This Hurts More Than It Should Because He Wasnt My Favorite Character In TCW For Some Reason But In TBB

This hurts more than it should because he wasn’t my favorite character in TCW for some reason but in TBB I felt more of a connection to him! I think it has a lot to do with Omega, their connection even if it’s not blatantly obvious to most, and how she NEVER gives up on Crosshair and seems to be the only one to sense his suffering. (More reasons but I’m sure no one wants to read a long post from me lol)

Not saying the other batchers aren’t suffering but Cross literally thinks he was replaced by his brothers by their little sister who they didn’t even know existed. As well as it seems like Omega has done more in this entire series for Crosshair than the whole batch has! I love anything with Crosshair and Omega!!!! Wish I could find more fan art, fanfictions etc.

Why Crosshair's treatment in the first season of the bad batch hurt so much:

They had to make the less talkative man with the rough personality into the villain. They could have showed that despite his coldness he's just as important part of the family as anyone else. They could have showed what made him behave this way.

He barely got any screentime. How could we understand his feelings if we don't even seen him?

His brothers didn't even try to save him while they thought he was only with the empire because of the chip. This pushed Crosshair toward the empire, even without his chip...

Crosshair was alone. We didn't see him smile once. He didn't have any wholesome moments, he didn't get to be there when Omega first saw hyperspace or try out Mantell mix.

He was broken more and more with each episode he appeared in. His eyes only got sadder and he became someone else during this season. This is not the lighthearted Crosshair who plays with Wrecker and has sarcastic comments. That Crosshair is gone. This season broke him.

Hawaiian Footsteps: The Night Marchers

   The telling of ghost stories has been an important part of Hawaiian culture since ancient times. One of the most popular tales are the Night Marchers. The Night Marchers are an apparition of people marching to the beat of a drum often recognized my drum beat, chanting, and bright torches.    What the Night Marchers exactly are is debated. Some stories say they’re a band, others armed spirit warriors, or the ali’i spirits spirits going to greet new warriors. It’s also said that they’re restless spirits looking to reclaim territory, replay a battle, or maybe avenge their deaths.    Legend says Night Marchers usually march through specific places. A few notable places happen to be, Nu'uanu Pali Lookout, Ka'a'awa Valley, Kalihi Valley, Oahu’s Pali Highway, Kamehameha Schools campus in Kapalama on Oahu, Kualoa Ranch on Oahu’s windward coast, La'ie on Oahu, La Perouse Bay in South Maui, and  the town of Kaunakakai on Molokai. There are also two nights in particular which the Night Marches tend to appear most frequently. These nights are Po Kane and Po Akua. Po Kane and Po Akua are both nights of the new moon just at different times in the moon cycle.    When the night marchers come about, a few characteristics of their arrival are, heavy wind, rows of spirits carrying torches, alternating male and female rows, lightning and thunder, heavy rain or high surf, chanting and drumbeating, bright torches and mist or fog.    When coming in contact with the Night Marchers it is important to not disturb them. Do not get in their way. Don’t even look at them. It is best to crouch low to the floor and avert your eyes. It is vital that their procession is not interrupted. I hope you enjoyed this spooky bit of Hawaiian folklore!

omega’s still the only one who knows it’s not his fault 😔

LOVE these two

a messy lil comic based off of this post by @critical-endangered

(click for higher quality)

Can we just,.,.accept that both Crosshair and Hunter had their reasons for doing what they did?? And honestly neither of them really did anything wrong??

Hunter left Crosshair because he tried to kill them. He didn’t understand anything about the chip, he really thought Crosshair had just lost his mind. And as soon as he learned about it and how to fix it, we immediately jumped to episode 8 where Crosshair tried to incinerate them with a jet engine. He tried to communicate that the chip was affecting him, and Crosshair didn’t care. Hunter couldn’t even get himself or Omega out of that situation unharmed. He had no way to snag Crosshair from his squadron of stormtroopers out for murder. After Bracca, Hunter was focused on getting Omega back because she’s just a kid; she isn’t with the empire, she hasn’t been chasing them down and almost killing them. From Hunter’s POV, the possibility of getting Crosshair to come with them willingly or even at all is looking bleak and even though he knows it’s not Crosshair’s fault, he’s been so overwhelmed with trying to keep the people relying on him safe and right now he doesn’t think Crosshair is relying on him. And honestly, how were they even supposed to know where Crosshair was half the time? He wasn’t on Kamino 24/7 and the Batch isn’t exactly swimming in imperial informants. But that aside, of course he was thinking about Crosshair; Hunter is loyal to a fault and you can just see the emotional pain that flashes across his face whenever Crosshair is mentioned because that’s his little brother and he couldn’t save him and he feels like he failed. Hunter never was and I don’t think ever can be indifferent when it comes to the people he loves. Whether you like it or not, Hunter was trying his best to keep everyone safe and stop running suicide missions because the galaxy was changing and he was trying to change too. He did nothing wrong.

