This Reminds Me Of Chapter 8 When It’s Revealed That All The Mandalorians In Din’s Covert Were Forced

unpopular opinion but chapter 9 is definitely the weakest episode of the show. it’s not bad but in comparison to the rest of the show it’s subpar. plot-wise it’s just a rehash of chapter 2 (fighting a big sand monster in return for getting back something valuable) and chapter 4 (arming the villagers) but without adding the same emotional weight or new insight into din’s character.

most of it just seems irrelevant. it was definitely too long in proportion to its importance — really the only point of the episode was to introduce boba and cobb for later episodes. i wish the main conflict had been around boba’s armor rather than the fight with the krayt dragon because that was actually relevant to later themes in the season, while the krayt dragon was just like... big scary monster. that’s it. you could substitute any other antagonist and it wouldn’t change anything. i felt similarly about din - this was the first episode in the show where some of his lines and actions felt like something anyone would do or say. there were just a lot of things in this episode that i didn’t feel like there was strong reasoning behind their inclusion.

5, 12, and 13 for the mandalorian?

thank you for the ask, lovely anon! here you go:

5) Name one character you headcanon as aroace

din. i could see him as a lot of different aro-spec identities, but i've been headcanoning him as aroace since like ten minutes into episode 1. somehow he embodies both the "no emotions" and "extra room for platonic love" stereotypes at the same time. his entire existence is a big aroace mood.

honestly though, the entire cast of characters is free aro headcanon real estate. none of them express any interest in romance except for the frogs.

12) Which relationship dynamics do you prefer to see? Romantic, platonic, sexual, familial, queerplatonic?

i love platonic (and adoptive) familial relationships. platonic din & literally anyone always warms my genficcer heart. and of course there's the parent-child dynamic between din & grogu, or din & the mandalorian who rescued him as a child. i sometimes read romantic din/omera, but i'd prefer queerplatonic if those fics existed. sexual... no. never. in any fandom.

13) Name two or more characters you think are in a queerplatonic relationship

oh, din & omera for sure. i think omera is straight and attracted to din, but aware on some level that he's not into anyone and is okay that a relationship with him will be a little different. i doubt they label it (or even have the terminology to do so) but to me fics where they're strictly platonic or romantic just feel... off.

you know my favorite thing about peli? she’s basically the only person who treats din the same way she would if he weren’t mandalorian.

she’s not afraid of him, not because she’s confident she could defend herself, but because she doesn’t assume she’ll need to. she doesn’t pester him with questions about his helmet because she doesn’t think making personal religious decisions is weird. she thinks of him as a PERSON with a PERSONALITY and an actual LIFE beyond the mandalorian bounty hunter stereotype.

like. pretty much everyone gets this “oh crap it’s a mandalorian” face the moment they see din and make a bunch of assumptions about who he is and what he wants. even if they’re not overtly racist and xenophobic, they’re still obviously uncomfortable and weirded out by his helmet. but peli? peli has zero reaction to seeing a mandalorian in her hangar. she's one of the few, if any, people who don’t initially think of din as The Other. it’s nice to see.

these stripes mean something

rating: g (word count 762)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/40832574

When the Mandalorian shows up in front of Cara's glossy new officer's desk, asking her to help him spring one Migs Mayfeld, traitor to democracy and accessory to murder, the first thing she thinks is: this man is not the same person who fought by my side on Sorgan. There’s something wrong with the rigid way he moves, with the tightness in his voice when he speaks.

“These stripes mean something,” she says, indicating the badge on her chest.

It’s a no, but not a hard one. More of a please don’t ask me that. She doesn’t want to choose between Mando and her last chance of going straight. (She doesn’t know if she has the strength to choose going straight.)

“They have the kid.”

Cara’s eyes narrow. Oh no, they don’t.

The whole way to Morak, Cara watches the Mandalorian out of the corner of her eye.

There used to be a tenderness to him, an awkward softness that poked out between the cracks of his armor. She saw it first on Sorgan, in the way he watched his son play with the children in the krill ponds. Heard it in the thank you's he clumsily handed the young widow like he wasn’t sure what to do with them.

It's gone now.

There’s an aura of deadliness concentrated around him that wasn’t there before. It’s like he’s a blaster aimed to kill and he’s only waiting for the right moment to pull the trigger. His voice is a gaping void. Sure, Mando has always been quiet, but now… it’s like he’s catatonic. Like he only exists when he needs to for the mission.

