sparklesinthechat - Tumblr blog

sparklesinthechat · 6 days ago

Text

THERE IS SO MUCH DETAIL HERE FOR HER ILLLL ITTTY SO SO MUCH ( PLS WRITE A FAN FICT WITH ALL YOUR OC'S IT WOULD BE SO COOL)

TWST OC Showcase: Tomoe Sakurada

Housewarden of Ramshackle; the Dorm based on the Lonely Ghosts' Spirit of Adaptability

(Vice Housewarden: Irina Barret)

Voice Claim: FUKUSHU BAND

Human Right-handed Japan - Ramshackle Dorm 159cm / 5'2 - #000000 / 0, 0, 0 January 1st - Capricorn - 19 y.o. 1st year - Freshman - Class A, no.9 No Club Best Subject: History of Magic Hobbies: History Pet peeves: Irresponsible People Favorite food: Unadon Least favorite food: Raw fish Talent: Storytelling Floyd-given name: Emperor Penguin Rook-given name: Mademoiselle Trickster Cater-given name: Tom-Tom

Link to all my OC Showcases here!

Some quotes:

「しゃ…しゃべる猫...！？」

She flushes with embarrassment. "Pardon me, I tend to get carried away when talking about history…"

She puts her face in her hands and sighs heavily, bordering on despairingly. "They are my friends, but…how could they be this stupid?!" — "Grim not having the foresight and being too cocky to anticipate this I could see coming. But the other two…!" She puts her face in her hands again and muffles a faint scream. "Sometimes it feels like I'm the only one in our quartet who does not occasionally just turn my brain off!" She slowly removes her hands and turns her face up to the ceiling, taking several long, deep breaths. "Now…let's try to find a way to fix this. Luckily, I know how men like that 高利貸し operate."

One day at Tokyo international airport, a newly hired businessman named Takahiro Sakurada, returning from his first work overseas, made eye-contact with a very pretty stewardess he remembered from his flight, Hanae…and then proceeded to miss the step-off of his escalator, while trying to steady himself somehow ending up doing some type of a flip before ending up on his back, legs up in the air against a wall, blowing his tie out of his eyes. Upon seeing this, Hanae began laughing uncontrollably nearby. Because of their jobs, they ended up meeting each other like that at airports quite often, and Takahiro eventually asked Hanae out on a date, and the rest is history. Eventually they married and had Tomoe, three years later followed by her younger sister Sachie and three years after that, younger brother Kouta. They ended up deciding on an arrangement where Takahiro would work as normal, just taking less international flights if possible, and Hanae would be a stay-at-home mother with the kids during the school months, and then take up her air stewardess job again during summer vacation, upon which the kids would stay with their paternal grandparents in a small, rural country-side farming village in the mountains. And when they were home with their parents like usual, they lived in a still quite small village right by the sea, and Tomoe, Sachie and Kouta would walk for 20 minutes to get to the train station, and then take a 30-minute train ride to the city where they went to school, then walk for 10 more minutes to reach the school from the train station.

Tomoe had always been a momma's girl, and looked up to her mother a lot. In Tomoe's opinion— and also in the opinion of her father— her mother was the most beautiful woman she'd ever seen. She was also incredibly kind, a hard worker, dependable, patient, accepting and an exceptionally loving mother. She's always wanted to be like her mother. Some of her favorite time with her mother was when they would cook together, . She also has many fond memories of times when Tomoe had forgotten to make lunch, only for her mother to hand her a bento as she was about to rush out the door, or kiss her hands if she got a paper-cut to 'kiss the boo-boo away'. She still did those things even after Tomoe had become an adult, saying she would always be her little girl. It usually made her a little bit bashful the older she got, but she liked it, still being spoiled a bit and treated like a kid by her mom even though she was supposed to be a responsible adult by that point. Her father had always been a little bit eccentric, a bit of a goofball with a love for stereotypical dad jokes, rhymes and wordplay that the whole family always said, but he never quite admitted, was very bad. He's a little bit clumsy, a little bit incomptetent, with a very big heart. As well as a bit of a scatterbrain who can get very worked up about small things, with a tendency to overdramatize, which paired well with her mother's more level head and calm, objective approach to life. Some of Tomoe's fondest memories of him are of him making up very strange reasons to try to scare them into doing things like brushing their teeth or always holding a parent's hand while crossing the road. Once he made up a story that if they're not pulled out, baby teeth eventually have baby teeth of their own, so if Tomoe and her siblings didn't get rid of them their mouths would be covered in tiny itty-bitty teeth. He was however very good at numbers, finance, and money in general, and to try to teach his kids to also be better about it he'd do things like make them sign contracts to go take out the trash in return for ice-cream, and sometimes he'd hide some strange things in the terms and conditions, and when they'd signed it he'd show them the thing he added and tell them that since he's their dad he'll be nice and let them off the hook, but to always be careful and think before signing something, especially if it appears too good to be true. And ALWAYS. READ. C O N T R A C T S.

