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corellianhounds · 1 year ago

Text

The Exodus

Media: The Mandalorian

Rating: Gen.

Word Count: 5,674

Warnings: Canon-typical violence

Art Credit: Christian Alzmann, The Art of Star Wars: The Mandalorian

Summary: Mandalorians are adaptable by nature but often nomadic without choice. The covert on Nevarro wouldn’t have risked the entire tribe to save only one of their own, not without contingency plans in place.

Set during “The Sin,” retconning the canon idea that only Paz Vizsla and the Armorer escaped Nevarro. Mando’a translations are at the bottom.

“In the years to come, when the balladeers of Nevarro spoke of the day the Mandalorian broke the Code and signed his own death warrant, there were as many different versions of the events as there were ears to hear it.

“But it always started with the explosion.”

— The Mandalorian Junior Novel, adapted by Joe Schreiber

An explosion rocked the city above. Barely a minute of cautious, alert networking had passed before the slight frame of Jenryk Lokatta flew down the subterranean antechambers of the hidden Mandalorian enclave, fleet-footed messenger to every tribe member he saw.

The detonation had gone off somewhere beyond the marketplace, calling to it a hurrying fleet of Stormtroopers. Word travels fast on Nevarro, and as tracking fobs blinked to life in dim corners and shadowed streets, civilians and hunters alike traded news in whispers that someone was back on the Guild radar.

The thing about the Bounty Hunters Guild is that listings are largely posted based on who the ISB deems a criminal. Whether laws themselves are just or not matters little to most hunters and good money is the fastest way to find someone on the run: despite the outcome of the war, Imperial credits still spend.

A heavy infantry Mandalorian stalked through the sewers of the black market outpost, bracing for yet another battle and hasty relocation effort that ran the gamut of every possible risk. In another life the bulwark of Mandalorian tradition lived in palatial dwellings with tribute given to his family’s honorable name, his days spent facilitating trade and overseeing the expansion of infrastructure. In another life he trained cadets in green fields and laughed heartily with his comrades-in-arms, swapping tales over tihaar long into the night.

This was not that life, and now as he stormed through the tunnels he mentally spat a curse at those who had driven him and his kin underground in every sense of the word.

Despite those bitter, percolating thoughts, there was a glimmer of something mean at the back of the blue Mandalorian’s mind, raring for a good fight.

From the innermost refuge of their hidden home came the sound of sizzling slag and the *ring* of an iron forge. Steam permeated the chamber as the Armorer, civil and religious leader of the diasporic warriors, worked tirelessly at the millennium-long craft that safeguarded her people.

The silhouette of Paz Vizsla filled the doorway.

“Djarin’s in trouble,” he said. “Topside.”

The Armorer’s hammer stopped mid-swing. Her brass-toned helm swiveled to lock on him, the hum of blue flames filling the forge as he awaited her orders.

“What happened?”

Vizsla’s hand flexed, agitated. “The western scout said he blew a hole in the Stormtrooper safe house and shot his way out. They’re all dead. He’s— He took something—”

“Brevity, Vizsla.”

“We think it’s a child.”

For a singular moment the Armorer felt every muscle coiling to pounce. Clamoring echoed in the tunnels. Decisions had to be made, and they had to be made now. Their brother would not have done something so rash as to take on a squadron of Imperials by himself unless he had a very, very good reason for doing so.

And even then, he had not called for help.

”Let’s move.”

She strode out into the corridor to the assembled brigade awaiting her command with Paz behind her. “Barycir jiila,” she ordered, and the group began to split under her direction. “Tsad Solus, ready the ships for relocation— Take only what can be carried once beyond the flows and get the foundlings out. The rest of you to the south exit past the bazaar. Find him. Follow on Vizsla’s command.”

The remaining Mandalorians beat their right bracers against their breastplates in a sharp *clang* of acknowledgement and turned on their heels to leave for their stations. Shouting from above and the beginning of a firefight echoed from the street level. Foundlings darted through the corridors, hastily grabbing sparse belongings and following orders from those focused on evacuation.

“Reroute the civilians,” she told Paz as they strode through the tunnel. “Get to higher ground and do what you can to contain the firefight— Send the Phoenixes in first. Clear a path for the others and funnel his adversaries back towards the square.”

The infantryman nodded, retreating and clicking the comm on his bracer to relay the message.

“And Vizsla—”

He turned back to her, at the ready.

“Buy him some time. And keep the skies clear.”

—

Working with martial efficiency, the remaining members of the covert crammed supplies into every spare satchel and duffel available. The children crèched together under the emergency lanterns as they packed the barge, helping one another don cloaks and filters as needed while the cadets moved weapons and gear. The Nautolan boy’s hands shook with the effort it took to strap on his vest, his fingers slipping on the latches, and one of the older cadets stooped to help him. The Mandalorians moved quickly, arranging what they could onto the barge that would reconvene with them out past the lava flow at the edge of the flats. The hidden cargo shuttles camouflaged within the caves had been maintained far beyond the city walls, and with luck the fight in the streets would keep all eyes turned inward long enough for the first ship to depart.

The children were antsy, most having been woken from sleep by the urgent call to attention. The adults could hear their murmurings as they shuffled into formation.

“But why do we have to leave now?” one of the foundlings pleaded. Petulance didn’t dictate their inquiries; the children were familiar with the plans laid out for their escape if it ever came to it, but curiosity and frustration were to be expected regardless of age. The youngest just happened to be the most vocal.

Hartek, an older Mandalorian in bronze, glanced at the group from where he stood at the mouth of the cavern. He clasped his sister’s forearm in a reluctant bid farewell, then came over to address the children, kneeling to their level.

“Beroya is in trouble and he needs our help,” he explained calmly. “And he would not need our help unless it was absolutely necessary to reveal ourselves. We have to leave.”

Whispers spread amongst the children before one of the older boys hushed them, and the foundlings exchanged solemn looks. They knew secrecy was the key to their survival; too many had known guardians and kin killed for their armor or hunted for their weapons. The Empire wasn’t the only entity responsible for the destruction they had seen wreaked across the galaxy— The vacuum of power it left behind was filled with mercenaries, warlords, and syndicates of every kind. The Mandalorians protected them, and the bounty hunter had never let them down.

They understood the gravity of what was to come.

Hartek nodded in approval and turned to finish hauling the last gunlocker up onto the hovering sled.

“Remember,” he said. “Stay quiet so you can listen for instructions, stick together, and keep out of sight. Keep low, and stay calm. We’ll protect you.”

Two Mandalorians finished lashing down the barge and shoved off for the exit tunnel following the lava flow. As the cadets filed back in towards the forge the alor waved the group inside. Hartek finalized the head count as the Armorer heaved the grate over the tunnel shut behind the barge. The bronze Mandalorian tugged the end of a leather cord from the collar of his tunic and unhooked the Mythosaur pendant, beskar glinting in the rippling forge light. Another explosion rocked the street above, the Mandalorians tensing as dust and gravel fell from the ceiling. Gritting his teeth, Hartek slotted the pendant into the ridge along the back wall and twisted the latch: an invisible seam in the basalt parted with a grating slide, and the hidden passage came into view on a gust of damp air.

“Move out.”

And on his lead they followed.

Bringing up the rear, Jenryk could feel the course of adrenaline in his veins as he saw the last of the evacuation head out the tunnel that would circumvent most of the attention of the town. Once assured the passageway closed up behind them he rejoined the Armorer as she secured the tripwires beyond the forge. Down at the end of the corridor that would lead them to the bazaar, Vizsla motioned for the troop to clear out. Jenryk hesitated for only a moment before approaching the Armorer, her sharp gaze watching the last of the offensive squads split off into the hidden exits far down the tunnels.

“Alor, will you be accompanying us?”

She shook her head, not looking at him. “My place is here until those remaining are ready to depart. The forge needs dismantled, and I will stay until the rest return.”

Jenryk shifted uneasily. “Something doesn’t feel right,” he said. “The Imperials weren’t the only ones firing at him.”

“… There may be other forces at work,” the Armorer hedged. “Once you’re in the air, keep the transponders off en route. We will regroup offworld and signal for you once we’ve settled at the second camp. Do not wait for us: the second ship will depart once Vizsla confirms the Crest has made its escape.”

“… Will do.”

The Armorer glanced his way as she holstered her hammer. “Do not deviate from the plan, Jenryk,” she warned him. She started to gather her tools, retrieving the last piece of his cuirass from the forge and clasping it to his backplate. “Hartek will need you as medic.”

He nodded reluctantly as she assessed her handiwork, securing the conduit latches for the durasteel jetpack and ensuring the suit’s circuitry had fully integrated into the system. Alfi approached from her setup at the false tunnel, signing that all was set as she grabbed the last rucksack. Jenryk rested a hand on her pauldron as she passed, the two of them exchanging a nod before she took off, racing to the exit.

The Armorer returned, holstering her sidearm as she listened over the comm channel. “The firing team will reconvene from the butcher’s entrance,” she said. “Move out.”

Jenryk activated the chameleon cloak on his suit and departed from the smithy, slinking out to the pyroduct under the west side of town. He spiked into the rock face above him with the climbing gaff on his boots and ascended the winding, eroded tunnel up to the street, his heart thundering in his ears. The natural ventilation shaft spit out past the slums up above, and though it was a more densely populated area of the city it had fewer Imperial scouts stationed between streets.

Smoke and brimstone filled the air, the clamor of civilians weaving through the streets as they bolted themselves indoors. Buildings of stone covered with volcanic earth rippled around him in a near-imperceptible mirage as he cut through town, mapping the fastest route between alleyways and cataloguing potential threats once the covert had finished aiding the bounty hunter at the docking yard.

There was a scout trooper leaning against a speeder bike near the canal, but he was far enough out of the district it seemed like the original safehouse hadn’t commed for him. Two Trandoshan guards for one of the wealthy families had broadened their post outside the townhouse to include the courtyard connecting the intersecting side streets, and the lights of the banking district blazed green and bright.

