusual combination of intensity and artlessness. Also, she was really, really good at what she did, and not just for a teenager: her entirely self-written third album, 2010’s Speak Now, is unmatched in its devastatingly withering dismissals of awful men.

As a teenager, Swift was obsessed with VH1’s Behind The Music, the series devoted to the rise and fall of great musicians. She would forensically rewatch episodes, trying to pinpoint the moment a career went wrong. I ask her to imagine she’s watching the episode about herself and do the same thing: where was her misstep? “Oh my God,” she says, drawing a deep breath and letting her lips vibrate as she exhales. “I mean, that’s so depressing!” She thinks back and tries to deflect. “What I remember is that [the show] was always like, ‘Then we started fighting in the tour bus and then the drummer quit and the guitarist was like, “You’re not paying me enough.”’’’

But that’s not what she used to say. In interviews into her early 20s, Swift often observed that an artist fails when they lose their self-awareness, as if repeating the fact would work like an insurance against succumbing to the same fate. But did she make that mistake herself? She squeezes her nose and blows to clear a ringing in her ears before answering. “I definitely think that sometimes you don’t realise how you’re being perceived,” she says. “Pop music can feel like it’s The Hunger Games, and like we’re gladiators. And you can really lose focus of the fact that that’s how it feels because that’s how a lot of stan [fan] Twitter and tabloids and blogs make it seem – the overanalysing of everything makes it feel really intense.”

She describes the way she burned bridges in 2016 as a kind of obliviousness. “I didn’t realise it was like a classic overthrow of someone in power – where you didn’t realise the whispers behind your back, you didn’t realise the chain reaction of events that was going to make everything fall apart at the exact, perfect time for it to fall apart.”

Here’s that chain reaction in full. With her 2014 album 1989 (the year she was born), Swift transcended country stardom, becoming as ubiquitous as Beyoncé. For the first time she vocally embraced feminism, something she had rejected in her teens; but, after a while, it seemed to amount to not much more than a lot of pictures of her hanging out with her “squad”, a bevy of supermodels, musicians and Lena Dunham. The squad very much did not include her former friend Katy Perry, whom Swift targeted in her song Bad Blood, as part of what seemed like a painfully overblown dispute about some backing dancers. Then, when Nicki Minaj tweeted that MTV’s 2015 Video Music awards had rewarded white women at the expense of women of colour, multiple-nominee Swift took it personally, responding: “Maybe one of the men took your slot.” For someone prone to talking about the haters, she quickly became her own worst enemy.

Her old adversary Kanye West resurfaced in February 2016. In 2009, West had invaded Swift’s stage at the MTV VMAs to protest against her victory over Beyoncé in the female video of the year category. It remains the peak of interest in Swift on Google Trends, and the conflict between them has become such a cornerstone of celebrity journalism that it’s hard to remember it lay dormant for nearly seven years – until West released his song Famous. “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex,” he rapped. “Why? I made that bitch famous.” The video depicted a Swift mannequin naked in bed with men including Trump.

Swift loudly condemned both; although she had discussed the track with West, she said she had never agreed to the “bitch” lyric or the video. West’s wife, Kim Kardashian, released a heavily edited clip that showed Swift at least agreeing to the “sex” line on the phone with West, if not the “bitch” part. Swift pleaded the technicality, but it made no difference: when Kardashian went on Twitter to describe her as a snake, the comparison stuck and the singer found herself very publicly “cancelled” – the incident taken as “proof” of Swift’s insincerity. So she went away.

Swift says she stopped trying to explain herself, even though she “definitely” could have. As she worked on Reputation, she was also writing “a think-piece a day that I knew I would never publish: the stuff I would say, and the different facets of the situation that nobody knew”. If she could exonerate herself, why didn’t she? She leans forward. “Here’s why,” she says conspiratorially. “Because when people are in a hate frenzy and they find something to mutually hate together, it bonds them. And anything you say is in an echo chamber of mockery.”

