#of people who say things like 'andor fixed rogue one'

[a-couple-of-notes]

Okay but the frustrating part of Andor is that I know it's good, I am happy it's good, and I am aware that that is a net positive for Rogue One and Star Wars in general - but I can't help but think that this will skew so many discussions of Jyn and Cassian's relationship (and, to an extent, Rogue One as a whole) to just be about how Andor reframes Cassian's feelings/actions. Like there's so much Cassian content now that Jyn will get lost.

And yeah, I know that's a little irrational, and no fault of the show at all. I also think it's very fun to talk about how Andor reframes our understanding of Cassian! But Jyn's so interesting in her own right. I wanna talk to people about how "her line about people not sticking around when things go bad is even MORE meaningful than it was before" and "now Jyn's bitterness toward the rebellion/Cassian makes so much more sense" because I don't think we talk about the fact that Cassian wasn't the only child soldier in that ship NEARLY enough

I guess I'm just saying - Jyn deserves her own show.

[falling-violet-petals]

As much as I love andor and rogue one for showing the banality and mercilessness of death (that one shot of a nameless dead man on the dirt of Ferrix in the season finale is amazing) a part of me wishes that Saw Gerrera would have survived just so we could get to see his reaction to Mon Mothma deciding to reestablish the republic as if it wasn't the very origin of the empire, especially after having seen Saw's "Human cultists. Galaxy partitionists. They're lost! All of them, lost!" line in Andor.

I just know there had to be a part of the former rebels that saw how going back to the republic that had allowed the empire to rise was the worst idea, people who like andor had been victims to the horrors and imperialism of that very republic long before it even took the name of "galactic empire", that there had to be people who knew that the first order was coming because it was the only thing the republic could possibly become.

I don't really like the sequel trilogy but I think it would be the most likely way for the resistance to have come to be, as a continuation of Saw's ideas. And it would be interesting to explore how Leia, former senator, daughter of a senator and friend of Mon Mothma, would realize the failure of neoliberalism and "democracy" and become so disillusioned with it that she would leave it and start anew in the resistance rather than keep trying to make a broken system work.

I'm honestly a bit surprised that Mon Mothma herself didn't reach that same conclusion. The scenes of her speaking in the Senate in Andor and having every word she says fall in deaf ears, the emptiness of it, the uselessness, it was just so jarring to see. None of it matters, none of it does anything, fixes anything. How anyone could see that and think that the only thing wrong with that system was the emperor sitting in the middle is beyond me.

But of course the sequels and post rebellion shows are what they are (a Disney-branded consumer product rather than a piece of art with a message) and instead of showing this very likely course of action for the birth of the resistance they chose to make it as devoid of real life inspirations and implications as possible (the new republic apparently is bad because... bureaucracy) and they instead redid the original trilogy without the context it originally had (Vietcong) because that had already proven to sell and was a guaranteed product and because delving into politics and showing a political message is too risky because you might lose your fascist costumers (that and because Disney itself is a monopolizing capitalist empire that has interests in enforcing imperialism).

Anyway I love Andor and Rogue one they are the best star wars by far I need more shows and films by people who actually do their research when they write about revolutions and who aren't afraid of hearing the word politics.

[jyndor]

I'm so sorry you've become the blog for andor discourse 😬 can I just say it's surprising nobody is talking about how white this cast and crew is? yea diego is the lead and there are still some poc in the cast (and as you've said a lot of the black characters die) my issues with the show can be blamed on the creative team. for example maarva is something a lot of people have said they have problems with and I think an indigenous, latinx, or black writer might have taken a different route or chosen to keep cassian with his birth family.

lmao anon naur I am definitely not Theee Blog for Andor Discourse there are plenty of people blogging about it.

but yeah I 10000000% agree. Andor is INCREDIBLY white. On screen and off screen.

I mean Diego is a white Latino, even if that means he's racialized weirdly in the US for Racialization Works Differently In Different Places reasons - I mean I am not equipped to delve into this and I don't think anyone needs to hear it from me LOL. But he is Cassian so lol I mean I doubt anyones gonna be mad at him for playing Cassian since he plays him in Rogue One 🤣 although there were idiots saying he was miscast bc he's idk too old which ... LOL he PLAYED CASSIAN IN ROGUE ONE.

But they could have easily fixed how white the show feels by A) not focusing so much on Mon Mothma and like idk the wealthy Coruscanti upper class, B) keeping Cassian's old backstory lbr lol but even if they wanted to change Fest to Kenari (😡)... let Cassian have his birth family, write an indigenous mother and father* who they are clearly trying to represent to some extent, and maybe even still tell the immigrant's story with the use of diaspora - have Cassian and his family move away from home. Instead of writing his mother as a white woman coded as being from the Global North who has STOLEN an indigenous child. Idk I'm really not the person to come up with that story, it's not for me.

As for Clem, that gets to what you're saying about how like all of the Black characters die. I've talked about how it seems like all of the dark skinned Black men die in violent ways but with relatively little fanfare in comparison to white characters. Clem has the most time spent in his death, but even then he is fucking hanged (and thank God they barely showed it jfc) and it's in service of a non-Black character's story. Darker skinned characters in general get less dialogue, less screen time and experience more direct trauma than lighter skinned characters. I know, I know - something something that's the point that's how fascism and racism works. Yeah but does anyone really think these white guy writers are the ones who should be telling that story?

Idk I think there's a good argument for showing how the harm done by imperialism and fascism differs for different people but again it's also like... yeah Black people should have been in the room in order to prevent anti-Blackness. Indigenous people - especially Nahuatl people and Sami (for Aldhani) people should have been in the room to make sure the show handles the characters who are clearly inspired by their cultures well.

And yeah I can't help it, Bix's treatment was not great imo. I get the point of it, but I wonder about how much it would have helped to have a diverse writers room. Maybe she would have still been tortured, and frankly I don't need the empire's crimes sanitized? but something about that scene rubs me wrong - probably because her s1 arc does revolve around the men in her life. not like some bullshit "cassian is to blame for her getting tortured" take but it isn't about her story. It's about his.

Anyway I think many times the show does things really well but yeah their treatment of Black characters especially? Rancid.

*this is still Messy as fuck want to clarify that. Diego isnt indigenous so like ??? but whatever lmfao just bring back fest tbh

[lesbianrobin]

do you have any star wars opinion u would like to share omg i love hearing ur stranger things opinions and you are so right about them i think it’d be fun to hear your star wars ones. even if you’re not really into star wars like it’d still be funny i think.

+ also my sister has a heart-shaped mini waffle maker and it’s so cute😭🫶🏻 we used to have a waffle maker that got a full clover like 4 hearts that we would separate when we were little. fun tangent to get into but my mom has a Thing for bakery apparel she literally bought so many waffle makers over the course of her life. like i’m saying this for the years i can remember we’ve got at least 6 “new” ones.

(also last thing i promise just wanted to let you know on your ask box title is too long on mobile you can only see the beginning and end with suspension dots in the middle. like you can guess what it says but yeah😭)

ok first of all im so sorry for taking so long but anyway HI i fixed my ask box title thank you for letting me know <3 and omg i have so many star wars opinions idk where to start so i'll just drop some random ones. SPOILERS FOR LIKE THE WHOLE STAR WARS FRANCHISE HERE WARNING.

basically every modern use of luke skywalker in star wars is ooc as fuck. like the luke of the original trilogy just straight up is not the same guy as the luke of the sequel trilogy or the mandalorian. he got bodysnatched at some point.

the prequels are bad like genuinely all three of them are so bad not only as star wars movies but as films in general. if you still enjoy them like sure have fun yknow i liked parts of them but when people try to argue that they're Good Actually that is insane.

rogue one is the best star wars movie outside of the original trilogy. like no contest. it doesn't try to rely on nostalgia or cgi or obvious parallels to the og trilogy, it just tells a story!! this is gonna sound silly but it's good because it's like. an actual movie. the characters of rogue one (ignoring andor which occurred after the fact for reasons that i cannot explain) are generally confined to rogue one and die at the end, meaning that the film was forced to tell a complete story and get the audience emotionally invested enough for the film's ending to feel significant and powerful. which is what a new hope did. because it had to be a good movie in order for there to be more movies in order to make star wars a thing. yknow. anyway.

the force awakens is actually pretty solid as the intended foundation for a new trilogy with new lovable characters and an inspirational story etc but after that kylo ren's whole existence just derailed the sequels as a whole and luke's characterization was so painful i just couldn't stand it. finn should have been the lead of the new trilogy with rey and poe as his leia and han but well. it was probably racism. like i'm not involved personally idk exactly what went down but i think people were just racist.

poe suddenly gaining a shady backstory that runs counter to the everything about him in the force awakens? also probably racist.

also everyone that wants to fuck kylo ren is going to hell no exceptions. sorry to my ex roommate carrie i love her but she's going down. also everyone who ships reylo or reads those tiktok books that are just reylo fic with the names changed? they're going to superhell.

the mandalorian is incredibly competent and entertaining as a show like separate from star wars as a franchise and i think the show is at its best when its engagement with existing characters like luke and ahsoka is extremely limited. not everything has to be about the skywalkers. like star wars is about a whole Galaxy and yet sometimes it feels like it's about a single fucking neighborhood the way the same bitches keep popping up everywhere across all media.

on that note i adore star wars jedi: fallen order and i think one of its greatest strengths is its use of original characters and avoidance of existing ones. like i may be wrong but i'm pretty sure the only character in fallen order that we knew Before fallen order was darth vader and i think that works really well! you go the whole game encountering new villains and allies and planets and stories and then suddenly it's like Oh Holy Shit That's Darth Fucking Vader. it's scary!! it's shocking!!! it's exciting and satisfying!!!! i just love that game so much sorry. cal kestis is my baby and i'm amped about jedi: survivor but i'm also so scared they will ruin him somehow. everybody please pray for my boy.

i'm gonna stop now but i think a lot of my opinions just kinda boil down to like. star wars should not be the mcu. i'm not against spinoffs entirely, i Adore the mandalorian and jedi: fallen order even more than i like the original trilogy, but things really don't need to overlap so much! using cgi carrie fisher for a single scene in rogue one made sense. using cgi luke skywalker for multiple episodes in the mandalorian is just dumb. the way they literally resolved the main plotline of the mandalorian in the boba fett show is ridiculous. star wars is fun and exciting and inspiring and disney sucks and i just hope that the mcu model becomes financially detrimental to them somehow and they pull it back soon.

[shadowspellchecker]

Rogue One Fix-it AU concept:

In which being Guardians of the Whills actually means something...

Jyn keeps seeing ghosts

Andor reverts to some old habits. Very Old Habits...

and Bodhi has had it with these mother-fucking snakes on this mother-fucking (hydro-)plane--whatthehellcaptaindon'teatit!

I've got zero time in my life and three in-limbo fanfics plus one fan-essay, so this is definitely a Sir-Never-Appearing-on-my-Works-Page. But the concept is there and demanded to be documented.

Basically, my take goes like this:

Remember that old thing about Qui-Gonn learning to manifest as a force spirit from a Shaman of the Whills? Now, in the Clone Wars series, that's explained as five Force Priestesses. But let's say for a moment that they're the same thing. Force Priestesses, Shamans of the Whills. Same difference, from a certain point of view.

So then what does that make Chirrut and Baze when they die? Not strongly Force-sensitive, but definitely Guardians of the Whills. And in a place where kyber is being experimented on, with a big-ass chunk of it looming overhead! It would make sense then that something...glitched. In this AU, I'd posit that Chirrut and Baze became manifest as Force Entities jumping between kyber crystals. Starting with the huge collection on the Death Star.

So these two wake up dead and haunting the Death Star's main weapon's most critical part. So they... interfere with the laser. Somehow. Or rather, Chirrut is; Baze provides color commentary. Ergo, Death Star needs more tweaking. Great? Great. Except, all that unfocused energy needs to go somewhere, and a good jot still runs through the transmitter and hits something flammable, blowing the facility up. Big dust cloud interfering with sensors. It's great news for surviving Rebels, but bad news at the same time: because now you have a bunch of seriously to critically injured individuals trying to survive an unwilling Beach Episode with no supplies (base destroyed) while both sides capable of rescue are scratching their heads thinking "Nobody could survive that."

Then you have Bodhi. Desert boy, fast runner. This fic posits that before the grenade blew, he managed to escape the blast by the skin of his teeth. Wouldn't do him any good whatsoever in canon, but in this case, he's just got to get out of the way of the battleground. Which he does by the time the facility goes boom.

Meanwhile, Jyn and Cassian are on the beach, expecting to die, and it goes...well, not as planned. So they're limping into the jungle, and Jyn sees Baze and Chirrut wander up and start talking. They point them in Bodhi's direction, they're the ones who suggest a useful localized painkiller (some sort of fish-like alien, just stab the afflicted area with some of those spines on it's back, don't worry the biochemistry is too different to affect you), they're the ones who discover that Krennic had left a hydrofoil further down the beach. Cassian's half-dead to comment on Jyn talking to no-one, and Jyn's too drained to notice they're blue. Eventually they run into Bodhi, find their way to the hydrofoil, Cassian collapses, and Bodhi asks Jyn who the hell she's talking to.

"Chirrut and Baze are here." "No, they're not."

What they don't realize is that their ghostly visitors are now haunting Jyn's mother's kyber crystal.

Whatever else, they're now stuck. And yes, there are snake-like eel things nesting in the hydrofoil. Good news? They biosynthesize bacta. No one realizes it until Cassian wakes up and, defaulting to dietary habits from Kenari, starts eating it raw.

And that's when the stormtrooper deserters enter the picture.

Other titles:

In which being Guardians of the Whills actually means something...

Jyn Sees Dead People...

Cassian is way too happy to play Dances With Wolves...

and Bodhi is quite reasonably done with this shit.

[aerynwrites]

Okay okay, I got this! So may I request Cassian with the prompts “You’re bleeding” and “Come here, let me fix this” where the reader is inadvertently injured during a mission and Cassian needs to patch her up? Maybe some feelings involved somewhere too 😭💕 Thank you!!

