#and so was your karren

[drjaslaine]

Saw something like this in insta and I just have to ask.

If you have to go through everything you put your oc through. Are you cooked?

You can choose any oc or even all if you want

I’ma just list mine here.

Elaine (the self insert)- Yes, I just literally gave her more trauma

Ere- Yes… bby girl I’m so sorry I gave you a boyfriend as a sorry—

Mo- Bro almost got kidnapped. So yes cuz that trauma gonna stay

Slo- Kinda? He was the one who saved Mo from getting kidnapped in the first place but maybe not since he is the second least traumatized oc. I’d be a bit traumatized if my sibling got kidnapped.

Pyro- Ehh. if I do not know what happened to me previously then I can go with not knowing

Sarah- She is practically my least traumatized Oc, Has a large and loving family, has a high paying job and even adopted a kid, I’d be living the life.

Karren- Oh I’m not just cooked, I’m cooked, then get turned back into ingredients and then get cooked again for eternity.

[emmaintherealityworld]

ELDARYA A NEW ERA EPISODE 17: CDC LANCE (SPOIL)

Good morning/Good afternoon/Good evening my little otters! I decide to write in English about the last episode of Eldarya. Because I saw a lot of people who play the game and speak or read only in English. So here we go because I have so much to say!

First of all, the episode begins when they woke up the next day when Chrome and Karen reveal that they are getting married. We assume Lance and Erika had sex all night. Huang Chu arrives because she needs our help at the laboratory to make potions for the fenghuangs with Koori. So here we go to the first thing that already pisses me off, which is the sentence: "Is it me or it's getting more complicated to be among ourselves ?" Just because Lance asked if they need more help...It's a very cringy way to show some feminism. I don't know why they made Huang Chu say that... It takes days for them to do all the potions, she couldn't even see Lance or talk to him. Again, we miss so many opportunities. We have an interesting conversation about the traditions of marriage with the girls. But I thought it stupid that Erika said that she's not so close to Karenn when we know on TO they had been like best friends. It's obvious she will be her bridesmaid. About that, after the funny scene about Karuto with Orgelz: Karren and Chrome almost jump on her to ask her to be their bridesmaid. But what bothers me, it's the fact that they almost forced the decision to take all the responsibilities of their bachelor party on Erika, to have an excuse to use more mana because Beemoov doesn't know what else to do. And again missing more opportunities to develop more about the relationship with Lance. Even if we have the choice to choose, the episode is a little bit empty if we don't agree to be the bridesmaids of both. So she has to do all by herself and the Purrekos to their party, but they decide to take a chance to her to ask Lance. We have ALMOST a moment with him even if it's just like 3 minutes of arguments between him and Purral. Then we have the two bachelor parties of the future brides. Both of them were fun, I'm not going to lie. But the moment with Lance was...AGAIN so fucking boring. The beginning was cringy with all the questions: "Is it the music? "Is it the drinks, Is it the perspective of a marriage (that makes me so horny again? Well...Apparently, it is. !) The moment could've been romantic if they could just say some words while they are dancing. And not her AGAIN saying to Lance: "I want to spend some time alone with you because I can't spend a day without having sex...so can we AGAIN fuck together because that's all I know and do and I can't have a real moment with you. Because all I can think about is SEX! Is it too much to ask, to have a more romantic moment with him? Having a cute illustration with just them sleeping together or laughing together than seeing them naked again? But let's talk about the NSFW scene! First of all, the sentence: "I thought we could never have a moment alone." Well obviously, it was your choice to do TWO parties almost by yourself. And the cringy part with her saying: "Oh I want you so bad Lance. Take me, Lance." Like they reused the previous NSFW scene. How about: "I love you? Or "You were so handsome tonight" or "I want to make love to you ?" Lance again doesn't even talk during the scene, how can it be credible for us that they are a real couple who love each other? Desire isn't love. You can love someone without feeling sexual desire for them. Next, the illustration...It's like they took what Purral wanted to bring to the party. They don't look in love at all and that's a shame. Because they did a good job with the other illustration. I'm so pissed again. I don't know why I keep spending my time on this game. But because like all of you, I want to know how it ends.

I'll see you guys soon, take care! See ya <3

[elmaxlys]

My polls

They don't appear in the "my poll" tag on my blog so let's do a masterpost:

Tokyo Ghoul

Favorite Clown

Favorite Uta mask

Favorite Opening

Favorite Opening - Bonus round

Favorite Ending

Favorite OST song

Best TG character

Favorite Kaneki iteration

Favorite Kaneki 2: the winner of the previous poll (Haise) VS One-Shot Kaneki

Favorite Quinx

Favorite Kakuja Armor

Favorite TG pet

Favorite Side Story

Favorite parody

Favorite quinque out of my own top 3

Donato: OEG or not?

Donato: OEK or not?

Which of my TG AU do you want to see more of?

Favorite Donato Eye Color

Favorite Donato Mask Color

Help me: Did Furuta sing?

Favorite Group

When did you become a TG fan?

What has more GNC Swag?

Lemon Poll

Biggest Liar

OG or :re?

Favorite One Eyed Ghoul

Favorite Arata

Favorite CCG Squad

TG SEXYWOMAN POLL - Masterpost

TG Sexywoman Poll - Loser Bracket - Masterpost

TG Sexywoman Poll - Round 1 poll list

>>>> Rize VS Touka: help me choose the banner

>>>> Karren VS Mayu: help me choose the banner

>>>> Regarding Character Introductions

TG Sexywoman Poll - Round 2 poll list

TG Sexywoman Poll - Eighth Finals poll list

>>>> Bonus Narukami/Fueguchi Two poll?

>>>> Loser Bracket: yes or no?

TG Sexywoman Poll - Quarter Finals poll list

>>>> Should Sanzu Susu (forgotten in main competition) be included in the loser bracket?

>>>> Length of the Final Loser Poll

TG Sexywoman Poll - Semi Finals poll list

TG Sexywoman Poll - Final poll list

TGSWP Loser Bracket - Revival Round Details

TGSWP Loser Bracket - Round 1 Details

TGSWP Loser Bracket - Round 2 Details

TGSWP Loser Bracket - Round 3 Details

TGSWP Loser Bracket - Round 4 (Final Round) Details

TG SEXYMAN POLL - Masterpost

>>>> Should I take the competition to a side account?

TG Sexyman Poll - Preliminary Round Details

TG Sexyman Poll - Round 1

TG Sexyman Poll - Round 2

>>>> Young Kuzen: yes or no

>>>> Do I move Haise's group closer to Kaneki's?

TG Sexyman Poll - Round 3

>>>> Kishou VS Renji: help me choose the banner

TG Sexyman Poll - Round 4

TG Sexyman Poll - Round 5

>>>> Tatara VS Ayato: help me choose the banner

TG Sexyman Poll - Round 6

TG Sexyman Poll - Round 7

>>>> Loser Bracket: Before Final Round?

TG Sexyman Poll - Final Round

Tenkuu Shinpan

Favorite God Candidate

Favorite MC (TS main 5)

Favorite Guardian Angel

Favorite TSA Clone

Favorite Faceless Character

Favorite Rika Mode

Preferred way to interpret Shika and Shintarou

Other

broc/carafe/pichet/pot/cruche

Schtroumpf Vert ou Vert Schtroumpf

Do you love the Tumblr Boyfriend

Hey sorry we put your boyfriend in a poll

Mode grammatical

Does the end justify the means?

Help me choose my next read

Do Protestants do the sign of the cross?

Trou-trou VS Plouf-plouf (pique nique douille c'est toi l'andouille)

Foot 2 Rue/Galactik Football/Inazuma Eleven

Générique F2R préféré

Do you apologize if you don't regret it?

Baguette

Pâté, terrine, rillettes, mousse

Gaufres showdown

Crêpes ou Gaufres

Love Languages

Où commence le Sud de la France hexagonale

Paris. Thoughts?

Sensations hell

[rendsflesh]

basic relationships chart (or something something...) with a double feature including kitty's children--

so! for the canons--

naki married dating shuu and they are so happily in love it's genuinely sickening; rough dynamic with karren because she doesn't trust his crybaby ass and he picks his nose in front of her to get under her skin. thinks of junichi as a cool older brother

mirumo the proud papa of shuu and adoptive father, of sorts, to karren; single but unsure if ready to mingle. i'm personally open to it but i'm unclear on if it actually suits mirumo's character considering his undying love for his wife. a true wife guy for the ages! he knows of lenn and thinks of him as strange. he distrusts the ikari family

karren is not in love with shuu-- mistook her feelings of adoration and idolization as genuine romantic love. she loves shuu but not in that way because i think it's a little weird considering the circumstances ♡ anyone that is an enemy of master shuu or the tsukiyama family are enemies, no ifs ands or buts

akihiro "dating" donato (no one knows what's going on with these two old men but at least they're having fun? question mark?) and, contrary to popular belief, is alive! why? who knows! i'll think of something. one-eyed ghoulification mayhaps.

renji dating watching over uta, more or less a wandering sort that does odd jobs on the side. he's probably staying with uta somewhere and is constantly having to keep him in check but also joins in on hijinks more than he cares to admit sometimes he's just too darn tired

cool! and now for the original characters--

ren, "head" of the ikari family-- slaughtered his ex-wife, yumiko, in cold blood and fed her remains to his two sons, nori and takeshi. don't worry, he also cleaned his plate. it was satisfactory. currently married (in his heart of hearts, awww omg!) to junichi. his ward loves him because it's borderline a cult. everyone else hates him though because they're sane. it's a whole thing.

yuu "dating" furuta, frenemies (enemies mostly.) with takeshi. they're sorta kinda rivals and all of their fights end in gorefest tie single time. was part of the ccg but leaves after faking his death, primarily because he thinks the ccg are a bunch of pussies and he wants to kill ghouls as he pleases. he also eats ghouls.

yori, professional clown at your service! dating nori and wants to marry him some day. rough relationship with ren because of a violent run-in, ren nearly kills and cannibalizes him. he and renji are kind of friends, mostly because of his ties to the clowns and renji's proximity to uta.

jun, head of the miyamoto family, has been a widow for several years. he and his teenaged daughter, aimi, live alone in their well-kept mansion. his wife, airi, was murdered by ryosuke and her kakuhou made into his very own quinque. he doesn't have a lot of relationships, considering his shut-in status. he's the closest thing to a pacifist ghoul you're gonna get and simply does not fuck around and find out.

katsuro is dating takeshi and has been defected from the ccg for quite some time. he leaves as a rank 1 but, currently, could be considered an associate special class or higher nowadays. he's turned more and more into a ghoul sympathizer as the days go on, mostly because of takeshi. lost his eye in the past due to a run-in with "glasgow", aka ren. also has a prosthetic right leg born from the same incident. slightly terrified of junichi.

chiyo is yumiko's sister and is married to asuka-- they're the rich lesbian aunts everyone wants but only takeshi and nori get. hates ren's guts, tolerates junichi's presence. she's well-known in the human world as a dj, known formally as b@rracuda and frequents the night club scene both as ghoul and "human" as a regular

masao is part of the washuu clan, born into it under the designated title of "seed" but ultimately defects because of it. he's an on and off ally of goat. hates every other washuu and associate, furuta especially. has a bit of a soft spot for rize, sees her somewhat as a sister. otherwise, he's known as a brutal and aggressive ghoul known as "ogre" that is infamous for his mass killings after long lulls of silence

ryosuke is a quinx, unsure of the generation (and i canNOT bother to care right now.) currently, and is a special class investigator. killed jun's wife and claimed "her" as his quinque. he "jokes" about his frame also being her but c'mon. that's too much ghoul. regularly conflicts with jun. jun killed his own husband as revenge, quoted as, "now, be as lonely as i am." and bit off one of his ears too. has a prosthetic ear now as replacement. would kill a child if they were a ghoul, has killed a ghoul child, and will continue to do so. aimi, you're next.

lenn is a clown that works at a ghoul restaurant. he doesn't really come into contact with the rest of the clowns unless necessary due to being a bit of a "homebody" at the restaurant. he's regularly paired up with furuta, however, and they've become besties. he likes playing bait for potential victims, hence his name "catfish", and loves seeing their faces when they see him auctioning them off like cattle to other ghouls. yori thinks he's fascinating, lenn thinks yori is kind of annoying.

[worldsneverfilled]

Karren Timberhearth

Type: PC

Aliases: None

Pronouns: He/Him

Race: Lightfoot Halfling

Home: Unknown

Age: 67

Class: Circle of the Shepherd Druid

Spell of Choice: Entangle (great for catching his sheep before they can run off)

Weapon of Choice: His crook

Job: Shepherd (formerly), Monster Hunter (currently)

Loyalty: The sheep twins Mutt and Lambert. He loves his girls.

Alignment: NG

Height: 3'2

Personality: Friendly and chatty, very impulsive, manic, sometimes cranky, paranoid

Status: Alive

Strategy: Whack them with his staff after he catches them.

Tidbits:

I and several of my uncles and my dad all have bipolar. I've given Karren bipolar but modeled his behavior after that of the men in my family. Giving up your stable job to become a monster hunter on a whim is very on brand for them...he will have problems with psychosis, so he might see or hear things on occassion, or his anxiety and paranoia will spike.

His sheep...well, I can't say yet what's up with his freaky sheep, but there's some serious fuckery around here.

Says he's divorced. Her name is Dishella and he jokes that he used to call her his favorite Dish. It's unclear why they separated. Once joked that she ran away with the spoon. He will never tell the same story twice about what happened between them.