Cara has never feared him. Not even on that fateful day on Sorgan when she looked up from her spotchka, saw a real live Mandalorian hunter, and thought for the first time in her life, I might be meeting my match. She tends to be more practical than terrified in those kinds of situations, but—

Not gonna lie, the rigid figure sitting across from her makes her a little uneasy. It’s a good thing they’re on the same side.

The old Mando called a truce and offered her soup. She’s not so sure this one would do the same.

Cara can’t believe he agreed to replace his beskar with stormtrooper armor. She can’t believe he suggested replacing his beskar with stormtrooper armor.

It’s kind of dumb, but all she can think is where did your face go? She knows, rationally, that the black T-visor and beskar zygomatic curves aren’t his real face, that helmets are removable and there’s got to be a head somewhere in there. But still. Where is his face.

“I’d say it looks good on you, but I’d be lying,” she says.

The Mandalorian looks at her.

Cara’s always been able to read the crease of a brow and the twitching of lips through a helmet’s tilt. She knows this man as well as she knows her own blaster. Knows the way he fights and the way he stands still, knows what he’s saying when he doesn’t say anything at all. They’ve had entire conversations without speaking a single word. But now—

Now, for the the first time since the day they met, she locks eyes with the Mandalorian and has no idea what’s going on inside his head.

(It’s the lack of doubt. It’s the way he faces her, head-on, like a challenge.)

It shouldn’t feel so jarring. It’s not like he’s done anything yet that Cara wouldn’t do if their places were swapped; the kid is everything to him, so there’s no justification for the strange, premonitory loneliness she feels welling up in her bones. It’s just a helmet.

(It has never been just a helmet.)

Cara will go to the other end of the galaxy and farther if her Mandalorian needs her to. It’s a silent promise she made a long time ago, sometime after a bag of credits and a second chance plunked onto the dirt by her feet. She owes everything she is now to this man, who met an outlaw and saw a former Rebel shocktrooper, who without saying a single word reminded her what it was to have a heart and a code and a people to protect. She’ll hold herself to her vow as long as she’s able, but something tells her the Mandalorian is headed somewhere she can’t follow.

These stripes on my chest mean something, she thinks. That beskar meant something. You were the one who taught me that.

I wonder if you remember.

Weep for yourself, my man You’ll never be what is in your heart Weep, little lion man You’re not as brave as you were at the start

Song: Little Lion Man by Mumford and Sons 

STAR WARS REBELS 2.06, Brothers of the Broken Horn

The Disasters of Sofia, Clarice Lispector // The Old Revolution, Leonard Cohen // Hans Vandekerchkhove// Kyoto, Phoebe Bridgers // Fireworks, Mitski // Insha'Allah, Danusha Laméris // Giovanni's Room, James Baldwin // True Blue, Boygenius // Report From the Besieged City, Zbigniew Herbert // Cool About It, Boygenius // Scenes from Star Wars

i think a lightsaber is a really telling choice of weapon for the jedi order in terms of how they practise peacekeeping. a lightsaber is not the tool of an organisation that priorities non-violence. it’s for, ideally, a very controlled amount of violence, as much violence as is necessary (whether it’s a kill or the traditional jedi cutting off a limb) to efficiently end the threat

we overwhelmingly see jedi fight other lightsaber wielders, but realistically on a day-to-day basis, the enemies the jedi face would be ordinary people, not remotely a match for them. it’s up to every jedi in battle to be judge jury and executioner, to decide exactly how much harm they need to do before they do it. in legends the jedi have their own specific terms for the different kind of cuts or ‘marks of contact’, with an understanding of how honourable they are and what enemies they can be applied to, which really demonstrates that they are controlled ethical decisions rather than instinctual or purely defensive

and on a wider scale this is how the jedi order practises their role in the galaxy. that’s the clone wars: rather than refusing to engage in violence, they accept an amount of violence that, in their view, has to be done in order to end the conflict as quickly as possible and achieve the peaceful result. but violence on a galactic scale can’t be so easily controlled. and even where it can be, that gives the jedi a level of galactic power they were never meant to have

romance is lame and overrated i love mentor/mentee relationships in fiction and especially when theyre sort of fucked up

ten credits says when din finally paints his armor it'll be purple because he's not like other mandalorians