#assumed

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We'd like to highlight our black and black-mixed, bisexual characters!

Luz* (The Owl House: TV series)

Quinn* (Harlem: TV series)

Jessica (Phase 6: Web series)

Ryan* (Batwoman: TV series)

Mermista* (She-Ra: Princesses of Power: TV series)

Toni* (Riverdale: TV series)

Chante (Lovestruck High: TV series)

Claire (Heatwave: movie)

Marley* (Survival of the Thickest: TV series)

Kelly (Black Mirror - San Junipero: Anthology TV series)

Kat* (The Bold Type: TV series)

Bertie (Ma Belle, My Beauty: movie)

Imani (It Had to be You: Short film)

Miss Florida (Queen of Hearts: Zolita music video)

Kyra* (Love Island Games: TV series & Love Island USA: TV series)

Shug (The Color Purple: movie)

Deon (Christmas With You: movie)

Jennifer (A New York Christmas Wedding: movie)

Mia (Everything Now: TV series)

Nana (Umjolo: There Is No Cure: movie)

Marie (Gen V: TV series)

Zel (Hetero: Web series)

Roselyn (The Chi: TV series)

Ma Rainey (Ma Rainey's Black Bottom: movie)

Zoë (Scream: TV series)

Vera (Summerland: TV series)

Mia (À mon seul désir: movie)

*Cynthia Erivo and Amaarae are confirmed bisexual recording artists.

Revelation 11:17 (NLT) - And they said,

Bernard is coming over for dinner to meet the family. Barnard... has some interesting ideas. Jason's desire for chaos in regard to Tim doesn't help ------------ Bernard continues full speed ahead, “The only question is when you fell in love with him.” The table comes to a full and complete halt. Bernard notices this time and shrinks a little, “Or maybe he fell in love with you? One-sided?” he gasps, “Did you not know? I’m so sorry. I thought it was obvious.” Tim looks like he’d very much like to melt into the floor and just… become one with the rug.

32489 TYA (3955 BBY), Myrkyr:

Arla eyed the Jetii[i] who stepped out behind Lyssh’ika[ii].  The woman was tall with red hair being overtaken by white at the roots.  Instead of the traditional Jetiise robes Arla knew from the long years of, of Obi-Wan hanging around, she wore a long leaf-green skirt and a matching crop-top, showing that for all she was clearly old, this Jetii was a warrior.

It was the lack of proper Jetiise robes that made Arla take a moment to recognize her.  While never having met the Grandmaster in person, Arla had seen her fair share of holos of the woman.  Nomi Sunrider walked into their camp as if she was just another person, not one of the most powerful Jetii to ever live.

“Ba’vodu[iii],” Lyssh’ika said, stepping forward to embrace her, “Grandmaster is on his way.”

Arla nodded, remembering Obi-Wan’s beloved Master from the wedding.  It was hard to forget a being as unique as Thon.  She kept her arms around Lyssh’ika, but leaned back to look at the Zeltron.

“Lyssh’ika, is there a reason the Grand Master of your Order came as well?”

“Obi-Wan was my brother-padawan,” Nomi Sunrider answered instead, “if it is not too forward, I understand they had a son?”

Arla narrowed her eyes for a moment before relaxing, pulling Lyssh’ika back in, “elek[iv], Boba.  He’s… been taking it hard.”

Nomi nodded.

“If I may, could I speak with him?  As Obi-Wan helped raise him, he was exposed to some Jedi teaching and that can be… difficult to reconcile when it comes to death.”

Arla thought about how Boba had known before the rest of them – days before the call had come asking if a delay had meant ‘Mr. and Mr. Fett’ would be late for their stay. About how he had always known before anyone else when Obi-Wan would show up, and how she would sometimes find Boba sitting with Obi-Wan and meditating while Jango sat nearby, cleaning his weapons, a fond look on his face.

Boba was as much Obi-Wan’s kid as he was Jango’s.  Arla couldn’t fully help him through this – she understood the Mandalorian view on death, not the Jetii way.

She nodded and turned, keeping Lyssh’ika under her arm, to point towards the tent Boba was holed up in.

Sunrider nodded and started for it.

“She’ll help Ba’vodu,” Lyssh’ika murmured.

Arla could only hope.  She turned the two of them away from the tent and started to lead Lyssh’ika towards the alliit[v] closer in age to the Knight.  Marss was already being cuddled by the younger ones.

Nomi stepped into the tent, heart aching as the hurt-confusion-grief that painted the Force inside.

