I decided to expand on this and make it sadder so that all of you can cry with me.

bro I’ve been drawing this with “don’t grow up so fast” by Train in the bg and it’s making me SO SAD. ITS NOT A SAD DRAWING BUT IVE CRIED OVER IT THREE TIMES NOW WAHHHHHAGAHHA

Rex having dinner with the Lawquanes

The Clone Wars 2.10

Hi I’m writing a fic and I was wondering if you can talk a little about recognizing soldiers with PTSD?

Sure!

*CLONE FIC AUTHORS, PLEASE CONSIDER READING THIS POST FOR YOUR REFERENCE

Below is the Combat and Operational Stress Continuum Model. This is used to monitor stress levels in service members.

(Terms are at the bottom of this post)

Green “Ready” Zone

Service members functioning in the Green “Ready” Zone exemplify adaptive coping, optimal functioning, and personal well-being. The Green Zone is not the absence of stress, since the lives of service members and their family members are seldom without stress. Rather, it is an effective mastery of stress without significant distress or impairment in social or occupational functioning. One important goal of all selection and screening, training, and leadership in the military is to ensure Green Zone readiness or to restore individuals and units to the Green Zone once they have experienced distress or loss of function because of combat or operational stress. The following are some of the attributes and behaviors characteristic of the Green “Ready” Zone:

*

*

• Remaining calm and steady.

• Being confident in oneself and others.

• Getting the job done.

• Remaining in control physically, mentally, and emotionally.

• Behaving ethically and morally.

• Sleeping enough.

• Eating well and the right amount.

• Working out and staying fit.

• Retaining a sense of humor.

• Playful

• Remaining active socially and spiritually.

• Being at peace with oneself.

Yellow “Reacting” Zone

Service members in the Yellow “Reacting” Zone feel mild and temporary distress or loss of function due to stress. Yellow Zone reactions are always temporary and reversible, although it is hard to know whether they will be temporary and leave no lasting changes while they are occurring.

Yellow Zone reactions are common and can be recognized by their duration and relative mildness. Although no research has yet been done on the prevalence of mild and transient distress or loss of function in operational settings, it is likely that such Yellow Zone stress reactions are common for everyone, especially in response to new challenges.

From the point of view of stress, all training is designed to enhance skills and abilities through repeated exposure to intentional Yellow Zone situations. Yellow Zone stress reactions are common not only during deployments, but also during predeployment training and preparation and postdeployment homecoming and resetting.

The following experiences and behaviors characterize the Yellow “Reacting” Zone:

• Feeling anxious or fearful.

• Feeling sad or angry.

• Worrying.

• Cutting corners on the job.

• Being short tempered or mean.

• Being irritable or grouchy.

• Having trouble falling asleep.

• Eating too much or too little.

• Losing some interest, energy, or enthusiasm.

• Not enjoying usual activities.

• Keeping to oneself.

• Being overly loud or hyperactive.

• Being negative or pessimistic.

• Having diminished capacity for mental focus.

Two defining characteristics of Yellow Zone distress or changes in function are that they are usually mild and always resolve completely as soon as either the challenge that provoked them ends or the individual adapts to the challenge and becomes more accustomed to it.

Because Yellow Zone reactions are mild and self-limiting, they don’t require professional treatment. Nevertheless, Yellow Zone reactions are important to unit leaders because service members who are affected by stress in any way are not functioning at their best and are at risk for becoming injured by stress—lapsing into the Orange Zone—if their stress is not mitigated.

Orange “Injured” Zone

The Orange “Injured” Zone can be defined as encompassing more severe and persistent forms of distress or loss of function that signal the presence of some kind of damage to the mind, brain, or spirit. Whereas Yellow Zone reactions are like a tree branch bending with the wind—always capable of springing back into place once the wind calms—to some extent, Orange Zone injuries are like a branch breaking because it was bent beyond its limits.

