#gravemorne

the other men kind of went into the whole spiel, get her flowers and pay for dinner, open doors and be a gentleman (as vague as that statement is). despite how wild they act, most of these men know how to treat a woman well, at least in theory. but my friend’s eyes kept jumping back to me.

kind of tough to explain how women like dates to be planned though? i ended up settling on “well, what does she like? any hobbies she has, anything that you two bonded over?” you’d think i grew a SECOND FUCKING HEAD the way those men stared at me. one of them even had the GALL to ask “well what does that have to do with anything?”

i popped a piece of pineapple into my mouth and chewed, trying to think of how to explain further. the best part of a date for a woman is feeling like it’s a date for her, i try to explain. like, i don’t like going on dinner dates because i have a hard time finishing food and it feels rude to make somebody else pay for a meal i can’t eat. that’s something that you wouldn’t know without knowing me well.

the suitor nodded his head, comprehending my words better than i expected honestly. “she’s real sweet, we met at a basketball game but she doesn’t seem the type to play. she likes animals a lot, has a dog at home with her family…” he continues for a while, lining out the kind of girl she seems to be, at least from first impression. an incredible sense of style, kind to everyone, the type that usually wouldn’t find any interest in an NRC student but hey, if anybody could pull a sweetie like her it would be this friend.

the peanut gallery had gone shockingly quiet, hanging off my words a little bit (but still nonchalant, because. men.). me and my friend spent a long while lining out the details of this date, what he wanted to do and what she might like. "text and tell her you have a rough idea of what to do," i suggest, "then she can choose whether she wants to know or be surprised."

"but the man is supposed to plan the date?" says somebody off to the side, mouth full of some meat that smells delicious but is probably too heavily peppered for my fickle stomach.

i tried to explain that yeah, that can be nice for some people, but some people need the sense of control that helping out with dates can have. some folks just don't like to leave things up to chance.

"when did you become such a romance guru?" leona asked from his place reclining by the pool, one eye open and a smug expression on his face. i'm gonna be real, after the overblot he was just like. the normal spelldrive captain that i worked with.

"most of my exes couldn't really do it, so i had to figure it out myself."

it was like i'd just announced that i was a PIXIE, the way these men howled in disbelief. "you had EXES?" "you DATE?"

"uh, yeah? it's a normal part of school years back home."

ruggie's over there busting it UP laughing and he tries to explain that nobody really thinks of me dating other people from back home, especially with how physically affectionate i am with people i consider just friends.

"are you calling me easy, bucchi?" i taunt, and he tries to backpedal as the rest of the dorm laughs. really, it's kind of a shocker that they think i've never been on a date?

the night is full of chatter, guffaws and chuckles, but then it slowly starts to die down as the students start talking about their own love lives (or, in some cases, the lack thereof).

my friend comes back over to me, showing me his phone with a big ol' grin on his face, and i'm HYPED because i'm kind of just spitballing with this date stuff. she liked the plan, had some things to include and adjust but i was at least a little bit of help. he thanks me profusely (or, at least, as profusely as a member of savanaclaw can. no matter how nice he is, he's still here instead of at The Other School for a reason).

i wave it away, on my second helping of pineapple. the pineapple at this party was GAS. i could make an entire post about this pineapple. or pineapple in general.

i think jack's being totally innocent when he asks me what sort of date i would want to go on, but the rest of the dorm heckles him anyway. nothing you can do about that, i guess, so i take a minute to think.

i hem and haw for a GOOD long while, trying to decide what i'd like and of COURSE i can't help but think of what i'd want to do with leona and i think everybody knows that. i decide on going down to the port town, wandering around and seeing what catches my eye. you'd swear these boys had notebooks at the ready the way they were asking questions though?

"would you want him to walk you home?" to the gate of the college, maybe, but not back to my dorm unless he's actually FROM night raven (and some of those boys DEFINITELY prickled thinking about me going on a date with somebody from The Other School).

"would you kiss him on the first date?" depends how i feel. i don't see kissing as a colossal deal like some people do.