A/N: Here you go! I’ve missed writing for Cassian! <3

Word Count: 1.1k

Warnings: Blood and injury, hurt/comfort, fluff.

It was supposed to be a simple mission. Get in, meet with the informant, get the information, and get out. A simple task that Cassian has completed hundreds of times. Which is the only reason he thought it safe to bring you along with him. You’re just a technician, usually you come with him or the rogue one crew to help with analytics or if something goes wrong with the ship. Cassian had never intended to fall for you, having always put the rebellion first. He never expected for you to worm your way into his heart with your kindness or bright smile. 

Yet here he is with you, running away from an ambush of storm troopers, all because he could never say no to you. 

You had begged and begged to accompany him on one of his smaller missions. Claiming that the more knowledge you had of his field work the more help you could be. But Cassian knew it was because you wanted to do more for the rebellion than just fix ships and look over data. Perhaps that’s why he had caved and let you tag along, because he saw a bit of his younger self in you. Optimistic, hopeful, but terribly naive. 

“Come on!” he shouts, ducking and pulling you with him to avoid a round of blaster shots, “We’re almost back to the ship. We can make it!”

You struggle to keep up, the stormy weather of the planet you’re on has turned the ground into a muddy mess. You keep losing your footing on the slippery terrain, and you can hardly see in front of you due to the buckets of rain pouring down from the sky and dripping into your eyes. Oh...and the blaster-shot to your side that you think Cassian has yet to notice. 

The only sense of hope you feel is when you see your ship in the distance. You faintly hear Cassian call into his comm link for K2 to start the ship and get prepared to take off the moment you two arrive on board. Another round of blaster fire has both you and Cassian ducking to the side before you both finally manage to run into the ship. You slip on your way up the ramp and Cassian instantly catches you and hauls you the rest of the way into the ship. You let out a pained hiss as his hand falls onto your blaster wound, and release a sigh when you are set gently into one of the passenger seats. 

“You’re bleeding,” Cassian says, voice slightly panicked as he looks at his hand covered in crimson.

“I-I’m fine,” you tell him, trying to calm him down, “It’s nothing we can’t handle.” you wince on the last word, hand falling to the source of pain instinctively. 

Cassian feels like his heart is in his throat when he discovers your injury. He feels like a fool for letting you come along with him, letting his feelings for you get in the way of his better judgment. He shakes his head firmly, quickly stripping off his thick coat and moves to find the med kit. 

“I shouldn’t have let you come,” he sighs, pulling the medkit off the wall and walking back over to crouch on the floor in front of you, “It was too dangerous, and I should have known that!” he chastises himself. 

“Cassian,” you call out to him, “Stop,” you breathe, “Please. It’s not your fault,” you insist, “You couldn’t have known what was going to happen. Please don’t blame yourself.”

The man before you closes his eyes tightly, biting his tongue to stop himself from arguing with you. He takes several deep breaths, realizing that - as much as he hates it - your words are true. 

He sighs. Moving to help over to help you stand from your seat, “Come here,” he instructs softly, “Let me at least fix this,” he gestures to the charred and bloody area on your jacket. 

You nod, letting him guide you over to a low bench instead. He helps you remove your jacket slowly, careful not to jar you around too much. Then he lifts your shirt up enough so he can inspect the wound.

“Hold your shirt up,” he whispers. 

You obey, holding the fabric away from the wound and biting your lip when you feel his fingers trail around the area lightly, assessing the damage. You let out a shaky breath when he pulls his hands away, and he sighs softly in relief.

“It isn’t too deep. Just a graze,” he explains, “I just have to clean it, apply some bacta and bandages and you will be good as new.”

“Okay,” you say softly, “I trust you.”

Cassian smiles wryly as he begins to slowly doctor your wound, “And look where that trust got you. Covered in mud with a blaster bolt to the side.”

“Cassian!” you chastise, voice pitching up slightly when he starts to apply bacta cream to your injury, “I told you this wasn’t your fault, you need to sto-”

“I have one job!” he cuts you off, voice harsh yet hands gentle as he continues to treat you. “I have one job,” he reiterates. “To protect those who can’t protect themselves. To protect those I lo-”

He stops, throat going dry, as he begins to wrap the bandages around your waist. He has never told you how he feels, never intended too. But after today, even though it wasn’t anything terrible, he can’t deny the absolute fear he felt shooting through his veins when he saw your blood on his hands. He has plenty of that already, but he never wanted yours on him. Never wanted the blood of those he loves to come anywhere near him. 

He continues only when he has taped the bandage off and tugs your shirt back down, looking up at you with hands resting on your thighs gently. “I’m supposed to protect the people I care about, the people I love,” he squeezes your thighs on the last word, “What good am I, if i can’t even do that?”

You feel your eyes burn with unshed tears at the confession. You’ve had feelings for the captain since the moment you had joined the rogue one crew on your first mission. You knew that you both felt something for each other, constantly tiptoeing around one another and teasing back and forth. But you knew that Cassian was practically married to the rebellion. So, to hear him finally say these things out loud...it made a wave of emotions crash over you. 

You quickly slide down from the bench so you are on the floor just a hair's breadth away from him. You hesitantly move to cradle his face in your hands, feeling your heart swell when he melts into you. 

“I love you too, Cas,” you whisper, thumbs running slowly over his cheek bones.

His eyes snap to meet yours when the words fall from your lips, and before you can react, his hands are on your wrists and he's bringing his lips to yours. 

And suddenly...everything seems right.

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[self-proclaimed-chaotic-good]

Worth the Risk | Bodhi Rook x Reader (1/2)

Words: 1970

A/N: Ey, guess who's back with the rare posting again. This was in my draft for a while, along with many others, but I finally got something done.

Summary: Childhood friends separated at a young age, never having a chance to say goodbye. They had gone on different paths of life, but the Force had brought them together years later, only to miss the opportunity to either say goodbye or stay. The Force works in mysterious ways, and if was meant to be, then they may meet again for the third and possibly final time.

Continuation to [Run Away With Me]

-

Bodhi’s friends watched as he flitted around the U-Wing, busying himself with tasks that were unnecessary and repetitive. Chirrut seemed to have already known why he was acting odd, but he would simply say to give it time. Jyn made sure to include him with meet ups with the other Rebels and there were times where he accepted the offer, though he’d end up keeping to himself. Over time, he had been opening himself to others and talking more again. Still, there was something that he had not been telling anyone. It was no secret to the Rogue One crew that he’d always pause and stare up at the stars longingly.

He had been cleaning up his cargo ship for the second time that day when he heard a knock at the ramp. He turned and saw Cassian leaning against the ship with his arms crossed. The captain’s eyes roamed around the ship before landing on the pilot.

“We’ve got a mission,” he said.

Bodhi nodded. “When do we start?”

“In forty-eight hours. The details will be sent to your datapad tonight. Make the necessary preparations before meeting here.”

“Alright.” When Cassian didn’t move to leave, Bodhi walked up to him and cleared his throat. “Is there anything else?”

“We need you to focus on this, Bodhi,” he said, “No more staring at the stars until the mission is done.”

“I know that-”

“We almost got caught because of your distractions!” Cassian snapped.

Bodhi sighed, taking off his goggles and tossing them on the side. He slumped down on a bench and Cassian moved forward to join him.

“I thought I lost them. (Y/n). We had lost contact for years and now that I know that they’re actually out there…”

Cassian patted his back. “The Rebellion keeps tabs on their allies. We know how to contact them when we need them and they are free to come back any time.”

“Why did they leave?” Bodhi asked quietly. “They could have stayed. You know, I ran into their parents once when I was still an Imperial cargo pilot. I had stopped at a planet for fuel when I saw them at the local market. They were like family to me and helped me when I had to take care of my mother. When I saw that (Y/n) wasn’t with them, I asked. They said that they hadn’t heard from them for a while, but there were always credits flowing in to keep them going and even buy a house. It was the only way they knew that (Y/n) was alive. Still, I never thought I would ever see them again.”

He raised his head as Cassian stood up. “You’ll see them again,” he said firmly with a faint smile before heading out.

For others, Cassian didn’t seem to be the type of person for warm words of encouragement or sentiment, but for those who knew him well knew the truth. When it mattered, he was always there for his team. So if Cassian Andor said that Bodhi would see (Y/n) again, he believed it.

-

It had been almost two weeks since Cassian and Jyn began working undercover to trace back black market exchanges with Imperial associates. Bodhi had also been doing his part as a stranded tradesman who had a nasty encounter and was forced to be grounded until he could fix his ship. He lingered near the docks and watched who came and went and what they were carrying.

Bodhi had come back from the local farmer’s market when he saw a familiar ship landing two spaces away from his cargo ship. A tall rusty red droid walked off the ramp first, followed by a hooded figure. A man waited at the end of the ramp and immediately greeted them. He took out a datapad and began walking with them towards the nearest tavern as the ramp raised. Bodhi quickly dropped off his things and followed them at a distance.

Night had fallen by the time their meeting was over. The man left first, subtly looking over his shoulder before heading out. You and Desa lingered, finishing up your drink as you discussed the offer.

“Is he still watching?” you muttered at Desa into your cup.

“Yes.”

“What do you think we should do? This is important information. Giving it will help the Rebellion, but it will paint a big target on our heads and we’ll stray further from being neutral.”

“I’ll follow whatever decision you choose, (Y/n).”

You sighed, setting down your cup. “Of course you’d say that. Let’s head back.”

You left the ramp down as you Desa took stock on your current inventory. While you were noting down your rations, Desa made her way over to the ramp where Bodhi stood with wide eyes. She gestured for him to come in and waited to close the ramp behind him.

“(Y/n),” Bodhi said softly. “I…” He trailed off when you didn’t budge. Desa made her way over to you and took over your task, giving you no excuse to avoid him.

“Here on rebel business?” you asked, finally turning to face him.

He nodded. “What about you?”

“Needed to stop by for some supplies and then meet with a potential client.” You paused to take in his face. “How’ve you been?”

“Pretty well. Honestly, hoping to run into you again.”

“Why?”

“You’re my best friend… were. And also, for an explanation on why you always left without saying goodbye.”

“The first time wasn’t my fault,” you pointed out. “The last time was all me.”

“Is it foolish to hope that that was also the last time that you’ll do that?”

He stepped closer, heating radiating off his body and warming you. When was the last time you allowed someone this close to you? All you were used to now was the cold steel of your ship and Desa’s metal hand when she’d steady or reassure you. Seeing him this close in such a long time, you could see he was older. The stubble and moustache, the faint lines forming near his eyes and his mouth. From laughing, you hoped. But his eyes were still the bright eyes that you’ve known him to have. But he was no longer the Bodhi you used to know, you reminded yourself.

“And for what reason would I completely side with the Rebellion?” you asked, side-stepping him towards the chairs behind the cockpit. You sat down with a sigh, leaning back and propping your feet on the chair across.

“It’s not like you’re with the Empire,” he countered. “Especially not after what they did to our home. To your parents.”

Your head snapped up. “What do you even know about my parents.”

“I met them while I was still under the Empire. They told me everything.”

“Then you know why I’m doing this. This whole line of business to get us by.”

“Smuggling refugees was never a part of it, though, was it?” You remained silent, staring at the metal wall with your arms crossed.

“When Galen Erso sent me on a mission to deliver a message to Saw Guerrera, I felt like I could finally take a hold of my fate. I was no longer just a pawn being played in this war. The people of the Rebellion… they chose to rebel, to fight back against the Empire. Just ordinary people that saw the injustice happening in the galaxy and decided to do something about it. If that’s not what you are doing, then what is it?”

You couldn’t keep a neutral expression up, not around Bodhi. Not after giving his little speech with passion in his eyes, the same way that he used to have when he talked about flying to reach the stars. That was all so long ago.

You dropped your feet and curled them under your chair. Bodhi took it as a silent invitation to take a seat. “Is there a place for me… in the Rebellion? It all seems… I don’t know. This is war, and having attachments would only hurt you in the end.”

Bodhi sighed, scooting at the edge of his chair to gently lift your head up, his fingertips burning your skin. “Love and hope is what’s keeping the spark from burning out against the darkness that the Empire is spreading. We’re so close to ending this. I can feel it.”

After leaving the Rogue One crew, you wondered what would have happened if you had stayed. It felt that there were loose ends to tie before you could make a decision like that. Besides, at the time, you felt like you could do more by being out there on your own terms instead of following orders. You could always feed them information if it was important enough without completely joining them.

“Why are you so against joining us?” Bodhi finally asked.

There was a muffled sound coming from Bodhi’s hip that drew your attention away. You pulled away from him and nodded over to his communicator. He pulled his lips into a thin line before answering it, moving over to another corner of your ship. You heard Desa, who had been giving the two of you space, come over and lay a cold metal hand on your shoulder.

“Your heart has already made a decision, but your mind is trying to fight it,” she said.

You placed your hand over hers and sighed. “We’ll give them the information, then we leave,” you said quietly.

“(Y/n)-”

“My family has had a target on their backs for a long time and I’m not going to have them a target again. They’ve finally settled someplace. I don’t want them to pick up all of their things and go on a run again because of me. They just can’t keep doing that anymore.” You rubbed your temples in frustration at the thought of what you were about to do. Again.

Bodhi finished up his status report with Cassian before turning to the ramp. The mission was being wrapped up and he needed to start up the ship as soon as possible. But first, he needed to know where you stand.

“(Y/n), I have to go,” he said slowly, adjusting the goggles on his head.

“Oh,” you said, your throat tightening as you walked over. You grabbed your datapad and scrolled through until you found your recent client. “Before you go,” you paused to clear your throat and push down the anxiety threatening to spill out, “There’s a man that came to me to retrieve specific weaponry similar to the models on Imperial vehicles. Not sure if it relates to what you guys are looking for, but I thought it’d be worth investigating.”

He grabbed the datapad and scanned through the information. “Send this to me and I’ll bring it up with the crew,” he said, handing it back. When you reached forward to grab it, he laid his other hand on yours. “So, this is it? At least I could say goodbye, right?”

