Masks And Helmets That Hides Someone's Face In Such A Way That They Become The Face Themselves My Beloved

i am firmly convinced that din djarin is aro-spec and asexual.

(quick disclaimer: i speak for myself. not all aros and aces share my experiences with aromanticism and asexuality.)

one thing that's always struck me about din is how much he values platonic relationships. cara and kuill aren't any less important to him than omera. that's not necessarily an a-spec thing, but it's rare for straight characters on tv. it's even rarer for the focus of the show to be a platonic, father-son relationship rather than a romantic one. aro-coding? definitely.

i've also noticed that a lot of allos, especially straight allos, seem to sort people of their target genders into boxes of "potential s/o" and "not a potential s/o". even if they're happily single, there's still this idea that "i just want to be friends, but i'm fine if it evolves into something more". like, the idea of a romantic/sexual relationship is always in the back of their mind, they’re just choosing not to pursue it.

(second disclaimer: i'm not allo. all i know about allo-ness is what i've observed from the outside.)

din doesn't do that. it's like the "romantic" and "sexual" relationship boxes don't even exist for him most of the time. his only boxes are "enemy", "ally", and "friend/potential babysitter". he's never even considered that cara could be anything other than a friend. i can't describe it quite right, but this mentality towards relationship categories was one of the things that convinced me i was aroace and not just an allo who "hasn't met the right person yet".

and then there's din's relationship with omera. it didn't seem sexual to me, for one thing. second, i'm romance-repulsed, and this is the only romantic tension i've ever seen that i wasn't squicked out by and actually even liked. i just kept thinking, "if i were in a relationship, this is what it would be like." they both felt like they could be happy together, but also like their lives would still be fulfilling if they were single. no theatrics, no cheesiness, just two people who knew they could love each other if only they had the chance. but they didn't. so they moved on.

i don't know exactly what it was. it just gave me a-spec vibes.

all interpretations of din are valid. personally, i think he's asexual and some variant of aromantic - maybe grayro, maybe demi, maybe oriented aro. not sure.

even if he turns out to be a regular ol' hetero, i'm super happy with how this show is combatting amatonormativity. literally the only character in the show with an s/o is frog lady. none of the single characters are portrayed as broken or defective or missing someone. i love that i can watch this show and feel safe from aphobia. thank you, jon favreau and dave filoni.

DO YOU KNOW THIS CHARACTER?

repression

wikipedia article for self denial / return of the jedi (1983) / kathy acker / obi wan kenobi (2022) / wiki, cont. / kenobi (2022) / star wars: labyrinth of evil by james luceno / kenobi (2022) / camille rankine

i don’t think we should be quick to trust anything bo-katan says about the children of the watch.

the main thing i’m suspicious of is her claim that they’re a fringe group. maybe they were in the clone wars era, but they’re clearly the dominant mandalorian faction right now. we know this because literally everyone in the show, not just din, thinks all mandalorians never take off their helmets. that perception wouldn’t be so widespread if the helmet thing were only practiced by a small group of religious zealots. i mean, this is galaxy-wide common knowledge. it’s not just din being sheltered by a cult.

clearly something changed between clone wars and the fall of the empire. i’m guessing most of the mainstream mandalorians were wiped out after the great purge, leaving the children of the watch as the largest group. one reason for that may have been a cultural shift towards the ancient way because the anonymity aspect of it gave them a definite survival advantage. however, the main reason was probably the practice of adopting foundlings.

the mainstream mandalorian culture prior to the purge seemed to view itself as a race rather than a creed. this meant that when the ethnic mandalorians were killed off, the children of the watch kept growing because they adopted outsiders into their group. the armorer alludes to this when she says that “foundlings are the future.”

this is why din getting upset about boba and bo-katan wearing beskar armor doesn’t necessarily mean he’s being sheltered by a cult, as bo-katan claims. notice that he’s okay with them keeping their armor once he knows they’re mandalorian in heritage, if not in creed. he just didn’t consider that was a possibility because if you’re mandalorian and never swore the creed, you’re probably dead.

basically: i don’t think bo-katan is as representative of mandalorians as a whole as she makes herself out to be, and i don’t think din’s tribe is as cultish as she claims.

but anyway, that’s my take. thanks for reading my ramblings. i’ve only just started clone wars so like... let me know if i’m wildly missing the mark in my ignorance.

psa to anyone who follows me: if i randomly drop out of a conversation/vanish from tumblr without warning, it's just social anxiety and i will be back

if i had a nickel for every time my favorite fictional character was the father figure to a clone bioengineered to have superpowers i would have two nickels. which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it happened twice

we all bounce from media hyperfixation to media hyperfixation but we retain our Types of character who we consistently become obsessed with

me, an aromantic, whenever i realize two characters like each other before they start kissing:

[ID: The Captain America "I understood that reference" meme, except it's "I understood that romantic subtext."]

Got called a weirdo irl for the way I write my fics sooo

I am the “writes in document tabs” if anyone’s wondering

Din’s covert could conceivably be the direct legacy of the true mandalorians and i can make it make sense without even being that convoluted: an essay

STAR WARS REBELS 2.06, Brothers of the Broken Horn