#and when maarva…

[darlingjmiller]

finished watching Andor.. I’m so mentally ill rn

[andorerso]

rebelcaptain teenage runaways au, Jyn was left behind by Saw, Cassian was kicked out by Maarva, they meet, instantly bond, and decide to make their own way in the world together

[sheena-isa-punkrocker]

people complaining that bix 'isnt her own person' in andor s1 like did we even watch the same show

[colleybri]

“Look how nicely that’s cleaned up. People don’t look down the way they should, they don’t look past the rust. But not us, eh?.. eyes open, possibilities everywhere!” (Clem Andor)

“Your father would be proud of you” (Cassian’s last words to Jyn in Rogue One)

Memory can be painful. But sometimes those memories come at exactly the right time, and our fathers live again.

“I’m sorry that I never did call you “Dad” while you were alive.

Perhaps if your name had started with the same letters it would have been easier for me. Perhaps you were a little jealous when, while I was learning your language, I said “Ma” and you and she had realised about the coincidence for the first time. She had laughed and looked delighted, and I had smiled. So had you, but a little sadly, I thought.

But I used your name with the exact same love. And in time you became to me the figure I thought I had lost forever: my father. My Dad. 

I’m sorry, too, that I haven’t thought about you often enough in the way that I would have preferred to. What I mean is - I thought about you a lot. Every day. But always with the association of what happened to you. And to me. Your memory had always brought me pain, because even when I remembered you alive I also saw you dead. Cold, stiff and dusted with frost. The rope, creaking. And I always tasted the acid bile of my grief and my horror and my pain, retched into my mouth, burning me so badly that I would always swallow it back down so it could churn and boil below, contained as much as I could contain it. 

See? Even now, though I’m not much good usually with fancy language, the horror is apparently more vivid to me than the joy of remembering you. When I let it overpower me again. 

But I’m changing that. I’ve already started, I think. 

You see, a few months ago I was asked to do something brave. I was going to be paid for it, but the danger was clear to me from the scale of the job. It turned out to be even worse. But before I knew that … I chose to be you. I chose your name. I thought I could make you live again, a little, through me. 

I know you told me, before you died, that it was “not our fight”. I love and respect you enough to tell you that you were wrong. I knew it then, deep down, and I know it even more now. Then, I fought in the only way I knew how to. With just my rage and sense of justice -  and a stupid stick. And I paid the price for all that so bitterly that I went on to convince myself that you had been right, and that the fight wasn't ours and was something to avoid. 

But you can’t avoid this. You just can’t ignore it. Because if you ignore it, it doesn’t go away. It just gets worse. We have let it get worse and worse and it’s almost too late to do anything about it. Almost, but not quite. 

I learned this lesson for myself. I can’t ignore what is happening, not anymore. 

When I first used your name - borrowed you - I was like you: a man who didn’t want to fight, but one who grew to love and respect his new family members. So I ended up wanting to fight for them. 

And just as you had welcomed me into your life and your heart despite your early misgivings, so too I learned to love, and to care for others outside of my own circle. I didn’t want to give up on them. I grew to care. 

So you might not have approved, at first, of what I chose to do but I think that in the end you would have been proud of what I did. And what you did too, living on in your name, as part of me. 

I was so proud to have you with me. 

And I had you with me again, earlier tonight. I came here for Ma's funeral. Though I can’t mourn her yet. There's too much raw pain - I can hardly stand to think about it all, can hardly stand to think about her. All I can think about is how I left her. How I had only just missed her. So I went straight to you, for comfort, perhaps in the knowledge that I can now properly mourn you. And this time, the memory came bright and pure and hopeful. I didn’t see your body and I didn’t think of the pain. I thought of you, whole. A simple happy memory from simple happy times. It made me sad, of course, but I smiled anyway. You had lived again for me, and this time through a loving memory. But also one with a lesson. It’s like you were trying to speak to me, having me remember that particular moment. I am pretty good, I am discovering, at learning. You would be proud of me, I think, if you could see how adaptable I am becoming. Practically, but also in terms of understanding and acting on … I suppose I should call them: deeper messages. 

I cleaned up nicely, I think. People didn’t look past my rust. But there is still a lot of good in me. Iron. Pure Ferrix iron. I am dissolving away my rust in new resolve. You see, I need to be put to use again. I have salvaged myself from the yard, been repurposed as a weapon. I have been welded together with my need for freedom and justice. I have been oiled with new resolve. And I have been fuelled with love.

