Yeah, that’s fair. I’ll certainly account for feedback on ideas like this. I wouldn’t want to break canon where there’s a chance it gets referenced again in other core media - i.e. it damages the franchise’s cohesiveness. But in this case I was considering both sources as fair game since it feels like Malevolence and Trench are both ‘siloed’ plots unlikely to be revisited. But you’re right - there has to be a call made on where things land on the spectrum of quality versus purity. The ‘purer’ alternative would essentially just be a heavily trimmed Malevolence. Which would be fine.

I suppose this comes from an intention to creatively preserve the best elements of otherwise not particularly good episodes - nice if it works, because then you get nice lumps of quality. But potentally messy of course, and as you say, technically non-canon, though I wouldn’t want it to cause an actual canon conflict.

On the other hand, this stuff’s all optional either way. This edit would definitely be way down at the low priority end of things, one that could be toyed with long after the initial Malevolence trim were produced. (I’m just thinking about it now while I focus specifically on Ahsoka.)