#jas the wildcard

[heinous-desiree]

Hunter blinks twice "well- um- haha" they scratch the back of their neck, you notice soft blush on their cheeks "sorry, darling, I wasn't expecting the compliment" they chuckle before taking your hands in theirs and kiss them "creo que tu sonrisa también es hermosa" they smile warmly, a soft pink glow in their eyes

-🦤

Jas the Wildcard

Looking at Hunter's blush, Jas couldn't help but coo a little. Precious little thing.

But...

"Oh dear," Jas smiled sheepishly, developing a blush of her own. "I, uh, only learned that one phrase so far. I believe I'm terribly lost, mi querido... Uh, querida? Or... Um. I have a lot to learn."

[tea-cat-arts]

Ranking mxtx couples by whether or not I think they'd be good parents

(I'm 90% sure I'm forgetting someone)

Yep, next question (S)-

Wangxian: tried and tested good dads. I wish them luck with the whole “trying to get wwx pregnant” thing 

They have some shit to work through, but after that I think they'd be fine (A)-

Ling Wen/ Bai Jin: if we're just going off the original publication, I would put them in a much lower tier, but since the revised edition added that thing about them raising orphans together and said orphans turning out alright before unfortunate circumstances, I'm putting them up here. I think they'll be alright once they work through the miscommunication

Xiao Xingchen/ Song Lan: They obviously have a lot of trauma they're working through, but I'd like to think they and A-Qing will be a loving family in the long run 

One of them would be a good parent, the other wouldn't be a bad parent (B)-

Jiang Yanli/ Jin Zixuan: there's no canon reason for me putting them this low. Jin Zixuan just gives off a mediocre parent vibe to me (and we all know Jiang Yanli is the best)

Yushipei: Yushi Huang has good mom energy, and Pei Ming has been shown to be a not terrible mentor. I'd want the misogyny fully beaten out of him with a mace before I'd think he should have kids of his own though 

Lang Qianqiu/ Little Guy: at the very least, they're making sure Guzi is fed, clothed, washed, vaccinated, and has access to education. Neither of them know what they're doing, but I think Little Guy is good at faking it. I wish them luck in their upcoming custody battle  

You know what, surprise me/ I'll hear you out (C)-

Bingqiu: My first instinct is “no, do not bring kids into this,” but then I remembered tharnShen Qingqiu has a surprisingly decent track record? Like, Ning Yingying and Ming Fan both turned out a lot more health than they did in the original novel, and though I wouldn't call him in a good place, Binghe is doing a lot better than Bingge. The wild card for me here is Luo Binghe because I have no idea how he'd be with kids

Quanyin: Yin Yu had a decent track record until he was pushed into snapping. I think rn, he needs a couple centuries of being a babygirl before he's ready to parent again. No idea how Quan Yizhen would do though 

Born to “dual income, no kids, rich uncles/aunts” (D)-

Fengqing: Feng Xin is canonically a bad dad. I know he's working on it, but it is what it is. Mu Qing has been shown to be decent with kids, but I think he’d have a melt down if he had to deal with the mess constantly. 

Hualian: I mean, Xie Lian has raised three kids at this point and one of them became a god, another became state preceptor and then sorta complicit in a genocide, and one became god AND committed genocide + he babysat a ghost king for months and didn't even realize that's what he was because it was a miracle if he remembered to feed him… so, a mixed bag. Hua Cheng may be schrodinger’s child hater, but I'm intrigued by the idea of him raising kids just because I want to know how his own childhood would influence his parenting abilities. They should probably just stick to babysitting for now though 

Mingling: Liu Mingyan is too busy writing gay porn to be dealing with kids, and I just can't imagine Sha Hualing as a mom

Please don't bring a kid into this mess (F)-

Beefleaf: Do I need to explain this one?

Mobeishang: Shang Qinghua should not be put in any position where he has to teach someone about consent (Binghe’s early attempts at flirting being a prime example of why that's a bad idea). I also think Mobei Jun is still working on the whole “why hitting people is not cool” thing. 

QiJiu: I think the original timeline is a prime example of how they're just not in a place to be raising kids 

Jun Wu/ Mei Nianqing: Xie Lian would like a refund on his adopted father figures. They had one kid and he only made it to age 20 because he was cursed to not die

[themoontaxi]

hellooo, i love your café so much i just couldn’t stay away ☺️

🍷cyma - detailed moments where time/life doesn’t feel real (i.e. leaving the cinema; going outside at night while it’s snowing and hearing absolutely nothing while there’s a pinkish-orange hue to the sky, visiting the gas station at 1 am, etc) thought that would be a little different for ya ;)

🍷cyma - as studio ghibli movies if you watch them, if not, then just animated movies

🫐 category: interests/hobbies

take your time with my order and feel no pressure to serve little ole me. you have the right to refuse service after all 😌

tiana!! i finally did it! those were so original, i loved wracking my brain! beware of the madness under the cut <33

🍷 - cyma detailed moments where time/life doesn’t feel real:

you as deep talks that come at such random moments so neither you or your interlocutor are prepared but the convo is so good you end up putting your whole schedule on hold and never reget it even if you stood in the middle of a doorway for two hours and caught a cold from it

@ropoto as waking up in the morning having to fact check if any of the weird stuff you dreamed actually happened, realizing it didn’t and then being half glad half disappointed about it and having to continue with your day as if your existence wasn’t just turned upside down by your weirdly imaginative subconscious

@emforevermore as ascending into orbit thanks to a particularly otherworldly tune that makes you see stars and breathe in fairy dust while your body is lying motionless in bed not being able to cope with anything and if someone would speak to you you’d probably not notice

@sadgirlml as having just finishing a book that sucked you so far into another world that you feel disoriented for the rest of the day and try to decide if you wanna keep it to yourself and treasure it quietly or tell the whole world about it cause you’re so glad to have felt these emotions that you feel like others should too

@temilyrights as night walks alone in the city enjoying the peace and quiet and discovering how the streets look when only illuminated by lamps and moonlight while also always having to watch your back and thinking that every little sound is a bad omen

@originalvampireslut as driving at a deserted highway alone at night being able to finally forget just how many people there are on this fucking planet and using this opportunity to blast music on full volume and maybe even scream out all the pent up frustration

@ssabelova as days spent at the beach that simultaneously feel like an hour and like a whole lifetime spent watching people of every generation interact and enjoy their lives for once while the waves keep you grounded rhythmically crashing onto the shore and being sucked back into the ocean

🍷 - cyma studio ghibli movies:

i gave y’all some thoughts i had on them and how i feel they relate to you, then a letterboxd review i loved at the end that encapsulates the movie well and added some scenes to give you a general aesthetic in case you’re not familiar with the movies :)

you as the tale of the princess kaguya. the divine one. protagonist is from the moon. gets many marriage proposals but would rather stay alone with her garden. has a kind childhood friend who wants to run away with her. very cunning, sometimes a bit cold but feels deeply. review

@originalvampireslut as castle in the sky. the punk one. protagonist is an abducted princess. gets chased by pirates but later befriends them. has a cool friend who’d literally die for her and follow her anywhere. damn fearless, has trust issues but not regarding her own instincts. review

@ropoto as the wind rises. the sober one. protagonist is a kind workaholic. gets send to another country but returns for their loved one. has a talented partner who loves them unconditionally. determined, usually stoic but with a soft heart. review

@sadgirlml as my neighbor totoro. the tender one. protagonist is excited by everything. gets told to not be selfish but is a misunderstood selfless sunshine. has nice neighbors who’ll always help her out. busy bee, cutie pie and very very soft. review

@temilyrights as spirited away. the weird one. protagonist is on an acid trip. gets forced into labour but really only has to work for a day. has a friend who’s a dragon but also a river they once fell in as a child. open-minded, very shy but grows more confident in the process. review

@emforevermore as kiki’s delivery service. the sanguine one. protagonist is a witch. gets stranded in an unknown city but makes friends right away. has a lil black pessimistic cat who balances out her personality perfectly. very eager to learn, kind and generous. review

@ tiana my guess is that princess mononoke is your favorite so i refrained from assigning that to anyone hehe. i’ve only watched 11 ghibli movies as of now so this is not conclusive but i do feel like they fit quite well. let me know your thoughts!

🫐 - a bingo witht the category interests/hobbies:

ahhh i finally did it! thanks for sending something in, it was a blast! the movies were so good ugh thanks for making me appreciate them again or for the first time <33

[die-weltbuehne]

Brief von Kurt Tucholsky an Rudolf Leonhard vom 02.04.1932

[individualkarpal]

Ok also ich bin in der Verarbeitung der ersten 4,5 Monate dieses JK- Jahres und hab mal gesammelt was da alles bereits passiert ist. (Notiz an mich selbst: Such dir n scheiss Hobby ey! 😄).

Die Liste ist ganz klar lückenhaft/ nicht unbedingt zeitlich linear und auch ganz bestimmt nicht vollständig- Ergänzungen? Haut rein!

Es ist der schlichte Versuch, mich zu sammeln, für weitere „Eskapaden“ (—> Go for it!) zu wappnen und dabei nichts zu vergessen… Die Fülle an Content und Material die die Zwei uns gerade liefern übersteigt meine kognitive Merk- Leistung jedoch um Längen😄. Und meine Fähigkeit zur Rationalität hat sich mit Pauken& Trompeten (oder einer Mariachi- Band) in die ewigen Jagdgründe verabschiedet.

Also viel Vergnügen bei diesem… naja, was auch immer das sein soll…;)!

************

Also erstmal fange ich an mit Aussagen die EXAKT so gefallen sind:

J: „Wenn wir das nächste Mal ausgehen kannst du die dann auch anziehen?“

————

J: „Das fühlt sich an wie ein Fiebertraum…. Hier ist mein Freund und Kollege, ich darf in Klausi nennen, hier ist Klaas Heufer- Umlauf!“

————

J: „Oh Gott ich liebe dich!“

————

K: „Also sexy kannste ja ne…“ (leider OffCam bei WSMDS nach dem Tanzen zu Makeba-Jain)

————

J zu Wildcard: „Wen von uns würdest du verheiraten?“

K: „Ich würd mich noch umziehen auch.“

Wildcard zu K.: „Ich hätte dich zu Joko gesteckt….“

K:“ … Es würde in 90% der gängigen Lebenssituationen an unserem Verhältnis nichts ändern.“

————

J: „Ich bins, your worst Nightmare“

J: „Wie weiche Haut du hier hast!“ (#vielZuLangesNackenstreicheln)

————

J: „… Du weisst, ich bin so gern in deiner Sendung!“ (legt seine Hände auf Klaas Oberschenkel ab).

K: „Du hast ganz warme Hände…“ (Legt den Arm um Joko und zieht ihn näher zu sich).

„….“ (Bringen ihre Köpfe zueinander, schliessen ihre Augen).

J: „… Du lädst mich viel zu selten ein… lad mich öfter ein….“

————

K: „Wir haben eine Sache zu verkünden…“

J: „Wir heiraten und ihr seid alle eingeladen“ - „

K: „Genau!“

————

Steven zu K: „Du machst heute alles so sexy. (Lacht).

