Sw The Bad Batch - Blog Posts

Cut literally told Hunter “you need to take care of your people” and then Hunter turned around and gave them the best care that has ever been cared in the history of ever

Examples #56,282-56,285 of Hunter being an exceptional older brother/leader:

- Noticing Crosshair's continued hand tremor, but being discreet about it

- Noticing how close Crosshair and Omega have become

- Drawing a hard line on Omega being anywhere near Fennec, but also...

- Giving Omega an important mission of her own: talk to Crosshair about the hand tremors (because he knows Omega needs something to do AND he knows Crosshair needs to stop avoiding the problem)

Not me begging all my friends and family to watch The Bad Batch, acting like that show isn’t the reason I cry myself to sleep every night

Echo’s First Moments with TBB, Part 1

Tech: *storms into the cockpit* Crosshair, I need you to shoot Wrecker.

Crosshair: done.

Echo: wait, wait, wait. Don’t you wanna know why first?

Crosshair: *cocks rifle* of course not. Might make me change my mind.

😭😭 too soon, OP, too soon. But so truuuuuee

Tech knew Crosshair had changed.

He knew the moment he found "CT-9904" included on the list of clone prisoners.

He already knew, but his theory was confirmed when he discovered that Crosshair had sent the squad a warning message.

Tech might not have known the details, but he knew that Crosshair had changed not only enough to draw the wrath of the Empire down on him, but enough to actually reach out to his family - the family he had walked away from - in an effort to warn them.

Crosshair's nature may still be "severe and unyielding," but his priorities had changed and he now was bending those traits toward different goals (like protecting his family at all costs and not yielding to torture).

Tech may not have seen firsthand how much Crosshair had changed, but he knew that he had.

And since his brother had changed enough to somehow defy the Empire and then reach out to the family, maybe his brother would come home.

Tech would have been so excited to take Phee’s last name

except the problem was, the rest of the Bad Batch took it, too.

It started with Omega. She was out shopping with Tech for one thing or other when he introduced himself as “Tech Genoa” and she just got so excited and bounced up and down and exclaimed, “And I’m Omega Genoa!” And it wasn’t really the time to correct her, except then Wrecker picked up on it and he got so excited because “that’s right, we get a last name now!!” And they just run around the house screaming “Omega Genoa” and “Wrecker Genoa” while a flabbergasted Tech tries to find a tactful way to explain that actually only he gets the last name.

Hunter and Echo of course know how the last name thing works, but they also thinks it’s hilarious, so they start using it, too. First just as a joke around the house, but then it just kinda starts to roll off the tongue, and admittedly, it’s kinda nice having two halves of a name instead of just one. Crosshair thinks the whole thing is absurd, until someone new in town asks him which family he belongs to and he just scoffs and says, “Genoa, obviously,” and he started using it after that.

And that is why Phee came home from an expedition two weeks later to see a hand carved sign on the front of the Batch’s door that reads “The Genoas” and an extremely exasperated but endeared Tech.

The Bad Batch’s favorite underrated movies when they were cadets:

Tech: Atlantis, because let’s be honest, he totally daydreamed about discovering and saving a lost civilization as an eight year old

Wrecker: The Iron Giant. Innocent yet emotionally intelligent kid, giant super strong robot, explosions—that movie is so Wrecker coded, except he definitely cries at the end and the rest of the batch has to be up all night consoling him (“the whole point is that the robot LIVES, Wrecker” “b-b-but they never see him again…”)

Crosshair: Treasure Planet. Like can we all agree that deep down inside, Crosshair is just a Jim Hawkins, aka angsty teenage boy that needs some Love and Attention. Except he would rather die than admit why that movie resonates with him

Hunter: Brother Bear. Mountains and wilderness?? Check. Brothers?? Check. Bears?? Check. 8 year old Hunter literally just wants to be a bear

Season 2 Bad Batch’s wardrobe change has so many fantastic implications:

I bet Tech quit wearing armor first, man literally never wore leg armor, I fully believe that he just walked off the Marauder one day in his cute little vest and ignored everyone’s stares

Wrecker probably got jealous though and was like “Hunter why can’t I not wear armor” except he literally doesn’t have any other clothes. So Omega is like SHOPPING!!

Echo, frankly, was concerned, but Omega was so excited about it that he just gave up

Hunter, at some point, saw a red scarf and was like “…I like this. a lot”

Finding clothes that fit Wrecker was like IMPOSSIBLE. Hunter tried doing the alterations but all the seams ended up crooked. They really missed Crosshair for that part

Shopkeepers kept asking Hunter, “Why are you buying clothes for your droid???” Which made Echo very salty, except the shopkeepers were usually so mortified at their mistake that they would give the batch a huge discount (“this is just Pantora all over again” “come ooooon, Echo, you’re really helping us out here” “fine, but next time, I am worth 60% off!!”)

