#jesse coste

(one year after the events of current canon)

Seiji could barely believe his own eyes. It was the fourth bout in the team event finals, the score was 18 to 18, which meant that Nicholas was tied with Jesse.

Nicholas, who had a mere 2 years of practice fencing épée. Nicholas, who still lost to Seiji every time they practiced together. Nicholas, who still hadn’t mastered his parry sixte. That Nicholas. Seiji turned to Bobby and Eugene, just to see if they were seeing the same thing he was seeing.

Eugene turned to grin at him. “Pretty crazy, right? At this rate, we might actually win, bro.”

There were 20 seconds left on the clock. Nicholas lunged, and Jesse got a hit to his wrist just as Nicholas’s blade hit Jesse’s thigh.

The score went up on both sides, 19 to 19.

Bobby’s jaw dropped. “Wha— how did—”

“Double touch,” Seiji explained, a bit breathlessly. He still couldn’t quite believe this was happening. “When two fencers land a hit within 40 milliseconds of each other, both of the hits are registered.”

For a couple seconds, Jesse and Nicholas just stared at each other. Seiji knew for a fact that Nicholas had never gotten a double touch before, and he knew Jesse wasn’t particularly accustomed to them either. Most of the people Jesse fenced weren’t fast enough to match his speed, to land a hit at the exact same time that he did.

(Seiji had managed to score a double touch with Jesse exactly once, during a practice match. It was a moment that he looked back on with far more pride than he should’ve.)

Nicholas attacked Jesse again, using a flèche this time, and as the hit landed, Seiji only had two thoughts running through his head. Nicholas just won a bout against Jesse Coste. And he’d used Seiji’s signature move to do it.

Seiji had spent hours working with Nicholas on that flèche. Practicing it with him, helping him improve it. Seiji couldn’t help the pride that surged through him. In a way, he’d helped Nicholas win the bout against Jesse.

Nicholas pumped his fist, turning back to grin at his teammates.

Seiji found himself thinking back to the King’s Row tryouts during his freshman year, when Seiji lost to Aiden and Nicholas had introduced him to the concept of an “indirect win”. Bobby had compared it to an indirect kiss. It had seemed ridiculous at the time, but now he was beginning to see its merit.

He beat Nicholas all the time. And Nicholas had just beaten Jesse.

Nicholas sauntered over to them and tossed a casual arm around Seiji’s shoulder.

sup bitches. Crisises not averted, but paused. didn’t write anything.

made some collages tho inspired by @rake-rattrap since I don’t normally make those HAH NOT SO PREDICTABLE NOWWWWW

I’m so tired here you go

Fun little details abt each one:

Bobby’s is inspired by the trans flag! I’m sure all y’all know i HC that bobby is on the he => they => she pipeline so yeah it’s also coquette/pink clean girl idk

oh Jesse. King of gifted child burn out. Added the phrase “per aspera ad astra” which means “through hardships to the stars” in Latin (I think) which gives Jesse to me. I made the main focus quotes like “you can’t help but become the sun” (true blue by boy genius) and “destruction is not what I intended for you/but this is what happens to all who follow in my wake” ( a poem from Apollo to Icarus) because I don’t think he means to be a bitch but he’s been raised in the spotlight and hurt so many times that it’s his defense mechanism and he doesn’t mean to hurt people but he’s come to accept it as the consequence of being around him and that sucks poor baby

Aiden. I put so much effort into this. I was going for siren whorecore y2k vibes I think I achieved that. I added a care bear and a teddy bear to represent Harvard paw (aka the best character) I also included a lot of road signs cuz I think he drives to clear his head. And then the song I chose was teachers pet by Melanie Martinez (awful person fire music) because LOOK AT ME AND TELL ME THIS BOY WAS NOT GROOMED AND IS NOW HYPERSEXUAL SAY IT TO MY FACE (haha projecting on characters is fun isn’t it) but seriously. He is hyper sexual he uses sex as a coping mechanism/self harm technique tell me I’m wrong

I made Dante’s mostly soccer inspired since he’s the only non fencer I did add Ronaldo since his treasure is a signed poster of Ronaldo and I think he would drink sprite idk. Whole lot of unrequited love quotes because this boy is PINING. I did add the quote, “may the calm in you win over the chaos around you” because he’s like the opposite of bobby he’s the rock in the choppy ocean like he stays calm all the time and idk we don’t know a whole lot about him so I didn’t have a whole lot to go on.

EUGENE MY BABY BOY I could not find ANY of him on Pinterest (where I make these) like y’all we gotta lock in and post some Eugene to Pinterest anyway I added some orange postage stamps from the Philippines and included the phrase “mahal Kita” which means “I love you” in tagalog i did also add every Eugene image I could find what about it. I made him orange because Jesse already had yellow and I do see Eugene as yellow but I wanted each character to have their own color and he ended up rocking the orange so good for him. Added a goldfish cracker cuz I think he likes gold fish cuz his you get siblings eat them all the time so they’re always in the house therefore he eats them a lot too

Harvard is purple to me. I don’t know why. He is purple. I added some of those aesthetic definition things because he seems like the type to hang those up in his future minimalistic apartment lol. I added fencing elements into his unlike any of the others because I found a pretty stained glass one I liked and then it kept suggesting them and then I found that one picture of the fencing mask on the Christo redentor statue and I added it cuz I think he’s Brazilian idk

ah. Nicholas. I made him a silly little rockstar girlfriend one I did add a lyric from music to watch boys to (I live to love you and I love to love you) that I thought he would listen to while watching Seiji fence and be like “shit why am I listening to this I don’t like him FAH”

