#oc: apolline

[fruitcoops]

Way Down on the River

O’Knutzy Week Day 2 ( @oknutzyweek2023 ) : Bucket Hat (B1) + Advice (D1) with Leo’s grandmother <3 O’Knutzy belong to @lumosinlove, but I made up Apolline!

Sweet tea on a summer evening, and Leo is happy. Finn can see it from a room away. He hums along to the radio filtering in from the backyard, bass-boosted by the joy of his family. Logan is almost certainly charming Wyatt at the barbecue.

But Leo is happy without any of that. Condensation buds along his fingertips; he balances two fresh glasses of tea in one hand and reaches for the screen door with a childlike sort of excitement. The ice cubes ring almost as soft as his greeting through the fine mesh.

Finn lowers his voice and ducks his head. “So should I call her ‘MeeMaw’, or…?”

“We aren’t really about the ‘MeeMaw’ life here,” Eloise laughs beside him.

Outside, the porch swing creaks gently as Leo sits with a smile and a sigh Finn can hear through the door. Mismatched glasses clink on mosaic tiles.

Dusk looks good on him. Contentment looks even better. He loves it when Leo is happy.

“I really don’t think I can just call her Apolline,” Finn murmurs. The silhouette to Leo’s left waves a hand through the air; more laughter siphons after it. “I mean—I know she asked me to, but it feels wrong.”

Eloise’s smile crinkles her nose. “You are too sweet sometimes, Finn O’Hara. The kids call her Granmѐ. Everyone else goes with Mama Lee.”

Finn nods slowly. He’s been lucky enough to call Leo his for over a year now, but he can’t fathom a world in which he calls his boyfriend’s beloved grandmother by her first name. His mother would be horrified. He would be horrified. His ancestors would rise up and smack him for the sheer disrespect.

“Mama Lee.” It’s not so bad. Eloise looks pleased, at least. Finn tilts his head from side to side, weighing the sound. The porch lights cast Leo and his grandmother in a neverending sunset on their shared seat.

Outside, Leo says something that sends them both into peals of giggling. Eloise huffs under her breath and sets a dry plate aside. Her eyes are bright and warm when she glances at him. “I hope you know you’re not getting him back.”

“Not a problem,” Finn laughs.

“It’s a wonder we ever got him home from sleepovers. Though—” She pauses and cranes her neck to look out the door. “—between the two of us, I think my mother is about ready to adopt you boys at the first opportunity.”

And you must be Finn. Light brown skin and dark eyes and smile lines that told of a life well-lived and well-loved. A peacock-blue shawl of cloudlike softness, a carpet bag bulging at the clasp with gifts and food. Call me Apolline, honey. A voice like summer thunder on a lazy river. Magnolia and citrus perfume. I hear you like cards?

“You think so?”

Eloise shakes her head, grinning. “You were hers the second you knew how to play gin rummy.”

Finn sends a silent prayer of thanks up to his own grandmother for training him with ‘Wheel of Fortune’ and cookies. “I was not prepared.”

“Nobody ever is.” Eloise nudges him with her elbow and casts a significant look out the door. “She counts cards, you know. Like she’s in Vegas. Swear to God I’ve seen her with aces up her sleeves.”

--

A sharp burst of laughter fills the house before someone—his mother, he thinks—hurriedly shushes it. “That’s your boy, mm?” Granmѐ gives an approving nod. “I like his voice.”

Leo buries his smile in the rim of his glass. “Me, too.”

“You said he reads out loud?”

“Sometimes.”

She nods again, settles deeper into the cushions, and tucks her shawl close with a long exhale.

“He should work at the library. Kids want a voice like that.”

“He wanted to be a teacher if hockey didn’t work.”

Granmѐ’s pleased hum echoes in his memory, a threadline mapping a hundred honeyed afternoons. The breeze cools them both; he slides his feet beneath the folded lap blanket, but keeps his tea close. She made it. It’s rich and sweet the way he has never managed to replicate. It sticks to his teeth, his throat, his heart, and shoos the drenched heat of summer off like a naughty cat from the yard. If he closes his eyes, he can taste the sun inside it.