She compares that year to being hit by a tidal wave. “You can either stand there and let the wave crash into you, and you can try as hard as you can to fight something that’s more powerful and bigger than you,” she says. “Or you can dive under the water, hold your breath, wait for it to pass and while you’re down there, try to learn something. Why was I in that part of the ocean? There were clearly signs that said: Rip tide! Undertow! Don’t swim! There are no lifeguards!” She’s on a roll. “Why was I there? Why was I trusting people I trusted? Why was I letting people into my life the way I was letting them in? What was I doing that caused this?”

After the incident with Minaj, her critics started pointing out a narrative of “white victimhood” in Swift’s career. Speaking slowly and carefully, she says she came to understand “a lot about how my privilege allowed me to not have to learn about white privilege. I didn’t know about it as a kid, and that is privilege itself, you know? And that’s something that I’m still trying to educate myself on every day. How can I see where people are coming from, and understand the pain that comes with the history of our world?”

She also accepts some responsibility for her overexposure, and for some of the tabloid drama. If she didn’t wish a friend happy birthday on Instagram, there would be reports about severed friendships, even if they had celebrated together. “Because we didn’t post about it, it didn’t happen – and I realised I had done that,” she says. “I created an expectation that everything in my life that happened, people would see.”

But she also says she couldn’t win. “I’m kinda used to being gaslit by now,” she drawls wearily. “And I think it happens to women so often that, as we get older and see how the world works, we’re able to see through what is gaslighting. So I’m able to look at 1989 and go – KITTIES!” She breaks off as an assistant walks in with Swift’s three beloved cats, stars of her Instagram feed, back from the vet before they fly to England this week. Benjamin, Olivia and Meredith haughtily circle our feet (they are scared of the koi) as Swift resumes her train of thought, back to the release of 1989 and the subsequent fallout. “Oh my God, they were mad at me for smiling a lot and quote-unquote acting fake. And then they were mad at me that I was upset and bitter and kicking back.” The rules kept changing.

***

Swift’s new album comes with printed excerpts from her diaries. On 29 August 2016, she wrote in her girlish, bubble writing: “This summer is the apocalypse.” As the incident with West and Kardashian unfolded, she was preparing for her court case against radio DJ David Mueller, who was fired in 2013 after Swift reported him for putting his hand up her dress at a meet-and–greet event. He sued her for defamation; she countersued for sexual assault.

“Having dealt with a few of them, narcissists basically subscribe to a belief system that they should be able to do and say whatever the hell they want, whenever the hell they want to,” Swift says now, talking at full pelt. “And if we – as anyone else in the world, but specifically women – react to that, well, we’re not allowed to. We’re not allowed to have a reaction to their actions.”

In summer 2016 she was in legal depositions, practising her testimony. “You’re supposed to be really polite to everyone,” she says. But by the time she got to court in August 2017, “something snapped, I think”. She laughs. Her testimony was sharp and uncompromising. She refused to allow Mueller’s lawyers to blame her or her security guards; when asked if she could see the incident, Swift said no, because “my ass is in the back of my body”. It was a brilliant, rude defence.

“You’re supposed to behave yourself in court and say ‘rear end’,” she says with mock politesse. “The other lawyer was saying, ‘When did he touch your backside?’ And I was like, ‘ASS! Call it what it is!’” She claps between each word. But despite the acclaim for her testimony and eventual victory (she asked for one symbolic dollar), she still felt belittled. It was two months prior to the beginning of the #MeToo movement. “Even this case was literally twisted so hard that people were calling it the ‘butt-grab case’. They were saying I sued him because there’s this narrative that I want to sue everyone. That was one of the reasons why the summer was the apocalypse.”

She never wanted the assault to be made public. Have there been other instances she has dealt with privately? “Actually, no,” she says soberly. “I’m really lucky that it hadn’t happened to me before. But that was one of the reasons it was so traumatising. I just didn’t know that could happen. It was really brazen, in front of seven people.” She has since had security cameras installed at every meet-and-greet she does, deliberately pointed at her lower half. “If something happens again, we can prove it with video footage from every angle,” she says.