He looked at you with those round eyes that were always filled with passion and longing to fly and reach the stars. Yet now, they seemed to be longing to reach something else. Your heart was torn. As soon as he walks out of your ship, what if this would really be the last time you ever see him again? Was it a risk to let him into your life again and let him get this far? Would it be selfish of you to join him? All this time, everything you did was for your family.

“Be safe out there, Bodhi,” you said softly, slowly pulling your hand away, the warmth leaving with him.

His brows furrowed, then he shook his head. “You, too, (Y/n).”

[redrikki]

May the Fourth Masterpost

Prequels/Clone Wars Era

May the Force Get With You- You’d think Anakin Skywalker’s conception would be pretty epic, mythic even, but you’d be wrong. Turns out, the Force is a lousy lay and a worse father. (Shmi Skywalker, Anakin Skywalker, The Force, Salty Narrator)

Second Wind - Ahsoka takes the wrong exit of the the world between worlds and ends up with a second chance at saving her master. (Ahsoka Tano, Shmi Skywalker)

Pain Management - Anger can get a slave killed. Shmi teaches her son some coping strategies. (Shmi Skywalker, Anakin Skywalker, Watto)

The Force Is In the Details - The chance cube lands on red and now Shmi must learn to manage with a freedom she never asked for. Written as part of the Jedi Fest Rogue Robin challenge as a continuation of The Force is in the Details. (Shmi Skywalker, Anakin Skywalker, Qui-Gon Jinn, Padmé Amidala, Jedi Council)

The Anchor That You Can’t Leave Behind - On the queen’s yacht headed back to Naboo, Anakin and Padmé miss their mothers but Obi-Wan can’t get why. (Anakin Skywalker, Padmé Amidala, Obi-Wan Kenobi)

Another Word For Nothing Left to Lose - When Obi-Wan told him he was free at Qui-Gon’s funeral, Anakin took him at his word. There may, however, have been something of misunderstanding. (Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi)

For Amidala - Her handmaidens had all poured so much of themselves into Amidala, it was like they were part of her now. Padmé didn’t know if she had the strength to let one go. (Padmé Amidala, Sabé, handmaidens)

Wordspring - Anakin’s words dry up in the middle of his fourth month at the Temple. If Obi-Wan can’t get them flowing again, maybe someone else will. (Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Sheev Palpatine, various Jedi)

Nothing to Write Home About - A month after losing his wife, Cliegg Lars decides to write to her son. Anakin Skywalker gets the pen pal he never knew he needed. WIP. (Anakin Skywalker, Cliegg Lars, Owen Lars, Beru Lars, Ahsoka Tano, Padmé Amidala)

For the Greater Good - Count Dooku has never seen the appeal of Anakin Skywalker, but, when the Chosen One breaks with the Council over the treatment of the clones, he decides acquiring the boy’s allegiances might be worthwhile after all. WIP co-written with @grand-duc and @thendstartsnow (Count Dooku, Anakin Skywalker, Palpatine, Clone Troopers)

Once More With Feeling - A redeemed Anakin travels back in time post-RotJ and decides to unfuck the timeline with mixed results. (Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Padmé Amidala, Sheev Palpatine, Jedi Council, bunch of other people)

Bridal Carry - On Naboo, it’s tradition for the groom to carry the bride to their marriage bed. With Anakin’s new prosthetic, it’s more difficult than it sounds. (Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker)

Secret Tunnel - War in the Outer Rim! While fighting on the mining world of Mumblety, Jedi Padawan Ahsoka Tano is tasked with mapping the tunnels along with a team of clones. When trouble strikes, will she have what it takes to save the day and complete the mission? (Ahsoka Tano, Echo, Fives, Anakin Skywalker)

No Place Like Home - Ahsoka’s return to the temple after her first deployment was strange, made even stranger by the fact that it should’t be strange at all. (Ahsoka Tano, Rex)

Eat, Snip, Love - Ahsoka can’t remember the last time she had a home cooked meal. Anakin and Padmé are determined to change that. (Ahsoka Tano, Anakin Skywalker, Padmé Amidala)

Love and Support - After Padmé is shot at a conference, her mother insists she come home. Padmé, of course, is going no where. Episode tag to 3.07 “Assassin.” (Padmé, Ahsoka)

Across a Crowded Room - It’s a party in his honor, but it turns out the Hero With No Fear isn’t good with crowds. Padmé to the rescue. (Padmé Amidala, Anakin Skywalker)

Lightening Rod - Anakin gets electrocuted…again. It probably says something bad about his life that he’s getting used to it. (Anakin Skywalker, Ahsoka Tano, Obi-Wan Kenobi)

Coming Out of My Cage, Doing Just Fine - On the way back from Kadavo, it finally hits her. In this war, Ahsoka had been outmatched, outmaneuvered, and outgunned, but she’d never felt powerless. Not like she did in that cage on Zygerria. (Ahsoka Tano, Anakin Skywalker)

In Our Bed After the War - After the mission to Zygerria, Padmé and Anakin have a difficult conversation. (Padmé Amidala, Anakin Skywalker)

Domestic Life Was Never Quite My Style - Despite her best efforts, Padmé is pregnant. Now she has a difficult decision to make. (Padmé Amidala, C-3P0)

You Call That Family? - In an AU where Anakin has left the order to be Padme, Obi-Wan encounters unexpected resistance when he goes to collect the twins. (Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker, Padmé Amidala)

Birthright - The Force called him to his family and Anakin is not prepared to give them up. Not even to the Jedi Council. (Anakin Skywalker, Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Mace Windu, baby Skywalkers)

If Not For These Bad Dreams - Fives has dreamed about killing every Jedi he’s ever met except General Skywalker. Turns out he’s not the only one. (Fives, Kix, Tup, Jesse)

Dateline Felucia - Embedded with the troops on Felucia, a reporter from HoloNet News paints an intimate portrait of the men of the 212th Attack Battalion. (Cody, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Waxer, Boil, clone troopers)

Ahsoka the Vampire Slayer - Ahsoka is the Chosen One, the Slayer, or at least she was until she died. She got better, but now there’s a new Slayer in town and things with her Watcher are strained at best. Add in a bunch of zombie mind control bugs and Ahsoka’s week could be going better. BtVS fusion. (Ahsoka Tano, Anakin Skywalker, Barriss Offee, Luminara Undili)

Bursts of Stardust - Collection of short tumblr prompts. (Everyone ever)

Rebels Era

With the Rest of the Miscreants - Boy meets galaxy and learns to live in it. A lost baby Jedi adapts in four ‘easy’ steps. (Caleb Dume, Janus Kasmir)

Cloak, No Dagger - In light of the intel from Gorse, Hera and Ahsoka rethink mission protocols while putting on a show for the ISB agent watching them.  (Hera Syndulla, Ahsoka Tano)

Tag - Sabine and Ketsu, bounty hunters extraordinaire, argue about how to sign their work. (Sabine Wren, Ketsu Onyo)

A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy - Depa stumbled free of the maze, back into the atrium for the Lothal Temple. There was just one problem. The man kneeling between the desiccated bodies of the ancient Jedi was not her master. (Depa Billaba, Kanan Jarrus)

Swordsmith - Ezra makes his lightsaber. It’s not his life, except in all the ways it is. (Ezra Bridger, Ghost Crew)

Graffiti on the Walls of the Heartland - Three works of art Sabine made for crew members and one she made for herself. (Sabine Wren, Chopper, Hera Syndulla,Kanan Jarrus)

Chicken Soup for the Jedi Soul - Four meals Kanan cooked for his crew and one he made for himself.  (Kanan Jarrus, Ghost Crew)

Ain’t No Fun (Life on the Run) - Ain’t no fun living life on the run but, with his Hera and their crew by his side, Kanan finds it isn’t always so bad. (Kanan Jarrus, Ghost Crew)

Wild Blue Yonder - After the events of “The Brotherhood of the Broken Horn,” Hera decides it’s high time Ezra learn how to fly. (Hera Syndulla, Ezra Bridger, Zeb Orrelios)

A Distraction - Kanan’s been blinded. There’s nothing Hera can do to fix it so Chopper gives her something she can. Written as part of the Jedi Fest Rogue Robin challenge as a continuation of A Distraction. (Hera Syndulla, Kanan Jarrus, Chopper)

Then My Hair’s Too Short - Apparently, Ezra had a new hair cut. That’s fine, it’s his head after all. Kanan just wished he had mentioned it. (Kanan Jarrus, Ezra Bridger)

The Blind Beggar - When Ezra objects to Kanan taking point on a mission, Kanan decides its time they had a talk. (Kanan Jarrus, Ezra Bridger, Ghost Crew)

Cut to the Heart - Sabine found the stupid thing in a cave, but now the Darksaber is taking over her life. Kanan gives her a little perspective. Tag to 3.13 “Trails of the Darksaber.” (Sabine Wren, Kanan Jarrus)

Rebel Moments - Collection of short tumblr prompts (Ghost Crew)

Rogue One

The Lord’s Estate - Every lord must have an estate. Lord Vader’s is Mustafar. (Vader, Palpatine)

Peace is a Lie - Sometimes Vader wakes up and can’t remember what war he’s fighting. (Darth Vader)

A Cog In Something Turning - Cassian hadn’t meant to give K-2SO free will. Good thing for both of them he’s a terrible slicer. (K-2SO, Cassian Andor)

Original Trilogy

Sea of Sorrow and Sand - Ben Kenobi is an island in a sea of sorrow and sand. Beru Lars has come to drag him back to shore. (Obi-Wan Kenobi, Beru Lars)

What Remains - What remains of a relationship built on lies? Nothing, as Darth Sidious will soon find out. (Darth Vader, Darth Sidious, Padmé Amidala’s preserved corpse)

On This Strange and Mournful Day - The events of Vader Down go very differently. The father and child reunion is only a motion away. (Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, Dr. Aphra)

After the Funeral - Han offers Luke some unexpected support after the funeral of the guy who tortured him. (Luke Skywalker, Han Solo)

A Cynic’s Guide to the New Golden Age - The second Death Star goes kabloowie and takes the galaxy with it. It’s a new golden age of piracy and Aphra’s got some looting to do. (Dr. Aphra, Luke, 0-0-0, BT-1, Black Krrsantan)

The Last Truce We Ever Came To - Darth Vader is dead but he won’t leave Leia alone. (Leia Organa, Force Ghost Anakin Skywalker)

Lego Star Wars - The Freemaker Adventures

Disembodied - Roger loses his head and, frankly, it’s getting old. (R0-GR, Rowan Freemaker, Kordi Freemaker, Zander Freemaker)

Sequel Era

Red Fish, Blue Fish - Leia bought an aquarium for her child like her father before her. In a perfect world she could raise Ben to fill his grandfather’s legacy. Too bad he had more than one. (Leia Organa, Ben Solo, Angst)

A Matter of Precedence - FN-2187 wasn’t the first, except for the time he was. Others have defied the First Order before, but none quite as spectacularly. (Finn, First Order)

So You Want to be a (Space) Wizard - Finn finds a mysterious book, takes an Oath, and starts one hell of an Ordeal. Crossover with Young Wizards. (Finn, Poe Dameron, Rey)

Old Haunts (All We’ve Ever Known) - Anakin and Obi-Wan as snarky Force ghosts during The Force Awakens. (Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, TFA cast)

Lady in Waiting - Rey’s spent so much of her life waiting it’s hard to know when to stop. Luckily, Poe’s there to give her the push she needs. (Rey, Poe Dameron, Leia Organa, Finn)

Not a Drop to Drink - On Luke’s island, Rey couldn’t quite get her mind around the sheer amount of water stretching out towards the horizon. (Rey, Luke Skywalker)

[melanoradrood]

So this is complete and utter shit, it’s unedited, it’s just a dumb idea, but literally... I’ve had this damn scene for the start of this fic in my head all fucking day, so I’m throwing it out there. Just... take this and idk.

It’s a pure miracle that anyone escapes. The fact that there’s so many, that so many ships had returned, that so many had been able to escape the beaches, that most of Blue Squadron was still alive, even the Profundity… but not everyone had escaped. Not everyone had lived. She hadn’t had time to stop, to check every body they had passed, to grasp the hands of the dying men… the Death Star had arrived, and if she was going to get Cassian off of that planet, get Bodhi to medical, save Chirrut’s life, save Baze from himself… she had to get them off the beach.

If Kay hadn’t added a secondary consciousness to the other KX unit they had passed…

He had only lost minutes of his memory, and had a new body, fully upgraded, and the ability to carry Cassian when Jyn could not. He could fly them and the ten others that were still alive, even Sergeant Melshi, off of the planet, all before Scarif was destroyed by the terrible weapon her father had built. It was alright, though. The very first things they had heard over the comm, once they were patched into the Rebel lines, was that the plans had been delivered. A good thing, given how the hard copy, the one labeled Stardust, had been shot by a Deathtrooper as Jyn ran towards the cargo ship they were on now.

She still had it with her, though, as the ship landed in the cargo bay. No matter the injuries on the other ships, she knew that those on the newly renamed Rogue Two were the most injured. They were the only ones to make it off the ground at Scarif, and no one in their group was uninjured. Somehow, Jyn looked to have taken the least hits of all, and she had broken her arm, was bruised and bloodied, and even had a blaster wound on her leg, right beside where the data files had been when they were shot.

Jyn would have been the last one down, making sure everyone else escaped, but Cassian… he was only barely still breathing. Falling had nearly broken his body, but climbing back up, climbing up to her, to save her�� she had thought he was dying, and that was okay, because they were going to die on that planet together. Seeing Kay, seeing the ship, realizing that she might escape, that their bodies might escape, but that he might not live…

It wasn’t acceptable. That wasn’t in the equations. She had gone to Scarif with Cassian Andor walking beside her, step by step, knowing that her mission was his mission, that he believed in her, and she would be damned if she returned to Yavin, if she returned to the Rebellion, and she didn’t have him right beside her, every step of the way. And she would shoot anyone that got in her way of getting him to Medical.

