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.
armorer: *gives din a jetpack* when you have healed, you will begin your drills. until you know it, it will not listen to your commands
din: i understand
also din: *uses the jetpack like ten minutes later to singlehandedly blow up a spaceship while on a head injury*
[ID: Venn Diagram with one circle titled “Tried to kill Din at least once” and the other titled “Will babysit his child”. Under “Tried to kill him at least once” are pictures of Moff Gideon and Xi’an, while Frog Lady, Omera, and Peli are under “Will babysit his child”. The “both” category has the most people, with Mayfeld, Fennec, Boba Fett, Greef Karga, Cara, and Ahsoka. End ID.]
5, 12, and 13 for the mandalorian?
thank you for the ask, lovely anon! here you go:
5) Name one character you headcanon as aroace
din. i could see him as a lot of different aro-spec identities, but i've been headcanoning him as aroace since like ten minutes into episode 1. somehow he embodies both the "no emotions" and "extra room for platonic love" stereotypes at the same time. his entire existence is a big aroace mood.
honestly though, the entire cast of characters is free aro headcanon real estate. none of them express any interest in romance except for the frogs.
12) Which relationship dynamics do you prefer to see? Romantic, platonic, sexual, familial, queerplatonic?
i love platonic (and adoptive) familial relationships. platonic din & literally anyone always warms my genficcer heart. and of course there's the parent-child dynamic between din & grogu, or din & the mandalorian who rescued him as a child. i sometimes read romantic din/omera, but i'd prefer queerplatonic if those fics existed. sexual... no. never. in any fandom.
13) Name two or more characters you think are in a queerplatonic relationship
oh, din & omera for sure. i think omera is straight and attracted to din, but aware on some level that he's not into anyone and is okay that a relationship with him will be a little different. i doubt they label it (or even have the terminology to do so) but to me fics where they're strictly platonic or romantic just feel... off.
one thing i want from season 3 is an acknowledgement of what losing the razor crest means for din. that ship is literally his only safe space. it’s the one constant in his unpredictable life, and the one place where he isn’t perpetually under attack. the difference in his body language between when he’s planetside and when he’s flying is huge - it’s the most relaxed we ever see him. in addition, without the razor crest din will be forced to be dependent on other people. he seems to be living paycheck-to-paycheck and i don’t think he can afford a new ship. he has much, much less control over his own life without one, and it’s not like he ever had much control to start out with. i cannot emphasize this enough: losing the razor crest is absolutely devastating for din. i don’t want it to be too overshadowed by grogu.
the beginning of rots where obi-wan's starfighter gets shot down and he tells anakin to leave him is 10x funnier when you realize that obi-wan commands every single republic ship in that scene. if obi-wan had died right then the republic would've instantly lost the war
there’s been assumptions that din’s covert is an offshoot from death watch or the true mandalorians, and I currently believe that the tsad’ade actually predate both factions, and are descendents of a mandalorian diaspora that occurred after the dral’han. this would explain
their devotion to their armor and why removing it would mean you could no longer be mandalorian—it’s a reaction stemming specifically from the demilitarization of mandalore and installation of the pacifist, unarmored new mandalorians, several centuries removing from the specific context that prompted it
why the jedi are considered ancestral enemies of according to the tsad’ade—because this group was formed immediately after the jedi-led orbital bombardment of their home planet
why bo-katan dismisses them as a splinter group of religious zealots who want to return to the old ways—the tsad’ade predate death watch by many centuries, and were formed by people who prioritized maintaining their traditions over staying on their planet
why din is immediately skeptical of retaking mandalore—unlike the faithful (traditionalist mandalorians who prioritized their planet and practiced in secrecy) who believe it can be reclaimed, the tsad’ade are descended from people who left and likely never intended to return
why din knows next to nothing about recent mandalorian history—the tsad’ade consider themselves to be mandalorians, not the people who stayed on mandalore. what history he does know—like the purges—stems from times when the tsad’ade answered other mandalorians’ calls for aid, much like how bo-katan and her people answered din’s
why armored mandalorians are still recognized by the wider galaxy as great warriors despite (supposed) pacifists having ruled mandalore for the past seven centuries—tsad’ade continued maintaining that reputation prior to the relatively recent establishment of groups like death watch or the true mandalorians
i love you fictional vehicles that become a main character in the story by extension, i love you ships with iconic names that turn into a home for the characters, i love you humanized modes of transportation with imagined personality quirks, i love you sapient starships with real personality quirks, i love you inherent human ability to emotionally bond with literally anything
WAIT WAIT WAIT YOU’RE RIGHT
i’ve been hypothesizing since like the beginning of the show that baby yoda’s blood was used to create snoke and/or the resurrected palpatine. is this confirmation??? the conspiracy theorist in me is going WILD right now. idk how kylo ren fits in though unless his theme is just being used as a symbol of the first order in general, foreshadowing how baby yoda’s blood is being used to faciliate its rise.
Why isn’t anyone talking about how Snoke’s theme plays at the beginning of the song Experiment off the Mando season 2 soundtrack and then how it bleeds into Kylo Ren’s theme ?!?!? AND that’s the scene where they talk about Grogu and midichlorians too !!! I NEED ANSWERS