sparring 2/2

March Fic Madness 2025

Hi Friends! I've read so many wonderful things in March. A big ole thank you to @the-blind-assassin-12 for this challenge. I made it to 56/63 this time. This is what started my monthly fic rec journey, and now marks one whole year of fic recs for me!

If I have tagged you, and you would prefer to not be tagged, or have your works tagged, please let me know. A big thank you to each of you for sharing your works 💚

These works are 18+, minors DNI. Please read the tags on the fics before reading. If you read a fic, please reblog and let the writer know you enjoyed.💚

Great list! And 56 is really impressive, Ashlee! Thanks for reading mine 💛

March Fic Madness or ... What I read in March

My March recap, also part of @the-blind-assassin-12 March Fic Madness ! (Did I think to use to correct tag while rebloging during this month ? No. But can we count this as my participation ?)

Quick recap : 49 stories - Javi P was the main character of my month apparently, followed closely by Joel (can't seem to read less of him) and Frankie is still very much in my heart.

I read a lot of short fics / one-shot, so it's a lenghty one. It took me hours to put together, I'm really sorry if I messed up some links or pairings, let me know if anything is wrong !

too bad you’re just daydreaming.

New from me

One Marcus Pike moodboard and one Lucien de Leon ficlet added to El's Gallery.

Fic Recs

Thank you for reading my Din fluff, El 💛💛

So many great fics on here; time to update my TBR!

OMG, a genuine snippet of I Think of You in the year of our Maker 2025! We are blessed!!!

I am so excited for part 14, and I love the idea of parallel storylines! Can I also just say how much I love the way you utilise parentheses in scenes from Reader’s POV for those deeper inner thoughts that stem from the ‘id’ side of her brain. It’s such a clever narratorial device.

Oof, I can relate when it comes to writer’s block, so I’m sending you lots of love and inspiration vibes to help get that beefy instalment moving in a direction you’re happy with. Whenever you’re ready to post, I am here for it!

Thank you so much for answering and for gifting us this snippet 💖

Some well-deserved cheerleading:

If anyone out there hasn’t yet had the pleasure of reading I Think of You, please enjoy having your socks knocked off! It’s beautifully written, with perfect characterisation and a compelling plot, and it’s one of my all-time favourite Din fics.

🍀 March Fic Madness 🍀

One month, 63(ish) reblogs (some of these folks aren't posting on Tumblr), 63 fics. Let's goooooooooo!

March Fic Madness

Amazing list!!

Thank you for including me! 🙏🏻💛

Short Debts crumbs!!! 🥳🥳🥳

I love the intimacy - they’ve come such a long way from that first time they ever shared a bed when the awkward Morning Darksaber Phenomenon occurred. Makes me wonder if they’re being grown ups and just ignoring the inevitable hard-on poking her when they wake up, or if there’s *ongoing sexual tension* every time it happens!

(Thanks, BTW; Tubthumping is well and truly stuck in my brain now, too 😭)

I'm participating again in @the-blind-assassin-12 March Fic Madness! 63 reblogs in one month. I've seen some people doing a weekly fic rec instead of one list at the end of the month, and I'm doing the same this year. Let's share some love!♥️

-WEEK 3-

Thank you for reading my fic, Wym! 💛

hey, uh, anyone got an extra $5k laying around? joking joking, but for real- that's how much my surgery will cost out of pocket at the check in for the appointment. so i haven't scheduled it even though they called to try and set a time in two months....

Do you have pay app? Maybe a few of us here could help you out?

@oliveksmoked i've got a link to my ko-fi on my navigation page and i set up a gofundme (this one has my real name) i just feel so so selfish asking for help bc i know that everyone has their own stuff going on...

i need some help, fellow language nerds- pretty please

so, when all is said and done with the surgery and potentially a round of chemo pills / whatever they decide to do to help with the cancer afterwards, i really want to get the word survivor tattooed on my knuckles in mando'a but i'm having a bit of trouble getting a clear translation. y'all know i'm a tattoo girlie, always have been and always will so this seems rather fitting and it's an idea that's stuck in my head recently

@djarins-cyare i know all the amazing research you put into your immaculate fic and thought maybe you could help me out or point me in the right direction?

but also- a huge, immense THANK YOU OH MY GOSH to the support y'all have shown me with the fundraisers i've got to help get me to the surgery start line, i'm honestly speechless at the way everyone's rallied on my silly little behalf and i am so beyond humbled and grateful for every kind word and little donation toward the bill i'm about to face, i seriously owe each and every one of you so much for everything- for helping me take my life back into my own hands as i face this reality altering diagnosis and insane recovery prospect. i love you. sincerely, endlessly, genuinely.

x.o dev

Dev, what a gorgeous idea 🩵 I’d be delighted to help with a translation for something so meaningful.

The exact translation of “survivor” would be cuyan – that’s in its noun form, so it’s the one you’d need.

I saw your comment on it possibly being cuyanir – that’s the verb form, and it means “to survive”. To use that, it would make more sense to place it in a sentence (conjugated) and probably change the tense. For example, you could have the phrase “I survived”, which would be ni ru’cuyani (ni is the pronoun, plus the prefix ru- to denote past tense, plus the verb cuyanir, but minus the terminal -r to conjugate correctly).

