#cafe extras

Top is Andry and Sol, bottom is Kent and Thorne

Happy Trans Day of Visibility to Sol, Pax, and Larkspur!!

And also, happy tdov to, you know,

i was holding off on posting this cause i wanted to clean it up and maybe add color but at this point that seems unlikely so

cafe trio 

this is either soulmate au or like... One Month after where we currently are lmao

pose very much ref’d from this extremely good post by @mcnuggyy

2. Has non-stop puns

Pax. At first it’s highly antagonistic and they only do it to piss you off; like all other aspects of their personality it evolves into sweet goofy nonsense if and when they decide they Actually Like You.

there is a very high chance of Pax and Sol developing a classic Pun Enthusiast/Pun Hater dynamic, in which case Kent will also quietly start making puns and Sol will relish the attention threaten to murder both of them.

20. To solve other peoples problems, they say to murder the problem

Art, obviously, both because he’s a Small Ball Of Under-Expressed Rage, and also because he doesn’t know how to express empathy appropriately and his go-to shorthand is, “that shit sucks, do you want me to kill that person for you.”

Also Raven, but she like... means it. And is disappointed if you tell her not to.

28. Gets lost easily

Ari knows the five blocks surrounding his apartment extremely well, and is Immediately Lost anywhere else, even if he’s been there before. His ability to form new memories is not great in general and “where things are in relation to other things” is one of the things he has the most trouble with. He only remembers the streets around his apartment because he’s Memorized Them On Purpose, like goes through a mental list in his head of what the buildings are and what he knows about them. It was very hard work and now he can Never Move of he’d have to do it all again.

29. Likes to work out

Oh man, that was a FUN one.

So, the original version of Cafe was written years ago for my best friend @sweetheartblue, featuring a mix of her ocs and mine, and in that original version, what became Part 1 and Part 2 were one unbroken piece that I sent to her first, with the intention being to set up a normal day that all of a sudden goes entirely off the rails in a way that’s hopefully jarring to the reader in the same way that it’s jarring for Sol (though to a different magnitude, obviously lmao).

So.... essentially the inception of this now-40000+-word story was Giving Tumblr User Sweetheartblue Mood Whiplash.

Part 2 is essentially the Fun Part of that setup: we’ve had the HA GOTCHA BITCH YOU THOUGHT moment at the end of part one, and now I get to play with a character who Thought He Knew What Genre He Was In And Just Found Out He Was Wrong, which is extra-fun because Sol is set up in part one as like... a pretty savvy dude who knows his way around the city, and it does him absolutely no good in this situation. Sol is Fully Useless in this scene, and it is mostly luck that he doesn’t get eaten, because he’s built up a lot of survival skills over the course of his life, but they’re in response to long-term threats like homelessness and parental neglect, not Old Men Snapping Their Horrible Bloody Teeth At Him.

I also had a lot of fun hiding what things in this scene have Plot Significance (i.e.: who is this old man? he’s holding it together while he’s talking to sol, and he only loses it when other people try to interfere; what’s that all about? :3c)

also I get to establish some fun things about Kent in this scene, specifically that he’s A Snarky Asshole but only under incredibly specific circumstances, and he’s A Little Too Ready to put himself in physical danger... and ready to use violence to protect others but not to protect himself.

1. What’s the maximum amount of time your character can sit still with nothing to do?

Not..... very..... long.

Honestly, of the Trio Pax is probably the most able to sit still for long periods of time, but the least willing to. If you leave Kent in a waiting room for longer than he expected to be there, he’ll either be happy for the time with his daydreams or spend the time going over all the reasons the wait must be his fault somehow. Sol, in the same situation, will not last nearly as long but he will try very hard to sit still and kind of feel bad when he has to get up and pace or whatever.

Pax just, like... won’t wait. They’ll get up and bother the receptionist or knock on the door or whatever.

If they had actual incentive to do so, they could probably sit relatively still for like... an hour? Which is longer than Sol could do, and longer than Kent could without dissociating. But I genuinely don’t know what would entice them to do so lmao

8. What were they told to stop/start doing most often as a child

Pax had the kind of childhood where people wrote them off very fast and thus didn’t bother telling them what to do that often. There was a period in middle school where they tested those limits pretty hard, presumably in an unconscious effort to get Somebody To Care About Their Well-Being, but people still didn’t tell them to stop doing anything, they just, you know, Called The Cops.

It’s possible that they spent a small amount of time in an environment where they were told to stop doing “girl things,” and if so that would be where they learned how to do hair and nails, because nothing makes Pax commit to doing something more than telling them not to do it.

20. If they were asked to explain the difference between romantic and platonic or familial love, how would they do so?

[this is a hard question because i sort of assume pax is alloromantic which means They Would Have A Better Answer To This Than I Do. but. i’ll do my best]

Honestly if they were asked, I suspect they’d say some bullshit about how they’re “all different ways for people to ask you for things,” but obviously they don’t really believe that.

I think for Pax love ultimately comes down to trust, and probably romantic platonic and familial love all have different flavors and reasons for developing trust, but honestly trying to distinguish between them is making my head hurt lmao

39. How easy is it for them to ignore flaws in other people? 

I think this is sort of in the same category as “sitting still for long periods of time,” i.e., they Could but they, you know, Don’t. Also because of who they are and how they are often treated in public they’ve cultivated the skill of Being Able To Verbally Assassinate Anyone At A Moment’s Notice, so they’re in the habit of cataloging people’s flaws, whether they actively plan to point them out or not.

⚔ - DUEL - a meeting or relationship that was important to them

When he was younger, Sol’s closest relationships were his family and his nanny--in particular his sister Karine was, like, a Brat, but he really loves her; they had the sort of sibling relationship where they were sworn enemies unless it seemed like they could accomplish greater mischief together than separately. When Sol cut ties with his dad he stopped seeing Karine too--he told her about the freaky things he saw in their dad’s lab and she either didn’t believe him or didn’t take it seriously--and he’s been kind of quietly hoping she’ll call him ever since, but she never has.

☢ - BIOHAZARD - the most dangerous thing about them to others

Honestly I think the most dangerous thing about Sol is his Dedication and Loyalty--once he commits to a person, woe betide you if you’re standing between him and them. I.e., don’t refuse Sol’s People medical care or he will point a shotgun at your face.

it’s traditional to give all your ocs some of your traits so kent gets my terrible mental health, sol gets my Trans Thoughts, and pax gets my Obsessive Curl Care