J: „Klaas IST sexy!“

————

J: „Und auf dem letzten (Foto) küssen wir uns.“

————

K: „… diese Art unsere Sendung zu gucken finde ich sehr gut weil ich nicht genau weiss was als nächstes passiert.“

J: „Bring mich nicht auf Gedanken….“

————

J: „… ich soll jetzt hier dein perfides Spiel spielen und du willst mich eigentlich einf nur in nem sexy Pyjama sehen? Ist es das was du willst?“

————

J: „Schatz? Klaas, kannst du bitte kurz mit mir reden?“

————

J zu Sophie: „Er ist der grösste Schatz von allen- mein grösster Schatz!“

————

J: „Weisst du was wir machen? Ich steck mir den Stift in Po.“

K: „In Po?“

J: „Ich kriegs nicht hin. Der hält nicht Klaas.“

K: „Wie der hält nicht? Na komm her, das mach ich jetzt mal…“

————

„K: „Küsst du mich jetzt auch?“

J: „… Wir fahren jetzt in die Flitterwochen, tschau!“

————

Und dann all diese „Dinge“:

- Gefühlte 220983 Umarmungen bei WSMDS

- Gefühlte 220983 Herzchen- Augen- Momente

- Wie die zwei Arm in Arm reinkommen nach der letzten WSMDS- Folge

- J. bringt K. Herzchen-Kaffee, Spiegeleier und streichelt ihm über den Kopf beim Frühstück #24hJK

- J. wäscht K. Haare

- J. richtet K. Frisur bei JKP7

- DER 3. KUSS!!! (#Ringgate)

- LNB- BestOf mit Joko im Bett durch Berlin?!?

Und die Insta- Posts:

- Klaas im Igel- Shirt

- J: „Neue Folge WSMDS- mit meinem Gatten @damitdasklaasturbo“

- K: „This could be us but you‘re playing“ (Repost J. mit Herz bei Klaas‘ Profilfoto)

—> Ok, das ist jetzt etwas mehr eskaliert als geplant… 🫣…

Und zum Abschluss:

WIR KRIEGEN NOCH DIESES JAHR NE NEUE JK- SHOW!!!😍🥰🥳

Begleitmaterial:

[akingdomscrypt]

Make a Mercy Out of Me

Part Three

Pairing; König x m!reader

Word Count; ~7.66k

Warnings; kinda sorta graphic depiction of stitching up wounds near the end. So if you don't like needles.. be careful.

A/n; König is a sergeant bc I said so and it fits my narrative. There's also plans in work for why he's a part of 141 & background knowledge on him. Lore. Eventually.

(we need more clips of this man istg-)

--- "babysitting duty" ---

You were a frustrating man to work with. You had hardly said much of anything during that sad excuse of an interrogation, at least nothing of much use. All they knew now was that there was someone out there who held your leash. Or, well, used to. You were a wildcard now, without someone to keep you on lock and key, and there was no way in the deepest pits of hell they could set you loose on the world with what they knew–which wasn't much. Not unless you were hanging off their every word or buried six feet under an unmarked grave.

"You talk about him like he's some sort of lab experiment."

"Mm." Well… "maybe he is. Who knows."

"He isn't some feral dog, König."

He didn't like it. As much as your words had ignited a–often ignored–spark in him, there was something itching at the back of his mind telling him you weren't trustworthy. That you'd stab him and the rest of the task force in the back the moment you were left to your own devices.

"We should keep him."

"He's a person."

"Not a good one."

"Neither are we."

They had to keep you, if at least for society's sake, on that straining lead. As any slack would surely be the catalyst of his very own demise.

I could make the world bleed.

The words were stuck on replay in König's mind, as well as the man who had spoken them. It was a horrible thought to have–but he couldn't help but find it.. intriguing. The idea made his heart skip a beat and the corner of his scarred mouth curl.

"He said he'd make the world bleed, König. That's fuckin' creepy as shite!" Ghost spat, arms crossed over his chest, as the two made the journey back to the rest of the team.

"You have said much stranger things, Ghost."

"You can't really be considerin' this." A few beats of silence from the larger man was all the confirmation Ghost needed. "Price would never agree to it."

"He said he could help."

"Help." Ghost huffed. "Right. Help with what exactly? He has no idea what we've been working on."

"Ja, he doesn't know. But what about that bomber? Could it be relevant?" Besides Mouse, the team had been tracking a much more persistent threat. Something that left behind more than just breadcrumbs in the form of mutilated bodies.

"...are you sayin' he could be involved in this?"

"He has been showing up right after every hit."

"Right." Ghost pauses in his tracks, turning his head slightly to look up at the other man. "So you think he's with them? Or.. maybe one of their targets?"

König comes to a stop too and takes a moment to mull it over. Could you have been a part of the group they'd been hunting these past few months? It was a little.. suspicious that you'd show up and take out another high-profile figure right after every strike made. Were you cleaning up their mess? Or your own?

"That's all the more reason to keep him, no? To find out? We know he has someone he reports to." There was also the fact that the explosion had gone off practically right under your own two feet. That had to mean something.

Just following orders?

"It's a little concerning when I of all people have to remind you that he is a very real, living, breathing, capable-of complex-thought person." König brushes off Ghost's concerns with a noncommittal shrug.

If they took the route of you having been just another victim of the explosion, that left many unexplained variables. Such as why you were a target–wouldn't one terrorist organization blend well with another? Why would they be at odds? It also leaves the question that, if you had really been abandoned by your crew, why had "she"–the woman who you'd mentioned–left you for dead? Was it legitimate? Or a ploy of some kind?

Then there was the more believable scenario that would tell it as; you hadn't really been betrayed by your group, or whoever held your metaphorical leash. And the explosion was some kind of distraction, a way to get their attention. Maybe–if one applies the theory that you were in cahoots with the people they'd been hunting–you had wanted to get caught. Or, maybe not you specifically, but whoever "she" was. Maybe you were sent as bait and they'd fallen right into that mouse trap–heh.

Maybe you didn't even know this was all a farce. That would make it all the more believable, no?

Either way, they need you here. For information. And if they played their cards right, if they burrowed their way under your skin and into your heart–like a damn parasite–you would give them exactly what they wanted. Lead them right to both the core of your organization and the group behind the bombing. And if the people or persons behind the bombing were by some miracle connected to who they had been tracking…

"He can help." His words help a certain air of finality to them, a small grin making an appearance under his hood.

Another sigh, but not a no.

Price wasn't as thrilled by König's proposal as Ghost begrudgingly was.

"You want to what." König wasn't a fearful man–unless he was ordering from a drive-thru, that shit was terrifying–but when the Captain looked at him like that. Let's just say he was forever grateful for the cloth that obscured almost the entirety of his face.

"Keep him." And if his voice comes out a little smaller than normal… no one mentions it.

To his right, König hears Ghost let out another heavy sigh. For a man who used to take a blowtorch to a hostage's skin and quite literally wears a skull stitched onto his face every day- if you'd asked König, he'd tell you the Lieutenant had grown soft. Or, well, soft-ish. He would still slit a man's throat without question.

"Why'd you wanna do that?" Gaz pipes up, giving König a blank, indecipherable expression. Coupled with his tone, König couldn't tell which side of the fence he was leaning towards. He knew Gaz, out of all of them, was the one with a more strict moral compass–something König both admired and thought of as foolish–but he also already didn't like their current hostage. So, discerning whether the other man would be for or against his proposition was a complex feat. König would have to walk that fine line, choose his words carefully, to sway Gaz's opinion in his favor.

"We could use his help." Is what König finally lands on. Not leaning too far into what Ghost had described as treating you like a tool, but not dipping into friendly territory either. An even middle ground.

"From what Ghost and I managed to gather," well, König had gathered. Ghost more or less just stood in the background as a silent spectator. "He claims he's been abandoned by someone he'd only refer to as "she". That this woman brought him here from wherever he came from to follow some lead- but that lead seems to have been a dead end."

"A dead end?" If Gaz's thing was compassion and strict morals, Soap's was intrigue. Puzzles and demolitions, that's all it took to draw in their resident impulse-driven pyromaniac.

"A dead end," König repeats, now switching his attention to the Scotsman. "Turns out there was no target, not really. Or, at least, that is what it appears like at first glance."

Soap's eyes light up when König moves to reach into his pocket, fishing for the blank note. Bingo.

"At first, when we pulled this off him, we had assumed it to be blank," he unfolds the crinkled-up paper, mud, water stains and all. König reaches his hand out to pass the note to Price, keeping the others on the edge of their seats. "But if you take another look.."

Price inspects it with a deep frown, then passes it to Gaz, who looks at it with a skeptical raise of his brow, next is Soap then Ghost, and finally back around to König. Upon closer inspection, past all the grime and stains, there was a faint red scribble.

"It is like there was something here," he mutters, smoothing a gloved thumb over the worn parchment as if that will somehow make the faded words clearer.

"But someone must've purposefully scrubbed it away." Ghost adds, seeming much more interested than he had earlier.

Any other person would probably have brushed the now-pinkish, washed-out markings as blood. And König almost had; after all, you were practically swimming in your own blood right now. Clothes stained with it far past recognition.

Even so, he knew that wasn't it.

The paper had a slew of things it was coated in–some recognizable, some not–, but blood was, surprisingly, not one of them.

"Dae ya think 'e knows?" Two.

"Maybe he was the one who erased it?" Three.

"We won't know unless we ask him. But,"

They all look over to Price, waiting for the man's next words with bated breaths.

"We can't jus' do it outright." Price's steely gaze lands on König and he subconsciously stands a little taller.

"König's got the right idea. We can't jus' kill 'im. Not yet." Four. "Not until we know everything he does."

"Aye, Captain." Soap grins, pushing up from where he'd been resting against a wall. He tilts his head in the direction Ghost and König had come from. "Let's go wear 'im down then, yeah?"

"Preferably before he bleeds out." Ghost reluctantly grumbles. "Bastard already looks to be halfway through death's door."

Price looks to König, cocking his head slightly to the right.

"You said he believes he was abandoned, right?"

"That is correct, sir." The corner of Price's mouth ticks up.

"So no one's coming for 'im then?"

A sick twist of anticipation began to swell in König's chest, and suddenly he was a lot more confident than he was a few seconds ago.

"Precisely."

__

The last thing you were expecting after those two giants left was for them to return with the whole damn crew. You'd be lying if you said the leader didn't make every inch of your being tense up. There was just something in his eyes; that cool blue, warmer than König's but still so cold, gave off a deceiving "I'm not a threat" while simultaneously saying "flinch and I'll kill you".

The dark-skinned man and the baby-faced one stood a little ways behind you, and closer to the door. The leader took a seat in the chair König had been sitting in–assuming the same position the Austrian had. Skull-face stood in the same place and König took his place on your right-hand side. Standing just far enough behind you to barely graze your peripheral but close enough where you could feel his presence looming near you. Invading your personal little space bubble with his, so close if he leaned any closer he'd be brushing up right against you.

The leader tried his hand at interrogating you again. It went a little something like this;

"Do you know why she left you?'

"Probably had something to do with my bad attitude."

He gives you an unimpressed look. You simply raise your eyebrows in question. You had broken your vow of silence, but that didn't mean you were going to make it easy on them.

