SORRY I SAW THIS LATE 😭😭 BUT I WILL GLADLY ANSWER!!!

just gonna establish right off the bat: a vast majority of swords gravitate more towards sesame street. because it has simple language that they learn english with (it was part of how i learned english too!). non-sesame muppet media has comedy that doesnt really land for them except for physical gags, though its not to say they dont also enjoy it from time to time. the classic muppet show for instance, is a glimpse into american culture of the 70s. educational!

OK ENOUGH RAMBLING FAV MUPPET TIME

yasusada - BIG BIRD!!!! he does a really good impression. they r both kinda eepy and soft and sometimes confused but they got the spirit!! also kermit!

kashuu - (btw he is tolerating this hyperfix much better than star wars LOL) he’s pretty fond of kermit, but he’s also definitely a janice girlie. “she just like me fr” (me internally: miss piggy is right there)

horikawa - ELMO FOR SUUURREEE like i dont even have to explain this i think. theyre baby. everyone’s friend. wonderful boys. also kermit

izumi - likes kermit but he also says his favorite is animal because he thinks hes the cool one to stan. look at him hes a rockstar drummer. his secret favorite is actually fozzie bear. his bad jokes have won him over idk what to tell ya

nagasone - SWEDISH CHEF. his skits are always a hit with sone bc theyre all nonsense so you dont need to understand anything 😭😭😭 hes also fascinated w the way the puppet is operated!!! second fav is kermit

BONUS ROUNDDDD

mutsu - rowlf!!!
nankai - dr bunsen honeydew DUHH
hizen - (nankai: my assistant beaker— hizen: NO) floyd!!!!!
suishinshi - kermit 🥺
kiyomaro - miss piggy 😊 “for the reasons you think, yes”

norimune - count von count. just because.

DO NOT talk to kashuu about star wars rn he does NOT want to talk about it

yes i made all the bakumatsu swords(and some others) watch the prequels. some liked it, some loved it, but kashuu in particular..."aruji i cant believe you like this crap." yes hes jealous

he does NOT like anakin and he does NOT approve of the fact that i am enamored with and claiming to relate to him. aruji no WAY youre anything like this LUNATIC!

told him i was always more attracted to obi-wan, his response: wh...s...so you....you like that type huh.....strokes his jaw where he doesnt have a beard you like that huh.....

[anyway the real reason he doesnt like anakin is because i told him beforehand that star wars defined all my tastes growing up and the fact that i like anakin so much paired with the fact that i like HIM so much doesnt really bode well for what that says about him as a person and he cant accept that those two things may or may not be entirely unrelated to each other. jokes on him. i actually think he's more similar to luke but he hasnt seen the original trilogy yet so dont tell him i said that]

oh gosh....there's this one board game my family and i like to play called Takenoko, it's about growing bamboo and feeding a panda. i feel like it's played quietly in my citadel though, just a relaxing and relatively chill way to pass time. niwa would probably most often play it with mutsu, yasu, kiyomaro, and manba.

honestly i dont have enough board game experience to really answer this in depth, im sorry anon...! i do enjoy a game of Exploding Kittens once in a while though...and i'm thinking Scrabble would be great for english vocab/spelling practice with really low stakes? chess is easy enough to teach but once niwa teaches them once for them to play with each other she won't really play herself.

if the swords are curious enough about board games, they can research and play amongst themselves and i'll get them sets if they want. it's great bc it's a Modern Human Thing that not just the younger swords easily get into, but a lot of the older swords pick up p enthusiastically as well! fun for all ages hahaha

