#that's essentially how canon din operates

[lbibliophile-sw]

Look. The date was supposed to just be milkshakes and a movie or something. But they got half way through ordering and realised neither of them have any credits on them. So Boba needs to make some quick money before the film starts.

Silly idea I doodled rapidly

[godtier1]

a good old get to know me meme

Tagged by @bidonica thank you!

I love doing these but forgot about this one in my notifs, Ack!

Three ships you like

1) Otasune! I’ve adored these two since like 2008. Literally baby’s first OTP. Returned to them last November when wifey and I watched a streamer play mgs1. I will never get over how these two just… started a (basically) two-man operation together to save the world? Have a secret handshake? Raise a daughter? Like damn they’re basically married, happy for them :) Also their constant banter is an absolute delight that I enjoy writing so much

2) Touyuki! Essentially baby’s second OTP. Like I was into ccs before mgs but didn’t realize they’re actually CANON until adulthood?? Love how casually intimate they are with each other, lordy. Also they’ve been referring to each other without honorifics since the very beginning which makes me feral

3) DinCobb! First ship I’ve ever written for, and first fandom I’ve ever interacted with. The ship itself is incredibly fun, as both Din and Cobb are very fun individually and they have amazing on-screen chemistry, but my lasting affinity for this ship is largely because of how lovely my fandom experience was 🥰 i adore everyone on that discord server and am so thankful for all the friends I made!!

First ship ever:

Aforementioned Otasune and Touyuki, but before my ride-or-die shipping happened, I really liked Taichi x Sora from Digimon and Joey x Mai from Yugioh!

Last song you heard:

“Theme of King JJ” from the Yuri on Ice soundtrack lmaooo because this song unironically kicks ass

Currently reading:

Re-reading a handful of Otasune fics on a continuous loop. “So much (for) Stardust” by Tox, “Rewind, Redo; Repeat” by devot, “A Secret I Will Keep” by BossToaster, then “Recovery” and “Sixteen White Rabbits,” both by orphan accounts

Currently Watching:

Some streamers playing “Return of the Obra Dinn” and also the anime “Tadaima, Okaeri” because I’m trash :)

Currently consuming:

About to eat breakfast babey :)

Currently craving:

Panera coffee :)

If anyone feels like doing this, consider yourself tagged!! 🥰

[terzos-edibles]

Silver Linings

1. Gotta Keep On, Keepin' On

Summary: No kid, no tribe, and avoiding his responsibilities, Din Djarin has gone back to bounty hunting and mercenary work under the watchful eye of Boba Fett. After a job on Ibaar goes very wrong in more ways than Din would like to count, he is forced to flee with a very peculiar New Republic doctor. He is determined to get enough credits and fuel to drop the doctor off on her home planet and be done with it. But will he be able to part ways with her after she finds all the right and wrong ways to push his buttons?

Words: 1.8k

Rated Mature: language, canonical violence, depression, mentions of suicidal behavior.

“I don't know if I'm scared of dying But I'm scared of living too fast, too slow Regret, remorse, hold on, oh no I've got to go There’s no starting over No new beginnings time races on.” - My Silver Lining, First Aid Kit

Ibaar-

The fist of the Empire reached far, sweeping across the farthest reaches of the Galaxy; the deepest corners seemed to have felt its influences. Even the smallest, poorest planets had Stormtroopers deployed to them - a formality to further oppress the planets’ occupants and show their might - and dissuade any sort of rebellion from sparking. The destruction of the second Death Star and subsequent death of Emperor Palpatine at the hands of the Rebellion had shown that plan hadn’t, well, panned out. Still, in the five years or so after the fall of the Empire, the New Republic was just now starting to finally make its way into the Outer Rim Territories after ensuring that the more strategically essential planets were well taken care of. Remnants of the Empire still clung to those planets, holding out hope that the Empire would somehow revive itself and their loyalty would be rewarded. Many felt that the New Republic had abandoned them, that things hadn’t gotten any better since the Empire had fallen. It would be the same as it had always been. The Outer Rim would continue to be forgotten, continued to be terrorized by Remnant Stormtroopers, continued to be terrorized by pirates, and continued to be terrorized by gangsters. People had given up hope once again.

