#yes i think mandalorians are cool and their culture and history is fascinating

[stairset]

The hardest part about being a Star Wars fan is that not only can you not get along with people that have different opinions than you but you also can’t get along with people who DO have the same opinion as you because their REASON for having that opinion is different from yours and their reasons are stupid as fuck whereas your reasons are objectively correct

[syn0vial]

Thoughts on the various "young!Boba gets adopted" AUs out there? The various people/groups I've seen adopting him in fanon have been Obi Wan, Plo Koon, assortments of clones, and of course fellow bounty hunters like Bossk and Cad Bane. Personally - I love them all since any AU where young Boba is loved and supported brings me joy - but wondering if you had any specific thoughts on what's most likely/makes the most sense/would be best for Boba/etc. Since you're looking for asks :)

hello there! i also love boba-gets-adopted AUs bc i like to believe in a universe where he ended up safe and loved :,D in fact, in the junior novels, he does end up being brought to an orphanage on bespin, but it’s a republic orphanage and there’s jedi on the ship taking him there and he has to lie about his name and basically there’s a bunch of stuff that drives him to cut and run as soon as he’s able. BUT i definitely think things could’ve been different.

first off, disclaimer that the following are simply my opinions and that i don’t intend to bash or invalidate people with different headcanons/AUs. but yes, here are my opinions on who would likely have the least/most success in adopting a freshly orphaned boba.

i think it’s safe to say that any jedi would have their work cut out for them. he was raised to see them as the enemy, he knows his father’s history with them, and watching one of them decapitate his dad definitely didn’t help matters. he would likely respond to any of them trying to get close with anger and suspicion, not to mention a healthy dose of fear as to what their ulterior motive might be (are they after information? are they trying to make sure he won’t become a threat? do they just want to erase his father’s legacy?). ngl, i think a story with a jedi character like obi-wan or plo-koon trying to gain boba’s trust would be a fascinating read, but if we’re talking purely what’s the most likely/best arrangement for boba, jedi are probably at the bottom of the list, just bc boba’s view of them as the monsters who killed his dad and his dad’s family would make gaining his trust not only unlikely, but also a thoroughly distressing affair for everyone involved.

next up is the clones. this one i think could work, but it would require said clone(s) deserting for best chance of success. if they didn’t desert and stayed with the republic, boba would view their attempted “adoption” of him as capture at best and forced conscription at worst—obviously, they’re just taking him in bc they think he’s just a wayward clonetrooper who needs to be taught to fight and die for the republic, right? plus, non-deserter clones would likely have regular interaction with the jedi, which would present the problems from the bullet points above. on the other hand, if the clones were deserters, boba would likely have some immediate sympathy for them as they would share the same enemies/pursuers and he would have some interest in helping to keep them safe and free. even if this altruism would be at least partially motivated by the desire to stick it to the republic/jedi, i could see it easily evolving into genuine care and affection. the big, interesting obstacle here would be that, in the EU especially, boba isn’t very comfortable around clones. like, when he was even younger, he thought they were cool and liked to watch them march and train, but once his dad told him that boba himself was a clone too, boba became unsettled and stopped watching them. and then after jango is killed, well... the clones became upsetting to him for an entirely different reason. especially if any clone characters attempted to adopt boba, there’d be a lot of tension stemming from their resemblance to his father, plus boba’s own desire to be distinct and separate from them. i do think a happy ending is possible here, but it would require boba to learn to view the clones as individuals, not as reflections of his dad and not as threats to his own individuality.

then we have bounty hunters. honestly i’m not familiar enough with cad bane to have any say on his potential as an adoptive parent and i’m so used to the EU depiction of bossk and boba as shitty rivals that the thought of bossk trying to parent boba is inherently hilarious to me. HOWEVER, there is one bounty hunter who i think would be the number one best option for boba adoption and that’s zam wesell. yes, the one that jango murdered. as i’ve mentioned in previous posts, zam basically acted like boba’s second parent in the EU and, in an alternate universe where she survived jango’s assassination attempt, boba would be ecstatic to find out she’s still alive and, so long as she supported him in his quest to become a bounty hunter, he’d probably be happy to let her retake her parental role. the one tension point i can see here is that zam might not be so keen to let her adopted kid run off to try and avenge the man who almost killed her, but this could be mitigated by convincing boba to wait/train until someone else kills mace he’s older and ready. zam’s got a charisma score, she could swing it.

and finally: mandalorians! this would be another great option bc boba, especially younger boba, inherently trusts mandalorians more than most others in the galaxy (this is, in fact, implied to be one of the reasons he chooses concord dawn as his and sintas’s new home as a teenager; mandalorians, he thinks, are trustworthy and safe ;; ) he also almost certainly knows of their tendency towards adoption and thus would not be as quick to question their motives as he would be for some of the others on this list. not to mention, mandalorians would be more likely to support him in becoming a bounty hunter/warrior AND in avenging his father, which would earn them major respect and gratitude in boba’s mind. finally, assuming his adopters were similar to true mandalorians, the fact that they would share a culture in common would also likely make the adjustment period much easier than if boba were adopted into a non-mandalorian household.

and there you have it! as you can see, i think the best two options for adoptive guardians for boba would be a) (true) mandalorians or b) a miraculously-not-dead zam wesell. clone deserters could also be fun and ultimately beneficial, while attempted adoptions by GAR!clones and/or jedi could also lead to plenty of fun angst. in any case, it’s a great trope and it’s always nice to fantasize about a galaxy where boba gets to have a family again :,)