The boy was curled up on a cot, a blanket she well remembered wrapped around him.  Her own grief cut like a knife to the heart at seeing the blanket she had gifted Obi-Wan upon his Padawanship now wrapped around his son.

“May I enter?” she called, coming no further in.

Red-rimmed eyes bounced over to her and suddenly he was scrambling to his feet, sniffling as he did so.

“Uh, y-yeah, there’s a chair…” his gaze darted around, obviously searching.

Small Gods, did she really look that old?

“No need, the ground is just as good,” she told him, stepping forward to sink into a sitting position at the short table that stood in the middle.

Before she could get all the way down though, a pillow was being thrust at her.  She glanced at her young host and saw a stubborn look.  With a nod she took it, and sat on the pillow instead of the ground.

“Do you know who I am young one?” she asked.  She gave a hum when he shook his head, “I am the Grand Master of the Jedi Order, Nomi Sunrider-”

“You’re my ba’vodu! Obi-Wan’b vod[vi]!” he interrupted.

She nodded, glad that Obi-Wan had spoken of her.

“I am.  Lyssha, Marss, and I just arrived for the sendoff,” she told him, “I though I could speak with you?”

He gave her a suspicious look, “you’re not going to say I should mourn them, are you?”

Nomi let herself feel the sharp bitterness of anger that someone could say such a thing to a child before letting it go.

“No, but…” she paused, thinking, “am I wrong to assume that Obi-Wan spoke of being a Jedi and what we believe to you?”

Boba reached up and clutched something around his neck.  With a start, Nomi realized it was a shard of a kyber crystal – of Obi-Wan’s crystal. Boba nodded.

“I thought so,” Nomi said, placing aside her shock – that was something she would need to meditate on later.

“How Jedi view death is sometimes difficult to understand when you haven’t grown up with them.  I struggled when my husband died, and that struggle became a large part of my training.”

“Dad said they wouldn’t leave me, but his crystal’s gone cold,” Boba told her.

Nomi nodded and reached for a bag on her belt.  She dumped it onto the table, a minor use of the Force keeping the seeds in a neat little pile.

“Imagine that this is the Force,” she told him, and then separated three seeds, a small pile, and after a moment of consideration, a smaller pile out, “each person carries some of the Force with them as they live.  Some are like your Buir and have very little,” here she pointed to the three seeds, “while others carry more such as your Dad.”

Boba nodded slowly, hand still around his necklace.

“Jedi believe that when someone dies they go back to the Force,” here she hovered her hands over the three seeds and the larger of the two piles, “but throughout their lives they’ve given parts of themselves to those around them, keeping them alive in a way even after they have rejoined the Force.”

She slid one seed from each to the small pile before sweeping the rest back to the Force.

“That pile is you, you will always have a part of them with you, just as you carry a part of Obi-Wan’s crystal,” her eyes fell on the vambrace that was clearly too big for the nine-year-old wearing it, “and a part of Jango’s beskar’gam.”

Boba’s gaze went to his arm and hand at that, gazing at the reminders of his parents.

“Does it ever stop hurting?” he asked, voice small.

Nomi’s heart ached for his child, ached again for her own daughter who grew up without knowing her father, Nomi’s beloved Andur.

“It will always hurt to think of those who we cannot live with anymore,” she told him honestly, “but if we dwell on it, we cannot live.  To be unwilling to let go is to be unable to move forward.”

Boba blinked at that, eyes coming back to her.

“So Jedi… miss those who are taab’echaaj’la[vii] but to focus on that is to let Arasuum[viii] win?” Boba muttered.

“I’m afraid I do not know enough about Mandalorian culture to comment,” Nomi told him, “but perhaps you have the right of it.”

She swept the seeds back into the pouch, using the Force to make sure none escaped.

“There are those who worry for you outside,” she said, voice soft, “are you ready to face them?”

Boba looked at her, then back and his necklace and vambrace, slowly letting go of the necklace before nodding.

“’lek[ix], Ba’vodu Nomi.”

They rose and, when Nomi offered her hand, Boba took it.  Together they exited the tent to join the rest as they waited for Thon to arrive before beginning.

[i] Jedi (se makes it plural)

[ii] ‘ika is a diminutive suffix, used to denote the speaker is close to the recipient, or the recipient is a small child (i.e. Jango would call Boba Bob’ika)

[iii] Aunt/Uncle

[iv] yes

[v] Clan/Tribe

[vi] Obi-Wan’s sibling (‘b or be makes a possessive)

[vii] deceased, passed on (lit: marched far away)

[viii] Mandalorian sloth-god, the personification of stagnation, the enemy of Mandalorians