But, aid was coming. Slowly, but it was coming. New Republic troops were starting to make their way back out towards planets that needed them, bringing with them much-needed supplies and rations. Marshals were installed in the major cities and villages to help keep the peace and bring a sense of law to an otherwise lawless territory. Medical teams were dispatched to provide much-needed tautology assistance to planets that were unable to get the care they needed.

Doctor Gertrude Ásketill was the first in line to sign up for those peace operations. She was coming hot off of her time as a rebel medic. She was bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and full of hope as they deployed her to the first assignment. She had an entire team - plenty of assistants and droids to ensure that everyone got the proper care they needed. They were able to start a proper clinic, train the locals, and establish a line to the core planets to ensure they could get all the medicine and vaccines they would need. Trudy felt good when she left that planet for the second.

The second planet saw fewer supplies and resources. She thought maybe it might have been a mistake. This planet had a bigger population than the last. Perhaps they didn't realize they needed to send more supplies, but then the third and fourth planets came. Supplies and resources were stripped as funding got cut, and slowly her team was redistributed to other projects.

And that left Trudy on the fifth planet - Ibaar.

It was just her and a few other doctors spread across the Outer Rim that was left of the program. She was sure that they would be recalled back to Chandrila - the capital of the Republic, but that had been almost a year ago. She had been on Ibaar for about as long. She was alone; at least, it felt that way. The only other two in her clinic with her was an older model R4-7 droid named A9-C that had been reprogrammed to help in the medical field. The humanoid-shaped, bug-eyed droid was built in the early days of the Empire and complained more than he assisted. The other was a teenager named Max, who had taken an interest in medicine. Whether it was because he liked Trudy or wanted to become a medic was to be answered. He was a good assistant and listened.

The only other Republic representative on Ibaar with Trudy was the Marshal: Baxley Morgan. How that man ever got the job of Republic Marshal was beyond her. It was probably why he ended up out here. He had a good heart, but the boy was dumb as a brick, and while she was no fighter - she could at least shoot a blaster well enough to hit whatever she was pointing at. It might not have been where she wanted it to go, but at least it’d hit its target.

The Empire had put blockades up to punish the Ibaarians for being sympathetic to the rebel cause. The aid that had been promised to the Ibaarians had finally come, and it was a little lackluster. The locals were friendly enough, but they felt a little betrayed. Trudy couldn’t blame them.

Trudy had become jaded herself; things were back to the status quo. There weren’t any more Imperial blockades, but with the lack of resources and supplies coming in - there might as well have been.

Ibaar, all-in-all, wasn’t a bad planet. It was a mountainous, temperate planet. The capital village, and the one that Trudy was in, was nestled in a valley - built into the side of the mountain while the rest of the land in the valley was used for farming. The natural cliffs that reached their stony fingertips to the sky provided a natural defense for the village, and the hundreds of waterfalls that cascaded down their sides gave the village and farms much-needed water. On a clear day, you could see for miles around. Though for all of Ibaar’s beauty, the weather was the worst. They could be lucky to see the sun one, maybe twice, per month. The rest of the month was plagued with overcast clouds, fog, daily rain, and nightly thunderstorms. It took some getting used to, and Trudy had ordered extra vitamins to help with the lack of sun.

Despite being the capital village of Ibaar, Laakso Village didn’t even have its own docking bay within the village’s boundaries, especially - making already scarce supplies harder to get. Luckily speeders made that journey a bit less complicated, though it was still rough going. A local warlord and his gang - a former Imperial commander and his troopers - had taken it upon themselves to decide that the Ibaarian Mountains were a great place to hide and run their smuggling business out of, using the old rebel tunnels from the war.

It made things dangerous.

Unsuspecting travelers going to and from the port or any of the other smaller villages in the mountains would be ambushed. Those lucky to survive had their property stolen. The bandits would look for anything from blasters, food, credits, various forms of technology they could get their hands on, and medical supplies. Trudy didn’t know how many villagers and travelers she had patched up in her time there, injured by ambushes. While the gang kept the locals terrified, they still hadn’t been bold enough to make their way into Laasko Village, choosing instead to raid the smaller outer villages - ones not protected by a marshal.

