This!

I love the idea that the Kamonians best cloners in the galaxy, but do not understand gene/DNA expression in humans. What matters is that every clone is within 96% match of Jango, but that allows for a wide variety of variations. You have Clones like Fox who are slightly shorter then the rest, but much more boxy & thick, with wider set shoulders & can accumulate more muscle mass. Then Cody & Bly who while are the average height, are more lithe with wiry muscles.

Then there is things like eye & hair color, Rex's blonde is that of Jangos Mother, and every couple batches there is a few who are decanted with the green of Jangos grandfather. Crosshair graying since 'birth' a unique trait of the Fett line expressed every few generations.

And that's not getting into biological sex expression, sex & gender is expressed so differently within the Kamioans that something as external & internal sex organs is irrelevant.

Keep the Jedi Out of It

With input from @atagotiak (Tia), @gelpenss (Gel), and @thisarenotarealblog (Doc).

Standard initial premise: Clones take over the Republic after Fox kills Palpatine.

Fun AU Twist: in order to keep people from trying to fuck over the Jedi, and also as a backup because they trust the Jedi to at least try to save them after the initial hubbub goes down, and also as a bit of a vindication for those who don't like their Jedi... the clones arrest all the Jedi and just keep them in the brigs etc. until they figure out how to break the news to the galaxy that Palpatine was a bigger problem than previously anticipated.

"Why did the Jedi not stop you?" "Great question! We arrested them." "...all of them?" "Yes." "On what grounds?" "On 'they would have stopped us from killing the Chancellor' grounds."

"The Jedi couldn't stop you from arresting them?" "We just kind of told them 'here, hold this' and then put the force cuffs on. It was really easy, actually, they trust us way too much, it's kinda scary. A few of them passed out without the Force to keep them awake and the medics got pissed they hadn't been sleeping." "...you're saying you did this for their own good?" "No, we did it so we could kill the Chancellor."

Tia:

Anakin would def be upset. What would the other jedi be like? Mostly exasperated? I imagine a few would be like “well I guess I’m stuck here. I’m gonna have a nap”

Doc:

Obiwan finds a corner he likes and conks out in 5 minutes with the power of long experience

Gel:

At least one or more of the Jedi is like. WEIRDLY zen about it. Like “yeah if he arrested me there’s DEFINITELY a good reason and they’ll all tell me eventually”

Like the reason O66 worked in large part was that the Jedi trusted the clones, which means that you could easily argue that without even murder-of-said-Jedi on the mind, it would be even easier to just. Trick them.

Rex was uncomfortable about arresting Anakin for "Palpatine's his friend and he'll hate me" reasons so Kix just arrested both of them himself. They don't tell Anakin what's going on even when he grills Rex in their shared cell. Anakin's under the impression this is a 'you haven't been taking care of yourself' medic arrest.

Ahsoka had to share a cell with Yularen and they played cards because Ahsoka wanted to work on her Sabacc-without-Force-Cheating skills.

Some of the arrested Jedi have tea parties with the clones who arrested them. Mostly I'm imagining this as being Mundi. Bacara is off handling Various Things and the shinies put in place to guard Ki-Adi while the Coruscant problem is handled just sit down and have some tea with him while he teaches them Jedi philosophy, because Mundi strikes me as very "grandpa tells you stories to try and relate to the youth and he's not great at it but he sure is trying to be a good grandpa, and he's a bit out of the loop but he's putting in the effort, he got you some of those Pokey-mans you like for the holidays and everything."

"It's been three days, are you going to tell me why this was all necessary?" "Chancellor's a Sith Lord." "WHAT?" "It's fine, Fox killed him, but we couldn't have the Jedi stopping us, or like... getting accused of organizing it. So we just arrested, uh... everyone over the age of three?"

Tia:

Im just imagining Depa in a cell, sometime before the assassination is done: Grey: yeah so we’re killing Palpatine, for uh. Reasons. Depa: well I feel like I should disapprove, but….

Gel:

Anakin is spinning conspiracies about mind control because why else would they do this and the clones are just like. 😬“well yes but actually no”

Cody: No hard feelings but we do need Fox to do the plan. Chancellor's evil. Obi-Wan, not at all convincingly, especially after the explanation: Oh no... the Chancellor... whatever shall I do... Cody: ...do I even need to put you in cuffs? Obi-Wan: For the sake of protocol, yes.

Doc:

Ponds: we're going to kill the chancellor Mace, who got pressured to give the chancellor access to a 10-year old: legally, I cannot endorse this.

"We arrested the Jedi." "...and they LET you?" "Yeah, they assumed it was for a plan, which it was, but they assumed it was 'we're being watched by Separatists, play along' reasons and not, you know, killing the Chancellor."