“Please, we need a medic here. He’s the worst of the bunch,” she called out, and the crowd that was clamouring around them parted enough for medics to approach Kay, who was holding Cassian as steady as he could. His back, his spine… she had heard the crash of bone meeting metal, the sound reverberating in her ears, and she knew that the damage was extensive. He was laid out flat quickly, but the crowd was pushing around again, and there were so many on the ship, Chirrut now laid onto a bed, Bodhi’s shaking voice as he held onto his wrist, where his hand should be…

It was too much, so much. She had taken these people to Scarif, she had held onto the hope, she had tried to keep the dream alive, and yes, they had succeeded, but so many were lost, so many looked to her for salvation, and now their friends were around them, looking to see who lived, who they could help… she had seen out the window, before they had entered hyperspace, had seen the ships that had been destroyed…

And Cassian. Cassian might not live.

The reality of it all was crashing down onto Jyn, and whatever bit of strength she had held onto, whatever bit of sanity she had maintained, it was slipping fast. She had survived, she had carried out the mission, but so many were lost, the beaches covered in bodies, the pilots that had fired down, Saw, the Partisans on Jedha, the actual city of Jedha, her mama, her-

“Papa?”

The voice wasn’t hers, but it sounded… it sounded like a lost child, calling out for someone she loved, someone she needed, someone she relied upon, that she was scared was gone forever. The voice was not hers, but it sounded as she had, so long ago, calling out for him, hoping that the Man in White hadn’t taken him.

Was she losing her mind entirely? Was the stress of it all breaking her down, forcing Jyn to face the cruelties she had endured? Or, was there a child on this base, a child that was now missing a father, because Jyn had led them to their death. In truth, the first option was far more preferable. Enough children would lose their fathers in this war. None of them should be because of her.

“Oh, this is bad. This is very bad,” said Kay, and Jyn was startled to see that he was still standing beside her, rather than chasing after the medics that were taking Cassian from the hanger bay, and straight back to Medical.

She had been frozen for a moment, watching as the others were taken off, as Chirrut’s body was carried by Baze, as those that were missing blood and body parts were taken away… she should join them, should follow them. She was their Sergeant, promoted on the flight there. She was the one that had led them there. She was the one that had brought them home… with the help of Kay, of course. She should go with them, watch over all of them… especially Cassian.

“What is?” she asked, turning to look up at the droid.

If she could have described a shocked expression, it would be this. For once, the droid was speechless, which was concerning most of all. She had never seen him unable to find some sort of snapped remark, even when she had handed him a blaster, not that he remembered, or even really believed her now that she told him of it. To find him unable to speak now.

“I am not authorized to tell you, and yet, the probabilities of you discovering the truth are very very high, regardless of whether or not Cassian will survive.”

She had threatened to throw him off the ship if he had mentioned the percentages of Cassian’s possible survival… he had admitted that he refused to calculate them.

“Then tell me anyways, before I find out in some worse way.”

She was fixing him with a look that clearly said this was the only option, but some of the harshness had been lost, simply because she was too tired, too beaten down to fight it. The droid still looked unable to respond for a moment longer, and then-

“Kay? Kay, where is my Papa?”

Jyn was startled as she blinked, and saw a child, a very small child, standing next to Kay. She looked tiny beside the droid, only half of Jyn’s height as it were, but the droid was suddenly lowering himself down towards the child, and scooping her up, as tenderly as though he were a a child holding a kitten. What to make of this, she wasn’t sure.

“He was taken to medical, after sustaining an injury, but he will be quiet well soon enough. We were just going to check on him.”

Her head fell to the side as she blinked, first at the child that Kay was carrying like a parcel in his arms, and then up at the droid, who somehow looked softer. She understood this was a child, that the child was asking about her father, and she knew Kay… no one really trusted him, he was rarely out of even the hanger bay, as far as she was aware, and all because only Cassian held his trust, so for a child…

The pieces were all there, but putting them together was… creating a picture she had never imagined, couldn’t comprehend.

“Sergeant Erso, your arm is broken, and you have sustained multiple minor injuries. If you intent on fleeing, as you look to be considering, I recommend you do so after you have been looked at.”

She blinks again, and then follows for a few steps, hissing up at the droid, as though the little girl wouldn’t hear her. “Kay, what are you keeping from me? Just… just say it.”

The droid paused for a moment, then looked down at her. “This is the daughter of Cassian Andor.”

[anghraine]

“the words we’ve both fallen under” - fic

So, the people (aka @brynnmclean and @ladytharen) have spoken! They chose the queer Rogue One AU (Jyn/f!Cassian + Baze/Chirrut + Bodhi/Luke) for the Theoretical Fic, which was spawned by @therebelcaptainnetwork’s Friday prompt (“hope”). Like everything ever, it grew well beyond anything I anticipated. OH WELL.

fandom: Star Wars

characters: Jyn Erso, Cassian Andor (as Cassia); Jyn/Cassian, implied Bodhi/Luke

verse: the queer Rogue One AU, of course!

length: 2k

stuff that happens: Jyn and Cassia after the bedsharing!

Jyn didn’t begrudge the Rebels their victory celebrations, which extended for several weeks, at least at night. She didn’t even think of herself as separate from the Rebellion, exactly—not after Scarif.

It was just … crowded. Very crowded, considering that this particular cantina grew out of a skeletal base on Solis 2, where her team had just arrived with some soldiers and senators. And it was loud. Easily as loud as Massassi’s cantina, spurring her nerves to screeching alert. She could endure that, had endured it many times, but she didn’t want to. And this was not a time for doing anything she didn’t want to.

Searching for a discreet exit, Jyn must have betrayed some part of what she felt. She didn’t usually, and nobody seemed to be paying particular attention to her—she’d taken care to wedge herself behind Baze—but suddenly, she felt Cassia’s mouth near her ear.

Only the habits of years kept Jyn motionless. Her blood ran cold, or maybe hot; she couldn’t tell the difference.

“Do you want some fresh air?” Cassia murmured.

Jyn tried not to look grateful.

“Yes.”

Cassia shifted in some unobtrusive way that placed her at Jyn’s side, hand warm against her back. With some resignation, Jyn suspected that last was her imagination. The leather vest hardly registered slight changes in human temperature. And Cassia ran cold, anyway. Jyn had shared her bed enough times (eleven) to know that it wasn’t some Cassia façade.

Platonically shared her bed. Jyn had even managed to platonically pin Cassia to the bed and straddle her hips, which took some doing.

Cassia made a smooth excuse that Jyn didn’t bother listening to, but which everyone accepted. More or less. Baze actually smiled—it was faint, but unmistakably a smile. That struck Jyn as deeply suspicious. But he didn’t say anything, so neither did she, instead letting Cassia maneuver them outside without incident.

(Jyn couldn’t remember the last time she’d tolerated anyone maneuvering her at all. Well, anyone else, since they’d done the same thing back on Jedha. Cassia might just be an exception. Sometimes.)

As soon as the doors snapped together behind them, Jyn’s tensed muscles relaxed. Cassia drew a breath of the base’s crisp, cool air.

“That’s better.”

Jyn shoved her hands into the pockets of her jacket. “Beer and sweat not your favourite smells?”

Cassia kept her—their—quarters in pristine order, regardless of where those quarters happened to be. Jyn herself couldn’t have cared less, but once she realized that Cassia didn’t expect her to assist in any meaningful way, she shrugged off her initial irritation. If Cassia wanted to soothe herself with colour coordinating her (many) outfits, fine. Jyn soothed herself with cleaning and loading her blasters, after all.

(By now, she didn’t just possess a nonzero number of blasters, but several, only two of which originally belonged to Cassia. That alone would nearly have made everything worth it, and … she had quite a bit more than that alone.)

“No, not really,” said Cassia dryly, heading down stairs that led to a narrow steel platform beneath the main portion of the cantina. This particular base consisted almost entirely of platforms, square buildings, and assorted stairs and ramps, all in featureless grey metal. Jyn gathered that it had been cobbled together out of some abandoned Imperial installation. Or a Republic one, maybe. It had railings and everything.

“I figured.”

“Too many people, too,” Cassia added, tone suspiciously neutral.

Jyn eyed the back of her head. “I thought you were a … people person.”

“Really?”

Thinking back over the … five weeks they’d known each other, Jyn supposed it could go either way. Cassia always had something to say, but she wasn’t exactly outgoing. “You’re good with them.”

“When I have to be.” She stopped and leaned against the platform’s wide rail while Jyn caught up. “I like the quiet.”

That pleased Jyn in a fuzzy way she didn’t care to interrogate. She settled for an indistinct noise of agreement.

Suitably enough, they continued side-by-side without talking, making their way to the furthest wall. There they remained visible from the cantina, if anyone chose to look, but at least didn’t stand beneath the noisiest part of it.

It was nice. Jyn, not overburdened by self-consciousness, felt just enough of it to avoid saying so. But she enjoyed everything: the coolness of the air, not heavy like Yavin 4’s, the easy silence, the mingling light of Solis’s moons, the smaller two eclipsing the largest into a slice of gold. She had two blasters in her holster, no enemies in the vicinity, and Cassia at her side, her limp all but gone. Without even touching her crystal, Jyn felt calm and contented in a way she very rarely experienced, far beyond her usual stoicism.

She didn’t look at Cassia. They shared quarters, a bed, and most hours of day and night; while Jyn welcomed the eagerly yielding Cassia that now and then shattered her nightmares, she took care to separate her from the actual woman. At this point, she already had seen Cassia a) young and beautiful in her silly parka, b) drenched from hair to boots, c) striding past in an Imperial uniform that fit her much better than the Alliance one, d) collapsing in Jyn’s arms, and e) swathed in shadows under Jyn’s body. She didn’t feel the need to try herself further by adding ‘gilded by moonlight’ to the rest.

Not that she’d be able to avoid it, really.

“Have you seen Bodhi?” Jyn asked.

“Yes, in the cantina,” said Cassia, unperturbed by the abruptly broken silence. “Not in the best mood. I think he ran into Skywalker.”

“Again?” Jyn didn’t mind Skywalker in himself: rather liked him, in fact. He’d personally asked her if he could name his squadron after her team, and had possibly less patience for cowards and fools than she did. But for whatever reason, he and Bodhi had taken an almost immediate dislike to each other. “I don’t even know what they find to disagree about.”

Cassia paused. “Skywalker is attractive, isn’t he? I’m not the best judge.”

Raw determination kept Jyn’s eyes on the blotted moon. She blinked several times at it. “You think that’s why—?”

“A factor, perhaps,” Cassia replied. “I can’t say for sure, of course. It could be nothing more than Skywalker hating Imperials without much ... discrimination.”

Jyn could understand that, in general. She rarely saw one without wanting to club them into a bloody corpse. But not Bodhi, who had defected and suffered and sacrificed, whatever he might have been or done before.

“We all hate Imperials,” said Jyn. “Does he think he’s special?”

Cassia’s hand tapped idly along the railing. Jyn would bet credits that she had a frown on her face.

“Maybe.”

Jyn would have blamed her uncommunicativeness on right, she’s a spy, if not for the fact that Cassia would tell her pretty much anything (unclassified), if asked. She just never volunteered it, so Jyn—or someone, but usually Jyn—always had to drag it out in pieces.

“All right, what did they do to him? Do you know?”

“Burned his family alive,” said Cassia.

A few moments passed without a word from either. Above them, somebody laughed, followed by others, before their voices faded into some other part of the room.

“Fuck,” Jyn muttered.

Cassia shifted again. “Don’t tell anyone.”

“No,” said Jyn automatically. “That’s not—that’s not fair to Bodhi, but—damn.” She’d hoped it was a bit more mundane.

“None of us are fair to each other,” replied Cassia, her voice still more even. “Not always.”

That snapped Jyn’s resolve. She glanced over her, but Cassia was staring ahead, her back a straight line from her shoulders to the cybernetics hidden under her skin. Attraction seemed rather besides the point.

“I know,” said Jyn quietly.

She suspected it might be as close to an apology as Cassia got. Since I’m not used to people sticking around was as close to one as Jyn had offered, she decided she’d take it.

Features softening, Cassia turned her head to face her, amusement flickering into her face. “Anyway, I think the unfairness has gone both ways with them.” She cleared her throat. “As it were.”

Jyn didn’t mean to smile, but she did, anyway. “You’re never going to forget that, are you?”

“I never forget anything,” Cassia said.

Jyn shook her head. “Then I’ll expect you to remember my birthday every year.”

Cassia’s low, startled laugh altogether banished Bodhi and Skywalker’s whatever-it-was. “If I know where you are.”

“Shouldn’t be hard,” said Jyn.

The amusement faded into something else, sweeter and more cautious. “You’re staying?—I—you mean, indefinitely?”

Jyn thought of a good half-dozen responses, alternately snide and earnest. But she only said,

“Yes.”

Cassia’s face broke into a bright, dimpled smile. Jyn, who had not expected that particular attack, felt dazed. Just a little. Physical awareness flooded back, or became relevant again. The golden moonlight caught in Cassia’s eyes, her skin, even her dark hair, gleaming from within. The hazy glow of it gentled her features without weakening them, her face warm and pretty rather than starkly beautiful. For all of that, her eyes fixed on Jyn with the same elated intensity that she remembered from the not-apology in the hangar, and after.

Speaking of unfair—

“How long do you think we’ll stay here?” she asked. “Assuming it’s not classified.”

Cassia seemed puzzled but undisturbed. “Not very long. We want to keep the small bases as unobtrusive as possible, and the rest will be scattering from Yavin soon. We’ll need a new central base.”

“Colder than Massassi, I hope,” said Jyn, vengefully.

Cassia looked betrayed. Her smile turning crooked, she twisted back towards the base below them, though without the rigidity of before. “You’re the one who’ll suffer if we get stationed there.”

“I’ll live,” said Jyn. “Not all of us are delicate flowers.”

“Really, Jyn?”

Jyn grinned openly, leaning against the platform’s side. “So what about you? Are you hoping for anything in particular?”

Cassia’s fingers splayed out on the railing, then grasped it. She wet her lip.

“A few things,” she said.

Jyn gave up.

“Cassia?”

When Cassia turned towards her, inquisitive, Jyn didn’t wait long enough for fear. She stepped forward, curled her fingers into Cassia’s jacket, and kissed her.