"what are some instant no's for you?" being patronized. there's a difference between chivalry and babyproofing and if you do the latter you'll just piss me off.

we talk about this for a long while, the boys cutting in with some of their insights about dates they'd been on, things that had been a success and things that had been awkward with their partners. one of them, a third-year with a fourth-year boyfriend from scarabia, puts in his two cents of planning for somebody who feels the need to reciprocate.

honestly savanaclaw's just like. a super muscular slumber party? they like fistfight and throw each other into the pool but they do really like to talk about like romance and movies they've watched. they're a lot more respectful than people here are so i never have to worry about them being creepers.

but yeah the night winds down and i'm getting tired (because DAMN that week was EXHAUSTING) and when i stand and start gathering my stuff all of the boys are like "noooo but then when you leave we all have to go to beddddd :(" like hey diva! you don't have a bedtime! you are all grown ass adults!

and one of them suggests walking me back to my dorm because they DO live at night raven and then they all start arguing about who's going to be taking me back. because obviously they all can't go. obviously. so they start figuring out some sort of contest where one person will get to walk me home when LEONA stands up and is like "all of you clean this shit up and go to bed. i'll take them so you idiots don't get yourselves hurt trying to decide." they tried to rope him into it but he did that like mom eyebrow raise and they all shut up like misbehaving kids...

so leona walked me homeeeeughhhhh he's so perfect and lovely we talked the entire way back about everything and nothing and,,, i could talk about him for HOURS do NAWT let me bring up leona kingscholar.

this may not be the most cohesive thing posted on this blog but i miss writing about this dr... everybody is so AUGHHHH and i'm so EUUUUGH and trust. i am a mary sue. everybody wants me and everybody thinks i'm cool and *yap yap yap*.

but yeah! considering making more posts like this just detailing some of the stories i've picked up from twisted wonderland, tell me what you think?

credits for the divider go to @strangergraphics! credits for all photos to where they are due :)

have you ever seen gomez addams? well, if you have, you've got a pretty good idea of how moloch acts. a deep love for life paired with a deep love for the macabre. big fan of ancient torture methods, poisonous flowers and deadly acts of devotion. no wonder he was sorted into pomefiore.

he's got a lovely girlfriend from moonlark academy named moira and they're so cute to watch together. they feed crows together. they tie love notes to their legs and use them as carrier pigeons. genuinely the morticia and gomez addams of twisted wonderland. god i hope i'm invited to their wedding.

moloch is a very good hairstylist too! he's the one who helps out with hair styling before my photoshoots and he always knows exactly what to use to make my curls pop. very good at braiding, too! i've been trying to get him more clients but the only person i've managed to convince is callum (and all things considered, his two-strand twists looked IMMACULATE and everybody wanted to know who did them). i'm hoping when he goes on his internship next year that he'll get more clients :(

only two members of heartslabyul were accepted on to the spelldrive team. both are serial gossips and tend to stick close to each other. during the first week of school, they were both wickedly loyal to riddle. however, after the overblot, they began to cling more to leona, citing the captain as a "paragon of strength". there's still bad blood between them and heartslabyul.

ganjifa was one of riddle's roommates for about a week in first year. a second-string flyer alongside epel, he has a tendency to be spiteful and cruel, as many members of nrc can be. he was the one that deuce and i ran into that broke our eggs and got the crap beat out of him. he was assigned the jack of clubs. ever the traditionalist, his face paint is much the same as trey's.

bauer's one of ace and deuce's roommates. he's more muscle than brain, having lots of fouls called on him on account of his naturally aggressive play style. not one for confrontation unless backed up by a group. he was assigned the six of diamonds at the beginning of the school year. he does six small diamonds for his face paint, three under each eye.

they both threw eggs before the overblot. they both couldn't get out of the garden during it. ganjifa guarded the mirror to help underclassmen out when it locked and bauer ran into the rose maze, close enough to see riddle in the state but not confident enough to help.

they're the ones who spread the overblot rumor around i think, as all of us who fought were very hush-hush about it. bauer had a picture and a short video at one point. they also freaked out when i came back to spelldrive practice to help out, thinking me to be a lot more injured than i looked (i was, but nobody else needed to know that). i think it's them sharing how ace, deuce and i fought that actually got me some respect from the team.

