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Darcy’s introduction in Pride and Prejudice is really ‘what if you had just had the worst month of your life because your ex-bestie tried to lover boy scam your baby sister out of her share of your dad’s life insurance and your friend dragged you to a shitty party in a dive bar in the neighbourhood where he’d just signed a short term lease, and you decided to let your bad mood show because you were never going to see any of the assholes in this stupid shitty bar EVER again. And your friend ended up making out with a girl he’d just met there while you were stuck talking to her sister who was less cute and then her mother appeared and started trying to matchmake and started saying how if she was twenty years younger she’d clime you like a redwood and ooooh is that a black Amex, guess the next round is on you hahhahahahaha, while her other sister (how many fucking sisters does she have?!) flashed an obviously fake ID at the bar and ordered six vodka-diet red bulls and no one in her family except the less-cute sister even tried to stop her. And you went home and consoled yourself that you would never see any of these people again but then you met them over and over again because they live next door and your friend and the cute sister keep meeting up to make out but not actually date and then. You fall in love with the less-cute sister because it turns out she’s really witty and charismatic but she already knows and remembers and resents the fact that on a day when you were in a shitty mood you called her mid out loud in a dive bar.’

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Din Djarin & Grogu | illustrated by Stephanie Hans

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din djarin is canonically the type of dad to buckle his kid’s spaceship seatbelt but then allow the kid to sit and watch a firefight with no protection, which is funny to me

Din: I trust him to block blaster bolts with his magic, but I’m sure if given the chance he’ll just fly out of his seat in the razorcrest

Grogu: *airplane noises* din: exactly

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The Mandalorian | illustrated by David M. Buisán

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Dad ♥️

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found family

Watching as many Star Wars shows as I can in very little time just makes me realize how much Father-With-Unplanned-Adopted-Kid is a trope there

Also how much I love it

Yes, Kanan is very normal about his embarassing Padawan while next to his Idol Anakin Skywalker

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What did Young Din do wrong?

I’ve been wondering why Din seems to have had it harder than most other Mandalorians, so prepare yourselves for some evidence-based speculation…

⛔️ No signet (therefore, no clan)…

At the beginning of the show, he didn’t have a signet. So he was clanless. That means he wasn’t adopted (he says, “they raised me in the fighting corps”) because he would’ve had his adoptive clan’s signet if he had been. All he got was the mythosaur, which, as the Armorer said, “belongs to all Mandalorians”, so he belonged to the tribe but not any particular clan.

We know foundlings don’t have to be adopted because Grogu was called a foundling in seasons 1 and 2 when Din was only his caretaker. But at that stage, he’d been ordered to return the kid to his own kind, so he couldn’t adopt him. And he did eventually. So why didn’t anyone adopt Din? What was wrong with him? Why did nobody want this poor foundling in their clan? Or was there a reason they couldn’t, like with Grogu?

But also, Grogu was still considered part of Din’s clan and allowed the mudhorn signet even before the official adoption, so what in the galaxy’s name did Din do so wrong that meant he was denied the opportunity to be in any way associated with a Mandalorian clan, and was denied a clan signet all the way up to his late thirties when he had to “earn” one by battling a mudhorn??

⛔️ A lack of proper beskar…

Din also didn’t start off with a complete set of beskar armour, and while that’s not uncommon for kids (as we saw with Ragnar – beskar helmet only), it’s a little odd for adults. Din’s old cuirass and vambraces buckled easily on Arvala VII, so they must have been a poor-quality beskar alloy. We know from the beating his helmet takes from the Darktrooper that beskar should be much more robust, and he even tells the Armorer, “My armour has lost its integrity.” That wouldn’t happen if it were of acceptable quality.

But surely by the time Din had been with the Mandalorians for a few decades, he would’ve earned some better armour? They gave Grogu loads straight away! I realise beskar was thin on the ground after the Purge because the Empire had looted it all, but that happened less than a decade before the show (only five or so years if we’re to believe the timeline given in Ahsoka) when Din had already been a Mandalorian for at least twenty years. Are we meant to believe that on Concordia (the moon on which beskar was mined), they couldn’t scrounge some up, or that nobody ever died and left their beskar to be redistributed amongst the tribe??

So why didn’t Din get any decent upgrades during the two decades he spent as a Mandalorian prior to the Purge?

⛔️ No jetpack…

Most Mandalorians have jetpacks. That said, not everyone in the Children of the Watch has one, although we know they’re taught to use them as children (Din confirms he was trained “as a boy”, and we see other foundlings practising with them). However, virtually all other Mandalorians in the galaxy (through all available media) come with jetpacks, so we can assume they’re ubiquitous and that the Children of the Watch simply had a shortage. Perhaps they’re difficult to manufacture.

But why was Din never allowed to use one out of the ones they did have? Some of the covert members hanging around in the Nevarro sewers doing nothing had jetpacks, yet Din, who was seemingly the only one with a job for which a jetpack might be needed, didn’t get to use one. Why was his status so low? Was this some kind of punishment?

