Yuu the Gremlin

i'm gonna be honest, the way u phrased this was h i l a r i o u s.

like imagine there's a popular tv show in twisted wonderland (let's call it "powerline's power stars", based off of that one pop star from "a goofy movie") that's famous for launching the careers of its contestants into the mainstream once they debut. neige and vil both were on it, so of course all of pomefiore knows about it.

epel hears that you can get 500 thaumarks just for signing up to audition, and ANOTHER 500 for actually making it past screening. they all think "why not, money's money" (jack and sebek are just glad they're not going through with ortho's suggestion of making a visual novel gacha game with hot boy characters to attract the "whales", whatever THAT means), and they take a weekend off to shoot their audition tape.

at first they just want to send in their audition, take the money, and leave -- but apparently they're actually pretty good, because one of the producers calls them and says they made it onto "powerline's power stars". they try to back out of it, but as soon as they're promised 1000 thaumarks just for showing up for the shooting, they zoom out of night raven college at record speed.

(well, okay, they do actually write their housewarden some notes explaining why they're not there. the notes themselves are in varying quality, ranging from epel's "money" written in purple glitter pen on a piece of notebook paper and left on vil's doorstep, to sebek's tearful, 10-page long apology in squid ink and delivered via raven.)

when they get on "powerline's power stars", the audience falls in love with them. their chemistry is so good to watch -- a little bullying, incredibly affectionate, and most importantly, surprisingly in-sync despite how much they argue. and their performances are top-notch, always following some kind of theme based on one of the great seven (they are nrc students after all, might as well represent them while they're at it). their creativity and group dynamics easily make them among the the most popular contestants on the show.

the show takes this and markets them in advertisements BRILLIANTLY. sebek and jack are the straight-laced, tsundere-like yet very passionate and protective types. ace and epel are the mischevious, pranking, little shit types, except epel hides it under a delicate facade and a quiet voice. deuce and ortho are the chlidish, overly-excited types who are just there to support their friends and do their best. and yuu is the glue that keeps them together, the ever-present cheerleader, always cheering them on and keeping their spirits up no matter what.

AND EVERYONE EATS THIS SHIT UPPPPPP THE VIEWERSHIP AND RATINGS FOR "POWERLINE'S POWER STARS" GO THROUGH THE FUCKING ROOF AFTER THE FIRST ADVERTISEMENT FEATURING THE FIRST-YEARS, AND THEY PASS THROUGH EVERY ROUND WITHOUT FAIL.

the first-years, on the other hand, are more concerned with the amount of money they're raking in for every round they pass. they're so invested in their new capital, they don't realize how good they're doing until it's announced in the final round that they won the whole thing, and will now signing on with the official "powerline" music brand.

when they're told that they're now actually expected to write an album and make more music videos, instead of being excited, they're like "F U C K we actually have to do WORK now UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH."

(obviously, they give in and do it, because money is money.)

For Ace, someone makes a tiktok of the early stages of their rounds, when they are learning a new choreo, and he's messing with cards, doing his sleight of hand with ease while looking up at the choreographer like it’s no big deal. Flipping multiple cards through his fingers and all the other fancy stuff he knows like the back of his hand that people thirst over and card companies are reaching out to him before they even win because he’s that good and he had the look and skill for some promos they all want to make. The clip of Ace throwing cards into an Apple that Epel didn’t want and slicing it up had people on their hands and knees in horniness, especially with the detached look he had which had people saying he’d make a good TV villain. Truth was he was simply zoned out and bored, not thinking of much.

Deuce, it came in when they had a challenge to do something with a blastcycle and he immediately is chosen to be the one to do the stunts. He manages to do them all with ease and people clip it with metal music and comment on it. He also helps the other teams fix up their bikes when something happens with them because of misuse and the girls are thirsting over him covered in sweat and oil. One of the assistants made the mistake of getting him a motor jacket for him to ride in and everyone lost their minds, as well as some companies wanting to reach out to him. A clip leaked of an off hour they had, and Deuce was seen punching one of the large punching bags in the training room and people went wild when they realized he was basically a biker boy.

For Jack, he is the one cooking and making sure everyone is able to eat a balanced diet while also keeping it fresh and stuff. He is jokingly called ‘mama wolf’ cause he is always worrying despite his tsundere status. People remark how good he is at making food and how he manages to make it all look so good despite the fact they are really frugal with their money; but lots of people are impressed and recreate it. It has become a trend to try and recreate Jack’s dishes. Some food companies are reaching out to have him be a sponsor and to make a ‘college life’ cookbook since they are so budget friendly. Jack had a video of him speaking with Yuu about one thing or another, both of them lounging as they ate some homemade pastries, and people were going crazy about the domestic wolf.