(for length purposes i will limit myself to the main trio hahaha)

harry - from what i remember about harry he seems to work best with people who are more extroverted than he is, but not too annoying or unpredictable(tsurumaru) so someone friendly but not overbearing, like mutsunokami or shishiou! i feel like they can guide him while also letting him call the shots, if that makes sense. mikazuki might also work, but only bc harry is probably the only one who knows best how to interact with weird old wizards lmao

ron - no one too weird, that's for sure. or else he'll probably be complaining about the partner-up the whole time lololol. but ron himself is friendly if he thinks you need a friend, so maybe manba? though i feel like he'll also work well with someone strong and silent, like taroutachi or nenekirimaru. he won't pick a fight with them if he knows theyre way too strong hahahaha

hermione - omg i feel like she'll blend well with almost anybody, but i would personally partner her up with kasen, hasebe, or tomoe, just because she's similar to them. or maybe thats a bad thing...? in that case, perhaps someone who is fun, but wont be too stressful for her, like horikawa!

ok. this was originally going to be a collection of headcanons but now its. well. a mini-fic dhsjkfmg just take it. very shippy. i love these two a lot (shocker)

⚠️SPOILER WARNING⚠️ for the entire game??? i guess???

(i use he/him pronouns for both of them this time)

i like to think that while omokage’s been manifested for a while, spending all his time alone and on missions and not being part of a citadel really didnt allow him to learn to be “human” outside of fighting and carrying out orders. this ties into my other hc that the one of the main purposes of citadel environments is to help tsukumogami learn to do just that!

anyway, back to omokage. im sure everyone helps him out and teaches him and answers questions any time he asks, but the one who plays this role the most ends up being tomoegata, who had no previous life, and “learning to be human” is all he’s ever known.

tomoe, to the best of his ability, explains to omokage what sarcasm is, and that he’ll be hearing it a lot from hasebe. no, you don’t Have to do everything tsurumaru tells you to. yes, mikazuki IS hard to understand sometimes, it’s not just you. no, you don’t have to wait for orders to choose, just choose. yes, you are as much a touken danshi as the rest of us.

omokage almost feels like he wants to apologize for having to be looked after so often, but tomoe is so sincere and so willing, and one of the few that omokage knows he can trust to be wholly honest. he cant bring himself to be anything but grateful.

he expresses his gratitude a number of times, nearly every chance he gets, and tomoegata’s response is always the same: “Yes. Remember to call on me if ever you need anything.”

one day, they exchange these same parting words within earshot of hasebe. it doesn’t escape his notice that tomoe tells omokage the same thing he always used to tell their master.

meanwhile, omokage thinks back to a conversation they had (from the bond convos).

“So your strength comes from your feelings toward someone important… It must be wonderful having someone like that.”

he’s never felt stronger than he does now.

oooh! i think if youve been following me a while youre probably familiar with “juwo”, “oogwee” and “kash money”(he still hates it LOL) but i have many many nicknames for basically every sword i own, all of which i keep track of!

i have some non-standard ones that sooorta have stories behind them? “non-standard” as in not just shortened ones or adding “-chan” etc. mostly in english! here are some of them i think are worth talking about!

lightning bug - this is kind of an obvious one! hotarumaru is a firefly, and another term for fireflies is lightning bugs! better than “glow worm” at least 🤣 i also call him “potaru” out of endearment<3

nightflower - nukemaru came to us during the fireworks event, which was called “operation nightflower recapture” in EN, and i thought he looked so hauntingly beautiful with the bg that i just. ended up calling him that. i think it suits him quite well! i also sometimes call him “swallowtail”, for more obvious reasons

xinzi - this came from a mistranslation(?) of suishinshi’s name where 水心子 was detected as chinese and translated into english as the reading “Shui Xinzi” and idk i just found it kinda adorable!! the added layer of “suishinshi” already being fully comprised of onyomi makes it funnier imo lol. there’s also “shuishui” which is a less common variation of the same thing hehe

HONORABLE MENTIONS
yoshimitsu(ichigo)
yokozuna(ookanehira)
mumei(sanchoumou)
nagayoshi(chougi)
nanaboshi(shichiseiken)
xiaolong(koryuu)
honeybunny(honebami)
old fox(kogitsunemaru)
old blade (mikazuki)

i’ve left new years’ preparations in everyone else’s hands because they know how it’s celebrated better than i do hehe.