"König said you could help us. Mind tellin' me what exactly you could do to help?"

"I have connections. People who owe me a favor or two." Or five. Hey, in your defense, you had been in the game for a while.

"Are these connections… legal?"

"I highly doubt you care about legalities if you are conversing with me still," Then, just to be a little shit, you add a snide, "sir."

You swear you hear a small huff behind you and you brush it off as a figment of your imagination. After all, you had lost a ton of blood.. It was a miracle you hadn't passed out again from blood loss. At this rate, you should probably be dead. Or, at the very least, comatose or something. Not back-talking the man who was very literally your golden ticket to freedom.

You blamed it on the blood loss. Made you say stupid shit.

"What else can you offer us?" In other words; why should we keep you?

"One less Brit in your ranks?"

"..what?"

"You all could really use some diversity."

There's a pregnant pause before,

"Is making jokes all you're good for?" Skull-face speaks up from behind the leader.

"What can I say? It is part of my charm."

The bearded man in front of you lets out a heavy sigh. Something about that sigh told you this type of thing wasn't new to him. A small part of you perked up with curiosity. You then proceed to beat that part of you back down into a bloody pulp.

"Are you goin' to take this seriously or not, Mouse?" The leader captures your attention again and you shrug. You really should take this more seriously… but the lack of vital, life-supporting fluid in your system was making you loopy.

And stupid.

"König?"

Very stupid.

A small grunt from behind you.

"Hast du darüber nachgedacht, was ich gesagt habe?" (Have you thought about what I said?)

The man in front of you frowns, looking from you to König, to you again. But he doesn't stop you. Someone probably should.

There's a terse silence before König replies.

"Deshalb sind sie hier." (That's why they're here.)

Despite your slightly dazed state, you smile a little to yourself.

"Did you tell him?" Now the leader looks even more confused, if not a little more frustrated. Good.

"Tell me what?" His glare is now trained on König, and you know you've gotten the giant into deep shit now. Even better.

"Nein."

And just like that you, very foolishly, let out a small puff of what was obviously an attempt at laughter. Though a poor one.

At this is rate, you'd sooner get yourself killed than cut loose, but your mouth seemed to have a mind of its own. It also seemed to be keen on digging you into deeper shit.

"It is a good deal.." you trail off, narrowing your eyes a little at the leader. It would be great if you knew their names. But no one seemed interested in filling you in on that, so you continue, "you all could really use the help. After all, the only reason you lot even caught me was 'cause I was having a bit of a bad day."

"A bit of a bad day?" Leader asks.

"Aye," you drawl. Your heart thudded a few times in your chest, slowed, then picked back up again. Really, you should be dead, slumped over in your chair, by now. "Got blown up. Stabbed a few times.. broke a few bones.."

You give a sloppy grin beneath your mask. Yeah, definitely shouldn't be awake right now. "Bit of a bad day."

"He's useless like this, Cap'." One of the men from somewhere by the roll-up door pipes up.

"Agreed." Skull-face huffs. "Poor guy's all hopped up on adrenaline. He's not much use to us now."

The leader–Captain?–scrutinizes you for a few more moments before exhaling heavily.

"Alright." He grumbles, standing up from the chair.

"König," the Brit calls on the man beside you but keeps his stare trained on you, as if daring you to utter another smart-assed quip. "You were so damn adamant about keeping 'im, yeah?"

It's obviously a rhetorical question and the atmosphere shifts, the tension in the air palpable.

The leader, or, you guess, Captain–these men and their pretentious titles..–adjusts the beige-colored, boonie hat on top of his head and signals something to the two men by the door. You hear the telltale clanking of the metal being rolled up.

"You're on babysitting duty, Sergeant," he says in that displeased rumble–one you had become very familiar with during the first attempt at interrogation–as he makes his way for the door. "So get his arse back in the van, we're moving to someplace more permanent."

The other three men proceed to file out after their Captain, leaving you alone with the, now fuming, Austrian.

Annnnnnd…

"Maus." He grits out from behind you. You proceed to, very smartly, not respond.

Shit.

Instead, you stay stock still even as König leans over you and unsheathes a knife from someplace on his person. One heavy hand gripping your, thankfully, non-injured shoulder and the other reaching around to rest the blade beneath your chin. He urges your head up with the tip of it until your eyes–oh, yeah, he was definitely pissed–lock with his. In the short time you'd known him you had almost forgotten how downright intimidating only being able to see those pale, glowing blues staring through your very soul was.

"Sie werden es bereuen." (literal; you will regret it. Contextual; you're going to regret this.)

He, while maintaining eye contact, removes the knife and brings it down to hover just above your waist. Your own gaze can't help but flick between his and his weapon-welding hand. Self-preservation, you call it. König, after all, has that sharp metal alarmingly close to your dick.

You choose to ignore the thrill that causes your breath to hitch, an unfamiliar feeling stirring somewhere in the deepest pits of your hindbrain.

You watch as he–in a strange show of caution–places the gloved hand that had been on your shoulder beneath the coarse rope, thumb and fourth finger keeping the binding in place, and swiftly slices through the thickly twined fibers. He then makes quick work of doing the same to the rope wrapped around your thighs and ankles. The barest hints of warmth emitting from him easily seep through the thin, ruined cloth of your pants. But before you can think too much about how long it's been since you last felt the touch of another not-currently-dying human being, König pulls back.

When you look back up to search out his gaze you find he is no longer staring you down, his own focus entirely on freeing you from the bindings. The lack of pressure on your worn body is a relief and the next breath that leaves you is shakier than the last–you choose to believe it's just your body coming down from its adrenaline high.

The last of the rope that had been keeping your lower half bound to the chair falls away to the floor with a soft thump and König retreats completely to move onto your hands. Thank fuck for your own fabric-clad hands, you aren't sure how much more of this non-threatening touch you could take before you fucking imploded or something. All you can feel is the slight graze of his deft fingers against your concealed wrists, and even that is muted. Courtesy of the current lack of decent blood circulation to your bound extremities.

After that final piece of rope is removed, you're being yanked to your feet. Off-balanced and stumbling as blood rushes back to every limb, you nearly come crashing straight back down. König's firm hold on your forearm is the only thing that keeps you from taking an embarrassing nosedive into hard concrete.

Panting heavily behind the fabric of your mask, you groan as the world swims around you. König only spares you a few seconds to steady yourself and then he's making a sudden appearance in front of you and trading out his grip on your forearm to engulf your wrist–and subsequently almost your entire hand–in one large hand. He wastes no time in tugging you forward to follow in his footsteps.

You realize quickly that the time between the rest of the group leaving and König's undoing of your bindings hadn't really been more than a few moments–half a minute at most–, as the other members of König's team were just now turning a corner and leaving your field of vision.

How embarrassing, you think, it felt like a fucking eternity.

König easily uses his tight grasp on your wrist to lift you up just enough so you don't have to make the small hop off of the elevated ledge and out of the storage unit–thank fuck it wasn't your injured arm. You aren't sure whether to be annoyed at his blatant show of strength–seriously, the movement seemed entirely effortless on his part–or grateful you didn't have to make the jump. Your depth perception wasn't exactly the best right now and you probably would've just fallen right over. You doubted you would have even had the energy to catch yourself.

The walk out of this seemingly abandoned facility and back out into the scalding heat–huh, they must not have taken you very far–was surprisingly quick. Your barely lucid brain blocked out the majority of the dizzying twists and turns it took to find the exit. And soon enough you find yourself back in the loading space of that damn van.

This time you are mostly conscious, so you're granted the wonderful opportunity of bearing witness to the burning glares of the three other men seated on the opposite bench. König takes his place beside you and actively decides to not even glance in your direction. Instead silently communicates something to the other passive-aggressive passengers. Well, skull-face was definitely more on the aggressive side of the spectrum, but you were mostly certain he couldn't do anything. Or so you hoped.

The baby-faced one was looking at you with more curiosity than anything, a minor hint of defense hidden somewhere in those–why the hell does everyone here have the same eyes??–vivid blues. That barely concealed interest was more terrifying than skull-face's obvious death stare.

The Captain turned his attention to the Austrian beside you, nonverbally communicating his displeasure with a hard glare and deep frown. Ah, the dark-skinned man must've been the one driving the damn thing.

After a few more painstaking minutes of having a half-assed staring contest with the two men across from you, you give up and let your eyelids fall half-shut. Still nauseous with blood loss and possible infection, you pant lightly within the confines of your mask. Heat continues to build in the suffocating cloth and you let out another soft groan, unable to help yourself when you slump backward against the metal wall of the vehicle.

The ground moving beneath you does nothing to aid your current lightheadedness and you find yourself focusing most of your limited attention span on not vomiting in your mask. That would be a hellscape on its own to clean, and the humiliation would probably kill you off before the budding infection had the chance.

It doesn't take much time before you can no longer fight off the exhaustion weighing down the big ball of throbbing pain that is your entire body and your eyelids finally slip shut. Before you have the chance to force your eyes open again–this is definitely not an ideal place to fall asleep–a sudden heavy thwack against your mutilated shoulder does the job for you.

Your eyes snap back open, fully alert as you search out the culprit. You find König giving you a blank, deadpan stare and the venomous words sprouting on the tip of your tongue quickly fizzle out when you notice the van has stopped moving. In fact, you two are the only ones remaining inside. The other four are piling up just out of earshot, the backdoors wide open and showing off- well, nothing. It's dark and all you can make out are vague shapes in the background.

You huff and go to stand but König beats you to it. Still holding onto your wrist, he gives a sharp tug and you stagger out of your seat. You send him a seething glare but find that his attention is no longer on you.

König pulls you out the same way he had the storage unit; efficiently lifting you by your arm and out of the vehicle. You barely manage to keep your balance when your boots touch solid ground again and just that little bit of exertion has you sucking in ragged gulps of air.

When the Captain glances over to you two, König makes a show of lifting your arm into the air as if to say got it and the Captain gives a small nod in acknowledgment. You don't have the wherewithal to give a shit about being treated more like an object than a person, brushing it off and trading it out to take in your surroundings instead. Besides, it wasn't something you were exactly.. unfamiliar with.

Surrounding you is another compound. More well-kept than the storage facility you had previously been in, but still obviously worn. The stark white walls were practically glowing in contrast to the pitch-black, starless night sky. Besides some crumbling and scuff marks here and there–most likely from environmental weathering over time–the cinder block walls were almost pristine.

Your fuzzy, mush of a brain briefly considers asking König where the hell they had brought you, but your tongue is like lead in your mouth. Not that it really mattered, you highly doubt he would've told you anyway. You were a prisoner, after all. A prisoner who they were only keeping alive on the off-chance you could help.

Help with what exactly? You had not a clue. Hopefully, they'd soon get their shit together and tell you sooner rather than later. Then again.. what would they do with you once your use to them came to an end? Would they just end up killing you anyway?

Floodlights abruptly make an unwelcome appearance, bathing the courtyard in a blindingly white light and knocking that train of thought right out of your head. You cringe away from the sudden brightness, squeezing your eyes shut momentarily before blinking a few times in rapid succession to adjust.