Like physical injuries, stress injuries occur across a broad spectrum of severity—from mild stress “bruises” that are barely noticeable, to more severe stress “fractures” that may be briefly incapacitating and may not heal without professional treatment. Although stress injuries cannot be completely undone—one can never become “uninjured”—their usual course is to heal over time like physical injuries.

Stress injuries may be recognized in their early stages by the severity of the symptoms they provoke and the intensity of the stressors that cause them. The more lasting nature of stress injuries in the Orange Zone may become apparent over time. Since stress injuries are not mental disorders, clinical mental health expertise is not required to recognize them. Nonetheless, operational commanders and small unit leaders may rely heavily on their chaplains and organic medical and mental health personnel to help identify and treat Orange Zone stress injuries.

Combat operational stress injuries have four different possible mechanisms or causes—

• Life-threat. Due to exposure to lethal force or its aftermath in ways that exceed the individual’s capacity to cope normally at that moment, life-threatening situations provoke feelings of terror, horror, or helplessness.

• Loss. Loss can be felt due to the death of close comrades, leaders, or other cared-for individuals or the loss of relationships, aspects of oneself, or one’s possessions by any means.

• Inner Conflict. Stress arises due to moral damage from carrying out or bearing witness to acts or failures to act that violate deeply held belief systems.

• Wear and Tear. This stress comes from the accumulated effects of smaller stressors over time, such as those from nonoperational sources or lack of sleep, rest, and restoration.

Although stress injuries may be caused by one or more of these four mechanisms, since they often overlap and occur at the same time, the experiences, behaviors, and symptoms that characterize them are similar regardless of mechanism. Symptoms suggesting stress injury include the following:

• Losing control of one’s body, emotions, or thinking.

• Having difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep.

• Waking up from recurrent, vivid nightmares.

• Feeling persistent, intense guilt or shame.

• Feeling unusually remorseless or emotionally cold.

• Experiencing attacks of panic or blind rage.

• Losing the ability to remember or think rationally and clearly.

• Being unable to enjoy usually pleasurable activities.

• Losing confidence in previously held moral values.

• Displaying a significant and persistent change in behavior or

appearance.

• Harboring serious suicidal or homicidal thoughts.

This distinction between Yellow “Reacting” Zone and Orange “Injured” Zone is the most important judgment that leaders make regarding the stress continuum model for two important reasons.

Service members who have suffered a stress injury may be significantly impaired in their occupational and social functioning, so they may be no longer fully able to perform their duties as expected or to participate in cohesive military and family units; second, because Orange Zone injuries may not resolve on their own, signs or symptoms of a stress injury should always be considered an indication of the need for further evaluation and possible treatment.

All stress injuries deserve to be monitored over time to ensure healing and resolution. The earlier a stress injury receives needed professional attention, the more likely it is to heal quickly and completely.

Red “Ill” Zone

The Red “Ill” Zone is the zone of diagnosable mental disorders arising in individuals exposed to combat or other operational stressors. Since Red Zone illnesses are clinical mental disorders, they can only be diagnosed by health professionals. The most important distinction for leaders to make is between Yellow Zone stress reactions and Orange Zone stress injuries because those who are injured may not perform as expected and they are at risk for future illnesses. Some other common Red Zone illnesses include the following:

PTSD

• Depressive disorders, especially major depression.

• Anxiety disorders, including generalized anxiety and panic

disorder.

• Substance abuse or dependence

Specific indicators of the presence of a stress illness—and the need for prompt mental health evaluation—include the following:

• Stress injury symptoms, such as long-lasting and disabling distress or impairment of normal functioning.

• Stress injury symptoms and impairment that do not significantly improve within several weeks of returning from operational deployment.

• Stress injury symptoms and impairment that worsen over time rather than improving.

• Stress injury symptoms and impairment that return after improving or seeming to resolve.

Leadership and service members may be very reluctant to think that they or someone in their unit may be suffering from a Red Zone stress illness. Many young warriors would rather be told they have cancer than PTSD.