[downrunningcallinexttoruns]

231205 0242 the best

tja, jetzt wird's wirklich unerträglich.

keine ahnung, überhaupt, von einfacher sprache, total unfähig zu verstehen, mich zu jedem zeitpunkt beobachtet & absolut gar nichts verstanden. murderer / kill verschiebung solle auch nicht von marriage kommen, sondern von tudor, weil von töter, weil "throw your two dicks up in the air" auf dauerrepeat zu singen, gilt als tötliche anstiftung, sich ne linse vor ihre zwei dicks montiert haben, komplett schamlos & nichts zu verstecken, instaüber dem eigenen körper,

komplett leer sich im wasser versteckend, familienbehauptung, mutterbehauptung übersprungen, gibt's auch nicht, andere seien im automatischen kriegszustand, gibt nichts an der sprache zu verbessern & es gibt kein volk,

nur 3m033 & das wasser, und was ist, wenn wasser & öl dasselbe ist, INAUF ihrer sprache lebend, kein einziges wort verstehen könnend, was soll das sein, ein wort? gleich kommt er an, das wort aufspießend und scheißschwulfotzig fragend "meinst du dies? und ein doppelwort rausziehend: warum meintest du nicht dies?"

jegliche marge der verbesserung bei schwarzhaarigen, weil schwarze haare sind leicht verwirrender, und sie sind da von anfang an schon reingeschlittert gewesen, niemals könnte es eine hoffnung geben, das von anders der plan zur besserung kommen könnte,

das alles dann abgeschnitten, weil in der mitte reden sie immer über eine fotographie von einem neger, und müssen dann ängstlich wegrennen, aber hamlet bleibt verschlossen natürlich, denn mit dem gelächter über eure gecrumpten hauptopfer, wie als würdet ihr aus was anderen als crumper bestehen, muss der mord ja noch doppelt bestätigt werden, weil jesus ist ein unmenschliches wesen, und verstummt, um zu saugen,

und eure 42fah12 kinder können dann doppelnamen haben, was initiale dancemoves sind, anfänge von geschichten, tags, die man dann tanzen kann, vor allem, wenn man sich ne linse vor den doppelschwanz spannt, um alle auszuspionieren,

denn if we collect all those divided & private parts, pry, forced-præy, zwangsgebet, then pry could have a goo'd time. you come here to me. deutschland auslöschen ist auch nur ne delle in der kugel, ein blueball, wie es sie überall gibt & geben kann, und adlige sind keine falschen kugeln, sondern menschen & neger zugleich.

it's like learning a new language, ne schlabberzunge, weil ihr habt da ja eure two dicks in the air & die linse vorgespannt, alles nur nackt & durch coppen gekriegt,

aber schwarzhaarige hatten nie hoffnung auf jesus, sondern alle haben immer nur gerufen, "ich bin erstgeboren, häng selber schon am kreuz", it's like learning a new language, zuerst, massenmedien: neger = marihuana / haifischzähne, und ozcar auf hollywood, und wenn du aufhören könntest, dein pussinboots zu reiten,

and if you don't bring up that there could be any lonely parts, then all could be flying whirling body parts bicycles, as upperclass girls are, if you don't bring any lonely parts, because english language doesn't allow.

und so weiter & so fort, was ist ein einfaches wort? ein einfaches wort kann nicht existieren.

für welche weiten gebiete & für was, braucht ihr so viel öl & eure karren? wenn ihr eh alles nur durch coppen & lügen machen wollt, aber adlige sind keine falschen kugeln, sondern mensch & neger in einem, als nächstes kommt das elektrische sperma, denn euer sperma, eure säure ist elektrisch, sie heißt ass-sit, und sie ist erwählt, it's like learning a new language, jesus come here to me, 42fah12 & 42fah3 & 1119 darunter ist ne gewählte asssit sache, es ist elektrisches sperma, zuerst neger = marihuana / haifischzähne, dann nsa, und die neue internet allabwehrsache, wir brauchen niemanden, der einen undoppelten menschenkörper fährt, niemand mit einem oscar, und gute haut hättet ihr nicht auch durch kyo kriegen können,

doppelt gespalten, und immer einen geschlossenen mund & immer recht, und ersten kinder können schon doppelnamen tragen, weil sie haben immer doppelt recht,

neger & menschen in einem, das sind wahre adlige, und über der 42fah3, können gleich noch mehr kinder doppelt recht haben, und über 1119 sowieso,

und in der wüste hätt das auch niemand glauben können, das am ende eine bessere lösung kommt, für alle, und nicht für alle perversen doppeladligen mit doppelter haut, eine gleiche lösung für alle, die trotzdem funktioniert, auch in der wüste,

aber ham bleibt verschlossen / offengelassen, das ist die frage mit dem daniel daniel daniel, und wer unabsichtlicher kinderficker sein muss, dessen gehirn kann ja nicht mehr schaden nehmen, wenn das anerkannt wird von allen, aber er kann höchstens poplocken, wenn er crumpt, droht zu crumpen, innerlich komplett leer, droht er zu crumpen & popzulocken, er muss weitergehen.

und wenn deutschland ausgelöscht wird, ist es nur ne delle, ein krater in einer kugel, aber adlige sind keine falschen kugeln, sondern neger-und-menschen-in-eins, und jeder lacht, über die delle, weil sie hat ihr ziel verfehlt,

und danach könnt ihr noch immer kyo nicht klauen, aber alle schwarzhaarigen & schwarzen & weiße, die immer menschenadlige sind & neger & mensch in einem, können lachen,

und niemand hatte je andere hoffnung. für welche weiten herrschaftsräume? wenn ihr eh alles nur durch coppen macht & dabei nackt aussehen müsst, während jesus unter'm schiffsbug ist, auch ein schönes buch mit zwei seiten.

für welche herrschaftsräume, wieso? was ist das endkonzept?

ya, was auch immer, guter text, kiss & kill. pittance. free.

mit kyo hätten alle gute haut kriegen können, ....

aber ihr wollt ja noch nicht mal familie & mutter kennen, dass alle sich so ausgeben müssen, obwohl's gelogen ist, warum nicht see / sister / hamlet. das sind dann drei teile inklusive der auslagerungsdatei.

aber wieder zurück zum kriegstreiber, aber wann wurden alle automatische kriegstreiber? und was war dann das ziel? und wie haben sie dann den automatischen krieg weiterberechnet?

ya, dance-party mit namens-tags, mit doppelnamen.

und ihr wollt weiter rauben rauben rauben & vertuschen. aber solang ihr als number 1 gelten in der welt, das konstruieren könnt, kann's gehen.

ya, der beste text von allen. glaubst du woran? das schwarzhaarige eine gleichmäßige "maschinen"-behandlung lieber hätten, als nur auf kinderficken basierend? glaubst du? dass der crash rom england, mit frankreich dazwischen, in jede richtung komplett umkehrbar ist, ie alle gleichzeitig diesselben aggressoren waren? glaubst du? das die engländer missgeburten der natur sind, die noch die chance hätten, sich erstzubekehren? glaubst du? dass sie in einen plan hineingepasst haben, mit ihrer gestapelten sündensprache? glaubst du?

ja, das ist schwierig, mit den indianern, und mit der begründung, warum man da unbedingt hinmusste, nur aus sünde. aber sie selber hätten auch keinen ausweg gefunden, wären sie angewachsen, vor der doppelten sprache, und der rest, abgesehen vom gegensatz, mit den indianern, und der dünnen bevölkerung, ihnen dann kyo zu bringen, könnte dangerous sein, so hätte die katholische kirche dann doch noch südamerika gerettet,

und weiße kennt ja keiner, außer die westliche halbkugel, während vielleicht auch in amerika welche hätten sein können, dann mal sehen.

yes. unglaublich.

[zerorez02]

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[linkspooky]

Hi Link ! Thank you ahead of time if you answer this ask, I absolutely love your metas ! Besides the actual manga & a few other TG Blogs, it's the only thing I sit down to read, so thank you ! Do you think that maybe the reason some characters are so caught up on those few moments of happiness for years is because typically, Ghouls don't live very long to begin with, & so every moment is precious ? (Granted, this doesn't apply to all the characters who do this since not everyone is a ghoul.)

Thank you! I’ll try my best to keep making enjoyable content for you to read.

That’s a good observation... V. 

It is in fact the central theme of Haise’s birthday poem. 

“Even if you have no memories of being loved, for as long as you have memories of loving someone, you can continue to live.”

…But how is someone who has never been loved be capable of loving someone else?

A child who wasn’t able to receive the minimal love they required at the time they needed it the most will continue to gaze at the illusion of affection and never know how to love until the day they die.

Well, how about me? Can I continue to live?

Translation by @makyun [x].

How is it possible for somebody with no memories of being loved to continue to live?

This poem itself is rather complementary to Furuta’s own poem which addresses the same topic but taking an actual stance, rather than simply raising the question. “I have no memories of being loved, therefore I see no value in life at all.”

How stupid.

What’s so joyous about birthdays, I wonder.Never in my life have I ever felt grateful for being born.

But for you people, how are you still celebrating your life despite how hopelessly stupid or ugly you are?

I am genuinely impressed.

Doesn’t it make you want to die?If you die, you can get cured you know. (This is true.)

Translation by @makyun [x]

In a manga whose theme is blatantly live, there is no character who advocates for death more than Furuta. Other than the times he’s been drawn teasingly pointing a gun with his head, or playing with a noose, this theme of death and suicide are things clearly wrapped around Furuta’s character.

I bring this up now because while the manga does indeed explore the fact that it’s understandable that these characters would think this way, that these poeple so starved for love and affection would grasp onto what few moments of happiness they have. That it is therefore not wrong for them to want love when they’ve been neglected for it. 

However, while it serves as an explanation for why these characters are the way they are, eternally unable to progress, and how they reached this point as well it does not excuse them. It is not an excuse because if it excuses any character in the manga, it would excuse Furuta as well.

if we follow that logic, then Furuta has every right to obsess over Rize because she’s the only small point of happiness he ever experienced in a life where he was basically born into slavery, told he was not going to live long, and then forced to kill.

It is perfectly understandable that anybody born in those circumstances would not only develop a worthless view of life, but also an unhealthy view of romance. After all, where exactly would Furuta find a model for healthy romance in the Washuu who repeatedly rape women for the sake of breeding as if they’re cattle, then throw the children away and forget even what their names were. 

Furuta, probably moreso than any other character in the cast is raised in an environment completely devoid of love. In repsonse to that, Furuta has no regard for life and his destructive activities are all a direct and thoughtful response to how he was raised.

If Kaneki’s acts of mass murder are excusable because he does them from an origin point of being starved of love, then what makes him different than Furuta? Is Furuta worse because he actively robs the agency of his love obsession in the most inhumane of ways again and again?

In that case does Kaneki arbitrarily being nice to a few people he is close to, but not caring about the vast majority of the people around him, either letting ghouls starve, or going berserk and killing hundreds of humans any better? Getting eaten by dragon probably instantly removed a lot of people from their agency as well. 

I’m not saying that Kaneki is somehow worse than Furuta. I’m just saying if we deem Furuta inexcusable, than none of these other characters who are desperately looking for love can be excused in their motivations either because they come from a loveless background. Wanting to cling to the few happy moments you have is understandable and sympathetic, but ultimately it’s not an excuse you can use to  stop yourself from moving forward.

"Can't repeat the past?" he cried incredulously. "Why of course you can" (116).

(Hint, Gatsby fails at repeating the past). 

Not only is it philosophically wrong, but the story does not allow it. There are of course several relationships right now where characters still seem to hung up on who they were in the past moreso than who they are developing into being. (Akira and Amon mainly), but even in those cases have you noticed that neither Akira nor Amon have developed as characters at all since getting together. Or even... done much besides stand next to each other?

Anyway, onto the examples where the idealization of the past is not allowed. 

It quite literally kills Naki. The irony here being that Yamori was not really somebody that was worth dying for at all. Every small kindness that Yamori showed Naki was outweighed by his abuse. We have every indication that Yamori tortured Naki too, and if he did not do that he beat him, broke his bones, threw him out of windows. 

Naki clung to the absolute bare minimum amount of kidnness that was in Yamori’s memory because it was all he had yes, but in that decision he also failed to notice that in many ways he was a lot better than Yamori.

Hoguro and Shousei followed him for him, and not Yamori. Naki’s death isn’t really some beautiful act of sacrifice for the memory of his beloved brother. It’s ironic and sad, because Naki truly couldn’t grasp even in the end that there were people who loved him more and much more healthily than his brother who beat the shit out of him and treated him like garbage. 

Then we have a few chapters later, Hinami’s own sacrifice. For almost the exact same reason, Hinami overidealizes her brother especially the one of the past. 

She nearly dies trying to earn the praise and support that Kaneki was just never going to give her, because just like Hinami Kaneki is a grown orphan who does not really understand love, and feels like he himself is constantly weak and needing assurance from others.

It’s this fixation on the past that robs Hinami of any true ability to grow, because the Kaneki that she wants to acknowledge her isn’t even there anymore. That was like five Kanekis ago. In fact, the current Kingneki did not even talk to Hinami once the entire arc, until she was just about to die.

However, Hinami herself is not like Naki, Furuta, or Kaneki who had absolutely no exposure to love when they needed it the most growing up as children. In fact for the first thirteen years of her life, Hinami was happy, loved, secure and cared for. 

Yet, we see that loss has inspired the same reaction in her. However, to reach a conclusion to this, Ui shows an example for what these characters need to realize.

