OPEN RP POST • STAR WARS MINGLE ⭐️

[forceshadowed]

whatever it is you've been doing
you are now in Canto Bight!


That's right. It's just like those jamjar games. One moment you're minding your own business, and then... poof!
You're in Canto Bight for no apparent reason.
(Or you've always wanted to be here, and you finally did it. Whatever, we're not the cops.)

That's not the weirdest part, though. Because you might be seeing double.
It's like the time-space continuum collapsed over the city
and now doubles and multiples of you or people you like hate want to kill know are appearing.
So go have fun with that!



HOW TO PLAY:

• Toplevel your character. Different version/AU, different toplevel please.
• Add a short background or link to an info post, and indicate prefs. TELL US WHAT KIND OF SHENANIGANS YOU'RE LOOKING FOR. Shipping, smut, family reunions, dark side shenanigans, murder, a Ben Solo smackdown...
• Troll Reply to others.
• Lather, rise, repeat.
• Please note that while the intent of this post is for characters from various Star Wars verses to mingle, you don't need a Star Wars character to play! All characters are welcome — characters AU'd into SW, characters having interacted with SW characters in games and memes, fandom OCs, ship babies, etc.
• Have fun and be excellent to each other! ♥

Comments

K2 + technically canon

[icanblendin]

[He's a hero of the Rebellion maker-damn-it! What is he doing in a casino!? WHAT YEAR IS IT??]

[candor1]

[Those are exceptionally good questions. Cassian has been trying to blink his brain back to full capacity—he was just on the beach at Scarif, wasn't he? is this a last dying misfiring of his neurons as he disintegrates in the kyber blast? if it is, what the pfassk are his neurons doing conjuring Canto kriffing Bight?

—and, thank the Force but what the hell, he sees Kaytoo. But it can't be Kaytoo. But it's not just another KX model because of how it's standing, how its head and oculars move, and those particular scuff marks… Cassian's always been able to pick Kay out of a crowd…

All the grief he'd been soldiering through evaporates, as his most recent memories suddenly seem immaterial. Just assuming they're here undercover, because… yeah; Cassian sidles up to Kay. And, trying not to hope but not knowing enough either way yet, murmurs,]

There's a fresh what if I mouth off again?

[icanblendin]

Kay had been running analytical probability simulations for the past half hour, and given that was one of the things he was actually designed for, he'd gotten through a few thousand of them in that time, many of them taking mere fractions of a second while others took longer, but the problem was that none of them made any sense.

When someone actually approached him instead of giving him a wide berth -or simply not noticing him in the corner he'd decided to lurk in- it was actually a surprise, and more of a surprise when he realized who it was. At the end he'd been calculating his little mechanical heart out, trying to come up with a situation, however improbable, that Cassian would survive, and he hadn't been able to fully comprehend one before his own time was up.

But apparently there had been one.

How a droid with no eyelids could widen its eyes in surprise was anyone's guess, but somehow Kay managed it, or at least a reasonable facsimile of it, "Cassian?" He reached over to tap Cassian's jaw with the back of a hand, not the slap it had been once before, but enough to indicate that he remembered, "You survived."

[candor1]

Either Cassian's brain was really misfiring—perhaps he was under the influence of something…? but no other symptoms noticeable…

—or Kay was referring to what Cassian thought he was referring to. In which case…

Maybe the head injury he'd sustained being shot off the tower had gone far beyond his self-diagnosed concussion. Otherwise, nothing made the least banthaspewing sense.

"I thought you hadn't," he said quietly. His hand came up to clasp Kay's forearm. "Outside the data vault… you said goodbye."

[icanblendin]

"Cassian, I..." He stopped short, because while pleasant half-truths weren't his usual style, he couldn't actually bring himself to say that he hadn't survived, and he knew that for a fact. Mostly because if he hadn't survived, he couldn't explain how he'd gotten here.

So instead he said: "Do you think we might have been dreaming?" Statistically speaking it was an incredibly slim chance, considering the fact that droids just didn't, but that initial memory wipe all those years ago had fried more than a few things and it was possible, though highly improbable, that he'd gained the ability to do so, even if it had never come up before now.

[candor1]

"I don't know," said Cassian, still at half-voice. "I…" don't want this to be the case but "…think, if anything, this seems the likelier dream. Being safe and together…"

(Although, again, if this were coming out of Cassian's head, he'd put them on Yavin 4 not Canto Bight; and Jyn, at the least, would be here too.)

Cassian looked up at Kay's 'face' and wondered, very unusually, if he wanted to get to the truth of this. Or if he should just enjoy seeing his friend one more time.

That wasn't really their way, though, was it.

"Your memory log have any clues?"

[icanblendin]

"So you don't remember being sent on a mission here, either." He replied, managing something that sounded like a heavy sigh, and, in fact, sounding somehow completely dejected. He'd been... 'hopeful' wasn't the right word, not exactly, but something like it, that it had simply been his own memory banks glitching as they sometimes did even after this long.

But it seemed that wasn't the case.

