#‘Hana this looks terrible’ WHEN I SAY HE IS MADE OUT OF SCRAPS I MEAN IT

[hana-bobo-finch]

I MADE A SKRUNKLY-ASS LEIF DOLL OUT OF SOME SCRAPS OF FABRIC LMAOOO I LOVE HIM

HE CAN ALSO DO THE CORDYCEPS THING (AND HE DOUBLES AS A TISSUE BOX!)

[lizzybeth1986]

With A Little Help From My Friends - Part 1

Thank you so much @emteeand for the ideas and the inspiration, and @feisty-mary for every single time you patiently listened as I panicked over unsaved drafts 💜

Pairing: No romantic pairing as such, more a Liam/Hana friendship fic. The implied pairings are Liam x Esther (my MC) and unrequited Hana x Esther.

Book: The Royal Romance Book 1

Rating: G

Summary: Whiskey with Drake, dance battles with Maxwell, sweet treats with Esther. On the night Hana is to leave Cordonia, what special moment of friendship will she share with Prince Liam? Missing scene from Chapter 18, takes place shortly after Hana’s diamond scene and before Liam’s diamond scene in the hedge maze.

--

(This gorgeous art is by @shazrystyles)

I’d played this for her once.

Her fingers flutter over the piano keys, barely touching. One note flows effortlessly into the next, and the next, and the next: she doesn’t even need muscle memory to remember how it goes. She cannot see the keys over her tears, but no matter. This tune is one that’s been ripped from her soul. It doesn’t need eyes.

You’re my best friend, Hana.

How long has she been waiting for someone to tell her that? Through years of hobnobbing and false flattery, through decades of strategic alliances? A whole lifetime? And now…and now…

And now.

I understand, Esther, I really do, she wants to say, but that doesn’t mean it won’t hurt.

She plays nervously, feverishly. Sweat beads glisten over her skin. Her hands don’t seem to want to listen to her anymore. The melody almost plays itself out of nowhere, stronger, sweeter, filled with too much hope. It sounds like the person she was two hours ago.

She fists her hands, slamming the music to a screeching stop.

From somewhere behind her, she hears the shuffling of feet. She turns around, hoping against hope it isn’t Esther. She can’t see her. She isn’t ready. Not now.

It isn’t.

“Your Highness?”

“Lady Hana,” he says, “I hope you’re alright.”

It’s the only other person she isn’t yet ready to see.

She runs her fingers over her damp cheeks and wishes the man weren’t this kind. She knows she told Esther that she had to meet him before leaving, but that was just a way to avoid them both. She wants so badly to resent him, leave his palace and his country without another word and damn all the existing rules that state that a withdrawing suitor should inform the Prince first.

“Prince Liam,” she bows to a low curtsy, “I thought you would be downstairs.”

“I was, for the most part,” he says, his stance ramrod straight. Sometimes she wonders if the man possesses a spine made of metal. “You play well.”

It doesn’t escape her how awkward this encounter is. Even after months of being around each other they’re practically strangers. She’s sure if someone asked them about how they met, what their first dance was like, what they talked about, they’d both draw a blank.

The very thought makes her sigh.

How determined she had been to win this man. How sure that her talents and breeding would gain her a suitable match - no, the most suitable match - and have no one refer to her as “Lord Peter’s leavings” ever again. How hopeful, that she’d leave every rival in the dust, bring this man home and make her parents proud.

And now look at us, she wants to fling the words to his face and watch him react in any way besides stoic calm, now we’re rivals. Rivals for another woman’s love.

The tension in the room is so thick you could slice it with a knife. She wonders if he even notices.

“I don’t recognize the composer, however. This piece is beautiful: I’d like to listen to more of their work.”

She shakes her head and chuckles. “It’s mine.”

His eyes widen. “R-really? Wow. That’s…that’s phenomenal! You should play concerts, Hana. Talent like this doesn’t deserve to be kept hidden in the palace music room - ”, she didn’t manage to hide her temporary wince, that much she realises from his change of tone. “ - of course, only if that’s what you want.”

He hesitates, then takes a deep breath. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to presume.”