Blending into the twilight, Jenryk slipped past all of them to the outer edge of town. He cleared the canal, rocking the gondolas as he leapt to the other side. Carefully, he picked his way up the dark, pitted defensive wall, slipping over and out of Nevarro’s starport city and into the night. Once they were on open ground and trekking across the flats they would be vulnerable until they reached the freighter. Dusk brought with it reptavians and other nocturnal predators, and with the cover the cloak gave him, he was the most suited to clear a path.

There were six adults, three cadets, and seven foundlings coming from the flows, himself and Alfi making up the remainder of their group. Alfi would station herself as sniper and watchman while the freighter was loaded, her and Hartek waiting on him to voice the all clear before they departed. Vizsla would be the last to leave with the Armorer on the second ship if all went well, and hopefully they would hear from each other once they were out of New Republic airspace.

This was the third relocation Jenryk had seen. The uncertainty that came with dividing their numbers was not one he missed.

A shot rang out from the street leading to the docking yard far behind him, and a volley of blaster fire followed. Jenryk steeled his nerves, ignited his jetpack, and sped out across the flats.

—

Vizsla led the firing team through the narrow alleys of Nevarro. Doors and windows shuttered at the first sign of blaster fire, and the ground shook with the aftershocks of another detonation. They honed in on the smoke emanating from the shipyard entrance, footsteps weighted down with ordnance and determination. He motioned for the squad of foot soldiers to break off from the jet team, seeing them cut smoothly down to the buildings behind the main street. The remaining troops clambered silently up rock-hewn walls, creeping across balconies and roofs to get a bead on Djarin’s location.

There was a brief pause in gunfire when they were still three streets away before Paz heard the unmistakable sound of a particle disruptor atomizing its targets and reducing them to cinders. As he rounded a turret above the market district he scoped in on the street: bounty hunters of every kind scattered as a fellow hunter disintegrated to nothing, all of them now clamoring for cover. A third shot resounded, disintegrating a Rodian as the Mandalorians advanced, then all fell silent.

Paz held up his fist, signaling for those on the rooftops to halt as the gunfire came to a momentary standstill. He turned up the audio feed on his helmet, tuning it carefully. The Guild broker’s voice projected from the archway entrance and called out to Djarin, wherever he was on the street beyond them.

“That’s one impressive weapon!”

Paz dimly heard their brother respond, tuning in again. “Here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to my ship, with the kid, and you’re gonna let it happen.”

The broker barked a venomous order, this one loud enough to be heard by everyone in attendance:

“No— How about this: We take the kid, and if you try to stop us, we kill you and we strip your body for parts.”

The truth of the threat reverberated against the chest of every Mandalorian who heard it. Hackles raised, they advanced as one, their net drawing tighter with the impending ambush hidden by the cacophony of blaster fire. The ground team drew up sharp behind archways and corners, visages grim beneath the mask. Vizsla jabbed two fingers in a directive to ready themselves for the assault: the air team was in position. The footmen waited for his signal. He just needed to find Din so they could clear the path to the dockyard.

A plume of fire burst from a speeder on one side of the street. Vizsla narrowed his scope, adjusting the feed and impatiently waiting for the air to clear.

As hunters fell back from the blaze, the fire stuttered and dissipated, sputtering to a failing halt. The figure behind the smoke ducked back down into the open speeder out of firing range, but the armor it wore was unmistakable.

Finally, Vizsla grinned.

—

It wasn’t his reclamation of the child that deemed his actions a sin, but the initial transaction. No matter what he did in this life, Din Djarin would forever be a man who had at one time traded the life of a child to known enemies for payment. That was an immutable fact he would spend the rest of his lifetime atoning for.

He just thought the rest of their lives were going to be longer than this.

The Mandalorian looked down at the little boy he wanted to protect, stricken with the grief of his sin. He had known their chances of a hasty retreat were narrow when he left the ship to retrace his steps, but his prior confidence was founded in his determination to remedy the sacrilege of a tenet he had always held true.

Now though with plasma and fire flashing above them, the gravity of his decision was evident in the tragedy of his shortcomings. Despite his best efforts, he was unable to secure a future where the boy was safe, happy, and free. He was the one responsible for the child’s place here and now in the middle of a dark street on a blighted planet, surrounded by enemies hellbent on killing them both. The sense memory of his own father carrying him through a city filled with destruction refused to leave his mind’s eye, mingling with the guilt of knowing his circumstances and the child’s fate were of his own doing.

He had no right to pray for a painless end, but he hoped whatever life came after this one would grant him mercy for his greatest misdeed.

The child looked up at him with quizzical, sleep-filled eyes. Din stroked the boy’s head and wished he could apologize in a way he would understand.

—

A sharp whistle streaked overhead, following a streaming cascade of sparks. When the missile connected with the corner of the stone archway above the public house it exploded, sending a gunman from above toppling to the street below.

All eyes turned skyward as a figure rose above the crowd like a hawk, a dozen like it soaring up over rooftops and descending in a hail of precise, deadly gunfire.

Din couldn’t believe his eyes.

Laserfire streamed from above, hunters falling in the street. As they fired back the Mandalorians wove through the air, evading and deflecting every shot as they drew the Guild members’ attention to themselves, firing again with unparalleled accuracy into the street. More hunters appeared from alleyways but proved no match for the Mandalorians’ numbers, blaster shots finding their marks in the hearts of those now terrified by the descending ambush.

The covert had appeared from nowhere and rallied to Din’s defense, picking off assailants around him. For a singular, shining moment he was stricken with the same awe he felt when he’d first encountered the warriors as a child.

Another missle screamed from the gauntlet of a Mandalorian firing in mid-air, dodging the shots returned by the panicked and disoriented mercenaries and hunters littering the street. A fuel reserve from the docking yard exploded in front of a salvage shop and blazed up in a fireball that scattered a pack of mercs, three Mandalorians rerouting them to the square south of the bazaar. A Mandalorian in green landed behind an unsuspecting Nikto and wrapped both arms around him, jetting up beyond the buildings as the mercenary cried out in terror. Two more hunters ran for alleyways, shooting wildly behind them at the armored gunmen in the street who then gave chase, boots thumping on stone as their kin covered their backs.

In a stuttering, rapidfire flash of light, an infantryman landed near the speeder, gunning down any hunter foolish enough to have remained out in the open. The bulk of his imposing figure blocked the stone archway to the dockyard, his own aim still precise in its destruction as he cleared swaths of bounty hunters from the black market port in seconds.

Out of everybody, Din had expected him the least.

Paz jerked his head to Din, hollering, “Get out of here! We’ll hold them off!”

Din kept his aim level at their assailants as he hollered back. “You’re going to have to relocate the covert!”

Paz paused in firing for only a moment, nodding in affirmation. His voice was level with assurance. “This is the Way.”

And for the first time in a long time, Din felt something akin to hope.

“This is the Way.”

Din scooped the small child protectively into the crook of his left arm before ducking from the firefight and running to the Crest.

—

The Mandalorians moved quickly. The cargo shuttle was primed for takeoff, Hartek swiftly finalizing their pre-flight checks. He could see the firefight off in the distance as night fell, the rest of their crew moving around the hold below and securing the foundlings and the covert’s supplies. Time was running out.

“How many?” his co-pilot, Sapsen, barked over the headset.

Jenryk’s voice crackled over the comm’s frequency. “Twenty, more— on the way. Alfi’s— karking hell— Alfi’s pinned down, you— need to leave, now! We’ll regroup and— on the second ship!”

Hartek pressed the transceiver’s relay on his vambrace. His voice transmitted over the open channel to the helmets of the others belowdeck. “Who has the most fuel reserve?”

Two lights responded instantly over the head-up display. Hartek weighed his options but knew there wasn’t time to deliberate.

“Kyden, Whyt, jet out to the cliff and get her out of there. We’re nearly ready for takeoff. Jenryk, stay on the ground; we’ll come to you.”

“— long range repeaters,” Jenryk’s voice cut through. Laserfire screamed over his voice on the other end. “TL-50— scout troopers on bikes. They’ll see— coming, you won’t be able to get low enough— the hatch—”

The two Mandalorians following Hartek’s directive blasted from the bay doors in a stream of fire. The engines rumbled to life; Hartek pressed the command for the docking ramp to ascend, flipping the toggle to transfer control to the co-pilot. “Get us in the air. I’ll lock into the harness from the hatch— When we get to the firefight drop as low as you can and I’ll grab him from the starboard side.”

Sapsen’s voice was strained as he pulled on the yoke and leveled them with the horizon. “Hartek, it’s too risky—”

Hartek snapped the tether from above to his belt, yanking himself upward hand over hand.

“So we’ll just have to be careful.”

—

Jenryk’s lungs screamed with the effort it had taken to race over the plateau on foot. His jetpack sputtered and he could smell the fuel leak now soaking into his suit— The pack was damaged by one of the trooper’s heavy blaster bolts piercing the tank. Rendered immediately useless, he’d raced in the direction of his comrade, conveying what information he could to the others in the hopes that they could escape before the scout troopers on bikes caught up. Now camouflaged with the sparse brush, Jenryk crouched out of view, firing at the troopers when he could before pressing on.

Up on the ridge he could barely see Alfi’s red helm peek out in the twilight as she shot at the firing team below, but every time she revealed herself the heavy repeating blasters rattled the cliff edge and broke off more of the upper rock face, sending intermittent rockslides down the cliff. Even though she had the high ground, she was back-to-back with a lava flow that had broken open with fresh magma, effectively trapping her and keeping her from descending to the ravine on the west that would take them to the ships. Any time she rose higher than knee height she caught the troopers’ attention and they opened fire. If she exposed herself on a run to the ravine she’d be riddled with holes.

Jenryk’s cloak on the suit had given him a slight advantage as he shot unseen from the brush, and knowing Alfi she was just as much buying the shuttle time to escape by keeping the troopers occupied as he was. It was her idea to relay the decision to stay, and he’d never been able to tell her no.