You only have the time to register the sheer size of the compound before you are being tugged forward again and into the said building. As usual, you silently curse König's unfairly long legs and subsequent far longer strides as you try your damnedest to keep up. The nausea, burning full body ache, and pounding against your skull have yet to lessen. If anything it's become more of an issue now that you're not running on pure adrenaline.

You find yourself fumbling over your own miscalculated steps more often than you make a successful one, König having to more or less drag the majority of your dead weight along with him. The behemoth of a man doesn't even have the decency to make it look like doing so is any struggle. Bastard.

The interior lighting of the compound is somehow far much worse than the blaring exterior. You squint against the harsh brightness and it takes a few seconds for your pulpy mess of a brain to make out the shapes and colors in front of you. Or, well, the astonishing lack of colors. Dull shades of grey coupled with a blinding light. Perfect.

Someone's talking. Multiple someone's, really. But your ears are too stuffed full of cotton to make any sense of what's being said. The most you can do is try to read their lips–which proves to be futile–and try to gauge the emotional state of the men in the room.

The plainly, uniform-dressed men standing guard seem to not at all have a problem with the crew that had brought you in. Though obviously holding a subordinate position in comparison to the team, they shared easy smiles and small laughs with the group. The Captain appears to be keeping up a polite kind of façade–was this not his base?–as he converses with the two newbies. Skull-face, mohawk guy, and the Captain's obvious favorite all stand behind the Captain in an organized order. With skull-face standing the closest–was he some kind of right-hand man?–babyface and the third man stood at a respectful distance. Not too close, but just near enough to assist if needed.

König kept you a little more ways away from the others, a firmer grip on your wrist than before. It would probably hurt if the remainder of your body wasn't currently one giant sore spot. You realize why when one of the guards spares a glance at you and, spotting your eyes on him, immediately shrinks back and averts his gaze.

Ah, this definitely wasn't their base. Made sense. They all were clearly European and unfamiliar with the normalities of wherever the fuck you all were right now. Faintly, you remember the dark-skinned man complaining about how weird it was driving on the right-hand side of the road.

You're snapped out of your own musings by a harsh pull on your arm. A small noise of surprise escapes you and, before you know it, the guards are moving out of the way and you are being escorted further into the building.

Going off the darkness you had awakened to, it is obviously late at night, maybe even well into the morning by now, and the only people you all pass are all exhausted-looking security personnel.

König follows behind the other four down corridor after corridor, dragging you along behind him. Eventually, you all make it out into what appears like a sort of gathering place or common room. For a split second you think they're going to stop there, but, no, they keep going. Down more confusing hallways and through nonsense doors.

Then finally, finally, it all comes to a stop at an unremarkable metal door. Nothing on it, not even a little window, with the exception of the room number plastered next to it.

You squint at the numbers, trying to make sense of the blurry shapes. There's a small tugging in the back of your mind and, if you were any more aware, you'd almost say it was familiar. Huh.

The Captain unlocks and pushes open the door, then, before you even have the opportunity to protest, König yanks you close and shoves you forward. You stumble–again, seriously, did they think you were made of fucking steel??–through the doorway and only barely manage to break your fall on the closet wall. You stand there for a moment, panting and bracing against hard concrete, while the others file in.

If it wasn't for the unnecessarily heavy thunk you probably wouldn't have realized that the door had been shut. Your vision blurs then blacks out for a split second while you catch your breath, and the only thing on your mind is; how the hell am I not dead yet?

You're only given a few more moments of rest then you're being pulled by the wrist again. Unable to even really feel your legs anymore, the sudden brushing of something solid against the backs of your knees is all you have to tell you you've even moved. You don't have to be told twice to sit, hell, you probably wouldn't have been able to hear them if they had given the order.

You drop your weight instantly, unable to hold yourself up any longer. You can't feel much through the fabric separating your fingertips from what's below, but from the slight give when you press down, if you had to guess, you'd say you were seated on a cot of some kind. It's not the most comfortable, but it's the best thing you've had in a long, long while.

Lifting your gaze at the sound of someone's voice, you blink rapidly in a vain attempt at refocusing your vision.

"Hm?"

All four men standing in the room give you vaguely concerned grimaces. Well, you assume König and skull-face do, judging by the crinkling of their limited expression.

"I said-" the Captain begins. Not that you hear any of what comes after that. Head full of cotton and feeling simultaneously like you're both floating and being weighed down by a ship's anchor, you're left futilely trying to read his lips. But that only makes the pounding in your head worsen and you screw your eyes shut again.

Cradling your head in your hands you lean down, elbows propped up on your knees. You suck in shallow, shaky breaths, fruitlessly trying to get the proper amount of oxygen to the lump of mass that is your brain.

When your eyes flutter open again the lights have been dimmed just enough to take the edge off, reducing the strain on your eyes, and you immediately slump in relief. You think you mutter your gratitude under your breath, but, really, you're far too out of it to be certain.

A few more muffled words and the soft thumping of footsteps later and the door opens then shuts one last time. You look up expecting to see nothing but an empty room, a little caught off guard when that behemoth of a man is still looming near the door.

"We should really get you checked out," König says, giving a brief once-over at your disheveled appearance. Giving a noncommittal hum, you take a look down at yourself.

You had not bothered to take full stock of your person since the initial confrontation–and even that was a laughable inspection at best.

Every inch of your exposed skin–which, truthfully, wasn't much–was coated in a layer of mud and your own blood. Your thin civilian outfit was in a similar state of disrepair; caked in blood, more mud, and bits of stuck-on foliage as well. Accompanied with the occasional tear and hole here and there, of course.

"I'll get a medi-" Before he even gets the word out you're launching yourself up and off the bed. Charging at him despite how unsafe that currently is and reaching up to slam your grimy, gloved hand over where you assume his mouth is.

König quickly and easily peels your hand away by the wrist, staring down at you with less anger and more of a really, what are you doing? kind of look.

"Nie." (No.) You breathe as your only explanation. You had had enough of fucking medical staff in your time before your years-long solo operation began. Unknown injections, emotionless stares, and needles. Needles, needles, needles. So many fucking needles. You didn't visit those sterile, frigid laboratories often these days–though you were still required to come in every now and again for a routine 'checkup'.

"No?" König finally breaks through your suddenly hazy headspace–this time said fuzziness wasn't the result of excessive blood loss. You'd rather it were.

"Nie." You repeat again, and there must be something in your voice–something unlike yourself, something a bit too human–because König relents without further question and drops your arm.

"I can't really let you die on us, Maus." He points out with a deadpan stare. Then, probably realizing that phrasing sounded a bit too worried, he adds, "What use would you be to us then?"

"Let me do it."

"You can barely stand up straight and you expect me to hand you a needle?"

"I would rather me than you or some pea-brained white-coat." You huff, narrowing your still very unfocused gaze up at him. You hope it lands, you can't really see clearly right now.

König holds your stare for a few seconds longer before letting out a resigned sigh and looking away. "Fine."

He gives your uninjured shoulder a nudge with a gloved finger and rumbles a low, "Sit down."

You're about to bite back with some witty retort but the words get stuck in your throat when you realize just how close you two are. In your rush to cut off the words spewing from his mouth, you had somehow ended up crowding into his space in a very.. unprofessional way. Chest puffed up in a show of defiance and, subsequently, pressed right up against the other man.

That same, unfamiliar twinge in the furthest recesses of your mind from back in that god-awful storage unit begins to stir and you jolt away sharply. Jumping back and scurrying over to the cot at a faster rate than really necessary, as if that simple touch had burnt you. And, to be frank, it had. Indirectly.

König cocks his head, analyzing you for a brief moment, then shakes it off. Thank fuck. Having quickly averted your gaze, all you hear is some faint rustling and then his legs appear in your line of sight. A small first-aid box materializes from his hand and you lift your own trembling one to take it.

"Thanks." You mumble. You were a monster, not impolite.

König makes a light huff and retreats. Grateful for the, mostly likely unintended, room to breathe, you fumble with the kit before finally managing to wrench the damn thing open. Placing the box beside you on the bed you ungracefully free your first victim from its confines; your thigh.

Stab wound number one, thankfully, has stopped bleeding. On the other, far less favorable, hand, the injury is already a burning, angry red. A light poke at the inflamed skin with your finger has you hissing against the sharp sting.

Deciding keeping up appearances was much less important than your health, you make efficient work of removing both gloves. Also soaked with mud and blood, they would do no more than worsen what was already the beginnings of a very, very serious infection.

There's a bottle of saline solution in the kit and you uncap that first. Folding the bled-through, makeshift bandage in half, you use it to catch the liquid rather than letting the filthy solution drip onto the floor. After flushing out the wound as much as you can–without running the bottle dry, you've still got another to clean–the next step is the worst of them all. Stitches.

If you had it your way, you wouldn't use them at all. You had a tendency to forgo using a needle and thread whenever you could–only stooping to that level when it was absolutely vital. Like right now.

Even then, you only knew one form of sewing; intermittent sutures.

Tearing open a sterile needle packet you, surprisingly enough, make easy work of threading the surgical cotton through the eye of it. Pinching the slice shut with your non-dominant hand, you position the end of the curved metal about a centimeter from where the damn thing starts.

The first pierce of the needle into your tender flesh forces a strained whine from your throat, eyes beginning to water. You blink away the budding tears, exhale a shaky breath, and tie the thread off.

One suture down, an ungodly amount remaining.

Your hand only gets more unsteady as time goes on. Making each stitch more lopsided than the last.

Your vision swims for a brief moment and you swallow back the growing lump in your throat. Come on now, you can do this. You've done this so, so many times before. What was so different this time around?

Just a few more to go. That's all. Then you will be done.. well, then onto the puncture in your shoulder. The shoulder that also happened to be connected to your dominant hand. Great.

"Maus."

You can do this- just stab, push through- wait no, not like that. Pull it out again. Now, do it properly this time-

"Maus." Black gloves invade your sight and you grunt, trying to look around them.

The next time the needle pierces your skin it goes in just short of perfectly–success!–but it's good enough. Will keep your blood in, at least. Then comes tying it off and- come on, don't be difficult now.

Just toss over- like tha- wait, no. Just lift and- fuck.

A low rumble is all you hear and then those gloved fingers are wrapping around your wrist once more and effectively halting your progress. You huff, looking up to glare at him only to find his own hardened gaze staring down at you.

"-keep trying, you are only going to hurt yourself." Wait, had he been talking this whole time? "Then what use would you be then, hm? You would be of no help if you died because of your own damn stubbornness."

You feebly try to tug your hand back, but he doesn't budge, simply using his other hand to pluck the needle from your hand. Narrowing your eyes, you do the only thing you can do; throwing hundreds of imaginary knives at that stupid smug look in his eyes and internally cursing him out.

After your two's little staring contest goes on long enough for your captured hand to start going numb, you relent. Letting out a heavy sigh and dropping your gaze.

König makes a small noise of approval and releases your wrist. You don't watch as he finishes up the mess of stitches sewn into your thigh, nausea returning with a vengeance and forcing you to shut your eyes again.

He finishes up relatively quickly, faster than you probably could have in this state, and rinses the wound again before pasting a bandage over it.

"I need you to look up."

"Hm?" Light pressure under your chin causes your eyelids to flutter back open and you frown.

"Wha-?"