Epel, he makes use of his country boy status in one challenge when they are in an orchard and they are taking a break. He scales the trees and picks out some of the best apples he finds with ease, jumping between the trees like some sort of country Tarzan while his accent is out in full force. He also chops down a tree and makes a firepit without a second thought when it is revealed they have the option to camp and all the first years take it. They are the ones who do, and it becomes a really popular episode of their camping trip they decided last minute. Everyone is rushing to harveston to grab their apple when every single first year says that Harveston apples are far better.

Ortho basically strong arms his way into being their editor when he feels like the one assigned to them isn’t doing them justice during their challenges that involve mini music videos. He doesn’t care, not really, but the fact that it’s done so sloppy makes him mad and he has to fix it. He inputs his own code and everything, making their stuff look a million times better than the best of the best in the industry at the moment, all the while Ortho is still learning his choreo and stuff. Lowkey, everyone loves him because he loves his elder brother so much and they think it’s so sweet how much he talks about him.

Sebek draws in ravenous fangirls when they did some fight choreo for one of their challenges, due to his training as a guard. Everyone was impressed with how well he was faring, and they lost their shit when he had a compression shirt on during the practices and training before the official ‘battle’ so to say. One of their assistants jokingly asked if he rode a horse too, to which he reminded everyone he is in the equestrian club at NRC and people were desperate to see him on a horse but they already passed that challenge by the time people realized. There was a video that leaked of the backs of Sebek, Deuce and Jack, all of them in compression shirts, that had people literally dying at their back muscles; they are none the wiser.

For Yuu, everyone on tiktok marvels at how well they manage to multitask and keep track of literally EVERYTHING. During the beginning of the competition when multiple groups shared a single training room, Yuu would remind the other groups of their times and what was theirs. It goes to the point Yuu even reminded them of their OWN CHOREOGRAPHY when their trainers went to take a personal call, being able to remember 2-3 different group choreographies like it was nothing. Yuu even reminded some of them to take medications, water, and to call their parents; all of it usually a passing comment from the others that they weren’t meant to hear. It happened so often that the producers of the show asked Yuu if they wanted to go into group management, to which Yuu said they had no interest in it; they just felt like helping and it wasn’t impressive.

ace is the first one to come up with this idea. he think it's a harmless little thing, a prank that'll cause plenty of mayhem but won't get him in any serious trouble. so he starts referring to cater and trey as his dad and mom respectively, and riddle as his uptight, no-nonsense older brother.

("one time i saw my brother try to put one of mom's tart into like a ziplock bag to save it for later, and when he took it out like two days afterwards, it fell apart immediately and he started bawling, ha ha! my dad got the whole thing on camera and shared it with me — i can show you if you want.")

he ropes epel in on the plan. epel is a little more hesitant, but seeing this as a way to get back at vil, even in a small way, he agrees to it. vil is now "ma" and rook is now "pa". people do start to wonder why he still uses he/him pronouns to refer to his supposed mother, but they decide not to question it too much.

("a few months ago, my pa told me a story about how one time my ma was trying to comb his hair, only for his comb to get stuck. so he got another comb to get the first one out, and that ended up getting stuck, too. five combs later, and peepaw had to rush him to the barber for an emergency haircut. it was pretty funny, but now i'm left wondering how pa even knew that story... hold on, i need to check my bathroom mirror for cameras, excuse me.")

surprisingly, deuce catches on pretty quickly, and he starts thinking maybe it's a new dorm policy. he doesn't know why, or why nobody else seems to be doing it, but ace seems pretty sure of himself, so he starts doing it, too, if a bit awkwardly.

("my brother always gets on my case for my bad grades. it's a little frustrating, but he only does it because he cares. my dad tutors me whenever he can, but he's not very good at studying, either. but whenever i do get good grades on my report card, my mom makes me egg tarts!")

yuu starts after they ask ace about it, and thinking it's a good prank, they decide to join in on a little mischief. so they start referring to all the teachers as their "dad". it makes people really confused, because they assume they only have one dad, two at most, but "dad" seems to change personalities every single time they talk about him.

("i was helping my dad do paperwork the other day, except we didn't get anything done and spent the entire evening playing solitaire and making dog puns."

"i was filling my dad's basketballs for him for his next game, whilst simultaneously helping him rework his pick-up lines that he's going to use on rsa's 'hot librarian' — his words, not mine. it was... a weird experience."

"i was feeding my dad's cat a couple of days ago, but i guess i fed him too much, because he's just a ball with limbs now. it's fine, though — it's not like my dad actually goes anywhere. too old for that, y'know?")

ortho is up next. idia's already ortho's brother, so he can't really do anything with that, but he really wants in on the average teenage experience of pranking your peers. so he starts referring to literally every upperclassmen he knows as his "brother". this is when everyone starts to realize that something's wrong, because some of things ortho says can not apply to idia in any reality.

("my brother is so talented! he's so good at talking to people, and making them sign contracts with him, and convincing them to invest in his restaurant... gosh, i wish i could be as good at communicating as him!")

jack is, unsurprisingly, very unamused when he figures out what the others are doing, but he doesn't try to stop them. but after a few weeks of exposure, and jack starts unconsciously doing it, too, which the others don't point out to him because they think it's absolutely hilarious.

