Thank you anon!!
♥: How they show affection.
I have this unshakable headcanon that Cassian, while super (emotionally) reserved and detached (well, sorta – he’s really empathetic and uses that as a tool, but also has to cut himself off or it affects him too much) for what he has to do, is actually really really affectionate with the people he loves.
Mainly due to his upbringing, which I imagine him just being the darling of all the adults around. As the youngest kid in the neighbourhood he’s witnessed and been the subject of great fondness. Pats on the head, cheek squishes, lots and lots of hugs of course.
He’s also touchy and up in people’s personal space on the job. See how he interacts with Tivik, and even with Jyn at the start he’s already got a hand on her back and guides her way.
After all this, when he really likes someone he’s almost hesitant to express anything, verbally or physically. He’s said and done all these things before but he never meant it then. So how can he be sure they know he means it now? How can he be sure he means it now?
He can’t.
I ship him with both Jyn and Bodhi and you didn’t even specify romance or not, so how he gets past that mental block varies depending on context.
Jyn, equally reserved, not touchy feely but manages to hug him even in the end – they fumble through it together. Bodhi, I feel though he’s lost so much he hasn’t had to suppress himself in the same ways the other two have, as in while he’s had to suffer under the Empire, I doubt that lower level Imperial cargo pilots don’t share the jovial relationship that Rebel pilots do – he makes up the distance and lets Cassian inch forward.
Cassian’s bad with words, because he can paint the most beautiful pictures when he needs to, for the mission, for the cover, but they all seem to fail when it really matters.
He’s so painfully aware when people are in his personal space. They could kill him from a farther distance. His nerves are on fire. He can’t reach out.
He does things, instead. For them.
Actions, not words. Little favours they might not notice until they pile up, the realization smacking them in the face like you did all that for me?
(This is incidentally a theme for a fic update, wink wink)
Stealthy, silent, like the spy that he is. Right when and where he’s needed, but never noticed.
A cleaned blaster, if she doesn’t mind him touching it. Rewiring and the controls so he can fly more smoothly. Rearranging training schedules, rooms, supplies just so; so the Guardians have somewhere to pray, to practise. Knowing when supplies ship and when that fruit or this meat in stock, letting the right person know so that homeworld festival can be celebrated on time.
Most of it he’d learned with Kay. Tweaking his processors, offering the necessary but sometimes awkward knowledge the droid had needed to manuver a human world. Asking if he wants to power down for the night, so he can fix him, for the flight. Arranging oil baths, neatly filling in scratches, rapping him lightly on the chassis even though, as Kay reminds him, he has no tactical sensors. Cassian does it all, anyways.
Kay only said thank you the first few times, eventually learned to rebuke Cassian’s offerings with what he could’ve done better. Statistically speaking… Cassian would only smile in response.
Cassian shows affection with favours; but he doesn’t expect anything in return.
(Not because he doubts he’ll live to ask, even though that’s true, but because he frankly doesn’t care. You do things because that’s what you’re supposed to do. What he wants to do. Not out of expectation, never out of expectation. How else could he be in the Rebellion?)
Once they figure it out, though… he receives much.
Bodhi blinks and uhms before offering a wide grin and a hesitant hug, and Jyn leaves her thanks in forms of a plate scraped clean and a warm gaze when he stumbles home after a mission. Leia is always just what he needs, stubborn enough to spit out what he’d love to say (kriff that dim witted nerfherder, you’re right and they know it) but can’t. Baze is affectionate in the exact same way (cleaning weapons and mending clothes and offering a shoulder to rest on), their relationship is beyond speaking, honestly, but they know. They’re too similar, that way. Painfully so, but they bond because Cassian always loved languages, and between Jyn and Bodhi and the Guardians he’s now fluent in four major languages once spoke on Jedha. Chirrut knows all, sees all, is the first to translate Cassian’s love language but keeps the secret under lock and key. His appreciation is shown in his words of advice, and slowly Cassian learns to translate those as well.
He finds out Jyn’s prone to hugging almost as much as Bodhi is, only when nobody’s looking, and that is when the dam inside Cassian breaks.