Seiji Katayama is old money yacht party pearl necklace striped umbrella summer in Italy. Need I say more? I added a lot of butterflies because they symbolize change and metamorphism and I feel like metamorphosis is a huge part of his character like he goes through a lot of transformations (before Jesse/after Jesse, before France/after France, before Nick/during Nick, etc) also i support suicidal Seiji with all my heart tell me that boy has not stared at knives and his parent’s pills thinking “I could do it. I won’t, but I could” and then convincing himself he actually isn’t suicidal and that thoughts like that are normal

wrote way more than expected and accidentally added a character analysis for a few of them? Also yes, I did add an “admit one” ticket to Eugene (cuz he’s the only one in the actual team who isn’t mainly shipped with someone else on the team) and Aiden (because he thinks he’ll always be alone and self sabotages) what about it

wow I put way too much effort into this lol also feel free to download these I use them as a rotating Lock Screen like feel free I wouldn’t post them if I didn’t want them to be used yk

credit to @thecutestgrotto for the dividers !!

❤️ Nicholas with a tooth gap

❤️ along those lines, shoutout to Nicholas with a billion freckles and sun burn and those little white spots bc he has never remembered to put on sunscreen a day in his life

❤️ Nicholas listens to indie rock and random musicians he found on Spotify with like 200 monthly listeners

🩷 Bobby is active on ao3

🖤 Dante owns fake glasses and wears them sometimes to impress Bobby (works)

🖤 Dante reads giant fucking textbooks in front of others to seem smart (doesn’t work)

🧡 Aiden knows one song on guitar and it’s Buddy Holly by Weezer

💛 Eugene has like 30 first cousins and he knows all of them by name

💚 The Leventis twins do rock paper scissors to decide literally anything

🩵 Harvard really likes musicals, also amphibians and reptiles

🩵 Harvard is a baritone

🤍 Jesse’s always wanted a brother to share experiences and general life with. When he found out Robert stole that potential bond from him he FLIPPED

🤍 Jesse also tries really hard to be a good person, he just genuinely has difficulty with empathy and relating to experiences he hasn’t personally experienced

❤️ Nicholas smiles uncontrollably whenever he’s really happy and also will shake his hand or feet like a tail when excited or content

💜 Dafna has never had a sleepover before

🧡 Aiden is a giant fucking sci-fi nerd

💙 I stole this from @/applesandbannas747 but Seiji loves high fantasy. He also loves world history (specifically WW2) but that’s my hc

💙 Seiji has this genuine belief no one can ever truly love him as he is and has convinced himself he’s better off alone. He hurts people he cares about on purpose when he thinks they’re getting too close, which makes him view himself as an inherently terrible person. Sometimes he even thinks his lack of socializing protects others from him.

❤️ Nicholas’ mother has substance abuse disorder and he has an intense phobia of drugs + alcohol as a result of it

🩵 Harvard feels like he’s constantly faking something but he doesn’t know what. It drives him insane bc he does literally anything then goes “oh god was that out of character for me am I losing it am I faking being myself who even am I”

🧡 Aiden likes biting and being bitten

🤎 Marcel can genuinely get along with everybody and if you mention anyone he’s like “oh wait I know that person”

💙❤️ you all know what I’m gonna say that’s right autism and OCD Seiji + ADHD Nicholas

💙 Seiji was dangerously close to becoming a theatre kid but luckily fencing took him before he saw the touring production of Annie

💜 Dafna constantly loses her glasses and also just never cleans them

🖤 Next to Normal is important to Dante I just know it.

🤍 Jesse has chronic pain. I have genuinely no source for this I just feel it in my achey bones (the happy fits referenced…?)

🩷 Bobby is a genuinely passionate feminist, esp for a cis man. Go not white boy go ur almost there

🩵 Harvard is fairly Catholic. Like he’s not baptized but he’s a little Catholic bc of Kings Row

🤍❤️ Jesse and Nicholas both get piercings the second they’re 18. Jesse bc his dad was always like “uhm no that’s weird” and Nicholas bc he was fucking broke. Jesse gets a nose ring (left nostril) and Nicholas gets his first lobes + helix

Jesse: I really like my nose ring

Nicholas: (shotgunning cinnamon toast crunch out of a plastic bag) ok

Eugene’s sibling: No, you HAVE to fill my water bottle!

Eugene: Says who??

Sibling: God

Eugene: (spilling drama)

Aiden: Eugene, this is my Roman Empire now

Seiji: Which one?

Aiden: What do you mean which one?

Seiji: Which Roman Empire? Theres been 3 official ones and a couple halfhearted attempts. Also one very full hearted attempt, that’s World War 2

Seiji: It looked as if he was defying gravity.

Harvard: ohHHH NOW IM DEFYYYYING GRAVITY

Harvard: How am I losing right now??

Dante, who’s been having Aiden distract Harvard while Bobby steals the chess pieces: no idea

Dafna: I feel really off today, like my heads been hurting nonstop recently

Adrienne: When’s the last time you cleaned your glasses?

Dafna: 4 months ago, why?

Aster: There’s only one way to settle who’s gonna ask Marcel out.

Thomas, putting up his fist: I’ve never been more ready.

Aster: Best out of 3.

Aster and Thomas: Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!

Nicholas

Seiji

Eugene

Harvard

Aiden

Jesse

Bobby

Dante

I'm over a year late to this ask, but I want to know everyone's opinion so I'm making the poll anyways. Thank you Anon, if you someday see this.