Tomoe absolutely loves her family, and she and her siblings have always been really close. Her sister Sachie had always been the human firework of the family. She had endless energy and the attention span of a puppy, and their grandfather sometimes joked about not having a remote to turn down her volume. When she found something new she thought was exciting, she devoted her entire life, every single moment to it, lived and breathed it…fooor about a month. After which she found something new and started the process all over again. She had a lot of friends and loved talking to people. And in stark contrast, Kouta had always been the quiet one who preferred spending time to himself. He got tired by social interaction, was the first of the children to ask for his own room, had generally always liked being alone and was quite shy. He didn't speak a lot and had a face that stayed mostly stoic. though he spoke so little, the things he did say were always heard by the rest of the family, and they made sure to always include him, but also give him a choice of whether or not he wanted to join them, and let him know he could change his mind at any time. At family gatherings he usually preferred to sit in a corner listening to something or other on his headphones. He loved their grandmother most of all and usually always clung to her when he was little. He had always loved soccer, and could usually be found practicing by himself. He was part of a nearby soccer team, and whenever his team won a match he'd always blush and smile bashfully. For each child's birthday, they had a tradition of renting a hotel room in Tokyo for a day or two to go shopping, go to a theme park, watch movies or eat sweets and junk food. Since Tomoe's birthday coincides with the New Year— Shōgatsu— during her birthday trip she always chose to go to the biggest Shōgatsu celebration in Tokyo. She loved dressing up in a pretty kimono, eating hanami dango, candied apples and taiyaki, visiting a temple, and having fun with the people she loves. Watching the fireworks, it always felt like they were specifically for her, for her birthday. They'd arrive at around 23:30 on the last day of December, then celebrating the new year, watching the year's first sunrise together, then going to a temple to ring out the old year, then all eat pancakes for breakfast, still wearing their New Year's kimonos with fur lining.

If anyone in the family ever fought with each other, it was usually Tomoe and Sachie, what with how opposite their personalities are. Tomoe had always valued following the rules, being polite, neat and tidy, and being meticulous. And Sachie always just raced off at top speed towards anything she liked and spoke to everyone casually, not caring for rules much and being bad at cleaning up after herself. When it was just Tomoe, Sachie and Kouta, Tomoe was left in charge, and once while they were together at a summer Fireworks festival, Tomoe literally had to tie a ribbon between her and Sachie's wrists to make sure Sachie didn't run away. She got pretty upset about that and was mad at Tomoe almost the entire time, asking why Kouta didn't also have a ribbon on his wrist, and Tomoe replied 'because Kouta is well-behaved'. They fought sometimes, but they never formally made up, since they as siblings knew each other well enough to realize that fighting sometimes was just how things went between them. Well, they only formally made up if the argument they'd gotten in had been bad enough, at the behest of their parents or grandparents. And they always knew the other loved them.

She'd always loved hearing stories about things that happened long, long ago. As a child, she'd often beg her grandfather to tell her stories about when his father and mother both worked as doctors in World War II, and loved listening to her grandmother describe what things were like when she was little. She thought all the old people in her town were so cool because of all the things they knew and how much stuff they'd done over the years, and how much they'd seen which she hadn't. Which is why as soon as she started going to school and learning history, she absolutely fell in love with the entire subject. It boggled her tiny mind that there was so much she didn't know that people had done before she was even born. So many people's stories, all weaving together to form a tapestry of the world. Her history teacher, a half-Japanese, half Mexican man named Mr. Cabello— a large burly man with a full beard— was her favorite teacher, and the clear passion he had for his subject as well as his sense of humor always made her even more interested to keep learning more about history. He was her inspiration for wanting to be a history teacher in the first place.

