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i really feel like i wouldn’t have minded the bix baby twist if she was shown doing anything in the second half of s2 that wasn’t related to cassian. like, sure, she isn’t a fighter, and i’m happy with that: not everybody in the rebellion needs to be a soldier, characters like mon and bail prove that, and to insist that every single female character should be one falls into the “strong woman” trap when there is no single way to be a “strong woman”. but the thing about bix is that she wanted the rebellion to win. she wanted it so much, often more than cassian. she wanted it enough that she sacrificed her relationship with cassian entirely. it’s pretty much the defining trait of her character. even when she couldn’t sleep through the night because of nightmares about what she and cassian were doing, she still knew that the rebellion had to win.

so then show me bix doing something. show me her in the backgrounds of shots in yavin working as a mechanic, contributing her skills to the rebellion. show her tinkering with projects when she’s at home with cassian.

and then, post-yavin, have her still contributing to the rebellion. not even necessarily with any organised rebel cell, but as one of nemik’s random acts of insurrection across the galaxy. perhaps working as a mechanic on a planet (not alderaan) that we know is rebel-affiliated. perhaps back on ferrix or somewhere else that the empire has destroyed, working to repair the damage and rebuild a community, actively making a better galaxy for her child and everybody else to live in. perhaps still on mina-rau, but expand on her implied force sensitivity: maybe show her doing some basic force-healing, show that she has healed by finding herself as well as by having a child and now she is literally healing others.

at the very least, show that her and cassian are talking about starting a family. show that a child is something that she wants, rather than just being Woman Who Is Happy To Carry Her More Important Male Partner’s Legacy.

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up there with sw fandom takes that make me go ??? is dooku being a “good/noble sith”. bc no he was not. stop.

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perrin fertha! firebrand of the academy. apathetic, hedonistic social elite. child groom. dirtbag husband. or supportive husband, we never truly know. was he jealous of tay kolma? or was it that he’d identified tay’s weakness long before mon did? party boy, playboy, gambler, who gave a wedding speech about seeking out moments of “pleasing sensation… laughter and good company… a fine meal” in an otherwise dark and joyless existence, and yet the most miserable he ever appears is when he does just that, drinking with and sleeping with runai sculdun, and the happiest is in odd little moments with mon. are they in love? are they friends at all? they know how to hurt each other, intimately, and still, subtly, he worries for her at the wedding, protects her from krennic, lets her steal his tea. he asks mon “must everything be boring and sad”, but after it all, he’s the one for whom the story ends that way.

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Every time I see someone describe Leida Mothma as "pro-Imperial," I blink.

Because here's what we know about Leida: she resents and rebels against her mother. And from Leida's perspective? Her mother is the Empire personified.

We, the viewers, know that Mon is opposed to the Empire. We know she's on the eve of launching an open rebellion. But Leida doesn't know that. Mon's path to power has been forged by working within the system, by making ripples but never so many waves as to get tossed out of office. Mon is a part of the Empire, and her commitment to working long hours in her Imperial office is part of what keeps her away from her family.

Leida doesn't rebel against her mom by signing up for Junior Imperial Academy; she rebels by embracing Chandrilan traditions. They're conservative traditions, regressive traditions, painfully gender normative traditions--but they're not Imperial traditions. They're a reminder of what Chandrila was like before the Empire (an Empire that famously favors galaxy-wide homogeneity and disdains local customs) came to power.

Embracing them isn't expressing a pro-Imperial position. If anything, it's a repudiation of the Empire--just in a very different direction than Mon would prefer Leida take. And that to me is part of the tragedy between them: they don't disagree about nearly as much as they think they do.

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Vel: I don’t know what’s worse, that you killed the love of my life who was the baddest motherfucker in the galaxy or that you have the audacity to be such a whiny little crybaby bitch about it

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Wilmon: so this is a really complicated sequence that has disastrous results if I screw it up-

Saw: isn’t it awesome how many ways it can kill you

Wilmon: I’m just here to teach

Saw: this shit is my sister, I can feel her on my skin

Wilmon: you just killed that guy

Saw: to be a rebel is to be insane

Wilmon:

Saw: you want to get blitzed on fenty-uranium and yell at the moon?

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ANDOR 2.06 | What a Festive Evening

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rip my boy

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thinking about how, when mon was getting involved in the rebellion, she must have been doing it at least in part to fight for the future of the child she was going to have/had just had. not just for leida, of course, but the idea of her daughter growing up under imperial rule must have been a motivating factor for her.

and then, in this fight for her daughter’s future, she sacrificed her relationship with leida. and then, for this fight, she sacrificed her daughter’s future altogether.