Bly: General Secura, you're under arrest. Aayla: Wh--On what charges? Bly: Uh.... it's a sex thing? Aayla: ..............sure, why not.

Monnk: General Fisto, you're under arrest. Kit: Why? Monnk: ....reasons. Kit: ........yeah, okay.

Nobody even bothers to tell Shaak Ti, she's so far away that she can't do anything and really they just. Don't tell her she has a long-distance call coming in.

The only Jedi that don't just get arrested with zero fuss are the ones that are in active battle zones far enough away that it's not worth the deaths that would follow, Anakin, and 'I don't trust clones' types like Krell.

And the ones in-Temple, which is admittedly a lot, but we're going to ignore that and say the clones just triggered a reactive shut-down protocol that had metal going over windows and stuff.

agreed

Now I would appreciate a fic where Anakin Skywalker just kills Palpatine on accident. I was watching revenge of the sith and through the whole sequence of Obi-wan and Anakin saving Palpatine from the ship I was thinking: “Anakin is waving his damn sabre EVERYWHERE it’s a miracle he hasn’t hit something on accident” and then bam: idea.

In Anakin’s defence there’s a LOT going on so like it’s not his FAULT that he wasn’t looking where he was slicing and the next thing he knows Palpatine’s head is no longer on his shoulders but rolling down some flight of stairs and Anakin just sort of,, pees himself a little.

“Oh. Shit.”

A whole mile away Mace Windu is sitting in his quarters and suddenly the migraine in the back of his head disappears and he’s like “whoa.” And then jokingly is like “who had to be sacrificed for that damn ache to finally go away.” Turns out!

Obi-wan, through a holo-call, (with Anakin skywalker furiously sobbing and heaving through snot and coughs in the background): hey so, we should look into getting Skywalker some ADHD medication.

The Jedi council: why? What has happened?

Obi-Wan: just a little loss of focus, it happens to the best of us.

Thank you so so so much for saying this!!! It means so much to people who are both religious and lgbtqa 🏳️‍🌈. This is just what what so many people, either lgbt or religious, need to desperately hear. To know that it is okay and that loving the same gender does not mean you don’t love God or that God doesn’t love you. This is perfect.

A sign

If you’re lgbtq+ and not wanting to be rejected by your religion/faith this is your sign. I’m not the first to say this but I have a deep need to say this publicly. But as someone with unwavering faith in God, it pains me so deep inside that lgbtq+ people are rejected by their religions and families on a religious basis. I don’t care if you don’t have any faith rn but I know that the things I’ve had to go through as a Black &Mexican bisexual woman in this world, God didn’t make it just easier but my faith brought peace in my life and in a world like this people need peace inside. A lot of lgbtq+ people are turned off by the idea of having a religion. (Having a faith and being hardcore religious aren’t the same thing) but I just want to say that being lgbtq+ and bringing love and acceptance into other people’s lives means your already a better follower of God than any super religious person that teaches hate. God is Love in many many faiths and that’s all that matters. You’re not a sinner. You’re not a disgrace. You’re a beautiful human who’s here to love any and everybody. Stand tall and stay proud!

a square of Besties™

i would have used the og addy portrait but i can't find a version that's not a scan :(

PRIDE MONTH!!!!!’🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

Happy Pride!

Star Wars: How the prequel trilogy mirrored and rhymed the original

We are all Jedi

Consider this:

It is barely a few months into the war. The Jedi know they have been manuevered into leading a child slave army, of course they know. But knowing and being able to do anything substantial about it are two different things. Then an idea sparks. 

No one is quite sure how or who. Perhaps it started as a way to let the Younglings help with the war effort, they all want to help so badly.  Perhaps it started as a complaint from an exhausted Council member.  Perhaps from the Crechlings who found out that Anakin Skywlaker had never been in the creche and insisted that he sleep there one night when he was on leave from deployment (after all, all Jedi need to sleep in the creche at least once) and he came out of that night so much more settled. Perhaps it grew, organic, the way such madness does.  

The Idea: they would induct the clones as members of the Jedi Order. It could not become official until the war ends, they would have to be honorary members until they were allowed to update their roles, but they could have a ceremony.  It is decided that the Initiates and younglings would design the ceremony, which ended up including a night spent in the creche.  The younglings insisted that this ceremony had to be done in smaller groups, so it could be special, so it took nearly a year to induct all of the clones (the first group being the Coruscant guard). And it is entirely possible that Fox and the CG accidentally, and without realizing it, found a way to shield certain information from Palpatine. After all there is a Rodian younlinging in the Creche who’s first words was ‘Fox’.  Whom he may visit every other tenday, because she loved to cuddle him and all of the creche masters told him that he was her favorite. 

