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[moltengoldveins]

Feemor and Jon Antilles are the two characters that, when looking for a Star Wars fix-it long fic, I watch out for more than anything. I know for a fact that if those boys show up the fic will be BANGIN. If they’re SHIPPED with someone? Even better. Those boys are the absolute best metric for whether your fic writer is feral enough about extended canon to write a good and proper fix-it fic set before the clone wars. Feemor/Jaster Mereel? Immediately I am hooked. So the Jedi Temple Guard who spends the vast majority of his time faceless, largely because of a neglectful parent, is with the guy who leads the Faceless Helmet Good Parent People? I know there will be cultural discussions and family drama. Hell yes. Jon Antilles meanwhile is such a crackhead concept that a fic containing him is gonna be taking a lot more insane things seriously than just an immortal Jedi with weird trauma. Jocasta Nu being shipped is third in this list btw. Nu x Dooku? Hell yeah, old person romance, the author has a thing for pining and theological debates over tea. Nu x Jaster? Hell yeah, our resident autism man finally got himself into the Jedi Archives if yknow wat I mean. Sifo Dyas also fits into this category of character btw. These are the quality barometer characters of Star Wars pre-clone wars fix it long fic.

[cherryhatter-deactivated2015072]

KICK THE CAN!

Let’s play the biggest game of kick the can on the internet.

To kick the can, reblog it. I wanna see how long this can go on for.

[visibun]

the oldest reblogs for this post that i can find are from january 2nd of 2013. this can has been getting kicked around tumblr for almost 13½ years now

[drtanner]

And yet somehow this is my first time kicking it!

[arbitrarycategories]

din djarin knowing nothing about star wars is great because I can fling him through time and then pull a reverse uno card on my readers. you got used to calling grogu Baby Yoda?? uno reverse. Adult Grogu.

[homunculus-argument]

God will see you at the lowest point of your life, and say "what the fuck I thought I killed that thing." But you skitter too fast and you are too creepy.

[miceblinded]

Story about Din being force sensitive and seeing shatter points except he thinks it’s just the tracker in his visor so one day he asks boba if his visor has the built in ‘this is where you hit to kill a guy’ scope and Boba stands there like “the WHAT!?”

[corellianhounds]

AU where Mando— lethally efficient bounty hunter and detective— searches for a Jedi teacher for the kid post-Season 1, but all of the ones he finds aren’t in a place where they can train the kid, so he either takes their advice looking into locations that used to be important to the Jedi or he continues searching for them through other means

Thing is though, he… keeps finding more Jedi. None of them are the right choice to train the kid, but it slowly, steadily becomes apparent to those he’s found and the people he’s talked to that this Mandalorian has found a dozen Jedi within the span of a year and he’s got leads on several more? Any Jedi who escaped during Order 66, any Force sensitive who received training afterwards however partial or complete that may be, any of those who’ve connected with Quinlan Vos or others through the Hidden Path, children now grown who were at one time abducted by Inquisitors and bounty hunters, even ex-Imperial Force-sensitives themselves—

This Mandalorian bounty hunter has somehow accidentally located more Force-sensitive people himself than anyone has in years. Nobody has any idea how he’s doing it (“You just do the work,” he says dismissively, assuming they’re asking how he finds people in general) and when they realize that he knows very little about the Jedi at all, only recently familiarizing himself with the Force and its different followers, they’re even more baffled because how? And then he’s talking about locations that have provided clues through other means, codices and cave drawings and long-lost temples and did he just say he found a cave of crystals?? On a planet nobody’s ever been to or has ever been considered a nexus of the Force? Just who is this guy?!