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“i wish you were drunk” is leida trying to hurt mon as much as possible, yes, but it’s also the truth, it’s leida’s way of saying she wishes mon was at least honest about not putting her first, that given she does prioritise her beliefs above leida’s happiness she should at least act like it, rather than pretending she’s offering to cancel the wedding entirely for leida’s sake.

and “you’re to stand behind me” is mon’s last opportunity to protect leida in any way, even though it’s a purely symbolic sense, and it’s her fury. it’s her fury at leida for refusing her offer, and her fury at herself for making it. it’s her fury at the chandrilan customs she’s taking part in. it’s her fury at the empire and the rebellion and herself for putting them both in this position.

and these are the last words they say to each other before leida is married, before the moment that according to chandrilan culture leida no longer “belongs” to mon and perrin. and they mean everything

the relationship between mon and leida lives rent free in my mind because. it’s the way that leida resents mon for never putting her first, and is justified in doing so. it’s the way that leida rebels against mon by adopting the ultra-conservative traditions that mon hates, and thinks she’s committing the ultimate rebellion by getting married, when really the marriage is something mon arranged for her own rebellion. it’s the way that buried deep down (i think) leida does have doubts about the marriage, is terrified that mon might be right, can never admit this to anyone ever because she’s a teenager. a child, who is getting married for reasons she doesn’t even know of.

it’s the way mon, from the beginning, has chosen the rebellion over her family. it’s the way she sacrificed her daughter’s future for the future of the galaxy. it’s the way she would have done almost anything to protect leida, to stop her from being trapped in an unhappy marriage as a child just as she was, but not quite anything, because the rebellion has to come first. it’s the way that she’s both selfish and torturously selfless, and at every moment the guilt of it is tearing her apart. it’s the way that she watched as perrin literally gave leida away, to a marriage that she herself arranged, watched how close the knife came to leida’s throat, knowing that she may never again be able to protect leida at all.

it’s the way that their relationship reached its breaking point when mon gave leida the chance to cancel the wedding. because what mon wanted in that moment was for leida to assuage her guilt and leida refused. and what leida really wanted in that moment was for mon to reassure her, because even after everything she is still a child who wants her mother to tell her it will all be okay, and instead she was told she should want to escape. and she saw through mon’s offer, saw it for what it was, and saw that even in this moment mon would never put her first.

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the relationship between mon and leida lives rent free in my mind because. it’s the way that leida resents mon for never putting her first, and is justified in doing so. it’s the way that leida rebels against mon by adopting the ultra-conservative traditions that mon hates, and thinks she’s committing the ultimate rebellion by getting married, when really the marriage is something mon arranged for her own rebellion. it’s the way that buried deep down (i think) leida does have doubts about the marriage, is terrified that mon might be right, can never admit this to anyone ever because she’s a teenager. a child, who is getting married for reasons she doesn’t even know of.

it’s the way mon, from the beginning, has chosen the rebellion over her family. it’s the way she sacrificed her daughter’s future for the future of the galaxy. it’s the way she would have done almost anything to protect leida, to stop her from being trapped in an unhappy marriage as a child just as she was, but not quite anything, because the rebellion has to come first. it’s the way that she’s both selfish and torturously selfless, and at every moment the guilt of it is tearing her apart. it’s the way that she watched as perrin literally gave leida away, to a marriage that she herself arranged, watched how close the knife came to leida’s throat, knowing that she may never again be able to protect leida at all.

it’s the way that their relationship reached its breaking point when mon gave leida the chance to cancel the wedding. because what mon wanted in that moment was for leida to assuage her guilt and leida refused. and what leida really wanted in that moment was for mon to reassure her, because even after everything she is still a child who wants her mother to tell her it will all be okay, and instead she was told she should want to escape. and she saw through mon’s offer, saw it for what it was, and saw that even in this moment mon would never put her first.

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thought i'd recovered from the first arc of andor s2 and then remembered how B2 lost maarva and how brasso was the one who looked after him and who slept at maarva's house to keep B2 company and how now B2 has lost brasso too and i

i have not recovered

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I just realised that Leida told Mon that she wished she was drunk, and Mon did just that.

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makes me wanna lose my mind though because it wasnt sexual assault it wasnt "grape" he didnt force himself upon her he didnt take her against her will THERE WAS NO TALKING AROUND IT! HE TRIED TO RAPE HER! SHE NAMED IT! she put that shame and disgust and rage right down in front of them and she claimed that power by smashing a hammer into a rapist's temple.

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i cannot understate how much i adore what andor has done for mon mothma. the way this show has taken someone who before this was mostly neglected to small supporting roles, and turned her into one of the most layered, complex and tragic characters in all of star wars has absolutely floured me, not to mention how BRILLIANT genevieve o’reilly’s performance has been too 🙏

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I SAID NO

I don't think anyone understands how important this moment is. And the fact that they called it what it is and didn't sugarcoat it. Bix my beloved you did NOT deserve that

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Imagine being Dedra Meero and being the most sane and normal person at the dinner table that shit was insane