Now Crosshair.

To all of you calling him a Nazi and saying that the animators and writers intentionally lightened his skin just to make a racist show of dominance, stop it. He was referring to their genetic enhancements being superior. That’s it. He’s always hated regs because let’s be fair the regs were never exactly good to him either (AFTERMATH). Now let’s just take a look at how the chip works shall we!! We know from Rex and Wrecker that clones know what they’re doing while under control of the chip and they’re powerless to stop themselves. So we know in Aftermath that the chip was strengthened to an insane degree, and Crosshair could still see himself taking head shots on his brothers and trying to murder them and he couldn’t stop no matter how badly he wanted to. He was powerless. And then the Batch left; at this point he probably understands that his brothers had to go. They’d regroup. They’d know this wasn’t his fault and they’d come back.

Months pass. Crosshair doesn’t know about the solemn looks the Batch exchange when he’s mentioned. Crosshair doesn’t know that they can barely get food for themselves. Crosshair doesn’t know that Wrecker has flat out said he misses him. Crosshair doesn’t know how Tech said “it doesn’t appear he’ll be needing it” with a twinge of sadness in his voice while giving Omega his comm. Crosshair doesn’t know how much Hunter hates himself for leaving and that Hunter was always planning on going back to him someday because someday he’d have the perfect plan and he could save everyone this time. How could Crosshair know?

More time passes. Crosshair probably still has his chip on but he’s still in there, watching himself become more and more important to the Empire. No rescue attempts. Not one. How awful does he have to feel?? They went to get Echo out of Skako with no backup and they didn’t even know Echo and they can’t go back for him? And here’s the Empire, giving him power and some semblance of control. Things are changing fast and now he has nobody but himself to adjust with, and besides, he’s always had an egotistical side so maybe being a commander and putting the regs in their place isn’t so bad to him after all. He’s alone. He adapts or he dies, that’s the job and that’s all he has now.

Onto Bracca!! If Crosshair is telling the truth about getting his chip out, I firmly believe it had to have been after the events of Reunion. It wouldn’t make sense otherwise; “if I wanted you dead, you would be” sweetheart giving the order to have them incinerated and starting to walk away really seems like you wanted them dead and then going from ordering Omega to be executed to telling Hunter that if he cares about her he should let her go and be safe away from them??? You can’t tell me that Bracca!Crosshair wouldn’t have dragged Omega back into the training room and killed her right there just to keep them from choosing her over him. So let’s just assume for now that Crosshair wasn’t lied to and his chip is out (I’m still holding onto a scrap of hope to the contrary because A. there’s no scar B. HE’S STILL HOLDING HIS HEAD and C. my boy isn’t making any SENSE he just killed off a bunch of Imperial stormtroopers to convince the Batch to join his Empire that he cares so much about??) it had to have happened after Bracca I said what I said idc. If the chip is out, I’m sure his head is still an absolute foggy mess because lord only knows what cranking those chips up to full strength several times will do to you, but suddenly he’s realizing that he’s still angry with them. He’s still hurt. He’s still very much alone. Maybe they never cared about him at all.

And don’t get me started on any “if he did any of this willingly he is irredeemable” garbage. How many times did Kallus almost kill the Ghost crew?? I’m sorry, was it not Kallus who ordered the Lasat genocide?? Don’t take this the wrong way, I adore Kallus and his redemption arc was one of the most beautiful things about Rebels but the point is if he can do all of those horrible things for the Empire for years and is still allowed a redemption stemming from realizing everything he thought he was fighting for was a fiction, THEN SO IS CROSSHAIR. With that side note out of the way let’s think about how alone and betrayed Crosshair feels by the Batch and let’s realize that after they left Ryloth, after they left him again, what does he want?? He wants them. He doesn’t want to kill them, he doesn’t want them imprisoned and he doesn’t want to make them pay. He wants to fight side by side with them again, he wants his brothers back. And even though he’s so beyond hope that they still care about him, heck he literally said “don’t make the same mistake twice; don’t make me your enemy” he thinks they were enemies and he still cares about them so freaking much that he went through an entire elaborate scheme to get the whole Batch on Kamino and set up the stormtroopers’ deaths to prove his loyalty that they could have if they just gave him some of their loyalty too. “Loyalty means everything to the clones” is starting to get a really bitter taste innit??