"Up." He reasserts, using his guiding touch to urge your head up and out of the way. Forcing you to straighten out your shrimp-like posture and provide König with access to your injured shoulder.

Said shoulder that was more bruises and blood than it was untouched flesh; able to get a decent look at it now that König had removed the sloppy work that was your mess of torn fabric and duct tape.

He repeats the same steps you had to clean the wound and this time you watch. Less so keeping an eye on the weeping wound and more so on the hand sticking the–new, he had discarded the one used on your thigh–thin metal through your skin. He's surprisingly delicate with it, despite his size he is far more precise with his sutures than you had been. Carefully inserting the needle and tying off every knot with practiced ease. Unlike you, he hadn't foregone his gloves, and that's why you notice it when you do. Having been so attuned to his busy hands.

His gloves are still stained with your blood.

Coated in a thick, dried layer of it. Dark against the already black fabric, flakes of crimson chipping off and drawing your eye.

It was the only part of him that showed any hint of wear from the morning's efforts. Every other inch of his uniform was speck-free, not a single item out of place, scuff mark, or splatter of blood.

It didn't make much sense for you to be fixated on such a minor facet after the laborious events of today. There were so many other things to draw your attention. Like the repeated motions of the curved metal puncturing your skin over and over again, for example. Or maybe his close proximity–accompanied by that weird feeling again.

But, no. Every last bit of your remaining attention span was focused solely on your own blood marking his hands. You sounded insane, even to yourself and that was an entire feat of its own.

You release a small breath of relief when he pulls away, slapping on another thick bandage over your second, freshly stitched injury. Then comes a sudden sting right above your eyebrow and you jolt away with a hiss.

Refocusing back into reality, König is still standing above you. Only this time he's welding an antiseptic-soaked cotton ball, also tarnished with your blood.

"Cut is deep." Is the vague explanation you get, coupled with a small gesture to your face. "No stitches will be needed. But,"

He reaches down to rifle through the first aid kit and makes a soft sound of victory when he finds whatever he's looking for. Holding your face still in one hand, he dabs at the cut a few more times before switching sides and drying it off. König throws the dirtied cotton along with wherever he'd discarded the scraps of your clothes and other miscellaneous trash.

Next comes another burning sting as he presses something over the wound. A few 'something's.

"A few pieces of tape should do the trick." He muses as he smoothes the sterile strips against your skin, the faint metallic scent of your own blood flooding your senses. Gross.

You really needed some sleep, or maybe it was finally time to check yourself into some kind of mental reform. Seriously, this was getting out of hand.

"Now," König pulls away for the final time, doing a brief scan of your exhausted form and nodding to himself. "Sleep."

You half expected König to leave it at that, to exit the room like the other four had. And probably lock the door behind him. Your hopes are crushed when he takes a seat a few feet away from your cot, settling into an uncomfortable-looking chair you hadn't noticed beforehand.

Oh, right. The Captain had assigned him as your personal babysitter. How fucking lovely.

Scooting back to slump against the wall furthest away from the other man, you send him a weak glare. Wanting nothing more than to argue that you can't sleep like this–not with him watching over you like some damn stalker–you find that when you try, you can't.

For what feels like the millionth time today, your eyelids droop until you cannot resist any longer. Falling completely shut and likely not going to open for a while, you give in. Unable to find it in yourself to give a damn right now.

Besides, you could.. moderately trust König wouldn't murder you in your slumber. He hasn't yet. And that seems to be enough for your sleep-deprived brain, as sweet unconsciousness soon drags you under.

___

One | Two | Masterpost | Next

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(finally figured out how to tag y'all properly! Sorry bout that. Thought I was doing it right this whole time 😞)

@cptg00s3 @ruthgrimxiao @20nerd04-blog @gloma08 @mikahrh @in-down @hauntedapplefarm @mello-life69 @unkn0wnd3ad @tayaisback @starre-eyes @ravage-reposts @suhmie

If you want to be added to the tag list, let me know in the comments!

[penny-for-her-thoughtsdv]

P.E.L.I.C.A.N T.O.W.N

Headcannon Master List

I'm a HUGE lover of character enrichment and psychology. Because of this I'm doing a deep dive into the residents of Pelican Town. Each letter of the towns name stands for another word and a part of something I can analyze and create Headcannons for.

P is for Personality

E is for Experience

L is for Love

I is for Intelligence

C is for Clinic

A is for Age

N is for Nickname

T is for Tolerance

O is for Openness

W is for Wildcard

N is for Native

Rules

Please send your request in the form of an ask. It'll be easier to keep track of.

You can pick up to 3 characters and three questions. This can be mixed and matched: 1 character with 3 different questions, 2 characters with varying amount of questions or 3 characters with 1 question each. This may seem like not a lot but I'm going to go DEEP into the personality of these characters.

This is NOT a NSFW request. Any NSFW requests will be ignored. There will be a time and a place where NSFW Headcannons are allowed, trust me 👉👈

Feel free to communicate with me and share your Headcannons as well! I love hearing your thoughts.

Characters

Abigal:

Alex:

Caroline:

Clint:

Demetrius:

Elliot:

Emily:

Evelyn:

George:

Gunther:

Gus:

Haley:

Harvey:

Jas:

Jodi:

Kent:

Krobus (limited)

Leah:

Lewis:

Linus:

Marnie:

Maru:

Pam:

Penny: P,A

Pierre:

Robin:

Sam:

Sandy:

Sebastian:

Shane:

Vincent:

Willy:

Wizard:

[logi1974]

Südafrika 2022/23 - Tag 23 Teil 1

Herrschaften und Oukies!

Unsere Zeit an der Panorama Route ist schon wieder vorbei. Die Panorama Chalets waren soweit in Ordnung.

Nicht luxuriös, sondern zweckmäßig rustikal. Das größte Plus ist natürlich die spektakuläre Lage, direkt an der Schlucht, mit denen die Unterkunft punktet.

Besonders zu schätzen wussten wir die in die Decke eingebaute Notbeleuchtung, die bei den Blackouts sofort ansprang. Das hatten wir bisher in keiner der Unterkünfte, mögen sie noch so ausgefallen gewesen sein.

Da kann man über die altbackene Einrichtung gerne hinweg sehen, wenn man nicht einen halben Koffer an Lampen mitschleppen muss. 

Wir frühstücken ein letztes Mal und heute auch mit dem fabelhaften Ausblick in den Canyon. Die Sonne kämpfte sich durch den Nebel, wie schön!

Wir kontrollieren noch einmal die Zimmer, auf eventuell liegengebliebenes Eigentum von uns. Darin sind wir ja weltspitze - doch dazu später mehr (wieder einmal) ...

Dann ist das Auto fertig gepackt und unsere Kühlbox hinter dem Fahrersitz deponiert und schon geht es los in Richtung Osten.

Das erste Ziel ist das Skukuza Restcamp, das Hauptcamp, im Krüger Nationalpark. Dort waren wir bereit im vergangenen Jahr und von allen besuchten Camps, war hier das Personal am meisten auf Zack.

Wir fahren über die R 533 und damit über den Kowny Pass. Das Wetter ist prächtig und wir genießen die phantastische Aussicht während wir einen Höhenunterschied von 512 Metern über 7,8 km bewältigen.

Immer wieder kommen Holzlaster, die ihre Fracht aus dem Anbaugebiet heraus transportieren. Nicht ganz ungefährlich!

Der Pass wurde im Oktober 1959 fertiggestellt und nach einem lokalen Sotho-Häuptling, Koveni, benannt, der das Land entlang der Strecke kontrollierte. Der Name Koveni wurde zu Kowyn anglisiert. 

Zum Zeitpunkt des ursprünglichen Baus waren die Ingenieurarbeiten an diesem Pass eine der fortschrittlichsten in Südafrika, da der Halbtunnel und die freitragende Fahrbahn mit einer Betonoberfläche eine stabile Struktur in der Nähe des Gipfelgrats bildeten. 

Heute wird der einst stolze Pass durch das starke Verkehrsaufkommen extrem  strapaziert und zahllose Schlaglöcher zieren die Fahrbahn. Somit ist die größte Gefahr der Gegenverkehr, der die Mittellinie überquert, um den Schlaglöchern auszuweichen.

Je näher wir dem Lowfeld kommen, desto wärmer wird es. Wir sind froh über die elektrische Kühlbox. 

Dieses Mal fahren wir durch das Paul Kruger Gate in den Krüger Nationalpark hinein, kurz vorher überqueren wir noch den Sabie River. Vor dem Kruger Gate gibt es ein beeindruckendes Denkmal, das Paul Krüger gewidmet ist.

Der damalige Präsident Paul Krüger konnte das Transvaal Parlament davon überzeugen, dass die Tierwelt in diesem Gebiet eine Besonderheit ist und für die Nachwelt erhalten bleiben muss.

Der Krüger Nationalpark ist ein lebendiges Denkmal für Präsident Paul Krüger und all diejenigen, die seine Vision von einem geschützten Wildreservat unterstützten.

Doch vorher sind noch einige Formalitäten zu erledigen - und so marschieren wir in das Büro am Paul Kruger Gate. Die freundliche Dame akzeptiert unser vorher ausgefülltes Formular, das ich aus meiner Reise-Dokumenten-Mappe zaubere.

Da es sich beim Kruger NP um das Top-Reiseziel in Südafrika handelt, sind die Eintrittspreise natürlich die teuersten von allen Nationalparks - und, wie sollte es auch anders sein, pünktlich zum 1. November wurden diese wieder angehoben.

Für einen internationalen Besucher sind aktuell 460 Rand (rund 26 Euro) pro Tag fällig. In diesem Jahr verzichten wir auf den Kauf einer Wildcard, da wir vorerst nicht vorhaben so schnell den Krüger noch einmal zu besuchen.

Die Anschaffung einer Wild Card für Südafrika ist eine Überlegung wert für jeden, der nach Südafrika und Eswatini reist und den Besuch verschiedener Nationalparks und Reservate oder vielleicht sogar einen längeren Aufenthalt plant. Als ausländischer Besucher in Südafrika, also nicht-Südafrikaner, kann man nur eine internationale Wild Card-Mitgliedschaft erwerben.

Mit der Wild Card erhält man ein Jahr lang uneingeschränkten Zugang zu über 80 Parks, Reservaten und Resorts in Südafrika und Eswatini. Man zahlt also einmalig eine Gebühr und ab Kaufdatum kann man dann 365 Tage lang alle zugehörigen Nationalparks und Schutzgebiete, die dazu gehören, theoretisch täglich besuchen. Aktuell kostet die Couples Wildcard umgerechnet etwa 305 Euro.

Die Formalitäten sind recht schnell erledigt, allerdings streikt die Kreditkarte oder das Kreditkartengerät. Jedenfalls wird die Zahlung nicht akzeptiert. Wir zücken eine zweite Karte und diese nimmt das Gerät anstandslos. Puh! Das ist immer super peinlich.

Erleichtert nehmen wir unser Tagesvisum in Empfang und verlassen das Office, steigen froh gestimmt ins Auto und fahren wieder in den Krüger National Park. Dazu später mehr ...