The allegations about Harvey Weinstein came out soon after she won her case. The film producer had asked her to write a song for the romantic comedy One Chance, which earned her second Golden Globe nomination. Weinstein also got her a supporting role in the 2014 sci-fi movie The Giver, and attended the launch party for 1989. But she says they were never alone together.

“He’d call my management and be like, ‘Does she have a song for this film?’ And I’d be like, ‘Here it is,’” she says dispassionately. “And then I’d be at the Golden Globes. I absolutely never hung out. And I would get a vibe – I would never vouch for him. I believe women who come forward, I believe victims who come forward, I believe men who come forward.” Swift inhales, flustered. She says Weinstein never propositioned her. “If you listen to the stories, he picked people who were vulnerable, in his opinion. It seemed like it was a power thing. So, to me, that doesn’t say anything – that I wasn’t in that situation.”

Meanwhile, Donald Trump was more than nine months into his presidency, and still Swift had not taken a position. But the idea that a pop star could ever have impeded his path to the White House seemed increasingly naive. In hindsight, the demand that Swift speak up looks less about politics and more about her identity (white, rich, powerful) and a moralistic need for her to redeem herself – as if nobody else had ever acted on a vindictive instinct, or blundered publicly.

But she resisted what might have been an easy return to public favour. Although Reputation contained softer love songs, it was better known for its brittle, vengeful side (see This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things). She describes that side of the album now as a “bit of a persona”, and its hip-hop-influenced production as “a complete defence mechanism”. Personally, I thought she had never been more relatable, trashing the contract of pious relatability that traps young women in the public eye.

***

It was the assault trial, and watching the rights of LGBTQ friends be eroded, that finally politicised her, Swift says. “The things that happen to you in your life are what develop your political opinions. I was living in this Obama eight-year paradise of, you go, you cast your vote, the person you vote for wins, everyone’s happy!” she says. “This whole thing, the last three, four years, it completely blindsided a lot of us, me included.”

She recently said she was “dismayed” when a friend pointed out that her position on gay rights wasn’t obvious (what if she had a gay son, he asked), hence this summer’s course correction with the single You Need To Calm Down (“You’re comin’ at my friends like a missile/Why are you mad?/When you could be GLAAD?”). Didn’t she feel equally dismayed that her politics weren’t clear? “I did,” she insists, “and I hate to admit this, but I felt that I wasn’t educated enough on it. Because I hadn’t actively tried to learn about politics in a way that I felt was necessary for me, making statements that go out to hundreds of millions of people.”

She explains her inner conflict. “I come from country music. The number one thing they absolutely drill into you as a country artist, and you can ask any other country artist this, is ‘Don’t be like the Dixie Chicks!’” In 2003, the Texan country trio denounced the Iraq war, saying they were “ashamed” to share a home state with George W Bush. There was a boycott, and an event where a bulldozer crushed their CDs. “I watched country music snuff that candle out. The most amazing group we had, just because they talked about politics. And they were getting death threats. They were made such an example that basically every country artist that came after that, every label tells you, ‘Just do not get involved, no matter what.’

“And then, you know, if there was a time for me to get involved…” Swift pauses. “The worst part of the timing of what happened in 2016 was I felt completely voiceless. I just felt like, oh God, who would want me? Honestly.” She would otherwise have endorsed Hillary Clinton? “Of course,” she says sincerely. “I just felt completely, ugh, just useless. And maybe even like a hindrance.”

I suggest that, thinking selfishly, her coming out for Clinton might have made people like her. “I wasn’t thinking like that,” she stresses. “I was just trying to protect my mental health – not read the news very much, go cast my vote, tell people to vote. I just knew what I could handle and I knew what I couldn’t. I was literally about to break. For a while.” Did she seek therapy? “That stuff I just really wanna keep personal, if that’s OK,” she says.