Is some of it influenced by the kid somehow being able to zero in on locations across the galaxy that may house former Jedi? Do they happen across more holy sites like the henge on Tython that provide answers or directions? How many Force-related experiences has this guy had that he’s entirely unaware of because he has no basis for comparison and figures “The galaxy is full of all kinds of unexplainable phenomena, how am I supposed to know if it’s the Force. Also didn’t one of you just say it surrounds every living thing and connects the universe together, couldn’t ANYTHING be because of the Force at that point”

People are finding old friends and allies and mentors (and enemies!) and connecting with one another for the first time in over two decades and it’s all because this one, regular, entirely non-Force-sensitive guy with a very adorable Force-sensitive child have somehow managed to be the connecting thread between them all

(Or even better, maybe very few of them know how many other Force-sensitives he’s found or made contact with and it isn’t until some inexplicable upcoming two-part finale battle where he recruits all of his new allies to help him fight that they all show up and realize they’re not as alone as they thought.)

[corellianhounds]

Mandalorians don’t generally let kids under initiate age handle live ordnance during training not because they think they’re incapable of handling it or because they think it’ll scar them for life, but because they get too trigger happy and don’t understand the extent to which this stuff costs money/time/work to replace, and also their fine motor skills just aren’t good enough yet to not cause more collateral damage than necessary. If you let an eight-year-old start chucking grenades as part of training, they’re just going to use all of them up like water balloons because they lack the concept of finite ammunition and resource management, and they’ll accidentally take out the mess hall along with it because their hand-eye coordination is still garbage

[beskarcyarika]

Din is autistic? 👀

oh HELL yeah brother

you think he's quiet because he's scary and dangerous. he's actually quiet because he's not comfortable with social cues. also because semi verbal king.

his syntax is my favorite bc he swings wildly from speaking like an old knight and not using contractions (masking frfr) to saying things like "wizard" and it directly depends on how comfortable he is around you to how relaxed his speech is

all of his friends are people he's collected in the oddest of ways, and for various reasons, but a common thread is his friends just treat him like A Guy who sometimes needs to be called out on bullshit (peli, cara, kuill, greef, zeb, commander ward) and not A MandalorianTM that they project onto what they think he's like bc he's got the "faceless" helmet and doesn't talk a lot (the old crew from the prisoner, other bounty hunters, etc)

does he wear the helmet bc it's his religion or does he wear it because he likes not showing his face and having to worry about facial expressions? the answer is yes. thinking about any time his helmet is off and it's just vulnerable expressions. bro is making all kinds of expressions under there and nobody would know

he's a lil dyspraxic. he's like Marc Spector, he's really good at fighting and throwing his body weight around bc hes already careening around the corner anyway might as well make it look intentional. yeah he is good at being sneaky but the two aren't mutually exclusive.

the bounty hunting is great because it's routine without being monotonous. get the puck. track the bounty. capture them. bring them in. get paid. get the puck. rinse and repeat

he's also very literal (that gifset of ig trying to make a joke and din being like. you mean my brain 😐). the "din doesn't know he's a main character" joke and it's just him being an autistic king minding his business. also some of the tension with other mandalorians. have you ever been autistic and thought you had something in common with somebody else but they Do It Wrong? yeah

also reasons I think he doesn't care that grogu doesn't speak in basic. he knows grogu understands even if he doesn't respond verbally. I bet he talked even less as a kid and whoever his guardian was treated him the same way he treats grogu.

also something about him hanging out with the tuskens. trust the autistic guy to hang out with the people everybody else hates/assumes the worst of (off topic but I'm favorite part of s2e1 the marshall is when they're sitting around the campfire and din is clearly on the side of the tuskens over cobb. cracks me up every time)

ANYWAY yeah he's super autistic and I love himmmmm

[mearchy]

I’ve always personally headcanoned that if Mandalorians DID have certain stereotypical family/relationship roles it wouldn’t be anywhere close to gendered, like one person is the man and one person is the woman. It would be like, one person is the shield and one person is the sword. One is the guard and one is the hunter. The bigger and stronger of the two — traditionally, though obviously every marriage would be different and most wouldn’t conform exactly, especially with polyamory — might be the one to stay home and guard the kids and the clan. While the faster, more maneuverable and perhaps deadlier of the two went out and hunted, provided, initiated raids. A Mandalorian couple fighting together would be so dangerous for so many reasons but principally because if they’re both there it probably means you’re on their territory and both the guard and the hunter are after you, and now you’re seriously fucked.