Jenryk shot another Stormtrooper in the neck and kept moving. He switched his comm to Alfi’s frequency. “Why haven’t they left yet?”

Alfi signaled back in Dadita: “N-E-E-D-T-I-M-E.”

The remaining troopers advanced towards the trail to the outcropping. Jenryk picked up his pace before he heard one of them yell; he ducked, only narrowly missing a shot that flew by his helmet, and he heard the recoil of Alfi’s sniper rifle echo across the landscape. The heavy repeating blasters picked up again, rocks scouring the earth as they fell in a crashing wave not sixty feet from where Jenryk hid.

As the dust settled he knew he had to face the reality of the situation. By his estimate, Alfi was only a scant forty feet from the magma flow and likely cooking beneath her armor. He wasn’t going to get there in enough time to cover her escape.

He took a deep breath, his nerves settling to resolve as his mind cleared of distractions.

Jenryk spoke again, knowing she would hear him. “Move on my signal, Ori’vod. I’ll see you again someday.”

The Mandalorian armed the last two grenades in his arsenal and stepped out from the brush. He stalked toward the firing team on the ground, the waning light refracting around his figure like heatwaves in the desert, and as he drew near he upped his pace to a sprint. Two cluster grenades sang up through the air and exploded high above the trail to the ridge, eight concussive blasts following as they rained down on the troopers clinging to the rock face. Blaster drawn, Jenryk shot the heavy infantryman closest to him and leapt into the fray.

—

Alfi felt the explosions rock the cliff seconds after Jenryk’s comm went silent. Fear struck like lightning up her spine as she realized what he had done; she yanked herself up over the outcropping to scope in on the ground, seeing only a haze of smoke and blaster bolts firing in every direction. The idiot had given her the opportunity to get to the ravine at the cost of himself, and he had the audacity to keep the lenticular mirage up.

She had never been so angry with him.

Jenryk’s voice echoed in her ears, the reassuring tone doing nothing to calm her in those final seconds as she registered his farewell. Far below, the firing squad was in a disarray, at least a dozen still standing as they fired wildly around themselves while Jenryk cut through the smoke in the confusion.

Dimly, she heard the whine of a jet approaching from behind, and she whirled around to see two of their kin descending from the sky. Whyt and Kyden landed hard next to her as she jumped to her feet, signing quickly with her hands. Three laser bolts shot past their shoulders and they ducked out from range.

J fighting the group. Jetpack damaged. Need to help, she said.

Whyt shook his head and grabbed up her rifle, handing it to her. “Hartek’s on the way. We’ve got to go.”

Alfi violently shook her head, taking a step back, only for Kyden to wrap both of his thick arms around her from behind, pinning her own arms to her side as his jetpack ignited again and lifted both of them into the air. Alfi reared back in anger, a strangled yell escaping her as she struggled against his grip. Whyt followed after, flying with his back to them and firing his carbine rifle into the troopers below.

“I’m sorry, Al,” Kyden said over his headset. “We’re going to get him, just hang tight.”

Heat blazed under Alfi’s armor that had nothing to do with the river of lava streaming beneath them. She swore if Jenryk didn’t make it onto the ship alive she’d crack both their jaws.

—

Jenryk parried another blow, ducking beneath the trooper’s arm and jamming his blade into a crevice of their armor, twisting between their ribs with a snap. He yanked it free and immediately threw it into the chest of another, just as the butt of a blaster rifle came down between his shoulder blades. The fall knocked the wind out of him— On reflex he jerked his boot back, drawing a hard line in the dirt as he swept the legs out from beneath his attacker. He tried to right himself, still struggling to draw air, and a second trooper took aim, finally spotting him in the haze.

With weakening strength Jenryk pulled his arm up to deflect the shot with his bracer, the momentum of the bolt still jarring his forearm and jerking him to the side. Pain radiated from the right side of his chest, a lancing stitch pulsing with his every move. The Mandalorian tensed just as another shot hit his breastplate, sending him back several feet. The smoke was clearing from the basin beneath the cliff, and his camouflage flickered in and out across his suit.

“There he is!”

“Grab him! Don’t let him get away!”

He dearly hoped the covert had made it to safety.

Finally gasping a lungful of air, Jenryk dodged into a side roll, landing in a crouch. He shot his whipcord at the farthest trooper and yanked him into the two closing in on him and sent them clattering to the ground. A scorching volley of shots rattled his bones from the ground up as the last rapid fire gunner swung wide, coming around in an attempt to pin him against the cliff.

His eyes widened and he turned to leap up the rock face, bloodied gloves grabbing a ledge and vaulting him upward. The heavy repeater shook the volcanic earth and it broke apart as quickly as he scrabbled for handholds, barely gaining purchase against the rock. He spiked harshly into the substrate with his boot and yanked himself up. Every shot threatened to shake him off the cliff face, but still he climbed.

A loud, shuddering ripple of wind approached from behind him. Every wave of force felt like it displaced muscle from bone and it took every ounce of his remaining strength to turn his head.

Jenryk was struck with complete astonishment as he looked over one bloody shoulder to see the silhouette of a Mandalorian, illuminated by the waning sun and holding a grappling line on the outside of a cargo freighter. Bewildered hope washed over the resignation harboring in his chest, revitalizing him in an instant.

Without a second thought to anything else— not the height of the cliff side, not the blaze or gunner below, not every Imperial rat on that vile planet— he leapt off from his place against the earth crumbling beneath his hands.

And for a moment, Jenryk hung suspended in midair, one arm raised aloft as he reached for the hand of a friend.

—

Three successive shots rang out over the lava flats. Three troopers fell.

Alfi grimaced, seeing the final two run for the speederbikes. Whyt yelled something she ignored, the din of the engines drowning out the clamoring noise of the Mandalorians waiting tensely behind her as she followed the Imps with her scope. Craning out of the docking ramp, held only by Whyt’s grip on her belt, she fired again.

The speederbike in the lead crashed, digging its nose into the earth and throwing its rider up and over itself, just in time for the second rider to crash into him and for his own bike to explode on impact. Outside the outer hull Hartek clung one-handed to the grappling line and held fast to the forearm of their bloodied comrade.

Alfi handed her rifle back to another Mandalorian and gestured for Whyt to edge them down to the end of the ramp. Whyt carefully maneuvered the two of them as far as he could, still holding onto the railing as Alfi waved to catch Hartek’s attention. The older Mandalorian nodded, managing to get the message across to Jenryk that they were moving. Wind whipped around them as the freighter climbed, pulling Jenryk’s weight against the line, but Hartek’s grip never wavered.

Alfi squared her stance as Hartek heaved them both towards the ramp. Whyt’s grip on her belt tightened as the pilot’s grappling line pulled taut, and a sharp nod from Hartek was all the signal she got before he rocked back and used their forward momentum to swing Jenryk into the hold.

The three Mandalorians on the ramp crashed back into a pile, Alfi with both arms fiercely secured around Jenryk’s middle.

Whyt hauled both of them back as another Mandalorian raised the ramp, Hartek retreating to climb the hull to the hatch above the canopy. Alfi could feel her heartbeat in her ears as the hydraulics hissed and the rest of the covert behind them cheered.

Alfi lay there for several long moments, breathing heavily but grateful for the solid weight of the Mandalorian in her arms. She wished she could verbally tell him how much of an idiot she thought he was, but he was still clinging to her flight suit as his labored breathing struggled to find stasis, so she settled for knocking her helmet against his, perhaps a bit harder than necessary.

Jenryk chuckled through the mask, returning the gesture more gently. “I’m sorry,” he said, warmth suffusing his tone. “I missed you too.”

The intercom in the lower deck crackled to life as Hartek’s booming voice filtered through. “All present and accounted for. Hitting atmo soon so strap in. Lightspeed in three minutes. We’ll hear from Vizsla when they’ve made landfall. Over and out.”

The Mandalorians tucked into the cramped rows of bench seats, securing the cadets and checking again on the foundlings before finding their way to their stations. The rumble of dual engines hummed throughout the ship, but for the first time since the first explosion on the streets of Nevarro, those of the covert could finally breathe easily. Triumph in the face of calamity was a rare find these days.

It wouldn’t always be like this, but for now it was enough.

Mando’a

Tihaar: a strong alcoholic spirit distilled by Mandalorians

Barycir jiila: “Deploy immediately.”

Tsad Solus: Group One

Beroya: bounty hunter

Alor: leader

Dadita: The equivalent of Morse code for Mandalorians

Ori’vod: a stronger term for a beloved friend or family member

#The Mandalorian #Din Djarin #The Mandalorian fanfiction #Star Wars fanfiction #my writing #Paz Vizsla #The Armorer #Star Wars OCs #OC Jenryk #OC Hartek #OC Alfi #Baby yoda #Greef Karga #Star Wars AU #my OCs

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ranahan · 1 year ago

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Hi it’s me, I’m a language nerd who’s got lots of headcanons about this. I’m starting from the assumption that we’re trying to figure out a realistic-sounding explanation. The biggest caveat to this might be the ridiculous time spans of Star Wars history—it kind of feels like the writers added an extra zero to the dates to make them feel “galactic” in scale. Like, don’t try to make language evolution in GFFA conform to the timescales of language evolution on Earth; you’ll just hurt your brain. I know because I tried.

Oh, and ignore Traviss and whatever she says about Mando’a not changing. Languages evolve. It’s kind of a thing they do. The only languages that don’t evolve are dead languages like Latin. And guess what? Even Renaissance Latin continued to evolve and develop conventions and vocabulary and pronunciations that weren’t present in Classical Latin. Any language that’s used for actual communication between people is going to change.

I’m going to attempt to place the linguistic history of Mando’a into the context of the Mandalorian history. This post is already getting very long, so I’m going to be referring to Mandalorian history but not explaining it. If you’re not familiar with Mandalorian history, here are my spark notes about it. Note that I’m going by EU dates as I’m not up to date on Disney canon and that I’ve cribbed the history from Wookieepedia, which seems to have been edited tons since I last read it. Feel free to adapt as needed.

