✨Tech Isnt Dead, Please✨

1. It straight up just isn’t written as a character death, not at any point from the moment it becomes obvious he’s going to fall onwards through the rest of the show. Not even like a badly handled one. The closest analog to how this is written in animated Star Wars is still Ahsoka’s “death” at the end of Rebels season two.

I mean, some shows have an entire "eulogy episode" dedicated to really highlighting how those who are left behind cope with loss: X-Men '97 has an episode after Gambit's sacrifice (which is especially interesting given that it's strongly hinted at by the end of the season that Gambit is coming back), Rebels has an episode after Kanan's sacrifice AND THEN even has another episode later in the season to really drive home that Kanan is NOT coming back.

But they didn't even need an entire episode for this. Superman and Lois provided extremely satisfying closure for Sam Lane's sacrifice with a voice over monologue that took less than a minute of screentime. Heck, Bad Batch itself had a cathartic scene for Mayday in season 3 that lasted less than 30 seconds!

For Tech, we get... nothing. NOTHING. Omega puts his goggles in the Archium, but none of Tech's brothers are there with her so it comes across as a scene being thrown in as an afterthought. Crosshair invokes Tech's name only in a desperate attempt to stop Hunter and Wrecker from going into danger. Wrecker alludes to Tech once; Hunter doesn't say Tech's name or allude to him at all. Echo mentions Tech in reference to skills that would have been useful in a given situation; Omega mentions Tech in reference to past lessons. Not a single mention is made that even obliquely connects Tech's sacrifice with his family's continued survival and eventual happy outcome on Pabu. Not a single mention is made that shows all of Tech's siblings have come to terms with his loss.

(The show's got the depictions of extended mourning - especially avoidance behaviors - down pat, I'll give them that.)

And hey, maybe Bad Batch really wanted to emphasize that death may occur before reconciliation can take place, and I fully respect that topic being tackled - except it wasn't tackled, because the very character who should be most affected by this lack of reconciliation is given no time to actually come to terms with it.

I just can't watch season 3 - especially that "Mayday moment" in episode 5 - without thinking over and over again that closure for Tech is aggressively absent, almost as if it's deliberately excluded. I mean, come on, the writers ABSOLUTELY know how to satisfyingly close out the loss of a character! So why wouldn't they do it for Tech?

Because Tech's alive, and he was meant to return. That's why.

Tech fans, I would like you to stop calling yourselves "delusional." (Or delulu, or any variant.) I would sincerely ask others to stop as well.

It is both ableist and quite literally inaccurate from a storycraft standpoint.

(Especially because we're talking about a likely neurodivergent character and definitely many neurodivergent fans.)

You weren't. We weren't. The signs were there. The foreshadowing (falling into clouds, the goggles, CX2's Everything) was real and consistent and *intentional.* You are not delusional for LOGICALLY FOLLOWING writing convention patterns and leading where the writing is directing you. (If there's something the majority of autistic story-enthusiasts are good at, it's logical storycraft and pattern recognition, both in creating and consuming! We know how to follow basic steps!)

They can say "oh it was just a red herring", and that is Technically (ha) true, but it is one of the most blatant and frankly cruelly marketed ones, that smacks of stringing fan emotions along to keep us watching when they know many would stop watching if they knew what lay ahead. (Using a basically-confirmed-autistic character's death for shock value and little else, and then using the ambiguity of Is He Really Dead Or Is He This Extremely Similar Looking Guy We Brought in Right After' to keep churning up social media buzz. I might have.)

You were not delusional to have hope - that's what Star Wars is about.

You are not delusional to think this is wrong, a writing fumble, or simply them yanking the football away when *it was there all along.* The road signs were clear, they were just... lying, for lack of a better term.

You're not wrong for being upset about this, the latest in a long history of autistic characters treated as plot devices and catalysts for neurotypical characters' development rather than their own, and fans taken advantage of.

Please treat yourselves better. And if you're on the outside, or neurotypical, please treat us better. I promise, we have actual reasons for feeling pain right now, and delusions are not at all among them.