SWEET TALK ME IN MANDO'A

1. this man is a CHATTERBOX

i rewatched the umbara arc and got annoyed that the transcripts just used "clone trooper" for a lot of clones who are easily identifiable, so i went through and added them in (i may make a reference post later). and folks? this man does not shuTUP! (yes that's my headcanon to how he got his name) here are just a few examples:

i can't even see the enemy!!

it's just a vine, keep moving hardcase

are you sure those bombers are coming?

so why aren't we sticking to the original plan and proving the city defenses first?

hey, kix, bring it down, you're wasting heat

it's too quiet out here.

is krell trying to get us killed??

perhaps this is not much but watching the arc it seems like a lot of dialogue, especially when there are other named clones (like kix and jesse) who don't get nearly as many lines.

2. he's terrifying on the battlefield

it's no secret tup gets infantilized in fanworks a lot, and while i 100% agree he's caring and has a softer personality than his bros (see no.4), he's also an absolutely frightening soldier oh my god.

at one point he's put into a headlock by an umbaran and is about to be shot in the head, but he flips the man over his shoulder, pins him to the ground, and shoots him in the face -- like, this man is not uncomfortable in combat. PLUS, fives does the same move a few moments later, and while i'm not saying that fives watched tup do this and copied him (i'm not NOT saying it tho), it shows that tup is just as capable as fives in combat, which is pretty damn capable.

enjoy some subpar screenshots:

also, in s6e2, shaak ti mentions that on ringo vinda, tup went missing for 5 days on his own?? in separatist territory?? and then he just showed up again?? and is still acting normal enough to save fives from getting shot in the heat of battle?? i'm just SAYING that he's gotta be tough to do all that

having a softer personality -- which, i do think he does -- doesn't mean that he's any less of a clone trooper. like, folks, they were literally created and trained from birth for combat -- tup is not baby

ALSO. in s6e1, tup says, "you owe me a lot more than one" to fives, and we all know how capable fives is -- he's an arc trooper! if tup can save this guy more times than he can count, he's gotta be scary on the battlefield. he's just gotta.

look at these posts! [1] [2] [3] they make great points and do it better than i!!

3. still, he's got little brother vibes

umbara's gotta be one of tup's earlier campaigns with the 501st. i'm not saying this because this is the first time we see him -- the clone wars just doesn't give many clone-centric episodes -- i'm saying it for:

"hangin' in there, tup?" "so far, so good, captain" + the fact he's holding onto the railing for dear life on the way down to the surface

phrases most of his sentences as questions ("are we sure those bombers are coming?" "why aren't we sticking to the original plan?" "why does it seem like he has it out for clones?") which, in my opinion, is a little brother/newer trooper thing to do

needs encouragement in the field -> "we're... we're finished," to which rex says "we've still got some fight left in us, tup."

THEN we see tup calming kix down ("hey, kix, bring it down, you're wasting heat"). idk this also strikes me as little brother because rex just had to calm tup down, and he's trying to copy his older brother rex.

while he supports fives' plan against krell, he's also nervous about getting punished. dogma's able to convince him pretty easily once he brings up how they could be court-martialed if krell finds out they were in on it -- i'd say that the threats of decommissioning or reconditioning are still super strong in his mind, which i think suggests they're pretty fresh from kamino.

4. emotional core

this is one where you might be like "bee, you are reading into things way too far." and maybe so! however no one has told me to shut up yet! so it's not my fault!

i'm gonna argue that tup is the emotional core of the umbara arc

he's expressive with his emotions and is a mirror to what the audience is feeling throughout the arc. when the squad is pinned down and tup says "we're finished", the audience is concerned. when fives and jesse come back and tup says, "they made it!!" the audience is excited too. when he's extra serious/aggressive in battle, the audience knows that this isn't just a normal campaign, this is serious shit. when the audience finds out about krell and gets angry, that's when we get the close up of tup's murder face. that's what i mean when i say he's the emotional core.