She laughs. Even at the height of her resentment it’s impossible to dislike this man. “How did you end up here?”

“I come here. Sometimes. To…to clear my head.”

An uncomfortable silence follows this confession. She suspects he isn’t telling the whole truth, that he probably wanted to avoid someone the way she was trying to avoid him, but it really isn’t in her place to prod. So she backtracks, asking easier questions.

“Do you play an instrument?”

He grins apologetically, nervously running his thumb behind his left ear. “Acoustic guitar. Not very well, I’m afraid. I barely know 4 or 5 chords.”

Something about the tenderness his voice tells her he cherishes playing it anyway, beginner experience be damned. “Doesn’t matter how good you are as long as you love doing it, my aunt used to say. She taught me the basics.” Before my parents saw me as their ticket to fame and glory, sent her away, and hired world-class music tutors instead. “I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed playing the piano as much as I did with her.”

“She sounds like my mother,” he smiles initially at the memory, a smile that fades as soon as he utters the last word. He clears his throat. “She was the maestro in our family.”

Hana’s heart sinks to her stomach as she recalls the little facts she’d picked up about the Cordonian royal family. How the King had married thrice: abandoned by one wife, widowed by another, finally ruling their small nation with the third. It was little more than family history when she’d read it first, but the devastation that history wrecked on him is writ large on Liam’s face.

“Liam, I’m sorry,” is all she can say.

He shrugs, barely noticing her use of his birth name. “It was a long time ago. See that?” he points to a case resting against a wall across the room. “That’s hers.”

It breaks her heart, seeing Cordonia’s king have nothing but scraps of memories to cling to. She knows it’s something she can never understand and yet…and yet some part of her does.

“Is it why you came here?”

“I…yes.” Liam is usually a man who looks you straight in the eye, but tonight his gaze flits from one corner of the room to another.

He carries so much within him, she remembers Esther telling her once, so much responsibility, so much fear, so much pain. But we will never know. Because he will never tell.

Some part of her knows how hard it is. To carry wounds like these and never let anyone see. To never be able to name what hurt you most. After tonight the person in front of her will find himself carrying so much more on his shoulders, with the only woman she has ever loved by his side, and tonight she will be leaving his home, never to come back. It worries her. This is no way for her to leave. There are only so many chances one can get to say goodbye, and make it matter. She straightens her back and stands up.

“I’d like to hear you play, then. If that’s alright with you.”

He shakes his head, sighing. “I’m not very good, Lady Hana.”

“That doesn’t matter,” she doesn’t realise how much the notion disturbs Her, or how much louder her voice has become, until she sees the look on his face, “I’m sick of only seeing people be good at things. I’m sick of never having the chance to be anything but good. I, for once, think it would be amazing to be bad at something, sir!”

When he says nothing - just stares at her while she winds up her mini-outburst - she almost regrets saying it. Maybe it was better to keep quiet. To leave this train of thought and talk about nicer, safer things. But she doesn’t have an option anymore. Her parents want to take away from her the only place she felt she could belong to, and all that’s left to do is to make her every last moment count. She takes a deep breath, and speaks again.

“Look,” she says, her words coming in a rush, “my parents will be withdrawing me from the social season tonight. The carriage will be here once the ball is over and I may never come back, or see any of you, ever again.”

His brows furrow in confusion. “What? You mean…you won’t even be able to return to court? How come?”

“They didn’t say,” she lies, too drained to tell the truth to anyone else. “But before I left, I wanted to make sure I did something special with each of you. All my friends. I drank whiskey shots with Drake. Did a dance battle with Maxwell. Told Olivia she was a sorry excuse of a…sorry. I know she’s your friend.”

Liam waves away the apology. “She is. But knowing you and Esther, I’d say she probably needed to hear that.” He pauses, his expression suddenly softening at the name, “what about Esther?”

“We raided the dessert table. Which brings me to right now,” she says, “you’re left.”

“And your last moment with me is…to suffer me strumming a godawful tune on my mother’s guitar?”

Her full skirts swish behind her as she walks back to the piano. “I’ll…er, I’ll join you if it makes you feel any better. Maybe you can pick a song we both know?”

