#started with andor

[skoulsons]

Obligatory sappy end of the year post !!!

Made a tumblr account about a year ago now and I never expected it to turn into anything. I just wanted somewhere to Rot and unashamedly spew my thoughts about my blorbos that I couldn’t contain

It brought more than I thought and I’m very thankful for it. The friendships that have been made and the moots I see in my notifs who id die for unironically are the best parts of this place 🫶🏻

And the community, of course. The gifsets, art, and fic that leave me dry heaving on the floor are also a great part of it 😭

Time for another year. More rots. More friends to meet. More friends to make. More shows and movies to experience. More father and daughter relationships to discover. More meta posts to make and fics to read and write. More time to be alive 🤍

[fayzday]

Vel & Kleya through the years - ANDOR

[shutupcrime]

Some of you are too afraid to admit this but we all know Star Wars works best when it goes full soap opera

[obii-wan]

new pilot indeed Andor S02E01: One Year Later

[hegodamask]

Dedra Meero and Syril Karn stressed tf out in ANDOR Seasons 1 and 2

[chipthekeeper]

You're the only reason I'm here.

[minpage]

Watching Andor, and going just as insane over this season as the first one. These characters are gonna be rattling around my head for a long time

(No spoilers please, I haven’t finished it yet)

[syril-kam]

ok at first I didn’t understand what kyle and denise meant by “it’s a fledgling relationship, they’re still figuring things out” because. come on. it’s been two years, they lived together, theyre having weird kinky sex in the dark. BUT SEEING THEIR WEIRD LITTLE EXCHANGE IN EPISODE 5, i finally understand.

“if i say this is the greatest day of my life will it spoil everything?” like who asks a question like that. and then dedra taking 80 years to reply with “it’s good to see you happy” with the world’s most pained confused guarded expression on her face. because it’s surprising to her!! that she wants to see him happy!!

[jyn-ehrso]

Andor S02E07 "Messenger"

[gender-luster]

for a show that was originally supposed to be about cassian AND k-2so, andor really did jackshit about truly establishing their relationship at all or even giving k-2 any reason for actually being loyal to cassian

[nittroy]

When space whale design so good you can't just steal it to your own cosmoopera story so you have to draw your first fanart in years and revive your tumblr art blog to post it

[other version and image description under the cut!]

Ezra version ♡

[ID: A horizontal artwork showing Exra Bridger from season 2 of Star Wars: Rebels and the group of space whales, Purgil. The purgil are floating in space and one of them, closest to the viewing point, is positioned so that its eye coincides with one of Ezra's eyes. Their eyes are shining teal blue. Ezra is depicted in a somewhat abstract way, he stands waist high and the space behind him, but behind the whales.

In the second version of the image, Ezra is in the foreground, while the Purgil is only in the background. He is standing and holding his lightsaber, looking somewhat lost in thought. ]

[universitysunflowers]

Dedra Merro is either

1) about to have a crisis of faith unlike anything we’ve ever seen or

2) she’s going to become one of the worst fascist leaders ever portrayed in modern media

[hegodamask]

"A respectable career, a relationship, finally?" All of it cast aside, thrown away, and for what?"

[laneboyheathens]

Ruescott Melshi in Andor Season 2 Trailer

[chipthekeeper]

Today I had the displeasure of reading the words “we get it vel is sad and gay can we move on” and several other similarly ridiculous things on twitter a website not to be named, so I spent my whole 45 minute drive home just absolutely fuming with the need to defend my girl. Most of you know I've already done this in a broad sense before (defending her as a character and as half of a complicated relationship on her appreciation Friday), but let me focus in on what we’ve gotten from Vel so far in season two for now. Because yeah, it might not have been exactly what I was hoping to see, but it’s meaningful as hell and Faye is doing a fucking incredible job and deserves to be applauded for it.

Look. Even if all she was doing was being sad and gay, I would be here for that. You know this. Those are two of my most favorite qualities of her. But let’s not pretend that all she’s doing is “mourning her gay situationship” and forget why we’re seeing her in this arc in the first place. She’s Mon’s cousin and closest confidant, and she’s Chandrilan. Stuck between these two facts is a conflict for Vel. She HAS to be at this three-day-long heteronormative child wedding from hell because someone she loves needs her support, but she hates every second of it. She hates this place, these people, this culture, probably even the clothes on her back. She looks uncomfortable just about every second she’s on screen in this arc, ESPECIALLY in the third episode.

See?

Something you may or may not have noticed – even I didn’t really register it until I started thinking about all of this because watching three fucking episodes all in one night made them all blur together – but Vel DOESN’T ACTUALLY SAY A WORD IN THE THIRD EPISODE. She has no lines. Vel’s extreme stress and discomfort are conveyed only through Faye’s body language and facial expressions. To complain about this and cry about her only being “sad and gay” is a huge discredit to the performance and I simply won’t stand for it.

Like yes, she’s sad and gay but why can’t we take a second to think about what that means? Look at her circumstances, even leaving out the Cinta of it all for a second. This is a person who must have realized at a very young age that she was not only different but very likely going to either live a completely miserable life or be a disappointment to her very wealthy family and her society at large, and being back here in the middle of it all for an occasion like this hurts fucking deeply even if it’s a weird tradition and she wants no part in it. I can tell you this for a fact because I have fucking lived it. As a gay person, I have no desire whatsoever to take part in a traditional religious marriage or wedding ceremony like the one my sister had a couple years ago, but being at her wedding and the party that followed was overwhelming and painful because I spent so much time thinking something along the lines of “even if I had someone in my life to do this with, these same people – my family – would never celebrate my love this way.”