I don’t know how effective I will be though, as this weapon, against such a huge and solid fortress of hate and oppression. Just like Nemik describes - I’m alone, unsure and I feel dwarfed. I have lived and loved and lost so much. 

Bix. Tomorrow, I am going to die, probably, trying to save her - even though maybe there's nothing left to save except her honour and her memory. I will fight for her because I love her, and I owe her so much that I could never hope to pay off my debt - except like this. I don’t think I valued love enough until I accepted once again how hard it is to lose it. But also because if I don’t try, I will have failed in this fight before I have even properly started. 

If I live, if I succeed, I think I will go on fighting. I think I have found the man I really am. Either way, I don’t want to go back to who I was in these years since I lost you. I like the new me better. Because I respect him. Because he reminds me of you, at your best. I will keep my eyes open. I will look for possibilities everywhere. 

I think I have a choice, now. If I hide or run again, none of this will go away. And nothing that I have done will matter. I have to fight. I have to save those I love. Those I have left. Those who are still alive, but also the the memory of those I have lost. You. Ma. Kerri. My first parents. Nemik. Kino. All the others. But I also simply have to try to stop allowing others, who I don’t even know, to be forced to feel the same pain that I have - of this injustice, this tyranny, this hate. I have to help bring the Empire down or die trying. That’s something I know beyond doubt that I can do: I can try.

I will try. 

I know you always loved me. Maybe now you can be proud of me too. As I can be proud of you. 

I love you, Dad. And I’m so proud to be your son.”

https://archiveofourown.org/works/56405944

[notasapleasure]

you're running a fandom shitposting blog stop being so fucking salty about people not voting in your silly polls the way you want aaaaaa not everyone has the same mummy issues you do!!!!

[jynjackets]

Do you think Jyn and Maarva would like each other?

tl;dr: no <3

I don't think Jyn would get along with maarva as she is a source of Cassian's issues with self-worth and guilt, similar to how Saw is a source for her fear of abandonment. Maarva doesn't even like her own son so who knows who's good enough for her lol.

a long rant below the cut

Jyn being someone who knows exactly what it’s like to be adopted and re-abandoned, her seeing Cassian's mother be consistently disappointed in her drugged n kidnapped adopted son is a whole other level of fucked up parental issues. Maarva opting to be with her her town instead of Cassian in her last days and also disbanding his actual family, it would be very difficult for someone like Jyn to see past these actions.

There's also no real justification for Maarva's treatment of Cassian (because he doesn't do his capitalist ferrix job? because he brings girls home? because he still lives with her even though he takes care of her?). AND even after her death, the last thing she wants him to remember was “hey, you’re a big fuck up, but that’s okay <3”.

Maarva has done nothing but live her life from her fuckass couch and yet had the audacity to tell Cassian that he needs to stand up, that he needs to rebel or get a job. Even after when he fought back and went to child prison after seeing his adopted father hanged. So not only did you get ripped away from your parents, but also the person that supposedly chose you felt like they got more than they bargained for, Cassian therefore feeling ultimately undesired by both the biological and adopted family.

But being a parent is complicated, is she at fault?

Compare it to Saw abandoning Jyn. When Jyn grew older he was forced to choose between his daughter and his life's mission. Abandoning her is, without argument, fucked up. While it created irreparable damage, we can understand why he did it. Not only was it traumatizing for Jyn, but it was THE ultimate sacrifice he was making from himself. The thing that shifts some blame away is that it gutted him to do this, and he did it from a place making sure she was safe and alive.

So with this in mind, what is Maarva’s sacrifice in being constantly disappointed in your adopted son because he isn’t like everyone else? What does she gain when she tells him to forget about Kenari, that there’s nothing left? Imagine being adopted, being told as an adult that, no, you can’t be looking for your biological family and that they’re nothing now, and that even trying is useless. The only thing I can see is that she just wants Cassian to fit her image of an ideal Ferrix citizen, which isn't amazing and isn't enough to justify her actions.

Moreover, as someone who has lost a parent, the last moments you have with them hold a permanent memory that weigh differently than everything else, and imo require its own sort of grief. On Maarva's last days, she made him leave without her, even when she knew she was going to die by not taking her meds. She would rather spend her last days being memorialized as a hero on Ferrix than being with her only son. And at the end of your days, you want to go home. You want to be with family for as long as possible. For Maarva, home was Ferrix and everyone else there, not Cassian.