The point of this longwinded rant my friends is to beg y’all to stop being so black and white about these two. They’re both human, they both have made mistakes and have regrets, they’re both trying their best to survive in a galaxy flipped upside down. Things played out how they had to and they’re both victims of the real villain of Star Wars, who has always been Palpatine. The fact that there is so much to unpack with these two characters shows how flipping amazing the writers are!! They’re so layered and complex it’s literally like they’re real!! So please. Stop hating on them so freaking loudly. They’re my boys and they both deserve a warm hug and a nap after the season they’ve had

That scene where Crosshair drew his rifle to save Omega and everyone drew their weapons on him because they thought he was going to kill Hunter absolutely gutted me, but I also loved it a lot. Because it showed us a lot about where Crosshair is going, and his relationship with the Bad Batch right now, by doing very little.

Firstly, it showed that Crosshair still cares about The Bad Batch. He knew it would destroy them if anything happened to her. It showed that, on some level, he cares about Omega. He didn’t want her to die. And, most importantly, I think it showed that he still has at least some small sliver of good left buried within him.

However, it also showed that, right now, The Bad Batch does not trust him. They obviously still care about him — you can tell by the way Hunter refused to leave him, the way Omega tried so hard to save his life, the way Wrecker and Tech were hurt that Crosshair never tried to find them just like they never tried to find him. And you can tell by the way they all turn to Crosshair and still offer to take him with them even after everything they’ve done to hurt each other.

….but.

They don’t trust him. And I don’t blame them. Up until Return to Kamino they could excuse Crosshair’s behavior as the inhibitor chip forcing him to do what he’s done. But after Crosshair reveals that his chip was taken out (whether it’s true or not), at this point in time they have to accept that Crosshair chose to attack them. To hurt them. To try and fry them alive in an proton engine. If what Crosshair said is true and his chip is gone, and they don’t know for how long, then that means Crosshair was actively choosing to work against them this whole time. And if Crosshair was choosing to do all of that before, why would he stop now? Especially once he reached safety at the surface of the ocean. It would be so easy for him to just shoot them all, let Omega drown, and take their ship. They see Crosshair draw his rifle on Hunter and have to assume the worst - that he’s going to kill Hunter. Because they have no reason to think he wouldn’t. Hell, in that moment, even my first thought was “what is shooting Hunter going to do” before I realized what he was doing. And I like Crosshair! I want him to be good! I believe that one day he’s going to realize he’s wrong and leave the Empire! But I also recognize that he’s an antagonist, and the Bad Batch has every reason to be wary of him based on what’s happened up to this point and what they know.

I think that moment may have been a big part in Crosshair’s decision to stay behind. Because Hunter and Wrecker and Omega can talk big game about how Crosshair is family and they are willing to take him back and be brothers and sister again. But Crosshair knows they’re afraid of him. He knows they don’t trust him. He knows that if he goes with them, things will never be how they were before. They’ll be looking over their shoulder every time Crosshair sneezes and Crosshair will be walking on eggshells constantly trying to prove to them that he doesn’t want to hurt them. Ultimately, I think choosing not to go with them at this point was the right call. Crosshair needs to redeem himself and prove himself a little for that to happen, and for that to happen he needs to realize that the Empire is wrong. That Crosshair is wrong. And do something about it.

It doesn’t mean that they won’t ever be reunited. It doesn’t mean that they’ll never trust Crisshair again. It doesn’t mean that Crosshair will never realize his mistakes and go back to them. I firmly believe this episode was meant to set up a long-game redemption arc for Crosshair. I think Hunter pointing out that the Empire left him for dead, his interactions to Tech and Wrecker in the tube, and his conversation with Omega in Nala Se’s lab did get through to him enough that the seeds of doubt are planted. You can see the conflict on his face as they’re leaving at the end of the episode. Hopefully with that, combined with how much he obviously still cares for his brothers, he’ll start to realize throughout season 2 that everything he believes about the Empire is wrong. Then hopefully he’ll start the process of making amends and doing the right thing. This episode actually ended up giving me a lot of hope for the future of Crosshair and The Bad Batch.