Individuals in the Red Zone may deny to themselves that there is a problem at all or they may justify their feelings and behaviors to themselves and family members. They may delay seeking medical care with hope that, in time, their problems will go away. Sometimes they do, but often sufferers don’t realize that they need help until marriages have been lost, violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice have been committed, or other life or career damage has been done.

Source: MCRP 6-11C COMBAT AND OPERATIONAL STRESS CONTROL MANUAL

The animators in the clone wars have quite a job because they have to convey a huge amount of emotion through body language. The clones usually have helmets on so facial expressions arent really an option.

This spawned a headcannon of mine that clones have really expressive body langauge and tone of voice (thank you dee bradley baker) because they often arent able to see each other's faces. They also dont know the meaning of subtlety.

Okay so listen to me for a second, I have Clone Trooper thoughts-

I’m rewatching Captain America and there’s this bar scene where Steve explains that bc of his advanced cells, he can’t get drunk

And now I’m sitting here obsessing over what it means to be the perfect solider. Not just skill and knowledge and weapons. But mind and body.

I have this hc that Jango is actually 5’7 like Tem and the Kaminoans just added a few inches to his height in the genetic template so the clones could be “perfect”

And now I’m thinking about cellular regeneration. Having soldiers who’s body regenerates faster is obviously ideal. Which means I’m officially tossing out the “clones can get drunk” hc and replacing it with “their metabolism is too fast to get drunk”

AND

What about sleep cycles? Do they need less sleep? Maybe they need less nourishment. Perhaps they heal much faster than the average person. Or maybe they’re naturally inclined to think faster, mental math is easy, even before training.

Just- what would make a perfect solider in the eyes of the Republic?

Shiny, Just Like You

There’s a reason new troopers are called shinies.

The armor, unmarked, unpainted, glints under the lights and flashes when they move, bedazzled in the impending march of war. That’s part of it, sure. That’s the explanation the commanders give. “Your armor. It’s shiny and new. Just like you.”

But there’s a side to that newness that none of the shinies understand until they’re not, anymore.

They’d think, in a place where names mean so much, that there’s a term for it - that little period of transition, a moment’s notice but unmistakably irreversible. Shiny, and no longer so.

There are things no one can take back.

The immediacy of a battle, the adrenaline and glucocorticoids and those things the medics are made to memorize. The bone-thick weary when they come back to the barracks or slip into the sonics, peeling back their blacks and finding their skin covered in fine layers of dust like memories. They’ve forgotten them, already, remembering only bits and pieces, and the moments they’ll relive in their dreams.

There’s a pervasiveness to the numb, black grief that creeps over their senses when they realize who is gone.

There are shinies who never de-shinied.

They were the ones who marched in the next row over, the ones who were nervous or confident, the ones who’d found their names and the ones who were still searching. They were strangers, friends, batchmates, riduur, leaving an empty kind of dark behind them.

The ones who survive emerge coated in dirt, in mud and grease and scorch marks. They’re battered, often bloodied. They throw out their soiled blacks and rinse the dust and tears from their eyes.

And then they get why the legion piles mattresses together after deployments. They get why touch is traded as easily as eye contact, why none of them have the heart to be truly angry at the others.

There’s a reason new troopers are called shinies.

They lose something, after that first assignment. There’s a layer of them that is stripped away. It’s a gleam of something young and excited and wholly invested, one that reflects in their eyes and makes their steps a little too sharp.

There are things no one can get back.

*******

it's Favorite Clone/Vacation day for @clonetober and uh. it seems by penchant for ill-timed angst is back with a vengeance. a meditation on the nature of shiny.

....oops, sorry....(tomorrow will be better I promise)

Today is, however, the day that you discover I can't play favorites. Can't do it. And even if I'm like "FINE" and I pick someone, I guilt-trip myself so hard that I make myself take it back. So my response - much like a parent who's just been asked who their favorite child is - is "awwwwh, I love you all just the same" :)

And so, here are a bunch of shinies. Because shines are cute. And everyone was a shiny once.

All good, right?