You know, part of why I love Mando’a so much is that the language is a practical sort of poetic, and everything stems from meaningful root words. Cuyan stems from the root word cuy, which is “a state of being, existence”. That carries into their verb for “to be”, which is cuyir. “To be” is the most common verb in the English language and can be used in so many different ways, even on its own, like how Luke responds to Din when he asks him if he’s a Jedi: “I am”. In Mando’a, that would be ni cuyi. Anyway, not to get too philosophical, but I think it’s lovely that the word for survivor has the same root as the word for existence itself: one who exists, endures, lives on.

And if you feel like coming up with anything more complex you’d like to express in Mando’a in tattoo form, I’m always happy to help out, my dear 🩵

Oh, Your Love Is Sunlight

Summary: Din takes you on a picnic date Rating: Teen Pairing: Din Djarin x GN!Reader Word count: 2,106 Tags/warnings: Excessive fluff, feelings, food consumption (including meat and dairy; sorry to those who don’t partake, finding photos of vegan Star Wars food is hard!), fleeting thoughts about bunk-sharing, helmet removal, kissing, hand-holding, gift-giving Author’s note: Happy 1st Tumblr birthday, Moon Fairy Mina @evolnoomym! I made a moodboard for your first birthday party with the prompt “having a picnic date with Din”, and then I couldn’t stop myself from writing something to go with it. It ended up far fluffier than I usually aim for, though maybe I’ll write the smut that inevitably follows next year! Much love, darling 😘

Din instructs you to close your eyes until the loading ramp has fully descended, then guides you a few steps forward onto the sloped surface. The thrum of suspense rises in your gut like a hyperspace engine coming to life, only to be cut short when he has to dart back inside for forgotten supplies. With his grand reveal delayed, you’re left to interpret the world on which you’ve landed through your other senses.

Oh my gosh I LOVE THIS. So sweet, so cute and the visuals you create with your descriptions of the landscape are beautiful! 😍😍

Ahh, thanks, Sophia! I’m glad you liked it! 💛

I must read

I promise you’ll soon be able to read...

You know you’re a nerd when you’re reading a wonderfully written fanfiction and cringing because the author misspells a word in Mando’a.

OMG yes 😭😭

And I really wanna help people to get it right, so…

For anyone using Mando’a in their fics, I humbly offer some simple guidance:

Odds are you’ll want to have someone say, “I love you”, right? And you’re likely already aware that Mandalorians say, “I know you forever”, to express that sentiment.

You’ve also likely seen this phrase written as ni kar’tayl gar darasuum. Unfortunately, that’s not correct. Kar’tayl means “knowledge” (it’s a noun - a person, place, thing, or idea). So this means, “I knowledge you forever”. Someone put the incorrect version up on Wookieepedia, so it became widespread (don’t worry, I fixed it).

The word you want is “know” (a verb - an ‘action’ word).

So, okay, having looked in a Mando’a dictionary, you’ve found the verb: it’s kar’taylir with an -ir on the end! So ni kar’taylir gar darasuum would be correct, right? Well, sort of, yeah. But also no. That’s definitely closer, but it’s still not entirely accurate because it’s the full infinitive version of the verb.

Please don’t stop reading because that sounds contradictory and complicated. It’s actually really simple; just let me explain…

We don’t conjugate verbs in the same way in English, but most languages do (i.e. they change the ending of a word when used in a sentence). The best way I can think to illustrate the concept is that it’s kind of like saying, “I to know you forever”. You can see the word “to” needs to be removed here. Well, in Mando’a, something needs to be removed, too.

There are very few grammar rules in Mando’a; it’s a very simple language compared to English. In order to be understood, there is really only one rule you need to remember:

All verbs in Mando’a end in -r (mostly -ir but sometimes -ur, -or and -ar). Whenever you put a verb into a sentence, remove the terminal -r. Leave the vowel, but take off the -r at the end. That fixes it for speech (it ‘conjugates’ the verb).

So if you want to say “I love you” in Mando’a, it’s:

Ni = I kar’tayli = know gar = you darasuum = forever

(Also, don’t forget your pronouns; I’ve seen people leave out gar, without which your Mandalorian isn’t directing their eternal love at anyone in particular!)

And it’s exactly the same for any other verb...

“To want” is copaanir, so “I want you” is ni copaani gar.

“To annoy” is mird’harir, so “you annoy me” is gar mird’hari ni (literally “you tire my brain” - this is a compound word, you won’t find it in every dictionary).

“To suck” is sooranir, so if you’re including a bit of Mando’a dirty talk in your fic, “suck my cock” is soorani ner bevagol.

Just get rid of the -r on the end of the action word, and you’re winning at Mando’a 😁

Some extra thoughts:

There are lots of fabulous resources out there, but that in itself can be intimidating, and I suspect many of you probably just want to write something vaguely intelligible in your fics.

So I hope this one (fairly significant) tip helps you feel a little more confident using Mando’a in your writing.

Lastly, if you’ve written anything incorrectly in your fics, don’t worry! It’s perfectly understandable and not a big deal for most people. I notice it, but it doesn’t affect my enjoyment of a story. This post is just here for your reference in case you want to make Mando’a aficionados like me make this face: 😃. It’s simply an added delight to come across properly conjugated Mando’a.

I’m always happy to help with translations if needed 🩵