She was part of a group of a total of four friends, with three other people besides her. When she was 6, on the first day she started school, two girls came up to her to introduce themselves, since they noticed she was alone at recess. Well, more like one of them charged over to her and the other trailed along behind the other one. The one who approached her first was very friendly and held out her hand to introduce herself as Tooru Yamato, and the other as Kaede Okazaki. Kaede and Tooru had known each other their entire lives, since they lived right next to each other, and their families had become friends before they were born. So they were practically raised together, and always went to the same school, ever since the first day of kindergarten. The three of them became friends, with Tooru acting somewhat as the leader, with her very open, unashamed and straightforward personality. But she could become a bit too fired up and eccentric at times, which is when Kaede would pull her away before she embarrassed herself too much. She also had very big plans, but wasn't always very responsible, which Tomoe told her wouldn't do if she really wanted to 'become an astronaut' like she'd always talked about. Kaede was the youngest, born on December 30th at the end of the year, technically 363 days after Tomoe, and was always very laid back and casual about everything, often bringing up funny ideas that she knew Tooru would think sounded awesome and wanna do right that instant, just because she thought seeing Tooru excited was nice. And also kinda funny due to the extreme lengths she'd sometimes go to in order to do those things, all of which Kaede had prevented from becoming even more extreme. And Tomoe was often the ones who scolded them when both of them got a bit too wrapped up in their fun. She was often the voice of reason, but, to her resigned acceptance, 'the baby of the group. All due to her being the shortest and having been really shy as a child when they'd first met, which she'd long since outgrown. But she didn't mind it too much. She just knew it meant they cared a lot about her. Then when they were 12, their school got a transfer student from Tokyo. So they met the final member of their group: Miki Uehara. They started hanging out when one day, Tooru charged over and in her usual loud tone of voice asked Miki an endless barrage of questions, introducing both herself as well as Kaede and Tomoe. Kaede had to rein her in again, and Tomoe apologized for her rudeness. After school that day, since Tomoe was going home with Kaede and Tooru to hang out, they asked if Miki wanted to come with, and Tomoe said they could show her around the city, since she'd only just arrived a day or two ago, and she accepted, acting like she didn't have anything to do anyway. But Tomoe noticed she seemed a bit excited. Miki was a bit of an ice queen with a prickly attitude who always seemed to be looking down on everyone else. She was the type who acted like most things were stupid, but did secretly care. She was very into fashion, following many really expensive fashion magazines religiously, and also loved taking glamour shots of herself, which Tooru and Kaede loved photobombing. Miki acted annoyed, but kept each and every single one. They all made a promise that when in the future they had families of their own— because Tomoe wanted to be a mother and might consider adopting a child on her own if she didn't marry anyone, and Tooru said she was going to adopt at least 5 pets— they would all remain close and let their children play together.

Years passed, and eventually, the time drew closer to the end of High School and her and her friends' graduation. They had all applied to schools they wanted to attend after graduation, and they would receive replies sometime during the break. Tomoe was looking forward to graduating, although it would also feel a bit sad. Their lives would all change forever, and they'd become adults. The end of school was a bittersweet feeling, but they were all looking forward to what the future would bring, and to keep sharing their lives with each other even though they went on separate tracks. Tooru said she was going to be an astronaut, with studying business marketing as a second choice and starting her own marketing company. Miki was going to try to get into a school focused on fashion design and marketing. Kaede was going to take a year off to think about what she wanted to do. And Tomoe— of course— was going to continue her studies of history and anthropology and get a teaching degree. And they all promised to stay in touch, to call and text every day and update each other on what was happening in their lives. And, like they always had, they'd go to summer firework festivals together.

Some miscellaneous info about her:

She's very responsible, and as an oldest sibling, used to being in charge of people less emotionally mature than her. This often makes it so that when she's around someone younger than her, or someone who ACTS younger, she has a tendency to slip into 'mom' mode.

