#he was SO MUCH worse in the 5th grade version one of these days i'll compile the hits

[quatregats]

POWERFUL OC ASK BEAM!! 🦪, 🛡️, 🌫️ mats, 🪰 ander, ♟️ hamide?

Thank you!!!

MATS

🦪 how would this character describe their gender, if asked?

You ask Mats this question entirely innocently, and before you can finish, he has flipped you on your back with his thumb on your jugular vein. The only way to escape this is immediately clarifying that you’ve just been asking everyone in the room by matter of protocol, and even then he might not let you get up for a bit.

Mats performs toxic masculinity so hard you could register it with a geiger counter so calling him anything less masculine than "boy" would probably get you killed. In his defense, though, he is 16 and has not been allowed to be a boy for most of those 16 years and is constantly paranoid about being misgendered, so I think he’s allowed to inflict a bit of violence if he wants to. When he gets older, he settles into himself more and lets down the armor (and the toxic masculine act) somewhat, and becomes more “grumpy man who lives in the house down the street in a movie where the child protagonist needs to enlist his help to save the neighborhood.” He would not describe himself that way, though.

🛡️how does this character protect themself and others?

Mats is always the guy to leap to violence as the answer, and will go at someone for the smallest thing. He’s very good at fighting, having absorbed some combination of his older brother’s martial arts training, getting into street brawls constantly, and also gaining magical anger issues yippee! (OG Mats that I wrote in fifth grade had some unhinged quote about violence which alas I don’t have on me atm, but you have to understand that I’ve actually toned him down in this version even though it sure doesn’t feel like it.) He doesn’t show his love for people very well, but if he does love you, he’ll take people to task for what he perceives as even the slightest insult – even if he’s simultaneously behaving like you’re dirt to him. He is definitely a good person to have on your side if the other option is him being against you, and he’ll certainly (over)protect you, but idk if I can say anything else positive about how he goes about personal relationships for most of the story.

🌫️ how does this character feel about lying?

So, brief geography which might be subject to change, but Mats is from a small continent in the southern hemisphere of this world. He’s from the northern part of the continent (the southernmost part which could be considered “north” but for all intents and purposes he is Northern – this is the part slightly closer to the equator, just for those not used to thinking in this orientation), but when he runs away from home he goes south into the Southern parts of the continent. There’s a continuum of cultures, but North/South is a somewhat salient historical/cultural/political/etc divide. In Northern cultures lying is not super taboo, you shouldn’t make a habit of it but it’s okay to play fast-and-loose with the truth, while in the South, lying to people is one of the worst things you can do – omission of information is okay, but deceiving someone is possibly a worse transgression than murder, depending on where you are.

That explanation aside, Mats has very few compunctions about lying, he’s not a compulsive liar but he’ll do it if he needs to, which definitely gets him into hot water in the South. He has a lot of things to hide and he’s also a trickster/strategist sort of character later in the war, so he’s certainly not the Southern model of honesty, and that creates complications when he's trying to enlist the help of Southern groups.

ANDER

🪰 what is the worst thing this character has witnessed but not experienced?

Subject to change because I haven’t fully planned everything out, but as things stand, I think the worst thing he sees happen is Mats murdering his own (Mats’) family, which is possibly one of the worst things to happen in the story overall (Mats does not do this intentionally, but it is also enough of his fault for him to carry that guilt with him for the rest of his life). But also, Ander is literally starting a decolonial continental war with Mats of all people, so needless to say he is witness to far more violence than he deserves (he's my babygirl so the amount of violence he deserves to witness is None in my book).

HAMIDE

♟️describe how they would play chess, if they would.

I suspect that Hamide would be interested in it but would be far too autistic to actually pay attention or get invested, and would instead be much better at occupying herself for an entire afternoon making up her own alternate version of the game involving all kinds of complex storylines that are completely inaccessible to everyone else around her. This is, in fact, how she plays chess with an entire fricking continent, so y’know. (Fun fact, an older version of Hamide was very into a Southern Continent version of solitaire because I was writing this in Pandemic Gap Year and obsessively playing like ten games of solitaire every day with my lunch, so it worked its way in there, and was very similar actually to just taking a chess set and playing chess with yourself.)

[kyofsonder]

For the flower ask game:

Lilac, Lily, & Petunia, your choice of OC

Thank you for the ask, and the chance to talk about my OCs! I really like considering these little details for them.

For this ask, I'll choose Kade from my novel WIP "Apricots" since he hasn't been getting as much attention as Ian lately. He hasn't even officially appeared on-page in the latest draft, so he deserves some character development off-page at least.

Lilac: Kade does have a comfort item, a necklace that he got from his childhood friend -- who later became his girlfriend. He's been ostracized and harassed all his life for his selective mutism and stutter (autistic traits in his case, but also a consequence of talking to ghosts in a non-translatable language from a young age). When he's targeted, his safe places are either as close as he can get to his partners (originally just Jess, when she was still only his childhood friend) or the quietest corners he can find. When Jess had to take a medical leave from school in 5th grade and he lost her as a safe haven there, she had her parents take her to the mall and picked out matching necklaces. Simple chains with dog paw pendants, since they both loved dogs. She told him it was a special charm to link them together. A reminder that even when everyone seemed to hate him or see him as a joke, there was still someone who wanted to be by his side and listen to what he had to say in whatever way he could say it. He's worn that necklace every day since, only ever changing it to add a rose pendant once Ian joined his and Jess's relationship as their boyfriend -- referencing how Ian jokes that he'd give them both roses every day if he could. Kade's also developed a habit of fidgeting with the pendants and holding them close to himself whenever he's feeling nervous or lonely. He keeps the paw pendant after Jess dies, too, to keep the living version of her close to himself when the ghost version is forgetful or hard to understand.

Lily: Kade's love languages are quality time and physical touch. He hates touch from strangers and feels awkward in a gathering of acquaintances, but with his loved ones these are his favorite things. He loves nothing more than to sit with his lovers while they play a game or watch a show together, and all the better if he can curl up on one or both of their laps or nuzzle them affectionately. Making out and other forms of physical intimacy are also very important to him, though he prefers when he doesn't have to initiate those things since he fears he won't communicate well in that situation. He's a lot like a cat, in his enjoyment of just... being there with his loved ones.

Petunia: The last time Kade cried was when he was talking with Jess's ghost and she forgot that she was the one who gave him his precious necklace. She clearly felt an attachment to it, and praised it plenty, but the actual memory was gone. He always gets sad when ghosts forget those things, not knowing how long before the memory will come back and dill them with an unobtainable longing, but it hurt worse coming from her. It hurt so much worse, being about the thing that tied them together. She didn't even remember having worn the same one, with the same pendants. When she asked him why he was crying, it was the first time in all the years they'd known each other that he hadn't been able to explain himself. He just left the orchard where he'd been talking to her and walked back home. Processing her death all over again the whole way.

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Motivated by This Ask: 388 words

Total Written Due to Asks: 6,819 words