#norrayem

Oh man I am such a big advocate for little spoon Norman ldkjfas

(From this ship chart post about my general headcanons for them)

Their default cuddling/sleeping arrangement is Norman in the middle because he freezes easily, so they keep him warm between them in the colder months, and Ray doesn't have to push Emma the furnace away in the hotter ones because he has Norman as a buffer.

However, they alternate frequently so everyone gets a spot in the middle, especially if one of them needs some extra TLC that day.

Emma 100% koala hugs the boys while they're doing stuff around the house and they'll just carry on with their business, like there isn't this little blob with a mop of orange hair attached to their backs.

They get back at her by using her as a headrest when they're watching stuff together. Their height difference isn't too extreme, so this isn't exactly the easiest thing to do, but they swear it's more comfortable and that they can see better this way.

Emma is also 100% the one who starts saying she needs to "Ray-charge" when cuddling/hugging Ray. In typical fashion, Norman follows suit, and Ray pretends he doesn't enjoy it for some time before surprising them one day when he catches them in a hug and playfully tells them to give him a minute, he's Ray-charging. They knew they'd eventually win him over, as they always do.

Ah yes. Me. My boyfriend. And our girlfriend with her 500$ giraffe. (via @vinokurinner; Also in fanfic form courtesy of banana_slug_army)

me: “W-Why does he have a stick?” my friend: “W E A P O N”

Therefore the bonk stick was born. It’s usually meant for demons though.

- Bonus;

I’m blanking on specific tropes and extremes because the content curation I do for myself mostly avoids this, but I relate to what @officersnickers mentioned in this post a lot:

Things done in fanfic that annoy me: Ray being constantly annoyed with Emma and Norman; listen, he‘s sarcastic and sometimes loses his temper, but overall, Ray always takes time to explain things that annoy him, without too much scolding. In some stories, I get the feeling he doesn’t even like Emma and Norman, the way he acts, or he drank too much edgy juice™ this morning. Also Norman being all bashful around Emma. He‘s certainly not a casanova, but I like to imagine he cooled down over his crush for her and is just as happy as Emma herself to experience new feelings alongside her. That being said, I don‘t really see Emma being either too shy around either of them or drifting into turbo mode when she‘s in the mood. I like her as a complex, more differentiated character and not a child in a teenager’s or adult body. She’s not dumb and she‘s not over the top 24/7.

So I guess it’s the flanderization of their characters for least favorite?

In an effort to incorporate Ray’s cheekiness/playful teasing that’s most prominent during his time at Grace Field (which I do enjoy and feel like circumstances lead him to refrain from doing this more post-Goldy Pond, both in-universe and metawise), some writers will go overboard and have it descend into almost sketch comedy levels of antagonistic hijinks. Which is fine if people want to write it since it’s all in good fun and they’re exploring things with these characters that appeal to them, but I don’t vibe with it very much.

I do like to think that side of him would resurface more once he’s in the safety of the human world, especially among those he’s closest to.

(Chapter 161; whenever I look at this too quickly I think Ray’s lightly yet exasperatedly slapping Norman instead of Norman being so excited and invigorated by Emma’s speech that he accidentally bonks into Ray and Ray’s reflexively shielding himself djfkdjs)

Norman’s love for Emma being misconstrued into extremes ranging from being embarrassingly and uncharacteristically nebbish to a yandere is also annoying (covered in this post by @princesscringe with some additional tags I also felt were relevant). Again chalking this up as more of a balance thing because young love can be intoxicating and overwhelming, and when you’re specifically writing fic where the focus is the ship, greater emphasis on those feelings naturally happens. But to the point where it’s all-encompassing and Norman neglects other people who are important in his life or seems to lack any ambition outside of the relationship is so off-putting. That’s part of the significance of his first exchange with Emma upon their reunion in the final chapter:

He starts off by emphasizing how, through mutual effort and support, the cattle children have been able to finally start thriving in life instead of merely surviving, and stressing how they’ve all been well, because Emma would hate if out of worry and fear for her they weren’t able to create some new happy memories and appreciate the freedom she sacrificed so much for.

While also showing he’s taken to heart what she said about being honest and vulnerable around others by openly acknowledging how even with all the good that came from this and the fulfillment he found in other pursuits and interactions, he still missed her terribly and wanted her as a part of his life. (If this arc was longer I would have liked to see the children struggling with conflicting feelings of bitterness over Emma’s choice to do this without consulting anyone after how the narrative repeatedly stressed against this level of individual self-sacrifice, but with the amount of pages Shirai had left I’m happy with what he chose to focus on.)

I do enjoy him being briefly stunlocked/flustered by something Emma or Ray say or do because that’s more in tune with how they’re all dynamic characters who are constantly changing and challenging each other as they grow older, tying into the emblematic “I’ll show you something cool, so shut up and follow” line infused with an infectious optimism for the future.

Emma being shy for a prolonged period of time is also off for me with the amount of self-confidence she displays. When there’s something she wants and believes it’s correct to do so, she just goes for it. (It’s why I always maintain she’s the last one to consciously realize and articulate her feelings in a relationship because once she does it’s like, “wait, why aren’t we together? We should fix that,” and the progress on it dramatically picks up lfjldj I love her respectful tenacity and ambition.) Yet pigeon-holing her as a genki girl is also dishonest to her character, even if she is incredibly exuberant and plucky in her default, unstressed state; she’s energetic but it’s with an acute awareness. (This is something I give more leeway to in individual short comics with the hyperbole being used to quickly and clearly deliver a punchline with a limited amount of time and space).

some time ago, I wanted to draw cat!emma and cat!ray interacting with Norman, when I realized: hyperactive & loving *gasp* Emma is just a very fluffy DOG!