“He likes you.”

She says it with the surety of someone who simply knows these things. Leo catches a drip of tea that threatens to slide off his glass. “He does.”

“Cher, he likes you something fierce.” She spares him a sly glance before looking back to the street, where the sun has long since set over the roof of their neighbors’ house. One slippered foot extends to give them a push off the ottoman—the hinges whine, but rock them nonetheless. He has fallen asleep out here with her so, so many times. Granmѐ clucks her tongue. “Your other one, too. Your français.”

“Logan,” Leo supplies.

She waves him off with a tch that makes him grin. “I know.”

“Ouais, Granmѐ.”

Her clever eyes dart over him, up and down. Her mouth is set firm but he can feel her amusement like a cradling wind. “I know,” she repeats. Leo could listen to the syrupy slide of her French forever. “The love life of my grandbaby is up here somewhere.”

Up here somewhere. As if she isn’t the sharpest person in the room at any given moment. “Ouais, Granmѐ.”

She hums a playful warning, but smiles when he sets his glass aside and scoots closer to her. “There is a difference,” she notes without preface.

“Hmm?”

“The liking.” She casts her shawl aside with a flick of the wrist; her touch is gentle as she takes the bucket hat from his head and brushes his hair out of his eyes. He has his father’s height, but he knows he’s his mother’s son in her eyes. “And the loving.”

She watches him. Just…watches. Her hand lingers by his face, warm fingers drifting butterfly-soft over his skin. Summer has painted her with the deep brown freckles that stipple his memory—the marks he would trace with grasping hands in childhood Augusts, and the ones she would map on his own nose and cheeks with a fingertip to show they were just the same. They spent ages in the grass like that, across from each other on a gingham blanket as old as his mother, a namesake and her mirror.

“They love me,” he says softly. It’s part promise, part reassurance. He’s not sure who needs it more right now.

The wrinkles by her eyes deepen with contentment. “They do.”

“I love them.”

“You love so much, boo.”

“But them—I really do.” She needs to know this. He needs her to know this. She had known everything, like always, even before he told her. And he told her before anyone else.

Granmѐ, I don’t think I like girls like I’m supposed to.

Is that what you’re so wound up in? She hadn’t even looked up from her puzzle. Mmhmm. Come find my corner piece.

Crickets and frogs fill the silence, growing bold in the hastening night. The windchime twinkles at the corner of the porch. Leo has never met anyone who sounds the way his grandmother does. She has the whole depth of the river in her voice. Spanish moss pours off her words. He can see the breadth of the bayou in her searching eyes. “Give your heart to the people that deserve it, Leo.”

He is five years old and falling asleep against her in the rocking chair, and she is humming to jazz records with a hand on his back, and he is safer there than anywhere in the world.

His voice shakes when it slips out. “Do they deserve it?”

“How could I tell you a thing like that, hmm?”

But she’s smiling. And Finn laughs again inside and the smile stays, wide like his own. Leo sags with the relief. She doesn’t hesitate to pull him into a hug that seals up the hairline cracks of homesickness with golden honey. He twists a tassel of her shawl between his fingertips and allows himself to pretend the world is as simple as it was when they’d lay out under the spilled-milk stars and she’d bundle him in peacock blue to chase away the chill.

His next breath comes out wet. “They deserve it.”

“I think they’re going to work very hard to make sure they keep deserving it.”

“I love you.”

Her hand is so strong when she passes it down the back of his head. He feels her answer in the pressure and the slowness, as if she doesn’t want to pull away. But she does, and still, their arms touch when they take their tea back. Leo rests the side of his head on her shoulder and wonders if he should feel silly about it.

“Mama’s worried about you living by yourself out there,” he says once one song bleeds into the next in the backyard. It’s not even midnight. They’ll have time for the party later.

His grandmother scoffs. “Do I look like I need help?”

“Non.”

“Then you tell her I’m just fine.”

“I will.”

“And tell your daddy, too. Man thinks the bayou is dangerous, like he didn’t live there for years.”

