#emi leech

You can find more information on my yuusona Emi (as well as this au where she's a Leech sibling instead) here on the masterlist.

Inspired by certain recent events on the jp server, I finally got back to actually making a sprite for leech!Emi

Some general thoughts & (mild?) spoilers for the current jp event below the cut

So I had a dream where Jade & Floyd were my brothers - and that got me thinking of an au where Emi is their younger sister.

(I suppose in this au NRC’s gonna be co-ed for Emi to actually end up there.)

Ngl, considering how wary of the twins og Emi is, I kinda love the contrast of her being all casual and chill with them in this au. Like, she might not read them as well as they read each other, but she still knows them and doesn’t really bat an eye to most of their shenanigans - it’s just more of the usual for her.

Though, she also wouldn’t be as patient with the tweels as they seem to be with each other. As kids, she’d always complain about Floyd giving up games or whatever halfway through, and some of that attitude still persists. With Jade, their temperaments are more similar, but of course they butt heads sometimes too - especially when she can’t figure out what Jade actually is thinking or up to (basically, others may be sus of Jade because they don’t know his thought process that well, Emi is sus of him specifically because she does know him).

On the other hand, I can see leech!Emi and Jade engaging in some sorta prank wars - with the danger of things sometimes escalating a fair bit. Though if someone comes to question them, you’re just gonna get two versions of that Jade smile (something they picked up from a parent, no doubt) and reassurances of how they were just “having a bit of fun” (just don’t mind the carnage around them it’s fiiine).

Also growing up with Floyd would mean he and Emi used to play(?) wrestle a lot as kids (they both probably have some marks / scars from each other’s teeth). Even at NRC, Leech!Emi would be more willing to roughhouse than yuusona Emi is, though she’s trying to keep up appearances a bit more.

(Though now I’m thinking it would be kinda funny for her and Floyd to be just squeezing each other and fighting / “fighting” on the school grounds so yeah guess it’s still a thing. Also Emi may be younger & smaller but that’s when you learn to fight dirty. So sure, she may have two intimidating brothers to fall back on if need be, but she can usually hold her own.)

I wanna say she’d end up sorted in Scarabia - I have a hard time believing that a Leech would be as much of a rule follower as og Emi is, and so Heartslabyul wouldn’t be as much of a contender. (I mean Octavinelle sure is an option too, but I still haven’t quite figured out how that spirit of benevolence even applies to the tweels, and how it’d apply to her in turn. Plus like, I kinda love the idea of a mer-person out in the desert, for that very real fish out of water vibe, lol. Not quite as intense as being thrust into a whole new world as yuusona Emi is, but still the similarities are there.)

Poor Azul tho. There were 2 menaces he’s dealing with, now there’s a third. Sure, leech!Emi’s not as concerted in bothering him as the tweels are, but she’s heard enough from her brothers to casually join in on the ribbing whenever the opportunity arises.

On the other hand, Jamil now almost has two Azuls on him. Sure, Emi’s watching everyone around her quite carefully, but there’s something about the way her eyes linger on Jamil, that little knowing smile on her lips (with those sharp teeth, to boot), that just puts Jamil on edge, and makes him extra careful about keeping up appearances in front of her. 

At least this version of Emi would be a bit less lawful, so they could eventually find more common ground on that with Jamil. (On the other hand, not sure Jamil would appreciate some of the "helpful" suggestions she could give for sorting out his situation, oh boy.)

Plus ngl, it kinda tickles me to think of Jamil being all "am I intimidated, am I attracted, is it both?" with her. (He deserves a kinda menacing & questionable yet doting partner, is what I'm saying. Keeps him on his toes a bit.)

Though I suppose for leech!Emi, her flirting would be of a more teasing variety, prodding and poking at Jamil until she gets a reaction out of him. Poor snek.

A lot of Emi’s voracious reading (do the merpeople even have books? I mean they have photographs so presumably) was directed on land dwellers (just like yuu!Emi has always enjoyed reading about different cultures). So she gets very excited about actually experiencing all these things she’s only read about before.