She resists blaming anyone else for her political silence. Her emergence as a Democrat came after she left Big Machine, the label she signed to at 15. (They are now at loggerheads after label head Scott Borchetta sold the company, and the rights to Swift’s first six albums, to Kanye West’s manager, Scooter Braun.) Had Borchetta ever advised her against speaking out? She exhales. “It was just me and my life, and also doing a lot of self-reflection about how I did feel really remorseful for not saying anything. I wanted to try and help in any way that I could, the next time I got a chance. I didn’t help, I didn’t feel capable of it – and as soon as I can, I’m going to.”

Swift was once known for throwing extravagant 4 July parties at her Rhode Island mansion. The Instagram posts from these star-studded events – at which guests wore matching stars-and-stripes bikinis and onesies – probably supported a significant chunk of the celebrity news industry GDP. But in 2017, they stopped. “The horror!” wrote Cosmopolitan, citing “reasons that remain a mystery” for their disappearance. It wasn’t “squad” strife or the unavailability of matching cozzies that brought the parties to an end, but Swift’s disillusionment with her country, she says.

There is a smart song about this on the new album – the track that should have been the first single, instead of the cartoonish ME!. Miss Americana And The Heartbreak Prince is a forlorn, gothic ballad in the vein of Lana Del Rey that uses high-school imagery to dismantle American nationalism: “The whole school is rolling fake dice/You play stupid games/You win stupid prizes,” she sings with disdain. “Boys will be boys then/Where are the wise men?”

As an ambitious 11-year-old, she worked out that singing the national anthem at sports games was the quickest way to get in front of a large audience. When did she start feeling conflicted about what America stands for? She gives another emphatic ugh. “It was the fact that all the dirtiest tricks in the book were used and it worked,” she says. “The thing I can’t get over right now is gaslighting the American public into being like” – she adopts a sanctimonious tone – “‘If you hate the president, you hate America.’ We’re a democracy – at least, we’re supposed to be – where you’re allowed to disagree, dissent, debate.” She doesn’t use Trump’s name. “I really think that he thinks this is an autocracy.”

As we speak, Tennessee lawmakers are trying to impose a near-total ban on abortion. Swift has staunchly defended her “Tennessee values” in recent months. What’s her position? “I mean, obviously, I’m pro-choice, and I just can’t believe this is happening,” she says. She looks close to tears. “I can’t believe we’re here. It’s really shocking and awful. And I just wanna do everything I can for 2020. I wanna figure out exactly how I can help, what are the most effective ways to help. ’Cause this is just…” She sighs again. “This is not it.”

***

It is easy to forget that the point of all this is that a teenage Taylor Swiftwanted to write love songs. Nemeses and negativity are now so entrenched in her public persona that it’s hard to know how she can get back to that, though she seems to want to. At the end of Daylight, the new album’s dreamy final song, there’s a spoken-word section: “I want to be defined by the things that I love,” she says as the music fades. “Not the things that I hate, not the things I’m afraid of, the things that haunt me in the middle of the night.” As well as the songs written for Alwyn, there is one for her mother, who recently experienced a cancer relapse: “You make the best of a bad deal/I just pretend it isn’t real,” Swift sings, backed by the Dixie Chicks.

How does writing about her personal life work if she’s setting clearer boundaries? “It actually made me feel more free,” she says. “I’ve always had this habit of never really going into detail about exactly what situation inspired what thing, but even more so now.” This is only half true: in the past, Swift wasn’t shy of a level of detail that invited fans to figure out specific truths about her relationships. And when I tell her that Lover feels a more emotionally guarded album, she bristles. “I know the difference between making art and living your life like a reality star,” she says. “And then even if it’s hard for other people to grasp, my definition is really clear.”

Even so, Swift begins Lover by addressing an adversary, opening with a song called I Forgot That You Existed (“it isn’t love, it isn’t hate, it’s just indifference”), presumably aimed at Kanye West, a track that slightly defeats its premise by existing. But it sweeps aside old dramas to confront Swift’s real nemesis, herself. “I never grew up/It’s getting so old,” she laments on The Archer.