Der Kruger Nationalpark ist der wohl bekannteste und flächenmäßig größte Nationalpark des Landes. Gegründet wurde der Park im Jahre 1898 unter Präsident Paul Krüger als Sabie Game Reserve, um das Wildleben im sogenannten Lowveld zu schützen.

Erst im Jahre 1926 wurde der Park als Nationalpark deklariert und erhielt seinen heutigen Namen. Der Park erstreckt sich vom Crocodile River im Süden bis zum Limpopo, an der Nordgrenze zu Botswana und Simbabwe.  

Mit  einer Größe von insgesamt 36.800 Quadratkilomtern Fläche erstreckt er sich über die Ländergrenzen Südafrikas, Zimbabwes und Mozambiques. Seine Fläche entspricht etwa der Größe von Rheinland-Pfalz mit etwa 380 km Länge und ungefähr 60 km Breite.

Der Kruger ist Teil des Peace Parks "Greater Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Areas", der im Dezember 2002 ins Leben gerufen wurde. Die zahlreichen privaten Wildreservate des "Greater Kruger Park", die besonders im Süden und Südwesten an den Kruger National Park angrenzen, sind hierbei nicht mitgerechnet.  

Der Nationalpark ist mit seiner Vielfalt an Lebensformen unangefochten die Nummer Eins auf der Liste der südafrikanischen Nationalparks. 

Allein 336 Baumarten, 49 Fisch- und 34  Amphibienspezies, 114 Reptilienarten, 507 Vogel- und 147 Säugetierarten sind in diesem Nationalpark ansässig. Darunter natürlich auch die 'Big Five': Nashörner, Elefant, Leopard, Löwe und Büffel.

Neben dem Überfluss an Flora und Fauna finden sich hier auch historische Attraktionen von unschätzbarem archäologischen Wert wie z. B. die prähistorischen Siedlungen von Masorini und Thulamela.

Der Kruger Park liegt im flachen Lowveld, der zentrale Teil auf einer durchschnittlichen Höhe von 250 m über dem Meeresspiegel. Nur wenige Hügel ragen aus den Ebenen heraus. Höchste  Erhebung ist der Khandzalive bei Malelane im Süden mit einer Höhe von 840 m.

Mehrere Flüsse winden sich durch den Krüger Park. Zum Teil bilden sie mächtige Einschnitte wie der Sabie River, dessen Schlucht auf einer Höhe von 122 m liegt. Auch die Flüsse Olifants und Nwanetsi bilden tiefe Schluchten.

Der nördliche Teil des Kruger National  Parks liegt im tropischen Klimagürtel, der südliche Teil in der subtropischen Zone und der zentrale Teil in der Übergangszone.

Man findet aus diesem Grunde eine große Vielfalt an Landschaftsformen im Park und - damit verbunden - mehrere Vegetationszonen mit einer großen Artenvielfalt an Pflanzen.

Rund 2000 tropische und subtropische Pflanzenarten wurden bislang registriert, darunter über 200 verschiedene Gräser und 500 verschiedene Busch- und Baumarten.  

Im nördlichen Teil des Parks ist die Vegetation, bedingt durch höhere Niederschläge, dichter als im Süden. Hier findet man auch die charakteristischen Baobabs, die afrikanischen Affenbrotbäume.

Wildtierbeobachtung steht im Kruger Park natürlich an erster Stelle. Ob im eigenen Pkw oder im Pirschwagen, in Gesellschaft geschulter Ranger zu Fuß, bei Tag oder bei Nacht – für jeden Geschmack ist etwas dabei.

Insgesamt führt ein Straßennetz von 1863 km Länge durch das Gebiet, davon sind 697 km asphaltiert. Innerhalb des Parkgeländes darf man sich nur von Sonnenaufgang bis Sonnenuntergang bewegen. Ansonsten muss man den Park verlassen oder sich in die umzäunten Camps begeben.

Im Westen grenzen viele Privat-Schutzgebiete an den Kruger Nationalpark, und die Zäune wurden nach und nach entfernt, um den Tieren ungehinderte Bewegungen in den geschützten Arealen zu ermöglichen.  

Im Nord-Osten wurden in jüngster Zeit die Zäune an der Grenze zu Mosambik entfernt, um Wildbewegungen in den angrenzenden Limpopo-Nationalpark in Mosambik zu ermöglichen.  

Es fanden bereits etliche Großwildumsiedlungen in den Limpopo Nationalpark statt, und Elefanten, Giraffen, Zebras und Büffel wurden bereits erfolgreich umgesiedelt.  

Einige der Elefantenherden sind aber wieder nach Südafrika zurückgewandert, und es wird noch viele Jahre dauern, bis sich der Wildbestand auf der Mosambik-Seite erholen wird.

Der Kruger National Park ist für viele nationale und internationale Besucher das Reiseziel in Südafrika schlechthin. Entsprechend groß ist der Andrang. Jedes Jahr werden mehr als eine Million Besucher registriert.

Nach weiteren 10 Kilometern erreichen wir den Lake Panic Bird Hide. Meist liegen die aus Holz gebauten und überdachten Aussichtspunkte direkt am Wasser - so auch hier.

Davon werden natürlich zahlreiche Tiere angezogen und wenn man Geduld hat, dann sieht man auch die kleinen Bewohner, die hier ständig leben.

Bird Hides bieten die Möglichkeit, um alle möglichen Arten von Wildtieren zu beobachten. Nicht nur Vogelfreunde kommen hier auf ihre Kosten.

Ein Zugang mit Wänden aus Reet oder Holz führt meist dort hin, so können die anwesenden Tiere die Annäherung der Menschen nicht sehen und werden nicht gestört.

Im Hide gibt es zum Sitzen eher unbequeme Bänke ohne Lehne. Vor der Bank befindet sich eine schräge Ablage für Ferngläser oder Kameras und oft hängen Poster an den Wänden mit einer gezeichneten Übersicht der Vogelarten und ihrer Namen. Laute Unterhaltungen sind nicht erwünscht. Man verhält sich ruhig.

Offenbar ist der Hide heute eine beliebtes Ausflugsziel, denn es erscheint noch eine Familie mit Kindern. Uns ist es entschieden zu unruhig und wir ziehen nach 45 Minuten wieder unseres Weges ....

[discipulusmaleficus]

♡: Your narration

♥: Your dialogue

❧: Your plots

❣: Your descriptions

❦: Your details

✽: Your ideas

✿: Your characterization

❁: There’s good sentence variation!

✤: Your figurative language

☆: Your understandability

☄: WILDCARD! Other: I like your pacing. I like your sense of aesthetics. I like your art a lot. I like how you effortlessly braid science and magic together into one flowing, malleable organism. I like how you play with formating. And I like you a lot too ;3

@scxrytxles - wherein I beg for praise and then sit on it

Jas you are too nice I am biting you. except like this:

I will not belabour the point but I hope. you know how much I admire & appreciate you and your creative stuff and how much it means to me that we are Maybe Friends. aaaaaaaaaaaAAAAA

I am v glad you like my Nerd Bullshit and that you don't find me totally incomprehensible 🥲

[overwijs]

Het zijn maar managers, geen wilde dieren

“Maar vind je dat dan niet spannend, Milou?”

“Nee hoor, het zijn maar managers…”

Een flard uit een gesprek tussen mij een collega van de week. In de wekelijkse nieuwsbrief met alle info van de komende week stond in de agenda bij vrijdag: “Milou extern”, en hierdoor ontstond het gesprek. Naast mijn lessen en taken op mijn school, werk ik ook voor de Academy van onze grote organisatie en daardoor ben ik soms extern, zoals deze vrijdag dus.

In mijn werk bij de Academy doe ik allerlei verschillende dingen en dit keer mocht ik als facilitator bij de managementdag zijn, een soort studiedag voor alle directeuren, schoolleiders, teamleiders en andere personeelsleden die middels een wildcard er bij waren. En natuurlijk, een training geven aan docenten is misschien anders dan aan managers, net zoals dat lesgeven aan pubers anders is dan aan collega-docenten. Dus ik begreep de vraag, maar ik vind dingen nou eenmaal niet zo snel spannend (binnen mijn werkveld dan).

Sterker nog, ik vind het super leuk om bij dit soort dagen te mogen zijn én ook nog een rol te mogen vervullen. Maar wat vult dan mijn dag als facilitator? Dat is iets waar niet iedereen direct een voorstelling bij heeft, wat ik mij kan voorstellen.

Om eerlijk te zijn begint zoiets al eerder, je hebt overleggen van te voren over het draaiboek en de invulling van de dag. De avond van te voren rij ik al anderhalf uur naar de locatie, om ’s avonds nog met mijn collega’s de dag en invulling door te spreken en ’s ochtends zien we elkaar weer vanaf ontbijt tot de afsluitende borrel. Intense en fijne manieren om samen te werken.

In de ochtend zijn wij als eerste op de locatie om alles klaar te zetten, de grote zaal, de workshopruimtes, de ontvangstruimtes, tafels en stoelen verplaatsen, posters ophangen voor het inschrijven van workshops, briefjes klaar leggen voor de indeling in groepen en allerlei andere kleine klusjes.

Gedurende de dag zorgen we ervoor dat alles op schema loopt, dat deelnemers weten waar ze moeten zijn en daar ook op tijd komen, dus ja, af en toe loop ik de managers op te jutten zoals dat ook wel bij leerlingen gebeurt. Maar, de hoofdmoot is natuurlijk de inhoud. Tijdens workshops gegeven door workshopleiders zorgen wij dat alles goed loopt, dat groepjes goed verdeeld worden en dat de gesprekken tijdens de verschillende momenten een goede verdieping halen, bijvoorbeeld door de juiste vragen te stellen. Regelmatig geven we ook zelf workshops of helpen we de workshopleider in de voorbereiding bij het vinden van de juiste werkvormen.

In de middag had ik als facilitator een eigen groepje managers voor het voeren van een reflectief gesprek, wat haal je uit de dag zelf, hoe kijk je naar jezelf als leidinggevende, welke nieuwe verbindingen heb je gelegd en wat neem je mee naar de volgende werkdag of naar komende weken. Gelukkig hadden we daarvoor een zeldzaam vrij moment op deze intense en drukke dag, we liepen samen met de facilitators een rondje door de natuur en bereiden tegelijkertijd onze reflectieve gesprekken voor door ze met elkaar door te spreken en nog beter te maken.

Daarna gingen we allemaal met ons eigen groepje naar de inspirerende ruimtes, waar ik met mijn groep naar de boomhut uitkijkend over een prachtige ven mocht. We maakten een foto van iets moois op de grond en vanuit de boomhut met aanliggend terras. Net zoals een manager elke dag doet, keken we even vanaf de grond, midden in het team, naar iets, om daarna als manager er ook vanuit de helikopterview naar te kijken. Dingen zagen er anders uit, details die je op de grond kon zien, zag je vanaf boven niet, maar boven kon je weer verder kijken en zag je de stip op de horizon. Het een was mooier vanuit de boomhut, terwijl andere juist mooi op ooghoogte waren. Zo moet je als manager soms ook de dingen vanuit de verschillende perspectieven bekijken en alle informatie meenemen. Een prachtig begin voor ons gesprek, in deze prachtige omgeving.

