i imagine team radical has a group dynamic of two sheltered nobles (varian & nuru) and two travel experienced civilians (hugo & yong)
with my personal hc that yong, surprisingly enough, had his decent share of traveling cuz his family's firework business perhaps includes importing their goods to other kingdoms for celebration purposes and yong tags along in some, especially how in a lotta asian families bringing their kid along to learn the ropes of the business at a young age is quite common (also hence why his parents were probably okay with him traveling with varian)
and a part of me wants varian and nuru to have that bi/lesbian loser duo dynamic where if you let them execute smth together, they somehow manage to fumble the bag, like how long will it take two sheltered geniuses to do a simple unassuming task ? the answer may shock you... it's the overthinking of it all <3—and there are days it frustrates tf out of hugo to educate those two but there are days when he's feelin silly and tells yong to not say a word even tho the lil guy wanna inform them so they wont embarrass themselves
I have no thoughts other than library depression now. I don't even know how a library can be depressed, but it is.
vat7k fans that insist Varian should always be the dom/top one and Hugo always be the sub/bottom one to the point they're shoving it as the "only correct way" to interpret their dynamic on everybody else's throat needs to stfu
it's okay for them to switch alternately who tops and who bottoms—they're scientists ffs, and if we're being for fuckin real rn they'd both totally be interested and 100% down to explore every options they have on the table
because at the end of the day, they're equals ffs—heck, them mutually switchin just further greatly elevates showcasin the level of trust and openness they're willing to give each other when they're being deeply intimate and vulnerable together
so i need that stubborn and entitled crowd to stfu, thanks
headcanon that Varian picks up on a few ingavarrian swears solely cuz he hears Hugo mutter them all the goddamn time. Does he know what it even really means in slang terms? Who knows—but it totally takes Hugo off guard to hear the other alchemist say it out loud directly at him one particular time when he was exceptionally pissed at his lil shit antics. He truly never fails to surprise the blond
thinking about your ingvarrian swear posts and having the thought of hugo developing a crush and when they fight he throws in some sweet pet names too bc he's so frustrated at himself for liking this guy and letting it out during their verbal matches is the only way he can get any kind of release
which eventually results in them having a fight with varian starting it off by calling him something like My Darling or Sweet or Cute and throws hugo off the entire day
THATS SO FUNNY BUT CUTE HELP
ahh~ fighting each other truly is their love language first and foremost like the rivals to lovers sillies that they are <3 already actin like an old married couple before they even started dating and all
I know the animation industry has been going through a serious rough patch in the past 10 years. I just hope the medium and the artists making it can get the respect they deserve someday soon. So I wanna take a moment to spread a reminder of the powerful emotional scenes we've gotten from animation in the past 10 years.
Hi, genuine question, where did the piano hc come from?? Like how did someone come up with that? Also is there a specific canon we all agree on or just "Hugo dropped a piano on Eugene's head once" bc I'd love to write a fic if there isnt
Spellbound's The Way It Was Before feels like a Nuru song during one of the many meteor showers her kingdom has to endure
Donella and Cyrus as wlw and mlm solidarity
Thank you.
The gay river is a national landmark, thank you very much.
What's your opinion on your kid having the most popular account? (and all the anons just throwing the craziest asks on him)
I think it’s good for him. It gives him the attention he so desperately requires. I’m not so thrilled about some of the asks he gets though, some are very personal or straight up weird. (Not to mention the ones who are trying to make him sick with ice cream and “gay water”)
“Sure they both look like they’ve worked outside, but Varian could just as easily be the son of— that guy!” His arm flew outward toward the first person he saw from the window: an old, scraggly bearded man barely a meter tall and leaning heavily on a goat. Yong gave him a flat look. “Okay bad example, but still!”