Ui who was one of the most hung up characters on the past, to the point of believing he could genuinely revive the dead eventually admits this. That all of his clinging to the past was just his own seeking of solace. 

All he wanted was a reason. An excuse. His seeking of returning to the past with Arima and Hairu became that excuse and it helped him believe he was seeking comfort, but in the end it was flimsy, not any real solace. 

It’s a lesson that i want Kaneki to eventually grasp as well. That he doesn’t need to base everything in his life on whether or not other people around him love him or not. 

There’s more to life than simply wanting to be loved. There’s more experiences to life than just the positive ones. Which is also what I think Kaneki is staring to move towards. 

There’s value in both good and bad experiences, so there’s no reason really at all to simply cling to the good ones and sip only unsullied water.

That’s why the move to the future in Tokyo Ghoul has always been framed as a destructive and terrifying one. It’s comforting to linger in past memories, to stay in familiar relationships, to simply fall back into place without having to figure out how things have changed and how you have changed. 

However, to reach a better future you have to risk losing those things. Sometimes you might even have to destroy them with your own hands, to make room for something better. 

It’s scary to let go of those things, it’s destructive, it could possibly even be self destructive, but ultimately the only way things can change for the better is if you allow them to change. 

[hearties-circus]

What if I started first-naming my mum? I already do that with my dad and she definitely deserves it

[thora-jane]

Wine Drunk pt ii (Matt Murdock x Reader angst)

(a/n) okie dokie I' guess I'm back to writing angst! ngl I'm a little worried this is going to end up like my Peter Parker x Reader angst series "I've Already Lost" but what matters is that we're all enjoying ourselves here. Comments and reblogs are (of course) always really appreciated. Enjoy!

Previous

Summary: Foggy and Matt talk about Matt's situation

Word Count: 544

Warnings: None

Your love for Matt wasn’t exactly a secret amongst your group. Karen knew about it. Foggy didn’t need you to tell him for him to find out. You liked to pretend that the only one who didn’t know was Matt. You told yourself that so many times you began to believe it. It made it easier for you, how could he know the subtle ways he hurts you? Surely if he knew how you felt he wouldn’t ditch your plans to go out and do god-knows-what with Elektra. Matt’s too kind for that. Maybe he even liked you too. Maybe if he knew how you felt he would try to see if he felt the same.

You were a terrible liar. Karren knew that. Foggy knew that.

Matt knew that.

Matt knew everything.

“You weren’t gonna walk her home?” Foggy asked, holding up the bottle to see how much wine was left.

“It’s for the best.” Matt said, his jaw tense as he listened to her footsteps leave the building and head down the street, “I didn’t see you offering either.”

“Me offering wouldn’t be the same,” His voice was quiet as he tucked the more-than-half-empty bottle of wine under the desk, “you heard all that, didn’t you.”

“It wasn’t anything new,” Matt shrugged.

“You knew?” there was an edge of something in Foggy’s voice, frustration? Anger?

“Oh of course I knew, Foggy,” He leaned back on his foot and placed his hands on his hips, “I can hear her heartbeat. I can hear her breathing. I can hear her conversations. It’d be more strange if I didn’t know.”

“God, you know I still don’t like how you’re listening to her heartbeat.” Foggy shuddered.

“It’s not intentional. Her heart is very…loud.” He tried to reason, “I don’t know, what do you suggest I do? Explain to her that I have heightened senses and hear her heartbeat pick up every time I sit next to her? That I hear her breath hitch like she’s about to say something every time we’re alone? That I’ve heard her conversations? ‘Oh yeah, hey (y/n), just so you know I heard you cry to Karen when you found out Elektra was back.’ Does that sound good?”

“Oh come on, you know that’s not what I think you should do.” Foggy said, pulling on his jacket as he walked over to Matt, “Either try to come to some mutual understanding or-” He stopped, looking around the office like anything could help him.

“Or what?”

“Or…step out of her life. This isn’t fair to her, this isn’t fair to you. It’s definitely not fair to me and Karen that have to watch this all happen.” He placed his hand on the knob of the door, turning back to Matt one last time, “Do you love her?”

“No. Of course not.” Matt straightened up, a hint of defensiveness in his voice.

“No, not (y/n),” He rolled his eyes, “Elektra.”

“Oh.” A moment of silence passed between the two of them before Matt spoke again, “I don’t think I need to.”

“In all our years together I don’t think I’ve fully understood you.” Foggy looked over his shoulder before closing the door behind him, “And you know what? I still don’t.”

(a/n) AAA! Thank you for reading I hope you enjoyed it! please remember to do something to take care of yourself today! Go drink water and remember you are loved <3

[deniigi]

A fic from Boba’s POV as a babysitter seeing Din’s family dynamics isn’t self indulgent it’s indulgent to your readers - fuck, that sounds like the best, most hilarious thing ever?!? (With peppered in bits of Boba’s identity crisis/diaspora feels)

I say you release babysitter boba fic ;) It sounds hilarious

Ask and you shall receive, anons. Beware. It’s like 11k of world building lol.

(I will post here and not on Ao3 because I’m not ready for that level of commitment rn lol)

Title: in the plains of Zeffo

Summary:

“I don’t like him,” Karren told Din.

“Concurred,” Din said.

“Ad’ika,” the Armorer scolded.

“I will not be shamed into liking him, either,” Din asserted.

“Din,” Karren whined.

“I’ll consider coming home if it means there will be no space for Bojzka,” Din said.

(Din’s original finder’s old crush on the Armorer is rekindled after he helps her reunite with Din. He tries to win her favor, but keeps getting tripped up by Din who knows she’s not interested. Boba Fett’s POV.)

---------------------------------------------------------------------

There was little more entertaining than watching Djarin snap.

Boba ten years ago would have spat at the very idea that such meagre fare would suit his humor, but he was getting old, man. You had to take what you could get, and Djarin’s bared rage was a sight to behold.

Currently, he was locked in combat with Urro Bojzka. The Urro Bojzka. The one who even Boba had heard of, growing up on Kamino.

Dad had had some pointed feelings about Mr. Bojzka. Mainly, they revolved around how it was unfair that everyone called him an opportunistic traitor when Bojzka continued to exist and thrive in the universe at large, but Dad also had more specific feelings about Bojzka that bordered on jealousy.

Urro Bojzka was said to be the ideal Mandalorian man.

He was big. He was strong. He sounded like he’d smoked six different kinds of spice for forty years, and nothing and no one could take him down.

The cherry on top was that he was notorious for rescuing kids. The man had snatched nearly two hundred up out of smoking ruins and battlefields. A good twenty or thirty had become foundlings and then Mandalorians themselves, and counted among their number now, to Bo-Katan’s absolute glee, was their sweet, precious Din Djarin.

They should have known. Din was the epitome of Mandalorian; it figured that Urro Bojzka himself would have picked him up as a child.

Din however, had little appreciation for this fact beyond that which was only polite. He made it very clear that he’d already thanked Bojzka for taking him out of his childhood hellhole. He’d done that bare minimum and so no one could ask anything more of him.

Bojzka had other plans.

It turned out that Urro Bojzka had a thing for Din’s covert’s Armorer. God, did he have a thing. And not only did he have a thing, but he’d had it for decades.

Apparently, a thousand years ago, when Boba and Din and all the others around them had still been rolling around on dirt floors trying to eat beetles and shit, Bojzka had attempted to court Din’s Armorer. He’d gone as far and wide as a young Mando could. He’d tried flowers, perfume, credits, displays of strength and courage. He’d tried gifts of food and offers of travel. He’d even stooped so low as to read a book.

None of it had gone well for him. And that was probably because Din’s Armorer had recently proven herself to be no less than one of the heiresses of the Katzkai clan.

The Renda Bears. Those people were hard-fucking-core.

When Bo-Katan found out that Din’s ‘Goran’ was, in fact, Nomri Katzkai, the second daughter of Lanlee Katzai and the official apprentice of Fii Katzkai, the imperial Armorer himself, she threw up her hands and declared all endeavors hopeless now.

Din was one of them; he just didn’t know it. And his buir, who had removed herself from her family to be even more hardcore than anyone would have thought possible, didn’t seem overly excited to start explaining shit to him anytime soon.

So here they were. With Din about to kill one of the most famous war heroes in recent Mandalorian history over a crush that wouldn’t quit.

Bojzka smiled at him with dark eyes with scars through both of his eyebrows.

“Just a message,” he lobbied. “One letter.”

Boba would’ve fucked him. Yeah, why not? Just look at him.

“She’s busy,” Din said. “You’ll have to submit it to Eegang Quodo. That’s E-e-g-a—”

“Yeah, see. Here’s the thing, kid. This letter’s gonna be kinda personal, if you catch my drift—”

“Q-u-o—”

“—probably not great for the eyes of anyone who ain’t, you know, in on this whole relationship—”

“—d-o. He’s usually busy, too. So you probably should submit it to Paz, instead. He’ll lose it for you forever. That’s P-a-z—”

Fennec hid a razor-sharp grin behind a clenched fist. She flashed it at Boba.

‘I love him’ she mouthed, pointing at Din’s hiked-up shoulders. Even his cape seemed to have gone stiff in Bojzka’s presence.

“Din, honey. Listen to me,” Bojzka crooned. “I know you’re protective of your mama, but—”

“She’s not my mother. Don’t you fucking dare call her that, you hulking piece of—”

“Ah-ah-ah. You’re not listening. Come on. Chin up. Ears open.”

Bojzka tapped at the bottom of Din’s helmet like a CO with a teenage recruit, and Fennec just about screamed when Din went completely still and silent.

Bo-Katan met Boba’s gaze out of the corner of her eye. She mimed a syringe. Boba shook his head. If this fucker got bit, he deserved whatever infection it brought.

“Atta boy,” Bojzka said to Din’s rigid silence. “Here’s how it is: your mama and me go way, way back. And you know, after your touching reunion the other week, she even went and had a drink with me, and we got to talkin’ and started to reconnect, the old folks do. And I could read her body language, Din-Din. She wants a man. And that man’s me. So instead of actin’ like a child over all this, why don’t we—”

“She wanted Naseem,” Din snapped. “But Naseem died. Twenty years ago, he died. You just wear similar boots.”

Get ‘im, Djarin. Get ‘im.

“I—who?” Bojzka snapped.

“Naseem,” Din repeated like he was an idiot. “Traditional, bantha-sized, green armor. He worked all the time to keep all the kids in the covert fed.”

Bojzka processed this.

“Naseem what?” he asked stiffly.

“He’s dead,” Din said. “And Hajka left. So no. Goran needs neither a man or a woman, and especially not you. What she needs is a break and for Karren to stop fighting people on sight.”

Bojzka backtracked like a champ.

“Karren, that’s her youngest, right?” he asked. “Well, I bet Karren could use some sisters. I bet he’s lonely over there on, uh.”

“Zeffo,” Din gritted out. “And no. He’s not. He has three sisters. One of which is still at the covert, terrorizing him left and right.”

Even Bo-Katan could only empathize so much with Bojzka, war hero or nah.

“Why’re you all up in arms, Din? What’d I do to you?” Bojzka finally asked. “Don’t you want your buir to be happy?”

Din’s shoulders finally came down from his helmet.

“Of course, I do,” he said. “Which is why if you set so much as a toe on Zeffo, I’m taking both of your knees with me to Yavin.”

��--

Any parent would have been proud to have Din as their child. He took family honor to a level that even the Katzkai clan would have had a hard time sniffing at.

He had to have learned this from the wayward heiress. Although, if Boba was honest, he didn’t really think that the wayward heiress was all that wayward.

She’d come to visit Din on Tatooine. She was short and stocky and not terribly interested in the court or anyone outside of Din.

She wasn’t nearly as hostile as Bo-Katan expected either. She didn’t appear to love anything that she was looking at, no, but Din had explained that that was mostly because she wasn’t really a fan of him having become Mand’alor to start with.

When she came to visit, anyways, she was far more interested in getting a good fuss in to give herself peace of mind that Din was okay. That way she could then go back to dealing with the apparently endless series of crises at the new covert.

She was a great parent in that way. She even brought along her youngest, so that he could see his big brother.

That kid was fuckin’ adorable. Maybe fourteen or fifteen years old. Barely, barely, barely in armor. He was strapped into his leathers so tight, he looked like he was stuffed with straw.

He had medium-brown skin with yellow undertones and huge, nearly-black eyes. Coarse black hair poured into his face and curled around his ears—and if he thought he was going to stuff all that in a helmet one day, he had another thing coming.

He bopped after his buir when they entered the palace and stopped occasionally to stare up in awe at the palace’s high ceilings. Upon realizing that he’d lost his escort, he scampered along to catch up and did the whole thing again and again until buir had enough and snatched his hand.

He didn’t like that. He was fourteen-fifteen years old. He was too big for hand-holding, buir.

Never too old to be ignored, though.

“Goraaaaaan.”

“Hush,” the Armorer told him. “Keep up.”

He was handed off to Boba outside Din’s personal quarters, mostly because he was making such a fuss at the Armorer that she began contemplating leaving him at the palace forever. Din intervened and the kid latched onto him instead until Din convinced him that he’d be available talk just as soon as he and their buir were done speaking.

The kid’s name was Karren.

He and Boba were now best friends.

“—so Goran said, ‘I’m not having that idiot in my rooms.’ But then Eegang said, ‘we already have Paz in these rooms,’ and you’re not supposed to laugh, Mr. Fett, but we all did because we’re all stupid. So we had to do like, a thousand chores for eavesdropping.”