So Maarva sucks because she was a terrible mother at the benefit of literally nothing. Where Saw was the insurgent leader of the extremist cell that made major attacks against the empire; and not the best father largely because of his life's work but also still wanting to do his best to keep his daughter safe. But look who gets more villainized than anybody else and who is more celebrated as a hero?

On a tangent now, I believe Jyn and Maarva would be comparable to Cassian and Saw's relationship: you don't feel all warm and fuzzy inside meeting the [person you care about]'s greatest source of trauma.

All that Cassian knows about him is that he adopted her, then abandoned her. Upon seeing him on Jedha he almost draws a gun to protect Jyn (doing that before THE guy, THE supposed terrorist and Empire's most wanted, mind you), unsure where their relationship stands. Saw of course, would protect his daughter in turn, not knowing who this guy is.

I would believe Jyn would see Maarva in a similar light on a dramatically smaller scale. That "I hate my MIL and our interests are only mutually aligned around what's best for Cassian", but of course what that means is totally different things. Maarva sees Cassian and believes he needs to change. Even when she’s fucking dead he still needs for things to come together in order to be unstoppable, or whatever vision she had in mind for him and that him on his own is not enough.

And so the rest of this is how I interpret the implications for Rogue One: that the lessons both Jyn and Cassian took from their adopted parents can be mutually shattered as they see each other for who they are and not what they've been molded to believe.

As we know with Jyn, she has a complex moral code. When she sees a stormtrooper she feels the reflex to kill. When she sees a war-torn child, her reaction is to risk her own life to save innocents. And this is what she continues to do when she meets Cassian. She has every reason to shoot him and steal his ship. But on Jedha, seeing him agreeing with her that she was perhaps worth saving after her deed of saving the child, she sees him in return when he shoots the partisan. They see each other for their actions, for the better parts of each other, despite their words and even their own personal doubts. Jyn continues to risk her life for him over and over again and vice versa. She doesn’t want to change him at all and she inspires him to fight in ways he perhaps has forgotten or never knew was possible.

In fact, the reason she’s angry with him on Eadu is because he lied to her. Revealing the intention to kill someone’s dad easily put your anger in the right, but while she is mixed up with grief, the bigger part of her knows he was incapable of doing it and doesn’t revel in the fact of who he could’ve been if he killed her father or even combined with terrible things he's done, but just sees the present man that didn't and instead came back for her. Even Cassian is thinking how she was going to kill him for it, when he hadn’t even committed the crime. He’s caught up with the impression and perception of the kind of man he is, the narrative that he’s been fed his whole life that he’s committed atrocities that deem him unworthy.

Jyn and Cassian offer each other a break from narratives and reputations that they've tried to sound out their whole lives. And although both characters have a lot of integrity, being told the same thing over again through life lessons, you begin to believe it yourself. It's where we meet the two of them at their lowest points. That for Jyn, she wasn't someone worth returning to, that there isn't hope amongst war. And for Cassian, that he's not a good person for things he's done, that war is endless, and he has to follow orders or do things for others in order to belong. As the events of Rogue One unfold, we can see how they come to understand each other. They create a bond by feeling seen for the first time.

IN SUMMARY:

Maarva is like the exact opposite of Saw Gerrera in all the worst fucking ways, I tell you. Instead of being family friends with and saving the child that he later abandons, she kidnaps the child away from their actual family and then holds them hostage on her planet to force-assimilate and take care of her in her old age. And instead of actively rebelling through extremist insurgencies, she sits around and berates her son to go be a rebel, and yet disappointed that he doesn't have a job or doesn't do what everybody else does(?).

Jyn would hate that bitch like. Every Life Day would be an ordeal. The irony of how she fucking dies doing nothing when Saw Gerrera is barely held together by oxygen tubes and yet outlives this couch potato. Andors versus Erso-Gerreras it's first-planet problems versus outer rim problems. Yeah they're both traumatic but the biggest difference is one of these is entirely avoidable if you just weren't a piece of shit.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

and i draw parallels solely on the cinematographic basis of “when my man is no more than a millimeter away from perturbation at all times but you give the Whole Right Half Of The Screen 3/4 Closeup of Harrowing Recontextualizations” like that’s right. we’re living it up

[flythesail]

It was a Choice to give Cassian a whole backstory show and offer only slightly more of his family than we would have had without it!