She's VERY smart, though she doesn't often display it openly, as she leans quite heavily into the Japanese societal rules of politeness and humility. But she does have a lot of pride for the fact she always got the best grades in her entire school back at home. She was always at the top of the school rankings grade-wise, and was often asked for help tutoring. She's a very quick thinker in general, and has really good skills of observation and deduction, while not being too proud to have her mind changed and being flexible enough to change her approach quickly when presented with new information. She's also quite the strategist— Zhuge Liang of 'Romance of the Three Kingdoms' fame is one of her biggest idols— and nowadays she's gotten used to no one really being able to beat her at Shogi.

But she's not always the best at working in groups. She's very aware of her own strengths, limits and capablities, and is very careful, being good at changing up her plan last-minute if it calls for it, and often knowing just what to do to make it so. But when something out of her control goes wrong in her plan- which it basically never does since she's so good at quickly changing course- she's not great at dealing with it. So she often prefers doing all the work on her own, even in group projects, because, while it might sound egotistical, she's aware she's often more competent than the people she's grouped with, and knows she could do it all herself. So therefore, needing to leave it to other people whose competency she doesn't always trust is difficult for her. She at least prefers to instruct them on how to do it.

She's always been a person with a love for humanity and for the earth, a positive person who can see the good in everything. And the people around her have always said that seeing her smile happily is a captivating sight. She's the kind of person who sometimes calls people she cares about out of the blue just because she started thinking of them and wanted to hear their voice and speak to them for a while, even if there's nothing she really wants to say. She loves the people in her life a lot.

In her free-time, she practices Kyūdō, or Japanese Archery. The art requires a lot of patience and discipline, and to her it's a sort of meditation, as well.

She also follows the rules of politeness, manners and hospitality as much as she can, being very polite to others. When it comes to other people's manners, if anyone around her gets into trouble for being rude, she will be of the opinion that their rudeness definitely lead to it, and insist they apologize. And if someone she feels some level of authority or responsibility over— like Grim, for example— she will definitely tell them off for being rude right away. But otherwise she mostly lets people behave however they like, so long as it doesn't pose a problem to anyone else.

At NRC:

For her and Irina, I'll be doing breakdowns of what they did during and in-between the books. Includes spoilers for: Books 1-7

On a night like any other, just one week before her High School graduation, she went to sleep like normal, prepared to wake up and go to school the next day like she always had. Her head was swirling with hopes for the future, and of looking forward to seeing her friends again like usual. And the next day after school, she would pick up her siblings from school, and then go home to celebrate Kouta's 12th birthday, Tomoe having a gift for him in her closet that she was excited to give him.

But when she woke up, she wasn't in her futon. She was laying on top of something that was hard, but a little bit too soft to really be called hard. It was like a carpeted floor, or a very thin chair-cushion. When she came to consciousness, her body felt stiff and her back hurt. All she could see in front of her was darkness. She tried to open her eyes, but saw the same thing, so closed them again. In the distance she thought she could hear the muffled sound of someone talking...

But for a while, none of it really seemed real; she was too tired to realize how different it was from when she'd fallen asleep the night before, and her mind was still fuzzy enough that she thought it was a dream. But a light source was suddenly introduced into her small, dark world. The lid had been removed from the box she was laying in. Now when she blinked open her eyes, her sight was filled with the bright glow of blue flames, and the knowledge that the somewhat hard, somewhat soft surface she'd been laying on was the interior of a coffin, its walls laced with a plush velvet.

And then cue the whole Grim business. But, when she went with the Headmage into the hall of mirrors, there was already a commotion, due to the fact that people were talking about a 'magicless student'. There was a very nervous-looking girl with long pink hair standing in front of the mirror, looking like a cornered animal, having literally frozen up in fear.

When Tomoe also eventually went up to the mirror, and it declared her, too, as magicless, the room broke out into further uproar, and Crowley had to make the Housewardens hurry to get their students to their respective dorms.

Tomoe and the girl, whose name was revealed to be 'Irina', spoke with each other and to the Headmage about their homelands, it was discovered the two of them knew of each other's homes, meaning they had to at least be from the same world, ruling out the possibility of either one of them lying about it, since it was obvious they'd never met each other before.

As for all the Books, she generally does what canon Yuu does, but I'll state anything that deviates or is of particular interest.