So, without further ado, history of Mando’a as I headcanon it:

Proto Mandalorian languages

The Taung were a nomadic people before they found planet Mandalore and settled there in about 7000 BBY (Legends) or 9991 BBY (Disney). It is not know what language or perhaps languages they spoke before settling en masse to a single planet, but let’s call these collectively Pre-Mandalore Languages (or dialects) or Proto Mandalorian languages.

Notron Cant was a language that some Taung apparently spoke during their wandering days. It is unknown what its exact relationship with Mando’a is: it could be a direct ancestor, one of several ancestral languages, or perhaps a sister-language to Proto Mando’a. Or it could even be an unrelated language spoken bilingually by some Taung.

It would be fun to retcon the entirety of Notron Cant into Mando’a like Harlin did with Dha Werda Verda (or was the poem written after RepComm? I’m not sure). But figuring out the sound changes backwards sounds like a massive karking headache. I’ll deconstruct Traviss’s work, but someone more interested in historical linguistics can take on Notron Cant.

Classical Mando’a

Whatever the Pre-Mandalore Languages were, the Taung would have rather quickly developed a standardised form of language once they all settled on a single planet, which would be recognisably a form of Mando’a. I call the language spoken by the Taung Classical Mando’a. We could divide it up into periods if you want to get fancy, similarly to say, Latin. For example:

Old Mando’a / Archaic Mando’a (the early days of settling Mandalore) — 7000 BBY … ?

Crusader Mando’a / Classical Mando’a (the heyday of the Taung culture) — ? … 3980 BBY

The Taung did conquer other planets (Concordia, Mandallia, Concord Dawn, Krownest, etc.), but I imagine the language situation would have been much like in the empires of the Western Colonial powers: Mando’a would have been the language of the upper classes, and the conquered peoples would have continued to speak their local languages and some would have learned Mando’a for business, education, legal, etc. reasons. Language contact effects would have mainly been from Mando’a to the local languages, with Mando’a picking up some loan words for local species and customs, and with time, developing local “colonial” dialects and accents.

Already in the days of the Taung, there was a precedent for adopting non-Taung warriors into Taung clans, but imo the adoptees don’t appear to have been that numerous. Let’s say that non-Taung make up less than 10% of the Mandalorian population during the first half of the period, and perhaps climbing slightly higher (say, up to 20-something %) in the late part of the period. The increased proportion could be explained both by the increased number of incorporated territories and an increased number of Mandalorian adoptions, which could have been motivated by the constant wars demanding more bodies (and killing off more Taung). If you like to imagine the Mandalorians more diverse during this period, feel free.

Demographics-wise, I think there’s a parallel to be made with the ancient Spartiates, whose population dwindled as a result of wars and their class-based society (no upward movement = no replacement from the lower classes). The language situation in the latter half of this period could perhaps be compared to the Roman Empire: Mando’a is the language of military, administration and legislation, and regardless of their civic status, many educated people speak it. But other languages remain important regionally and aren’t fully supplanted by Mando’a in the non-Taung social classes.

Neo-Crusaders and Middle Mando’a

The interesting part begins with the Neo-Crusaders. I’m going to spoil the surprise and say that I have a pet theory that Mando’a is actually a creole language and that it became one during the Mandalorian Wars.

Neo-Crusaders and their effect on Mandalorian demographics

Let’s start with the who.

(EU) canon sources say that the Taung died off in the Mandalorian Wars and the Mandalorian defeat at the end of it, but I find this unrealistic. It’s not like every single Taung would have been present on Malachor V. Their armies would still have had other fleets on other fronts, never mind the population back on the Mandalorian home worlds.

Nah. What I find a more compelling theory is this: the demands of the continuous wars meant that the Taung population had already been declining for a good few centuries, and had recently taken a blow during the Great Sith War—that’s why they have been increasingly letting non-Taung in the ranks. But there have been cultural barriers to the adoption of the non-Taung as full members of the society, and that has limited their ability to fill the ranks. It is in this environment that Mandalor the Ultimate receives a vision, telling them to accept all worthy warriors as Mandalorians and open the Mandalorian clans to them. A more cynical reading is that this is a rather clever piece of religious propaganda that allows them to fill the ranks of their army.

With the armies of the Mandalorian Neo-Crusaders thus swelling up, and the officer class (= the Taung) inspired by this new vision of divine war, the Mandalorian armies start growing exponentially. They take one planet, and grow their ranks from the conquered populace, and co-opt their industry into churning out warships and equipment and munitions. With each victory, their fleets and armies swell. And this is how the regional power of Mandalore becomes a galactic-level threat in only a few short decades.

What this means to the demographics of the Mandalorians is that within a very short timeframe, they go from let’s say, 70-odd % Taung and 20-odd % non-Taung (not counting non-citizen populations of Mandalorian-governed worlds), to 90% non-Taung. Don’t stare at the percentages too hard, it’s probably a contentious topic amongst Mandalorian historians anyway. The working language of the Mandalorian armies is Mando’a, which is also the only language all of the soldiers have in common (Huttese and Basic are probably also widely, but not universally, spoken by the new recruits). The first recruits would have had the time to learn Mando’a fluently, but the more the ranks swelled, the more the language transmission broke down. The officer class (mostly consisting of the Taung) would have spoken fluent Mando’a, but what developed among the rank-and-file was a pidgin form of Mando’a.

Mandalorian defeat on Malachor V

So what happens on Malachor in 3951 BBY is that the Mand’alor, along with most of the top-brass, is killed. There’s a whole debacle about the lost Mask of Mand’alor, which means the succession is thrown into air and doesn’t get settled until long past the war. This means that the armies are left are floundering with no clear command. This, in addition to losing a couple of their strongest fleets in their entirety, means that the Mandalorians start losing the war. The Republic starts swiftly retaking the worlds previously conquered by the Mandalorians. The war probably takes a bit more to actually wrap up, but Malachor V is the turning point that breaks the power of the Neo-Crusaders.

What happens to their armies? Let’s consider it from the point of view of a random Mandalorian recruit:

At this point of the war, your entire squad is non-Taung—the Taung have been stretched thinner and thinner covering their enormous armies. It’s not like a lowly squad like yours rates a Taung officer. Even your platoon which had a Taung officer some years back, never received a replacement when they got shot. No, your ruus’alor is a human who joined towards the start of the Mandalorian Wars and has been a Mandalorian soldier for close to two decades of their life by now. Whether they were press-ganged into joining, or joined because their original homeworld had few other opportunities to offer, they haven’t been back since signing up and there’s nothing back there waiting for them. Your newest squad mate was originally a Republic citizen, and whether they joined to escape poverty or to escape Taung oppression, it doesn’t matter: their homeworld has been retaken by the Republic and they—a Mandalorian soldier—are now considered a traitor. You lose a couple of soldiers, who decide to defect and go back home when the going’s still good. But the rest of your comrades fall somewhere between your senior and junior members: no matter where you come from, you are Mandalorian soldiers now, even if none of you have ever been to Mandalorian space. There’s nowhere for you to go. When your CO announces they are going to take the remaining company to the Hutt space to look for mercenary work, it’s an easy choice to make. Where else would you go?

Middle Mando’a

What follows the Mandalorian Wars is some three centuries of disarray for the Mandalorians. When the Mandalorians re-emerge on the Galactic stage, they have been transformed as a people: instead of Taung, the ranks of the Mandalorians now consist of every species—anyone, regardless of race or birth, can become a Mandalorian. Mandalorians have thus completed their change from a race to a creed: the culture forged amongst the mixed ranks of the Neo-Crusaders is who the Mandalorians have become as a people.

What happens during this period of diaspora is that the Mandalorian armies splinter in the aftermath of the Mandalorian Wars and go back to Mandalorian clans being lead by clan chieftains. Many go back to the Mandalorian space and settle on Mandalorian worlds, where they now vastly outnumber the original Taung population. In a few generations, there would be few pure-blooded Taung left. While a multitude could claim Taung ancestry, in the eyes of the wider Galaxy the Taung are said to have gone extinct, and within the Mandalorian space the importance of Taung blood has ceased to matter in comparison to the shared Mandalorian spirit.

As an aside: do you think the Mandalorians had a civil war afterwards? Now that these armies non-Taung Mandalorian warriors settle on Mandalorian worlds, where the previous non-Taung populations were little more than slaves? Did they fight it out or did they open up the clans again, for anyone willing to join?

Many newly-minted Mandalorians (like our example soldier above) and even whole mando clans don’t feel a particular kinship to the Mandalorian space, and choose to find their fortunes in the wider galaxy. There are always opportunities for soldiers for hire, and if the Mand’alor is not paying the armies, someone else will. For better or worse, it’s their way of life now and for many, the only one they know.

The Mandalorian soldiers take their pidgin Mando’a with them and eventually teach it to their descendants, who transform it into creole languages. On the Mandalorian worlds, the pidgin/creole mixes with and overtakes the Mando’a dialects spoken there. In the clans who seek their fortunes elsewhere in the galaxy, it develops into their own related creole languages. And in the following centuries and millennia, the various new creole languages and dialects continue to mix and influence each other.

The roughly 300-year period following the Mandalorian Wars was a period of disarray and diaspora for Mandalorians. I’m calling the stage of pidginisation and creolisation during Mand’alor the Ultimate’s reign and the aftermath of the Mandalorian Wars, or roughly 3980 to 3500 BBY, Middle Mando’a. But frankly, the beginning date is uncertain (it is not know when Mand’alor the Ultimate rose to power), and you could extend the end date if you wanted to—there’s very little we have on GFFA history between the Third Galactic War (3628-3522 BBY) and the New Sith Wars (2000-1000 BBY). I think I’m going to say that Mando’a experienced pidginisation during the Mandalorian Wars, creolisation during the aftermath, and some important changes during the following few centuries, and that was the period of the most significant changes from Classical Mando’a to Modern Mando’a. And you might have had some other changes afterwards, probably motivated by language-internal factors, but by the time we get to the New Sith Wars, the language is something that would be easily understood by modern Mandalorians, if a bit old-fashioned.