"I was deactivated, Cassian." Slagged was probably a better term for it, but he wasn't going to use it himself, not at the moment, "And I cannot calculate a probability path that leads us here from where we were." It wasn't often, if it had ever happened before, that Kay admitted that he couldn't do something so basic to his core programming. Which was why he just pushed on, "And if this is supposed to be some kind of afterlife, why here? You hate casinos."

There was also the question as to why Kay was there in that particular case, but that was something to be worried about later. And it wasn't necessarily that Cassian hated casinos, it was just that there were too many things that could go wrong on a job with a casino involved, and that was something they could -and did- agree on.

[candor1]

Kay emoting, in whatever flavor, made the edges of Cassian's mouth curve upward. The smile was stopped in its tracks by what came next. I was deactivated.

(Climb. Locking the vault door now.

How could it still be so haunting with Kay right here?)

—No, Kay was right: Cassian did hate casinos. But he was so extremely glad to hear Kay say it—be here to say anything.

"All right. Tell me something I never knew about you. Something I wouldn't make up." First things first: confirm they were both real. They could handle or solve whatever else, after that, together.

[icanblendin]

He knew that question wasn't supposed to shut him up, or send him into some kind of internal overload, but he didn't know if there was anything about him that Cassian didn't already know, it wasn't as if he kept things to himself, really.

Though after a moment he said: "I never calculate the probability of your death before a mission, only of your survival." Which were two different things as far as Kay was concerned, and something oddly superstitious, for a droid. But it probably made a certain amount of sense, considering that Kay had never done any of the borderline religious things that other droids did, thanking 'The Maker' for things, that corner of his consciousness -however manufactured that consciousness was- needed something to do as well.

[candor1]

(Cassian had worried a bit about that when he asked. One of the things he treasured most about Kay—one of the reasons he never tried to "correct" that byproduct of the reprogram, along with possibly not being a good enough slicer—was Kay's direct, unfiltered honesty. What a contrast to the rest of Cassian's existence of diplomacy, tactical truths and outright lies.)

The answer, though… yes, too—in a way—simple to have occurred to Cassian on his own… and just…

Speechlessly, Cassian placed his palm on Kay's plating, and just took a moment.

Finally, he cleared his throat. His voice was still a little thick when it came. "Okay. …Well… when I was on my own, before I had you to keep me company on flights, I'd keep the HoloNet tuned onto children's programming." It was the only thing reliably free of what he got enough of at work. "My favorite show involved talking loth-cats."

[icanblendin]

If Kay had the capacity to furrow his brow, he would have, instead he dimmed his ocular diodes briefly as he made a quiet, somehow thoughtful sound, low and humming, "Yes. I remember. It was playing on the way back when I first fell in with you."

And it had been a literal fall, he'd been giving chase, Cassian had hit him with the equivalent of an EMP and he'd fallen forward into the ship instead of backwards out into the corridor and there had been nothing for it but to slap a restraining bolt on him and bring him along. One of those things that hadn't been on purpose at first, but had definitely been explained that way later. The admission was probably something else that Cassian didn't know, mostly because no one ever asked Kay about that night, so the fact that he was at least partially online during the trip had never come up.

For the time being, however, he straightened again, "So, we're both who we say we are, to the best of our ability to determine, what's our next move, Cassian?"

[candor1]

Be dumbfoundedly grateful as almighty kark. Have a moment of lightheaded, superstitious thought about the Force via Chirrut’s prayer or Jyn's necklace or sith-knows what…(?!?) Then… very good question.

"Find out when it is. Check the docking bays and see if we recognize anything as ours." Cassian considered working on the first (with the help of an intoxicating drink in his hand) and sending Kay to start on the second; except being an unaccompanied droid in Imperial or extralegal space—aka almost anywhere—was a risky thing to be. No. He'd just gone through losing Kay. Now he had him back, however that was, Cassian was sticking close.

If they did have a ship here, its computer might answer questions like the date—and where they'd been before this—and possibly even why. So start there.

Cassian belatedly looked down at his own clothes. He was wearing his usual nondescript shirt, trousers, and Corellian-cut field jacket. Not what he'd been wearing on the beach. Okay, okay, all that meant for now was that he didn't have to play an Imperial officer. Worry about anything else later. Including where his personal transponder (usually on the breast of the jacket) had got to. He rapped his knuckles lightly (lovingly) against Kay's chestplate before dropping his hand. "Doubt anyone'll ask, but if they do, you're my bodyguard, and I'm someone too important for them to recognize or be told. Good?"

[icanblendin]

"I would be a more convincing bodyguard if I had a blaster." It was a token argument at that point, he didn't expect that he was actually going to get one, partly because that had been the agreement with Rebel command, he could stay but he couldn't be armed, but also because here Casino Security were the only ones with blasters and that was a problem that could be worked out at a later time if it became necessary.

One of the good things about being as tall as he was, especially in comparison to Cassian, was that he'd be able to see someone coming their direction and move to intercept or just to block without even breaking stride, it was something that had happened in the past and might well be needed here, but he couldn't be sure yet.

"If we can find an information console we can find where the hangars are." It was possible that they were just in the lower levels of the casino, but he couldn't be entirely sure as he hadn't plotted the entire layout of the building just yet.