[In tribute to the two drunk frat guys arguing outside my window over who loves the other most at 3am]

Fives: I love you, bro

Echo: nah bro, I love you!

Fives: well I love you more!

Echo: I love you most!

Fives: I love—

Rex: I HATE BOTH OF YOU BECAUSE YOU WON’T SHUT UP, IT’S 3AM

Wolffe: Cody says I’m too intimidating.

Rex: Oh?

Wolffe: I stared at him til he apologized.

Rex: Ah…

Anakin and Padme + handholds

Image description in alt text

grievous is the greatest dad in the galaxy change my mind

no ur right cuz he's dealing with 30 kids. he needs to remember ALL of their names, EVERYTHING they like and dislike, THEIR BIRTHDAYS AND some of his older kids might have kids of their own which means he has to deal with grandkids too. So YES he's a good papa unless he just pulled a ''time to abandon ship'' on his kids

Anakin, reading a recipe: “Beat three eggs”.

Anakin: At what? Hand to hand combat?

Ahsoka: It must be, Obi-Wan banned lightsabers in the kitchen a few weeks ago.

A repost on my own blog cause it seems like the pinup clone calendar never happened 🙄

Anyways, here's Echo. :) (This was posted on a blog meant for the calendar a couple years ago)

Day 1 - Stolen moments / Outsider POV

Just a rare moment of peace for Obi-Wan and Satine in the Sundari Royal Palace

Some headcanons about CC 10/10 FOX

While drawing Fox, I started to think about that character, and I had some headcanons which grew more and more entertaining.. I was thinking to myself that the outlines look like a mess and that I really need to fix them, but then I thought: by no means.. That’s Fox!!.. that guy is a mess below the surface.. He is not that kind of fairytale knight in a shining armor, he is

·       Above all a nervous neurotic

·       Probably the galactic champion in sarcasm and inappropriate puns

·       Unhappy, moody, always stressed – this is his basic energetic state

·       A chaotic neutral character with a good core (he definitely is a good and loyal friend), well, actually that newly formulated tenth alignment “chaotic lawful” *lol* describes him better, since he definitely *is loyal* and sticks to his principles and morals, but unfortunately no one really knows what principles and morals are meant in his case… hm..

·       Chronically exhausted because of his workload, which would be not the case if he just could develop some strategies for time management. He tries to deal with his very own chaos but he’s not too successful.. In Germany people would say “He was always trying” (which is an offense)

·       Sometimes he resembles that Big Lebowski guy, usually when he is completely done with all that sh*t around him.. He can be really nihilistic and he doesn’t give a shit about anything

·       He doesn’t care what other people might think of him (in agreement with @truechaoticneutral 's assessment, this refers to people in general. On the other hand, there are actually some brothers whose opinions are important to him.)

·       He can be dramatic, really dramatic, and since he doesn’t care how he is perceived, he exaggerates everything to the point of absolute embarrassment (of the spectators of course)

·       I think he is an ENTP, an ENTP that is so in his shadow functions that he appears to be a weird INTJ and later he became a pronounced *unhealthy* INTJ, which again shifts everything back to a totally f*cked up ENTP (7w8)

·       He lives in his mind, which is the reason why he permanently loses or forgets his stuff.. access cards, code cylinders, his com link, credits.. he must walk some ways three times, since the closed door reminded him that access codes are necessary..

·       He has a very vivid mind that entertains him greatly.. he loughs about his own dark humor

·       He definitely would read Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre since he resonates with quotes like: “Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?” and “Hell is other people”, but he has no time to do that

·       When he is completely done, he’s the epitome of an existential nihilist (nothing in life matters, yay, 😎👍🏻), and then coffee is exchanged with white russian.. if there’s too less time, he just pours vodka into his coffee and calls it black russian

·       he has no respect for ranks or authorities per se. He does respect some people but they’ve earned it

·       his intelligence is enormously high, that’s why he suffers from the stupidity of the majority of the people around him.. he sees through the facades of the senators and politicians. He doesn’t believe any word they say

·       probably he is really a 10/10

something to add??