Modern Mando’a

It would be very tempting to draw a direct, clean line from the Neo-Crusader pidgin Mando’a, to the creole Mando’a being spoken by their descendants, to Modern Mando’a. And that’s what I think happened! But I also think that if one started studying the relationships of the Modern Mando’a dialects, what one would find is that they’re in fact not one single creole language that spawned a dozen different dialects, but rather several related creole languages that developed in similar circumstances during the period of diaspora and disarray following the Mandalorian Wars, and that have since then continued to closely interact with each other, especially within the Mandalorian space.

So the family tree? It’s a huge tangle. A web, rather than a tree. Many dialects have features that could be traced all the way back to the Neo-Crusaders, in addition to common features that have been adopted from the more influential dialects (mainly of the capital worlds). Concordian was considered archaic* before the Mandalorian Wars (it was the second body settled after Manda’yaim itself, and the first dialect to splinter off from Old Mando’a); what developed from the mixing of the original population and the Neo-Crusader pidgin is near incomprehensible. *Preserving archaic features that standard Mando’a lost. No language stays preserved in naphthalene though; they all change, just in different ways.

Culturally and politically, Mandalorians themselves consider all forms of Mando’a to be the same language, even if linguists might consider them different languages. Different dialects do widely share a common core vocabulary and many dialects are mutually comprehensible—but some are more and some less so. I like to think of them like the Scandinavian languages, Romance languages or Chinese languages. Different but related languages, mostly a high degree but no guarantee of mutual comprehension.

There’s a “formal” register of speech that most Mandalorians can understand. These being Mandalorians, it mostly consists of military jargon and some (rather old-fashioned) grammar conventions for giving orders and relaying information. Nobody speaks it as their native language. So whatever different dialects you and your mates speak socially, you can still understand each other and function together as a unit when shit hits the fan. Afterwards though? It’s a tossup whether you have any idea what the guy you fought beside is on about. Something to do with their ba’buir’s blaster and a plate? Oh no, they meant their ba’buir’s tiingilar is hotter and yours doesn’t compare. Which. Fight me chakaar, my ba’buir makes the best tiingilar!

Developments in Modern Mando’a

The Return — Yaim’ol

The Return was a movement during the tail end and after the New Sith Wars, began by Mandalore the Uniter, urging Mandalorian diaspora across the galaxy to return to their homeworld. Under their rule, Mandalorian space thrived, emerging as a regional power in the Outer Rim. This time period (commonly given as beginning with Mandalore the Uniter's ascension in 1051 BBY and ending with the Mandalorian Excision in 738 BBY) is characterized by economic growth, technological innovation, and cultural renaissance.

I like to think of it as a sort of a Mandalorian Renaissance: a period of flourishing but also of romanticisation of Mandalore’s great past. And I like think that during this period, that romanticism would have creeped into the language as well. Many ancient epics were resurrected; old philosophical concepts were re-examined and given new interpretations; archaic words were brought back; traditional names given again; many Basic or Huttese loanwords replaced by native coinages in schoolbooks and dictionaries (these would be the inkhorn terms of Mando’a).

The Mandalorian Excision — Dral’Han

A significant linguistic influence here would have been the Republic’s caretaker government. Especially the faction (that would later become the New Mandalorians) who chose to work with the Republic, would acquire a lot of new vocabulary for Republic-inspired legal and cultural concepts, and also just Basic loanwords. Other factions of Mandalorians detest any whiff of Republic influence and will straight up pretend not to understand you if you use Basic loanwords. There might be some influence from Basic on the phonology of the dialects of the city-dwelling New Mandalorians too: for example, /φ/ changing to /f/, /p t k/ acquiring aspirations, /ɾ/ moving towards /ɹ/.

Various diasporas

Like, Mandalorians have had them aplenty. And there are clans who haven’t been to Mandalore in generations. One extreme of Mandalorian dialect continuum might be the farmers of Concordia or Concord Dawn—but the other are the Outer Rim clans, whose vocabulary seems to be 50% Huttese corruptions. Many mandos, especially if they work outside of Mandalorian space, speak fluent Huttese and understand them just fine. Characters like the princesses Kryze probably don’t; certainly they wouldn’t be caught dead using such slang.

I’ve almost no understanding of linguistics. But this post and also @thefoundationproject ‘s fics, which include bits about how the Journeyman Protector dialect might be related to Standard Mando’a, have me trying to hypothesize Mandalorian language trees. based on what we know about Mandalorian history.

I KNOW some of you are language nerds and I also did this in fifteen minutes please yell at me about your own headcanons and also about everything I got wrong/missed/forgot. It would be cool to turn it into a real graph to reference eventually (:

#mandalorian headcanons #mando’a #mandoa #star wars #meta: mandalorians #mandalorian culture #mando’a language #mandalorians #mando'a #star wars meta #meta: mando’a #mando’a history

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phoenixyfriend · 2 years ago

Text

SW Masterlist: Discourse

Navigation Post

Fun fact, tumblr allows 250 links on the old editor and 100 in the new. So. Network of masterlists

This one is organized as:

Mandalore - Traditional Mandalorians - New Mandalorians

Anidala and the Tuskens Massacre

Jedi

Other

Have some maps, btw.

MANDALORE

Traditional Mandos (True and Death Watch)

Timeline/Explanation of the True Mandalorians

True Mando Discourse/True Mandos did shoot first (etc.) - Jango gave the order to do so - The American Militia comparison

Are the True Mandalorians canon again since Jaster was name-dropped in The Mandalorian? (Short answer: no.)

Traditional Mandalore and the American Far Right - Why gun control? - The Doylist racism - More about the racism

The whitewashing that affected the clones and all of New Mandalore was also applied to the True Mandalorians, and to judge New Mandalore for their wholly white presentation without judging the True Mandalorians is a problem (with screenshots)

Traditional Mandalorians through the lens of the devsirme

Jango did a genocide (and the only way to make him unaware is to strip him of the Legends backstory that has him as former Mand’alor)

Quick checklist of diversity of True Mandos (as shown in Open Seasons) vs New Mandos (as shown in TCW)

The canonicity of anti-slavery trad mandos is... questionable

When fic takes “Mandalorians are good with children” to unreasonable degrees.

Mandalorian Empire through the lens of Ancient Rome

Don’t Make Me Tap The Sign meme

New Mandos

Satine’s handling of Mando’a (Death Watch Propaganda)

Maybe Satine had a Point

Padme and Satine - Just Satine

Satine is the equivalent of a 70s anti-Vietnam-War protestor (

This war could have been an email

Satine’s policies (and attitude towards child-rearing) as influenced by her traumas

What did Satine even do in canon that could be considered cultural genocide as claimed by fanon? - This one has more iterations - Mandalore’s Bernie Sanders (edit by @personontheswing) - Why Mandalore fell

“Obi-Wan is better at Mandalorian stuff than Satine” mmmm no

Satine is the sitcom mom of Mandalorian politics - Follow-up

Why “Satine should have been a villain” really gets my goat. (stats) - Other version

Hot Take: Satine Kryze should have been a woman of color - All of New Mandalore should have been more diverse

The Britain comparison

TFW Satine and Obi-Wan’s approach to parting at the end of their year together is reversed solely to make Satine seem less suited to Obi-Wan

The MandalMotors accusation

Canon Satine vs Fanon Satine

Satine and Tarre?

Best alt name for Duke Kryze (because of the cultural appropriation) poll

Retconning the domestic bliss for Anidala vs retconning the New Mandalorians as cultural genocide

Stop flipping and worsening the Obitine dynamic just so you can pretend your preferred shipmate for him is better than Satine because they ‘understand’ him better.

Why did Satine need to “learn” to compromise, exactly?

Reasons and ways we disregard canon

You know she doesn’t have to be an Evil Bitch Ex, right? She can just be dead.

ANIDALA and TUSKENS MASSACRE

The acceptable amount of baby murder is None

Padme’s not actually the most rational person here

And yeah she’s kinda racist

And that racism parallels history

Who was she supposed to tell? (Obi-Wan. She was supposed to tell Obi-Wan) - The absolute coldest take

“The Jedi wouldn’t understand.”

Anakin’s Slippery Slope to Baby Murder (Take One) Alt title for this post is: Anakin grabbed a sled to the slippery slope

Torture had something to do with it

Padme is a train wreck and that’s what makes her fun, fight me

“Padme deserves better” is wrong because as far as Padme is concerned, ‘better’ does not exist. Anakin got full marks, it’s just that Padme’s rubric is different from basically anyone else’s. “Better” is just an Anakin who didn’t help overthrow democracy.

A rant on my hate for “Anakin mindcontrolled Padme into loving him”

A touch on Padme Characterization

Writing Nuance

All said, Anakin/Consequences is actually a red flag - And I hate It

JEDI

What are the Jedi bringing balance to

Not enough Jedi for the whole galaxy - And held up to unrealistic standards - Prioritizing Shmi could have been justified without favoritism (but doesn’t really matter)

Why did Qui-Gon bring Anakin to Naboo?

The Jedi lost their way

Jedi crit cannot exist in a vacuum

How are you defining this word that is central to the argument?

Ruusan Reformation

The question of finance

Jedi don’t do excommunication in any but the absolute most extreme cases (and if someone is going full Sith Lord, like Tyranus or Vader, they’ve usually already left voluntarily)

Hot take: Qui-Gon’s survival would have contributed to keeping Anakin stable and not prone to attachment.

The Amatonormativity of fandom

“Why didn’t the Jedi help Shmi?” Why didn’t Padme. - Addendum

This isn’t discourse I just really love Ahsoka

How old is Quinlan, anyway?

The question of writing Barriss

I need a visual timeline of the Jedi Council

Why I don’t post Jedi Crit, even if I sometimes think it

Where did the "Obi-Wan's parents tried to drown him in a river" headcanon even come from?