[corellianhounds]

I love the idea of a kid who was raised in Mandalorian society and knows Mandalorians to be the people they trust/are generally good with kids, getting lost somewhere and being on their own for a while

But the moment they see a Mandalorian in the market— one they do not know and have never met— they’re running up and crashing into them, clinging to their leg the second they get there or reaching up to them with those uppy hands, asking for help. Mando in question is looking down at this itty bitty thing like “excuse me” but then the kid calls them ba’vodu and looks up at them with these big wet eyes and asks for help in Mando’a and— “okay, okay, calm down, let’s find who you belong to. Yes I will pick you up. Yes I understand you. Thank you for not touching things you know you’re not supposed to. Hey Zar’gax the Destructor—” *hulking Trandoshan bounty hunting partner turns around* “I have to do a side quest, I’ll meet up with you later”

[trickywicket-blog]

You're just gonna leave "makes no difference to Trandoshans" down in the tags??? 😂

[ranahan]

Re: Mandalorians can’t ALL be warriors,

I was going to write a proper essay with references about it, but I don’t think I’ll have the time. So I’ll just toss this out here as an unsourced thought. You’re free to correct me though!

Anyways, interestingly, the numbers I’ve seen from communities where most of their income comes from soldiering (there are not that many, but there have been some) and the proportion of front line fighters vs. support personnel in various armies both seem to agree that only about 10% of the population are fighters and 90% are support personnel. And that’s for communities which get their food and raw materials from outside of their own community for trading their work as soldiers or from the nation which supports the military. This is interestingly a fairly similar number regardless of the time or place.

tldr: In actual “warrior societies” where the main source of income for a community is soldiering, the proportion of population directly engaged in fighting is about 10%. In “warrior societies” where warriors are just the ruling class, but which also need to grow their own food and mine their own ore (i.e. they don’t trade for it with other groups) that proportion is much lower.

I need to track it down again, but I also saw an interesting anecdote about Nazi Germany and how one factor in their downfall might’ve been that their army had something like 30% fighters to 70% support personnel. I.E. their too weak support forces directly contributed to their military failure. Any soldier worth their salt knows that armies march on their stomachs and guns and ships are useless unless someone handles ammunition and fuel and parts and repairs and maintenance for them.

What does this mean for Mandalorians? Well, in a mercenary clan of mandos, for each commando there ought to be about nine mechanics, smiths, cooks, pilots, medics, accountants, teachers, retired veterans and kids. Even if all of your mercs pull double-duty and can also pitch in with support duties, it still takes the whole clan to field a company of commandos. And conversely, there are a lot of non-fighting roles needed to run a well-functioning mercenary company. Also: if you’re planning to assault a mando camp, plan for there to be about ten times more people in it than were promised in the brief.

[trickywicket-blog]

I would add to this that there's an interesting linguistics component that I think literal translation contributes that causes misinterpretation. Mando'a has a lot of multipurpose words, and many of them are battlefield words with additional uses, like saying 'Fill your boots' as 'eat up'. It's very focused on armor, weapons, combat terms, etc.

But in English, when we say "He's a good man", does it have anything to do with being a man? Being successful at being male or masculine? Not necessarily; it's most often a note on good character or strong morals.

So what about the word warrior? Soldier? Verd? As vod is both brother and comrade, I think the soldier/warrior doesn't have to be literal. In fact, if we shift a little to 'fighter', we already have a much broader definition. A pacifist could have a strong fighting spirit, or fight for what they believe in, without literally going into battle. A warrior, as the pinnacle of Mandalorian honor (besides being a parent) might have a broader definition and usage than "someone skilled at and engaging in violence".

One of the riduurok marriage vows is "We will raise warriors." Obviously not every couple will have children, and obviously not every parent is raising soldiers as opposed to weavers or bakers or hell, even armorers. Raising also kind of does double-duty as parenting and/or teaching. So instead of raising children to be soldiers, perhaps the vow is to teach/raise/support your or your community's young ones to fight for what they believe in, or fight to defend their lives, or do just have mandokar or the 'right stuff'.

