#tagged may rb. | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

rustedleopard · 9 days ago

Note

(gaymeatcore) what do you think ceroba's childhood was like? Since it'll always be so interesting to me that someone so devoted to her family doesn't have her parents around in her life. But she does invite starlo's family over for dinner and frequently talks to them. when she fell in the ditch when getting crops for her mom she was more worried about the crops getting ruined than about herself dieing in the ditch, wich I interpetend as her family either being really poor or being the type to punish her for that. I personally think her parent's where rather harsh, strict and neglectful(required her to be independent at a young age) so she went to the sunnysides to get a bit of parental affection she didn't get at home.

Okay, I've been meaning to answer this ask when I got it 10.000.000 years ago, but every time I try to answer it I start pacing around my room like a madman. But, in summary, I think Ceroba's home life/childhood was not good.

You brought up some excellent points about how Ceroba is a very family-oriented person. The reason why she didn't want to get together with Starlo despite how it would've been easy and natural for her was because Starlo "wasn't ready to grow up yet." Ceroba wanted to "be an adult" and do what she thinks adults do: get married, settle down, have a family. It's a very textbook idea of what being an adult is like (more on this later). Yet, for someone who values the idea of having a family, she doesn't talk about her side of the family at all. To the best of my memory, she only brings up her mother in one sentence when she was talking about how she met Chujin, and that was essentially just her saying "My mother sent me out to go grocery shopping." No discussion of if she has any siblings, a father, if her mother is still around, what she thinks of them, aunts, uncles, cousins, nadda. She talks more about her best friend's family than she does her own. She still keeps on regular contact with her best friend's family but doesn't even bring up her own family. So, yeah, if she's not talking about her family even though she's someone who values the idea of a family, maybe her family isn't worth bringing up at all.

And the part where she's talking about how she met Chujin because she fell into a ditch, she brings up how she couldn't climb out of it no matter how hard she tried because of her rolled ankle, but "even worse, the expensive crops were ruined." She should be more concerned about the fact that she's injured and lying in a ditch rather than the expensive groceries she had purchased for the family getting ruined. And on top of that, she was crying about her situation too. Miss Ceroba "I save my tears for the moments that matter" Ketsukane, who only cried when her husband/daughter were dying and when she was backed into a corner where she felt like she had to kill a child she'd come to like and when her life was falling apart and she wanted to die, is crying over some ruined crops because she happened to have fallen into a ditch by accident. That is a sign of a very bad, toxic family life.

I feel like Ceroba's family also set the model for how she thinks a family is supposed to work. Not the toxic parts that reduces her to tears, but instead instilling the idea of a traditional family where the husband goes out and works and the wife stays home and raises the kids and maintains the house. That idea had to come from somewhere in her life, and while Crestina and Solomon exhibit the traditional family dynamic as well (though their relationship seems much healthier), I don't think it's just them contributing to it. Plus, y'know, Cerojin is unhealthy. I feel like if Ceroba was modeling her relationship after Solomon and Crestina's relationship, she'd realize that something's going wrong when she has to work and maintain the house and take care of Kanako while Chujin does whatever he wants.

And, now, I'm gonna deliver some of my (more canon-based) headcanons rapid fire, so get ready for that:

Ceroba would almost always hang out at Starlo's house when they were kids. She insisted on it. The Sunnysides used to host sleepovers with her almost every weekend, at least until Ceroba started to push into her teens and her parents found the idea of her staying overnight at a male friend's house "inappropriate."

I feel like Starlo may have come over to her family's house once or twice (maybe Ceroba's parents insisted on meeting her friend), but he always found the atmosphere too... tense for his tastes. He tried to avoid coming over as much as he could.

Ceroba would try to hang out with Starlo/stay out of the house as much as possible. It was much easier to use "I'm hanging out with my friend" as an excuse to stay away from home than just trying to stay out of the house in general. All the time she spent with Starlo trying to stay out of her house really strengthened their friendship.

Starlo is aware that he was being used as a buffer between Ceroba and her family. He was more than happy to be one, especially if it meant that Ceroba would be happy. He wasn't privy to everything going on, but he was privy to the most out of everyone in her life that wasn't her immediate family.