... i still don't trust either of them around eggs though.

you guys think it's only the men in twisted wonderland that are gorgeous? you're getting lied to. led around like a pig with a carrot + stick. if you guys ever get the chance to meet yasmina, be prepared to be totally awestruck. she's just as pretty as leona is, and i'm not saying that lightly.

a lion beastwoman that plays spelldrive is common; its a common pastime in the sunset savanna after all. however, not often do you see one elevated to the rank of captain due to their highly cooperative nature (they tend to believe that one of their teammates deserves it more). moonlark academy's captain stomps on that stereotype soundly.

the first time we met was during the spelldrive social. picture this; a bunch of young adults standing at the edge of a ballroom, nobody wanting to dance, boys trying to look uninterested and girls fussing over their friends' uniforms, making sure that this strap was here and that zipper fell there. mina came up to me OUT OF THE BLUE and asked me to dance. i almost tripped over my feet staring at her because she was JUST SO GORGEOUS. that's what kicked off the social and actually let people have fun instead of just staring at their competitors.

she ended up pulling me aside and covering me in kisses. i had no idea that her lipstick wasn't transferproof until ruggie said something. i was SO embarrassed... but i didn't wash it off until i got home.

shockingly, or maybe not, she was cast as persephone in hadestown.

mina isn't the only girl from moonlark that i've gotten close to. zahra is a hyena beastwoman, and though she doesn't play spelldrive for the passerines (an... affectionate...? nickname for moonlark's team) i did meet her at the spelldrive introductory social. she manages the events team on campus, though i don't think she loves it. instead, zahra's a runner! she loves cross country and she's fast, but there's just no interest in cross country at moonlark academy. she's on the track team instead, running the 3200 m/2 mile race.

similar to ruggie only tangentially, she has mentioned that she's met him in cubhood. she was part of a larger family/clan than he was; they didn't run in the same slums but he caught her eye once or twice while he's been on jobs close to her home. zahra seems to enjoy pestering him naturally, but has to be reminded that he's not somebody she knows so she shouldn't bug him so familiarly. he gets... really uncomfortable around her. not quite fear but something fear-adjacent.

though she isn't similar to ruggie in most ways, she's just as crafty as he is. every time you think they've blocked every entrance to NRC, she slips in to spelldrive practice to come steal me away to the foothill town.

rajan is a tiger beastman from the scalding sands. he lives at royal sword academy right now, and like many others, we met during the runtime of hadestown. he was cast as our hades, and his baritone is BEAUTIFUL. he's very good at noticing when i'm not taking care of myself and has connections at nrc to get in and check on me.

used to be close to kalim and jamil in his youth; his father was under voluntary employment under another bigwig in the scalding sands, so he got to go to a couple of parties and meet these two. kalim still thinks he's the coolest. jamil's jealous of his freedom i think, and no matter how well he hides it rajan knows.

went to basilisk's coil technical college's preparatory school, considering its location in the scalding sands. jamil took a couple of classes there when he could and claims to have liked it. he got accepted to RSA on scholarship.

amias. ah, amias. coming from royal sword academy, he's exactly the type of prince that you'd expect to come out of that school. softspoken, kind and head over heels for one person in particular: mina. i met him when we both tried out for hadestown; he was cast as orpheus and me as eurydice. good thing that we're both good actors, because there was NO romantic chemistry between us.

we (read: me and rajan) spent most of our rehearsals/performance trying to get him to confess to her. by the time glorious masquerade rolled around (early february), he was still tiptoeing around her. i want to shake him. so bad. mina just thinks it's funny.

he's from the shaftlands/pyroxene and is OBSESSED with vil's work, though he does still have some biases around her villain status that he needs to work through. i don't really know what he does at school, nor what he's good at, because despite his friendly demeanor he's very secretive.

fweeheehee i miss my friends so much. i hope when you guys shift you get to meet them! if there's anybody you know/remember/have scripted in, tell me about them! i'd love to meet your friends too :)