Hugo had yet to make it past the mental hurdle of Quirin fathering Varian, which in all fairness, Yong and Nuru were very perplexed by too, but they weren’t the ones having a tantrum over it. Nuru had begun to tune their friend out around ten minutes ago to start scribbling out long, complex equations only to solve them a moment later. Yong, Hugo, and Nuru were brought into Varian’s childhood home to spend the night before completing the final trial and opening the Eternal Library. Quirin had been delighted to welcome Varian’s friends, ushering them in without even a brief assessment of their characters. Varian had looked deeply embarrassed when Hugo asked, admitting that he wasn’t known for making friends, let alone ones his age. Not long after they were settled in the guest bedroom, Quirin had called his son down to help prepare a meal with him, leaving the three friends to muse on the genetic gymnastics that occurred to bring about Varian.
“Maybe he gets it from his mom?” Yong pondered aloud. He withdrew a comb that Hugo didn’t know Yong owned and started to rake it through the burned ends of his hair. They were all a mess. A year on the road had not been kind on their appearances. Hugo was ashamed to say that he hadn’t kept up with his usually close shave along the sides and back of his scalp, allowing the hair there to grow and give him a fluffier look. Most of his clothes had holes in them or stained with some chemical or other. Being Yong’s assistant certainly didn’t help with the smell of gunpowder or the charred nature of his sleeves.
But Nuru was probably the messiest of them all. Her title as Princess was as reflective as her shoes. That is to say, not at all. She had taken up the mantle of navigator with an enthusiasm Hugo hadn’t expected, and she trudged through muck and high water to get them to each trial. A flashback to her waving her sword at a sneezeweazel and the subsequent chase through thorny bramble to get away left their sleeves torn and skin razed made Hugo cringe. The only things Nuru ever managed to keep tidy were her star maps—rest in peace to her skirt of constellations—and her sword. Although she used it frequently to cut through foliage on their journey, Nuru kept her whetstone close and sharpened her blade every night. Even her poor telescope wasn’t kept in as good a condition as her weapon, once using it as a makeshift club to bludgeon a bandit on the road.
Yong, ironically, had most of his things intact. Although that probably wasn’t a testament to how well Yong managed his stuff and more how much Varian kept Yong’s belongings safe for him. Far too often, Varian would be launching forward from his place around the campfire to sweep Yong’s backpack of explosives away from the flames. In fact, Hugo was confident that all of the bags hitched to Prometheus belonged to the pyromaniac. That isn’t to say that Yong made it through their adventures scott-free. When the bounty hunters hired by Yong’s parents caught up to them, Yong had gone a bit off the deep end, tying all of his available fireworks together and nearly blowing the men’s’ heads off. Standing behind an explosion like that turned nearly off of Yong into a pile of ash. He was covered in burns and his eardrums didn’t stop ringing for several hours after. And yet at the end of it all, Varian had pulled the teenager aside with a fresh set of clothes and a pair of flame retardant gloves for Yong to wear.
And speaking of Varian. Easily the clumsiest of the group, Varian was coated head to toe in grime. Even as he fussed over the safety of his friends, or maybe because he worried over them, Varian would fall into the most trouble. Be it from Hugo purposely antagonizing some stranger on the road, Nuru not looking away from the stars long enough to see the sudden dip of the hill she was walking towards, or Yong tampering with one of Hugo’s stink bombs to make them spark, Varian did his best to take the blow. It was annoying. Hugo definitely deserved to be the one with a bucket of muddy water thrown at his face, and it would have been really funny to watch Nuru trip and tumble over the slope, and god did Hugo wish he saw Yong receive his comeuppance when a stray bomb tumbled from his mischievous grip, but Varian had already thrown himself over Yong and stank to high heaven for three days.
While the guy had objectively gotten worse in terms of appearances, Hugo couldn’t seem to choke down the butterflies that emerged when Varian’s dirt covered face appeared and twisted into a grin from the doorway. A pair of cooking mitts the only non-road trodden thing about him now.
“Dinner’s ready!” He cheered, spinning back out and toward the stairs. Hugo spared himself one last look, sighed, and followed after.