rat

*łapie za ręce i odbiegamy w trójkę razem z kirino w siną dal*

screenshot redraw! i headcanon Tsurugi (Kyouka) as transfem so heres a little piece of her and her supportive "friend"

bonus under the cut:

I love smiling friends so much

yes, I also ship them romantically, or as part of a romantic poly ship

i like them a lot (in my head they're really good friends ^_^)

i wasnt planning on putting this much work into it, it was just meant to be doodle but welp. whatever happens happens. sketch under the cut cuz i like it :]

Clean scans from Animage, June 2014

photos by user NeofinetiaCanada2014 posted on orchiboard.com May 29th 2015

i think it might have been an inspiration for his design in some way! the longer parts make me think of his pigtails of course, and although there is only one, the stem gives an illusion of there being two. the petals positioned lower also look like his hairstyle.

(the association hits even stronger with this screenshot bc he's dressed in green skdhdfsk)

kirino already has an connection with orchids – the first kanji of kirino's name '蘭' [ran] means orchid, and those flowers have been referred to as his before in interviews. and there's the official art of him practicing ikebana. the pink flower featured in it is most likely an orchid as they are a popular choice for ikebana arrangements (and it wouldn't be like ina11 creators to miss a chance for a silly reference to their character's name).

the neofinetia falcata is very interesting in itself too. it's called a few different things. "wind orchid"; Fuuran which later morphed into Fūkiran, meaning the "orchid of rich and noble people", and "samurai orchid". apparently among samurai this flower was a symbol of bravery and peace. nobility in the edo period would send off warriors on a quest to bring them this flower and if they succeeded they would be rewarded – according to this article, with an entire estate. like damn can i do that

different fūkiran variants were given various names and i find them really beautiful. here are two pages i found listing some of them: 1, 2

semi-related, the yellow variant is gorgeous. this one makes me think of miximax tenma's hair skhfdhfjks OR kirino's miximax hair!! idk how i thought about tenma first when kirino also gets hit with the blonde beam

photo by Rogier van Vugt posten on pbase.com April 14th 2010