Book 1

When Ace came to Ramshackle and she found out why he'd been collared, the first thing she did was tell him that it's very rude to just eat something from a communal fridge without asking first. But in the end, she at least agreed to help him make a new tart and come with him to apologize.

Book 2

As soon as they encountered Ruggie, she immediately knew he'd done something, like magic of some kind, knowing food was the one thing Grim would never concede, and so was immediately suspicious of him. While she didn't decide to link Ruggie to the case they were investigating immediately, she certainly pinned him as a possible suspect right away.

Book 3

For a few weeks, Grim ended up becoming quite sick. He'd eaten something long past the expiry date, then a bad cold took advantage of his weakened state. He was forced to mostly stay in bed, meaning it was up to Tomoe to do all the school work for once. She was absolutely ecstatic.

Her and Grim's grades suddenly shot up dramatically, going from the lower brackets to the top 50, landing comfortably at place #5. Tomoe was extremely happy, feeling a sense of peace overcome her she hadn't realized she'd been missing. It almost felt like torture to her to be in any way linked to such a bad grade.

That she got such a massive spike up in her grades during the exam period caused a lot of raised eyebrows. Ace and Deuce ended up asking her if she'd 'made a deal with Azul too'. She had no idea what they were talking about— until anemones suddenly sprouted from their heads.

When Crowley himself asked her if she'd made a deal with Azul to make her grades so good, she was incredibly offended. She, an honest student who'd gotten straight As through her entire school career and was proud of it, would never cheat! The only teacher who really believed her was her favorite teacher, Professor Trein. He was the teacher who got to see the most of just how engaged she always was in class because she'd be one of the few who constantly raised her hand to ask questions, and payed a lot of attention in his class, even while everyone else had fallen asleep around her. Confirmation from him that he at least knew she'd never cheat— him even telling her that he knew she was smart and could do great if she was only given the chance— calmed her down enough to ensure that her coming battle against Azul wasn't fueled by her desire to clear her name.

Not to say she wasn't still very frustrated by the situation.

And after it was all over....

She went up to them and flicked each of them once on the forehead. "I am very disappointed in all three of you. If it was so easy for you to gain access to a study guide, how would it not occur to any of you that many others must also be able to easily access it?! Not to even mention how obviously shady Azul is! If you wanted help studying, you should have just asked me, Riddle, Cater or Trey for help. Or anyone, really!" She sighed. "Thanks to assistance from Leona, Ruggie and Jack we were able to break you free from your contracts and get your magic back. But next time— and I dearly hope there will not be a next time— something like this happens, there is no guarantee that we would be able to. So I want all three of you to promise me that nothing like this will ever happen again." Her eyes bore holes into each of them. "Are we clear?" — "I said 'are we clear?'" Tomoe is not typically someone who gets upset— in fact, it takes a lot to make her truly angry— but when speaking in this situation, her tone was stern, bordering on threatening. She posed an intimidating figure, standing with her hands on her hips looking at the three of them lined up before her with her eyes and brows narrowed in frustration, as though she was looking down at them despite Ace and Deuce being quite a bit taller than her. As well as the fact she was speaking in a louder voice than normal, almost booming, going quite a bit lower than her usual tone of voice. — "Good." She sighed gently and her face and tone of voice returned to normal. "From now on, every other Sunday between 10 and 12 we will have a study session at Ramshackle dorm."

Tomoe ended up becoming a frequent thorn in Azul's side, advising students not to make contracts with him and that if they believed the deal seemed fair, he would find a way to tip it in his favor. The two hate each other. But they also have some respect for the other as academic rivals, and just how closely matched they were in terms of intelligence as well as hard work, waging some manner of silent war with each other all throughout the rest of their time at school. Lawful Good vs. Lawful Evil

And seeing her, to him surprising, ruthlessness in getting his help, Leona gained quite a bit of respect for her as a person after it was all over. In fact they both ended up realizing that, despite the obvious difference in her being so hands-on and his hands-off approach, they were remarkably similar. In Leona, for the first time, she found someone who could keep up with her natural quick-thinking. She actually felt her heart flutter a little when their first chess match against each other resulted in a draw.