“So she’s not into him, then?” Fennec clarified. “He’s really into her, you know.”

“Of course, I know,” Karren lamented. “But Goran’s picky and the last person she was all close with was Hajka and we’re not allowed to talk about her anymore or Din’ll make you do two hundred push-ups while he watches.”

Amazing. Say more about Din’s oldest-child syndrome, little one.

“No, I like Din,” Karren sighed. “Now that Digo’s gone, he’s even nicer.”

Oh?

“What happened to Digo?” Boba asked as Bo-Katan joined them in curiosity.

“Digo’s a jerk is what happened,” Karren huffed. “She wanted Goran to give over the forge and join the elders, but Goran isn’t even that old. So when she said ‘no,’ Digo got mad and said that the only foundling Goran respects is Din. Which is bullshit because everyone knows that Goran has always been the nicest with Digo and Nasif—she made all sorts of excuses for them, Mr. Fett, like when they went out and got caught stealing parts like Jawas, she did four whole hunts to raise their bail. When Din gets in trouble, he takes care of it himself. He doesn’t ask Goran to do that kind of thing. And me and Shimmol just don’t get in that kind of trouble to start with—but no. Digo had to be all ‘if you don’t treat us as equals, then we’re gonna leave and start our own forge.’”

“No kidding,” Fennec said. “So they left?”

“Yeah, both of them ‘cause Nasif does anything Digo tells her to,” Karren said, kicking his feet. “And good riddance.”

Too many sisters, this one had. Boba felt for him.

“So Goran’s still recovering from that betrayal, I take it?” he asked.

Karren frowned and chewed a lip.

“I dunno,” he admitted. “No one tells me anything. I think that Goran’s been more worried about Din than them after all that happened. We thought he got crunched by the jedi—or at least I thought he got crunched. Paz says that Jedis compact Mandalorians into cubes of armor and Din’s got the best armor.”

Do not laugh at the child. Do not laugh at the child.

“I don’t think Jedis crunch Mandalorians,” Bo-Katan said generously, having snuck into the bare antechamber while everyone was distracted with the kid’s story.

“Well, I do,” Karren countered, with zero conception of who he was talking to.

Fennec beamed.

“Do you like this Urro guy?” she asked.

“No,” Karren answered immediately. “He’s sent Eegang four messages and they’re all gross.”

Yep.

It was gonna be a late puberty for this one.

“What makes them gross?” Bo-Katan asked.

“The mush,” Karren said expertly. “Bojzka calls Goran ‘Nomri.’ That’s a bad word at home. No one says that word. Goran is ‘Goran.’ The only people who call her anything else are the elders.”

“And you and your siblings, no?” Bo-Katan asked.

Karran cocked his head at her.

“Yeah, and ‘buir’ I guess, if we aren’t in trouble,” he said.

Bless him.

“Are you in trouble a lot?” Bo-Katan asked.

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“I dunno. I got a temper or something.”

“Is Din in trouble?”

“With buir? No, not like me and Shimmol. He’s too old to be in that kind of trouble. His trouble’s like ‘help, I fell a hundred feet off a cliff’ kind of trouble. He gives Goran indigestion, but she can’t make him reflect on falling a million feet out of a ship—Eegang says that’s called ‘rehashing trauma.’”

The covert on Zeffo sounded like it was holding itself together through sheer force of will and that alone.

Where did Boba sign up? It sounded like a fantastic experiment to pass the time.

“Are you a foundling, Karren?” Boba asked.

The kid lit up.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ve been with Goran for five years now. Six in a few months. My dad’s a piece of shit. He killed my mom, and Goran got him arrested for that and for what he did to my auntie.”

Well, fuck. That explained a lot.

“And you like it there—on Zeffo?” Bo-Katan asked.

Karren shrugged.

“It’s cold and wet,” he said. “I liked Nevarro better. Din was home more on Nevarro.”

Awww.

“Aren’t you proud of Din for becoming Mand’alor?” Bo-Katan asked as gently as she could manage.

Karren’s frown eased up finally.

“No,” he said. “Din should just come home. He doesn’t need to be Mand’alor or married to some jedi. He should just come home. It’s stupid; his foundling should have stayed with us from the start. We always have room for more foundlings. I dunno why he had to leave with his foundling at all.”

Bo-Katan sat back and sighed.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “If it helps, I think he just wants to come home, too.”

“So let him,” Karren blurted out to her.

Tough tits, kid. That wasn’t how it worked.

“I think we should perhaps focus on one thing at a time,” Bo-Katan said. “What do you think, Fett?”

What did Boba think?

Boba thought that he had a great idea to distract this kid from missing his big brother.

 ---

Karren was perhaps a little too small still to reach the brakes in the crawler, but you know what? So was Fennec sometimes and she did just fine.  

“Gas,” Boba said, pointing. “Neutral. Brake. Park.”

“Gas, neutral, brake, park,” Karren repeated to him with his hands on the wheel and his knobbly wrists peeking out from the gap between his gloves and his leather braces.

Bo-Katan had refused to be present or responsible for this. Fennec had told them to wait while she went and took a shot first. ‘For safety’ she said.

“What’s neutral for?”

“You’re about to tell me,” Boba said, adjusting the rear view mirrors down to kid-height.

The sound of Fennec throwing herself onto the back of the crawler rattled through to their compartment.

“That’s our signal,” Boba said. “You ready to jam?”

“Jam?” Karren asked him.

Hm.

Punch it?

“Punch what?”

The fuck kind of slang did they use at the covert?

“Rock?”

“OH. Yeah, I’m ready.”

There we go. Onward march then.

 ---

An hour later, Din sighed with Karren whining under his arm.

“There is a reason he’s not trained yet, Fett,” Din said as Karren started chomping on the bunched-up flightsuit in his elbow.

The Armorer pressed both palms into the forehead of her helmet.

The crawler had perhaps seen better days. But it had also seen worse days, and Fennec was still going through little loops of cackling at the memory of having to chase after its open tailgate. Boba didn’t understand what all the fuss was about. The kid had done amazingly well for his first time at the wheel.

“I’m leaving all of you,” Karren grated out, trying miserably to escape Din’s elbow-prison. “I want to be Mr. Fett’s foundling.”

Bless him.

“You don’t,” Din told him forcefully. “Fett can’t handle a foundling.”

Ay, Boba would drink to that. He was happy to be a foundling-sitter and borrower, though.

“Buir,” Karren pleaded.

“You make me tired, child,” the Armorer told him. “Say goodbye to vod.”

“NO.”

Din sighed. The Armorer sighed. Karren, in a beautiful 180, latched onto Din’s ribs again.

“Come hooooooome,” he pleaded with Din.

“I caaaaaaan’t,” Din drawled back at him in a delightfully uncharacteristic tone.

“These people don’t need you. We need you. Shimmol took your bed and if you don’t take it back, she’s gonna keep it.”

Din’s shoulders dropped.

“I told Shimmol that she could take my bunk, Karren,” he said. “I’m not using it—”

“BUT YOU COULD BE.”

Boba took it back. He could take on a foundling. Fuck it, why not? This one was great.

“Come here,” Din said, dragging the kid up to his toes. He knocked the front of his helmet against Karren’s forehead with enough force that the bump was noticeable. That made the kid shut up and stand up straight on his own volition again.

“Soon,” Din told him forcefully. “Behave for buir.”

“Promise,” Karren demanded.

“Ehn.”

“Din, promise.”

“I dunno, kid. I’ve got a husband and all these damn kids to worry about.”

“Bring them. All of them.”

“No room,” Din said without missing a beat. “You have no idea how much space the husband needs to thrive.”

“Well, if you don’t come, then Urro’s gonna try to move in,” Karren snapped.

Din actually paused at that. The Armorer shook her helmet.

“Territorialism becomes neither of you,” she said. “If Urro wishes to join our covert, then we will treat him as we treat any other who wishes to.”

Din’s helmet seemed to squint at her. Karren glared outright.

“I don’t like him,” he told Din.

“Concurred,” Din said.

“Ad’ika,” the Armorer scolded.

“I will not be shamed into liking him, either,” Din asserted.

“Din,” Karren whined.

“I’ll consider coming home if it means there will be no space for Bojzka,” Din said.

“Carry on with your work and give my best to the jedi and the child,” the Armorer said with an air of dismissal. “Come, Karren. Thank you three for looking after him. Apologies for the vehicle. Come.”

Boba missed that kid already.

 --------

Bojzka, Boba had to say, really had no shame and he could almost appreciate that. Either that, or Din’s buir was a catch that the rest of them were failing to appreciate.

“How bad can it be?” the guy mused at Din’s stiff, furious hands mere days after the Armorer and Karren’s departure. “It’s a helmet, right? You can take it off with the people who matter, no?”

“We do not take it off,” Din said from between clenched teeth.

“Right, I got that. But there are exceptions for kids and spouses,” Bojzka said. “Or did I misread that part?”

Din was going to start shaking at any minute now. Bo-Katan assigned Boba the task of making sure he didn’t commit War-hero-homicide while she went off to find a calming device. It was only polite. It wasn’t Bojzka’s fault after all that he’d come in right after a tense meeting with a dissident group from Mandalore itself that made even Bo-Katan’s jaw jump.

“I think the rule is more important than the exceptions here,” Boba pointed out on Din’s behalf. “Joining the Children of the Watch isn’t something to take lightly.”

Din pointed at him wordlessly. Bojzka lazily followed the finger and then pointedly ignored Boba.

“What I’m hearing is that if we marry first, nothing changes,” he said.

Din’s index finger curled in with the rest of his knuckles until it was a fist.

“She is not looking to marry,” he said.

“What, so you speak for her now?”

“She is not looking to marry.”

“I can repeat things, too. Wanna see? You don’t speak for Nomri, Din.”

Boba was getting the feeling that Ms. Katzkai sort of did let Din speak for her in these types of situations. He was, after all, her oldest. And it sounded like he was the most loyal of her foundlings, too. If she shared anything personal with anyone besides her second in command, then it was going to be Din. That was just how these things worked.

“Did you call Eegang?” Din asked.

“I did,” Bojzka said. “He’s not especially helpful, I have to say. He keeps sending my missives back to me with grammar corrections.”

No. No. Keep it in, Boba. Keep it stoic.

“Eegang is the second CO at the covert,” Din said. “If you won’t take my word for it, then you’ll take his.”

Bojzka arched a fucked-up eyebrow.

“Eegang, the same guy who is allegedly secretly married to his partner? That Eegang?” he asked.

Din balked. Boba felt like electricity had just rocketed through him.

“Eegang is—” Din started.

“Nomri told me about him,” Bojzka said off-handedly. “She seems to think that he’s bitten off more than he can chew with taking on his last kid.”

“Eegang—”

“Something about baby being blind? Funny, did you not think that she trusted me enough to talk about her people?”

Any more of this and steam would start rising from the lip of Din’s helmet.

Thankfully, Bo-Katan returned with the jedi, AKA the calming device. Skywalker even came equipped with Grogu. They both appeared very confused and innocent, what with Skywalker drowning in his formal robes. They looked like they were going to absorb Grogu at any moment.

A+ distraction work, Kryze. Well done making yourself useful.

“Who’s Eegang?” Skywalker asked.

The line pulled taut across Din’s shoulders began to loosen.

“A comrade,” he said sharply in Bojzka’s direction.

“Is he nice?” Skywalker asked. Grogu chirped at him and resumed trying to dig into his multitude of collars.

“Very nice,” Din confirmed, staring deep into Bojzka’s eyes.

“He’s got foundlings, too?” Skywalker asked.

“Two,” Din confirmed. “Who he adores. Regardless of all challenges.”

Ah. It wasn’t just Eegang Din was protective of. It was the baby. Bojzka had really stuck his foot into that one.

“I’m sure the foundlings are fine,” Bojzka said. “It was just Nomri’s concern that—”

“Stop calling her that in my presence,” Din said. “In fact, let’s drop the whole thing now.”

 --------

Boba wanted to meet secretly-married Eegang. He sounded like he had a rich interior life. Din gave him a strong look and said that if the Armorer had left the covert, Eegang would not. One of them had to be there at all times.

Bo-Katan asked what Eegang’s speciality was.

Surprise, surprise: it was diplomacy.

Kryze was now invested. She followed Din around on his heels and suggested that if the Armorer gave words to Eegang to deliver during a formal meeting with the Mand’alor, then Bojzka might finally get the picture that Katzkai wasn’t interested in him.

Din thought about that.

He asked if this was not just a ploy for Boba and Bo-Katan to rally his covert comrades against him.

And it honestly wasn’t until he phrased it like that.

 -----------

Eegang was tall, sea-green, and in Bojzka’s face without so much as a by-your-leave.

“Three tests,” he threatened Bojzka with a baby on his hip. “One: stop sending transmissions. Two: get Elder Fayrz to approve your presence. Three: make even one of Goran’s foundlings like you. If you pass all three, your admission will be taken into consideration.”

The baby was very pink with curly hair so pale it was almost white. Its blue-gray eyes moved rapidly back and forth as it cuddled into its buir’s teal armor. Bojzka glanced from it to Eegang’s chipped helmet.

“Where did you find him?” he asked.

“Please give confirmation of your understanding,” Eegang said mechanically.

“He’s kinda cute.”

“Please give confirmation of your understanding.”

“Are you a droid or somethin’?”

“Please give—”

“Alright, alright. Fuck. This is confirmation of my understanding.”

“Excellent. This conversation is over,” Eegang said. “It is your responsibility to contact the elder and earn the approval.”