Omega, again, was VERY excited (“I’ve never picked my own clothes before!”) and the boys definitely got carried away making sure she had EVERYTHING (“Omega, come here and pick out a raincoat” “Omega, do you have enough socks??” “Look, Omega, this is a nice sweater, you like sweaters, right??” “How fast are you gonna grow?? That’s it, we’re buying jeans in every size”)

Not that they didn’t customize their armor before, but now that they are dressing themselves in civilian clothes their own personal styles really come out. That is when they discover that Tech is actually extremely fashionable, and Hunter is literally a mountain hippie man

Crosshair: *wakes up, sees the entire city in ruins*

Crosshair: kriff, what were they drinking this time

There are two scenes from the Bad Batch season 1 finale which aren't meant to be funny but make me giggle anyway:

1) Crosshair's pitch to his brothers about joining the Empire. I don't know what marketing classes Crosshair took (and I haven't taken any marketing courses either), but I'm fairly certain most accredited classes don't endorse literally holding your audience hostage before executing the other members of your team to prove to your audience that they can trust you. (Then again, I suppose the Empire actually may approve of such tactics.)

2) After being stunned by Hunter, Crosshair wakes up to find himself in a collapsed Kamino facility and on the verge of drowning, and after being rescued his first words to Hunter are "What have you done??" as if Hunter is responsible. Makes me wonder just what kind of shenanigans CF99 got up to during some of their missions if Crosshair's initial assumption is that Hunter and the squad caused a level of destruction equal to an orbital bombardment.

Watching The Bad Batch has made the Battle of Endor so much more emotional for me. Cuz like. We see the clones continuing to fight, even after the army they were bred into dissolves. They never stop fighting for the republic that NEVER fought for them. They laid the foundations of the rebellion. Endor was THE end of the war that the clones had been fighting from day one. It was the glorious, victorious ending that all our precious clone brothers deserved—and so few of them got to see it. But they also played such a huge role in blazing the trail for the people that DID see it—Ashoka, Omega. They lost so much, but they gave so much, and that’s the clone legacy—boys whose sacrifices and dreams lived to fight another day, even if most of them are marching far away.

I headcanon that Crosshair actually writes in the most beautiful cursive. Like shockingly beautiful. Very perfectly slanted, even letters. The others probably tease him about it a little (“you write like a GIRL”) but secretly they love it because it’s just so NICE.

Omega: being a sniper must be so nice. Just sitting up high and keeping an eye on things through your scope? You have the chillest job on the battlefield.

Crosshair: *has flashbacks to this one battle where he watches through his scope as Hunter runs head-on into a firing squad of 200 droids with nothing but a knife, while Wrecker is purposely trying to set off every bomb he finds, while Tech takes off not only his leg armor but the rest of his armor too because it’s “getting in the way,” and he can’t even see Echo anymore but alarms just started going off in the Separatist base behind them*

Crosshair: …yep.

Hunter before Omega: alright lads, the odds are -10% that any of us survive this, which means we are in it for a GOOD TIME, in fact, just for kicks, I say we go in with no armor and no guns and just STAB our way through the droid army. If you get shot, don’t forget to take a selfie for the Battle Wound Wall of Fame *does a shot*

Hunter after Omega: okay, so I know we planned to go to on our family picnic today, but I checked the weather and it MIGHT rain later, so I say we avoid the risk altogether and postpone for another day just to be on the safe side. How is everyone doing? Do we have snacks?? Are we warm enough?? Does anybody need a bandaid??? Omega come here, you look like you need a hug—

It’s canon that Hunter and Crosshair fought each other all the time (literally), but you know who else probably argued a ton? Tech and Hunter. Not necessarily because their personalities clashed or because they liked to pick fights with each other, but because Hunter’s primary instinct is Protect and Defend At All Costs and Tech’s primary instinct is “if I jump off this narrow walkway between buildings at exactly the right angle onto the back of a predatory winged creature whose distress calls I recorded on a whim when it tried to eat my Jedi general, my chances of survival increase from 12% to 16%” and I really just think that would be a source of occasional conflict

Never gonna get over the fact that Captain Rex spent FOUR episodes with The Bad Batch, during which time:

Tech nearly wipes out a runway construction crew, Tokyo Drift style

Crosshair picks 3 separate fights with regs, including Rex himself (and Rex socks him in the face for it)

Hunter literally looks Rex in the face after receiving orders and says “ehhh yeah no” and then proceeds to charge an approaching enemy squadron head on

Wrecker begs to explode just about every single building they lay eyes on

Hunter confesses to a Jedi general that he’s never submitted a single report in his life