Baxley was having a hell of a time dealing with it himself and had brought up hiring some extra help. Trudy had nipped that in the bud; hiding behind hired mercenaries wasn’t going to do anyone any good - that he really needed to call in support from the Republic. The conversation tapered off after that, and the emergency seemed to have died down. However, as it always did, there was no downtime. The newest crisis cropped up - the report of the flu on a neighboring planet in the same system. A planet Ibaar happened to trade with. Which meant Trudy had to work to get vaccines to Ibaar before everyone was sick. She had ordered them about a month ago. Thank the stars someone was on her side, and the vaccines only took a month to get to her. Someone had made the shipment hastily, and they were currently waiting for someone to pick them up. Trudy couldn’t pull her boots on fast enough when the docking attendant called her to report they had been dropped off. Within fifteen minutes, she was in a speeder with a blaster and Max in the passenger seat. They would get there by nightfall - if they were lucky. Trudy just hoped to the stars above that nothing happened on their way.

----

It seemed as though Trudy’s silent prayers were answered. She pulled the speeder around to the docking bay and left it idling as Max hopped out of it, striding up to the attendant’s office and rapping his knuckles on the glass. He had grown like a sprout since Trudy had been there, now easily towering over her - though that wasn’t exactly hard to do. Brownish red shaggy hair constantly fell into his eyes, much to his mother’s dismay, and he was a lot less intimidating than he liked to think he was, especially with those freckles. Trudy waited as they exchanged words, waving a hand as the attendant poked his head out of his office and motioned to where the vaccines were - clearly annoyed he had been interrupted from his dinner and whatever wrestling match was on the holo. Trudy moved towards the vaccines, scanning them in with the datapad she pulled from her pack and happy to see that they didn’t have to quite rush back with them. Their cooling system had enough charge to allow them to rest a little bit - though they would still have to make the trip back by night. Max helped her load the crates into the back of the speeder and went out front to buy them both some roasted tip-yip and drinks from the food cart out front. Trudy turned around, eyeing the gunship docked in the bay the vaccines had been stored in. Annoyance twisted in her stomach that the valuable vaccines were stored where some random visitor to the planet could just poke through them. Though, the presence of the gunship made her raise an eyebrow. Not many ships like this made their way out here; either the owner was here for a quick refuel, or they were up to something no good. She scowled at it as Max returned with the tip-yip on a stick and a couple of cool bottles of water. “We didn’t get harassed today,” Max observed as he sat down on the roof of the speeder, and Trudy took a seat inside. “You think somethin’ is goin’ on?”

She nibbled at the meat on the stick and offered a shrug, turning to look back at the gunship. “Who knows. I just hope they keep whatever they’ve got going on out of the village. I want to sleep peacefully when we get back.”

You know the phrase famous last words? Those were Trudy’s.

--- Miles away, a Mandalorian clad in beskar armor was about to attempt to take down a stronghold of bandits and remnant stormtroopers all on his own. Maybe Fennec Shand was right. Maybe he was suicidal. ** Chapter 2: But I Ain't Dead Yet Taglist: @novemberrain221, @blackdogdesignuk, @mistyfur5, @thepoisonofgod

[staranon95]

dincobb blade runner au

okay i got some nice likes on my post from last night, and i finally have some time to draw out my thoughts.

this is going to be heavily inspired by Blade Runner 2049 so yes i will be taking multiple elements from that movie, its story, its themes and characters but with my own special twist.

Din

he is a nexus-9 replicant (styled after Officer K) and works for the LAPD as a blade runner, tasked with hunting down older replicant models (nexus-8 units)

he reports to Lieutenant Bo-Katan; their relationship is a very tense one to say the least. the big part of nexux-9 models is that obedience is hardwired into their genetic makeup, so Din is Bo-Katan's obedient little blade runner, dispatched to the harder jobs that humans can't do because replicants don't matter right?

as part of the replicant build, replicants are given false memories upon their conception since they're formed as fully adult, fully human, you need to have something rattling around in there to kickstart their brain

Din has a named. Din Djarin, but this sets himself apart from other replicants the LAPD has employed in the past. because none of them previously asserted that they had a name. but it's almost automatic for when people introduce themselves to him that he responds with Officer Djarin. it's like a reflex.

as part of Din's memories, he knows they're false. but some of them are so starkly vivid like the image of a child calling him 'papa' reaching up with their arms at him, smiling wide which is weird isn't it? replicants can't reproduce but why does Din always feel struck with the desire that he lost something? that he had to say goodbye to a child? he never mentions this to anyone, not even Bo-Katan, because they don't matter right? they're false. right?