Why is Star Wars fandom not telling us that the reason Qui-Gon didn’t go back for Obi-Wan on Melida/Daan was that Xanatos was trying to kill green grandpa?

How real-world traumas wrt immigration inform our interactions with the idea of Jedi being asked ‘but where are you from?’ - Contribution from another

Trying to figure out where I got Those Assumptions about the Traviss TCW novel from

Other

Flavors of Discourse

I think the GAR being only three million clones actually does make sense, even for space.

Boba’s (almost) war crime

What even is a war crime - We don’t care

Filoni only knows how to tell one kind of story

Why do people write Rex not liking Anakin as a person?

Cliegg/Shmi can be viewed as a frontier marriage

The best flavor of “Anakin gets left on Tatooine”

Devaronian girls deserve horns too

Cloneshipping - Yes, that size kink can be racist

In Defense of Clonecest

TCW and portrayal of the Separatists

Ship Tomato

All Age Difference Codywan comes back to me (this isn’t true but it is related to a plagiarism scandal, don’t worry about it)

Stewjon as Space Scotland

Shipping got in the way of my plan

Retraction of an assumption I had about a scene with Kitster and Anakin

Why is it admirable for the twins to treat R2 like a real person and recognize his apparent sentience, but Anakin doing the same is him “not valuing the lives of clones”

That one plagiarism situation

(I wasn’t thinking of it as one because I wanted to give the benefit of the doubt but I shared to a friend who is usually good about giving me reality checks and was informed that “No they fully plagiarized your ass.” So. There’s that.)

My original au post

The first time someone told me about the fic it (allegedly) inspired - I do know one person (just one) went in and left a comment to ask, but never got an answer

I recced one of their other fics, which I had enjoyed a lot, and an anon asked me if I was reccing someone that had used one of my fic concepts without permission.

Finding out they have a tumblr, from someone who had put them on a do-not-read list because they found the situation too sketchy

All Age Diff Codywan Leads Back to Nixy (AKA I sent an ask to test the waters, dug a bit, and was thus informed that I did inspire the fic, though it was a different post, but that ‘modern au codywan is so common that it’s not like credit is needed. I reblogged with a meme in hopes that it would be a polite, lighthearted way to indicate they should still maybe add a credit link in an A/N)

About two months after that, I found that they had deleted their tumblr, added the fic to a hidden collection so it could no longer be accessed, and blocked me on AO3.

So who knows what the situation even is anymore, but that is the process. Mostly it’s just been very frustrating and a little baffling because. It could have all been resolved with a single sentence. Just one “this fic was inspired by these posts on tumblr” in an A/N, and nobody would have cared.

#phoenix posts #star wars #masterposts #Discourse

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forever-rogue · 2 years ago

Note

In regards to the whole name thing, my OC calls him Djarin only when he’s “in trouble” or she’s teasing him. The rest of the time she calls him Din, and the same thing applies to her. He calls her Denara only when he’s teasing her and calls her Bellia the rest of the time. Well, most of the time he calls her “Cyare” which is the Mando’a word for “Beloved”, but yeah. His first name is Din and her first name is Bellia, that’s just how it is.

I know in China for a while the family name came first. Like in Mulan, her name is Fa Mulan on paper, but her first name is Mulan, and how Shang is Li Shang because his family name is Li. Still feels weird tho, so I refuse to accept it and will retcon it if the time comes when it’s confirmed confirmed that Din is his last name

it's definitely too late for them to do this to us after we've been calling him din for so long! i mean, either way it's not wrong to call him that but i still think of it as a first name :)

they will always be din and grogu to me (or dinner plate and greg as they are affectionately known in my mind)!

#˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ mail call

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nibeul · 4 years ago

Note

Please I want to know more about your clones 🤔🤔

I am so late to responding to this but GLADLY!! I love gushing about them though I have so many (like 50 I think) so I will try to stick to my main group ahh :)

Cross (he/him): Cross was my first clone OC ever, so he holds a very special place in my heart even if I do not draw him often enough. He’s a commander (CC-0044) and was present on Geonosis, though later returned to Kamino to help Alpha with the CC training program.

He got his scar in 21BBY and it’s actually not from the battlefield (none of his scars are actually from the battlefield). The scar comes from being whipped by a lightsaber hilt, which sounds funny out of context, but it wasn’t an accident.

He’s batchmates with @katanrocksketches ‘s OC Asch! The two were pretty close when they were in training, and Cross got his name before leaving Kamino. It was given to him because of his kind of uhhh, “cross nature” or disposition pfft. He softens up a bit between 22BBY-20BBY though the walls go up again after that :’)

Coming off Kamino, he was a stickler for rules and was not a big fan of clones tattooing themselves/dying their hair and whatnot (he didn’t even like having a name at first though his batchmates used it enough that it begrudgingly stuck). After meeting Sunny though, he lets him do one tattoo and ends up getting his number underneath his left eye. It is like, staying to how he believes they should be while also accepting that it’s ok to be individual.

Cross’s favorite color is red because for him, red represents Ando (my Padawan OC) and they are very close (NOT IN A ROMANTIC WAY. He sees Ando as his little brother or kih’vod to protect).

Cross actually does not know a lot of Mando’a because of his belief that they should not try to be seen as individuals. He distanced himself from anything that he considered “individualization”, and Mando’a was included in that. Sunny teaches him a little bit later down the line, and Ando also teaches him and Ten (another clone OC of mine) some Togruti, too

Part of Cross’s strict disposition comes from being subject to Priest’s death circles on more than one occasion (I might retcon that to Adral—a mando OC of mine—because I hate KT Ugh).

By the end of the war, he carries a lot of guilt. He loses a lot of the people he’s closest to because of his actions/orders, and he uh. Doesn’t live past O66 :’) he does get a very quick.. redemption.. arc.. kinda..

Sunny (he/him): Sunny was my second clone OC made around the same time as Cross, and he also holds a very special place in my heart :) I really love clone medics, there is just something about them that makes my brain go brrrr. I also think the irony of his name is great

Sunny’s name was originally Sers, but after writing him for a few weeks, I changed it because I thought Sunny fit better. His name was given to him by his batchmate, Aran, and while he vehemently protested against it, the name ended up sticking. He won’t admit that he actually likes it (though the tattoo and painting of his armor say otherwise anyway)

Sunny is the CMO of the 409th Corps (my OC military group basically). He’s a Lieutenant (or at a rank around there, definitely a CO at the least) and he does not back down. Ever. Even the people who outrank him will fall into line if he tells them to, Jedi included. He is not afraid to pull rank as a Medic, and his resting bitch face can be very scary

On the same line of thought as the rbf, he is basically perpetually scowling. He does not look approachable at all

Sunny loses the entirety of his batch on Geonosis, including Aran who he holds onto while he is dying. The Jedi leading Sunny’s company was.. not accustomed to war and failed to adapt when it was needed. Because of this, Sunny doesn’t necessarily harbor a dislike of Jedi, though he does not really trust many of them in leading positions. He also does not like that there are kids being put in the role of commander, he does see many Padawan deaths (he later comforts a dying Padawan that he was close to, I think I wrote part of that scene for myself and it was kinda upsetting oof) —> he gets his tattoo/paints his armor in order to honor his dead batchmates

Throughout the war, Sunny gets seriously injured only once after going down in an LAAT (where he nearly ends up dying too). Boost finds him, though he’s kinda accepted that he’s not gonna make it (I mean he does but it doesn’t look like he will for a bit). After Flip (younger clone OC) dies, he doesn’t really care if he kicks the bucket either :’)

Sunny is the only one out of my main gang to make it past O66. His chip doesn’t work at all, though he has to fight through his brothers (aha, the only ones who are still alive that he is close with) in order to save a Jedi youngling that was in the medbay at the time. After that, he goes on the run with the kid (clone dad clone dad) and offers his services as a doctor in the outer rim in order to keep them afloat

Boost (he/him) (she/her) [either or, there is no real preference]: Boost has gone through a lot of changes design wise. He started out as Dax, but then Dax became another OC, then she was Boost, though she had kinda short hair that was pushed back by a headband, then his hair was buzzed, and now we are finally at long hair Boost. Idk how to describe, but she is very shaped I think

Boost for his nickname from bear hugging his batchmates and lifting them off the ground when doing so. Also from fucking around in training where he threw another one of his batchmates in order to get from one ledge to another. All around just a name with silly origins that she liked and decided to keep

Boost and Sol are batchmates!

Boost is very tactically intelligent. She’s good at thinking on her feet, sees the bigger picture before focusing on details, good problem solver, etc. He is an ARC after all, there is good reason for his status and rank as a Lieutenant. That being said, he can also be very very stupid in the sense that off the battlefield, he’s oblivious. He does enjoy being the jokester of the group, and he sometimes plays up his dumbassery for jest, though yeah, a lot of people assume that he is not smart because of his demeanor which is very wrong

Boost is terrible. Terrible at braiding her hair. Sol is the best at braiding it, though she would never admit that even if everyone knows it. He started growing his hair out once they were off Kamino and hasn’t stopped since despite the fact that is technically not within regulations. Cross turns a blind eye and Ko (Jedi General) could not care less for inconsequential regulations like that

Boost is really good with kids, but good in the way a uhh.. chaotic uncle/auntie is. He’s a lot of fun to be around with, and being around kids makes him even more rambunctious than usual. He can be what is considered “childish”, pulling pranks and everything but like, he is very emotionally mature and knows when to be serious. Again, a lot of people kinda just boil her down to “dumb” which is really wrong, though it doesn’t bug him a lot.

Boost has a big sweet tooth!! He loves getting sweets when they’re on Coruscant, which they actually tend to visit frequently enough because of Ko’s status as a Sentinel (and also because Ko benefits what the Republic sees as the “propaganda machine” as a prominent General with a good track record).