Bojzka jerked.

“Wait, what?” he said. “How am I supposed to do that if y’all won’t even let me through the door?”

Eegang’s helmet tipped so daintily to the side that Boba could have shed a tear.

“That sounds like a you-problem,” Eegang said.

 -----------

Eegang thereafter blocked Bojzka out of his mind and heart. He introduced himself with a dipping motion to Kryze and Boba that probably would have been more dramatic if he’d opted to wear a cape, which he did not. He revealed himself to be exceedingly polite and very fond of Din, though—if the gentle armor tapping and the use of the word ‘little brother’ was anything to go by. Din was usually receptive to gestures like that, Boba had learned, but not this time.

No, no. Din cared not for his ‘big brother.’ He cared only for the attention of Eegang’s baby.

“His name is Mesa,” Eegang explained after Din had kidnapped said baby. He introduced Mesa to Grogu who was stationed nearby, stuffed in the sleepy jedi’s shirt this time. . Grogu waved from Skywalker’s chest, but Mesa didn’t register the motion.

“His grandmother was quite ill, and it was her dying wish to see the child placed into the care of someone trustworthy. I have to admit, though, I may have made the decision a little rashly,” Eegang hummed as he watched Grogu lean as far as he could out of Skywalker’s clothing to try to make contact with his fellow foundling.

“Is he your first?” Bo-Katan asked.

Eegang winced.

“No, uh. I’ve got another,” he said. “She’s a huge fan of certain someones.”

“Me,” Din said without hesitation.

“And Paz,” Eegang said. “Which is a deadly combination.”

“She will be a mighty warrior,” Din informed Mesa and Skywalker. Skywalker twitched awake and didn’t understand anything that was happening. He noticed the baby, cooed, and waved with his gloved hand.

“She’s declared this one goat her nemesis and I cannot—I cannot—get her to just leave it alone,” Eegang said.

“A goat clan in the making,” Din said with approval.

“I’m hearing unnecessary commentary,” Eegang said without looking at him. “Please rephrase or shut up.”

Din seemed to gloat at the scolding. Skywalker glanced between him and his tall, teal comrade. He made his move and carefully came in to extract baby Mesa from Din’s arms to add him to his ever-growing collection. Grogu cooed again, closer now. He offered Mesa a hand, and this time, Mesa perked up and tried to grab at it clumsily.

“You manage the covert in the Armorer’s absence?” Bo-Katan asked Eegang. “You must be very dedicated to the Children of the Watch.”

“Define ‘manage’ and then ‘dedicated,’” Eegang said. “I prefer ‘accidentally charged with responsibility one too many times’ and ‘in too deep to turn back now.’”

“He’s being humble,” Din said. “Eegang has brokered peace between our covert and locals on numerous occasions.”

Eegang’s shoulders started to raise.

“Stop telling people that, they’re going to expect things from me,” he said, then popped back up like flipped switch. “Oh, I totally forgot why I even came. Jedi?”

Skywalker looked up from the conference of baby talk happening in his arms all wide-eyed, as though he’d been caught in the act of stealing imperial property.

“We did not welcome you into our covert,” Eegang said, “You must allow us to present you with a gift of welcome and entry.”

Oho. Very formal. Boba folded his arms and watched Skywalker for his reaction.

“A what?” Skywalker asked.

 -------

Bojzka was somewhat justifiably upset at the double standard going on here.

Skywalker was a jedi and yet welcomed into the covert with open arms and no admission requirements. He was, in fact, measured against his will for a set of armor. This was what Din’s buir had actually been after when she’d sent Eegang along to say hi.

Boba found that he enjoyed the reciprocation of ulterior motives that they were getting from Din’s covert. Kryze had never been happier. This was a game that she knew how to play.

“Wait no, hold up,” Bojzka interrupted. “I deserve a chance. Din, at least give me the name of one of your siblings so I can track them down with the elder.”

Din didn’t want to; there were foundlings happening and another meeting soon, but eventually even he had to give the guy something.

An honorable battle required at least two willing bodies.

 -----------

Din and Karren’s remaining sibling at the covert’s name was Shimmol. According to Din, Bojzka had next to no chance of gaining her favor because she did not leave the forge and therefore Bojzka had no access to her. Eegang corrected Din and said that Shimmol did, in fact, leave the forge, but never on her own volition.

She was preferred the dark. She hated social interaction.

To circumvent that, the Armorer had refused to induct her into the trade until she proved herself able to coexist with others. But Shimmol was eighteen, that fun age where no incentive or punishment was effective and digging your heels in was far more preferable to doing a damn thing your elders mentioned.

She’s announced that very weekend that she was officially becoming a recluse. Her present aspiration in life was apparently now to become a forge spider.

Bojzka, along with everyone else, had no idea how to receive this information. Kyrze took it upon herself to pat Bojzka on the shoulder and tell him to start with the elder. He might actually have some luck that way.

 -------

It took two weeks for Bojzka to re-emerge from whatever hellhole he’d had to walk a tightrope across to locate the covert’s elder Fayrz. He climbed in through Din’s personal quarters’ window and interrupted him and the Jedi in a moment of infrequent intimacy.

The sound of a body being throw over a bannister had a special kind of thud to it. Boba was up on out of his quarters in an instant.

Din flung Bojzka’s helmet after him. Skywalker had the grace to cover Djarin’s face with his shirt and walk him back into the room before anyone caught sight of it, telling Boba and Fennec, who had also emerged from her bed, prepared for drama, that all was fine. There was just a misunderstanding.

His bare torso was covered in scars. Boba found himself somehow surprised and impressed as the jedi unsuccessfully wrangled his furious husband back in the direction of bed.

He and Fennec peeked over the banister to see what had become of Bojzka. He was fine.

Fennec informed Boba that she was claiming part of his bed ‘in case anything else good happened’ since he was closer.

 -----

In the morning, Din was in marginally better spirits. Skywalker was to be found at his side, walking backwards and tripping over his cloak every four paces. He truly knew how to hit all Din’s ‘endeared’ buttons. If not to the earnestness and the near-miss of a disaster on the stairs, it would have looked like manipulation.

Bojzka attempted to rectify the peace by breaking into the court through one of the windows high up on the wall outside the second floor’s conference room.  This time, to ensure that he had Din’s full attention, he removed the jedi from the equation. Or he tried to anyways.

The jedi, in a split second, decided that, all joking aside, today, he would not be moved. His green saber managed to glow even in the sunlight pouring in to the hall.

“Do not touch,” he ordered, with both feet planted and Din and Grogu securely at his back.

Bojzka cocked his head at the saber pointed right at his nose.

“That’s a fun trick,” he said.

“Do not touch,” Skywalker repeated. “Me, him, or the child.”

“I’ll think about it,” Bojzka said. “Stand down before you regret it.”

“Luke,” Din said testily. “He’s not worth it.”

“Make me regret it,” Skywalker said to Bojzka.

Bojzka’s eyes widened slightly in interest. He used the back of his wrist to try to nudge the saber’s tip away and snapped his hand away from the burn.

“Do you expect me to be afraid of you, jedi?” he asked, trying to play it off.

Skywalker’s eyes reflected the light of his saber.

“Ask him what the glove’s for,” Fennec called from the far hall. Bojzka scoffed. Skywalker didn’t move.

“What happened to your hand?” Bojzka asked.

“My father cut it off,” Skywalker said. “But not to worry, I got a new one. Now step back. Sir.”

Bojzka didn’t move for a long time.

“Does it feel good to walk in the presence of these people?” he asked. “Is it a kink for you the way it was for your master?”

Boba had officially lost the plot. These were old politics now. Kryze would know what Bojzka was talking about, if only she deigned to come out from wherever she was hiding, which she wouldn’t. Of course.

“Does it offend you? My presence here?” Skywalker asked back without emotion.

“It doesn’t,” Bojzka said.

“I’m glad. That’s very convenient for me. I’d feel terrible if you bled out on these tiles,” Skywalker said. “So move.”

And goddamn. The mountain finally yielded to the sky.

 -------

Skywalker spent the rest of the day on high alert, with one hand on the hilt of his saber and his full concentration tied up with making fierce eyes into the palace’s corners to keep Bojzka at bay. It was really something to see. Din looked about ready to lay his fingers on his heart and swoon, and that was more than fair. If Boba’s spouse threatened to kill a man for looking at him wrong, he’d be touched too.

Fennec told Boba that she’d protect him from a man the size of a bantha but no larger, and it just didn’t have the same kind of ring.

She apologized and he told her it was fine. It was just in the delivery--and also, he’d murder anyone so blinked at her wrong, too.

She was pleased. Boba was glad they were on the same page.

“Let’s go find Kryze to negotiate,” Fennec said, “I need to know why Old Faithful’s back.”

 --------

Kryze’s commanding voice wrang out of Bojzka the real reason for his presence. The truth of the matter was that, War Hero aside, he was having a hell of a time getting the covert elder to grant him a second look.

Din told him that that was the point. Elder Fayrz was like that all day, every day and he’d change for no body, spiritual or physical. He bothered people when he wanted to bother them, and the rest of the time, he liked to pretend he was senile. He only really ever showed up if someone was buying a round or their life was in the balance.

Skywalker said that he sounded a lot like his late master.

Din agreed and said that Elder Fayrz had dedicated his life to two things: the covert children and fungi. Somehow, he made those two interests overlap. Din recalled being twelve and being taken out on a ‘mission’ by the old man who had informed him that he required his nose.

Elder Fayrz had no sense of smell. For a man with a fungi interest, he called this ‘very dangerous business indeed.’

Kryze demanded to know if all the weirdest Mandalorian elders still living had congregated at Din’s cohort which he quickly confirmed. Bojzka, however, demanded to know what would make this elder look him in the eye.

Din told him to go find a deathbed and lay on it.

He remembered belatedly to add ‘nearby Elder Fayrz’ to that statement.

 ----------

After about a month of this kind of back and forth, the Armorer decided that she’d had enough. She did not come to the Dune Sea. She sent a missive to Din informing him that he was coming home.

‘To talk,’ she said.

Boba vaguely remembered Karren saying something along the lines of ‘Din doesn’t get into trouble anymore,’ and was pleased to find that that was not the case. Din already knew what awaited him at his home covert and anyone with slightly more than a rock for a brain could see that it wasn’t going to be hugs and kisses.

Bojzka volunteered to accompany Din as a guard when the jedi made himself conveniently unavailable. Kryze and Boba flipped a coin while Din resisted stabbing him, and of course Boba won. Kryze flipped it again to be sure, and Boba told her sweetly that he’d send her a postcard.

“Have fun with the schmucks lounging around this place,” he gloated at Bo-Katan’s rolling shoulders.

She gave him two naughty fingers.

Whatever, girl. Sucks to suck. Bye, bye, now. Come on, Fennec. There’s adventure to be had.

 ---------

It was a ways to the new covert on Zeffo. Several hours, in fact, many of which were spent playing ‘I spy’ with Fennec while Bojzka gritted his teeth and asked them if they were always like this.

Fennec got Din to join in at that comment.

Eventually they ran out of white dwarfs and capes to identify and settled down into silence until the ship declared landing to be imminent.

Karren remembered Boba and the second he set foot inside the curiously constructed covert entrance. The kid came hurtling up to tackle him and wrap arms around his middle. It was endearing. Boba checked the doors to see if a guard would notice a kidnapping.

Fennec reminded him of child-based expenses. Her wisdom was invaluable as usual.

Karren scrambled away from Boba and, for a moment, made like he was going to attach himself to Din’s armor, but instead wriggled past Din to go tearing down the hallway. He skidded, crashed, and then clambered into a different room at the dead end of what appeared to be a row of barracks. Seconds later, Eegang exploded from one of the rooms adjacent wearing no armor but his helmet. He flung himself through the same doorway Karren had vanished through.

Din tilted his head.

“It’s fine,” a voice said behind them.

Their small party turned to see a woman wearing a cool purple helmet with only her flakvest on. Eegang’s pale baby was sat on her hip, pawing at her chest, trying to find purchase in the vest.

“Sotra,” Din greeted.

“Welcome back, brat-child,” Sotra said. “We missed you.”

This had to be Eegang’s secret-wife; unless she’d stolen that gurgling foundling in the night or something.

“Electrical?” Din asked, pointing at the far room.

“Loft,” Sotra said. “There’s hay, so of course all the kids have to be in it.”

“Just hay?” Din asked.

“And goats,” Sotra said.

Ah.

“We raise goats now?” Din asked.

“Oh, no, no,” Sotra said, sashaying past him towards the room her husband had abandoned, “It’s either coexistence or war, I’m afraid. The forge is past the hangar, keep going through the kitchens. Voxie knows you’re here—he’s awake, by the way. Welcome home, Din.”

“Thanks,” Din said. “This is my advisor, Boba Fett and our friend Fennec.”

Sotra splayed her whole, tall body into the doorway of her and Eegang’s barracks just as a fearsome battle cry sounded out on the other side.

“Hi,” she said.

“RELEASE ME,” a child in front of her about hip-height with serious bedhead shrieked in Mando’a.

Fennec’s eyebrows launched up to her forehead. Boba felt like he needed to record this so that Kryze understood what she was missing.

“Vod Din is home,” Sotra told the child.

“DIN.”

“Shhhh.”

“RELEASE M—mmf.”

“Shhhhh. It’s quiet time,” Sotra said with her free hand over the child’s mouth. “We’re being quiet.”

Din chuckled.

“Hey, Samo,” he said.