one of the big memories Din has is of this Child. he's slipping a necklace around their neck and saying 'i'll come find you' and he doesn't know why but he's so driven by the urge to find this Child. but he doesn't know where to begin and he can't go against Bo-Katan. he can't disobey

Cobb

Cobb is a nexus-8 model, but he's an aberrant variant of the line in that he's an outlier from the model. he's not as big, not as strong, but still as deadly, and when originally created, he was used for infiltration and surveillance against rebels, uprisings and so on. it's easy for him to blend into the situation at hand. he's highly charismatic which makes him so dangerous. eventually he broke free of those who controlled him and became a rebel figure among the underground replicant freedom movement

as an aberrant nexus-8, Cobb is wanted by a lot of people, the most important person being Moff Gideon, CEO of Gideon Corporation. the GC revived the replicant production after the nexus-8 models rebelled in a bloody war that led to many governments declaring replicants illegal. Gideon wants Cobb because he shouldn't technically exist. it's like he's a mutation, so Gideon pulls his strings with the LAPD to have their blade runner Din sent to find Cobb

now Cobb established himself as a rebellious figure back in the day during the Blackout (canon for the time when all digital devices just stopped working. good times!). one time, however, he did get caught by a human militia. the militia wanted money from his capture, so while they were negotiating with the authorities, they had him stashed away in one of the many bleak recycling operations, chained down and forced to work while his fate was decided.

(2049 is a bleak world and includes child labour. bad times all around)

so while Cobb is chained in place, he comes to know this Child, this special Child with a unique necklace, and he talks to the child (he always talks. he's Cobb) and they build a relationship and Cobb realizes how special this Child is

eventually Cobb is broken out of his interim prison, but before he goes, he makes sure the Child is taken with him, and he makes sure the necklace is left behind so that people assume the Child died here

The Child (it's grogu lol)

The Child is seemingly human, but actually born of a replicant. they are an impossibility and the symbol of a replicant revolution. they can control themselves. they can be free from the human worlds because they were built to survive.

rumors of a replicant child break out and of course Gideon also wants this child for his own purposes. to study. to understand.

later on in the story, we learn that the Child's father (idk who this is yet) had their memories taken and implanted in a nexus-9 model, and that this nexus-9 would become the Child's sworn guardian, but he needs to recognize that drive on his own. he needs to break from the rules that keep him rooted to the humans he works for. that's a journey he needs to take

The Story

Din learns of the Child's potential existence when he happens upon a crime scene. a human possibly killed by a replicant. he's sent to investigate and finds a shallow grave on the property. the bones belonged to a replicant, but it's clear they had been pregnant based on old marks on the bones.

He learns form the crime scene that this human was in contact with known rebel Cobb Vanth based on a photo he finds stashed away along with the body, so the LAPD figure Cobb returned to tie up some loose ends, that he's essentially reemerged and Din is being tasked to bring him in

Din is contacted by Gideon to speak about Cobb's whereabouts, what Gideon knows about Cobb's history, and that Gideon knows about the rumour. that a replicant child lives and that Din will be well compensated if he manages to bring the Child to Gideon

Din follows Cobb's past, learns of who he is, how he broke free of his intended purpose, and Din wonders quietly to himself what that's like? what is it like to be free of human control? to be his own person?

he comes to the recycling plant where Cobb was once held and does some digging on the premises, coming to know the story of how Cobb escaped. he finds the necklace from his memories and realizes his memories can't be fake. otherwise why would this be here? so he digs through the plant's records of all the children who've worked here and finds his name in the ledger. Djarin.

following a series of cryptic clues, Din realizes that Cobb is hiding in the wasteland of Las Vegas, a place that's inhabitable by human standard, but not to replicants. so he goes there. Cobb and Din meet for the first time and duke it out until Din says he knows about the Child and that stops Cobb from nearly killing him.

they talk. Cobb feels sympathetic for Din because he knows how hard nexus-9s have it. to be obedient on that level? how hard must it be for him to be here? but then he realizes that someone must've planted those false memories in Din for a reason. this is where Cobb and Din really connect to each other. how much Cobb wants to show Din he's worthy of a life outside of his purpose. and how much Din realizes he wants to follow Cobb wherever he goes.

surprise attack! Gideon's forces locate the both of them. Din is incapacitated and Cobb is captured. Din is left for dead.

