#vat7k speculation

i don’t think his lack of murderous drive was entirely from the good within him, though.

hugo is someone who’s spent the majority of his life scared of one thing or another. it would make sense for him to dread the guilt and/or consequences of ending a life, mostly just because it’s never happened to him before.

(he never found a book series like “the tales of flynnigan rider” to give him hope. and, even if he’d found it at an incredibly early age, he still would have been too disillusioned at the time to believe.)

In terms of the whole "well, that’s one way to find out" fic do we think Varian would have had any issues in terms of hiding the massive scars all over his back?

OOH HOO HOO it’s another ask about my writing!! those always make my day :D

i’d say no, probably not. varian strikes me as the kind of guy who wouldn’t be casually shirtless to go swimming or something like that, even minus all the things that have happened to him. he probably just took his vest off for the water trial, and that was it.

plus, the gang is very accepting of everyone’s idiosyncrasies. hugo doesn’t like it when people give him stuff? okay, they’ll find workarounds. nuru is scared of storms? everyone tries to be there for her in their own ways. yong has a tendency to slip into spirals and routines? they’ll break him out of those if he gets in too deep. varian won’t take his shirt off and is jumpy when anyone touches his back? they don’t mind.

i think he’d have a much harder time concealing them back home, with rapunzel & co. if we’re going by tts’ claim that eugene is scar-free (which i HEAVILY doubt), he’s probably tried to rope varian into going to saunas and things like that. “kid, you need some relaxing activity”, he’d say, blissfully unaware that he is making varian the opposite of relaxed.

but he’s got big baby blue eyes that are only unsettling sometimes, and he says “fiddlesticks” when he’s mildly annoyed and “gee i’m bushed” when he’s tired, and he sings lullabies and tells bedtime stories to get his raccoon to fall asleep, and he’s a giant nerd with such endearing enthusiasm that brightens the lives of the people around him. so no one suspects.

varian carries a nail clipper with his supplies, yet when nuru finds him biting his nails to shorten them anyway, he says “prison habit. we weren’t allowed to have weapon-like things” with a completely deadpan expression. and nuru just laughs at what she thinks is a joke and pats his shoulder as she goes by.