One day I will find all the right words!

I wanted Elrond to have very fancy elven earrings while making Elros, who by this point would have been 2-300 years into his rule, a little more staid and mannish (in both senses of the word lol) in his jewellery, but also I added little piercing holes in Elros’ ears matching the ones in Elrond’s, gesturing to his elven upbringing.

The hardest part obviously was conveying the fact that they’re identical twins when they have such different ages and hair/facial hair. Normally when my works have multiple people in them I work on them one by one, but just to keep myself on my toes with the likenesses, I worked on each feature in tandem… so they have the same eyes, noses, matching dimples (🥺) similar colouring, yet distinct to their different lives and ages, so Elros’ skin being more ‘weather beaten’, his laugh lines are much deeper, his nose spreads out more because he’s grinning, and of course, he’s aged quite a bit by this point (which is probably why Elrond’s laugh lines aren’t as deep...)

I envision both of them as having that cute little snaggletooth (putting the fear of god in Maglor and Maedhros because I know full well that neither of them have experienced the concept of baby teeth —> adult teeth, let alone a snaggletooth) only that Elrond is a bit too miserable to grin that wide these days. But it’s there! Also thank you to all the art buddies who encouraged me with teeth, they are my biggest challenge…

Basically, Kaito spends a lot of time practicing piloting and one day decides to bring Kokichi with him, because he wants to show off his skills, but his friends usually aren't very enthusiastic about flying with him (mostly because Kaito wants to show off cool maneuvers which tends to make any of his passengers nervous). And Kokichi has been nagging him about wanting to go for a while. So Kaito takes him to the field where he often trains since it's relatively far away from the city and he won't be disturbed there. And also so that he can show off even some of the more reckless maneuvers.

Kaito shows his skills but he also teaches Ouma a little.

This, of course, happens after Kaito already found out that Kokichi is a sentient cyborg. Kaito is reckless, but he's not an idiot. He would not put a glitchy machine behind a wheel. But he doesn't see much of a problem when he learns that Kokichi is intelligent and only acts weird when he wants to be a dick.

Kokichi shows off that he also can pilot a flyer (a vehicle for travel within the planet, pretty much like a car) and Kaito is impressed and even praises Kokichi for his skills when he does some tricks in the air. However, he smugly points out that Kokichi is good for a beginner, and he — Luminary of the Stars — is leagues above him, which deeply offends Ouma. But when Kaito demonstrates his skills, Kokichi realizes that holy shit. He wasn't kidding. Kaito was doing this for years. He's one of the best students in his academy. He studied there for a couple years now and he spends most of his free time practicing on his own. He can do awesome tricks *and* perform them in a controlled safe way. No match for Kokichi's chaotic sloppy flying style. Kokichi can avoid crashing, knows the limits of human bodies and can avoid causing harm and severe physical discomfort with unsafe maneuvers. But he absolutely not on the same level as Kain in piloting mastery.

And Kaito is willing to teach him how to properly fly and perform tricks. Kokichi, of course, have to make a show of how he can toooootally be just as good, he was just going easy on Kaito to avoid hurting his ego... But ultimately he agrees. And actually does his best learning. He even records each time they fly together and adds it to the archive in his internal storage he created to be able to rewatch and analyze everything. But he'll never admit he takes it that seriously.

After some practice Kaito even takes Kokichi to the actual academy training grounds so that they can use separate flyers and race. You know, fulfilling Kaito's dream about competing in a race with another pilot👀

Alternative versions