[fallenrocket]

My god, Cassian is just so young in season 1 of Andor. On this last rewatch, it kept jumping out at me everywhere. Especially at the start of the show, which makes sense--he goes through a pretty intense education over the course of the season and transforms before our eyes. But there's just so much in Cassian that comes from being young, traumatized, and desperate.

We see it in his moments of unabashed fear, like when he's stopped by the two corpos in the pilot, the first time he sees the TIE fighter fly past on Aldhani, or as the prison transport takes off for Narkina 5. Even when he tries to hide it, we can see it in his eyes, the parts of him that are still that scared kid from Kenari.

We see it in the chip he has on his shoulder, like the attitude he cops with Luthen in their first meeting: "I don't know you." He's not just guarded and distrustful, he kind of actively resents this guy trying to get too familiar with him. When he's scared, uncertain, or guilty, he tends to push others away, a product of having to fight most of his life and of losing many of the things and people he's cared about. I also think of him coldly telling Bix, "You won't have to worry about me anymore," at the end of their argument in "Announcement."

And yet, by the same token, he can also be surprisingly open and earnest in his affections. For me, this is most apparent in his scenes with Maarva in "Announcement." There, we see his naive optimism that the money he got from Aldhani can solve all their problems. He's so buoyant and hopeful and loving as he suggests running away, saying, "What do we need but the three of us?" Later in the episode, we see that same naivety when he insists, "We'll find a place they haven't ruined yet." But it crops up in other places too. On Aldhani, he chooses Clem's name as his pseudonym, even though he already realizes Luthen has a lot of intel on him and will probably recognize it--in that moment, his distrust of Luthen is outweighed by his desire to go into this dangerous mission carrying a small piece of his dad with him. Then there's that beautiful hug with Brasso in "Rix Road," especially those few extra beats past when you'd expect them to part. When he hugs Melshi in the previous episode, Cassian is rushed, on the brink of falling apart and not wanting Melshi to see. But with Brasso, Cassian needs that touch for a few extra seconds, and he's not afraid to hold on a little longer.

Most of Cassian's dumbest mistakes in the season are very youthful ones. He's an incredibly smart and observant guy, so he's not dumb very often, but when he is, it tends to come back to being young, traumatized, and desperate. We see this especially in the opening Ferrix arc: insisting on bringing an unsecured comm to his meeting with Luthen (oh my god, the way he bickers with B2EMO about them beforehand!) and trying to go back for the starpath unit when the shit hits the fan, even after Luthen repeatedly tells him to leave it. With the starpath unit, part of it is naivety--"What if it's just one guy left?"--and part of it is growing up poor and scrappy. This box represents more money than he's ever had at any one time, and he simply can't process the idea that his buyer would just leave it behind.

Finally, every now and then, Cassian has this subtle but impeccable "little shit" energy. We definitely see it when he messes with Timm in the pilot, deliberately goading him instead of trying to defuse the situation when he sees that Timm is jealous. It's a dumb, petty moment of cheap satisfaction that winds up with some intense blowback when Timm IDs him to Pre-Mor. And I love Cassian's refusal to give up on Kino on Narkina 5, always believing he can be brought into the fold no matter how many times Kino tells him to forget about it. It's a great reflection of how Cassian rejects the Empire's attempts to divide the inmates by pitting them against each other, but part of why he's able to keep at it is his annoying-kid tenacity. I love the scene where Kino brushes him off by saying how many shifts he has left and Cassian immediately responds with, "So...tell me what you know before you go."

It's simply wild to compare the Cassian we see in "Kassa" to the one in "Rix Road." He goes through so much in twelve episodes and really comes into his own, and it's fantastic to see some of the qualities he displays in Rogue One starting to peek through. He's already come so far in his character growth--I cannot wait to see how season 2 gets us from "Rix Road" to Rogue One!

Oh yeah, and Diego Luna is simply stunning. You can really feel how he traced Cassian's life backwards to this point, see how different the Cassian of "Kassa" is from the Cassian of Rogue One and yet still fully believe that this is the same character. All the little hints he drops, all the tiny moments where you can see Rogue One Cassian starting to gestate. It's such beautiful, brilliant work!