And after the events at Mostro Lounge, she 'somehow' seemed to find her way to where he was more often. Or perhaps it was him who just 'happened' to be in places she'd pass by. Maybe a bit of both. They both began to introduce each other to more and more strategic board games, Tomoe to Yoté and Dara, Leona to Shogi and Go, and kept finding their win-lose ratio begin to plateau as soon as the other figured out the rules. It didn't take long before many students were betting on who would win the next match. They may not have been there for the actual games themselves, but it was usually easy to tell who won, lost, or if it was a draw based on the two's respective moods.

It felt refreshing to for once be allowed to go all out against someone and not have to bother thinking about being polite all the time. She was still very polite toward everyone else, of course, but he was a special exception. The two teased each other quite often, too. It seemed that both of them could dish it out, but neither could really take it, huffing and pouting and becoming defensive when the other did it. He made her incredibly frustrated at times, which was a very new experience for her, as she'd never had an equal she could really get upset at without it being for good reason before. With him she didn't always need to be responsible and mature or relied upon. She kinda liked it. He could get under her skin in a way no one else had ever managed to; challenged her in a way she'd never realized she craved.

And as for his side of things, she had a lot more patience with him than most people did. She treated him just like she would anyone else. She wasn't afraid to call him out on it when he acted out of turn, and stuck by him even when he did, but otherwise didn't mind his grouchy, callous way of acting, sometimes even teasing him for 'acting like a grumpy cat'. Eventually it became commonplace to see her sitting under a tree while Leona used her lap as a pillow, Tomoe turning the pages of a book laid on the grass with one hand and using the other to play with his hair. And, knowing how much it hurt her that no one in Twisted Wonderland knew anything about Earth history and she thus couldn't talk about it with anyone, he let her basically infodump to him about it whenever she wanted— so long as she kept playing with his hair, of course. He always acted like he was asleep, but really, he listened. And she knew he did. And he probably knew that she knew. But they didn't say anything about it. For once, they didn't need to.

And Leona actually ended up making her more open to being a bit less hands-on, learning to delegate and to trust they were competent enough to handle themselves. And she in turn encouraged him to become more involved in the activities of his Dorm where it was needed, such as cracking down on Savannaclaw students' frequent starting of fights.

She can also tend to overwork herself sometimes, so Leona forcefully pulling her away to take a nap was exactly what she needed. And Leona having been the one at fault also gave her some kind of excuse for why she was 'slacking off'. And when Cheka visited, she was more than happy to take over Leona's responsibility of babysitting him; she'd always loved kids and had a very motherly personality, and the little lion's eyes always lit up when he begged her to tell him another story. ...Though Leona did become a little bit jealous of her spending so much time away from him when Cheka visited, so he often ended up joining in on their activities anyway.

Book 4

She knew what was up basically as soon as she heard Jamil refer to her and Grim as having helped other dorms.

Book 5

She was one of the few who actually liked Vil's diet, always having liked vegetables and healthy food. Not to mention it felt nice to have the whole 'food' situation handled. She was happy that Irina, who insisted on cooking for her and Grim a lot got to take a break from it too, even if she noticed irina seemed to be quite anxious about it. Irina seemed quite anxious in general to suddenly have so many new people living at Ramshackle, and Tomoe thought she seemed to really miss the quiet of the Dorm.

And when Vil ended up finding out just how good Tomoe's grades were, but that Ace, Deuce and Grim's grades were still that bad... He lost a little bit of hope in humanity.

Book 6

She went after Grim. The whole incident made her realize just how important Grim had become to her in such a short time; she felt like a mother who'd lost her child. She was worried for the others too, especially Leona, but she knew they could handle themselves. It also made her realize that...she was probably going to end up staying in Twisted Wonderland. If she went back home, she'd most likely be 'that one mysterious disappearance case who turned up again' for the rest of her life. Not to mention that she'd be the only one who knew what had happened in the months she'd been gone; no one else would ever believe her. And she knew that her friends and family had each other. But Grim only really had her. And she wasn't going to just leave him.

And after the events of this Book... She has nothing against him personally, and knows he didn't exactly have much of a choice in what happened, but she can't help but not like Idia especially much. She just associated him with her friends being injured, her Dorm destroyed and what is bacially her son being kidnapped. She's always been very open-minded and believes in forgiveness if the other person has owned up to and endevoured to change their behavior or weren't even entirely at fault in the first place. And she'd even admit that she thinks they could potentially become friends, as she also likes video games a fair bit. But as of right now, the wound is still too fresh.