I suspect, in reality, the answer to these questions is “because it worked well for the progression of the story for him to earn each of these things one by one”, but I’d really like for there to be valid reasons behind it, too – something deeply meaningful in his backstory that explains all of this.

Like maybe if we discover Din did have a clan and a signet and was on his way to earning new armour and a jetpack, but then he got involved with Ran’s crew and did something idiotic (maybe the incident on Alzoc III?) that endangered the tribe, so he was ejected from his clan, stripped of his signet and had to start on the bottom rung of the ladder like a thirty-year-old foundling. (Perhaps that’s why Paz was always rude to him, called him a coward, said he’d had “disagreements” with him). And maybe they told him he could only regain his status if he worked as the tribe’s beroya to provide for them, so he joined the Bounty Guild and routinely dropped off a percentage of his credits, as we saw him do at the start, which also meant he had to live apart from the covert on his ship. Almost like a little partial exile before he was officially exiled.

Maybe this explains why he so happily lifted his helmet to drink soup in front of Grogu in season 2, even though in season 3, back in the presence of his tribe, he told Bo-Katan that you have to go off and find somewhere totally private. If he really believed that, surely he would’ve waited until the kid was asleep to have his soup. Perhaps he’s always been a bit of a rebel when he’s away from his tribe. Survivor’s guilt can manifest in many ways – perhaps Din didn’t think he deserved to be rescued, never felt like he fit in, pushed the boundaries of the faith he was inducted into due to a self-sabotaging mindset… all the while parroting the doctrine because he wanted to be worthy of it. If you think about how trauma can influence behaviour, it’s actually quite common for someone to say they want to achieve a particular goal and honestly believe it, but then subconsciously undermine their own chances of success.

And if they’ve made Din jump through hoops to redeem himself in the past, the Armorer’s directive to go and find the Living Waters doesn’t seem so outlandish anymore. How do you punish someone you’ve already dished out countless punishments to? You give them the most impossible-to-achieve task you can think of. (More fool her, he managed it!) But it also makes sense that he would jump through those hoops, even in light of his self-sabotaging actions, because it’s often the way that people only realise how desperately they need the support structure they’ve just torn down after it’s gone. That explains his seemingly incongruous doubling down on his beliefs in season 3.

I like the idea of Rebellious Din – the kid who was so profoundly scarred by losing his parents and being the sole survivor of a massacre that he embraced anger and violence and became the unruliest Mandalorian foundling they’d ever seen, never making friends or getting adopted, venturing out into the galaxy and getting himself into trouble as soon as he came of age. They hinted at it with Ran’s crew – if Mandalorians (especially Children of the Watch) are so honourable, how did Din end up with this dishonourable bunch? He definitely had a rebellious phase (‘target practice Din’), and he definitely has anger simmering below the surface (see the above GIF of him slamming his weapons cabinet closed, as well as all the times he gets snippy, which are numerous). But the show never explored it any further.

I’d love for this to be a genuine part of his past, as it would make Grogu’s influence on him even more profound if he started out so troubled. And perhaps Grogu (little troublemaker that he is) sensed Din’s unique mix of anger, heartbreak, frustration, isolation, and wilfulness, and he knew he’d found a kindred spirit.

Power born from chaos and grief. Two survivors, hidden away from the cruel world that took so much from them, angry at their losses, hiding their pain, feeling unloved.

Until they found one another, and finally, the pain and anger melted away.

Tentatively tagging a few fellow Mando enthusiasts in case of interest 🩶. Please feel free to ignore my ramblings if they’re unwelcome.

@autumnwoodsdreamer @din-cognito @dindjarindiaries @djarins-wife @djarinwidow

@firstofficerwiggles @quicksilvermad @roughdaysandart @the-mandawhor1an

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Mandalorian art?! This is the way!

This started out as a Lgbtqi+ piece (cause Pedro is an amazing person) and a friend came up with an idea I just had to make (but that idea will be posted later on). So this one is just Din looking cool.

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Can we talk about what a lazy plot device Robin's locket was?

She was never the type of person that searches meaning in objects nor did she believe that there is a higher purpose or look for signs of what her destiny was. She was constantly arguing with Marshall about it!

The entire locket thing just seems like total bullshit made up by writers who were panicking bc it was the end of the show and nobody was clamoring for Ted and Robin to get together, so they were like 'here's this metaphor for Robin's heart, turns out it's been with Ted the whole time, ain't that funny haha' like shut the fuck up, you spent nine years telling us these characters are fundamentally incompatible, you don't get to deus ex machina your way into a happy ending no one wants or needs.