Cassia’s lips parted in what Jyn assumed to be surprise rather than invitation, but within a moment, her mouth was pressing back, as soft and careful as in the turbolift. They’d finally circled back, finally—and then her hands slid about Jyn’s waist, up her back. It was so little, but Jyn felt drunk, heady and flushed all over, more than she’d been capable of before, maybe more than she’d been capable of in her life. She had her arms about Cassia’s neck again, fingers walking against the nape and threading into her hair, smooth and soft instead of stiff with sweat and blood. She pressed closer when Cassia tilted her head to slant her mouth against Jyn’s, both panting.

No, Cassia was saying something, whispering against Jyn’s lips. Cassia and her words; she always had something. Even now! A very tiny bit exasperated, Jyn slowed and forced herself to pay attention.

“Jyn,” Cassia murmured. “Jyn, Jyn, Jyn—”

Jyn almost shuddered, fingers clutching in Cassia’s hair. She’d never kissed anyone who knew her name. Anyone who knew her at all. And this wasn’t anyone—this was—

“Cassia,” she breathed.

They stepped back for air, because they had to. Inevitably, that first moment was awkward. Neither quite knew what to say, and it’d been so much even though it was nothing they hadn’t done already. But Jyn took in Cassia’s rumpled hair and swollen mouth and half-shy smile, and could only think, again.

A small breeze rustled past. Cassia shivered.

Jyn had too much self-respect to say I’ll warm you up, or anything of the sort. To go by Cassia’s flush and thinly-veiled pleasure, her face said it for her.

“That one of the things you were hoping for?” she asked.

Cassia could have said something clever, or beautiful, or wry: Jyn didn’t doubt that she had it in her. But she just laid her hand against Jyn’s cheek, her eyes wide, almost stunned, as she smoothed the fringe aside.

Cassia leaned down and kissed her again.

[mara-the-cactupus]

Re your post about shipping and r3ylo.. You mentioned you could guess from marketing where they might be going, do you mind sharing what you think? I’m just curious :) esp since you’re a filmmaker

Oh, haha, I’m not actually a filmmaker; it is one of my life plans and I love picking apart stories to see how they tick, and how I could work some of those elements into my own, but I have yet to write or direct a feature.

But nevertheless…

(TLJ SPOILERS AHEAD)

…

If I were to channel my younger self (back when I idolized the most predictable plots ever, thanks to my mostly fairytale-based upbringing) I would say that this sort of yin/yang, opposites-attract, beauty-and-the-beast tale of redemption and hope would absolutely make sense.

- platonic love in Star Wars -

Now, I don’t know if this means that they’re going for a R/K romance; I would definitely prefer if they didn’t, especially given that Kylo Ren is frankly a monster, and all of Star Wars’ romances have made me cringe so far.

In fact, I loved how Rogue One ended without a kiss; the only real romance of that movie was the sort of old-married-couple camaraderie of Chirrut Imwe and Baze Malbus.

I think Star Wars works better when it’s focused on familial themes, and keeps pairings platonic; just think of how much love exists between Luke and Leia, vs. Han and Leia. Perhaps I’m misreading the writers’ intentions, but that moment when Rose told Finn that she saved him because his life is worth more than sacrificing himself to take out the cannon (maybe a lesson she learned from losing her sister?) felt similar to Rey and Finn’s hug in The Force Awakens, or Jyn Erso and Cassian Andor’s embrace towards the end of Rogue One: warm, platonic, and full of affection or comfort. The way I interpreted it, Rose was so weak that hugging Finn was out of the question, so she mustered her strength for a small kiss instead.

- opposites attract / beauty and the beast -

The K/R relationship, on the other hand, reads a lot less like that kind of familial affection, and more like two characters whose destinies and identities are closely intertwined. If Star Wars had prophecies (…does it?), they would feature in one. They are opposites: light and dark, each trying to tug the other towards their side.

This also connects to the beauty-and-the-beast archetype that we love to repeat in fantasy romances: the good, pure woman believes that the flawed, violent monster is capable of being saved, and through her love he is able to redeem himself and become fully human.

This can be a problematic trope, especially since it’s usually framed so that the woman forgives the man’s abuse; nevertheless, it provides a compelling amount of angst and pining, which often resonates strongly with audiences. (Popular examples include the Dr@rry ship, which tugs on many readers’ heartstrings due to the combination of suppressed feelings + outward antagonism; the enemies-to-lovers trope in fanfic; or Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy’s relationship arc in Pride and Prejudice.) Conflict is often more compelling than simple, honest love… and Star Wars’ most famous romance, between Han and Leia, is proof that the franchise has a fondness for this kind of love-hate tension.

- yin and yang -

Now, I am not really a hardcore Star Wars fan and so I might be forgetting something, but from what I can remember, Star Wars has never really done this kind of two-character dichotomy before, which is a little surprising given that it’s a franchise based around these very yin/yang principles of light vs. dark. If they have, it’s been between a good character and a bad character; Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, perhaps. Light and Dark are seen as opposites, and sort of by extension, good and evil/the Empire and the Rebels are that dichotomy. With Rey and Kylo Ren, there is potential for one (or both) to switch sides; Rey is untrained, and has the potential for darkness (Luke appears to be scared of her power in the trailer), while Kylo Ren is introduced in The Force Awakens as having an internal struggle that hints at the possibility of a redemption arc. They are two sides of the same coin.

(However, from what I understand, traditionally, yin and yang do not reflect good and evil. If yin and yang are two opposing forces that exist in everything, balancing them creates peace; therefore, “peace” cannot be one of the two forces, with “violence” as its opposite – and so “good” cannot be a force, with “evil” as its opposite.

This is particularly interesting when you consider the codebreaker’s point in The Last Jedi, that both sides power the same machine. Both sides use violence against the other, to restore their vision of order to the galaxy; the First Order’s happens to include genocide, but regardless of their moral purity, neither side technically embodies “peace.” So in that sense, they aren’t really opposites on the yin/yang scale.)

Despite this, Star Wars generally frames Light vs. Dark as synonymous with good vs. bad, so I suppose we can still interpret these as being two opposites of the yin/yang variety. So, for the sake of our purposes, yin is Dark/bad, and yang is Light/good.

- the Force as a midpoint between two opposites -

Luke teaches Rey that the Force is not something to be used by either side as a tool, but is instead the force that exists between all opposites – this implies that Force sensitive people are not inherently light/good or dark/evil, and make that choice individually. Rey makes this connection directly when she tells Luke that he was wrong to conclude that Kylo Ren needed to be stopped; she argued that his choice was not yet made… but our two characters view their status as Force-sensitive people in different ways:

Rey interprets this as proof that Kylo Ren has the potential to choose to join the Light side, despite his current status on the Dark side; she sees the conflict within him as a temporary state that can be fixed through his conversion.

On the other hand, Kylo Ren interprets the separation of the Force from either end of the spectrum as proof that he and Rey can exit the system entirely, “leave it all behind,” choosing neither the Light/Rebellion nor the Dark/First Order.

Kylo Ren sees that the two sides tug on each other and create endless conflict, in the same way that he and Rey tugged on the lightsaber and split it in two; he wants to resolve his internal conflict by rejecting the system entirely, and he wants to do that with Rey. Without her, he has no one.

- Kylo Ren’s reasons for wanting Rey to join him -

One of the biggest insights into the difference between Kylo Ren and Rey comes when he tells her that nobody cares about her except for him.

First of all, this statement is objectively inaccurate. Finn, Han, Leia, and Chewbacca have all shown fondness for Rey in the first film alone.

What he really means is that he has nobody who cares about him, except for her. Snoke and Hux treat him like garbage, his underlings probably hate him, he’s killed his father, estranged himself from his mother and uncle, and could never really go back and face them even if they forgave him, what with the guilt from all the people he’s murdered.

But she seems to care. What with their mental Force-Skype connection, and with her alternating between “you’re a monster” and “I saw the conflict in you” [there’s potential for goodness in you], he believes that maybe, just maybe, she might understand and sympathize with him. And he’s isolated himself for so long that he probably interprets this as love. (Hence the cringe-y shirtless scene, which I suppose was his attempt at a physical seduction…?? I guess taking his helmet off in The Force Awakens didn’t excite her enough, so he went all-in and tried to seduce her with the PG-13 equivalent of a dick pick.)

He thinks that maybe she could love him, and that would be enough, and he could leave his shitty past behind and not be alone. He acknowledges that he’s a monster, because he knows that he is; he’s just holding out hope that she will forgive him for his sins, because she keeps talking about how he can still be saved… but the problem is that while his idea of balance (the Force) is a balance between Light and Dark, good and evil, her idea of balance is the peace that will come from a Resistance victory. She wants him to resolve his internal conflict by choosing Light over Dark.

- what Rey wants from Kylo Ren -

I think that the main problem with this ship (as a possible direction for them to go; ignoring what I think about it personally) is that it’s pretty one-sided, and based on unhealthy principles. Rey doesn’t want Kylo Ren in a romantic light at all; he’s mind-raped her, killed her surrogate father-figure (who was his own father, adding to her revulsion at his morality), is a major part of the First Order that has terrorized her world and her friend Finn, has almost killed her friend Finn (remember, she doesn’t know that Finn has woken up), and failed Luke.

Rey wants to save Kylo Ren because she believes that it is the right thing to do, not because she has feelings for him. She thinks that if she can convert a major player on the Dark side to the Resistance, the First Order will be weakened, enabling a Resistance victory. She also might want to prove to Luke that he didn’t fail in his teachings.

- will Kylo Ren convert to the Light side? -

Look at what Kylo Ren does when Rey rejects his offer to go with him and leave the Resistance/First Order conflict behind: he tells Hux that she killed Snoke, then takes command of the First Order and resumes his campaign against the remaining Resistance forces. He fights Luke. Let’s be honest, even though the trailer made it look like he was going to start acting on some hidden inner goodness (hesitating when faced with shooting at Leia; the editing suggesting that Rey was asking him for guidance, rather than Luke), this film made it clear that there is only one thing that could make him turn down the Dark side: Rey.

So, what is the most plausible way to end this character arc?

Well, I see one of two options:

Rey continues to try to drag him away from the Dark side, and he accepts… but only because she has agreed to join him. From her perspective, it’s a personal sacrifice for the good of the Resistance; for him, it’s what he wants. The fight in the red room proved that if Rey is involved, he has the potential to fight against the Dark side. But without her, he immediately snaps back to the Dark like he’s a lightsaber and half of the jedi playing tug-of-war suddenly let go.

He ends the trilogy as a villain, on the Dark side. Now, while this makes sense from a real-world standpoint, I don’t know why they would have spent so much screen time focusing on his internal conflict between Light and Dark if he was just going to end up as a bad guy. Like, this took up most of Rey’s plotline in this film, and regardless of that will-she-accept-his-guidance tease from the trailer, I seriously doubt that Rey is going to turn to the Dark side.

So, since I assume they must have some reasoning behind this K/R storyline, and the amount of focus that has been placed on the two characters and their relationship (to the point of minimizing the role of Finn, who was arguably the main protagonist of The Force Awakens, or at least a co-protagonist, with Rey), I would guess that they’re going somewhere with this, and that somewhere just might be a romance. I would really appreciate it if they didn’t, though.

[imsfire2]

Work rec meme

About a week ago I was tagged by the lovely @justkeeponthegrass – I’m so sorry it’s taken me so long to respond!  I work in a really weird freelance field where sometimes I get work every day and every evening for a week and then suddenly a random day or half-day off. Today I don’t need to go out for work till 3pm, and I have the evening off as well, it’s just that short afternoon job, hurrah!  So I’m trying to catch up on emails, tumblr, etc…

The tag was for a “rec your own fic” meme.  It doesn’t seem to have any official intro so I’m just burbling.  It seems the rules are “rec five of your own stories and then tag some people.”  I don’t think I can tag anyone after such a long delay though.  But here is a bit of boasting; because the mere fact that I am trained to think of it as boasting tells me I may have a wee bit of a problem with the concept of being proud of my own work...

1.  Poetry of the First and Second Republics, Vol 3: The War Poets (extract)

This was an experiment, based on my headcanon that Cassian Andor wrote poetry.  It’s probably one of the short stories I’m most proud of, as it was a challenge to say anything in the two paragraphs I allowed myself before the actual poetry starts.  Penguin Books used to issue a long-running series on contemporary poets and I was imagining something equivalent to that.  Canon compliant and written in an attempt at academic prose, plus some poems in the short lyrical style I imagine Cassian writing...

2.  In a dark time, the eye begins to see…

My magnum opus, and one of the few things I feel pretty much unashamed of saying I am proud of.  This was meant to be a short piece, two to three chapters and mostly PWP; but it grew like Topsy, acquired a plot and a classic three-act structure, and even an OC people liked (yay!), and ended up at over 100,00 words.  It’s a slightly weird kind of AU, in so far as that we are in the SWU and we still have elements of the basic plot of Rogue One; so there is a Death Star and people are trying to get hold of the plans.  But everyone is in totally different places and with some pretty different affiliations at the beginning, and things go down quite differently as a result.

3.  Conversations with the best man

Another experiment, stylistically-speaking; could I write a short story entirely in dialogue, and could I write something humorous?  Definitely not canon compliant; this is set a fix-it AU in which everyone lives and Jyn and Cassian are getting married, and K-2SO is Cassian’s best man…

4.  Running

My Bodhi-lives! story, and one of the first things I wrote for this fandom.  I was trying to imagine a life for Bodhi if he had been the sole survivor of Rogue One – how he would deal with the trauma, how he would build a new life, and what his future might have been.  Goes right through to the period of TFA.

5.  Simple luxuries

A one-shot I’m very fond of; it’s gently humorous and kind, and although the surface of the story is just a little incident of Jyn getting a meal for her friends, it has two interesting (to me) subtexts; of the Alliance as a working system, with a lot of unsung behind-the-scenes figures like a catering team who take pride in their work; and of Jyn beginning to learn how to come out of her shell and reach out to others, something I imagine would have been quite a challenge for her.  I think it’s one of the happiest of my fix-its as there’s almost no angst.  It was also lovely to imagine our heroes getting to eat some good fresh food!