“Ouais, Granmѐ.” The vowels drag out like a good stretch on sore muscles.

She gives a harumph that makes them both snort—Leo barely glances up when there’s a knock on the doorframe. “Bonjour. Do you need anything?”

He smothers a laugh at the crispness of Logan’s accent against their own. “Non, I think we’re okay—”

“Ah-ah,” his grandmother interrupts. Her fingernails tap lightly on the side of her glass. “More tea, if you’re asking.”

“Bien sûr, madame.”

Leo catches Logan’s eye as he bends and gives him a look of disbelief, mouthing madame? with a healthy amount of incredulity. The consequences come swiftly; the loving hand running through his hair bestows a firm swat upon the side of his head.

“Apolline,” Granmѐ corrects in a voice at odds to the smarting skin above Leo’s ear. He rubs at it and pointedly ignores Logan’s bitten-back grin.

“I’ll be back in a moment, madame.”

Logan’s gone with a smile and a wink that makes her bark a laugh. “He’s a good boy.”

“See?” Leo tilts his head towards the inside of the house. “Deserves me.”

“I don’t think your rouge will call me by my name, either.”

Leo shakes his head and sits up with a stretch that makes his wrists pop. “Told you they were raised right.”

“We raised you too well to even look twice at the rude ones,” she sniffs. Her haughtiness lasts only until their eyes meet, and then the joy breaks free. The porch swing sways in the night breeze; they laugh at the stars with tea-sweetness on their lips and thick cornbread warming their bellies. Yes, Leo thinks, they raised him too well to accept anything less than this.

[patwee]

silly

credits below

Alexander belongs to @ozulix

Apolline & Julieta belongs to @/salchikeso (twitter)

Helirp belongs to @/Deubylko (twitter)

Box belongs to @patwee (me, go follow my friends)

[apocalita]

apolline sketches <3 

[omgkalyppso]

[Content ID: Art of four original characters for Fire Emblem Three Houses. On the left there is a woman riding a blond horse with her arms around a child in her lap. On the right there is a man with an older child held on his shoulders. They stand on a snow packed road beside a snowbank against a light blue sky with a pale sun in the upper right corner. /End ID]

Some rambling and more close-ups below the cut!

There's a lot going on here! The man on the right is Almanzor, a Blaiddyd Bastard oc (unrecognized son of Rufus Blaiddyd). It must be an early or mid spring day for him and this little family to be so inconsistent with how bundled up they are.

While Al grew up in Fhirdiad, in most post-canon settings he ends up finding his way to Gautier where he meets Peregrine and her daughters, Apolline and Huguette. This would be my justification for why he's so much more swaddled than their lighter clothing.

Peregrine was once a soldier in service to House Gautier, who left with Miklan during the theft of the Lance of Ruin. Widowed during the war, Peregrine grows into a very protective woman with regards to her children and her people. These details inspired the color palette, with Sylvain being so distinctively red and teal (and Faerghal blue).

Almanzor was a paladin during the war, and to his great shame, one of the Fhirdiad soldiers who was ousted during Cornelia's rise to power. Still he fought for the Kingdom, and would have taken pride in reconnecting with Dimitri's forces. These details informed the color of his horse, who I'm tentatively calling Buttercream, and the repurposed blue cords holding the furs around Al's feet, and the yellow fabric of Buttercream's headcollar.

This scene is: They're headed into town, primarily for business related to Peregrine's mercenary company, so Peregrine is trying to look presentable in the bluest thing she owns. Apolline has been allowed to sleep into the late morning, after being awoken early for the journey. Huguette, on Al's shoulders, is asking for something frivolous only available in town, and Al, who knows the answer is no, is telling her to, "Ask your mother." Huguette turns doe eyes on her mother, who is unimpressed (affectionate) with both of them.

[juchily]

thinking about my oc who has heart issues and is predisposed to heart issues having a heart attack and Misty getting to give mouth to mouth to a hot beaf of a woman

[wheigeiss]

Apolline Kaucelle is my 'story revisit' alt (why use new game+ when I can rotate another blorbo). She is the cousin of Soft Ghost's spouse, and a hot headed reformed problem child who's great with technology. She likes to spend her time disassembling magitek and allagan relics to learn how they work!

