If you gave me a penny for my thoughts, I'd tell you I've never read an Olruggio/Qifrey fic in my life, BUT I'd kill to read a fic where Olruggio begrudgingly, after spending a night in a tavern lamenting his love life via being Wasted, is bugged by his unfortunate drinking buddy, Hieheart, to try one last effort toward winning Qifrey's affection.... by pretending to date Hieheart.
It's foolproof! Olruggio gets to make Qifrey jealous by dating a younger, spry man and Hieheart can lowkey try learning from Olruggio. Jujy is told and she's... trying to be supportive, but is sad because Hieheart is very excited about them both potentially convincing Olruggio to take them as apprentices, and she's not onboard with that, but Olruggio will probably not do it so... whatever.
Cue Hieheart coming to the atelier with flowers and Qifrey answers the door like, "Ah, trying to sweeten him up? I'm afraid he still cannot take on an apprentice!"
and Hieheart just smiles like, "Oh, you are mistaken! We have a date night tonight."
And the atelier becomes so quiet a pin could drop. No one moves.
Qifrey finally just squeaks out an, "Oh!"
It takes about five dates to convince Qifrey this isn't a joke. Didn't Olruggio find Hieheart annoying? Why are they now so close? And Qifrey goes all watchful eye on their ass if Hieheart is ever in Olruggio's room he just passes by, props open the door and is like ":) sorry as your watchful eye I must make sure you aren't instructing, so the door remains open, carry on :)" then brings a chair and book and sits in the hallway.
The ending would maybe be Qifrey "confessing" (aka i dont want Hieheart here, and I just can't tell you why but I mean it. Dont date him. and Olruggio Folds.) and then on Hieheart's end, Jujy comes up and expresses her discontent with Hieheart discrediting himself and that she wants Him to be her teacher, not Olruggio, and it feels bad that he doesnt think hes good enough because she likes learning from him. Anyways everyone happy ending.
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Imagine you are Dagda. You are working dangerous jobs to support your recently injured son's, Custas, stay in a hospital and medical needs. One night you come to see him and he's talking about a new friend he made who is really smart and helps him study.
Then as time goes on his little "Tartah knows everything and is really cool" turn to "hes amazing" with starry eyes. And your first instinct is to think, Oh, its puppylove, he has his first crush. Then Custas starts saying "Yeah Tartah saved my life twice now" (??? huh?) to "we cuddled today after falling asleep practicing reading". And you are now concerned about your sons wellbeing because??? who is Tartah?? how old is he?? Can I speak with him?
And you never catch Sight of Tartah for a While. You just hear about him, "Tartah knows everything!" or "Tartah held my hand today and he was blushing so bad!" and you are growing more concerned but you don't want to push and close your son off. You just have to keep an eye on it. You can be a cool, but secretly over-protective parent. You've earned that.
And then one day you see Custas flying. Days ago he couldn't even walk with assistance, and now he was free as a bird and he flies straight into your arms and you haven't see that smile in so long, you missed it so much, your darling son---
And then you officially meet Tartah who 100% was not pulling moves on your son and it is very much Custas driving it, holding his hand, hugging him, blatantly being obvious with his interest through jabbing teases and pesters but in a way kids can't pick up on as easy and you sigh with relief. But also note you have to probably have a talk with your kid because Tartah looks like he's about to melt into the floor and you really have spoiled Custas with attention, doting and coddling, you need to probably adjust your parenting style, but he looks so happy you can only just sigh fondly at them.
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I can picture modern Custas taking Tartah to a haunted house for their first date, but Tartah is not clued in on the 'date' part. Custas is all ready to be sauve and says "If you get scared, you can always hold my hand" and Tartah goes "? no im good, thank you."
if im able to inflict my IRL world upon yall-- that literally happened on my first date w my partner as well as her immediately getting her mobility device stuck in the mud and me having to make a barricade with my arms to prevent people from running into her which is Also a very Custah thing 🙂↕️
Along with school au developments a shot I might not do but find hilarious: the concept of Nolnoa presenting a home-ec/health style unit where they raise one of those loud fake babies.
Tartah goes up to get it and comes back and Custas is just "whose white baby is this" (me whenever im jumpscared on twitter.com custas tag)
All the other groups have to plan baby time, how to budget their fake life with the jobs they pulled from a hat while Custas and Tartah are choosing to live at Nolnoa's and instead take class time to figure out couple's therapy cost because Clearly they need to work things out.