meanwhile, tomoe is taking end-of-year stock in anticipation of the new sword and is currently trying to convince me to set a spending limit during the campaign (i think she prefers being frugal to be able to curb my impulses lololol)

poor little aruji (me) who is weak to the cold is spending most of her winter days holed up in her room and doesnt go out unless she’s wearing ten thousand layers.

lastly, here’s an interesting update: inaba has grown closer than ever to the other gous and so is spending much more time with them, which is great!! it took him a bit to open up to them(kotegiri especially) but it’s hard to keep up a cold/stoic front when they’re all so friendly 😭 but oh? what’s this? his increased time spent with the gous has led to him not paying as much attention to himetsuru anymore, leading to hime(fickle little thing) growing bored…??? and fukushima is taking this as a sign to retry his attempts at courting..?!??

(this got kinda long 😅 i tried putting it in bullet points for easier reading….)

AMAZINGLY! he’s such a hard worker 😭😭😭 took explanations from hakusan(the attendant when we got him) so easily, no objections. only “okay.” “understood.” and “i see.”! i was worried he’d be distant—our last few arrivals were hanjin(quiet and keeps to himself), a slew of inspectors(doing just fine), and nukemaru(nukemaru)—but he pleasantly surprised me by being so engaged in asking what his tasks and responsibilities around the citadel would be.

kasen, izumi, and fudou were all in his training unit together with him and the kanesadas told me about his convo with fudou. i teared up. i’m so grateful for fudou having a friend. i fear i’ve neglected him a bit thinking he was hasebe’s to deal with.

the absolute JITTERS the kanesadas were feeling before his arrival…..it spread to the rest of the shinsengumi (and me of course) so i think muko mightve gotten a bit rattled upon arrival hahaha. hes such a lovely boy though so he’s fine hehe

what i’ve learned so far about him is that he haa somehow gotten the short end of the manifesfation stick. he has been nothing but diligent and thorough with his work since he arrived but fine motor skills and spatial awareness seem to elude him more than most. this is very normal for new swords(just a prolonged case this time), and more experience on the battlefield should help him adjust, and muko is nothing if not eager to try<3

idk anything abt nier automata but I LOVE THIS AAAAA i just love the concept of touken danshi not exactly being hra, but being manifested BY the hra, it's so cool......what was the purpose? what is the objective? it could give us some insight into the popular theory that the HRA are all corrupted toudan, except this time it's kind of like the reverse 😖😖😖

if he was some kind of spy meant to destroy us from the inside, wouldnt that be crazy bc i remember at the end of the invasion event we were told that the govt's security system needed to be reviewed and strengthened and that was the reason for the Big Update in the first place. if, in the middle of us being busy with preparations, and being vulnerable, they slipped in a corrupted toudan that was then sent out to citadels.......AAAAAAAA

HDJASHSJDHDHS guess i never talk about him huh.....he's literally been my strongest yari forever sob sorry tonbo.........but anyway i love thinking of him as kind of like an artsy grandpa, in my citadel he and mutsu like to borrow the vintage gramophone i have in my office just to listen to enya (yes, enya). i'm considering just getting a new record player and giving him the gramophone haha (mutsu receives enough "human thing" gifts from me already)

these days he is spending more time in the library and reading a lot of fiction books, i guess he's hooked! seems to gravitate towards long winded war stories(only natural i suppose). claims he can apply the strategies to real combat 😅

my swords are working quite hard these days, both in osaka and other happenings in the citadel! it’s probably the end of year buzz, lots of stuff coming soon after all!

Sasanunu…..we’ve reached a point where i’m simply granting him the space to do whatever he would like, and I just make it a point not to reach out to him at all, since every attempt seems to push him further away. it’s not like he’s miserable or anything, he HAS made friends(thank goodness) and he does his share of chores around the citadel(he seems to enjoy laundry from what i’ve heard). what’s more, he never asks me for anything or makes any assignment request. i suppose this means we’ve agreed to give each other space for now 😔