She has had to learn not to pre-empt disaster, nor to run from it. Her life has been defined by relationships, friendships and business relationships that started and ended very publicly (though she and Perry are friends again). At the same time, the rules around celebrity engagement have evolved beyond recognition in her 15 years of fame. Rather than trying to adapt to them, she’s now asking herself: “How do you learn to maintain? How do you learn not to have these phantom disasters in your head that you play out, and how do you stop yourself from sabotage – because the panic mechanism in your brain is telling you that something must go wrong.” For her, this is what growing up is. “You can’t just make cut-and-dry decisions in life. A lot of things are a negotiation and a grey area and a dance of how to figure it out.”

And so this time, Swift is sticking around. In December she will turn 30, marking the point after which more than half her life will have been lived in public. She’ll start her new decade with a stronger self-preservationist streak, and a looser grip (as well as a cameo in Cats). “You can’t micromanage life, it turns out,” she says, drily.

When Swift finally answered my question about the moment she would choose in the VH1 Behind The Music episode about herself, the one where her career turned, she said she hoped it wouldn’t focus on her “apocalypse” summer of 2016. “Maybe this is wishful thinking,” she said, “but I’d like to think it would be in a couple of years.” It’s funny to hear her hope that the worst is still to come while sitting in her fairytale living room, the cats pacing: a pragmatist at odds with her romantic monument to teenage dreams. But it sounds something like perspective.

#taylor swift #interview #by taylor #the guardian #lover era #lover album #not sure how I feel about the interviewer's approach...there's a lot of irony in it #but a fun read for us nonetheless

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onestowatch · 4 years

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How We Are Staying Safe and Sane in the Age of Quarantine | Staff Article

As the days of quarantine due to the novel cornoavirus continue to pile up, it is all too easy to lose track of oneself, let alone what day of the week it is. This holds equally true for the Ones To Watch staff who currently find themselves under a lockdown in Los Angeles that is set to continue at least until the end of April.

So, what exactly do we do when stuck at home for the foreseeable future? Play a lot of Animal Crossing and finally learn to cook with the leftovers in our freezer. This is how the Ones To Watch staff is staying safe and sane in the age of quarantine.

Island Escapism

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Animal Crossing: New Horizons could not have arrived at a better time. Amongst my friend group, the latest entry of the popular franchise is the first foray into the series for many of us, myself included.

The part-life-simulator, part-resource-management game populated by adorable creatures gives a virtual space for us to visit each other’s houses, exchange clothes, and create our own a little oasis on a deserted island. It is the antithesis of the current state of the world. More than anything, this far too charming video game has served as a crucial bit of island life escapism in these uncertain times we currently find ourselves. I also now have the freedom to spend three hours making a rendition of the lofi hip-hop study girl in Animal Crossing, so there’s that.

-Maxamillion Polo

Cheez-Its, White Claw, and Home Decor

I don’t even know what day of quarantine we’re at anymore, but mine has consisted mostly of extra toasty Cheez-Its and the new flavors of White Claw (tangerine, ily). It’s been a hard health balance, because I feel like I’m working out more with all the IG Live-stream Hot 8 Yoga classes but the amount I’ve been boredom-eating has easily quadrupled. So… I’m over here being proud of myself for getting on my yoga mat, then quickly disappointed after my four Domino’s pizzas get delivered.

On a brighter note, I moved into a new house during the past two weeks! If you think about it, quarantine is probably the best possible time to move because you have no option but to unpack the 5,000 boxes staring at you as you turn on Animal Crossing.

-Paige MacDonald

Anime and Virtual Connections

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Anime. Lots of it. Recently "borrowed" my buddy's Hulu subscription and they have a ton of great ones. Currently rewatching Yu Yu Hakusho. What a classic. Aside from that, I recently bought Animal Crossing and that's always a chill time. OH! Lots of facetime. I actually call my friends like every 30 minutes. They hate it. But they love me so it's fine. Ah ha haaaaaaa. . . Y'all ever just lie down in bed and wonder what your next show is going to be?