Book 7

I have not yet read Book 7, though I've been able to surmise basically what the main plot is.

She is asleep. She dreams of some strange, fanfiction-esque alternate reality: a historical Japanese setting based off the media she'd engaged with of the Muromachi period. Everyone she's met from Twisted Wonderland is there, as is her family and friends from back home, and she's the Samurai/Strategist/closest companion/lover of Leona, who's here the second son to the Emperor and breaks away from the Imperial family and starts a war to win personal status. She knew she couldn't persuade him it was a bad idea, so instead she decided to just do everything she could to make sure their war went smoothly.

But she's always been more interested in the lives of historical people in general, whether they be Priests or Warlords or Commoners or Emperors, than she has in the actual bloody side of warfare. So the dream barely actually shows any of the 'war' parts, seeming to be mostly just in a lull period where preparations are still being made, but the war has already broken out. And when it does show combat, there's way more of an emphasis on the strategy.

(the template was made by @/ai-kan1 , but I edited it a bit since I didn't feel the original color options were descriptive enough)

And on the topic of me technically having 2 'Yuu's, here is which events Tomoe would go to. If there is a Story Event not on this list, assume Irina went:

Fairy Gala: Operation Steal the Show Wish Upon a Star Camp Vargas Exercise in Survival Twisted Halloween: Spectral Soiree Sam's New Year Sale: 2023 (EN server) Portfest: A Striking Performance Cloudcalling in the Savannah Twisted Tsumderland 1 Playful land Stitch's Tropical Turbulence

More sprites:

Bonus: Family & Friends

From left to right: Miki, Tooru, Kaede, Tomoe

And here's a continuation on the Tomoe x Leona stuff!

#WE LOVE TO SEE IT

37 notes · View notes

sparklesinthechat · 8 days ago

Text

Irina Draconia, Dusk Queen of the Fae

I'm thinking a little bit about all the different titles she'd probably have, too, being royalty now because she married Malleus.

I think her official role would be as the Queen Consort— married to the ruling King, and mother to the heirs, but not quite as much political power.

I can imagine her most often being called 'your/her Majesty', 'Lady Irina', or 'Lady Draconia' I think Lady Draconia would be her favorite. Because it immediately makes her think of not only Malleus, but their children, too. It makes her think of her family: that she has somewhere she belongs now; she has a family, full of people that love her, whom she also loves, which wouldn't be complete without her.

I think the first few times she hears it, she has to hold back tears.

Though later on in her life, her face always lights up at the title. Irina has always been the kind of person with a need for something clear and external that can tell her who she is, and of her identity. And this title, for the first time, is a way for her to take her identity into her own hands, and define herself, in a way she'd never known how to before.

She is Lady Draconia: beloved wife of Malleus Draconia, loving mother to eight wonderful children. An excellent diplomat, an architect, and a Queen. She is kind, wise, accomplished, and loved beyond compare. But most importantly...it's her.

It's like for the first time in her life, she can look in a mirror and go 'oh, there you are'.

And I feel like, just in terms of a co-ruler, Irina is perfect for Malleus. Because Malleus… Between his strength and power as well as appearance making him incredibly intimidating, his inability to completely understand humans and human customs, though not due to lack of effort, and just generally not being the best when it comes to conversing with people…let's just say that people skills aren't his strong suit.

But Irina's literally put ALL her skill points in persuasion, conversation, flattering, consoling and pacifying. Although it started as a survival skill, something she was forced to learn on her own at way too young an age to stay safe, she's almost scarily good at reading people's emotions, and knowing just what she needs to say to put them at ease, while also being diplomatic and vague enough not to make any definitive statements or promises.

But she does also operate on similar rules as fae: she never out right states something that is false. Her only lies are lies of omission. She just happens to be good enough at reading people that she knows what to leave out to get the outcome that'll be most beneficial to the kingdom.

In other words, a perfect foil to Malleus, making up for his weaknesses. The dusk to his night, bridging the gap between the nocturnal valley and the diurnal world.