Thank you for tagging me!

[that-catholic-shinobi]

Tipping Scales

Kallus just got off rotation when Hera practically begged him to do a quick inventory for a mission. He agrees, and she promises to send Ezra with some Caf and AP-5. He's just adjusting to Yavin. Being around rebels was still unnerving when he feels like most of the people here would be pretty apathetic if he died or was caught. Maybe being alone in the storehouses would do him some good. Kallus discovers a man fiddling with wires and an imperial droid among the boxes of rations. So much for being alone. The man is younger. Early twenties, dark hair. But his shoulders weigh him down and his eyes are sad. Kallus thinks a person so young shouldn't have to experience so much. "Sorry to bother you..." The man doesn't even look up. "Sorry, trying to fix up this old droid...damn processor." Kallus takes a look. "Imperial? Then you'd have to rewire the coding chip to the control panel...that way the inhibitor regulator doesn't overheat." The man looks mildly impressed, "You a mechanic or something?" Kallus shakes his head. "No...But I do know a lot about how droid worked. I've rewired quite a few...including an admirals assassin droids." The man whistles. "Not bad." Kallus extends his hand to help the man up, "I'm Kal" "Cassian" The two men chatter idly as they work on the droid. "New here?" Kallus shrugs, holding the droid while Cassian worked. "You could say that...I spent a lot of time undercover." "As an imperial?" "We all have a past...now I'm one of you. I work Intelligence." "Codename?" "Fulcrum, you intelligence too?" "No, but I'd like to be...do more good than rewiring droids." Cassian replys, connecting the wires and screwing the plates back on the droid. "I just hope I can make a change." Kallus can admire idealism, but is more of a realist. "Hope doesn't get the job done." The droids eyes flicker with light. Cassian smirks. "Rebellions...they're built on hope." ________ Kallus begins to train Cassian. A new fulcrum. How to hack an imperial server. How to read people. How to contact a contact. What not to say during an interrogation. Who to trust. Why imperials fly in certain formations and say certain things . The training is short, but intense. Cassian thrives off of it. One day he could might even be able to get a secret out Kallus. Kallus can admit that Andor is good. Has a natural instinct for people. He is also prepared to do almost anything. "Be careful...the empire doesn't show mercy. Remember your training." Cassian is only two years older than when they met. Been on dozens of missions. He looks like he's aged a dozen years. Kallus can't help but feel partly responsible "We have to find the pilot." "We? You and that damned droid." "I find that comment highly offensive." "But accurate." Kal tells K2. "Take care of him though." "I have too." Cassian and Kallus shake hands. "Thank you Captain." "Force be with you, fulcrum." ________ Zeb is somber. "Kal..." "Yes?" "Hera just gave us a briefing..." Kallus stands. "Scarif?" "Yeah...we got the plans..." "and?" Kallus presses. "Hera and Sabine are safe...we lost all forces on the ground...including Rogue One." Kallus's face fell. "Cassian?" Zeb nods, before hugging Kallus. "I'm sorry Kal. I knew you were close with the kid." Kallus is unsure how to feel. Yeah he trained him, sent him out there. But people died in this fight. That was inevitable. "He was supposed to live Zeb." "A lot of people are...the princess has the plans. We can beat this weapon. We got hope." They let go, and grab their rifles. Hera will call them any minute for another briefing. They have hope. Rebellions are built on hope.

[joeybelle]

Starlight - Chapter 19

Relationship: Cassian Andor x Original Female Character

Rating: Mature

Tags: Pre-Rogue One, Romance, Hurt-Comfort, Canon-compliant Violence

When she woke up he was gone.

It’s not like she expected him to stay for breakfast, especially since he was supposed to leave on a mission that morning, but she thought he’d at least wake her up before he left. You know, tell her goodbye, give her a kiss, that sort of thing. They may not have been officially lovers, but they weren’t strangers either, so she kind of expected him not to act like one. Instead, as she sat on the edge of the bed, looking around, it seemed like he had never even been there. Like a ghost, passing through her life, leaving no physical trace behind.

Still, she couldn’t ask too much of him, she decided as she sighed and stumbled towards the bathroom, the lack of sleep making her head spin. He was a busy man after all. And seeing how the first time they had sex he left right after finishing, the fact that he stayed to cuddle could be considered progress. Baby steps, Cora, she reminded herself. Life is never as easy as you imagine it to be.

She quickly showered and threw on her uniform, not wasting too much time brooding over his absence (or rather doing it while she was getting ready). Seeing as she had slept through two alarms, she was already running late. She knew no one would yell at her for sleeping in, but she still wanted to be there on time, since there would be a lot of work with the supplies coming in.

Before she left, she noticed that Cassian had picked up the towel she had thrown on the floor the night before, folded it and placed it in the laundry basket. It made her smile. It was a simple gesture, maybe it was even out of reflex, something that he didn’t think through, but to her it was a sign that he didn’t rush out of there like he was afraid of getting caught. Maybe he even tried to wake her up. She doubted he would have succeeded if he’d tried, and somehow that thought lifted her spirits a little.

The hangar was already full of people when Cora got there. Most of the ships hadn’t been cleared for takeoff until that morning, so everyone seemed eager to leave the base now that the weather had gotten better. The constant buzzing of people and droids was back, the base feeling alive once again. All the damage done by the storm had been fixed so now its rage seemed a distant memory.

She couldn’t help but look around for Cassian’s ship, trying to get a glimpse of him before he left, but even though she spent a full minute scanning the area, there was no sign of him or his ship or the black droid that usually stuck out in the crowd like a sore thumb. She sighed and entered the med bay.

“You’re surprisingly late this morning,” Lewella’s said instead of a greeting. “Four minutes late, to be exact. How uncharacteristic of you. What happened?” she enquired, jokingly.

“I slept in,” Cora groaned, pouring herself a cup of coffee. “Did the shipment come in yet?”

“Not yet, but it’s imminent. How come you slept in?”

“I couldn’t wake up?” Cora raised an eyebrow at Lewella, who was smiling strangely at her. There was a devious look in her eyes.

“How so? You’re usually the first one to wake up,” she said in a seemingly indifferent tone, playing with some papers on the desk, but Cora could feel the underlying curiosity. Something was up. She could sense it.

“Ummm… I was tired. We’ve been up late last night, in case you don’t remember.” She was curious where this was going. It wasn’t like Lewella to question her motives for sleeping in, or for anything for that matter. Sure, she was usually pretty early at work, but it wasn’t the first time she had come in late after a long night. She had a feeling Lewella was onto something.

“So after the party you just went back to your room and went just to sleep?”

“Actually, no, I took a shower and then I went to sleep.”

“No nightly visitors, no nothing?” Lewella prodded, her voice sweet as honey.

“What? Where did that come from?” Cora asked, wide eyed. She was sure Cassian hadn’t said anything, he wasn’t the type to brag about his conquests. Also she was sure he had waited until he could come unseen, otherwise what was the point of leaving and then coming back? Unless he needed some time to convince himself to come. Either way, how did Lewella know?

She shrugged. “Well Melshi joked on the way up, and I don’t know…” she trailed off. “So, did anyone come back?”

“No!” Cora denied, but could feel her cheeks starting to burn. She didn’t really want to hide it, Lewella was her friend after all, but she wasn’t really used to sharing things like this. Her closest friends, with whom she might have shared such intimate details, were either dead or she hadn’t seen in years. “No one came back,” she insisted, hoping Lewella couldn’t sense the lie.

“You’re lying,” Lewella said, crossing her arms, looking at Cora with a naughty glint in her eyes. “I know you’re lying.”

“And how can you possibly know that?” Cora asked, a little irritated (and also a little scared) by the confidence her friend was showing.

“I know because you have a very visible hickey on your neck that wasn’t there last night,” she said, pointing a slender finger at her neck.

Cora froze, feeling like her blood had suddenly ran cold. Could it be possible that she had overlooked such a thing in her hurry to get to work on time? Checking for hickeys was something that really hadn’t crossed her mind. It was possible that he had left a mark, but somehow she hadn’t thought about it. She brought a hand up to her neck in an attempt to hide whatever was there, but her hand met the uniform’s fabric. Lewella’s booming laughter made her realize that she had fallen into her trap.

“I didn’t think you’d actually fall for it. You went white as a sheet, Cora,” she said, trying to calm her laughing fit. She wiped a few tears from the corner of her eyes. “Don’t you dare deny anything now.”

“Oh, shut up,” Cora mumbled, turning her back to Lewella, ashamed that the initial shock had made her forget that the uniform’s collar covered almost all the skin on her neck, so there was no way that a hickey could be visible.

“Nothing to be ashamed of, we all like to have a little fun from time to time,” she said, with a sweet, reassuring smile, but Cora was still eyeing her suspiciously. “So… who came back?”

“No one came back,” Cora insisted, but she kept her head down, hoping that if Lewella couldn’t see her blush, the lie would somehow be more believable.

“Was it Melshi?” she enquired.

“No! It wasn’t Melshi! There was no nightly visitor,” Cora vehemently denied, praying to seven gods that this questioning would stop.

“So it wasn’t Melshi,” Lewella said, her grin growing bigger. “Then it was Cassian.”

“It wasn’t Cassian either,” she denied again, but it was weaker and she could feel herself blushing harder. She tried making herself busy with something, trying to stay as far away from Lewella as possible, but her friend kept following her through the room.

“It was Cassian.”

“It wasn’t. It was no one.”

“Oh come on, please satisfy my curiosity just this time. I promise I’m gonna leave you alone if you do.” Lewella’s puppy eyes were really hard to resist, plus the possibility that the interrogation would be over was very enticing. Still, Cora was afraid that Lewella would make a big deal out of her confession and it would escalate and she still wasn’t sure how her relationship with Cassian could be defined. If she was still confused about it, it was probably too soon to share it with someone else.

“Another time, maybe,” Cora said, a pleading smile on her face, and she could see Lewella’s enthusiasm slowly dropping.

“Fine!” she exclaimed, throwing her hands up in defeat. “But I’ve already told you who I’m banging so…”

“A piece of information that I really didn’t need,” Cora sighed.

“You’re a bad friend,” Lewella concluded.

“Morning, Doctors! We have goodies,” one of the guys from Storage announced, entering the med bay with a large cart in tow.

“What did you say? You have cooties?” Lewella mocked, looking a bit annoyed that he had interrupted their chat and that she had to get to work instead of idling with a cup of coffee in her hand. Cora was thankful that, at least for now, the subject had been dropped.

Getting supplies was always a messy process, and it usually gathered all the medical personnel available. It was a job that in other med bays Cora had worked in was handled by a totally different part of staff, but here everyone had more responsibilities that their actual job entailed. And it usually wasn’t a bad thing, but with Alara and two other medics suffering from a quite severe case of the flu and another two getting ready to go on missions off world, it was pretty clear that most of it fell onto Cora’s and Lewella’s shoulders.

It was a pretty boring process, checking things on seemingly unending lists, stocking medical cabinets, making even more lists, and eventually getting annoyed that you still didn’t have everything you needed. Cora, who was usually pretty resilient and certainly very used to long, bureaucratic processes from her time in the Empire, was already getting a migraine by the time they had finished putting everything aside. It wasn’t her best day, it seemed. Lewella had given up a few times and spent more than twenty minutes of the toilet just contemplating the decisions that had brought her to this point.

Cora was still hanging in there, unwilling to give up just yet, a data-pad in hand, a frown and a stony expression on her face, when the pilots and sergeants started pouring in, asking for supplies to restock their medipacks before leaving on missions. Luckily, with most of them stuck on base for so long there were very few emergencies, so the med bay was otherwise pretty silent.

“Morning ladies!” Melshi announced his presence by yelling at the top of his lungs, the moment he entered the med bay.

Cora groaned loudly. She had just finished dealing with a bunch of pilots and was hoping to get five minutes of peace so she could sit down, rest her legs and chug another cup of coffee, trying to clear the fog the lack of sleep had left on her mind.

“It’s almost noon, Sergeant,” she said, sighing and taking the data pad out of his hands.

“It’s morning for some of us,” he grinned, following her to the storage area. “You could have used some more sleep, Doc, you look like crap.”

Cora frowned at the mean comment, but she had gotten used to his weird sense of humour and couldn’t get mad at him. “Has anyone ever hit you in the face with a data pad, Sergeant?” she threatened nonetheless.

“Twice, actually,” he said, still grinning.

“Wanna make that three?” Cora replied with a smirk.

“Actually, no, I wanna have my nose intact for my next mission, maybe I can you know… find some nice local girls willing to fall in love with a handsome freedom fighter. I need a good nose for that,” Melshi said, his grin somehow growing wider. Cora snorted and went back to counting bacta patches and shoving them into his supply bag. “And speaking of getting laid, did he come by your place last night?”

Cora felt the colour drain from her face for the second time that morning. Somehow, she had forgotten about the talk she had with Lewella and it didn’t cross her mind that Melshi would start it all over again, even though she should have expected it. She was even less ready to argue right now than she has been earlier, the busy morning having drained her of the little energy she had left.

“No, he did not,” she tried getting him to shut up before Lewella heard him. She had finished what she had been doing and was now coming to join them in the storage area.

“Really?” He seemed a little disappointed. “I tried giving him a hint, but who knows what gets through his thick skull. Are you sure you’re not lying to me, Cora?”

She sighed. “Please don’t start with this, I’ve just managed to get Lew to shut up,” she pleaded, hoping that Melshi would understand and have mercy on her.

“What?” he asked, throwing  Lewella a quick glance. “Does she also know that you’ve been banging Cassian?” he asked loud enough that at least three solar systems could hear him.

“I knew it!” Lewella exclaimed, suddenly tapping into that unending supply of energy. “I fucking knew it!”

“Well she didn’t know shit, until you told her just now!” Cora yelled exasperated, much too tired to deal with these idiots.

“Well, Doctor, I didn’t know for sure either until you just told me,” he said, a shit eating grin plastered on his face and Cora was sure that right then and there, she could kill him. Lewella was in the main area of the med bay doing a little victory dance, and Cora felt that her life had to come to an end.