Hunter also goes for a joyride by dangling from the foot of a giant winged beast from a single rappelling line

Tech later convinces them all to jump through the air onto the backs of said winged beasts in the middle of heavy enemy fire after summoning them with his self-made Animal Sound Spotify

Wrecker destroys like 100 battle droids in 3.5 seconds with his bare hands and laughs like a maniac the entire time

Crosshair, rather than let himself be shown up by Wrecker, destroys like 1/6 of the enemy forces with tiny hand mirrors and a single laser shot

The entire batch is sassing each other THE ENTIRE TIME (“don’t worry, Wrecker, I’LL hold your hand” “yeah…it’s a lift” “me and the boys will tag along, just to say I told you so”)

And after all of that, Rex looked at Echo and was like “yeah I think we’ve found your new home” and Echo was just like 😍😍

*Echo and Tech devising battle strategies at 2am on Echo’s first night with the batch*

Echo: —and then, that’s when we would use the cannon to launch wrecker straight into the wall—

Tech: —yes, and at the same time, you and Hunter can be on either side rigging the explosives—

Echo: —which Crosshair will shoot from the other side of the battlefield from on top of the Rancor that we kidnapped earlier—

Hunter: *whispers to Crosshair* this might have been a bad idea.

Crosshair: *sips his coffee* I, myself, have always wanted to ride a rancor.

Something I think we missed out on in TBB S3 was seeing how Hunter and Wrecker’s dynamic shifted after Tech’s death. Because those two were more or less alone together for FIVE MONTHS. I’m sure Echo was around off and on, but he would have been busy with Rex, gathering intel about Tantiss. That five months was probably one of the darkest periods in their lives. They had just lost Tech, they had just lost Omega, they had just essentially lost Crosshair for the third time. Hunter and Wrecker would have gotten each other through profound grief, fear, anxiety, trauma, desperation, regret. Those kinds of shared experiences change how people interact with each other and I wish we had seen a little more of that.

“If you haven’t shot each other at least once, are you even brothers??” —Crosshair, to Wrecker, at some point probably

I am DYING to know how Commander “I run 1/6 of the GAR on caffeine and respect” Cody became homies with Clone Force 99, whose entire philosophy is “ehh mission orders?? More like mission suggestions” except they’ve thrown every single suggestion they’ve ever gotten into the garbage and set it on fire

Omega: hi I’m Omega!!

The rest of the batch: 🤔🙄😑

Tech: *in his head* child?? Human child?? Kaminoan-created human child?? Origin?? Purpose?? Genetic composition?? Must scan this fascinating creature.

I feel so bad for the guy that had to be Tech’s flight instructor on Kamino. Just like imagine feeling happy and secure in your job as a clone cadet flight instructor, and then this scrawny little clone who’s about five years younger than the others in your class with giant round goggles and his hair standing on end from shorting out Kamino’s entire electrical system on a dare marches up to the flight simulator, looks at you, and says, “Look, sir, let’s not kid ourselves here. There’s nothing about flying you can teach me that I don’t already know. I’ve read every flight manual ever written and can recite the specs of any standard ship in the galaxy. My enhanced mental abilities allow me to process information from multiple sources faster than you can even remember what you ate for breakfast. I’m already a better pilot than you will ever be, so just give me the score that we both need to be done with each other and let’s move on with our lives” and then slams on the gas

Tech panicking while teaching Omega to fly the Marauder is so funny to me because literally the very first impression we ever get of TBB is Tech drifting the Marauder onto a landing platform at like 3,000 miles per hour

Wrecker: so, this didn’t ACTUALLY happen. But let’s pretend that it did. Let’s just say that Tech was trying to get access to an encrypted comm channel, but he couldn’t because he needed to be plugged in to this one computer.

Hunter: uh huh.

Wrecker: and uh, let’s pretend that he had this really REALLY long cord. And Crosshair volunteered to crawl through the ventilation system to plug the cord into the computer.

Hunter: uh huh.

Wrecker: and let’s say that, just maybe, I sat on Tech’s comm while he was giving Crosshair directions. And Tech lost contact with him.

Hunter: right.

Wrecker: so like uh, if that WERE to happen, how would you go about finding Crosshair again?

Hunter: Wrecker, did you and Tech lose Crosshair in Kamino’s ventilation system?