Like as SOON as anything diplomatic needs doing Malleus basically passes the controller to Irina and says go nuts. And he's always so proud of her, and so happy to be with someone as great as her; his admiration for her only grows every time she works her own kind of magic on someone, charming them in a similar way as she charmed him all those years ago. Especially since he knows he's the only one who's charmed her in turn.

I also imagine her doing a lot of the planning for things like either public or diplomacy-related events too! Decorating the rooms the visitors will inhabit to include something familiar to them, to make them feel more at ease and make sure discussions go more smoothly. Reading up on the diplomats' favorite meals and beverages and ensuring they're served at the banquets.

And I can also see Irina designing quite a few buildings.

Oh but I think the biggest thing she'd do is instate some kind of public program that protects children legally. Like if evidence is found of a child being unsafe in their current home, the government can choose a new home for that child.

I can imagine her setting up buildings meant as safe spaces for children, a bit like daycares, but that also have beds, and the ability for children to stay there for a while, should it be necessary. If a child should, for any reason, feel unsafe at home, they can come to one of the childhouses and safely stay there, meanwhile one of the workers try to figure out what the situation at the child's home looks like, to see if they need to intervene somehow.

And I think she also invests a lot in things like children's entertainment, because she knows it can be really important to a child's development.

And then, of course, there's her own children:

(please excuse Malachi and Malindt being naked; clothes for them are in the works. It's just taking a while)

She and Malleus had eight children together. Due to magic, she only carried three of them (Mallory, Maleah and Malindt) in her own body. But she was still instrumental in making them all come into existence. And those who hatched from eggs all hatched earlier than what would typically be expected of draconic fae, because of how much love both she and Malleus had for them.

By the time Malissa is born, her mental health— which she's been struggling with all her life alongside mental illness and a lot of childhood trauma— has significantly improved from when she first came to Twisted Wonderland. It's a long, slow process…

But it's no longer an uncommon sight to see the Queen smiling. Which, coupled with her already being skilled socially, meant tales of her beauty came to be quite well-known in the kingdom.

She ends up becoming beloved by the people for her clear care for all the children of Briar Valley, whether fae or human, as well for her role in slowly but surely greatly improving the relationship between Briar Valley and some of the closest non-fae kingdoms.

Not to mention it was clear to everyone just how besotted she and her husband both were with each other, the tale of their love becoming something of a popular folk story, although it didn't exactly get all the details right. They came to represent a union between fae and humans, as proof that the two peoples really could come to understand each other: even live alongside one another and form families.

I also used some traditional Bulgarian embroidery patterns!

The one on the left is called the 'mother goddess' and is supposed to resemble an image of a woman giving birth, with the sun and the moon on either side of her head

I decided to use a more abstract version of it though because I just thought it'd look classier

This pattern usually represents fertility, and a woman giving birth to many children. And uh yeah Irina definitely did that

The one in the middle is called the 'celestial turtle', connected to concepts like perseverance and longevity, and represents eternity. I thought it was fitting, given that Irina, after marrying Malleus, has had her lifespan tied to his and gained such a long lifespan that she's almost immortal.

I specifically chose to make this one white (or, well, silver, but close enough) because the color represents youth

And the one on the right is a 'kanatitsa' Kind like in Zulu bead patterns, in the kanatitsa, a triangle is used to represent the man, and a a similar but vertically flipped triangle is used to represent the woman. And here they come together into a diamond in the middle. The line inside said diamond represents the family, and the other triangles outside of it represent the generations they leave behind It's supposed to symbolise the eternal cycle of life

This pattern usually uses some different colors than this one, but since red and yellow just are not Irina's colors, I decided to substitute them for purple and silver instead. But I still wanted to use mostly colors that actually mean something in Bulgarian embroidery, so I settled on just green and white

I got all this info from this website!

And speaking of Bulgarian culture, here's some music I listened to while drawing this:

youtube

Tag list: @another-random-paradise @thehollowwriter @faefum @cactus13-rolloflammesimp @beneathsakurashade

@nyx-of-night @theolivetree123 @babyghoul138 @skibidibabygirl @screamintoad

@gingacat @buttholesparkles @scint1llat3 @jadelover69 @angelwishess

@crimsonrose34 @nerenda @chillygourami @kittys-mirror

67 notes · View notes