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I need to start making more art / more art like this 😌💗

Cute Fairies 🌸💙✨

I'm working on Comms at the moment, so I don't have a lot of time for personal Art, but I managed to make this while I finish my work 🍃

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golden 🌼

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also such an important take re the childbirth, motherhood, agamemnon... was achilles' heel ever even mentioned?? did i just miss that entirely?

i finished that book i was talking about

it was so bad. genuinely one of the worst books i've read in a long time

it was long too, a fucking commitment.

i should mention i'm currently in my second year of a BA, majoring in classical studies, and (while i know it barely counts) i did study it for 2 years in high school. I have spent the last semester studying the Iliad, discussing it in multiple courses, and can say I have a pretty good grasp of it's themes and ideas, and the events that take place within it.

I liked the concept. Achilles being a trans woman is an idea that i've seen in multiple sources from a few different people taking Classics, and I like that aspect of it. Is it underutilised? Maybe. Achilles dying in childbirth weird and come across as slightly misogynistic - instead of being a great warrior who is a woman, she has to also become a mother, as if to be a real woman, one must also crave motherhood. At least that's how I interpreted it

but it was poorly written, made little sense, and had nothing at all to do with the subject material, past some of the names

it's an adaptation of the iliad (supposedly) that dedicated a mere 40 pages to the events, and otherwise completely disregards the entire thematic point of the poem

The Iliad is about death, famously so, it is about the deathless gods and how they interact with mortals - it's stated pretty blatantly that if humans could not die, they would not war. Gods are fascinated by the mortals and play their little games with the Trojan war and that's the whole goddamn point of the Iliad

So why, oh why, does this book focus ON ACHILLES KILLING THE GODS??

The fact that the book is an incoherent mess isn't necessarily to its detriment, if one wishes to look at the Iliad and see the inconsistencies there, but there are several things that differ between a written novel, and a 17,000 line poem composed in Performance through the use of memorised formulae 2,000 years ago.

The Wrath that is the central theme of the Epic, Achilles' wrath at his loss of tîmê, that's barely half a page, and instead of being Briseis, a slave of Achilles, it's Brisewos (not how you spell greek names), a trans man who is still enslaved by Achilles and who's bought from her by Agamemnon (who she's fucking) and has nothing at all do with Chryseis, despite that being a pretty damn important part of the Iliad. Kinda the whole point of the first 16 or so books. But whatever, I guess...

It completely disregards some frankly incredible parts of the Iliad, like, oh i don't know, The Shield of Achilles??? Patroklus not being able to carry Achilles' spear because he is mortal??

Even on a word-by-word level, it was not good. the sentences were poorly constructed, there were a few missed commas and repeated words. oh my god this author could not kill her darlings, everything happened and everything went on for soooooo loooong. it genuinely could have been 150 pages. the way characters were introduced felt unnatural, all their traits and personality quirks laid bare, told to the reader directly, instead of, oh i don't know, shown to us through their actions and interactions with other characters

AND AGAMEMNON WAS PRESENTED AS A SYMPATHETIC CHARACTER!! AGAMEMNON WHO SACRIFICED HIS DAUGHTER AND BROUGHT CASSANDRA AS A CONCUBINE INTO HIS WIFE'S HOME! WHO SPENDS HIS WHOLE AFTERLIFE COMPLAINING ABOUT HOW MUCH WOMEN SUCK AND HOW MUCH HE HATES HIS WIFE!! IN THIS BOOK HE DOESN'T KILL HIS DAUGHTER AND I SWEAR TO GOD THE READER IS MEANT TO LIKE HIM!?!??!?!??!?!?!??!

Just... This was such a frustrating read. I didn't enjoy it at all. I'm excited to write 2000 words tearing it apart for my assignment

the book is Wrath Goddess Sing, by Maya Deane

do not bother reading it.

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ahh i love all the discourse around this book it's making me think so many things i'm gonna keep reblogging stuff

a lot of reviews of wrath goddess sing seem to cite the gods having lots of names/titles as confusing but so far that's not the case for me (i'm about a quarter of the way through and haven't even needed to consult the dramatis personae) but honestly i think as a world-building choice i'm just not a fan of this kind of religious syncretism thing where there seems to be one pantheon of gods known under various names across various cultures. stuff like "this persian sky god is actully just zeus under a different name" is absolutely the kind of thing you encountered in classical sources (i studied this in college a bit) but to me that belief seems reflective of a kind of cultural domination/imperialism/"our religion is the correct religion" mindset so i'm not sure how i feel about it being the, like, actual backbone of the theological world-building in this retelling. i guess it would just be a bit more interesting to me if there were actually different pantheons from different parts of the world?

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i desperately need fanart of meryapi and achilles getting wasted and talking about linguistics

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so many thoughts about this book!!!

Every review of a book written by a trans woman is like "im not transmisogynistic i like the idea of trans women but this did transness wrong (i am a cis woman). I dont know why i just couldnt get into it." And this is when its not just transmascs making shit up.

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like wrath goddess sing is not considered part of the modern feminist retelling [tm] genre but none of those books have the guts to have a scene like the one where achilles remembers beating someone enslaved to her, because the girl was also trans and was dressing as a woman and achilles perceived that as mockery of herself. the internalized transmisogyny being projected outward into class violence...