“There’s one,” he says, striding across the room to get his guitar, “British band. Very simple chords. It’s called Crazy Little Thing Called Love.”

“Wait,” she says, remembering her aunt. “I think the band’s name is Queen, yes? My aunt stayed in Japan a few years before coming to stay with us. They used to have a very large fanbase there.”

His face lights up, assuming a boyish, almost carefree expression that is so at odds with the man she has seen so far. “You know this one then?”

“Not very well. I can play it rather decently on the piano, but I only remember half the lyrics.”

“That’s alright. I can sing most of it…just…my voice is horrible.”

She giggles. This was what was worrying him? “I can’t sing either.”

It doesn’t take very long to convince him. As he settles the guitar over his lap and adjusts his position, he flashes a rare grin on her direction. “It’s settled, then. We can be terrible together. On my three?”

It takes a few false starts and some botched-up communication, but they manage to settle into a rhythm. This thing. Called love. I just. Can’t handle it. The song is catchy enough that she starts to bob her head while she plays, something she never does. I ain’t ready. Crazy little thing called love.

Soon the music becomes frenzied and energetic and so full of life they stop caring how out-of-tune they sound. Her fingers ache from playing at such a pace, and some of Liam’s elegantly-styled hair falls over his forehead, but stopping isn’t an option either of them want to take right now. The image of Esther swims before her eyes as he sings, and she doesn’t care. What magic floats over this badly orchestrated noise? That even the fact that they’re singing about the same woman doesn’t seem to matter?

She brushes the offending thought aside, and joins in for the next part of the chorus, the only part she knows.

There goes my baby

She knows how to rock n roll

She drives me crazy…

She gives me hot-and-cold fever

She leaves me in a cool cool sweat…

There is a faraway look in Liam’s eyes as he just about croaks those lines, as if Esther was the first thing on his mind too. If she feels a pang of envy that his feelings might be returned tonight, she doesn’t let it ruin this song. She won’t.

I’ve gotta be cool, relax,

get hip, get on my tracks

Take a backseat, hitchhike,

And take a long ride on my motorbike

Until I’m ready -

“Ready Liam!” she yells, the spirit of the song completely taking over.

“- crazy little thing called love!” they both finish the song off with a flourish. She is flushed from the energy and the sheer exhilaration of playing this number and she can no longer tell if Liam is laughing or singing anymore…and perhaps that’s the beauty of this moment.

That for the first time in their lives, they didn’t have to be perfect people.

“Thank you,” he says, still laughing. “This is the most fun I’ve had all night so far.” Years seem to have fallen away from this face. She wonders if this was what tiny six-year-old Liam - the one who probably laughed and ran and played, the one who still got to hear his mother’s lullabies - looked like. Unguarded. Uncaring of what everyone expected of him. Happy.

The only other time he has ever looked like that…has been with Esther.

You make me feel alive.

It seems like a lifetime ago that Hana had said this to Esther, but she can see in Liam’s eyes that he feels it too. He does not know it yet, he never will, but she knows exactly what Esther has awoken in him, because the same desires had once laid dormant in her too.

Funny how these things work, she thinks. The same Esther that once stood between them like a wall, has now forged a bond that even distance might not break.

She wipes tears of laughter from her eyes. “I needed this too, more than I thought I did,” she confesses, “I should thank you.”

She has seen this man jump out windows and injure himself on rose bushes just to follow them to a bakery. She has seen him accompany his reluctant best friend to a country bar and do a backflip at a moment's asking. She has seen him turn his own schedule around so they could explore a part of his beloved country's history. Tonight, just because she told him she was leaving, he volunteered to play and sing to an audience for what definitely seemed like the first time. She suspects that Esther is more than half the reason he'd done all those things in the first place, but the truth is that somewhere along the line, all of them started to matter. The knowledge makes her want to hold this man's hand and call him friend.

There will be time for her to admit to heartbreak. To confess to the walls in her room how unfair this situation is, to tell Princess Snickerdoodle and Mr Tea Party that she can no longer be satisfied with the company of inanimate objects again. Maybe one day she will hate this - not the man Esther loves, just the situation they’re all trapped in. None of those days are days she will look forward to.