[thoughtsfoaslytherclaw]

aesthetic: gaea bradbury

— 'Γάμησέ σε, αγάπη μου' — No tengo idea de que significa eso.   — Significa "vete a la mierda, cariño".

[loremanart]

The dragon Apolline, one day fell out of the sky on the outskirts of the Crescent Isles, with no memory of her life before. Whoever Apolline was before the incident, the dragon is now a kind-natured waitress, if not a little naive and airheaded, always willing to help others out.

Links: LinkTree, Twitter, Moon Rabbit,

[citroncynique]

also this is rly dumb but Charlotte has the exact same trope of plucky journalist girl pointing her kamera at everything and anything and spouting saucy headlines at any given opportunity as an OC/sona I've had for about two years, Apolline! I have thus decided that they would be journalistic rivals (who kiss)

Hot off the presses!!

Charlotte is so so so cute I am very normal about her

[loremanart-old]

The dragon Apolline, one day fell out of the sky on the outskirts of Jade city, with no memory of her life before. Whoever Apolline was before, the dragon is now a good-natured waitress, if not a little naive, always willing to help anyone out.

[theeccentricraven]

OC Questionnaire Tag

Thank you for the tag @willtheweaver 😎

My Questions are:

1. What would it take for you to admit you were wrong?

2. Are you forgetful? If so, how do you remind yourself to do things?

3. Do you consider yourself a neat freak?

I sent the questionnaire to the main couples of my two YA Dystopia books I'm working on, namely Justin and Joselyn from The Blood Cleaners and Nari and Abe from Sanctuary Calling.

1. What would it take for you to admit you were wrong?

Justin: When I am puzzled to not get the results I expected.

Joselyn: When I see someone I love suffer.

Abe: When I’m dying.

Nari: When others pay the price for what I did.

2. Are you forgetful? If so, how do you remind yourself to do things?

Justin: I’m not forgetful because I could get my hide tanned if I wasn’t. Not to mention I don’t want some jerks to forget what they did to me. 

Joselyn: I am the one reminding my sisters and co-workers of what to do.

Abe: I can be. My sisters often send me reminders. I also follow our routine on the farm to the tee. 

Nari: I’m not forgetful. I credit my calendar and chart I carry in my smart watch wherever I go. I have every hour of my day planned out.

3. Do you consider yourself a neat freak?

Justin: My job involves cleaning things sixteen hours a day. No way I’m going to clean things up when I’m not working. Well, unless Mamá asks me.

Joselyn: Not a neat freak, but I make sure my sisters clean their rooms, mine is tidy, and the house is clean. It helps keep my parents from exploding (they already do, but this way they have one less excuse to)

Abe: I’m messy, but I feel bad if my Mutter and sisters clean up after me. 

Nari: Yes, everything has to be spotless! After I get my homework done, I don’t get anything else done until I’ve cleaned up everything to a tee!

Tagging (not required): @cowboybrunch @duckingwriting @poethill @kaylinalexanderbooks @buffythevampirelover @apolline-lucy @melpomene-grey

Your questions:

Have you ever gone against your morals? What got you to or would get you to make that decision?

Did you have any speech disorders as a child?

Do you carry the popular opinion or unpopular opinion in your society? Or would you say you are on the fence or in the middle?

[mysticstarlightduck]

Music Tag (Part 2)

Thank you so much for the tag, @memento-morri-writes!!! I'll go with some more OCs from my WIP "Of Starlight and Beasts" for this one!

Kyran Mavven

(About the character - Kyran is one of the most talented alchemists to currently attend the realm's most prestigious magic sciences academy. He has built a legacy and reputation for himself, out of nothing but his own wit. However, behind his perfect persona lies a past - and terrible mistakes he made - which he wants to keep hidden at all costs, both out of fear of losing all that he's built and to avoid facing consequences for all he's left behind.)