Custas 100% pulls some big doctor or CEO job and just hands it to Tartah (who gives Custas like a police officer job or something in return) like "Don't worry, I got this", marches up to Nolnoa's desk and just says, "Can I get disability instead?"
And Nolnoa is like Yeah but you have to prove you are disabled. Custas points to his legs. "Yea, that works, but you'll need to reconfirm in a few classes." *rolls a d6* "You get 500$ a month."
"Wow! That was so easy!"
"It will never be that easy again." **
I can also picture Custas making it an ordeal as a joke where Tartah cheated and now he's helping raise Tartah's kid. Eventually Tartah does end up feeling a little guilt because it's meant to be Their kid and he's right, Tartah needs to change. So while other students are going up to Nolnoa about how to approximate phone bills, Tartah gets to his desk and is like "Is there a sort of meeting or group I could join with a membership that I can work on myself for? for my family?"
I can just imagine Coco and Agott's presentation at the end of the unit like: So we compromised and made one room a library and then I got a pony! We save 36$ a month :)
And Custas and Tartah come up, looking like life-depleted adults like "We spent 500$ a month on our relationship therapy, I stepped down from my CEO position to focus more on my family, we have struggled greatly, but we are stronger than ever."
And Nolnoa still has to give them a C because they didn't calculate jackshit because they were "living in his basement" and therefore not paying rent/electric/water.
**This whole bit is a joke about the system in which my country (US) handles disability benefits, not a joke on people with disabilities! Our system here is actually the worst and it upsets me greatly :) Never look into it online if you haven't lived it because you'll be so irritated.
the best fanfiction you've ever read was written by a woman in her 40s before she made dinner for her kids. it was written by a teenager after school when they should've been studying for a history test. and a barista came up with the idea while they cleaned the espresso machine and busser fact-checked it on their break and the post-doc edited between writing grant proposals and the nurse apologized for typos in the notes after a long shift and behind every drabble and one-shot and multi-chapter fic there is a person with a wonderful and interesting and chaotic life and it is such a privilege that we get to be apart of it because they decided to do this thing we all share, for fun.
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"No way. He's not my Dad" (Custas Character Analysis)
is how Custas responds when Coco asks about Dagda. It's chapter 43 that we are properly introduced to Custas. The previous chapters, he's an just unknowing that got into an accident. In this chapter, we learn that he is a traveler, can play several instruments, and has a bond with a man who he says is not his father but someone he "crossed paths" with.
In fact, he doesn't understand why Dagda is still staying with him. "He's too nice. It's not his fault I got hurt." Dagda comes back from mercenary work and Custas begs him to just leave him. He sees Dagda as chained down by the responsibility, especially since he strongly believes that everyone should have freedom.
(spoilers up to ch86 ahead)
(P.S this is a repost with some edits)
There are many chains bringing both of them down. They can't use magic to aid themselves. Their lack of a home restricts his opportunities, coupled with not going to school and always having to worry about food and money. He wishes to be free from these chains restricting the ways he can live, and the freedom he craves is symbolized as the flight of birds.
The first appearance of the motif of birds is in ch 45. A flashback features a starving Custas who attacks a crow. The page draws a direct parallel between the crow and the privileged people above Custas, perched on top the very walls that confine him.
It's an action for survival but also filled with resentment. He envies those that have wings, an appendage that'd let him fly over those imprisoning walls. His first meeting with Dagda and hearing his ballad makes him a little more optimistic, though. A panel two pages later features the same birds flying away, with a quote from Dagda's song: "You've gotta believe the chains of fate exist in order to have something to grab onto and throw off."
With Coco and Tartah's contraption, he's able to soar through the sky. He's able to have a taste of the amount of freedom witches have, and more importantly to him, he believes he's free from feeling like a burden to those around him. He even apologizes to Coco for not realizing that her "fate" being born a witch was just as much undecided as his situation.
But in his next meeting with Coco, everything changes. This happens in Ch 51, which has a cover where he is completely cloaked in feathers.
Now, after receiving silverwood legs from Ininia, he learns from the Brimhats that it's not birthright--it's not fate--that prevented him from using magic, but a secret that the pointed hats keep to themselves. This makes him lash out at Coco and Tartah, saying that they "wouldn't want me knowing how to help myself […] I'm supposed to keep relying on one of you to to show up." He still is living by the lyrics from Dagda's song. "You've gotta believe the chains of fate exist in order to have something to grab onto and throw off." Now he believes Coco and Tartah were lying about what those chains really were, and by crossing the line into forbidden magic, he can finally perch on top of the imprisoning walls like other privileged do.