No culture is homogenous, and Mandalorians are a creed rather than a race, which means they are likely to be an ideological melting pot. If you take anything said in Mando'a at face value, it makes little sense- pants-less meaning stupid, for example- so why would 'warrior' be any different?

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk I guess. I took evolutionary linguistics once and was never the same.

[mearchy]

I really love Jaster Mereel, the most “fine then I’ll do it myself” guy of all time. Like, after he killed his corrupt superior UHC style and got exiled for it he could’ve been on that vigilante shit. And he did come back ready for a fight- but not with a battalion, or another assassination. With a fucking entire new system of living and governing contained in a codex he wrote himself, based on ancient laws he wanted to resurrect. By all accounts he wasn’t even in academia or government before that moment, he was a cop. And the best part is he fucking managed to create a majorly consequential schism in Mandalorian society purely on the strength of having actually really good ideas in that big-ass academic magnum opus he spite-wrote. That’s some Protestant reformation shit!!!! I wonder if someone said to him during his sentencing like “you can’t just make up your own laws because you disagree with the ones we have” and he said oh word?? Insane, I love him.

[dick-djarin]

Quirky Guys and Gals 2011 The Mandalorian and Grogu 2026 (Red mando [Torvik] @ziggarts)

[i-am-a-fish]

my boobs are watered and my crops couldn't be more bountiful. the world is my oyster, life is a highway, and I'm gonna ride it all night long

[trickywicket-blog]

Lesbian world heritage post

[zaprowsdower27]

Just Jewish Things: seeing people refer to something they obsess over as "my roman empire" for literal years before you realize they mean it in the sense of "autistic special interest that they love learning and talking about"

and not, like, "a thing which no longer exists but nevertheless holds a place in my mind akin to the one Moby Dick does for Captain Ahab, an obsession I constantly wonder about what life would be like without and which I blame for three quarters of my problems"

[theres-a-hole-in-my-wall]

I thought my roman empire meant like the bane of my existence lmao

[trickywicket-blog]

I mean, I'm autistic and I thought it was the second thing, so...

[motherofoompaloompas]

part 7

Pt 1, Pt 2, Pt 3, Pt 4, Pt 5, Pt 6

[cc1010fox]

Rex, his hands shaking: I think I had too many cafs... Cody: You had two cups today, six hours apart... Wolffe: How are you sleeping so well that you have no caffeine tolerance? Cody: I have to have three in a day-- Wolffe: Three!? Cody: I know it's a lot-- Wolffe, barking out a laugh: That a LOT to you!? If I have caf, I need at least two to wake me up and two more four hours later! Rex: Four cups!? Cody: That's too much... Fox, stepping forward from the shadows: Weak. Wolffe: What? Fox: Weak. Cody, squinting: Fox, tell me you're not torturing your heart... Fox: I have to drink two cups-- Rex: You called him weak, and you drink less? Fox: I have to drink two cups of Quadruple Bypass Black Death Caf, which has the caffeine content of ten cups of regular caf in one cup, every morning. Wolffe: You di'kut! Fox: Then-- Cody, horrified: No! Fox: I need two more cups two hours later. Rex: How!? Fox: And I can fall asleep on that. Wolffe: How do you ever sleep!? Fox: I can't stay awake on that. I drink two more another two hours later-- Cody: I'm going to cry, Fox! Your HEART! Fox: AND I take two caffeine pills. Rex: I'm contacting Alpha-17. Wolffe: Don't bother. I'm starting a group chat to plan his funeral. Cody: He's so young... Fox: AND-- Wolffe: FOOOX!!! Fox: I can sleep any time, anywhere. I just need the chance...It's coming...It's been five days...Any minute now, someone will cancel a meeting or a job, and I'll get to sleep... Cody, wailing: He's too young to die!