Samo let loose an ear-piercing scream behind her buir’s hand and ducked under Sotra’s legs. She ran at Din like there was a bomb behind her. Din caught her and swung her up to perch on his arm and she kicked relentless at his tassets in excitement.

“Shhh,” Din said. “People are sleeping—”

“YOU’RE THE MAND’ALOR. YOU’RE THE MAND’ALOR. YOU’RE THE—”

Doors started opening all down the line of barracks. A few curious, hazy, and lopsided helmets poked out from some of them, and from others, calls of ‘EYYYYYYY’ and chats ‘ALL HAIL THE MAND’ALOR’ started up, to Din’s immediate mortification.

This, Boba was delighted to realize, was not a cry of honor.

These half-asleep fuckers had been waiting months to embarrass Din. And he’d known that this would happen.

“Be quiet,” Din snapped all around him. “The elders are sleeping, you’re going to—”

“Well, well, well, look who’s finally home,” a taunting voice rang out on top of the rush. “If it isn’t the Mand’alor himself.”

“Paz,” Din sighed. “Not now.”

“When could there possibly be a better time, your liege?” a huge Mandalorian wearing full blue armor despite the early hour drawled from the doorway he’d attempted to casually lean in. Samo’s braids flew as her round cheeks snapped his way.

“Paz, don’t be mean,” she told him from atop Din’s arm. “Or it’ll be to the goats with ya.”

“Fuck me, the goats, what ever will I do?” Paz scoffed.

“BUIR, PAZ SAID A BAD WORD.”

“I heard him,” Sotra said scathingly, right at Paz’s visor.

“To the goats,” Paz’s neighbor hissed at him.

The hissing was taken up just as quickly as the earlier ‘all hails’ had been. Paz told everyone to shut up and mind their own asses. He was publicly booed until Eegang emerged from the loft room with Karren stuffed under an arm and demanded to know why people were congregating in the halls. He reminded everyone that that shit was a fire hazard, and in doing so, his tone changed completely from easy-going to Commanding Officer and the effect was immediate.

People scurried back into their rooms like frightened mice until there wasn’t a single open door left in the whole line.

Eegang huffed and traded Karren to Din for his daughter. Samo happily climbed onto his shoulders and held onto his chin. Karren grinned mischievously up at her, winked, and then thumbed back to the goat loft.

“Not the welcome you deserved, but the one you got. I’m afraid nothing has changed here,” Eegang told Din compassionately, wrapping his fingers around Samo’s ankles. “I see you brought friends.”

“And foe,” Din said, gesturing at Bojzka who beamed.

Eegang’s visor contained a grimace that would otherwise have wracked his whole body.

“You got in,” he deadpanned.

“Sure did,” Bojzka said. “Lovely place you have here.”

And honestly? Yeah. It sort of was. Maybe a little ramshackle, what with all the scaffolding and haphazard support beams thrown into the walls to keep the wet earth above ground from crushing everyone below it, but for all the unsteadiness, it was oozing with comradery. Family.

Behind each of those doors was a little unit like Eegang and Sotra’s or perhaps a tired body, barely extracted from its boots, taking comfort in this honeycomb of tunnels and rooms.

Boba couldn’t help but wonder how he and Dad would have done in a place like this.

“We try,” Eegang said flatly. “I’ll let the Armorer deal with you herself—if she’s awake, I mean. Otherwise, you’re condemned to Shimmol. I’m going back to sleep. Vok is waiting for you, keep going straight through the kitchens, Din.”

“Thank you,” Din said. “Sleep well, Vod.”

“Yeah, yeah. Come on, Monster. No goats for now.”

Samo waved at Boba and Fennec with a smile as bright as the sun. She ducked expertly as Eegang passed through the doorway to their quarters. He closed the door behind them.

 ------

“You don’t see families like that much anymore,” Bojzka hummed as Din led their troop down the hallways, through a series of ladders into a kitchen and then from there into a surprisingly neat, up-to-date hangar with concrete floorings. Six crafts were parked inside, tucked into the tight space like fish in a barrel.

“We have a few,” Din said. “I don’t know how many people are living here now, though.”

Given the size of the place? Maybe fifty or so, if Boba had to take a guess. There had been several sets of boots lining the wall outside the barrack doors.

Din picked his way through the crafts to two tarps covered in piles of spare, rusting, and grease-covered parts. At the end of the aisle between the tarps was a rectangle bordered by wooden benches and to the left of that was a little box that a mechanic presumably operated from. The box, however, had no windows. Its door was slightly ajar.

Din knocked and a snort and a slurp answered him.

“Jus’ a mo,” a thick voice said inside.

Fennec looked at Boba with intrigue.

“Tool gnome,” she said.

No, friend. Just a grease-monkey.

“Tool gnome,” Fennec insisted.

The door opened and a man at least six feet, two inches peered out of it.

“Tool giant,” Fennec amended in a whisper.

“Is that you, Din?” the mechanic asked. His helmet was rusty red and gray. Its visor had a yellow tint to it.

“It is,” Din said. “It’s been a while, Vok. These are my—”

“Forget them. Goran told me what you did to Razor.”

Din cringed.

“I—”

“AH. No. I don’t wanna hear it,” Vok said. “I just—I’m glad you’re safe, but you ain’t touching any more of my children, you hear me, boy?”

Din sunk into his shoulders in shame.

“I hear you,” he said.

“You’re damn right you do,” Vok said. “Man, I had a whole speech written out and shit, and here you are, early as the fuckin’ dawn. Did you miss Paz?”

“We did not,” Din said.

“I tried to have him do an inventory, I did,” Vok said sympathetically. “But he wasn’t havin’ it. Took an IOU and everything.”

Din sighed.

“Thanks for trying,” he said. “Is the forge...?”

“That way,” Vok said, gesturing to the far end of the hangar, where a series of scaffolding led up to a dark hole in the wall. “Mind your step. Stairs are next on my list. Who’re your friends?”

Din introduced them. Vok considered Fennec and after a moment of thought, saluted her. She tipped her jaw to the side and gave him a once-over.

“Din’s got my number if you’re not busy,” Vok said.

“I’ll take it under advisement,” Fennec said.

“I hope you do, my darlin’. You? Boj-whatever? I heard about you. You can go fuck yourself.”

“Thanks, Vok, we’re going now,” Din intervened.

 ----------

Fennec said nothing on the way up the scaffolding. She didn’t need to. Boba applauded her.

 ---------

The forge was the least finished part of the covert, and Boba could respect the Armorer’s dedication to looking after the flock before her own needs. Not that the forge wasn’t a comfortable place. Upon entry, Bojzka whistled at all the equipment inside. There were steel beams crossing in hatches along the ceiling. It appeared as though someone was working on a ventilation mechanism up there. Ropes and pipes hung down from the beams as though a pulley system had been recently removed.

The forge itself was a huge circular structure with a high wall around its exterior. It was built of a slick-looking black material. There were three water troughs set up in a line behind it and two rudimentary wood blocks with anvils set on them. Benches littered with iron tools sat next to the anvils.

Din appeared very at home in this place, despite not having even been in it. He wove around the accoutrements of the room towards a wooden door that had been placed on hinges on the far side like an afterthought.

He knocked.

“We don’ want any,” a sleepy woman’s voice drawled.

Boba jumped as a something brushed his elbow and discovered that Karren had followed them all the way down to the forge. His soft boots had hidden his footsteps, but, like Din, he was now in a place that he knew like the back of his hand. Din grabbed the scruff of his neck as he went for the door with both hands.

“You’re supposed to be in the nursery,” Din told him. “Shoo.”

“Shimmol, Din’s home,” Karren said through the door. “Goran, Din’s home.”

Very cute. Karren wanted to be the one to shared the news. Din pulled him back as shuffling started up on the other side of the wooden door.

It opened to reveal a fluorescent pink helmet with floral patterns painted down the edges in white.

“Din?” the young woman, who could only be Shimmol, asked.

Din’s brain stuttered.

“Uh?” he said.

Shimmol’s flightsuit was once white, but it was burned and smudged to gray all over. Her heavy gloves were half-burnt on both hands, too. She surged forward into Din’s chestplate. Din hugged her back awkwardly.

“Hello, sister,” he said. “This is, uh.”

“Do you like it?” Shimmol asked, pulling away from him to touch the edges of her helmet. “I thought it was cute. Wait til you see the pauldrons. They match.”

“They’re hideous,” Karren said.

“Did anyone ask you?” Shimmol flung at him. “No, I didn’t think so. Get gone, womp-rat.”

Wow. No wonder Karren was desperate for Din’s attention.

“I’m not a womp-rat,” Karren said. “I’m a Tooka. Goran said so.”

“You know, what you actually are is a ‘nuisance,’ so it doesn’t matter what—”

“Children.”

And lo and behold. The lady herself. Gold helmet and everything.

“Din,” the Armorer said, placing a hand on Shimmol’s side to move her. “Welcome home.”

Din accepted the helmet touch with grace.

“Bojzka,” the Armorer said next. “I didn’t expect to see you in my home so soon, or at all.”

Bojzka beamed.

“You’ve grown a beard,” the Armorer noted. “It does not become you.”

Boba coughed into his elbow to hide the bark of laughter screaming to escape his throat. Fennec thumped at his back.

“Let’s move somewhere with more light,” the Armorer said. “Karren, Shimmol. You’re dismissed for the next hour. Go eat breakfast.”

“But—” Shimmol started.

“Up, up, up,” Karren chanted, getting behind her and shoving hands into the small of her back. “It’s people-time.”

“Leave it. I hate people-time,” Shimmol said. “I thrive on darkness. It sustains me better than food.”

Din looked desperately into the Armorer’s helmet. The Armorer ignored him and told Shimmol that she knew this to false and to stop whining. Upstairs, now.  

The kids relented and left the forge. Din pointed after them.

“I know,” the Armorer said. “Let her work through it.”

Din pointed even more insistently.

“No, no. It’s true,” Bojzka said. “Mine went through the same thing.”

 --------

The Armorer sat them all down at a ‘u’ shape of benches on the far side of the forge. She turned on some overhead lights. They lit up the forge and threw its equipment’s shadows harshly against the floor.

“Thank you for coming,” she said lightly. “It takes a long time to get to Zeffo, even in the Outer Rim.”

“It suits you,” Bojzka flirted.

“It does not,” the Armorer countered unrepentantly. “And your flattery remains aggravating.”

Bojzka didn’t seem to process the meaning behind those words, too busy he was with basking in the Armorer’s presence. She ignored him to turn to Din.

“Eegang tells me that you have been aggressive towards Bojzka, ad’ika, is this true?”

Din hunkered down into his shoulders. He didn’t want to answer. The Armorer didn’t make him.

“This is unnecessary,” she said. “Bojzka does not bother me.”

Bojzka rounded a gloating grin at Din.

“He is delusional, but I’m afraid that head trauma does this over time,” the Armorer said lightly. “There is no need to defend my honor—I’ve already had this conversation with Eegang, so know that it is not only you who I’ve spoken to about this. And Bojzka.”

“Yes, dear?” Bojzka hummed.

“I would appreciate it if you ceased in antagonizing my foundling and second.”

“I’m not trying to, Nomri.”

“I know,” the Armorer said. “And that is where I believe this tension arises from. Din, you and your advisor may leave. I’ll handle this. In future, know that it is not your place to speak on these matters in my stead, yes?”

“Yes, Goran,” Din mumbled.

The Armorer waited.

“Buir,” Din corrected.

“Thank you. The last thing I need is the Mand’alor becoming invested in old-standing relationships. You may go.”

Din stood and Boba and Fennec stood with him.

“He is not Naseem,” Din said right at the doorway.

The Armorer’s helmet turned slowly his way.

“No one will ever be Naseem,” she said. “It’s okay. Go.”

 -----------

Boba need the full story on this Naseem guy approximately yesterday, but all he had at his disposal in the kitchens where he, Din, and Fennec had been banished was a collection of foundlings all staring up at their party looking guilty as hell.

In the midst of their group was a ten-year-old holding a glass jug absolutely brimming with frogs.

Boba had never seen this many foundlings together at once before, and he had to say: these traditionalists knew exactly what they were doing. There was nothing quite like a whole mass of youths to shift the mood.

The kids made a break for it.

  Fennec was the fastest of all of them, but even she was not as fast as the bodies that popped their heads out of the rattling back room and launched themselves without warning over the few rows of tables set out in the main space.

Din’s covert collectively looked after the little ones, he explained when one of these bodies returned with the wrist of a shrieking Twi’lek child in their grip. The shrieking cut off when the nurse dropped down into a crouch and flattened both of the child’s hands against their helmet so that they left splotchy prints behind.

Two of the folks who filed back into the room covered in mud did not wear helmets. Din didn’t recognize them until they spoke and said their names. They’d removed their helmets back on Nevarro, apparently, and they had not to put them back on. Now, they wore veils and headscarves—neither of them comfortable with their whole heads and faces on display.

One of these was a woman named Madda. She saw Din’s helmet and froze by one of the long tables.

“Din, I’m so glad you returned,” she said with hitching breath. And then she took her newly-acquired jug of frogs and went tearing back down the hallway towards the covert’s main entrance. Din watched after her, confused.

“Is the transition difficult?” he asked one of the other Mandalorians next to him.

Their helmet showed zero emotion, and yet Boba gleaned from it everything he needed to know. He put a palm on his forehead.

“Djarin, come here,” he said.