He remembers his father’s touch in his hair, the aunties pinching his cheeks, his mother’s lips on his forehead. All of it comes rushing back.
So he gives, gives, gives it all away.
His dearest is lucky then; will always know they’re loved. Cassian’s hands are never far, always ready to reassure and to hold, be held, in the worst of it. His shoulders are to nap on. Pecks on the cheek and the forehead and the knuckles and the parting of hair; cuts and bruises and scars and insecurities. He loves tenderly, gently, reverently.
Passionately as well, there’s no doubts to the fervent depths of his love, as an empath the emotion builds between them like a wildfire and he could really lose himself in all that emotion – but it isn’t about being fire, all the time. This is a war, after all, they’re caught between extremes. It’s so much easier, nicer, special, to be gentle.
Cassian loves by loving.
Tag: headcanon
Anatomy-canons for Cassian Andor
Inspired by this post by @chamerionwrites, in which @sassysnowperson asked for “ALL the anatomy cannons for Cassian Andor :D”
Headcanon: We all know Cassian Andor has “been in this fight since [he] was SIX YEARS OLD,” and there are different theories to his particular role at a young age.
I go with “he was small and harmless-looking, so he did a lot of info-gathering in crowded places, message running, deliveries, etc.” Until he had an unfortunately early growth spurt, and the errands that earned him his (almost) daily bread dried up.
So after a bit of research, tall-for-his-age twelve-year-old Cassian Andor barters, manipulates, or stows-away his way to an out-of-the-way planet/moon with a younger recruitment age for The Alliance to Restore the (and this is where Cassian’s disgust *almost* but *not quite* outweighs the hunger pains) Republic. He poses as a short-for-his-age sixteen year old, and while the recruiter doesn’t quite believe him, especially when Cassian is a little too insistent about his legal documents having been destroyed in a bombing, the Alliance is desperate, and the boy looks so hungry.
The recruiter gives Cassian the “standard” three days worth of Ration Packs along with his uniform and new papers. She pretends not to notice that his hands are shaking when he takes the rations, and he pretends not to notice her surreptitiously filling out a “rations lost to spoilage” report form.
Heartcanon: Cassian is aware of being physically attractive the way he is aware of his running speed or his skills with a blaster. He has cultivated numerous charming personalities, tailored to fit the desires of different marks.
The idea of anyone liking, or falling for, Cassian Andor himself makes about as much sense as getting dehydrated on Eadu. There is not a Cassian Andor to like, or to fall in love with. K-2SO is the exception to this, as he is the only person (and yes, he is a person, regardless of his mechanical status) who actually knows Cassian for who he is.
On the other hand, Cassian reprogrammed K-2 to break his loyalty to the Empire. Cassian is a pretty good slicer, but it’s possible that some of the loyalty subroutine wasn’t broken so much as transferred. So he can’t 100% trust K-2′s friendship as deserved either.
(And if we’re going with the “everyone lived / nobody died” AU’s, then Jyn and Bodhi and whoever else befriends / falls in love with him, work *very hard* with him on undoing all these beliefs. They cannot do it for him, but they can be there for him as he slowly rebuilds his sense of self.)
Gutcanon: At some point, probably years before the events of Rogue One, Cassian finds out that Draven was directly or indirectly responsible for the death of his father back on Fest. (Unlike Cassian, Draven was never a Seperatist, has been with the Republic all along.)
Draven may or may not know that Cassian knows. Draven may or may not know himself that this is the case. It’s not like “Cassian Andor” is Cassian’s real name, so it would be hard to build a link between him and the man shot down in a Seperatist protest decades ago.
In any case, Cassian’s feelings when Draven tells him to kill Jyn’s father are… irrelevant. Cassian’s feelings are irrelevant. Because there’s a Job To Do.
Junkcanon: LOL, I’m super Ace.
BTW someone started writing a sniperpilot story where Cassian is Ace, and it was awesome! They never finished it that I know of, but just having it as a concept makes me very very happy.
So sure, let’s say Cassian is Ace, which frankly just makes his job as a spy/seductor easier because all he feels during the seductiony bits is a quiet remove, leaving him free to notice all sorts of things while his mark is distracted.