“I’ll just kill myself,” she mumbled to herself, hiding her face in her palms. “I need a suicide pill.”

“You can talk to Cassian about that, but he’s already left,” Melshi said, taking the supply bag off the counter.

“Then shoot me please,” she begged, her voice a pathetic whine.

“No can do, the ammo is rationed.”

The sound of the automatic doors opening forced Cora to get out of her depressed state and go back to the med bay, followed closely by a grinning Melshi. Lewella had stopped dancing, but was still way too joyful. Fortunately, it was just Aidan that had come down to ask for some medication, until the infirmary upstairs would got their own supply shipment later that day. Unfortunately, Cora really didn't want to deal with him, so she passed him on to Lewella.

“Hey, where are you going?” she yelled after Cora.

“To drown myself in the toilet,” Cora groaned.

“What? What happened?” Aidan seemed a little confused by Cora’s gloomy demeanor.

“I sucked all her happiness away, Doctor Veltz,” Melshi said, in a very believable serious tone, that would have usually earned at least a snicker from Cora, but now she just wanted to strangle him. “Don’t die in there,” she heard him yell after her, but one the bathroom door closed, she found herself surrounded by silence. She could finally rest for a few moments.

When Lewella found her, a few minutes later, Cora was still in the bathroom, sitting on the toilet seat, on what Lewella liked to call ‘the throne of existential despair’. She wasn’t sure why she had isolated herself there, she just felt like she needed a few moments of peace and quiet.

“Hey,” Lewella said, leaning on the stall next to her. “I’m sorry if we upset you, we were just joking. Sometimes it can get out of hand without any of us realizing,” she said, sounding genuinely apologetic.

“It’s ok, I’m not upset,” Cora said, not really angry at any of them. “I just hope he won’t go around the base telling everyone. I don’t want people talking and making things up. You know how these things can get.” Somehow she had the feeling that Cassian would appreciate the rumours even less than she did.

“Who, Melshi?” she asked with a smirk in the corner of her mouth. “Don’t worry about him, he’ll never tell. He’ll tease you relentlessly, but he’d never betray your trust. If he did, he wouldn’t be our friend anymore.”

“You sure about that?” she asked in a little voice, feeling guilty for her mistrust.

“Very. He hasn’t even told me about it, and he knows I wouldn’t tell a soul, especially if it was something about you. I assume he’s known about you and Cassian for a while. So don’t worry, ok?”

“Ok,” Cora said, giving her a weak smile and wondering if the anxiety she was feeling was founded or it was just because she was tired.

“Come on, let’s send someone to get us some lunch and we’ll have a break, it’s been a long morning,” she said, urging Cora to get up. “And an even longer night for you,” she teased.

“Oh shut up,” Cora groaned, but she was smiling. “You said you’d shut up about it once you knew who it was.”

“Well, I said that when I was sure I wouldn’t find out, and now that I know, it doesn’t sound like a such a good deal.”

Cora snorted. “No turning back now.”

“You’re right. But if you ever feel like talking, about this or about anything else, I’m here for you,” she offered.

“I know, and thank you,” she said, smiling. “I’m just... a little confused right now.”

“Human interactions are always confusing. You’ll figure it out in time,” she said, patting Cora’s shoulder. Cora nodded and followed her friend out of the bathroom and back into the real world.

*

Samarkand was covered in darkness when he landed. Theoretically, no one could leave or enter the planet’s orbit now that the Empire had taken control of it, but Cassian had his ways. After all, he was the Alliance’s best spy, and for good reason.  

“You didn’t sleep last night,” K2 had scolded him as he steered the ship out of the Yavin IV hangar, early that morning.

The droid was right, he hadn’t slept. He had waited for Cora to fall asleep, and then silently left her room. He had a mission to get ready for. He didn’t have to be up so early, no one expected him to leave the base at the break of dawn, but he did it anyway. He had become restless once again, grounded for too long with his mind getting louder and louder.

Still he could have stayed a little longer. The fact that this thought had followed him as he went back to his room to shower and get ready, and it was still with him even as he scurried through the empty streets of Samarkand scared him. Usually, he couldn’t wait to get away from the person that had helped him take care of his physical needs, before they woke up and made things way more complicated than he was comfortable with; before shame took over him. And yet this time he had to force himself to leave her bed and get away.

Because if he didn’t, what then? He’d have to tell her goodbye, and tell her that he’d be going on a mission, and he didn’t know when he’ll come back, if ever. And if he did come back, what then? Go on dates, start a relationship? Start a family?

He never allowed himself to think about having a family, not even in his wildest dreams fuelled by cheap alcohol and despair. He’d always known he’d die young, in the middle of a war, whether it would be this one or the next, or the one after. He’d lost hope there would ever be peace, for him at least. There were people for whom the fight never ended. There were others, like Bail Organa who had a family, raised a daughter, but there were also the ones that have been continuously fighting ever since the Clone Wars. He was one of those. He wasn’t sure what he’d do in times of peace anyway, since the only things he was good at were fighting and killing and lying. What would he do then, a career as a hitman? He snickered.

But he did find himself thinking about Cora more than he liked to admit. She was something safe to think about when he refused to let his mind wander to really dark places. But she wasn’t just a distraction. He liked thinking about her. He liked her. And she liked him back. And that was scary. Because no matter how much he thought about it, this story couldn’t have a happy ending. He couldn’t have a happy ending. And she deserved better.

It was very hard sometimes to silence his mind when he was walking alone, in the darkness, with nothing to distract him. He had let K2-SO wait for daylight on the ship. It was much easier for him to cross the city when the other imperial droids were out in the light, instead of trying to sneak in the darkness. He was much too loud, Cassian always thought. However, the company would have done him good, help him focus on something else besides his thoughts. But he couldn’t risk K2’s safety just because he was scared of listening to his own mind. It was his fault the droid had been injured a while ago, and he couldn’t risk something like that happening again.

The Alliance’s hideout and main office on Samarkand was currently located in an abandoned bar, in the basement of an old apartment building that had been bombed recently during the conflict with the Imperials. The whole building was a little shabby and could cave in on them at any moment, but it was the best they could find on short notice. It had to be big enough to house all the new recruits, easy to defend and not very obvious. With the main entrance blocked by debris, the only way to enter the hideout was through another building and the emergency stairwell, which wasn’t visible from the street. This way, they could come and go as they pleased without the fear of being spotted by the patrolling stormtroopers.

“Welcome back, Captain,” he was greeted by one of the new recruits, a burly man with a mane of black hair on his head. He was seated at one of the tables, an empty bottle of cheap liquor in front of him.

“Glad to be back,” he replied, looking around. The whole place was eerily silent, with only a few people sitting at the tables, watching him intently. Some new faces, he noticed. “Where’s everyone else?” he asked, the feeling that something was wrong suddenly nagging him. He had been in contact with them a few hours before, right after leaving the Yavin IV base, but he didn’t contact them once he entered the orbit, so he wouldn’t risk giving his position away by using the short range communication system. It had been a mistake, he now noticed.

“I don’t know,” the man replied. “That sergeant of yours said it was an emergency. They took off and left us here to guard the place.”

Cassian frowned. There was something fishy going on. His men would never leave the base guarded by so few people and certainly not only by newcomers. His hand rushed towards the blaster but it ended up being too late. His vision went black before he could register what was happening.

When he woke up, the familiar dizziness of a stun gun making his head spin, he found himself on his knees, arms and legs bound together behind his back. He tried the handcuffs, but they proved to be pretty sturdy. He cursed himself for being captured so easily.

“Well, well,” said the burly man -- he called himself Tev, Cassian recalled -- coming into his field of vision. He was flipping Cassian’s vibrodagger, one of his concealed weapons, in a gloved hand. “When we sent the others into an ambush a few hours ago we didn’t hope to catch the recruiter himself. I guess this is our lucky day. Or you’re dumber than everyone thinks you are,” he laughed and a few snickers and cheers erupted in the dark room.  

Cassian looked around. From what he could see, there were five people in the room, besides Tev: four of them looked like locals and weren’t fighters, he could tell from the careless way they played with the blasters, but one of them stood out. He hadn’t noticed him when he entered the room, so he assumed he was hiding in the shadows. He was probably the one that had tased him. He looked like a bounty hunter, Cassian thought. He was a large man, dressed in a dark cloak, a steely expression on his face. He wasn’t playing with his weapons, but neither did he look ready to shoot, a modified E-11 blaster rifle hanging from his belt.

“So that’s what actually happened to them?” Cassian asked, checking his boot for his security kit. It wasn’t there, and neither were the other blades he had hidden in his clothes. The bounty hunter had thoroughly searched him, something he didn’t think the others would be capable of doing. “What do you have to gain from handing them over to the Empire?” He didn’t know if the Empire had ambushed them, but it was the safest bet.

“A comfortable life in the Empire. A well paying job in the military. And a few other little things that our friend here and his connections in the military were so kind to promise us.”

Cassian looked over to the bounty hunter. It wasn’t the first time the Empire had hired bounty hunters to do their dirty work. In this case it seemed to be pretty a pretty good idea: he knew better than some tight-arsed officer what to promise to these poor, miserable bastards for their cooperation. They were gullible and very easy to persuade into following you into battle if you promised them enough. He knew, after all he’d done the same thing. But then he went back to Yavin, the injury of his friend more important at that point than his mission. He had counted on the fact that everyone on this planet hated the Empire way too much to be tempted to join their ranks, but he had clearly been wrong. The less experienced recruiters that were left on the planet hadn’t seen the early signs of betrayal and had fallen into a trap. It was all his fault.

“And you really think they’ll keep their promises? Your friend’s a bounty hunter, the kind of scum that only cares about the money, and the Empire doesn’t give two shits on people like you,” Cassian said, defiantly grinning into the man’s face.

“Shut up!” Tev yelled, coming closer and slapping Cassian’s face with the back of his hand. The familiar taste of blood filled his mouth and his vision blurred a little, but his teeth were still in place. “You’ll see, now that we can hand you over to them too, they’ll give us much more than that! They may even give us a shiny medal for getting rid of you.”

“Why don’t we kill him then?” one of the others asked, the greedy look in his eyes sending a cold shiver down Cassian’s spine. How did people like these end up in the Rebellion HQ?

“They said they want him alive,” Tev explained, looking a little irritated by the question. “It’s their problem what they do with him, we’ll still get our reward.”

“They won’t give you shit,” Cassian insisted, looking as smug and defiant as he could from his kneeling position, earning another slap from the man.

Luck seemed to be on his side this time. The man was incredibly proud, something he had noticed ever since he had recruited him, and from his breath, the bottle of liquor didn’t drink itself. He had managed to easily get him angry and ranting. And angry meant stupid and not paying attention to what Cassian was doing. A lockpick very well hidden in the lining of his boot, that the idiots had overlooked, was all he needed to get his cuffs open, but he needed them to not pay attention to him. And Tev was doing a great job making a spectacle of himself, distracting even the bounty hunter long enough for Cassian to free himself. But he was still outnumbered and unarmed.

He knew he had to take out the bounty hunter first. That would probably be the trickiest part. The others didn’t seem to be able to shoot straight and hit something even if it stood two meters in front of them, but he didn’t know how skilled the stranger was. He seemed rather smug, keeping his weapon holstered, meaning he didn’t consider Cassian to be an immediate threat. So he had to take him out fast, while he was still relaxed.

The opportunity came when Tev approached Cassian once again, spitting some very nasty words in his face and poking his cheek with the vibrodagger. A sudden and well placed hit to his neck was all Cassian needed to break his windpipe and take the knife from his hand, as the former rebel clutched onto his neck. In a few seconds the blade was turned on and lodged into the bounty hunter’s gut, easily cutting through his flesh, severing his aorta. Blood was gushing everywhere, soaking their clothes. He tried to fight back, grabbing the blaster, but the only thing he could do was shoot Cassian in the thigh before he yanked the weapon from his dying hands.

With the blaster now in his possession, it was really easy to take the others out. He had been right, they didn’t really know how to use the blasters. They were probably just a bunch of cargo pilots working for the local mafia, just like Tev, looking for a better life. They may have been tough and resilient, but they weren’t fighters. He still had to shoot them all.

He took back his blaster, his security kit and some other possessions that were crucial for his survival. The rest, he would have to replace at base, when he got there. He quickly searched the bounty hunter for anything of importance, but found nothing except a comm that he might have used to communicate with the Stormtroopers, who were probably on their way already.

He hurried to the command room, a small chamber in which they had set out their equipment. It had been searched, but everything was operated in code so he doubted that they had found anything of value. Still, it couldn’t get into the hands of the Empire, since everything could be decoded with the right equipment and given enough time.

A rather cacophonous array of noises coming from the entrance let him know that the stormtroopers had arrived. A quick check on one of the surveillance monitors proved him right. He had intended to try and get hold of the others through the base’s short range com or find their location on the tracker, but it was too late now. There were too many stormtroopers to be able to take them all on his own, and they were approaching fast.

Ever since they set their headquarters in the old building, they knew that there was always a possibility that it would one day be taken over by the enemy, so they were prepared for this scenario. The whole building was rigged with explosives, making sure that all their equipment would be unusable.  

Cassian punched in the code that armed the self destruct system, leaving him only 5 minutes to leave the building, before it collapsed on top of him. But with his leg wounded and hurting like hell and with the stormtroopers blocking the main exit, he wasn’t sure he would make it. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to.

He knew this whole mess was his fault. He had overlooked some things, underestimated the enemy and put his own feelings above the mission. And now he just couldn’t see a way out. The headquarters was compromised, along with their weapons and supplies, their team was probably dead or captured, either way, there was no way he could save them. He’d have to live his whole life knowing that his stupidity had killed them. But he didn’t have to live...

They’d bury him a hero, he figured, even though they would know it was his fault. Still, no one would dare talk shit about him at his funeral. They only mentioned good things about you, like being dead suddenly made you a better person.