Little White Lies - Voltaire

The Calling - The Amazing Devil

Words Fail - Dear Evan Hansen

Up, Down - Boy Epic

Nimwen Aerran

(About the character - Nimwen has experienced firsthand the effects of the corruption of the continent's nobility and has spent most of her life running from her past as a result. Now grown up, she wanted nothing more than to build a life for herself away from the scheming and lies that left her scarred for life, but fate seemed to have other ideas.)

The Moon Will Sing - The Crane Wives

Running For Your Life - Unsecret

The Wish of Every Princess - Karliene

Welcome Home - Radical Face

Rin

(About the character: Rin is a smooth-talking avian fey whose morals can shift in the flip of a coin. Considered a weak link and banished from his own tribe, Rin has learned to perfect the ways of always coming out on top through the art of deceit, despite his inner wishes for a deeper connection with others. With his external ambitions and his true feelings at odds with one another, Rin often proves to be one of the most unpredictable characters in the whole cast.)

Hangin' - Bastille

Ego - Sarah Kennedy

Twisted - MISSIO

Little Lion Man - Mumford and Sons

Blind Spot - Saint Chaos

Tagging: @autumnalwalker, @aalinaaaaaa, @apolline-lucy, @anyablackwood, @writernopal, @gummybugg, @steh-lar-uh-nuhs, @elshells, @clairelsonao3, @lassiesandiego, @doublegoblin, @littleladymab, @little-peril-stories, @oh-no-another-idea, @blind-the-winds, @jay-avian, @kaylinalexanderbooks, @rickie-the-storyteller, @mk-writes-stuff and OPEN TAG

[somethingclevermahogony]

How Does Pinterest See your OC?

Thank you for the tag @illarian-rambling!

Rules: search the name of your oc followed by the word 1. fashion 2. pantone 3. food 4. mood , and use the first pin

Gonna keep this simple and just do my two MCs!

Narul

The first picture isn't really close to anything Narul would wear, its actually closer to something that Wadikir might wear, though even then its pretty far off. The guy sort of looks like Narul if you shrunk him vertically and horizonally.

I guess his wrap/kilt is pretty close to that color, at least when it has been washed.

Shakshouka has basically nothing to do with Narul. There are no chicken eggs are tomatoes in Kishetal at the time of Narul.

Glowing hand is nice, not all that reminiscent of Narul though.

Ninma

Ninma is not indian and her clothing doesn't really look like that, however I do think she would really enjoy the style of clothing.

This applies to Ninma even less than it applied to Narul.

This is actually somewhat close to something Ninma might eat in the a palace. There would be no chilies and the portion of rice would be much smaller, plus it would likely be duck or some other kind of gamebird as a opposed to chicken.

The most accurate pin , this is Ninma (not appearance wise, but in terms of attitude.) This is even how I think she would dress if you dropped her in the modern world.

Tagging @kaylinalexanderbooks , @mk-writes-stuff, @elizaellwrites, and @apolline-lucy

[iamtabbychan]

My new OCs Maroo & Apolline! My new TL manga is on the way!

[juchily]

the outsider wrestler girl with a heart disability overdue for her fourth heart surgery, hunting and providing for a group of people she hates and barely knows despite it running her heart into the ground until she'll inevitably die for the sake of not showing weakness

[illarian-rambling]

Thanks for the tag @mk-writes-stuff!

OC in 3

I'm gonna do Oyanna Devaris (Twenari’s stepmom)! Oyanna runs the Devaris sorcery business despite not being a sorcerer herself and runs it damn well. She's very high masking autistic also and has trouble showing her emotions through facial expressions, a trait she's turned into a business edge, being nearly unreadable to competitors. Her special interest is, predictably, finance and economics. She has an extensive collection of her favorite business cards she keeps displayed in her office and can quote you the Unitian version of the daily S&P 500 numbers off the top of her head.

I think she's also the only one of my Honor's Outcasts crew to ever shoot someone with a gun. The more you know!

I'll tag @cheshawrites @elsie-writes @apolline-lucy @patrickrennie and YOU :)