nb: still haven’t read/seen anything related to Rogue One except for the actual film. i also haven’t seen the Original Trilogy in years. headcanons are subject to change.
I’ve read around some people’s headcanons/stories/excited blabbering about (if they had survived) Jyn and Cassian having to deal with jealousy of other people – eg Cassian regarding Jyn+Han or Lando, Jyn regarding Cassian+Leia.
And I am getting on this train because this trope is MY JAM.
Firstly, we can all agree (and if not: you ain’t changing my heart and soul) that Jyn and Cassian have basically tunnel-visioned their entire sexuality into each other post-Scarif (aka Jynsexual, Cassiansexual) (new dating website: find your soulmate through mutual goals, trauma, rescues, orbiting bodies, and heart-eyes!) and that if they notice other people, it’s purely from an aesthetic point of view. AND that they are in an entirely, absolutely, unhealthily-from-95%-of-people’s-perspectives codependent relationship where they feel their skin begin to crawl the moment they haven’t heard from each other in three hours.
And yet! And yet! Despite their whole-hearted, titanium-strength trust in each other, alas their little hearts can be such soft things that expect pain. Between Cassian still fighting with the idea of having something after having given up everything he had for decades and Jyn re-developing her sense of self-esteem (she was abandoned multiple times by incredibly important people in her life; as if she feels good about herself), well… feelings of romantic inadequacy is in the air, my friends.
Headcanon: Lord I have so many but one I’m especially fond of is that teenaged Cassian Andor was to droid rights what Hermione Granger was to house elf rights – perhaps slightly more dour and less clumsy, but EXACTLY that level of teenage intensity. Every now and then some new Alliance recruit said something ignorant in front of him, and everyone in the general vicinity (who knew perfectly well what was coming) made furious throat-slicing motions and attempted to sink through the floor to escape the blast radius of the incoming lecture and/or death glare.
He never actually developed any chill about it; he just got very, very tired.
(Listen. The man is two parts trauma one part self-loathing and three parts PASSIONATE POLITICAL FEELINGS about justice and liberation, you cannot tell me he does not have thoughts about droid consciousness and personhood given he is literally bffs with one.)
Heartcanon: Jeron (of Cassian Jeron Andor) is not a middle name; it’s his primer apellido, ie his father’s last name, and Andor is his mother’s. He has chosen to go by the latter (Alliance forms and files aren’t always very good with Festian naming conventions) because he was so young when his father was killed that he barely remembers him, and although Cassian loved his father his mother – his mother is the one who taught him what rebellions are built on.
Gutcanon: Children as an abstract concept freak him out because he himself barely had a childhood and he fears – as per usual – that he’s not a great person and will probably fuck things up somehow. (In practice, if you actually faced him with IRL kids, he’d be very good with them.)
Junkcanon: The galaxy’s most hardcore praise kink, ladies and gentlemen.
Spleencanon: Every time someone in fandom tries to take the Separatist out of Cassian’s Separatist backstory my mental version of him gets approximately eleventeen times more salty about the fact that the Alliance’s actual name is “The Alliance to Restore the Republic.”
His back doesn’t hurt him all the time, but it aches now, aches from the cold. Some injuries heal with a scar, some are deep wounds in your soul, but his back… His knee is good with a brace, his shoulder just needs lotion after a shower, but his back… It aches, and he’s useless with it. He wants off this planet, stupidly hopes that the Empire will discover Hoth before the month is out, but until then, he feels utterly useless.
“Relax,” she whispers into his ear, and he’s trying to, he really is, but it’s hard to relax when everything just hurts. Jyn had done this, so long ago, when he was first released from medical. They had both rubbed the soothing balms laced with bacta into the other’s skin, but Jyn’s skin had healed. His issues were deeper, all the way to the bone.
And she had learned. He had never asked, but she had learned, had studied old texts, had asked questions, had gone to every appointment. She had spent time, so much time, learning his back, his muscles… He never had to ask. She would just give him a look, like she knew, because she did know. She knew when his back ached, knew just where to push, just how hard and how long, and without fail, he felt like a new man.
Rebellions are built on hope 