Din is later found by Boba and Fennec, replicant leaders of the underground movement. they patch him up and ask him where his loyalties lie i imagine at this point Cobb has told them of Din's emergence and that he has implanted memories, that he's meant to be the Child's guardian. and Din has to make a choice here. he has to choose to be his own person and fully go rogue. so he swears that he'll rescue Cobb since Cobb actually knows where the Child is hidden

Din goes after Cobb and rescues him from Gideon's clutches. they run and Din realizes how much he actually cares for Cobb. and he doesn't know if he's built to feel love, but he imagines this is what it must feel like. that rush of relief when he sees Cobb is okay, touching him and pulling him along.

Cobb takes Din to the location where the Child is, and Din is struck with all these memories. holding the Child when they were just born. seeing the Child take their first steps, their first words. calling him 'papa'. having to say goodbye to the Child. leaving them forever. and he knows they're not technically his. but they real and they feel like they're his.

so that's how Din and Cobb become parents to their replicant son

[meta-shadowsong]

Some Thoughts on Mandalorian Religion/Culture

Basically, this post exists because The Mandalorian got me thinking some about the culture, particularly as relates to the Mandalorian Civil War, and how that reflects certain IRL religious movements and upheaval. This has been percolating in the back of my head for a few weeks, actually, and this seemed like a reasonable time to write it all out, now that at least the first season is over. There are brief spoilers involved for the season finale.

Which means it’s time for a Long Complicated Metaphor! (Not the road-building one about Anakin and his fall, though I really should write that up properly and share that here, too, but y’know.)

Basically, I’m going to talk a little bit about how, as I see it, some of the Mandalorian Civil War issues parallel the Protestant Reformation, particularly in England, leading up to the English Civil War and Interregnum.

(As a note--from what I recall, the Amarna period in ancient Egypt is also a good parallel; maybe even a better one. But since I’m significantly less well-read on the subject and what reading I have done was a very long time ago, I’m sticking with the English Reformation analogy for the purposes of this essay.)

So, it has been a while since I’ve done some in-depth reading on this subject, both the general history and the specific religious/church history. If you’re interested in the church history side of things, I’d actually recommend Cromwell to Cromwell--it got a little dry for me, especially since I didn’t read the summary carefully enough and thought it was going to be a little more biographical than it ended up being, but it is still a solidly researched book on the subject in question.

Anyway, the point is, I’m going off of memory from something I read about/researched a few years back, as well as my general background knowledge of the subject/period, so please forgive any slight inaccuracies as I build up my metaphor/essay/point.

So, to start with, some background of why I’m viewing this through a religious lens, based on some things we’ve seen in the TV show. Obviously, there is the fact that Din Djarin specifically refers to this as a creed/religion in the first couple episodes. However, that’s not…super-well defined, other than it is analogous to a religion. But in terms of specific details--

First, there’s the helmet thing, which I know has been brought up by other commentators as well--this is the Way, we don’t take off our helmets for any reason unless we’re stepping off this path.

If we view combat as Mandalorian religion, in the organized/Western religion sense, this actually makes a lot of sense to me. In this reading, our titular friend from the show about baby Yoda is, essentially, a priest (or possibly a monk; or more likely a friar since he’s a wanderer and not cloistered even if the rest of his covert might be, but that’s probably a little too nitty-gritty for an essay on this level; for analysis purposes, I’m just going to go with ‘priest’). Priests are subject to stricter vows, and while laypersons can (and indeed are expected to) perform certain religious duties/offices, priests have greater responsibilities and restrictions. Like prayer, only instead of rosaries and Christmas, Mandalorians have blasters. And flamethrowers. And occasionally jetpacks. Etc.

(Obviously, not a perfect analogy, in the same way that comparing the PT-era Jedi to monks or priests is not a perfect analogy, but it’s a reasonably convenient one.)

Anyway, this explains why Mandadlorian and the other members of his covert/group won’t take their helmets off, but we’ve seen a variety of Mandalorians do so before--all of the Wrens, Bo-Katan and her close allies, various other members of Death Watch (though not all)…it’s part of something akin to a clerical vow.

Which brings us back to the Civil War, and the IRL parallels.