[lajulie24]

I always wanted to be lifted. I was always eager, always waiting to be inspired. I remember every time it happened, every time the dead lifted me... with their truth. And now I'm dead, and I yearn to lift you. Not because i want to shine or even be remembered. It's because i want you to go on. I want Ferrix to continue. In my waning hours, that’s what comforts me most.

But I fear for you. We've been sleeping. We've had each other, and Ferrix, our work, our days. We had each other and they left us alone. We kept the trade lane open, and they left us alone. We took their money and ignored them, we kept their engine churning, and the moment they pulled away. we forgot them. Because we had each other. We had Ferrix. But we were sleeping. I've been sleeping. And I've been turning away from the truth I wanted not to face.

There is a wound that won't heal at the center of the galaxy. There is a darkness reaching like rust into everything around us. We let it grow, and now it's here. It's here and it's not visiting anymore. It wants to stay.

The Empire is a disease that thrives in darkness, it is never more alive than when we asleep. It's easy for the dead to tell you to fight, and maybe it's true, maybe fighting is useless. Perhaps it's too late. But I'll tell you this, if I could do it again, I'd wake up early and be fighting those bastards from the start! Fight the Empire!

— from Maarva Andor’s monologue, Andor (season 1 finale)

[e-the-village-cryptid]

I can't stop thinking about how utterly alone Bix is. Even surrounded by the tight-knit community of Ferrix, she is so isolated and lonely in terms of actual human connection.

As far as we can tell, she has no family. She's not older than her late 20s, but her parents are implied to be dead, seeing as she inherited their salyard. She's been running the place on her own for years, hired Timm a little while ago, started dating him probably since she's so busy she doesn't even have the time to meet anyone else. She avoids him as much as possible, she doesn't tell him anything about her life, and she only comes and finds him when she's been drinking and she can't sleep, uses him more as a distraction than a companion.

Her relationship with Cassian, once so close in their youth, has become strained and distant and he only shows up every few months, only when he needs to ask a favor. And in response, she pushes him away too, rejects his attempts to ignore the distance that's grown between them, not with any bitterness or anger, just a deep, exhausted sadness.

She smiles and greets her neighbors as she walks by, but the smile drops as soon as she passes. They all know her, but they don't know her, really.

Salman Paak knows the most about her operation, but even he doesn't know the details. He's not really involved; Bix was the only one to use the radio, and Salman met Luthen only once, then turned the operation over to Bix. Bix and Salman have a friendship that extends beyond just business, but they hardly ever get to talk; the first thing he says when Bix walks into his shop in episode one is that he hasn't seen her lately. She has ties to Brasso and Maarva and others in the community as well, but hardly sees them either.

Whenever we see her, she's perpetually in motion, always busy, always worried, always finding something to do with her hands, or somewhere to go, always having to do something, just to avoid the prospect of being still with her thoughts. She keeps moving to avoid that terrible quiet, keeps the noise dialed up as much as possible, just staying ahead of that crushing loneliness that envelops her life even when she's surrounded by people.

And of course, that's just the beginning.

She may not be thriving, but she's surviving, she's holding herself together, she's keeping an iron grip on whatever stability she can find in her life. But then— Timm's betrayal. And before she has time to process that, his lifeless body is tumbling down the steps before her eyes, and she can't reach him, and she's alone, and there's blood in her eyes and her head is spinning with a fresh concussion, and she's alone, and he's dead, and she's alone.

But eventually the Paaks find her and release her and drag her away and she drags herself up and cleans up the mess and tries to piece the shards of her life back together. And when Cassian shows up at her door, even knowing how dangerous it is, how the whole city is crawling with soldiers looking for him, she can't summon urgency or anger or fear. She's just too exhausted. There's only tiredness in her voice when she tells him he can't be here, only blunt resignation as she tells him of the dangers, only sadness and bone-deep exhaustion at this same distance, this same pattern, as he leaves again.

So she keeps going. And she takes care of Maarva and Maarva is dying but she takes care of Maarva and she tries to contact Cassian to tell him and she knows it's a hopeless, dangerous mission but she does it anyway. And so she's cut off from her only off-world connection as the radio is shut down forever, set adrift, but there's no time to think about it, because then she's being dragged into an interrogation room. And there's Salman, tortured and unconscious, being dragged away for execution, and the guilt is enormous, it's all her fault, but how could she have known that the punishment for owning a radio, just owning a radio that someone else used, would be to be tortured and killed, but of course it's still all her fault and the guilt is consuming but there's no time to feel it, she locks it away as she locks eyes with Dedra, channeling everything into the defiance she'll need to make it through this.