But tonight, in this moment, sharing laughter and music with the one man who has her beloved’s heart, knowing that he will love Esther and cherish her the way she deserves to be cherished, the way Hana knows she would have done…it feels like it will be enough for her.

Tonight, Hana is happy.

–

(To Be Continued)

[pumpkin-toast]

Some OC Questions

This is gonna be long so I finally figured out how to properly use tumblr formatting to add a read more section

1. Your first OC ever?

My best guess is a little fellow called Scribbles

2. Do you have a personal favorite among your OCs?

Three actually - Gretchen, Flooken, and Quasar. All small and precious, all very overpowered.

3. Have you ever adopted a character?

Yes actually, several times. A Cuphead OC named Jess and a few fantrolls.

4. A character you rarely talk about?

I rarely talk about half of my characters because I have so many but I feel like talking about Blinkey. He’s an aquaphobic Enderman who wears a little grassblock themed raincoat in case it rains

5. If you could only make one of your OCs popular, who would it be?

I think it would have to be Pindle. I feel like she could make it big.

6. Two of your OCs that look alike despite not being related?

Icicle and Noelle, although I heavily based Noelle’s appearance off Icicle. And then there’s Spindler, Spindle, and Pindle, who all have basically the exact same name.

7. Are your OCs part of any story of stories?

I have a looot of stories. Too many, actually, which is why most of them are on the backburner and I’m trying to focus on just one of them for now. Here, take some concept art for it:

8. Do you RP as any of your OCs?

Yes, I have RP blogs which interact with a small circle of other RP blogs. Specifically I RP as Flooken, Kamyx, and Remund.

9. Would you ever be willing to give any of your OCs to someone else?

Only if I didn’t have a personal connection to them, which I do for a crap ton of my characters. I’ve only given away one character and that was because I didn’t have that connection. Somebody like, say, Flooken? I would never consider giving him up.

10. Introduce an OC with a complicated design?

I don’t really have any tbh. The whole point of my style is to be simplistic.

11. Is there any OC of yours you could describe as a “sunshine”?

Yes, Purity! She’s innocent, a bit naive, and a total extrovert.

12. Name an OC that isn’t yours but who you like a lot

A female serial killer character made by my friend.

13. Do you have any troublemaker OCs?

The Suits. All five of them. Oh, and also Note, and Hanret.

14. Introduce an OC with a tragic backstory

There’s too many to choose from

15. Do you like to talking about your OCs with other people?

Yes

16. Which one of your OCs would be best at biology?

Sophie, because she kind of is a biologist.

17. Any OC OTPs?

Graalu x Qiospe, Hana x Seven, Ragdoll x Dollface, Drobyme x Remund, Kayla x Camilla

18. Any OC crackships?

Spindler x Duplin, Entity x Spindle

19. Introduce an OC that means a lot to you

So hey, this is Gretchen. I really like her.

20. Do any of your OCs sing?

Lots of them sing. The first one that comes to mind is Kamyx, she usually only sings when she’s alone and my voice of choice for her would be Bryana Salaz.

21. Your most artistic OC

The only one that I can think of right now is Drobyme.

22. Is there any OC of yours people tend to mischaracterize?

I can’t really think of any, so I guess no

23. Introduce OC that has changed from your first idea concerning what the character would look like?

Almost all of my fantrolls. Because I recently redesigned them into humans for a non-homestuck related story

24. If you could meet one OC of yours, who would it be and why?

Flooken, so I could hug him and tell him everything’s going to be alright and buy him 2001 chicken nuggets

25. The OC that resembles you the most

Coffee or Cupcake, because Coffee was based off all the craps I don’t give and Cupcake is my optimism.

26. Have you ever had to change your OC’s design or something else about them against your will?

Yes, this is a funny story actually. So I had been adopting several fantrolls off a person on Amino because I needed fantrolls for a fansession and I was going creatively bankrupt at the time. But it turns out there had been a mixup and one of the trolls I adopted was actually adopted by someone else first, so I had to give her up. And then I just adopted another troll and gave her the same name.