Voor dat je weet is het alweer tijd voor de gezamenlijke afsluiting en daarna de buitenborrel. Een werkdag van een kleine 12 uur, kan voorbij vliegen, dat merk je dan weer. Maar man, wat gaaf om dit werk te kunnen doen! Stinkerd naar de rook van de vuurkorf stapte ik moe en voldaan weer in de auto, volgas (of in mijn geval volstroom) naar huis.

[politikantheblog]

PolitiKan The Podcast " The Three Tiers of Justice"

Topics: Nikola Jokic leads MVP race. Thoughts? Ja Morant calls out NBA after 7th drug test this season. Thoughts? After a Crazy NFL Super Wildcard Weekend, who do you have picked to win it all? A witness allegedly told the FBI that King Von increased a $50K bounty on FBG Duck’s head to $100K. They also alleged Von bought the assailants O’Block chains to celebrate Duck’s death.…

[heinous-desiree]

I've commissioned Chibis of my PCs!

Jas the Wildcard

Hunter the Allrounder

Celeste the Righteous

Maeve the Trap

Dee the Disaster

All drawn my the lovely @myuminji. Absolutely check them out. They are an amazing artists, and their chibis have always been the cutest thing to me. ❤️ Nom worthy chibis.

[themoontaxi]

cyma famous historical people

Most to least likely quit their job and leave the country without telling anyone

jas is back with more fun stuff that gives me kopfzerbrechen, thank you for your service <3

cyma as famous historical people:

gave y’all a dude and a lady. i promise these make sense to me. ask away if you are confused haha

you as Vincent Van Gogh and Princess Diana

@ropoto as Leo Tolstoy and Florence Nightingale

@emforevermore as Confucius and Mary Shelley

@sadgirlml as Charles Darwin and Angela Burdett-Coutts

@temilyrights as Simon Bolivar and Mary Wollstonecraft

@ssa-sapphic / @forthecultures as Rene Descartes and Josephine Butler

most to least likely quit their job and leave the country without telling anyone:

keep in mind that a lot of this was guesswork and i was thinking hypothetically. please do correct me if you want to (although 1 and 2 are right, no doubt about it) 💗

definitely sam lmao

the devil jas herself (i hope you would at least tell me 🥲)

tiana (could make a clean cut regarding the job but feel guilty for leaving the family behind. might still do it on a whim if it all got too overwhelming)

em (would see it more as an experience and be excited. friends and family could be informed once she arrived hehe)

katie (would quit the job, spend a few days in bed, talk with her family and then probably decide against leaving the country) & mely (would think about it and consider it too rash. then think about it some more and by the time she decided it’s the right thing, she already would have told someone bc she’d be too excited to not share such big plans)

thank youuuu babe, these were fun 😌 love you ♥️

[tomblogtom]

und dann kam Poli...

Letztes Wochenende war mal wieder mein persönlicher Auftakt für die aktuelle ESC Saison. Mit dem OGAE Clubtreffen beginnt für mich meist die Phase der "Vorbereitung", wir schauen bereits die ersten Teilnehmer anderer Länder an, beschäftigen uns mit dem deutschen Vorentscheid zwischen Wundern und doch immer wieder auch mit einem ganz zarten Pflänzchen Hoffnung *lach*.

Diesmal sind für Deutschland zwei bekannte KünstlerInnen am Start und ich wäre froh, wenn eine(r) davon unsere Nation in Schweden vertritt. Ich will diesmal keine Wildcard, kein junges unverbrauchtes Gesicht auf der ESC Bühne, sondern einen mehr oder weniger renommierten Act.

Mit Marie Reim und Max Mutzke sind zwei am Start, die bereits Bühenerfahrung haben, Max hat vor 20 Jahren ja bereits sehr erfolgreich einen 8. Platz erreichen können.

Weiter unten präsentiere ich beide.

Beim Clubtreffen hatten wir natürlich wie immer Besuch von ehemaligen ESC TeilnehmerInnen, meine größte Vorfreude war auf den Auftritt von Poli Genova und meine Erwartungen wurden sogar noch übertroffen! Sie war so "süß" und charmant, hat das Publikum gefühlt in jedem Atemzug mitgenommen und unterhalten mit ihren schmissigen Nummern, natürlich die beiden Beitrage aus den Jahren 2011 und 2016 und ein Lied auf Spanisch, hier das Video zum Auftritt von Na Inat:

und unser Überraschungsgast war Senhit aus San Marino:

und meine beiden Favoriten für Deutschland:

Max Mutzke - Forever Strong

Marie Reim - Naiv

und noch ein Lied von Poli Genova, find ich richtig gut:

[countessofbiscuit]

What are your Bobasoka headcanons? I've already gone through all of the (criminally little) fic on ao3 and I especially loved Smothered and Covered, and I saw the majority of the fics in the tag were gifted to you so I'm assuming you're the OG shipper. Feel free to essay if you like!!

Thanks for the ask and kind words about that fic :3 

Oh, Bobasoka … where to begin? It’s a pairing that’s been bumping around in exchange requests for a few years — I figure it’d be easy for anyone invested in Ahsoka’s relationship with the clones to be compelled by the idea. Lledra used to draw Boba and Ahsoka interacting, and it was probably a few panels of their incredible Destinies comic that set my Bobasoka wheels turning. I’m also drawn to them because their journeys traverse so much canon; there’s not just a sandbox to play in, but a whole goddamn stretch of beach, stretching far out into the horizon ...  (#AhsokaLives #BobaSurvived :D)

I have to lead with the proviso that almost everything I write/daydream about/headcanon has a groundsheet of Rexsoka. Ahsoka’s interest in Boba, in my head, is intimately tied up with her attraction to and/or relationship with Rex — or, at the bare minimum, her intimate fellowship with the clones. She went through puberty (maybe with heats!) surrounded by a literal army of handsome, roughly college-aged dudes; that must’ve been a heady mix of heaven and hell. If she didn’t quench her thirst before war’s end and her (eventual) separation from Rex, she’d probably be pretty dehydrated when stumbling across Boba. As for Boba’s attraction to Ahsoka, well ... she’s very pretty, she’s potentially useful, she’s not likely to skewer him in his sleep (+2) on account of being a Jedi (-1), and now she’s the one down on her luck; if he falls in bed with anyone, why not this girl who isn’t afraid of him and stares a lot at his lips?                         

And Boba is like a hot shipping potato — satisfying, hard to fuck up, goes well (read: makes for an intriguing story) with almost everyone. And I think it has everything to do with his liminality, something he shares with Ahsoka and probably recognizes.          

Their neither-this-nor-that-ness overlap in such interesting ways, and they each bring their identity issues to the table — Ahsoka as an on-again, off-again Jedi; Boba as a clone who isn’t a Clone™, a Mandalorian by birth and bearing, but not by the book. At different points in their stories, they identify as different things, and that would affect their headspace and color their view of the other. They wrestle with themselves and each other. Force-user and bounty hunter; privileged topsider and orphaned juvenile delinquent fugitive; GAR commander and outcast clone; Jedi and Mandalorian; Disillusioned veteran and disaffected army brat; Rebellion agent and Imperial contractor.

And as much conflict is baked into these dynamics, it also generates a certain magnetism; and I believe they recognize, on some level, their shared trauma and the symmetry in their experiences. Boba and Ahsoka both have happy childhoods with very little to distress or vex them (beyond the art, I do not jive with Age of Republic: Jango Fett, a Disney-canon comic that not only doubles-down on the Jango-wasn’t-Mando nonsense, but shows him being rather cavalier about Boba’s life); Geonosis happens and their adolescent lives are dominated by war (which is how they came to actively threaten each other as space!secondary-schoolers — whaaaaatf!); they are both dubiously (even wrongfully) imprisoned; and they both suffer alienation and incredible personal loss.  

Boba was set apart from the clones before he was even pulled him from the jar, othered and elevated from the beginning. He never bonded with brothers, he does not identify as a clone. And while there are examples of clones making overtures to him, canonically his relationship with them is fraught and probably made worse when he gets banged up in Republic Central at the tender age of eleven or twelve — and of course, Ahsoka is an accessory to this, the second chapter in his tragedy at the hands of the Jedi. He needed help (whether he wanted it or not), it was not given by clones or Jedi alike (hamstrung by bureaucracy, sure, but surely some other means of intervention might have been lobbied for?), and Boba becomes a right teenage disaster, well-balanced only in the sense that he has a chip on both shoulders.

(n.b. Putting my RepComm hat on for a second, I can’t help but sniffle-laugh at the idea that the Alphas watched him get thrown in a maximum-security slammer and were like “Ah, there he is, the feral vod’ika. First time, we’ll let the little snot earn his stripes. Second time, we’ll bust him out and send him on a tough love retreat with A’den or Jaing.”)

Ahsoka, meanwhile, is part-and-parcel of the institutions that Boba sets himself against, even after she too has been cast out by circumstances beyond her control. She grows up in a supportive Jedi community and then spends some seriously formative years with a whole slew of brothers — brothers that should have been Boba’s! 

Boba, on the other hand, is a great example of the proverb that a child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth. (As he tells Hondo, “Why should I help anybody? I’ve got no one.”) 

The resentment that must create! But also, later, the quiet empathy too — maybe when Boba’s having one of his better days and Ahsoka’s obviously not. 

And all of the above is interesting enough, without also touching upon the wildcard that is Mandalore.

Boba’s relationship with Mandalore .... well, that’s contested in- and out-of-universe and I won’t allow myself to essay overmuch. I subscribe firmly to a Mandalorian Fetts construction of canon, even though Boba must be someone who struggles mightily with Mandalorian identity. He’s raised by a bona fide Mando, a solicitous, loving father who’d have no reason not to pass on his language and beliefs; but at the same time, it takes that village, and when Boba’s clan of two is shattered, he has no one else. The loss of his dad unmoors him from his only anchor to Mandalorian culture and clan.

If Boba had been close to the Cuy’val Dar, one would think he’d have turned to them rather than fall in with Jango’s criminal acquaintances; or maybe the bounty hunters just scooped him up first, and troubled lil’ Boba was shepherded through bereavement by folks who enabled and encouraged him to externalize his anger in a way that gave him a (false) feeling of agency and strength. 

Whatever the reasons, Boba does not repatriate himself to Mandalore (much to Fenn Shysa’s melodramatic dismay). He strikes me as a lapsed Mandalorian; he doesn’t exactly follow the creed besides wearing the armor (scavenged? his dad’s sans helmet? canon is confused on this point, but he doesn’t go Mando until the unfinished arcs at the end of TCW, either for lack of stature, lack of armor, or lack of enthusiasm). I feel like if someone rocked up to Boba in a cantina and had the balls to ask “hey, so you a Mandalorian?” Boba would be like “<ominously slow helmet tilt> who’s asking” and never give you a straight answer.

Meanwhile, Ahsoka gets a crash course on Mandalore from none other than someone who, at one point, belonged to a sect that wanted to expunge Jaster’s legacy from the galaxy — and at the very least, had reason to dislike clones. This isn’t the place to explore my Boba/Bo-Katan feelings, but know that they are fathomless, and I would pay good money to be a fly on the wall of that Kom’rk when Bo-Katan gives Ahsoka Mando History 101 with her own special sauce. Ahsoka is probably more up-to-speed on Mandalore than Boba, and at one point, she may even own more beskar than him! (n.b. After the crash, I think one of the first places Rex and Ahsoka bounce is just inside Mando space, to scope out the Sundari situation and maybe try to scramble a signal to Bo-Katan; she’d have the goodwill to at least get them back on their feet if she can’t help them lay low herself. For a variety of reasons worth maybe ficcing down the line, they aren’t successful.)