Boost is romantically involved with @buttsalsa ‘s civilian OC Esta. I reblogged some art of them the other day, they are very cute :D

Boost doesn’t make it to Order 66 :’) I actually wrote out his death and cried after going back to read it LMAO It was rough

Sol (he/him): Sol was made as a package deal with Boost, and I feel bad because I think he gets overshadowed a lot but he is kinda like the rock for the group. When he dies, things really start to crumble but uh!! That is a sad thought for another time. Anyways, like I said, he is basically the rock and also a voice of reason for Boost’s shenanigans

Sol got his nickname after reading through some flimsi that their trainer had given him. He didn’t know if it had any meaning, but he liked the way it sounded and immediately began using it. Boost quickly picked up on it and the rest of their batch was very supportive

Sol loves reading. He specifically likes reading history, and Ando slips him what he can (fun fact, when Sol dies, Boost returns to their bunk to find a couple of holobooks that Ando had left and breaks down aha.. pain). Whenever he doesn’t feel like keeping Boost from causing trouble, he just sits in a quiet corner and reads his books while everything erupts in chaos around him

Sol’s favorite beverage is tea which Ko introduced him to. He has a few boxes he keeps with him when he can, and he shares them with Boost sometimes though he has to add a lot of sugar/honey in order to do that. If he could drink tea all the time, he could. On the flipside, he absolutely loathes coffee and doesn’t understand how Sunny can drink multiple cups on a day

Sol is kinda like the person that everyone is friends with even if they don’t realize it. He’s like.. the perfect emotional pillar, kinda the therapist friend in a group that desperately needs therapy. He’s more of a listener than a talker which is why it’s easy to overlook him, but he insists that he doesn’t mind much. That being said, it’s only once he’s gone that people start to realize just how much he did (aside from Boost who already thought the world of him)

Sol is also an ARC trooper, having gone through the training program together with Boost. He doesn’t have the same tactical knowledge that Boost does, but he’s good at mediating, long range combat, and also working through plans (he’s pretty meticulous). He and Boost balance each other out well, since he is like the “slow and steady” one out of them.

Sol is the first to go out of the main four (second out of my bigger group of six). He and his entire platoon are wiped out in a massacre as a result of false intel.. man :’)

Anyways, thank you for enabling to ramble about my ocs ToT I honestly just needed to infodump shdjf

#clone ocs #infodump #tcw ocs #tumblr ask

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ranahan · 1 year ago

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What I would have done differently

Nobody asked, but I was thinking about this the other day so you get it anyway. I think I’ve mentioned previously that I’ve reused parts of an old conlang project that happened to have basically identical design goals for my version of Mando’a. So I got to thinking, what were the bits that didn’t make the jump to Mando’a? Or in other words: what did I do so differently it wasn’t compatible with canon?

To be clear, these are just idle musings about conlanging, not a serious proposal to make changes to Mando’a.

More elaborate pronoun system

My conlang had a more elaborate pronoun system inspired by Sámi and Polynesian languages.

Singular, dual (for battle buddies), and plural number

Obviate, distal, and further distal pronouns (like English this, that, yonder)

I don’t know if mandos make heavy enough use of the battle buddy system to justify the dual number, so no hard feelings about that. But I am a little disappointed about tossing the obviate/distal/further distal distinction—that would seem like a really handy feature for discussing e.g. terrain or strategy, or a handy way to distinguish between multiple people that isn’t gender. Imagine if English she/he/they (sg.), but she referred to somebody standing close by, he referred so somebody a little further away, and they referred to somebody who isn’t present. My conlang actually had this distinction in basically all persons, but that’s another story because some of the combinations are not intuitive.

Also considering how much time mandos devote to squabbling about who is or isn’t a proper Mandalorian, you’d think Traviss would have given them an inclusive/exclusive “we” distinction like Polynesian languages, lol. But maybe it’s better that they don’t have it.

Absolute direction

Cardinal directions (north/south/west/east) instead of left/right. Some aboriginal Australian languages have this feature and it’s extremely cool. But while it made sense for a language spoken by outdoorsy people on Earth, I’m less sure about using it for spacefaring Mandalorians, since there are no cardinal directions in space.

I did however, retcon it in a bit. Mando’a has two sets of left/right words: staabi/payt and kad/kal. So if you use kad/kal for armour pieces, presumably you would also use it for hands (since that’s where it comes from: sword arm and blade arm, since apparently mandos don’t do shields lol) and other parts of a person. So what would you use staabi/payt for then? I thought that could be starboard/port, which is basically absolute direction on shipboard. It could even be extended for buildings etc (absolute orientation relative to the main entrance—or just use cardinal directions). So basically a person has a swordarm and a sidearm side that are relative to them, but they’re going to take a bow/stern/staabi/payt turn inside a ship, and that’s always going to be the ship’s bow/stern/starboard/port of the ship, not theirs.

tldr: I found it a little odd that there are two left and right words in Mando’a, but I think that could be explained by mandos being a nomadic culture and using starboard/port more often and for more things than e.g. English does. Also fun opportunities for “lost in translation” moments, lol.

Aspects

My language had essentially a four-way verbal conjugation, where each verb was marked for stative or progressive and atelic or telic aspect (and you might already guess, but adjectives were actually just one conjugation of verbs). Time was marked by adverbs.

Progressive vs. static aspect—compare “I’m dressing up” vs. “I’m dressed”/“I’m wearing (it)”.

Completive/telic aspect—marking task completion, compare “I shot at the bear (but the bear may still live)” vs. “I shot the bear dead”.

I don’t think having a few conjugations would add that much complexity to the grammar. Kind of the contrary, actually: you need some way to express these things anyway, so I find encoding them in the verb phrase to be a rather simple solution. The progressive/static aspect can also shoulder some lexical load, allowing you to make double use of some verbs (like dress/wear being expressed by the same verb).

I wouldn’t do aspects exactly the same way in Mando’a as I did them in my old conlang. But I would perhaps add a preverbal or sentence final completive particle (like in some creole languages) and some easy and common way to talk about non-punctual aspect (probably a locative expression).

#mando’a #mandoa #mando’a language #mando'a #conlang #conlanging #ranah talks mando’a

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no-droids · 5 years ago

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whats up your not-twin here to say im glad youre back and safe!I adore the drabble you just did for Din saying "I love you" in Mando'a but you've also activated my trap card here and im sorry but So we know the mandos of Din's era follow at least one of the main parts of the mandalorian creed we know, being "wear armor."Speaking Mando'a is right up there too, and you got me thinking about how a foundling fleeing the empire wouldn't speak it that well yet and would never get to and it made me sad

omg honestly I think that makes quite a bit of sense for Din BUT HERES THE THING ABOUT HIM

HES SUCH AN ENIGMA

he’s always so RESERVED and unwilling to share practically anything about himself unless it’s situationally necessary. We didn’t learn his name until someone else said it and he confirmed it, we didn’t know he was multilingual until he spoke Jawa and the Tuskan sign language, we didn’t know SHIT about him unless somebody else was there to spurn a situation in which Din’s desire for privacy is suddenly outweighed by the conflict he finds himself in

So if Din DOES speak Mando’a, canonically, we probably won’t actually know about that shit until it’s necessary for us to know. And honestly I kinda dig that style of writing because it makes the protagonist almost disconnected from the audience, and I’d argue we know more about side characters and their backstories than we do about the two leads which then makes them 5000x more compelling and interesting. It’s also a blast to write because as an author you get to take so many liberties with characterization if only because the show itself purposefully leaves blank spaces. It’s one of the reasons I was so hesitant to actually include Mando’s real name in this story until it was confirmed in e8, because I know a lot of authors had to go back and change the spelling from Dyn to Din and all that stuff and I didn’t want to have to retcon my fic

Also I just wanna take the time to say that season 2 will probably be very different from the first season and that I might sprinkle in some new information we get as the episodes drop, but I won’t outright contradict my story. Which is gonna be tough, but I’ll TRY lmfaoo so if Mando shows up in the cold open of s2 e1 and speaks perfect mando’a or admits he DOESNT speak it at all, I genuinely apologize

while I’m here and on this subject, I tend to see a lot of mando stans trying to predict how this next season is gonna go and spitball Mando culture based off info we got from the clone wars and rebels and stuff, but honestly I think this show is a whole different ballgame and I’m hesitant to agree when I see people say things like “Din is gonna keep his helmet off around baby yoda now that they’re part of the same clan 🥺🥺” and stuff like that’s such a lovely sentiment and sweet and incredibly optimistic but we don’t actually know much at all about mando’s creed. We technically don’t actually know ANYTHING about the Star Wars universe during this time period, it’s the first piece of media that shows the galaxy after the empire’s fall but before the rise of the first order. It’s great from a fanfic perspective because more mystery means more places to insert your own creativity but I just wanted to put it out there that I’m not attempting to assert anything about the show by the way I write my fic. I’m not claiming that the way mando acts in rough day is canon or that any of the lore I’ve taken the liberty of coming up with is true. IM JUST AS CLUELESS SO ROUGH DAY IS ALWAYS JUST GONNA BE A CULMINATION OF THINGS THAT MAKE SENSE TO ME REGARDLESS OF HOW THEY END UP HAPPENING IN THE MANDALORIAN

jfc I did not mean to ramble so much I am so sorry LOLLLL

#ask #anon

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hauntedfalcon · 5 years ago

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the first season of The Mandalorian gave us about half of the Resol’nare, which is presumably the same as the Creed because there’s not much reason to retcon that:

obvs, Din’s commitment to wearing the armor, self-defense, and the clan is total and above reproach

so if there’s anything I would want from season two, it’s the other half of the Six Actions. I want to see him raise his kid Mandalorian even though the Armorer doesn’t think Yodito could hack it. I want to see who is Mand’alor without Mandalore

and most importantly let him speak Mando’a

#Star Wars for ts #The Mandalorian

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kara-akaane · 1 year ago

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Vode An is actually really interesting cause it was written before mando’a as a language was developed so when Karen Travis first developed mando’a, she used that song as a basis.