Using him for AU and Pawadan canon because I don't have icons yet, so AotC era Ani

[sithling]

[ This is definitely a Droid type he hasn't seen before. So the Jedi Padawan walks over, posture light and easy. ]

Hello. Are you stationed here or did you get -

[ Anakin makes a shoving motion with his hand ]

- too?

/thumbsup - also I apologize in advance

[icanblendin]

Lacking eyelids, Kay didn't have the ability to blink in befuddlement. He did, however, manage a pretty good facsimile of it by angling his head down towards the young man, ocular diodes dimming and returning to normal brightness three times in quick succession.

It was on the tip of his metaphorical tongue to ask how he could be stationed somewhere that wasn't an Imperial-held outpost, as that was the kind of thing he could usually get away with, but the fact that Anakin had talked to him the same way Cassian did, like he was a person and not just a droid, had him stopping that question and instead just answering: "Get foisted off to fend for myself? Yes. It happens distressingly often."

*NEVER* apologize for Kay

[sithling]

Anakin stood, watching. Excited really - he thought Threepio managed to be expressive! - as the droid processed his question.

"Maybe that's because you can handle it?" The reply answered Anakin's question, of course, but it also caused him to grin, shifting himself so he could look up to the Droid without straining his neck or making the Droid crouch or bend itself in an abnormal way. "As we are both ditched here - Force knows why - I'm Anakin. What can I call you?"

[icanblendin]

He didn't have the ability to squint incredulously, either, but he managed that just about as well as he'd managed the puzzled blinking, head tilting just slightly as he regarded Anakin intently, already running statistical simulations with what little information he had.

"Kay." This was followed a bare moment later by: "Did you need something?" In Kay's experience, that was the only reason people talked to him, and while he had the niggling feeling that Cassian was going to appear and tell him not to talk to strangers, he didn't really have any other avenues at the moment. Besides that, Cassian knew better than to tell him off in public, since that invariably resulted in Kay just doing more of what he'd been doing.

[sithling]

"Kay then." Anakin was almost bouncing in excitement, he didn't - ever - do 'still' well. "Well. Technically yes, although I was hoping for someone who knows the area as I really don't. But I've also never seen a droid like you before, so you have me curious now." He certainly didn't mind Kay talking to him.

[icanblendin]

There was that surprisingly suspicious half-dimming of his diodes again, mostly because Kay wasn't sure what to do with people really, let alone young people, especially because his experience with them was so limited.

Which was why he just gave the simplest answer: "KX series security droid. Enforcer class. I wasn't aware we were so uncommon." Though the fact that most of them, all of them save for Kay, were controlled by the Empire would probably account for not many people actually having seen one.

[sithling]

Anakin didn't find it so surprising that Kay was expressing expression and emotion - just in how people like he (Anakin was pretty sure 'he' having heard Kay talk some now) was doing it. Too often people didn't want Droids to so closely remind people of well. Other people.

More the pity, Anakin's closest friends had always been Droids.

"I haven't seen any around Coruscant or other places I've traveled with Master Obi-Wan." Anakin stepped back, then walked around Kay, studying him. "You're quite something."

[icanblendin]

Anakin was starting to remind him of Cassian, at least a little, the endless curiosity really, though Cassian was more quiet about his, more liable to just poke at things for answers instead of voicing the questions, Kay wasn't sure yet which he liked better.

"Nonstandard neural array, recovered from a memory wipe." He replied, matter-of-fact as he was about everything, "Other than that, industry standard. I suspect that if you have such a high regard for me, the droids you've been interacting with are sub-standard."

[sithling]

"That would explain it! Most people don't attempt recovery from a memory wipe, and use them to stop Droids from developing personality." If anything, that excites him more, considering Threepio.

"So many don't see Droids as anything but machines, when they are really much more."

[icanblendin]

"Recovery was incidental in maintaining functionality." He wasn't really sure why he was explaining, aside from the fact that he had no one else to talk to, and Anakin wasn't put off by him the way most of the Rebellion was just on account of what he was and where he was from, despite having been loyal to the cause for nearly a decade.

Of course, maintaining functionality was almost-but-not-quite a euphemism for retaining the information he would need to be able to pose as an Imperial droid again as necessary, but he wasn't going to let on about that, yet.

There was a moment of calculation before he asked: "So you're one of the activists?" He certainly sounded like the people campaigning for droid rights, though Cassian generally tried to keep Kay away from them for their sake less than Kay's.

[sithling]

"I'm familiar with that at least." He'd done that part often enough for Watto and later in building and rebuilding Droids at the Temple.

Although Kay has Anakin a little confused, "Activists? I don't think so?"

[icanblendin]

"Yes, the droids rights activists." That answer was an easy one, but Kay, being who he was, added: "They really aren't helping as much as they think they are, if anything they're making things worse."

It wasn't that Kay thought some droids were better than others, it was simply that he knew that some were designed with a single task and purpose -gonks for instance couldn't ever stand in for a protocol droid- whereas the droids rights activists thought they should all be treated equally, as fully-functioning beings.