Spleencanon: Cassian has a lot of feelings about his file saying “Cassian Jeron Andor” instead of “Casian Jerón Ándor.” But it’s not his real name, so it’s fine. It’s fine. (But really? Where did that extra ‘s’ come from? Doesn’t matter. It’s Fine.)
Anatomy Canons for Bodhi Rook
Based on the “Give me all your anatomycanons about Bodhi!” post from @sassysnowperson
Headcanon: Similar to Sassy’s headcanon, honestly. Everything in Of Stone and Sand seems very real to me. (I’m sorry I haven’t finished it yet! I’m loving it so far!) That he grew up in a sacred pilgrim city, so he wasn’t so much religious as simply NiJedhan. Ancient Painted Caves where countless Important Figures had Important Revelations? You mean the caves I used to play Hide and Seek with my friends after school?
Occupation started when he was old enough to notice things were changing, but young enough to not realize it wasn’t normal. The white-suited soldiers on the streets were scary, but frankly so was the super-strict maths teacher who never smiled. And the new history teacher who was always making fun of everyone’s “backwater” accents, even though *he’s* the one who sounded funny to Bodhi and his classmates.
And I’ll add Sassy’s headcanons here, because I agree with them 100%:
Bodhi Rook was not conscripted into the Empire, he enlisted. But he enlisted because it was the best option of a bunch of bad ones. His world didn’t have enough money, didn’t have enough jobs, didn’t have enough future for him to stay. He didn’t want to leave, but there was only one good option he could see and he took it. He did his best to be responsible, support his family and his home, but slowly, slowly, he was stripped of his cultural ties. His accent flattened, letters home were delayed, Jedhan robes traded for a uniform. Everything that showed he was anything other than the Empire’s worker.
His hair is his small breath of defiance, grown out as soon as he had enough freedom that it wouldn’t be lopped off by a vengeful flight instructor.
Heartcanon: I know this goes against Riz Ahmed’s headcanon, but I believe that Bodhi came from a large-ish family. I like to think he was the oldest of a bunch of siblings, but also wasn’t really the oldest because his cousins were practically siblings, and some of them were older than him. I headcanon this because a) I want to believe that *someone* from that film had a nice, tight-knit family, with a lot of joy woven amongst the pain and degradations, and because b) Bodhi Rook obviously Had A Lot To Lose in ways that Jyn and Cassian simply did not.
Gutcanon: Bodhi could survive for days on junk food and caf. And often did.
Junkcanon: LOL I’m Ace. But I’m gonna go with Bodhi’s gay just because I Heart SniperPilot.
Spleencanon: The Bodhi we see on his way to Saw Gerrera is The Real Bodhi. Not that the one we see the rest of the film isn’t. It’s just, he’s nervous and quiet and scared all the time because of the particular situation, right after having been starved and repeatedly tortured for days (from someone he’d been told to trust! By the one person in the Empire he trusted! Who oops! just so happened to be the head engineer of the weapon that destroyed Bodhi’s entire people in an instant). Bodhi was very shaken, and very hurt, and very very tired. Nevertheless, He Persisted.
In conclusion, Bodhi Rook is not a precious cinnamon roll. He is Hell On Wheels, and we just caught him at a very bad moment. Given time, we’d probably have seen a lot more of the Feisty Bodhi we get at the beginning of the film.
Rogue One Headcanon/Fanmeta: RebelCaptain & Jealousy
– link to my other Rogue One blabberings –
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.
Prepare yourself for a long-ass blabber-post
Steve Rogers uses voice to text to send texts and formats them like a telegram
HEY BUCK STOP SAM AND I ARE OUT SHOPPING STOP WANT US TO PICK UP SOME TAKEOUT STOP
Steve rogers fully understands that this is not the correct way to text. He just likes the absolute outrage it causes every time someone receives a text from him and wants to see how many times he can make the same people explain texting to him until they realize. Sam is currently at 14 times, beating out tony who’s at nine. Twice now shuri has facetimed him after reading bucky’s texts. He’s also managed to convince thor that this is the Earth Way to text and it’s great
Rebellions are built on hope 