Crestina and Solomon were also aware that Ceroba's home life wasn't so good. They didn't know the full extent, but they knew enough to basically have an open door policy with her.

Her parents always had some sort of criticism about Starlo and felt like Ceroba could "do better" than be friends with him (whatever that means...)

Ceroba saw Crestina and Solomon like surrogate parents and they taught her some necessary life skills. That isn't to say that Ceroba's parents didn't try as well, but if you're getting yelled at for being sloppy with patching up a hole in your shirt when it's your first time doing it, and you have another set of people who are willing to be patient with you and walk you through it, it's pretty obvious who you'll gravitate towards.

Ceroba is especially close with Crestina.

Most of Ceroba's anger issues come from how she was raised.

Ceroba was taught to hold her tongue and not mouth off others as a kid (and was punished if she did), which is why she lets herself get so mouthy with Starlo and tease him. She knows he won't give her trouble for sassing him.

Like what you brought up earlier, I headcanon that Ceroba's parents were very strict and harsh and negligent, which fostered a sense of independence in her.

While they never beat her, they did physically punish her. Stuff like "You'll have to stand in place holding two buckets full of water by the handles for half an hour and if you set it down for even a second, you'll get ten more minutes." (Btw, if you don't think this is a punishment, I want you to go try that right now and see how long you last. It's grueling.)

They were also the sort to yell/scream at her and call her names. Sometimes smack the back of her head as a form of correction as well.

Ceroba's family wasn't rich but they weren't poor either. They were all farmers.

Ceroba's parents were also very traditional (like I brought up earlier). Her father was the farmer/sold his crops, her mother was the housewife who maintained the house. When the Meadows became the Dunes, her family couldn't maintain the business and had to scatter elsewhere in the Underground.

There was no "good" parent. Both of her parents sucked in different ways. Her dad was more neglectful and more prone to yelling when Ceroba made a mistake and her mom was harsh and the sort to set impossible standards that she had to try to meet

Ceroba doesn't keep in contact with any of her old family.

Part of why Ceroba fell so hard and fast for Chujin is because it meant an escape from her family. She never saw it that way, of course, but subconsciously she was aware that getting married to him and settling down quickly would mean that she wouldn't have to live with her family anymore.

Another part of it was because Chujin was her hero. He saved her from a really low moment. This is the moment when her idolization of him started and she never really moved past it. Had it been someone else besides Chujin who saved her here, she would've felt similarly about them, at least in the moment. (At the end of the day stuff like personality and goals in life and etcetera matters. If the person who helped her didn't meet her standards, the idolization would've naturally worn off over time.)

(there's also how Chujin was the epitome of maturity in her eyes and what she wanted out of adulthood and because he was kind and yeah, but this section isn't about that.)

Ceroba didn't bring up much of what her home life was like with Chujin. It was part of her ugly past that she wanted to leave behind, so why bother bringing it up when she can focus on being happy with him in the present and look forward to their shared future together. Chujin does know enough to know it wasn't happy, but he's far less informed than Starlo/the Sunnysides.

Ceroba and Chujin used to have pillow talks about how they're gonna do the right thing and raise their own family together and "it won't be like our old families, it'll be happy and everything will work out together!" (Remember that Chujin has issues with his family too.) It was all fluffy fantasy talk though, none of the basic logistics like "how big will our family be?" Since Ceroba was inclined to roll with whatever Chujin said, serious discussions like that never really happened. That's why Ceroba was so surprised when she saw how big the house he was building for them was. Chujin was expecting a big family. I get the sense that Ceroba may have been expecting a smaller family. This is something that should've been hashed out WAY earlier in the relationship before they even had Kanako, but they didn't.

Ceroba and Chujin: "We'll have a nice, perfect family together unlike the screwed up families we grew up in :D" -> *proceeds to screw up their family's lives in unique and interesting ways*

Aaaaaand, yeah. That's about it for now. I could go on about it more, but this post is already long as is. Hope you liked it!

#[rusty door hinge noises]#i have specific headcanons for Ceroba's family but typing that up will take A WHILE and since it's so hc heavy and others may not be #interesting in seeing that I'm gonna break it up into two parts: what canon provides + my interpretations/hcs.#this is part 1. I'll rb this with the second half so stay tuned for that #bookmark tag #uty analysis

9 notes · View notes