27. Any OCs that were inspired by a certain song?

I’ve had backstories that I’ve fleshed out a bit more using songs, but I don’t think I have any characters that were inspired by a specific song.

28. Your most dangerous OC?

It’s a tie between Kamyx and Reaper

29. Which one of your OCs would investigate an abandoned house at night without telling anyone they’re going?

There’s no doubt in my mind it would 100% be Gabby.

30. Which one of your OCs would most likely have a secret stuffed animal collection?

Quinn, Pindle, Ivisd, or Cressida.

31. Pick one OC of yours and explain their Tumblr blog layout.

Okay, let’s go with Baxter.

He’s got the default blog layout, burgundy background with black text. His icon is a purple eye and his header image is just a black fill. He posts about the weird crap he and his friends get up to, reblogs a lot of witchcraft, lots of divination and tarot cards. And also demons, he’s into demons. And then he has a more innocent side blog where he posts about baking.

32. Which one of your OCs would be the most suitable horror game protagonist and why?

Seven, because he’s a big scaredy cat but would probably be able to go through a horror game scenario if he had the proper motivation.

33. Your shyest OC.

Ivisd

34. Do you have any twin characters?

Totally. Kefi and Lypi, Noiche and Blanr, Blue and Pink, Quinn and Harriet. I even have a set of quintuplets.

35. Any sibling characters?

Yes, but if I listed them all we’d be here all week and this post is already too long.

36. Do you have OC pairs where the other part belongs to someone else?

Yes

37. Introduce an OC who is not quite human

Most of my OCs aren’t human actually but uh I’ll go with Seven

He’s the one on the left. No one really knows what he is but he looks human, although his eyes are a bit weird (he’s also blind). He’s pathokinetic, always wears a yellow raincoat, and his LI is a tsundere. He’s not exactly shy but he’s a scaredy cat and always very very fretful

38. Which one of your OCs would be the best dancer?

I’ve thought long and hard about this. And it has to be Lyric.

39. Introduce any character you want.

*ahem* I’m gonna do two

Aight so this is Entity (left) and Censor (right) and they’re my protagonist duo in my story. Censor is overly pessimistic and Entity is overly optimistic and they’re pretty much stuck with each other. They’re also both fugitives.

40. Any fond memories linked to your characters?

I remember playing Splatoon as some of my OCs and having lots of fun being terrible with their weapons.

41. Has anyone ever drawn fanart of yours OCs?

Yes

Qerri, Murck, Flooken, Flooken again, and Lyric

42. Which one of your OCs would be the most interested in Greek gods?

Lorelei, because she’s a god herself.

43. Do you have any certain types when you create OCs?

I tend to lean more towards making badass girls and fretful boys. I don’t know why it just happens more often than not. But I’ve been trying to push past it as of late.

44. Something you like about your OCs in general.

I just love them all. I view them all as my children and I love them.

45. A character you no longer use?

There are a few from stories I’ve scrapped and abandoned, but I still keep them around in case I need another cast member for another story. They’re just like understudies!

46. Has anyone ever told you that you treat your OCs badly?

Yes and I do. I may love them but it’s tough love.

47. Has anyone ever (friendly) claimed any of your OCs as their child?

Yes

48. OC who is a perfect cinnamon roll, too good for this world, too pure

My baby boy Flooken, the best boy of them all

49. Which one of your OCs would most likely enjoy memes?

Entity, that little shit

50. Freebie!

Oh a freebie?

So I’ve got this google doc. I talk about it sometimes but I’ve never actually showed it to anyone outside of a very small group of individuals, but it does exist. I call it Ramager’s OC-Palooza of Epic Proportions and Broken Dreams. It lists every single one of my countless characters, all organized into sections based on what story or universe each character belongs to. In fact it was lagging so much that I had to make a second doc (Titled ‘(P2) Ramager’s OC-Palooza of Epic Proportion and Broken Dreams’). Collectively the two docs have a total of 207 pages. These docs are where I store every bit of information about my characters, including pictures, themes, voice claims, and more. I have been working on it since October of 2019. I’m still adding to it everyday. It terrifies me greatly.