So, the English Reformation--yes, a large part of what kicked it off was Henry VIII being…well…Henry VIII about things, but there was a lot of back and forth beyond the Great Matter/Divorce, and Lutheranism, Calvinism, and other Protestant movements had some level of foothold at varying levels of society. In terms of actual doctrine and practice, the Church of England varies quite a bit during the reigns of the later Tudors (with Edward VI being pretty hard-core Protestant, Mary I bringing England back to Rome, and then Elizabeth I being more moderate than her brother), so it’s not a straightforward question. Eventually, Protestantism wins out, but it’s a half-century or so of minor upheavals and doctrinal shifts, much like in the rest of Europe during this period.

Again, I recommend Cromwell to Cromwell for more detail about the specifics, but by the time we get to the 17th century and the Stuarts, we’re sort of starting to see a split between the Puritans (who stayed in England with the intent of making the English Church more fundamentalist, rather than the ones who left and settled in Holland and the Americas, who would be better referred to as Separatists) and the more elaborate High Church. There were other sects/factions, and other/secular/political factors that led to the Civil War, of course, but that was the gist of the religious one.

Which brings me to Satine and the New Mandalorians. Who, in this case/analogy, are similar to the Reformers (eventually, Puritans).

Which might sound weird, given that we’ve established that the Mandalorian culture/religion in this context is All About Combat, but hear me out.

We don’t know exactly what went on with the New Mandalorians forming and building steam, but I highly doubt that Satine came up with the idea on her own--they were a radical movement to reform Mandalorian religion and culture that she gravitated to, and eventually made official/the law of the land when she and her faction won the Civil War and she took power in Sundari. We don’t know where her parent(s) fell on this spectrum, if they were hardline traditionalists or fairly neutral moderates or mild reformers (I doubt they were hardline reformers), or essentially traditionalists in terms of their personal beliefs/doctrine but making serious reformer steps for unrelated political and/or personal reasons (a la Henry VIII).

The point is, much like the more radical Reformation politics and philosophies as put forward by Edward VI and, later, Oliver Cromwell and the Roundheads, Satine is operating in a larger context and, however devoted she is to this movement, she probably didn’t found it.

The reason I think she lines up with the Puritan model is that the New Mandalorian philosophy is an extremely stripped-down version of the approach-to-combat religion/culture. Basically, New Mandalorian philosophy takes away the fancy trappings and asks “what exactly does it mean to have this faith?” She says to Obi-Wan at one point, “just because I’m a pacifist doesn’t mean I won’t defend myself.” What her philosophy is asking--maybe; possibly; I’d love more canon context but this is a reasonable reading of the text IMO--is “our faith is combat, but does combat need to be physical? Do we need to continue to kill each other and spill the blood of our kin as well as outsiders, or are there other ways to fight?” After all, Satine is extremely combative; she just doesn’t use weapons or overt violence when she fights for what she believes in.

So, again. Stripping away all the fancy trappings to get back to the core of the belief--only instead of gold and icons and stained glass (and Christmas), it’s blasters and flamethrowers and occasionally jetpacks. And whips. And so on. (…I feel like Mandalorian Christmas involves a lot of blasters…)

This was all probably reinforced by her experiences on the run with Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan during the Civil War itself; but that’s something I’m going to at least partially cover in our faces like a mirror. The fic focuses more on Bo-Katan and why she makes her choices in all this, but Satine’s personal worldview is obviously profoundly shaped by her experiences during that year, and is, of course, a key part of all of this.

(As a side note, Bo-Katan, in this analogy, is soooooort of related to either Mary I or Charles II--although I tend to read her as a younger sister/there’s no succession dispute involved. But the Traditionalist heir in exile; with a level of devout belief that’s more aligned with Mary than with Charles; although she’s a bit more willing to compromise until she can’t anymore, and then seems to have found a more moderate approach when she’s in power/after she leaves Death Watch? We’ll see what the relevant TCW episodes have to say. Also, I would love to see her show up in season 2 of The Mandalorian or some other live-action thing (maybe the Obi-Wan series?); still played by Katee Sackhoff as is only right and proper. Just getting that out there.)