-Green Lee

Chopped: Quarantine Edition

Chopped: Quarantine Edition – how I now approach all meals during quarantine. Whether it’s using the ingredients in my cabinet that I would normally never touch or only having access to short ribs and Turbot because everything else is sold out during my weekly supermarket runs, I am definitely ramping up my culinary game. Watch out Le Cordon Bleu, you’ve got some tough competition.

-Hayley Henning

Foreign Films

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Oh the age of social distancing, a time where we as humans are forced to confront the very real limits of our physical and mental capacity. While millions look for ways to better themselves in our newfound reality, I’ve decided to use my solitude to finally dive into the world of foreign film.

Gone are the days I limit my cinematic consumption to a single language. I shudder to think of the stories I have missed due to an unjustified aversion to subtitles. With humanity in a rare moment of global unity, what better time to engage with international narratives?

This quarantine season, I pledge to broaden my scope.

-Alec Wing

Waffles and TikTok Dances

With the world going on pause, and most of humanity taking time to stay in their homes and avoid the madness occurring, I’ve taken it upon myself to focus on becoming the best person I can. I’ve decided to master my chef skills without completely running through my quarantine stock.

Some of my dishes include an ice cream waffle sandwich, bacon-wrapped sausage Links on a waffle, or anything that tastes good with waffles. I’ve also decided to start learning as many TikTok dances as possible to impress my peers when I’m back in the office. Stay safe. Stay wildin’. Wash ya hands kids and isolate.

-Joey Leggitino

Fresh Air

We constantly get lost in our screens – for fun, for work, for idling hours that just seem to fade away. But as the word “lockdown” becomes more pervasive and “stay home” grows synonymous with “stay safe,” fresh air has been the solace of my quarantine. Simply stepping outside my front door for a nice brisk walk around my neighborhood has proven more grounding than nearly any answer I’ve found by way of my newsfeed. Connect with the sun.

Also, connect with your loved ones. A phone call, a video chat, any form of truly engaging goes a long way right now during this bizarrely universal phenomenon. We’re all home, we’re all washing our hands. When you think of someone, call them. Rarely do we know that the person at the other end is (likely) as bored and as openhearted as you are when you make the call.

-Alexa Schoenfeld

Running and Rom-Coms

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Running and rom-coms. That’s pretty much all that’s been occupying my time during the lockdown in LA. As someone who has an unhealthy obsession with SoulCycle, I’ve been trying my best to fill the void by running outside and using Aaptiv, a workout app that has guided outdoor runs. I’ve also been binging rom-coms at an embarrassingly high rate. My top five on Netflix to watch if you want a reminder of how single you are: Set It Up, Life As We Know It, He’s Just Not That Into You, Her, and Valentine’s Day.

-Rachael Jansky

Bon Mots & Bon Appetite

I'd love to post that I've read these books in the week since I've been social distancing, but these are old music adjacent favorites that will serve you well. All are available on Amazon and kindle if deliveries in your area are delayed: A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James, Kill Your Friends by John Niven.

I am no gourmand, so trust assured all I recommend is easy, especially if your prior version of cooking consented of warming things up. What you really need are the right tools, and short of martial law, all are available at your local major supermarket, Target, Walmart or the like.

Vacum-Sealer: If you, like me, hated cooking primarily because common recipes created a meal for four-plus people and you don't want to repetitively eat said meal for days on end, the vacuum sealer is your solution.

Sous-Vide: This process essentially allows for the most difficult part of cooking to be waylaid, cooking at the right temperature for the right amount of time. How about a device that heats up water to exact temperature and then turns itself off when it's done, its apocalyptic cooking done right. Paired with the vacuum sealer above (although most freezer quality plastic bags work as well), veggies, fish, meat all cook perfectly to the time needed. For flavor, a quick sear, broil or bake makes the ingredients indistinguishable from professional restaurants. Voilà, you are a chef.

-David O’Connor

#qurantine #co-vid19 #cornoavirus #animal crosing new horizons

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