Wrecker: no!! Well, uh, I mean, we didn’t LOSE him…

Hunter: *long sigh* *yanks vent covering off the wall* where did you last hear from him

I just KNOW that Crosshair and Tech were the most chaotic duo back on Kamino. Tech is literally terrifying. He’s the most intelligent and the most practical, yet the man watched two (2) illegal high speed races and was like “eh yeah I could beat that system” and then DID. His unhingedness is a CHOICE. Combine that with Crosshair, who hated your guts before the Kaminoans even bred them in a tube, who picked three (3) physical fights with his COs in a four-episode arc, and you know they got up to the most chaotic shenanigans together as cadets. Poor Hunter has probably been trying to keep them out of prison since they could walk

I’m dead over the fact that nobody tried to redeem Cid in TBB S3. In fact, if anything, our opinion of her drops even further, because she helps CX-2 find Phee, which helps him find Pabu. Like, Crosshair had one of the most gorgeous redemption arcs in Star Wars. They even teased that Rampart, who bombed Kamino and wiped out an entire race and decades’ worth of scientific achievement, might redeem himself. But Cid? Who sold our little CF99 family to the empire after they fled to her for refuge in the wake of the sacrifice of one of their own? Who got our little Omega imprisoned for five months in an imperial experimental facility? The writers knew that if Cid was on fire and we were holding a bucket of water, we wouldn’t even DRINK the water, we would make her watch while we pour it into the dirt, and they were NOT gonna mess with that

“And in the night

You hear me calling

You hear me calling

And in your dreams

You see me falling, falling…”

“Oblivion” by M83 making me think of Tech in all the saddest ways

Despite all of the controversy that exists in Star Wars, I love that we as fans have agreed that when it comes to emotions, Wrecker has the most brain cells, Tech is confused, Hunter needs a good cry, and Crosshair would rather walk through the halls of Tantiss with his clothes on fire than say any sort of statement that starts with the words “I feel”

So like what’s gonna happen when Omega comes back from the rebellion with a boyfriend?? My guess is that Crosshair takes up sniping again

The Bad Batch on their night to cook:

HUNTER: he’s a breakfast for dinner kind of guy. Pancakes, bacon, eggs, orange juice. He does his best to keep the kitchen mess contained, but somehow pancake batter always ends up splattered on the counter and one thing or other ends up just a little bit burned.

WRECKER: he has a “follow your heart” philosophy when it comes to cooking, which means lots of experimentation with spices and cooking times that has varying levels of success. What he really excels at is grilling. The kitchen is always a disaster when he’s done with it (which drives Crosshair up the wall, but Wrecker is the only one who can make steak exactly the way he likes it, so he never complains).

CROSSHAIR: the exact opposite of Wrecker’s philosophy—he follows the recipe incredibly exactly, with no variation, and he keeps a very close eye on everything while it cooks. Incredibly slow and methodical about it all, plus he cleans and washes up while he cooks, which means it takes him 5x longer to make dinner than the others. It drives them crazy, but it also means his food is the most consistent in terms of quality.

TECH: he also likes to experiment—not quite like Wrecker, but he’s always looking up new recipes and delicacies from the planets they’ve visited to try. He’s usually more invested in authenticity than in what his brothers will actually LIKE, which means he’s served them some of the strangest, goopiest, spiciest, unusual foods they’ve ever eaten for the sake of experience.

ECHO: he doesn’t have time to mess around in the kitchen—he’ll pop a frozen pizza in the oven or reheat some leftovers. But he makes up for it by always being the one to help out with clean up, and always cheerfully putting up with the others’ sometimes questionable cooking (let’s be honest, he probably had worse in the 501st).

I wanna know how Hunter became the leader of the Bad Batch. Like, not saying any of the others would have been better, I just mean, there were only four options: a sassy little iPad kid, a trigger-happy man bear, the problematic guy with the toothpicks, and Space Rambo. We can’t assume it was because he was the least chaotic, because nothing could be farther from the truth. In TCW season 7, Anakin asks him who they report to and he’s just like “idk man, if I knew how to fill out a report maybe I’d try and find out” and when Anakin gets snatched up by that lizard dragon thingy, the first thing his brothers do is get set up so that Hunter can windsurf behind it like a maniac because apparently that’s something he tends to do. In TBB S1 when Omega starts that food fight, Hunter tries to de-escalate the situation for approximately 3 seconds before throwing hands. All of his interactions with any sort of leadership involve a minimum of 70% sarcasm. The man has a blaster to shoot droids and chooses to stab them with a knife instead. He left cadet training and the first thing he did was get a massive face tattoo of a skull.

Like, I’m trying to imagine how that conversation went and all I can think of is, “Sir, it’s time to promote one of the members of Clone Force 99 to sergeant.” “…*long sigh*”

I finally got time to work on a bigger piece and it had to be the bad batch!

I love these idiots and I feel so robbed of not having gotten canon old designs for the rest of them outside of Hunter and Omega

Also I wanted Tech back because he's my favourite nerd

I imagine this picture was taken earlier that day that Omega left to join the rebel alliance