But there's no making it through this. There's no way to maintain her resistance or her dignity or even her mind and body, not as they were before. And when she's been alone with this torment for weeks, when can hardly stand, can hardly speak, her only solace is the distant beat of a funeral drum and the words of a dead friend. And then she's on a ship away from the only community she's ever known, her and Brasso and Wilmon and Bee and Jezzi all together but all alone, not looking at one another, not speaking to one another, just exhausted, just processing more than anyone could process in a lifetime.

And now what? Even as she heals physically, even as she can walk and speak again and begin to look forward, how can she possibly explain what she's been through? This torture that no one has heard of before, that left no marks save for the deep scars on her psyche, that sounds so implausible she almost questions the reality of it all herself. How can she possibly explain? Would they even believe her? What if they don't believe her? What if they don't understand? Or maybe it's even worse if they do, if they look at her with pity, if they treat her like she's fragile, if they speak to her like they don't quite know what to say.

Where can she go? She has to go back to Ferrix, there's no other option, she feels the pull of those ties that can never be broken. And yet, even with that deep need to return, what is there to return to? Most of the people she cared about there are dead. The idea of rebuilding her old life is almost laughable, how could anything ever be normal again? Could she even be normal again? This mind, this body hardly feel like her own now.

And yet one thing is always unchanging: she is still alone, always alone, just the same as before.

[chipthekeeper]

ANDOR: 100 days to go. 100 things I love.

it's kind of wild how easy it is to come up with a hundred things to love about this show and still feel like I've left out sooooo much stuff (mostly serious stuff)(and other people's faves)

but here it is, in the order it all popped into my head (aside from the end)

lesbians

2. silly hats

3. weird little freaks

4. window motif!!

5. vel's puppy dog face

6. cinta veeeery nearly laughing at cassian trying to flirt with her

7. skeen's skrunkle face

8. taramyn's mustache

9. "seven years serving you? i deserve worse than that"

10. "everyone has their own rebellion"

11. The Eye

12. the lady who cries watching the eye

13. Bee

14. Brasso

15. Bix

16. Xanwan and Granik

17. all the ferrixians really

18. ghost maarva

19. WORLDBUILDING

20. on location filming

21. and building a real town

22. ludwig hopper

23. cinta being onto corv from moment one

24. cinta stabbing corv

25. SPLUTES

26. squigs

27. monologues

28. weird drama between exes

29. the ep 7 scene between mon and tay

30. NEWMAN

31. unit 5-2D

32. noodles brian

33. everyone hating syril

34. including his mom

35. flob

36. HAND HOLDING

37. the heist explanation scene

38. how blue vel's eyes are in the heist explanation scene

39. cinta and gorn's telepathic eye roll

40. DRAY

41. vel playing uno reverse when perrin tries to make fun of her

42. mon's "i know what you are" look at vel

43. all of episode 5

44. everything nicholas britell was doing

45. diegetic music

46. diegetic music the remix! x2

47. the Paak boys

48. eedy's nosy neighbor

49. Heert

50. space hoodies

51. scary tie fighters

52. scotland i mean aldhani

53. the charm on vel's walking stick (insert cry emoji)

54. melshi

55. sweet baby Nemik

56. clem

57. keef girgo

58. cassian somebody?

59. windi

60. willi

61. STAIRS DROID

62. kleya's strut

63. everything in luthen's shop

64. mon's limo

65. sharing a blanket

66. ponchos

67. dedra being sadistic

68. ham

69. ham making the jump

70. zinska's step of faith

71. dewi and freedi

72. Jezzi

73. THE DRUMS IN PILGRIM

74. "come away from the window"

75. memorable dray milk

76. lil Kerri

77. Time Grappler

78. Time Grappler kicking that guy off the tower

79. divorced dads Saw and Luthen

80. Benthic having to deal with his divorced dads

81. the music from the s1 trailer that makes me want to run through a wall

82. "never more than twelve"

83. "you love me because i show you what you need to see"

84. when cinta looks right at vel before jumping off the dam

85. "CLIIIIIMB"

86. doctor quadpaw

87. mon framing perrin for her crimes

88. "thesis, please"

89. Blevin's one sentence monologue

90. literally everything about the aldhani arc

91. literally everything about the aldhani crew

92. gornboda

93. "tell him our ghosts have strong hands and long memories"

94. brasso smashing the guy with the brick and then screaming

95. pegla's dogs

96. mostly competent bad guys

97. velcinta

98. 12 full length episodes

99. endless shitposting potential

100. the friends we've made along the way <3

i know i've left out so much so feel free to add your own!!

