#some sea monster shows up nearby and Ant just blows an air horn at it

[headfullof-ideas]

All right, i decided on a whim to share a rough reference i use in my head of what teenage Ant looks like. Depending on what story or AU I’m writing a teenage Ant for, his appearance changes, but for this one we’ll say it’s my ‘canon’ version of him. Rather, the teenage Ant I have in my head following my internal interpretation of the canon timeline as it takes forever for new seasons to come out, but that I make sure to update as we get new seasons. Also involving a lot of my headcanons for him, most of which explain certain things about either his appearance or mental health, cause our boy is TRAUMATIZED.

Ant is about sixteen to seventeen here, the typical age for teenage main heroes. Except he has already been through being the main hero and is a little sick of it. Or maybe a lot sick of it. A few years prior to where he is in the drawing, the prophecy ends. After defeating the Monumentials and saving the earth from what would have been a devastating rampage, Ant tried to pretend that everything was okay and normal for a while. You know, blocking all of his trauma and acting like nothing’s wrong as is the norm from teenage protagonists. After a while though, Ant realizes that his lifestyle was never really normal to begin with. Ant has a bit of a metal breakdown, not on par with the one Alpheus had or anything, but he has a meltdown when trying to go back to his normal life fails and he realizes he wants a break from everything. From all the families missions and all the adrenaline they experience on a weekly basis and all the danger he hasn’t realized he’s experienced for a majority of his childhood. Fontaine feels guilty for being so proud of her little brother wanting to do normal, not-submarine things, and so Ant starts his own little journey of doing things beyond the titanium hull of the Aronnax.

Now that I’ve gotten the mini bio, or whatever that was, done, time for the headcanons!

- Ant joined his sister in begging their parents to let them try land school, and ultimately Kaiko and Will caved, due to everything the family had just been through. Fontaine went straight to high school while Ant did a year of middle school due to age before moving to high school, with both kids using Kaiko’s maiden name at Ants request. This was because while Ant didn’t hate being a Nekton and was proud of his name, he didn’t want to attract any sort of attention at all. Fontaine wasn’t immediately thrilled by it, but didn’t complain either.

- Ant ended up growing his hair out a bit, and started wearing a beanie as well. He’d alternate how he wore his hair, sometimes keeping it back but usually having it in a sort of half-up half-down style. Mostly because he didn’t want to try to hard with his appearance, and wanted to try something a little different to what he used to wear all the time. (I usually draw adult Ant with longer hair too)

- Ant got his ears pierced when he was fifteen, deciding on a whim that he wanted to. Fontaine was the one who ultimately took him, leaping at the opportunity. He still wears his communicator all the time, but Fontaine convinced him to try a few other bracelets as well.

- After Ants meltdown, he decided to try and separate himself from most of his childhood as much as possible. Not necessarily in a negative way, but more in a manner of trying to find stuff outside of submarine life. Ant felt he didn’t have too many hobbies outside of anything that came in handy with working and living on a submarine, and so started trying out all sorts of activities to find other things he liked to do. This was another thing Fontaine was eager to jump on board with. He still goes out in the Shadow Knight, and he still loves swimming and working on the Aronnax with Kaiko, but he doesn’t spend nearly as much time doing these things as he did when he was younger.

- Another aspect about Ant trying to branch away from submarine life is his clothing. He didn’t wear casual clothes too much as a kid, almost always wearing a wetsuit. As an older teenager, Ant doesn’t wear his wetsuit too much anymore. He has one, and he does use it, but not nearly as often as a kid. He tries to focus on finding a style he likes, which Fontaine is also ecstatic about. Doesn’t always agree with what he picks out, but she’s super excited nonetheless

-As Ant gets older, he starts to develop some more of Kaiko’s features. Ant always felt, to me, like someone where you knew he was Kaiko and Wills kid, but you never saw any similarities until you put him right in between his parents. As Ant gets older though, he starts to lose baby fat and looks a little more discernibly like his parents, especially Kaiko whom he subtly looks more like in regard to facial structure. (Fontaine is, like, a perfect blend of her parents in my opinion. Ant somehow looks exactly like and nothing like either of his parents in the show)

- Ant starts to develop a bit of muscle as a teenager. He’s not Will, and never does get that muscular, but he’s a teenage boy and that sort of thing just tends to happen to teenage boys. He’s still fairly active as well, which helps. His hair also gets a bit thicker because of puberty, and a tiny bit wavy. Not enough to be actually noticeably though, at least until it gets humid out.

- Ant didn’t grow too much between the ages of twelve and fourteen, but then started shooting straight up at fifteen. Will jokes that it’s all the growth spurts he missed in his early teenage years hitting him all at once. This however leads to Ants usual perfect balance due to life on sea being royally screwed up as his center of balance continues to change makes him abnormally clumsy over the next few years until he stops growing so fast at eighteen/nineteen. Being so clumsy leads to a few accidents, like the one that gave him a scar in his eyebrow. Ant usually doesn’t tell people how he got the scar, cause it’s embarrassing to him after spending so long on the ocean. During a summer between school years, the Nektons were on the Aronnax, and Kaiko just gently tipped the Aronnax into a dive. Nothing Ant shouldn’t have been unable to adjust to with ease. Instead, he slid on the floor, lost his balance, and went tumbling down the hall and crashing into a random room with an unfortunate door open where he wound up twisting his ankle, breaking his nose, and cutting his eyebrow deep enough to scar.

- In line with the prior note, Ant has some scars from all the adventures his family has been on. Fontaine does as well, and these only drive home how desperately they want to experience some sort of normalcy, despite still loving their life on the Aronnax.

- Ants clothing style tends to reflect his mental state; how well he’s doing, if anything’s bothering him, that sort of thing.

I’m sure i have plenty other headcanons, but my brain’s struggling to focus on anything new, so here ya go.