[Also, given the way s1 of The Mandalorian ended--I fear for my girl Bo-Katan and am even more interested in seeing her in something live-action/post-Rebels D:]

…yeah, this felt like I had more of a Point when I got started, lol. I guess what I’m trying to say is--a lot of seeming inconsistencies in worldbuilding about Mando culture make a lot more sense when viewed as a religion, with a variety of sects and interpretations and relative levels of devotion, particularly in parallel with IRL religious movements. And while Satine’s aesthetic is an homage to Elizabeth I, her politics/role as a hardline Reformer in power are more aligned with Edward VI or Oliver Cromwell. It’s just…an interesting way of looking at things, I think? One I figured was worth sharing.

[aion-rsa]

The Mandalorian: Fennec Shand’s Return Explained

https://ift.tt/3mDsPRY

This Star Wars: The Mandalorian article contains spoilers.

The assassin introduced in The Mandalorian season 1 episode “The Gunslinger” seemed like an exciting new character to add to the show’s noteworthy lineup of rogues…until she was unceremoniously killed off. Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen) was a masterful sharpshooter, known for her skills with a sniper rifle and as one of the most dangerous assassins in the galaxy, so it seemed like a waste that she was set up as a one-off character.

Accomplished actor Ming-Na Wen brings gravitas and cool combat moves to the mercenary. She’s best with a sniper rifle, but hand-to-hand combat and knife-wielding are equally important parts of her skill set. A true scoundrel, she’s a fast talker willing to turn bounty hunters against each other if it means she gets out of the situation alive. In “The Gunslinger,” she talks her way around Calican after fighting her way around him, too. It takes Din Djarin to capture her, and once he does, Calican goes against his own partner’s wishes and shoots her.

Stream your Star Wars favorites right here!

Fortunately, it seems you can’t keep a good character down. Despite appearing to have died in “The Gunslinger,” Fennec returns in “The Tragedy.” Even though we, as the old media adage goes, “saw the body,” death still isn’t the end in Star Wars. So how did Shand survive?

How Did Fennec Shand Survive?

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Shand was shot essentially point-blank in the stomach with a blaster, so it’s very surprising that she survived. But Boba Fett is a master of surviving things he shouldn’t have, and he put those skills to use for someone else here.

The Mandalorian hinted several times that Fett was still on Tatooine after Din Djarin left. The shot of someone walking with spurs in “The Gunslinger” is implied to be him, and he appears in full at the beginning of season 2. So he was in the right place at the right time (or perhaps the wrong place, considering the scars he got from falling into the sarlacc’s mouth) to find Shand.

This still begs the question of what Fett was doing for five years after Return of the Jedi. He seems to have been living on Tatooine, but also to have had access to his ship the whole time. Maybe he had plenty of other adventures between the end of the Galactic Civil War and when Fennec Shand appeared on his radar.

What we know for sure is that Fennec is part-cyborg now, her stomach not only patched but reinforced with metal struts. Because this is Star Wars, there is plenty of precedent for metal parts working medical miracles. Darth Vader is only alive because of his prosthetics and mechanical lungs, and General Grievous’ entire body was rebuilt as a droid. There is an implication in the movies that mechanical parts are a hallmark of villains or of a fall toward the dark side, although this gets less clear when it comes to Luke Skywalker’s mechanical hand. Nevertheless, adding droid parts to a dying organic body is just part of the Star Wars universe.

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The operation probably also involved some bacta, the miraculous substance used to heal almost any wound. It’s seen in the movies after Luke is attacked by the wampa beast and nearly frozen to death in The Empire Strikes Back. It makes sense that Boba Fett would have a store of bacta somewhere in order to treat his own wounds. It’s through a mix of all of these long-tested Star Wars medical procedures that Boba Fett probably saved Fennec. Those cybernetics could be either an asset or a liability if she plans to continue in a job that involves being shot at pretty often.

Her near-death experience might have changed Fennec a little, although it’s hard to tell. Is she more willing to trust others now that she’s had to rely on Fett? She doesn’t seem to hold a grudge against Din Djarin for capturing her, and indeed makes a good team with him.

It’s impossible to say how much she’ll be involved in the show beyond the finale, which is clearly setting up a big showdown between Moff Gideon and all of Din’s bounty hunter friends. Maybe she’ll keep working with Din Djarin and Boba Fett after that adventure is done. Maybe only the latter; she seems quite content being Fett’s partner for now. But she’s still a mercenary, and that means going where the credits go. At least one thing is for sure, and a big relief for fans: as of now, she’s canonically alive.

The post The Mandalorian: Fennec Shand’s Return Explained appeared first on Den of Geek.

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