[blackseafoam]

✨It’s not your fault✨

Cassian knew he was starting a fight he couldn’t win.

He walked down the empty brick road that opened up to the square, walled in on each side by familiar buildings. His breath shuddered in the cold as his pace quickened, leaving breath clouds trailing behind. The boy’s heart hammered, his sternum an anvil, vision blurry with red hot rage. He could feel the presence of Clem’s hanging body on the street side, though he could not bring himself to look again.

The Clone Troopers had noticed him, blasters cautiously pointed as he made his approach.

Now at a full sprint, Cassian hefted his makeshift weapon over his head and used all of his momentum to try and hit one of the soldiers wherever he could.

The trooper on the far left reached out and pushed the kid over. The swing of the club went wide and hit one of them on the vambrace, leaving a significant dent. Cassian’s back slammed on frozen brick street with a meaty thud, knocking the wind out of his lungs. He curled in on himself and tried to catch his breath, as the three troopers stood over him. One leaned down and cuffed the collar of his jacket in case he tried to make an escape, but the boy wasn’t moving for the time being.

“Command, we have a situation on Rix road, some kid just ran up and tried to hit us with a pipe.” One of the clones said into his helmet comm. A moment of silence passed as he listened to his orders, he nodded and turned to his comrades. “They said we need to… teach him a lesson and send him home.”

Cass’s breath was just starting to return to him as the three men loomed over him, the one holding his jacket lifted him up to a limp standing position.

The Andor’s apartment felt vacant, even with Maarva’s closest friends there to support her. A hollow space where Clem should’ve been standing. As she sat on her chair in the living room, it was easy to think that maybe he was just out of sight in another room. Maybe he was tinkering away at his desk while it seemed the entire town of Ferrix had come and gone all day, braving the icy walkways to bring their condolences.

When the door opened again she was expecting more visitors, not her son covered in blood, shivering and crying.

“Cassian!” Everyone leapt to their feet, even B2EMO rolled over as quickly as he could. Maarva led the boy to a seat and began looking him over.

“What happened to you C-C-Cassian?” The droid stuttered.

Cassian looked down “I… I wanted to make them sorry… for what they did to Clem.” His cheeks flushed and he shivered, clutching his arm closer to his chest. “I know it was stupid.”

Maarva sighed as she wiped the blood off his face with antiseptic gauze. Her intense worry and grief had softened. “That certainly was stupid.” She gave Cass a knowing look with the ghost of a smile.

“I’m sorry.” He winced as she cleaned a gash on his chin.

“It’s okay Kassa, I understand. It’s okay to be angry, it’s okay to want to do something about it. I’m angry too.” Maarva set the cloth down and grabbed a pair of shears, she got to work cutting away his jacket sleeve to inspect his arm. “But you could have been killed, and then I would have lost both of my boys in the same day.” Her voice choked on the end of her sentence.

“I’m sorry Maarva.”

“It’s okay Kassa”

“No, it’s not.” He sniffed and tried to hold still as the adrenaline was slowly being replaced by white hot pain in his wrist. “I could’ve stopped him. I could have told him to stay with me. I could’ve-“

“No.” Maarva put her shears down on B2’s head with a metallic snap, using the droid as a makeshift table for the first aid supplies. “Don’t ever blame yourself Kassa. It is not your fault.”

Kassa looked down at his unsleeved arm and saw just how bad the break was for the first time. His face went pale and all he could do was sob as Maarva pulled him into her embrace. They both shook as they cried.

“C-C-Cassian your arm is bent the wrong way! We mu-must find you a mechanic.” B2’s head tilted with concern and the supplies went clattering to the ground.

Maarva sighed and gave her son one more squeeze before she straightened. “He’s right, let’s get you to that mechanic before it starts to hurt worse.” She patted his shoulders before she let go and went to the door.