It would be a short ceremony, everyone way too busy to waste too much time on the dead. Cora would probably cry and so would Lewella. The others would be better at hiding their grief and would later hold a toast in their secret meeting place in his memory, bringing out the best alcohol they had. K2 would probably take it the worst. He’d be lost for a while, but he’d find a purpose eventually. Maybe he’d even make new friends. They’d all move on and his memory would fade. He wondered if Cora would remember him over the years, when she’d be old and surrounded by grandchildren. If she’d ever tell them the story of the rebel that had kidnapped her from the Empire…

“Ah, fuck it…” he mumbled and limped towards the emergency exit.

The emergency exit was a narrow shaft that had been once used for maintenance or supplies, Cassian didn’t know. They had installed a ladder, and made it as roomy as it could possibly get, but even without his wound it would still be pretty uncomfortable to go through. Cassian swore, but clenched his teeth and pushed on despite the pain. He wasn’t dying, not yet at least, so the pain shouldn’t be a hindrance. He could take it. He could make it out in time. The clock was ticking, though.

He was only a few meters away from the exit when the booming sound of the explosion filled the air. He hurried, crawling through the tight space as fast as he could, bruising his elbows and knees and scraping his hands. He was almost out the little opening in the exterior wall when the building started to collapse.

Unfortunately, he didn’t make it out on time.

Previous chapter

Masterlist

[asteroiideae]

cassian andor

GIVE ME A CHARACTER;

and I’ll break their ass down:

How I feel about this character-  HOO BOY. How I feel about Cassian Andor? I have SO MANY FEELINGS ABOUT CASSIAN, OKAY? I think he’s such a cool concept: life-long rebel? spy? been in this fight since he was six years old? wearing thin at the edges? YES, YES, YES. He’s like Leia, but dirty and in the trenches. He’s got all the world-weariness of Han Solo. He’s got that driving hope that there has to be something good left in things, like Luke. I absolutely love that despite being evidently in charge, Cassian understands the people he’s with well enough not to over-shadow them, and never feels the need to really assert himself over them - with maybe the exception of Jyn on Eadu but like…he was also on his way to shoot her father so like, there’s some layers there. In short, I think Cassian is a man who is written counter to the toxic masculinity we see in a lot of action films and that makes him so goddamn refreshing. Of course, Diego Luna also portrayed him in such an endearing way, and Alexander Freed really sold a lot of Cassian’s motives in the book and I just. I’m a fan, okay? A big fan. Huge.

All the people I ship romantically with this character- Jyn Erso. I don’t know that I could really ship Cassian with anyone else because I just have such strong feelings about them together??? From the moment Jyn rescues that little girl on Jedha, Cassian is sucked into her orbit and there’s no going back. I’ll admit that without a fix-it ending, it’s not necessarily love - because there’s just not time. But if they’d lived, those two were going to be a ship and you can’t tell me otherwise. I won’t listen. Alexander Freed agrees with me, okay, it’s canon.

My non-romantic OTP for this character- First, K-2SO. Look, they’re obviously bros. You don’t just offer to wipe your memory data for the sake of someone’s dignity if he’s not your bro, okay? They’re ride-or-die. K-2SO’s last fucking thoughts were basically that although he could live in several scenarios it would require leaving his BFF to die and hell to the no that wasn’t happening. On the other side, Cassian had the most heartbreaking response to Kaytoo’s goodbye and I really can’t think about it for too long.- Next, Bodhi Rook. It’s mostly my own headcanons, but like. Cassian is the first person to just undoubtedly trust in what Bodhi says post-Bor Gullet and like, that just seems like it’d be really important? Bodhi loses everything: his home, his ability to define reality, his JOB, like…everything. And here’s Cassian Andor just like “of course you know how to navigate Eadu, of course you know where Galen is, of course you can get us onto Scarif” like…how good was that for Bodhi’s self-awareness? I feel like he’d be so ride-or-die for Cassian after that, and in return Cassian is so mindful of that little family he’s collected and yeah…I have strong feelings about it.

My unpopular opinion about this character- Okay, so. I love a good Modern AU but I physically recoil whenever I see Cassian working for the police in them. Like, I just…there’s so much complexity to the role of policing forces in the US and their relationship with minorities. Especially now. Especially with the Latinx communities and the Black communities, and I just have a hard time seeing Cassian (as either a Rebel Intelligence officer in canon, or a Mexican national in AUs) working with a questionable force like the police. Like, I know it’s the most obvious line you can draw from one narrative to the other but it’s hardly an equal comparison and…I have a lot of feelings about it. There’s one fic (The World Through a Scope) where he’s a DEA agent with a lot of heavy and complex feelings about his job and that one…doesn’t rub me as raw - and in fact it’s one of my favorite modern AUs. (But also Mexico and the drug trade is also a really complex subject and that’s a lot to try to navigate and god bless GuineaPiggie for tackling it.) IDK I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT THIS.- For my second unpopular opinion…this is a trope that I enjoy, but God it just feels so out of character. Jealous!Cassian. Like what Jyn and Cassian have going is really magnetic and hard to deny, first of all. But even if it wasn’t - even if Jyn wanted to be with Han Solo, or whatever, Cassian doesn’t strike me as being the “punish you because I’m jealous” sort. Strong emotions get spies killed - and we see him break in the film at times, but like. They’re obvious breaks when he’s under a lot of strain? Jyn, and the rest of us, probably wouldn’t notice even if he was jealous? Which is a really machismo element in storytelling anyway, and if you see my above Cassian feelings I just don’t see him fitting that role. He’s not Han Solo, guys. He’s just not.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.- I really, really, really want to see more about Cassian’s time as Fulcrum? I’m hoping I get a surprise with him in Rebels (unlikely as that is), or that K-2SO and his comic series will show more of that. Of all the Rogue One characters, Cassian has the most potential for fitting into the greater narrative of the ‘verse but he’s the one without a book, and I have to think that’s deliberate? Maybe we’ll see him in other things. PUT HIM IN THE HAN SOLO MOVIE, DISNEY. PLS GOD LET ME HAVE MORE DIEGO-AS-CASSIAN.

[egregiousderp]

Fulcrum X Fulcrum (With Spoilers for Season Three of Rebels if that wasn't Obvious. We good? Okay~)

Okay look. I know a few things after this year’s double punch of Rebels and Rogue One:

–Cassian Andor is a former Separatist and a former Fulcrum agent apparently involved with recruiting

–Agent Kallus is apparently really good at reprogramming droids.

–Even parts of the fandom that LIKE Kallus want to see him punched.

–That jacket and hair combo’s gotta come from somewhere

–I need these assholes to meet.

–The timeline technically meshes so it could happen.

And so I ended up writing Cassian/Kallus (Cassius?) pre-slash fic snippet I might never go further with over Clone Wars Politics, Kaytoo’s Sass, Namedropping, and my old favorite: “Sad Pan Kallus is Pan As Hell.”

For the record I blame Moon for not stopping me.

——–

——–

“I’d heard a rumor some of the members of the rebellion held separatist leanings during the Clone War.”

It isn’t much in the way of conversation when you’ve been paired off with a strange man to fix an imperial droid. But it’s something considering theirs had been a conversation of false starts:

The information in this unit must be valuable.

The withering scowl back.

Kay has no information.

Or:

I didn’t catch your name.

It’s the same as yours. Fulcrum.

And his look.

That isn’t an answer.

Cassian. Cassian Andor, Rebel Intelligence.

Now Kallus is hunting for another thread, picking at the man’s accent. Rim world. Beta quadrant. Separatist territory–in Kallus’s youth anyway.

“We take what we’re given,” Cassian replies stiffly, not looking up. There’s a ways to look up for Kallus no matter what. “Wanting a droid to take the place of a man does not make a lesser rebel.”

He’s fiddling with the insides of his droid, brows knit deep and hard.

“We don’t choose where we’re born, I suppose,” Kallus defers.

“You’re from Coruscant,” there’s a scoff to the name of his homeworld, “Tell me, Captain Kallus, do they still teach the Separatists were terrorists and radicals, railing against democracy?”

He’s never told Captain Andor his name.

“It’s hard to argue with the image of a temple burning,” Kallus replies quietly.

To say the least of the horrific, withered countenance of the Emperor that had given Kallus nightmares as a child, a fear of Jedi that lasted long into his adult life.

“I don’t have to.” Cassian growls, face going hard and pinched before he’s leaning. Back down, fiddling with something in the back of his droid’s head, the lump of metal cradled in his lap like it’s the face of a child.

It’s personal, Kallus notices. This droid, this one droid matters to him or he never would have asked for the help in the first place. And it’s Imperial or any number of people probably would have helped, not just Kallus.

Kallus goes back to reattaching the droid’s right arm, to balancing the servos. He tests the motion in the metal fingers, letting the silence linger between them. He sneaks glances at the other man with the right afforded a tall, well-muscled person. No one wanted to upset him on first look, so often he could look where he pleased without issue.

Captain Andor knows he’s looking but seems bent on willfully ignoring him instead. He is a handsome man beneath the perpetual scowl, Kallus notes. Though he thinks many beings are handsome and he has no reason to believe the life of a rebel is an easy one though he’s barely begun his own.

Kallus wants to ask how he became a Fulcrum agent if he’s traveling in the company of an Imperial KX, but talks with the lilting accent of a rim-worlder.

Doesn’t

He lets his eyes slip away, bending so his head is lower than Cassian’s. The subtle quirks of body language worked into him in Imperial Intelligence. The unspoken cues that told a person to trust. To expect authority. To yield.

Cassian doesn’t look up, adding, “You should talk to Rex. About the Clone Wars. About being a clone.”

“I’ve already spoken to Captain Rex in gratitude for his service.”

“And in your texts on history was there ever a mention of his name? Of the names of any of the clones serving the Jedi?” Cassian’s accent apparently gets more pronounced when he’s riled. A dangerous trait in an agent, perhaps.

Kallus is quiet.

“…Did he really serve under General Skywalker?” He asks finally.

“So you think he’s lying?” Cassian shoots back.

“I- No,” Kallus pushes at his hair, flattening it back, “My mentor, Colonel Yularen always…spoke highly of General Skywalker. Nothing more.”

The unspoken unease that two men who once fought for the same side so closely might face off again as enemies lingers with him.

He wonders how many times he undid the work of Cassian Andor’s hands while serving the empire.

Cassian glances at him for a moment then goes back to tightening screws with angry little jerks of his arm.

“Would you still have thanked Captain Rex if he had killed General Skywalker on command?” The Rebel snaps.

Kallus grimaces.

“I don’t know what I would have done.”

The honest answer.

Perhaps not the best one because Cassian levels a look at him, seems to peer at him.

He’s a sharp man, Kallus notes. Easily his equal and should be treated as such. Stubble and bags under the eyes like he’s been camped out in a jungle on his own, and not in the great ruins of Yavin with a company of rebels. Rough edges and hard choices.

Kallus looks back at him and is sure it shows in his face that he isn’t sure if Captain Cassian Andor, Fulcrum, is what he wants to become.

He looks at the way Cassian’s hands rest almost tenderly on the dome of the droid’s head, a throwaway pile of scrap with an Imperial logo still prominently on its arm, and thinks maybe he’s precisely what he should like to become.

Cassian’s hard eyes pinch.

“You should think carefully about programming, Captain Kallus,” his voice is very soft, a handkerchief hiding a vibroblade in a dark alley, “Not all of it is done to droids.”

“It has been thoroughly brought to my attention I ought to ask more questions. Do let me know if I bore you,” Kallus replies, keeping his tone as bland as if he’s at a core dinner dressed in gold braid.

The corner of Cassian’s mouth goes up in a humorless smile, a noiseless chuff of laughter.

He toggles a switch and the KX unit’s white eyes flick back to life.

A metal hand clamps almost immediately around Kallus’s neck.

Kallus chokes, instincts leaping hard. A second metal hand bats away his blows, unfolding limb by limb.

“KAY!” Cassian shouts.

The droid’s head swiveled to him immediately.

It paused a moment, then unclamped his metal fingers from Kallus’s throat.

“…Clear of Hostiles.” A male voice intoned, a little primly.

Kallus coughed, slumped on the stones of the temple floor.

“Are you alright?” Cassian snaps, dropping to his knees with a curse.

To his surprise, Kallus laughs under his breath, rubbing his throat and jaw.

He pulls himself to his feet, waving off the other man’s hands

“Now there’s the rebel welcome I’d expected.”

Cassian’s startled into cracking a smile, quickly trying to cover it. A quiet thing.

Kallus covers his staring by patting the droid’s metal arm.

“That’s quite a loyalty subroutine your KX has.”

“I am seventy percent certain I should find that response insulting,” the droid replied pausing and flicking its white eyes to him, “I’m K2-SO. I’m a reprogrammed Imperial Droid.”

“Kallus,” Kallus intones, “Formerly ISB-021, an agent of the Imperial Security Bureau, and formerly a Fulcrum Agent in service of the Rebellion.” He pats the droid’s arm again. “You could probably consider us kindred spirits.”

Cassian’s mouth widens.

“I will not,” the droid says, once again sounding smug, “My programming is far superior to a defective Imperial Agent’s, Cassian’s seen to it.”

“Kay.”

“Fine by me,” Kallus says, ruefully rubbing his neck, “Good Men like Captain Andor should be in good hands. Yours seem to serve more than well enough.”

Something passes into Cassian’s face that he can’t quite read.

Kallus quickly removes his hand from the droid’s arm.

“Everything seems in order.” He inclined his head in a formal bow, “Fulcrum.”

Cassian’s eyes flick over him before he nods back.

“Fulcrum.”

“Let me know if you need help with Imperial equipment. I’m here to do whatever good I can.”

Cassian considers this, dark eyes briefly flicking down to Kallus’s hands, then up again to his eyes. There’s fur in the lining of his coat even in the heat of Yavin, framing his face. He nods after a moment.

“I will.”

The droid turns to him.

“You will?” It repeats.

Cassian shushes Kaytoo, eyes still on Kallus. He says nothing.

Kallus smiles.

“Thank you,” he says, meaning it.

“You actually like him?” He can hear the droid say too loudly as he leaves.

Cassian’s response is murmured too low for his to hear but Kallus’ smile broadens into a grin.

“Do you want to know how I feel about strange men touching me?” the droid’s offended voice is gradually lost to the ruckus of the cargo bay.