So there’s this tall woman (close to 180 cm / a little under 6 feet, so a bit shorter than the tweels), who can honestly look unintentionally (or intentionally) pretty menacing sometimes, suddenly just being so very excited (and frankly cute) about like the crunch of dry leaves under her feet or something.

Compared to the tweels, though, I think leech!Emi would still be more approachable and more genuinely friendly. And I can definitely see folks turning to her, asking her to explain or rein in the tweels (just like people sometimes ask Jade to do with Floyd).

I wanna say Emi would still dye her hair red (at least in human form, because hey new body and look to play around with, almost like on a character creation screen), just now there’s some additional jokes about how it’s “just like the color of blood, so lovely 😇”.

Plus she absolutely loves playing around with clothes and accessories and things. Flowy dresses and long swooshy coats are just great, especially with some wind to flap them around. (Let's just hope that she remembers that in human form she's supposed to be a bit more careful about how much skin she shows, before the wind sweeps the hem of her dress too high. Poor Jamil is gonna be dying with how casual she is with her body in that regard. Dealing with Floyd in the basketball locker room is bad enough, this is much worse for Jamil's blood pressure and sensibilities.)

And don't even get her started on all the nifty little gadgets you only see on land.

Tagging @scint1llat3 @diodellet @moonyasnow @bibi-cha

And the way they'd all just pile on you with the ribbing. That GloMas scene of Malleus & Jamil teasing Sebek would have nothing on it.

Plus I feel like this trio would end up with all these inside jokes and references that are absolutely incomprehensible to outsiders. 

I mean, you're putting together a sheltered fae prince, a merperson from the Coral Sea, and a chronic 5D chess player from the Scalding Sands? By the time they've had the chance to really figure each other out and understand where each of them are coming from, it'll be just such a tangle of eclectic references and experiences all mixing together that it'll be all but impenetrable to outsiders.

Though, to be fair, that does also work for yuusona!Emi, who'd be spreading like memes and references from her own world to the other two. (And now I'm thinking of like Malleus talking about someone “not having all the Moomins in the valley” or saying “good food, better mood” after hearing Emi say it like once. The spit take she would have once she realizes, lol.)

You can find more information on my yuusona Emi (as well as this au where she's a Leech sibling) here on the masterlist.

When she first turns up at Scarabia, Leech!Emi has even less of a spice tolerance than yuusona!Emi does. She also doesn’t really realize that she should be vary of spicy food (and of course the tweels don’t see fit to warn her).

Like, how bad could the spice possibly be?

Answer: very bad.

So she very much suffers the first time she ends up eating something spicy at Scarabia.

Jamil, for his part, is sweating for a very different reason - knowing her siblings, he's not sure if he's gonna have a temperamental Leech in his hands that he's gonna have to placate somehow before half the dorm is wrecked or something.

Besides, is there a possibility of doing serious harm to a mer-person with the wrong kind of food? That would look very bad indeed, if Scarabia can't even provide for the new freshmen adequately. (Jamil can already imagine how Azul would lord their ignorance over the whole dorm, and Jamil does not need that in his life.)

Luckily for Jamil, instead of being squeezed to death he just has a sulky mer-person in his hands, who's annoyed about not being given a proper warning (they did, she just didn’t listen / believe it).

Emi works on it, though - she kinda wants to one up the octatrio (or at least the tweels) by sharing something like a ghost pepper with them one day and being all casual about it. Pass on the suffering, as it were.

But also after this experience, she sure has learned to make sure to take milk with any meals at Scarabia, and be a bit more mindful with what she picks in general.

Because if the scent already burns her nose, it's only gonna be worse on the way down.

Tagging @scint1llat3 @diodellet @moonyasnow @bibi-cha

Also been trying to figure out what leech!Emi's signature spell would be. Right now, I'm kinda leaning towards something that would allow her to glean understanding about objects? Like, maybe figure out the purpose something was made for, or is used for, or things like that. I may or may not be thinking of something from Wheel of Time with this.

That, or something that would like enforce calm or stop people from fighting or something (mayhaps born from a tussle with Floyd / the tweels, lol).

(Mild book 7 spoilers below the cut)