Coco creates the next turning point in Custas' character in chapter 73. As Custas is dealing with the witches and knights still trying to apprehend him for rescuing people with forbidden magic, his rage for the unequality grows. Coco interrupts the situation by using a spell that blows away his brim into a pointed hat, with feathers errupting all around. Because he is just trying to help others, Coco believes that he should be on the side of the pointed hats. A bold, perhaps even naiive action, but the feathers being blown away start to hint that this isn't something he should have to face alone, that he should be able to join the pointed hats to keep helping people.
There's a lot to unpack in the chaos of the leech arc, but I will narrow my focus to its aftermath. In Chapter 81, he is not seen fighting witches or knights anymore, but being carried on Dagda's back. Coco assures him that the King can treat Dagda, and for once he can rest easy.
This is one of the most important pages to Custas' and Coco's characters. All this time he was so frustrated with how Dagda always risked his life for him, and he wanted to be free of owing anyone anything. But it's here that Custas realizes that he's the same way as Coco and Dagda--helping people isn't out of malice or control, they don't expect anything in return. It's just who they all are.
Finding this resolution with himself and feeling relief over Dagda's situation is what makes his body give in to slumber.
In Chapter 85, Dagda makes the same point. Just like how Custas was surprised that Dagda chose to go out and do Mercenary work for him when he could have easily gone back to travelling, Dagda sees how Custas could have done whatever he wants with his magic, but spent all of his efforts helping not only Dagda, but the muckpool people who are strangers to him.
These panels in 85 juxtapose the panels in chapter 45 where he is grimacing at the birds above him and attacks one. In this flashback with Dagda, he is at peace with the birds around him, even despite living a life of hardship that pointed hats would not know. Magic didn't bring him this life, finding Dagda did.
"I guess this is it"
"My happiness"
”My happiness isn't in magic"
"It's here with you"
"Father"
In chapter 86, another bird-like creature is introduced. A silverwood seed awakens when the bird is injured, giving it the ability to fly again. Ironically, this ability is only given so that the bird can be rooted--chained down--to be part of a silverwood tree for the rest of its existence.
Custas believed that the silverwood legs and his knowledge of magic gave him the ability to 'fly' at the same level as the witches. However, they became the agent of his demise. It's a tragedy, except the "fatal flaw" of Custas is just that he wants to save others more than he's always being saved.
Indeed, what truly rid him of his burdens was accepting that help--doesn't matter if he "earned" it or not. Even with his resentment for the pointed hats, he accepted Coco and worked with her to find a solution. And in the end, it wasn't the silverwood prosthetic that brought him to safety like in the bird's case, but being carried on Dagda's back.
Magic is a powerful force that enables people to do things they couldn't, but it can never be happiness itself. What do you truly desire from it?
Back in chapter 45, it wasn't the mere ability to fly wherever that gave Custas pure happiness. It was the ability to fly into his father's arms.
Okay making a school au list for a mini custah fic and now I'm gathering More Intel than Necessary-- Heres the Ideas that arent main plot.
Qifrey is a maths teacher. The most stressful subject for a lot of students and the man himself hates being harsh or correcting them constantly. He beats himself over not being able to make the content anymore engaging. He ends up having a gamified "math club" for all underperforming students which also stresses him out. It keeps him young.
Olruggio is a physics teacher and doubles as the woodshop. Hands off teaching boarding on negligent, but always listens. "Heres the project ill see them presented in three weeks when Im back from helping a fellow researcher in the Alps".
Alaira: Looks/has the mannerisms of a middle school choir teacher, is actually the only member of admin who gives a damn. Best, very kind, is a good counselor if you have her.
Mr Nolnoa is the health/nutrition teacher as well as being the creative writing teacher (Qifrey asks for this yearly and is denied due to senority and Nolnoa not wanting to give it up). Tartah is his teachers aid, so his "study hall" is spent helping him run things to the front office, printing things, etc
The knights moralis is the school board (derogatory).
Dagda doesn't work there because he doesnt have a lteaching degre (twinsies with Oli) or a degree in general nor a license (not twinsies with Oli). He'd make a great elementry music teacher, but in this little AU Im cooking he's a Dad Who Stepped Up after a car accident led him to giving up van life for the time being to help his injured son.
If you have any thoughts or HCs to share please do!! I am wanting to hear other school au thoughts in general we all have