 -------------

Din chased after Madda to apologize for fucking up what was probably a years-long infatuation at this point. Fennec watched after him with a sly grin. But the Mandalorian with the flat helmet turned to Boba with far more open shoulders.

“You got through to him like that,” she said, snapping her fingers.

“It’s his secret talent,” Fennec told her.

“What was your name?” the Mandalorian asked.

“Boba Fett,” Boba said. “And yours?”

“Jhuvac.”

“Nice to meet you,” Boba said politely.

“Aren’t you the clone-guy?”

Welp.

“I prefer ‘Fett,’” Boba said.

“Nah, I feel that,” Jhuvac said, tossing her scarf over her shoulder. “Paz calls you the ‘clone-guy’ is all. That shit’s wild, by the way. But you can’t help your dad’s decision now can you?”

What was this? Understanding? From a traditionalist? Kryze would lose her shit.

“I can’t, although everything after that was totally me,” Boba said.

Jhuvac glanced back at him.

“Including the Solo stuff?” she asked.

Boba lifted a brow.

“Is there something you would like to know?” he asked.

“No,” Jhuvac said. “I know everything I need to. But you know what’ll make Vok’s life miserable?”

 ---------

The mechanic was a huge fan of Han Solo, and he had a list of reasons why Boba should cease hunting  the man about as long as one of his lanky arms. He listed them out one by one in his hangar full of metal scrap. Jhuvac was very correct when she said that the mere mention of Solo meeting his maker would cause Vok immense misery. Boba could see how it could be entertaining.

Fennec made it even more entertaining by poking holes in each of Vok’s carefully laid out arguments.

He kept asking her why she was hurting him like this. Was this a domination kink?

Fennec asked him if he wanted it to be.

Vok walked it all back and told her to do her worst.

Jhuvac decided that she suddenly had other things to do and invited Boba to accompany her on these things. Boba assented and left Fennec to her business.

 ----------

In the end, Boba found himself outside in a group huddle with a handful of covert people, two with no helmets, watching the feud between the foundlings and the local wildlife. The covert, he learned, broadly did not like Zeffo. They hated how wet it was. They hated how cold it was. 90% of them had grown up in desert climates, the remaining 10% in ice climates.

Zeffo, as far as they were concerned, was a backwater hellhole that they’d had little choice in selecting.

“It was this or breaking up and forming two coverts,” Sotra explained, removing Mesa’s captured snail from his face area for the third time. She gave the snail to the guy next to her who got up and took it down to the edge of the nearby river. He stooped to set it in the grass, then froze in shock when a fish’s wide mouth erupted from the water and encapsulated his whole glove.

It left the glove wet and empty.

“But you didn’t want to do that?” Boba asked.

“No, if we separated, it would be Eegang at the head of the new covert,” Sotra said. “And that’s just not in the cards for us right now.”

Gotcha.

“The children didn’t want to be separated either,” one of the Mandalorians with no helmet said. “Goran gave them the option, but things were frantic, you know. They cling to each other when they’re young like this.”

More than understandably, in Boba’s humble and correct opinion.

“What do you all think of Bojzka?” Boba asked them.

“Who?”

“The bull with no helmet? Beard?” someone said.

“The one trying to court the Armorer?” Sotra asked.

Everyone clambered back onto the same page in the face of this descriptor.

“He’s supposed to be some kind of hero,” Jhuvac said. “But I dunno, man. He seems a little, uh.”

“Goran’s too good for him,” Sotra interjected simply. “Imagine stooping so low after a life of respect and service.”

“He’s not ugly,” the Mandalorian who’d lost the snail pointed out. “I’d bang him.”

“You’re not a good bar, Ban.”

“I could be.”

“You’re the lowest bar, Ban.”

“Can’t be disappointed if your expectations on the floor.”

“Go bang him for Goran then,” Jhuvac said. “I can’t tell if she thinks he’s kinda cute or if she wants to stab him in the heart.”

“For the good of the covert, I will endure this hardship,” Ban said.

He was unceremoniously yanked back down when he started to stand.

“Din mentioned some guy named ‘Naseem?’” Boba asked.

The name alone sent the group into titters.

“Naseem was so nice.”

“Naseem was great, you have no idea. So respectful.”

“He wanted to take Din on so bad, it was almost heartbreaking. He and Goran were perfect for each other. He was so happy around her; I don’t think he ever talked in front of anyone else.”

“God, when he died, I cried so hard. I cried for days.”

“Same.”

“Same.”

“Same.”

“Kind of a tough reputation to beat, then?” Boba asked.

“Oh definitely,” Jhuvac said. “I mean, there was Hajka after him, but she was just so explosive. Like, she made Goran laugh a lot, I remember that, but she was kinda awkward, too. There was a battle on her home planet and she left everyone here to defend what was left of her people.”

“Goran collects the awkward ones, they’re her favorite,” Sotra said.

“You can’t judge her, you collect Eegangs,” Ban pointed out.

“There is only one Eegang.”

“Girl, we know.”

There was a pause while Sotra handed off her child so that she could beat the shit out of Ban on the lumpy grass. Jhuvac handed Mesa over Boba’s lap to the quiet person at his right. They took the baby without question and laid him on their chest.

“Where did you grow up, Boba?” Jhuvac asked. “Sorry, Fett. Do you like Fett?”

Boba was taken aback. It had been ages since someone had called him by his first name—and a Mandalorian no less.

“Boba is fine. I grew up on Kamino,” he said.

“With a covert?”

No, no covert. No anyone, really. Boba was what people in white coats tended to call ‘under-socialized.’

“That’s sad,” Jhuvac said. “It must have been lonely.”

It was, actually. Especially after Dad had died.

“That’s so sad, I’m gonna cry,” Ban said. “Join our covert.”

All helmets and eyes rounded on Boba and he felt like his collar was suddenly digging into his neck. He shook his head.

“I’m not really a Mandalorian,” he said. “It’s not right—”

“Bullshit.”

“Fuckin’ hell, Jhuvac, let ‘im talk.”

“No, that’s bullshit. Listen, Din has ‘don’t trust people’ syndrome. If he trusts you enough to bring you with him here, then you’re Mandalorian enough for us,” Jhuvac said. “And anyways, being a Mandalorian is about what you do, not who you are. It doesn’t matter if you’re clone-guy so long as you follow the Creed in a more or less northernly direction.”

Boba stared at her and realized that everyone was staring at him again. He cleared his throat but found that he didn’t have any words trapped back there like he’d thought.

“Or easternly,” Ban offered to break the awkwardness.

There were still no words on Boba’s tongue. He struggled to say at least something.

“I—th—that’s kind of you,” he eventually managed. “I don’t think I could cut it here, but that’s really kind of you.”

The Mandalorians exchanged looks and shrugs.

“Know that the offer stands if you feel any pull towards it later,” Sotra said. “We have a number of reformed who converted and who move in and out of our covert. Not recently, but when we were children, there were more. Goran, too, was once a reformed Mandalorian.”

“My buir, too,” Jhuvac added.

“My ba-buir was reformed,” Ban said. “But she might have caused a public riot. Or two. Or three.”

“Speaking of which,” Sotra said. “Elder Fayrz has emerged from his cave.”

“I’ll get him,” Jhuvac sighed.

Boba frowned and looked from them out to the hill the foundlings had selected to gossip on. A Mandalorian in black and white with a green cape was, indeed, now kneeling among them. Every face was turned towards him in wonder.

“I’ve heard of this guy. He looks fun,” he noted.

At least one hand from every body came up to clutch at their face.

“That’s exactly the problem,” Ban said.

 ------

Din rejoined Boba in the midst of Elder Fayrz’s attempt to recruit him into the covert. He somehow knew Dad. That in itself was a little disarming. At first, Boba hadn’t believe that the elder was speaking the truth, but then he started up with alarmingly specific training corp numbers and mentioned off-handedly that he used to work in the corps, training kids from six to fourteen.

It made sense now why, in old age, he was considered the most dangerous person in the covert to have around the foundlings.

Grandpa was a serial spoil-er and mischief-instigator. The children saw in him everything they wanted out of life and were loathe to be separated from their most favorite old man.

Din got between him and Boba and informed the Elder that he’d just gotten married.

The Elder’s attentions went rocketing in the opposite direction. He wanted pictures, he wanted to know all about the reception, he wanted to know why Din hadn’t brought his partner home with him, what color their armor was, where they were presently based—the whole barrel of spotchka.

Boba appreciated the save.

He also appreciated the moment when the Elder fully realized that Din had, in fact, married a real jedi.

“YOU STUPID BOY.”

There it was.

The children bustled and whispered.

“This is what happens when we do not teach them to read—where is your buir? I told her, I told her that you needed more lessons. Always with the dogs, I knew it would have some effect—”

Din couldn’t even argue. He and Kryze had been over the very same deficit about sixty times. If they were lucky, Bo-Katan gave him a day or two off in between scoldings.

While the old man was outraged, Din signaled to Boba that they would be leaving soon.

 --------

Bojzka joined Boba, Din, and Fennec at the ramp of their ship about ten minutes late. The Armorer personally showed him out of the covert and told him to return only if the galaxy began to collapse in on itself. She was at least cordial about it, which, in hindsight, was probably why Bojzka was having a hard time reading the glaring ‘please desist’ sign flickering over her head.

“Be safe,” she told Din while Karren made sad sounds behind her.

“Will do,” Din said. “Next time, I’ll see if Luke will come.”

“We would like to have him,” the Armorer said.

She dipped her helmet to Boba and Fennec and they returned the gesture.

“I hope you were well-received by the others,” she said. “Bojzka, good bye.”

“Talk to you later,” Bojzka hummed.

“We shall not,” the Armorer said.

 ---------

Back in the Dune Sea, Kryze was waiting in one of the conference rooms. Din avoided her and all her probing questions. Boba did not. He was in a sharing sort of mood and Fennec had a ‘thanks for the lay’ message to compose to Mr. Vok.

Kryze crossed her legs and gestured for him to join her at the table.

He did and crossed his legs right back.

“So?” she asked.

“Shocking peaceful,” Boba said. “Violent mostly towards their own members. Tried to recruit me at least three times.”

Kryze’s eyebrows did a little dance.

“Surprising,” she said.

“Not very,” Boba corrected. “Din is one of the more reserved members. He resembles his buir more than I expected.”

“And Bojzka?” Kryze asked.

“Soundly rejected, but somehow optimistic about it,” Boba said. “The good news is that Din’s been forbidden from trying to kill him.”

“That is good news,” Kryze agreed.

There was a long pause.

“Are you thinking about it? Joining, I mean?” Kryze asked.

“No,” Boba said, “But it is nice to occasionally be around Mandalorians who don’t have sticks up their asses.”

“Unicorns,” Kryze said.

“A whole covert of them,” Boba told her with a smirk. “Maybe it’s not them. Maybe it’s you all.”

“I beg to differ,” Kryze said. “If the issue is resolved, then I suppose we’ll have to move back on to official business.”

That was no fun.

“Why is Fennec so smug?”

Oh, that was more fun. Sit back down, Lady. This is going to be a bawdy one.

[hamliet]

Which anime/manga, in your opinion, has the best female characters and which is the worst?

I'm not really great on comparing based on this, because it's hard to say exactly. My standards are just to treat the female characters like actual characters with rich internal worlds, motivations, internal conflict, etc.

SnK does this really well with Mikasa and Annie and Gabi, and for half of it with Historia and Ymir, but the other half relies on some very, very extreme sexism for the latter two.

HxH has few female characters of prominence especially in its early arcs where they're essentially nonexistent, but once it does include them, it does give them some really complex arcs and does it beautifully (Palm, Biscuit, Oito, Komugi, etc.)

Monster has less female characters of import, but Nina is pretty great.

Tokyo Ghoul started off excellently, with fantastic female characters from Touka to Hinami to Hairu to Akira to Karren, but by the latter half of :re this took on some very sexist tropes as well; the one difference here to SnK is that the entire story's writing kinda went downhill, whereas in SnK it was really just that one plotline. How this affects any sort of ranking is up to you though.

Noragami has good female characters with Nora, Hiyori, and Bishamonten, although it definitely draws them in some very fanservicey ways.

BNHA has potential with its female characters, particularly Momo, Toga, Fuyumi, and Ochaco, but with the exception of Toga, they are all irrelevant to the main plot, mostly the same body type, and don't actually get much focus.

Naruto treats Sakura as a love interest but doesn't actually give her a satisfying on-screen resolution to this, but Lady Tsubone and Hinata are much better done.

JJK gives its female characters cool fights and no romance, but unfortunately that doesn't mean they have rich internal worlds or that they're strong characters in any way other than physical. "No romance" is different, but can itself be seen as a reactionary sexist trope ("ew, romance is for girls"). The female characters are also not important for the main plot (look Nobara's absence has had 0 impact, and the ending for the other three is very obvious buts hers is "who knows, who cares"). Maki and Mai had good arcs, but the latest chapter shot them both in the kneecaps and fridged one, so I retain my one ranking opinion that JJK is actually pretty tied with Naruto here.

Assassination Classroom... Kaede was a long waiting game and Irina was used for fanservice, even if Irina does have a really nice arc. The others weren't really as relevant.

Bungou Stray Dogs has less female characters than the males, but almost all of them have really complex internal worlds. Kyouka is fantastic, Higuchi seems like a play on the "Sakura" type but with internal complexity, Gin's injury was not used to build her brother's arc like even I thought it would be, Kouyou and Yosano each have complex arcs as well that have tied into the main plot. Lucy has as well, and so has Louisa. The only kind of useless one so far is Margaret, but there are more male characters who have been kind of useless (Mark Twain), so it's not a huge deal. Naomi also seems like creepy fanservice, but the manga hints (and the novels are even more explicit about this) that something is up with her that will be revealed later on.