So the song like is mando’a, really the first use of mando’a, but it’s also kinda not as the grammar rules and wider language didn’t exist yet. From what I’ve picked up, I think this was some what retconned as songs just not caring about grammar as much in favor of sounding better

In the song it looks like you’re right, they use motir as a noun meaning ‘enemies/those standing before us’. Specifically, the line is “motir ca’tra nau tracinya” or “those standing before us lite the nightsky aflame” with nau being lite, tracinya being flame/aflame, and ca’tra being nightsky which leaves motir to mean “those standing before us” (tho the us could just be implied as pronouns are sometimes dropped in mando’a). Cause “those standing before us” is the subject and subjects have to have nouns, that leaves motir as having to act as a noun in this case.

Both mandocreator and mandoa.org define motir like you would a verb as ‘to stand’ which threw me off when I was translating and im not 100% sure if verbs can/ when they can be treated as nouns in non-sung mando’a. It might just be something that was cut out in later versions of the language but again, I’m not sure.

But also, especially with Disney really only using mando’a for like background noise at most, mando’a is really a fun fan run conlang so you can kinda do whatever lol

If it were me, I’d have translated ‘may the enemies standing before/blocking us know the burning wrath of the blade and die’ as “vercopao aru’e ibac ara’novo mhi kar’tayli a’den hettyc be te kal bal ash’amur” but word order is a bitch and I’m not 100% confident in the wording of that first clause, so I’d probably have simplified the sentence to “vercopao cuun aru’e kar’tayli a’den hettyc be te kal bal ash’amur”

Medieval fantasy AU

(My goodness, I got a bit carried away. Actually spent an hour trying to learn mando’a grammar.)

Transcription: Vercopaö aru’e cuun motir kar’taylir a’den hettyc be te kal bal ash’amur

#but like again do as you please mando’a is just a fun sandbox we all play in #also I linked to the yt channel I used to first learn mando’a grammar #cause that’s were I got the facts for the first sentence and also cause it’s very helpful #mando’a #going over mando’a always makes me feel a little stupid as I realize I’m not confident in more complex grammar rules lol #like I instinctively know how to use complex grammar rules in English but I couldn’t tell you what they are called #like I never need to id what’s a subject and an object to use them in English so needing to know which is which for this can be hard lol #and like complex verb conjugations and making verbs nouns or vice versa is so second nature it’s hard to actively think about #my post

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trudemaethien · 3 years ago

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"sweetie cutie pie meow meow"? Or if that one's already been asked, "as a braid, woven"?

😍 you can have both

so the first is a very short file which involves Torrent company hijinks and giggling and actual meowing. Because I’m me, it is Dogma-centric; also it is written in Russian as practice! this is how meow meow is spelled in cyrillic

«мяу мяу»

AABW on the other hand is a mando’a-heavy nonchronological bobadinluke I started after Mando S1 which has now been retconned to smithereens and which i may or may not ever finish.

#ask meme #ask answered #tru babble #russian language #torrent company #bobadinluke

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justkeeponsimming · 7 years ago

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Oh shoot. Does this mean 12 facts? Uhhhh...

♥ I spend at least one or two hours a day working on my queue. I’m obsessed. I’ve worked out I put as much time into this as a Youtube channel! ♥ I have a degree in political journalism and I graduated university in 2013! ♥ I speak a few languages (badly) - German, French and British Sign Language! ♥ I am allergic to chocolate! ♥ I am Nickelback’s number one fan and their only fan! ♥ I’ve completed the Pokedex (Pokemon X, but it still counts!) ♥ I learned to speak Mando’a, then disney retconned the star wars language! @trenchcoat-gentleman feels my pain of this! All the years of RP gone! ♥ I’m a Gemini! ♥ I’m also a muggle and have never gotten into Harry Potter! ♥ My favourite holiday is Bonfire Night! ♥ I’m addicted to tea. If I go to a pub, my friends drink alcohol, I have tea! ♥ It’s aubergine, not eggplant!

Edit; I also can’t count, so have 13 facts!

#non-sims #text post #saviorhide #personal #get to know the blogger #even though I'm boring!

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trudemaethien · 3 years ago

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💋🦅 and ✅

💋 First kiss fics. Love em or hate em?

I do read those fics, so that’s a good sign I don’t dislike them entirely, but I really despise “they lived happily ever after” endings, especially if the happiness is all due to ✨romance!✨ But I do very much enjoy that first acknowledgment of feelings between people, that first contact. 10/10 excellent moments. So I should say, love em, conditionally.

🦅 Do you outline fics or fly by the seat of your pants?

Ha haha hahahhaha

Yes.

(By this I mean, yes, I do scribble outlines for anything longer than say, 7-10k, and then I sniff haughtily at the outlines like a cat that ignores their fancy cat-tree and fits/sits in a cardboard box it came in instead.)

I cause myself a lot of pain this way, because I am constitutionally incapable of writing chronologically. And since my outlines are suggestions at best, I end up with a lot of plot holes and retconning bullshit. But it also lets me be creative so! I’m winning.

✅ What's something that appears in your fics over and over and over again, even if you don't mean to?

My ex-cult social/sexual/religious issues. 😅

I mean, I try not to be too repetitious, so when I notice a specific scenario, joke, or dialogue exchange happening for the second time, I make a mental note not to use that again? I’m okay with twice.

Hmm, my favorite stupid thing to reuse is a mando’a word I put together, kih’ad—small child/person, being pronounced like “kid” so it continues to mean the same thing in Basic/English.

Thanks for asking! From this ask game.

#ask meme #answered meme #writing advice #first kiss #outline #cult mention #mando’a #star wars

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bosooka · 5 years ago

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KT was so caught up in making a perfect culture to combat the evil hurrdurr Jedi that she made a culture of hat warriors. There’s a reason the term “Mando-sue” exists. Sure, her Mandos are cool--to an extent. She bends the fuck over backwards to make Mandos perfect in her (white, right-wing female) eyes. They don’t care about the Mandalorian Civil War (because she never bothered to read Open Seasons, and she thinks caring about politics, outside her own bigotry, is for simpletons); Rape is the worst crime that can be committed in Mandalorian society, but many Mandos happily work for spice dealers and slavers. This is without getting into her weird internalized misogyny that she somehow managed to insert into her conlang, which pisses me off on at least ten different levels.

The Jedi are bad because they steal children (they don’t), because they don’t care about the clones (also not true), because they’re elitist assholes (this doesn’t even deserve a response), but all of these traits...are shared by many Mandalorians. Crusaders LITERALLY stole children in Legends to indoctrinate them. Mandos DO think they’re better than everyone else, because they have their exclusive culture and sacred armor and can stand toe-to-toe with Jetiise.

Of course she threw a fit when Filoni and Lucas retconned her depiction of Mandalore: it was two-dimensional and reeked of her own opinions. What we’ve seen of D-canon Mando’ade is already more nuanced and complicated than everything we see in RC, and she couldn’t possibly stomach that.

Also: she should never have been given full control over Mando’a because it’s just a particularly complicated English cipher because she is not a linguist. It falls apart in seconds, it’s missing absolutely vital words, and I’m glad Rebels recanonized it (if badly) just so I don’t have to hold my nose while I work with it

Your blog is absolutely amazing and I really appreciate your work. I find it really frustrating being in the Prequels fandom because I love the Jedi and I love the Mandalorians, and for some reason so many Mandalorian fans absolutely hate the Jedi (and this seeps into otherwise excellent meta and stuff). Do you have any ideas on how to deal with this? Again, thanks so much for all your really impressive work.

Thank you!

I think the best way to deal with it is to create your own content, no matter whether that’s fanfiction, fanart, meta, whatever. There’s always going to be these uncharitable takes (and people of course have a right to their own interpretations of the material), no matter what, because everyone engages with the story differently, but these kind of things (misinformation and uncharitable attitudes regarding the Jedi) proliferate because there’s no real pushback against them.

Which is not to say you should go hunting down every person who says these kind of things to challenge them directly, that’d be rude. But to put your ideas out there, to defend that position if challenged on it...that’s the kind of pushback I mean. The best way to counter the prevalence of uncharitable takes is to offer a convincing alternative, and create a space for that alternative for those who have been looking for it. Because I guarantee that in a fandom this big, there are people who feel similarly to you.

And there’s definitely room for that when it comes to the Mandalorians and Jedi, because there are a lot of parallels between their cultures (just off the top of my head, being a culture of adoption - or as Din put it, “a creed, not a race”; there’s similarity between the valuation of kyber and beskar; apparently similar treatment from the Empire in the current continuity. Probably more parallels if you kept digging into it), so that’s a good starting point to explore as points of commonality rather than competition. Especially with The Mandalorian show pushing a connection between the two cultures through Din and the Child.

for some reason so many Mandalorian fans absolutely hate the Jedi

“Some reason”’s name is Karen Traviss, a virulently anti-Jedi (as in, she believes they deserved genocide and she compares Jedi fans to Nazis) author who wrote several books in the old EU, many of which focus on Mandalorians. A lot (though certainly not all) of Mandalorian fans really like the work she did to develop Mandalorian culture and show them off as hypercompetent warriors, and as such, her view on the Jedi informs a lot of what they enjoy about Star Wars.

#sw #meta #mando #anti kt

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knight-of-the-graces · 24 days ago

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~~~~~UNDER THE CUT~~~~~

Proto Mandalorian languages

Classical Mando’a

Old Mando’a / Archaic Mando’a (the early days of settling Mandalore) — 7000 BBY … ?

Crusader Mando’a / Classical Mando’a (the heyday of the Taung culture) — ? … 3980 BBY

Neo-Crusaders and Middle Mando’a

Neo-Crusaders and their effect on Mandalorian demographics

Let’s start with the who.

Mandalorian defeat on Malachor V

What happens to their armies? Let’s consider it from the point of view of a random Mandalorian recruit:

Middle Mando’a

Modern Mando’a

Developments in Modern Mando’a

The Return — Yaim’ol

The Mandalorian Excision — Dral’Han

Various diasporas

#star wars #star wars worldbuilding #mandalorians #mandalorian culture #mando'a #mandoa #mandalorian language #mando'a language #mandoa language #mandalorian history #mando'a history

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