I feel free to tag the Fox-experts: @truechaoticneutral, @here-comes-the-moose

may the fox be with you, always

whoo!! New Redbubble design just dropped! This time of Embo and Marrok, cuz honestly, we need more merch of them (especially Embo; he’s very cool!)

You can get this design here!

~

PLEASE DO NOT REUPLOAD/USE/STEAL/EDIT/TRACE!!

I don’t talk about Kix enough. That MF was seriously going through it.

Ori'vod, Ori'haat

“It’s a very old legend.”

“How old?”

“Older than you?”

The cadets looked so earnest, so innocent. They bounced up and down on their crossed legs, impatient even for moments at a time. But their eyes gleamed, even against the dark light of the window, their faces lighting up whenever they enjoyed his answers or when lightning flashed in the storms outside.

99’s chuckle settled in his stomach, like a comfort. “Yes. Much older than me.”

“It’s a good story,” one of the cadets gave a final happy bounce, settling.

“Verd….um. Verd ori’shya beskar’gam.” Deq sat back, satisfied.

“Ori’jate,” 99 replied. His smile curved, awkward, across one cheek, but the cadets didn’t seem to mind. They never had.

“99, Gates tripped and dropped his tray in the mess.”

“Did he, now?”

“Ori’ha….um. Ori’shya?”

Calen blinked.

“I don’t think that’s quite right,” 99 said, diplomatically.

There was a giggle. “Kaysh mirsh solus.”

“Who said that?” Gently, 99 turned his gaze from face to face, searching for the culprit. “Udesii. Would it be nice if someone said that to you?”

“No.”

“Exactly. So be thoughtful. Elek?”

The first cadet shook his head, searching for the correction. “Ori’haat?”

“Gar serim.”

“Did Gates have to go to the medical wing?” 99 asked. His face - covered perpetually in worry, something tactile and somber, as if his features were coated in wax. What happens if we die? 99 hadn’t imagined, of all of the questions he answered and stories he told, that he’d have to answer that one. Nu kyr’adyc, shi taab’echaaj’la, he’d said, and the cadet had rendered the words like a promise.

“No.” Crash shuddered. “The Kaminii didn’t see it. Halo cleaned his face for him.”

“That’s good.” 99 shifted, tucking his legs a different way. “Did he get to eat?”

“They all shared.”

“Aliit ori’shya tal’din,” Sacks recited. “No one is left behind.”

“No. None of us are,” 99 agreed. He ruffled his hair through the nearest cadet’s hair, pleased to hear him squeak delightedly at the touch.

“Gates is always hungry.”

“The eighth years have a lot to do,” 99 pointed out. “You have to eat. Keeps you healthy.”

Calen grinned, ferally. “Kaysh guur’ skran.”

******

99 teaching the littles Mando'a for @clonetober's Boba/Mando'a day. @artemis98 said this and I was like YES and I wrote it down immediately so that I could get to write this someday.

As with most things, it turned out very different than I first imagined - and I still have plenty of headcanons for 99's Mando'a lessons with the cadets.

Translations under the cut (I think? still trying to figure those out)

Verd ori’shya beskar’gam - a soldier is more than his armor

Ori’jate - very good

Ori’shya - more

Kaysh mirsh solus - he's an idiot (his brain cell is lonely)

Udesii - relax, calm down

Elek - yes, yeah

Ori'haat - it's the truth

Gar serim - yes, you're right

Nu kyr’adyc, shi taab’echaaj’la - not gone, merely marching far away

Aliit ori’shya tal’din - family is more than blood

Kaysh guur’ skran - he likes his food

I was about to go to bed but then I saw a tiktok of a girl dressed as a dark side / human version of Ahsoka and well… (wip)

The Jedi Upside down handstand scene in Episode 5 gets me every time and I think it would be really funny if it was just something Yoda makes everyone in his lineage do. No, the other Jedi Mastera didn't have to do it. Yes, Yoda made Qui-Gon and Dooku do it too. Yes, he has photos.