Now, is that what Vel’s thinking about as she stands next to the other unmarried women (i.e. teenage children) watching her niece’s first dance with her new husband? Perhaps not. But the way she breaks down after seeing Cinta sure looked an awful lot like how I looked sitting outside in the dark and the rain, drunk as I’ve ever been, while my sister’s reception carried on behind me.

And this, to me in particular, is what’s so great about Vel as a character – as a STAR WARS character – and why I will never ever complain about seeing her be “sad and gay.” For the first time ever in my favorite franchise, I get to see myself so clearly. She’s sad and gay, yes, but she’s also fiercely supportive of her family (the part she likes, anyway) – she takes Mon’s hand in support when she needs it, and she seems ready to snap at Kleya for even being around and creating the possibility of trouble at this function. She’s sad and gay, yes, but she’s on the front line of a fucking rebellion. Just because you don’t see it in this arc because that’s not where the story is focused doesn’t mean that’s not still true, and we’ll see that again come next week I’m sure.

I don’t really know how to wrap this up, but the point is if you’re tired of what’s happening with Vel in this show, you’re probably not paying enough attention. I want more of her and more for her to do as much as anybody (that’s a lie, I want it SO MUCH FUCKING MORE THAN ANYBODY, fucking try me), but there’s already a whole ocean of her character to explore with just what we have, if you only bother to stop and consider it.

[cintasvel]

i've been thinking about the last shot of andor a lot and there's been a lot of debate about how it was handled, particularly within the constraints of bix and her role this season. regardless of personal opinion, gilroy has said the shot was supposed to be hopeful and i get it. you fight today for the children of tomorrow so they can live peacefully. i think, regardless of how i feel about bix's story as a whole, i can get behind that. as cliche as it may be.

what i can't really get behind is star war's commitment to signifying hope for its characters in the most heteronormative way imaginable. each and every single time. it is so incredibly boring and it's been done so many times. let's not insult one another by pretending star wars doesn't have mothers in it and that motherhood doesn't get addressed often. padme is a mother. mon is a mother. maarva is a mother. leia is a mother. hera is a mother. there are a lot of mothers in star wars. motherhood and its connection in signifying hope runs deep within star wars.

what makes it particularly awful this time around is there are actual, canonical, queer characters in andor and, as expected, they do not get even a minuscule amount of hope in comparison to the heterosexual characters around them. cinta's arc happens entirely off screen before she's killed off in the most insulting way you can imagine and vel is relegated to being a megaphone around yavin to encourage cassian and bix into their roles. that's not to say i don't love faye marsay and what she did with her limited screentime. she really fucking sold that vel's lost her will to live for anything but the rebellion. but if we're making an anti-fascist show, you can't just ignore how you handle your queer and poc characters. you just can't.

my point is, the traditional family has always been the pinnacle of hope for star wars. and it's fine. but it completely ignores that for many people -- queer or otherwise -- the traditional family isn't that. vel's entire character screams that isn't that for her by her two most important connections being cinta, her girlfriend and mon, her cousin. the finale does try and balance this with vel reaching out to kleya and her being a constant source of connection and family with mon. but let's be honest with one another, it doesn't hit as hard as it could have if cinta and vel had been alive and together. or, if we really needed to kill them both ('everyone dies in this show' comments truly have aged like milk lmao) if they had sacrificed themselves fighting for that tomorrow. not because romance is inherently 'more important' than platonic relationships, but because cinta is a HUGE part of vel's character and vice versa for vel. you truly cannot have one without the other because andor never tried to write either of them otherwise. vel gets away with a little more because she's mon mothma's cousin and her beef with kleya and luthen helps bring tension and resolve to that. but cinta? outside of her threadbare backstory, vel is all she has (which is tragic by itself).

i've gone off topic a little, but my point is, vel's ending in andor shows her as a rebel commander willing to fight for what she truly believes in. outside of the title, this is not a huge jump from the vel of s1 (arc-wise, personality and character is a whole other story). the major difference is that vel no longer has the hope of fighting for a better life with cinta like she had in s1. instead she is the sole queer person in the cast (i'm sorry kleya fans, i love our girl but headcanons do not count here) and has to live with this utterly senseless tragedy until she's dead. now, i love doomed yuri (and for the billionth time, i am not asking for velcinta to be treated with kids gloves) and i'm well aware cassian/bix also gets this ending, but the difference between how vel and cinta are treated and portrayed compared to their heterosexual counterparts is so staggeringly different. like, you need to be willingly obtuse not to see how.

as a white lady, i'm not going to too deeply into how misogyny and racism plays a key part here -- someone far more clever than i no doubt will -- but if you think cinta's arc was well-respected in compared to the white women of andor (her background literally parallels kleya's, but guess who gets that examined. not cinta!) then i just really don't know what to say to convince you otherwise. it's not even about her being a minor character (kleya was too in s1). it's about how qwoc are only used as tools to further their white counterparts because their stories aren't worth examining by themselves. as much as i tell myself i'd kill for a cinta novel/comic, i know it's not going to happen because that would require cinta to be considered worthy of exploring. and i don't know if lucasfilm publishing will ever think that. maybe i'm wrong! i'd like to be proven wrong!

and so, vel's arc (or lack of it) and the mishandling of cinta is ultimately, why that last shot just didn't land for me. even as i understand why it was there and what it signifies and can even get behind it... i just don't think hope = the children of tomorrow hits for me as much as it used to, even though it's still incredibly relevant.

this was a lot of rambling. maybe it doesn't make sense or maybe i'm entirely wrong. but i think yeah. it's an okay shot. it's probably not what i'd end my anti-fascist show on though when you've not taken the time to examine (or care) why queer characters are only allowed to be miserable. it's 2025, man.