Cassian couldn’t even imagine his arm hurting worse than it already did, but didn’t argue as he stood and followed Maarva as she donned her heavy yellow duster jacket.

Their bootsteps echoed off the alley walls as they walked. “You should see all the treats that got dropped off today.” Maarva smiled as she squeezed her arm around Cass’s shoulder. “When we get back we’re going to sample every single one until we’re absolutely sick.” She laughed and shook his shoulder. “Does that sound good?”

Yes, that did sound good.

A.N.- I had absolutely no intentions of writing anything when sat down to post this art today. I’m rewatching Andor at the moment and completely forgot how much I LOVE Maarva and her monologue in e7. Also I am approaching my rewatch from an emotion-focused perspective, rather than action-focused like I was during my first watch, and it really packs a whole different punch. Examining what each character might be thinking rather than just following the plot. The amazing introspective moments that are told through the cinematography alone, just wonderful. Gushing over, my fingers are tired.

[sheena-isa-punkrocker]

crying because maarva never got to see her son become captain of intelligence of the rebel alliance

[colleybri]

Kenari Blow-Gun

Maarva reflects (internal monologue from this scene at the end of Andor episode 3).

https://archiveofourown.org/works/56262217

Has anyone ever made a weapon that wasn’t used?

This wasn’t the ceremonial kind. This was the real thing. Possibly you had already tried to kill some small creature to eat, but more likely it was the first time you had ever wielded a weapon. The first time you had taken up arms. You were trying to be a child of peace, despite what had already happened to you. What had been taken away before you had even started. 

You did not use it on the Republic Officer. Not that it would have made any difference, if it took many darts and many seconds to bring him down. 

So you could not have saved her. 

You didn’t use it later, either, despite the looming threat from two more armed strangers. Despite being trapped, helpless, hopeless. Even in your desperation you could not bear to try to kill. 

Not then. 

I had no such squeamishness or indecision or whatever it was. I was quick to pierce you as you could not bear to pierce me. An ugly, bruising grip, the sharp prick, the drug working far faster than your own would. Sometimes, you see, you need to pierce, to wound, in order to save someone. Sometimes you need to choose, and act immediately upon that choice. 

Because you were not really even trying to save yourself. 

You could not have saved her either.

They would have still come for you and they would have killed you. Killed you both. Killed you all. 

Their weapons are always used. Even against children. 

But yours wasn’t. 

And -  poor, reckless boy - you didn’t use it on the Troopers but chose instead to wield a clumsy stick in the face of blasters and hard armour and cold, indifferent hate. At least you were acting, at least you were fighting. Standing up. Not running. Not hiding. 

Like we have been, ever since. You. Me. All of us. 

But you could not have saved him. You could not even avenge him. And ever since you have tried to hide from the pain of this piercing and the poison of the punishment you received simply for trying to do the right thing. Poison that is slowly, inexorably, wearing you down. 

Yet you did use this weapon. Of course you did. A weapon, if made, is always used. 

You used it on yourself. To beat and smash and distort what you saw looking back at you.

Again - you did not want to save yourself. 

And this weapon has been used on me, also. By you, unwittingly. Yet with the efficiency of an assassin, nonetheless. 

But by me too. Every day, my heart is pierced anew by the toxic darts of ‘What if’s and 'If only's. By your silence and lies. By my guilt. By your half-hearted secret searches and your need for something more than what I have been able to give you. Whatever it may be that you are really looking for. Perhaps it is yourself, the man you are supposed to be. 

I hope you find him, if you live. 

I wonder if I will ever see you again. That was the worst, the last time. Not knowing if or when you might ever come back.

The fretting. 

But even when you were here… the fretting. 

Always the fretting.

The actions we are forced to take. 

The choices we make. Whether forced or not. 

The poison. 

Slow to work, but so very painful - and deadly enough, given time.

It is strange and sad that the most potent poison of all is just love.

……

“I’ll be worried about you all the time.”

“That’s just love. I’ve never loved anything the way I’ve loved you and I’ve never fretted on anything more either.”

[thecleverqueer]

It’s interesting that the same folks bashing “The Acolyte” for “being woke” will praise Andor when in Maarva’s speech in the season finale she encourages the citizens of Ferrix to “stop sleeping” and fight the Empire (or… literally… “be woke”).