[cjbennet]

Mutsuki read as a trans man to me the whole way through so it's kind of weird to see people saying otherwise now that I'm done with the series. Karren just before dying made it more obvious she was just a girl who was crossdressing, but Mutsuki keeps living as a guy even at the end. Whether him being trans is trauma-based at all shouldn't really matter. Some trans people are trans due to trauma.

Hi! Thank you for your polite reply, i love it =)

Even though I'm cis I'm very interested in the "trans question" for some reason.

For example, if this a coping mechanism would it make Mutsuki happy in a long run? I know how much harm denial can bring. Health problems, depression, loneliness, ptsd *internal cowboy in the sky screaming* You have to face your demons if you want a healthy and fulfilling life. A person can't run away from themself.

Or how it affects the image of the trans community? What, are trans men are just lost traumatized women? Reminds me a movie called Albert Nobbs a lot, and I have really conflicting thoughts about it.

Basically, I just want to understand. What the author wanted to say with character and how does the gender works in people.

But again, thanks for your ask 🖤😘

[saedii-gilwraeth-simp]

20 to 20: 2021 Holiday Special - Day 20 (Aurora Cycle)

Ah finally at the end. It’s been a blast folks. Enjoy!

Tag list: @the-weight-of-a-fingertip @isla-kady-blackwood @chloe123love607 @of-the-way-and-wildflowers @moonljte @iamheretodomythingrip

Seals

The almost complete Jones-De Seel den was loud and bright, with Squad 312 and the De Karran De Seel family hurrying around to get the clay ready for the Sealing, all of them yelling at Scarlett every time she even looked like she was about to stand. The red head was a full 8 months pregnant with twins and very tired of her friends and in-laws telling her to rest. Resting she was, happy to look after her niece Lae, who, at 5 months, was as cute as a button.

Their den wasn’t a superbly large space, more designed as a place they could come back to when they’re not travelling in space. They had originally decided to wait to build a den until they had done all the exploring they wanted to do, but with two children on the way, they needed some solid ground. But The Sealing ceremony was exciting for everyone involved and it meant that they would finally have a good, solid home. 

And now it was here and their home was full, which was the best way for a home to be, in her opinion. Squad 312 had arrived that morning and had gotten straight to work making the clay for the borders and the De Karran De Seel’s were adding various handmade items into the house as furniture, most of it thankfully baby proof. It would have been tough luck otherwise, since every member of the family and Squad had her on strict rest, making baby-proofing impossible.

She wasn’t always super energetic, but being told she can’t do something makes her want to do it more. Lae seemed happy that she was not allowed to get up though, something about a captive audience to her baby talk, which Scarlett was treating as actual genuine conversation, like she was talking to an adult. Every time Fin walked past and heard it, he smiled at her with a grin that could power a thousand suns. He was as excited for their children to be born as she was.

Her mother was also in the den preparing and every time Scarlett got a cramp or was forced to sit down by her husband or brother (or Saedii if all else fails), she thought about her mother, 25 years ago, alone and on the run while having to do the twins thing as well. Scarlett had given Corae the biggest hug she could muster when she had thought of this two months ago.

Lae cried from her lap and Scarlett raised an eyebrow as Lae reached towards Saedii, making a sound that vaguely sounded like ‘mama.’

“You want your mum, Lae? Okay, let’s go,” with a grunt, Scarlett pushed herself off her chair and sat Lae on her hip, waddling over to Saedii, who turned with a stern look towards Scarlett. “Your daughter wanted you.” Saedii’s eyebrow rose but she still took Lae from Scarlett.

“Jones, sit your ass down before you pop a kid out on this floor,” Saedii says and Scarlett puts her hands on her hips.

“You guys are about to start and since I am the creator of this family unit, I will be helping seal this den and if there’s one thing we should agree on, it’s to not argue with the pregnant woman, ‘kay?” Saedii’s eyes narrowed, hating the words Scarlett was mimicking from when Saedii had been pregnant.

“Fine, but I’m not catching any children that fly out,” Scarlett smiled and nodded at the grumbled statement.

“It’s time,” Scarlett’s first mother-in-law says, giving her a handful of clay. And with that, they begin, everyone grabbing handfuls of clay and pressing them to the wall, sealing the den from the raging winds outside. Squad 312, much to the chagrin of the De Karren De Seel mothers, all gently traced their names in the clay, leaving them there as a reminder of their presence and it made Scar and Fin smile.

Finally, after an hour or so, the den is fully sealed, no draught or sound creeping in. Scarlett and Fin stand in the centre of their families, hands clasped, and smile at one another.

Your family seals your den. And they had a pretty great family.

[tg-headcanons]

I don't think the full problem is that people disagree with your interpretations, it's mostly to do with your blog being an echo chamber where only your interpretation is considered valid.

For example the Kanae/Karren situation:

There is no concrete evidence as to why kanae is a boy.

Some interpret them as disguising themselves as a boy so he could take the place of his father's heir.

Others interpret them as solely trans due to him, feeling uncomfortable dressed as a woman.

Both have scenes in the manga supporting the interpretations therefore both are valid.

I believe interpretations are allowed as long as they have evidence supporting them but...You've posted about how people who don't like your interpretations should still respect them, but you don't respect others.

I’m going to get personal for a moment, I don’t usually do that here but here but I feel this may be necessary. I am not Cis. I am deeply uncomfortable with the concept of undermining trans people’s gender identities because it is something i regularly experience. It’s taken me a long time to be comfortable in my identity and setting boundaries that have to do with it and that process as become a lense through which I view topics of gender and it’s fluidity. Because of this experience, when it comes to Kanae, a character who’s struggle with gender is something I heavily relate to, I have a hard opinion on this. Sometimes people change my opinions on things! I used to absolutely hate Shuu, but after talking to other people in the fandom I love him. I used to hate touka with a passion, now she’s one of my favs. I change my opinion all the time when people offer other ideas, I love entertaining new concepts even if I don’t immediately agree or understand, and to say that I don’t consider other interpretations as valid is disingenuous. But there are some things that affect me and others like me very personally, and that is something that I do have a hard opinion about. The way we interact with queer narratives in fiction, whether you’re conscious of it or not, effects the way you think about queer people. This blog is a fandom blog, this is for me to share opinions, stories, and ideas. I do my best to be respectful of conflicting opinions, but sometimes I need to set a hard boundary when it comes to concepts I find triggering

So when people (let’s be honest, cis people,) talk about Kanae as being a cis woman, I don’t respect that and I don’t want to interact with it. I will talk about it here because again, this is my blog where I talk about things, but I will not go out of my way to argue with the people posting it. If I see stuff that I really can’t deal with in the tags and blogs I visit, I use the block button because it’s my own responsibility to distance myself from things I dislike. I try to stay out of discourse, and certainly do not invite it into my inbox. If this is a topic that you truly believe I am addressing poorly, I would encourage you to block me

[allfrogsmatter]

okay let's gooo: 21 for peggy, 39 for "jerry" (aka loren), 40 for len, 8 for karren, 20 for jerry j, 7 for linda, 27 for d o u g l a s yeeyee- have fun!

first off THANK YOU MY HEART IS HAPPY ANSWERING FOR ALL OF THEM

second d o u g l a s would break your kneecaps if he had human hands not pixel sim hands

now to get into it hehe 😈 (under the cut because it’s super long)

#21- What is one of your character’s biggest fears? How would they react when dealing with this fear?

Peggy’s biggest fear is probably the typical losing a loved one. She’s somebody who loves people very deeply and forms really strong connections with all her friends and family, so losing people is terrifying to her. Growing up during World War II her early years contained a lot of fear and grief for those around her. Although she didn’t really understand what was happening, their behavior affected her. Her mother and father each lost a brother in the war, and her father fought overseas for the first four years of her life. Now that she’s older she understands what was happening at the time and feels a strong sense of loss for her uncles, as well as a sort of shame that she hadn’t been worried for her fathers safety at the time, despite just being a toddler. The event that shook her up the most though occurred her sophomore year of high school. Since junior high, Peggy has been very close with Len Jasper and his family. Particularly his older brother Dan. She and Dan grew very close in the summer of 1956 and both had feelings for one another, but in September 1956 he was killed in an accident. Him just being taken out of her life without a chance to say goodbye or confess her feelings was a brutal blow and it changed how she viewed her relationships. After that she became a much more honest person in the sense that she never held back her feelings for people. She would rather make them known and seem like a fool than never get to express them at all. She also worries a lot when it comes to dangerous situations, and she is very uneasy about the Cold War, worried it will escalate into an armed conflict and take more of the people she loves.

#39- When people look at your character, is there some assumption they might make about them just by appearance? Is that assumption correct?

When people look at Jerry they tend to see the straight-A student, teachers pet, star-studded athlete, all-around American boy. To an extent they’re right. He is a top ten student who gets along with his teachers, is active in athletics, and participates in a lot of clubs. He always tries to look his best in ironed shirts and slacks with his hair combed. He’s sociable and friendly and diplomatic, but the way he presents himself and comes off is very different from who he is. He’s not nearly as confident as he appears. He works hard to be a successful student and an accomplished athlete because he wants to impress his father, who’s standards he never seems to live up to. Their relationship is strained and his home life is much more volatile than it appears. There is a lot of pressure on him to not only be successful, but to be a role model and look out for his younger siblings. When they mess up, his father blames him. Being a good and well-rounded student is a persona that he takes on.

#40- Does your character’s family affect your character in any way?

Len’s family has a big impact on him in a lot of ways. First off, both his mother and father are the children of immigrants, his father attended school through grade 9 before starting to work, and they married late in life. He takes after his father in the sense that he is not an academic despite his mother wishing he were. His father is a truck driver for a shipyard and in his spare time does a lot of gardening and construction. Len enjoys the same sorts of work and eventually goes on to join the local ironworkers union, much like his grandfather. His whole family is generally a very private one and neither of his parents are particularly outgoing, and Len is the same. He has a brother, Dan, who is two years older, and they have a typical brotherly relationship. When they were little Len would follow Dan around, wanting to be just like him. As they got older they began to squabble more and would often end up fighting, but at the end of the day they were still good friends. They weren’t the closest of brothers, but their fights were short lived and energetic, the anger fizzling away by suppertime. When Dan died in 1956 Len was hit hard. The last thing he said to him was mean and he didn’t really know how to process the emotions. Dan’s death really shaped the Jasper’s family dynamic from that point on. Growing up Len had been closer to his dad and Dan closer to his mom. After Dan died his mom became sour and ill-tempered, closed off to everyone. It seemed the only person who could still get through to her was Len. For the rest of his life Len was very protective of his mother and always had a soft spot for her.

#8- What is, perhaps, their biggest flaw? Are they aware of this or oblivious to it?

Karren’s biggest flaw is her tendency to be an extreme perfectionist and controlling of situations. She always has everything planned out down to the last detail and works very hard to make sure things go her way. Most of the time it’s not a big deal, but when a lot of things start to go wrong she can spin out of control. This can cause her to lash out at people and hurt their feelings, or to make herself seem crazed and controlling. She is extremely aware of this flaw, but it’s not something she is very good at controlling, though she tries. As she gets older though she slowly learns to be more easygoing and understanding that things will go wrong, and that’s life.

#20- Does your character like animals? What are some of their favorite animals? Would they want pets? What about mythological creatures?

As far as animals go, Jerry J is neutral for the most part. He likes dogs, especially big ones, and his family has a lab he’s fond of. He envisions having a dog in the future himself, especially if he has kids. He also really likes wildlife, such as squirrels and birds. He did a lot of birdwatching as a kid in the boy scouts and came to appreciate nature as it is. He still likes to spend time outdoors and in the woods with the animals, not disturbing them, but letting the be. The one type of animal that he can’t stand though is chickens. He’ll never admit it, but they freak him out. He thinks they look like dinosaurs and would rather get teeth pulled than have to interact with one for an extended period of time. It’s pretty clear to his friends though, and Reed will never let him live it down. As far as mythological creatures go he’s outgrown any beliefs, but was an avid reader of the Hobbit and loved imagining the characters in real life.

#7- Is there a catchphrase or sound that they tend to make a lot (likely without being aware of it)?

There isn’t a specific sound or phrase that Linda often makes, but she does laugh a lot. She has a very infectious laugh and even the smallest things will send her into giggles.

#27- If your character was going to get arrested, what would be the most likely reason for it?

Ok this one is a little tricky because out of all these characters Reed is the most likely to actually get arrested, but what for? Unfortunately, the most likely reason for his arrest would be for sodomy (under the sodomy laws which essentially gave a legal recourse to prosecute homosexual relationships and were in effect in Washington State until 1975). Reed is a homosexual, and because of the intense homophobia of the time as well as his own personal struggles with his sexuality he is forced to hide it. This doesn’t stop him, however, from having a relationship with Jerry J. Although they are both careful to keep their romance a secret from all but their very closest friends, there are times when they can be reckless. It’s hard for them to find a chance to be alone, and one option they often utilize is parking down by the river. It’s something that pretty much all the couples do, but on rare occasion the police will patrol the area and break up any action. This would be devastating for Reed and Jerry J and probably ruin both their lives. However, Reed is also an explosive person who, if prompted, would not hesitate to swing his fists. If he was aggravated enough or someone close to him was threatened or hurt he could wind up in jail for assault or manslaughter.