From the point of the first ceremony there were always a few platoons worth of clones in the creche with the younglings.  Clone Cadets were given access to, and encouraged to take, the remote classes setup for the initiates and padawans. Padawan commanders now had study groups of their own troops where they could discuss philosophy and ethics and that one essay (Everyone has that One Essay). 

It should have been such a small thing, such an insignificant thing, at first many of the the Master wept for the fact that they could not even make it official. Could not free the troops, could not push back against the senate. Could not even tell anyone that the Clones are part of the Order, rather than just belonging to it.  But…But, every trooper got experience sleeping under a pile of younglings. Had the pleasure of being fought over, not because they were made for war, but because this one colored the best or that one could do fancy braids. They could wander in and out of the Temple like any other Jedi. And there would always be Pong Krells in the world, but it was so much harder to see someone as disposable or less than when you run into them at 3am in the archives, trying to finish an essay you remember struggling with as a child.

Some things change and others do not. 

Then Order 66…The Jedi are traitors. 

Only…

The Clones are also Jedi, they slept in the creche and everything. And we could go the sad route: Madness and suicide and even more genocide. But we could also go the other way. 

If the Clones are Jedi and the Jedi are traitors then the Clones must be traitors as well. And Good Soldiers follow Orders but they are not Good Soldiers.  They are Traitors. There are a number of clones that have a minor freak out because they ‘don’t know how to be a traitor!!!!’ but then someone goes, ‘we can ask our Generals/ Commanders/ our Creche masters, they’ll tell us’. 

There is still a good couple of hours of utter confusion for everyone involved as the Jedi try to work out why the troopers thought they were all traitors.  In the creche it was universally decided to hand any trooper that comes through the door a youngling to hold as it seemed to calm everyone down. In the Archives, a dozen archivists conspire to give the troopers, many of whom are shaking and confused, something easy and fun to research (the resulting papers would later be cited as the foremost authority in a hundred different topics). Two battalions that had been fighting droids at the time of Order 66 accidentally enter into a cease fire when they inform the droids that they are traitors to the Republic and the droid can’t figure out if they are supposed to keep shooting or not (the clones don’t know either) (the Jedi generals are just glad for the respite). 

And the Coruscant guard has possibly been waiting for this moment their entire lives. Each member of the ‘Guard has a list of senators, aides, and assorted others that they would kill given even a sliver of a chance. Immediately upon the news that they are traitors, Fox has them armed and storming the Rotunda.  Most of them expect to die, and want to take a few of those bastards out before they go. 

Fox himself, feeling more cheerful than he had in some time, meets up with Padme Amidala in a Senate hallway. He nods his head to her respectfully ‘ma’am’, as if she hadn’t just seen him shoot a particularly odious senator's aide. 

Padme is cautious and very pregnant, but she is one of the few people who the troopers are trying not to hit. “Commander Fox? What’s going on?”

“Oh, the Chancellor declared us traitors.”

And Padme, heavily pregnant, looks around at the panicking being rushing through the halls, the troopers stalking through somehow radiating a menacing glee, “So your first action is…this”

Fox nods agreeably, still far too cheerful, “Have to be sentient to be traitors. If we’re sentient, then we’re being abused and assaulted, and all those other words where a sentient is being hurt by other. Can’t blame us for taking a piece out of our abusers.”

And Padme feels like she should be able to argue with this but really can’t find the words. Fox, on the basis that she is one of maybe one hundred non clones in the Senate building who is not on any of the ‘Guards kill list, decides that she should be escorted to the Jedi temple with it’s healers. She is very pregnant, all this stress could not be good for her,  and the Temple has better medical facilities. Fox manages to round up one of his medics and three troopers whose lists were small enough that they have exacted their revenge already. They are to escort Padme to the temple, along with any of the other ‘Not to Kill’ beings that they might come across.  

Anakin starts to storm past, but realizes that Padme is there. He is half fallen to the dark, dazed and looks a bit like corpse. Fox decides that he also needs to be escorted to healers, and makes a joke that Anakin should ‘help’ escort Padme, to make sure this stress isn’t going to hurt her. Anakin, being dazed and more suggestible than is truly healthy (also oblivious about many many things), takes him seriously.  They are sent on their way to the temple, where the healers look at Anakin and Padme, promptly getting both of them into a bed.

A few troopers, chasing a senators aide, find Master Windu in the lower levels and bring him to the temple (they may want revenge but they are Jedi first and Windu is one of theirs).

Sidious, who was on nearly every kill list, is powerful. There is no doubt about that.  He can easily stop up to twenty blaster shots, plus three slugs, at once. However there are 150 Couruscant Guard, including Fox and Stone, who are able to claim the privilege of shooting him. Twenty five of those with slug throwers. 

He died without ever finding out what went wrong with his plan.