#and draven has enough rough edges to be a v good whetstone

[chamerionwrites]

📕 hit me up please!

After that Extremely Cheerful fic premise featuring Draven, please enjoy this palate cleanser also featuring Draven (and more importantly Jyn):

I’ve touched on this briefly before (Ahsoka + Maul remains one of the sole redeeming qualities of TCW), but imho one of the greatest writing joys is cramming unexpected/markedly different/directly-at-odds-with-each-other characters into tight proximity and extreme circumstances and watching the characterization sparks fly. I love, love, love exploring what kind of dynamic develops when people who would not normally interact that often or that intimately are forced to rely on each other for survival and/or success in some very important goal.

I think this should happen to Jyn and Draven.

In the Rogue One Lives AU these two have the makings of a fascinatingly uncomfortable character dynamic. They have Galen but also Cassian between them. They’re personally at odds but fighting on the same side of a war. (Or rather, Jyn is personally antagonistic and has every right to be. I don’t think Draven actually harbors any personal antagonism for Jyn at all; the abrasiveness in the film strikes me as obligatory spymaster suspicion + being a bit of a dick on purpose to see what sort of information and/or reaction it might shake loose, which tbf is also Cassian’s interrogation tactic in that scene.) Both of them have a strong pragmatic streak and while the world's biggest elephant is always going to crowd the room, I think both could agree wholeheartedly on a limited set of principles including “not dying,” “ruining the Empire’s day,” and/or “Cassian Andor’s well-being.”

IRL this would be actively excruciating and probably traumatic to deal with but in fiction it’s fun to read about, because that kind of impossible-to-resolve tension draws interesting things out of characters.

Also…….listen. Sometimes (often!) I want haunting explorations of the cost of violence on the human soul but sometimes. sometimes. I want my faves kicking ass and taking names. Sometimes I am a woman of simple tastes, a good action scene is one of them, and I find the idea of Jyn “canonically twelve ounces of whoop-ass” Erso and Davits “canonically down for a bit of good old-fashioned murder” Draven teaming up against Imperials darkly hilarious. The former is one of Saw Gerrera’s best soldiers according to Saw Gerrera, and the latter exudes a strong aura of “probably saw some shit in the early days when the Rebel Alliance was approximately twelve people held together with spit and duct tape, lived to tell about it, and believes fervently that ‘fighting dirty’ is a synonym for ‘fighting smart.’” THE CHAOS THEY WOULD UNLEASH LMAO.

Do they get cut off in an ice tunnel together while retreating from Hoth and have to fight their way out? Do they join forces to rescue Cassian from an intelligence operation that went tits-up? I don’t care! I do not actually want them to reach a neat and tidy understanding because, as noted, I think Jyn deserves to hold that grudge and in any case a bit of foxhole camaraderie is not enough to fix a conflict of that magnitude. I simply want them to collaborate in spectacularly ruining the Empire’s day while exhibiting emotionally strained but terrifyingly competent teamwork, because sometimes what the id wants is Pretty Explosions with a side of character development. Also I think that at the very least Jyn deserves the opportunity to say “Hey asshole. Watch my back. Don’t fuck it up,” while Draven very dryly replies "Duly noted" because (1) too many people are shooting at them to argue and (2) he knows he deserves it. And because (3) I, personally, am entertained by this precise flavor of battlefield snark.

I am not writing this, because frankly what I really want to do is read this, but possibly someday I will try my hand.