I don’t really have a concluding statement except, I just think Bobasoka’s neat :) They hit all my depressed-Millennial buttons.

Headcanon by bullet-point isn’t really my style, but this is tumblr so ... tl;dr:

They recognize a lot in each other, even if they’re slow to admit it, if ever. Boba’s a cagey bastard and Ahsoka doesn’t ever like him enough to be emotionally honest.

They bump into each other during Ahsoka’s walkabout(s) ‘cause Coruscant’s Underworld ain’t big enough for the two of them. Without Slave-1, Boba couchsurfs at Nyx Okami’s garage, but he does his laundry at Rafa’s. He might even borrow the Martez’s new, useful friend for a job or two. 

Ahsoka eventually matures enough to be sensitive about her use of the Force on and around clones, and she definitely doesn’t use it around Boba. Definitely not during sex.

Boba is privately weirded out every time Ahsoka uses Mando slang she picked up off the clones or the Nite Owls.

Boba absolutely kills Cad Bane in that shoot-out, keeps the hat, and lets Ahsoka have it. She shoves it out the airlock and uses it for target practice. 

So many great smut flavours! Hatesex. Acquaintances with benefits. “You’re traumatized and touch-starved and you look just like him/them, and I know how to be gentle and what to do, so maybe we could … ?” They’re both privately comfortable with their bodies and sexuality, but Boba’s got trust issues a parsec long and Ahsoka’s lost confidence; it’s always an awkward affair, but desperation wins out.

They exchange comm codes every time they run into each other, which is kind of pointless because they both use burners.

Ahsoka hitches a ride on Slave-1 more than once. There really is only one bed, so it’s either sleep upright, sleep in a pokey prisoner hold, or sleep with him.

For a few years, Boba can pass as a last-generation clone — the ones that got sold off in bulk units to slavers before Kamino sunk another three years’ food, board, and training into them. Boba pretends he doesn’t notice, easy to really, since he tells himself his helmet is his face. But occasionally, when Ahsoka can convince him there’s profit in it, he agrees to play sleeper agent and assists in liberating a few here and there. 

They don’t talk about Aurra Sing.

When an Imp really crosses him, Boba passes on intel to Ahsoka to ruin their day.

Once, when they’re both super skint, Ahsoka volunteers to get handed in to some relatively minor and out-of-the-way Imperial garrison, so Boba can collect, bust her out, and split the pot with her. It’s the closest she ever comes to telling him “I trust you” — and when he brushes the idea aside, citing something about risk, it’s the closest he ever comes to telling her “I love you.”

Boba sees Inquisitors as muscling in on his game. There are so many lousy Force-users around nowadays, it should be easy pickings, but Inquisitors get privileged information. So he makes sport out of misdirecting them, especially from Ahsoka. 

When he pisses her off, Ahsoka fantasizes about Bo-Katan taking Boba down a peg or two while she watches :)))

Boba experienced Ahsoka’s heat once, secondhand through a cabin wall. He thought he was being clever by shooting Rex up with some Nevoota stim pollen, locking him in with Ahsoka, and hijacking their locked ships. Longest three days of his life, limping on broken hyperdrives and shared fuel stores to the nearest waystation to a soundtrack of violent lovemaking : \

Bounty hunters invariably bump into spies and agents because they work in the same areas. The agents pretend to be bounty hunters, eccentric business people, sex workers, or a range of other things. Sometimes each party knows all about the other, but it’s only polite not to mention it. This happens to Ahsoka and Boba A LOT, especially once she becomes Fulcrum; rebel cells and Imperials often want the same people. Occasionally they exchange fire. A couple times Boba gets imprisoned in Ahsoka’s own brig. Once, Boba blows her cover and definitely lives to regret it. 

(this essay was originally punctuated with pics, but replies with images won’t show up tumblr tags so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) 

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Rustにおけるirrefutable patternを使ったイディオム

pandamanです。Rust関係のフォーラムに入り浸って知ったイディオムをこれからの記事で紹介していきます。

この記事では、場合分けを伴わないパターン(irrefutable pattern)を使ったイディオムとして

let _ = ...の形のイディオム(値の無視)

let _x = ...の形のイディオム(生存期間の調整)

の2つを紹介します。

場合分けが伴うパターンマッチ

Rustにおける代表的なパターンマッチはmatch式でしょう。

// Optionに対するパターンマッチ match opt { Some(v) => printf!("Someの場合: {}", v), None => printf!("Noneの場合"), }

match式では各パターンにマッチするかどうかで場合分けし、パターンに応じて内部の情報を取り出すこともできます。 このような場合分けと値の分解を同時に行う言語機能にはmatch式の他にif let式やwhile let式があります。

場合分けが伴わないパターンマッチ

一方で、場合分けは必要ないケースもあります。 典型的な例は値の分解だけするケースでしょう。 例えば、次のようにタプルや構造体の中身を取り出すコードを見たことがあるかもしれません1。

// タプルを分解 let (a, b) = (100, 200); // 構造体を分解 struct Point { x: i32, y: i32, z: i32, } let Point { x, y, .. // xとyだけ取り出し } = point; println!("x = {}, y = {}", x, y);

これらの例では、let文と共にパターンを利用していることに注意してください。 他にも、for式や関数の引数でもパターンを記述することができます2。 このように、Rustでは幅広い場所でパターンマッチをサポートしています。

ただし、let文のような場合分けを伴わない場所では、あらゆる値にマッチするパターンしか使えません。 そのようなパターンはirrefutable patternと呼ばれ3、上述のタプルや構造体の分解も含まれるほか、変数の導入もこのケースに当てはまります。

// 変数パターンを使ってマッチ let x = 42;

このプログラムはただの変数宣言に見えますが、芝居がかった言い方をするならば、実は「let文において変数パターンxを使って値42にパターンマッチしている」と捉えることもできます。

一方でマッチしない可能性のあるパターン(例えばパターンSome(v)は値Noneにはマッチしません)はrefutable patternと呼ばれます4。

Irrefutable patternに関連するイディオム

いくつかのIrrefutable patternはイディオムとして特殊な使われ方をすることがあります。 この記事では

let _ = ...

というケースと

let _x = ...

という2つのケースを紹介します。 これらのケースは見た目こそ似ているものの、振る舞いは異なるため注意が必要です。

let _ = ...

まずはlet _ = ...と変数名の代わりに_を使うケースを紹介します。 このアンダースコアはワイルドカードパターンと呼ばれており、値を無視するために使います。 ワイルドカードパターンはよくmatch式の最後に残りの場合分けをまとめて処理するためによく用いられます。

ワイルドカードパターンはマッチ対象の値に対して何も行わず、所有権の移動や借用も生じません。 ですから、let _ = ...という形で記述したとき、ワイルドカードパターンはプログラムの振る舞いには影響を与えません(例外は後述)。 では、なぜこのイディオムを使うのかというと、unused_must_use警告の抑制のためです。

例えば、次のプログラムはunused_must_use警告を送出します。(Playground)

fn main() { std::fs::write("foo.txt", "bar"); // unused_must_use警告 }

このプログラムでは、write関数の戻り値のResultを無視しています。 これではエラーを無視できてしまうので、Rustはunused_must_use警告によって注意を促しています。 ですが、無視することが正しいケースも存在します。 例えば、Dropによるデストラクタの実装ではエラーを通知する手段が無いため、エラーは無視するよりありません。

そのようなケースで用いるのがlet _ = ...イディオムです。 次のように、let _ = ...を使うことでコンパイラに値を無視していることを明示的に伝え、unused_must_use警告を抑制します。(Playground)

fn main() { // 警告を抑制 let _ = std::fs::write("foo.txt", "bar"); }

値の解放タイミング

let _ = ...イディオムでは、右辺の値はその文の終わり(セミコロン)で解放されます。 Rustでは、変数に代入された値を除いて、全ての値は文の終わりにて解放されます。 ワイルドカードパターンは変数ではないため、右辺の値は代入されてはいない一時的な値とみなされ、文の終わり(このイディオムの場合ではlet文の終わり)にて解放されます。

▼ 代入する変数が無いため let _ = std::fs::write("foo.txt", "bar"); ◀ ここで解放 ▲ 関数の戻り値は一時的な値とみなされ

ただし、右辺の値が既に変数に代入されている場合はワイルドカードパターンは値の所有権に影響を与えません。 ですから、次のプログラムはコンパイルが通ります。(Playground)

fn main() { let v = String::from("foo"); // ワイルドカードパターンは所有権を移動しないため以下の文はNOP。 let _ = v; // vは使用可能。 println!("{}", v); }

この特性を利用すると、let _の有無によって意味の異なるプログラムを書くこともできます😎(Playground)

fn main() { let v = String::from("foo"); // この形の文はpath statementと呼ばれ、vがdropされる。 // 分かりづらいのでdrop(v)を推奨。 v; // vはもはや使えない。 // println!("{}", v); }

実世界では目にすることは無いでしょうが。

let _x = ...

一方で、let _x = ...と変数名を_で始めるイディオムも存在します。 この_xは変数パターンであり、右辺の値を移動や借用により束縛します。 これがワイルドカードパターンとの大きな違いです。

この変数パターンは値の生存期間を調整するために使います。 特にロックのような解放のタイミングが重要となる値に対して使われます。 これは、Rustにおいて変数はブロックから脱出する際に解放されることを利用しています。

このパターンでは、変数名を_で始めることでunused_variables警告を抑���しています。 多くの場合は導入した変数を使うので、この必要はありません。 ですが、例えばグローバルリソースを排他制御する場合やtracingライブラリで実行中のコンテキストを指定する場合のように、変数を使わずその値の生存期間だけが重要になるケースでは、変数名をアンダースコアで始めるイディオムを使います。

{ // 共有リソースのロック let _lock = mutex.lock(); // 共有リソースにアクセス ... // スコープの終わりでロック解放 }

実は、アンダースコアから始まる変数は他の変数と同様に使うことができるのですが、プログラムの意図を明らかにするためにもアンダースコアから始まる変数はこのイディオムの場合にだけ使うのが良いでしょう。

GitHubに対する検索でもタプルを分解する例や構造体を分解する例がヒットします。 ↩︎

TRPLのパターンを記述できる場所の一覧もご覧ください。 ↩︎

TRPLでは論駁不可能パターンと呼ばれています。 ↩︎

ちなみに、enumでもバリアントが1つしかない場合はirrefutable扱いになるようです。(Playground) 残念ながら、現在のrustcではパターンがirrefutableかどうかの判定にinhabitedness(型に値が存在するか)を使っていません。 ですから、Result<t>に対するパターンマッチではOkとErrの両方を書く必要があります。(Playground) このチェックをもっと正確に行おうとする提案はされています(Issue)が、そもそもinhabitednessを使うのが望ましいかという点で議論が停滞しているようです。 ↩︎