we literally just have to look at the firing squad scene for this. we get several close-ups of tup during this scene and i just wanna take a sec to break them down a bit. (note: obviously screenshots don't show this as well but i did my best!)

first: angry tup

this is when dogma orders them to aim, but before fives' speech. my friend and i talked about whether this expression meant tup was intending on actually shooting to kill, and i am firmly in the NO camp. he has no reason to be mad at fives and jesse -- he's been anti-krell since the beginning of the arc, he did his best to cover for fives and jesse (not his fault he's a bad liar!), and he was excited when they came back. hell, even after rex sent him and dogma back to the barracks, tup came back out to see rex -- i'm guessing to apologize or explain what happened, and to see if fives, jesse, and hardcase got back safe.

so i think it's safe to argue that he's only angry at krell here, and even though krell isn't present, it's super visible on his face.

like look at him when rex says they're gonna go fuck up krell!!

second: sad tup

during fives' speech, he's wrecked. the pain in his eyes is so clear, and following from above, i think it has a lot to do with fear that even though he's going to miss on purpose, the other clones won't. also just frustration that he knows fives is right and how the hell did they get to this point?

third: "i do not see it" tup

he closes his eyes while he shoots -- we actually also get a close up of him closing them. as far as i can tell, he's the only one. he simply can't bear watching his brothers die (at the hands of clones, hmm). this is more than battle stress.

fourth: surprised tup

after everyone misses, tup opens his eyes and is genuinely surprised to see that fives and jesse are still alive.

like, it would be so much easier in this situation to throw up walls and put on a stony facade so it wouldn't hurt so much, but tup doesn't do that. in fact, he does the opposite and is very visual in how he's feeling/what he's thinking.

tup is also only one of two clones given a line reacting to discovering that they're shooting at their own men. the other is dogma, for obvious reasons, but then we have tup ("this can't be happening. what have we done?"). i'm not saying that other clones didn't react the same -- obviously they were ALL distraught -- but i think, intentional or not, having tup deliver this line further positions him as the emotional core of the arc. like, it would have made a lot of sense for kix to deliver this line! he's been adamant about not leaving brothers behind from the very beginning, and to find out that he -- a medic, who's supposed to save his brothers -- has killed them? honestly, it would have made a lot of sense too. but i'm getting off topic.

my final point for this is his expression when he kills general tiplar in s6e1. now, i understand that they probably just used tup because he was one of the few other named clones in the 501st and they already had plans for kix and jesse, but like. just bear with me here.

the conspiracy arc is supposed to show, for the first time, how the chips actually work. the point is very clearly that this is an involuntary response, and how better to do that than to take a clone who has been the emotional core of an earlier arc and turn him into an unfeeling puppet? his face here is so blank and i think that, while it's to show the chips in general, it has a bigger impact because it's tup.

5. goofball

okay this is short. just had to include it though

he teases hardcase about his "flying"

just look at how he's sitting. folks. FOLKS. you can't tell me he's not a goof.

we've all seen it!! he likes to be tall!!

6. SMARTYPANTS

you knew it was coming. honestly, all i have to do is say how he trapped general krell because he's been observant this whole time and uses what he knows about the vixus to capture krell (who has killed MANY of his brothers and tried to kill him, who has TWO DOUBLE SIDED LIGHTSABERS) by outsmarting him.

"it's too quiet out there" right before they get ambushed

okay so why am i writing this?? what's the point??

part of it is for me to organize and explain tup's personality so that i can write him better! my main takeaways are:

he's more emotionally expressive than other clones (across the range -- happy, angry, scared, etc.)

chatterbox :)

super smart and a formidable soldier

a bit of a goofball

quick learner

terrible liar, as most clones are

with umbara as his first major campaign, that's going to impact how he develops over the rest of the war, however you interpret that to be

but i also hope this might help bring some things together and show him in a more complex light, whether the writers intended it or not. tup's a goof, but he's also wildly loyal and an extremely competent soldier, and i think we need more of that complexity when writing the clones.