("my brother didn't show up to morning practice, again, so my other brother and i went lookin' for him, and we ended up findin' him in a tree. obviously, my brother and i can't climb as well as my eldest bro can, so my brother just... threw a spelldrive disk at him. to get him out of the tree. and then we had to rush him to the infirmary because now he had a concussion. i don't... i don't know why he thought that would work.")

sebek is the last hold-over. not only is he unamused by this prank — and frankly very aghast when he realizes that jack has also been infected by it — but he's also really repressed and will do literally whatever it takes to not sully his image in the eyes of diasomnia. of course, with enough wear and tear, this doesn't last very long.

("ugh. my brother fell asleep on the road AGAIN! i swear, so many people have tripped over him, i'll be surprised if he hasn't broken any ribs yet.")

ace and epel think all of this is extremely funny, so they all keep trucking along with it with nobody noticing for a couple of weeks. it's all fine and dandy until the first-years are out on the town during the weekend, and deuce gets involved in a really bad carriage crash.

at the hospital, deuce starts deliriously asking for his older brother to take him home. but when the receptionist checks his familial records, they're really confused because deuce never even had a brother.

unfortunately, ace knows exactly who deuce is talking about, and awkwardly spends the next 30 minutes trying to get a hold of riddle over the phone.

So when they are complaining, they say 'my brother' or 'my ma', you know, complaining and all that junk. And Ortho of course is recoding everything, and they decide to dick around and when they are picking them up from class or clubs and they see their 'older brothers' or 'parents' they remark on what they are doing and Ortho zooms in to scan what's going on so he can make sure he doesn't confuse things have a clear record of who is who. For the Scam Trio-I mean the Ocatvinelle trio, they are 'our rich uncle' and 'scary cousins' while Scarabia is 'the babysitter and younger brother', and its a whole thing they do.

Ortho, being tired and overwhelmed with all the data processing he's had to do, when Eric asks for the BTS sends everything, including them speaking about their seniors like they are family, which was just a joke for them and he doesn't realize it. It becomes viral overnight when the episode labeled Family Moments get released, and how they are so close and just little assholes throughout the entire thing. It becomes a whole thing that people notice that all of them close to only each other, like real families and everyone else in the dorms are kind off to the side, like neighbors are and that they DO act like families.

the contest is through video submissions, so yuu brings all the first-year together to pump out a semi-decent, story-driven music video (think "last friday night" by katy perry -- a mix of story cutscenes and actual dancing). they used to dabble in making original music back home, so they write up a quick, catchy song, and assign everyone their roles.

after the whole fairy gala thing, jack and ortho are very adept at making walking/flying look fabulous, and so they're the main stars for the acting segments. ortho is also in charge of the technical parts: providing equipment, editing, etc. jack is very embarrassed over the idea of being in a music video that a bunch of people will see, but after he sees leona eat a mouse off the floor because he was too lazy to pick up the plate of food ruggie left for him, he decides he really needs his vacation as soon as possible. same for ortho, except he had to watch idia heat up a cup of ramen, drop the whole thing on the ground, and then proceed to still eat it anyway.

since ace actually knows what people like, he's in charge of planning and directing the choreography and writing the story. he's a little bitchy about it, but he's good at what he does, and not nearly as bad as vil, so... little mercies.

being strong enough to carry the heavy equipment, sebek is the one in charge of actually recording the video itself. he's ALSO in charge of making the costumes, being the only one with enough determination to study for five nights straight on modern fashion trends and... y'know, being the only person out of the seven who knows how to sew, lol. being the emotional, sensitive guy he is, he's also in charge of the lighting and the overall aesthetic of the video, knowing exactly which elements will evoke what response in people (aka, he throws a bunch of things at the wall and sees which one makes him cry the hardest). don't worry-- yuu keeps him from plastering malleus's face all over it.

that leaves epel and deuce to be the dancers. luckily, the choreography isn't nearly as... bubblegum pop, i guess, as "absolutely beautiful", so it doesn't take a whole lot of convincing for them to do it. deuce, like jack and ortho, isn't entirely sure of being on camera, but then trey gets called back to the queendom by a family emergency, and the whole dorm goes to shit and somehow catches on fire, soooooo...

at the end, they submit their video, and grab their participation money. and they honestly think that's the end of it...

...until they get an email saying they won first place, the video blows up on TwistTube, articles start getting written analyzing the metaphors and complex story in the video, and now eric venue is coming to sage's island to see if they'd be willing to do a promotional music video for a movie he's producing.

They then decide to fuck around and make Ways to be Wicked and Rotten to the Core with Ortho’s drone. I don’t know who would be who but it would let all of them shine. When Vil’s dad asked them if they where willing to help him with his new promotional, they mentioned they made 2 more songs and recorded videos, they didn’t send them in cause they where just messing around. He asks to see them and they say sure, not to sure as to why he wants them.

They too, go viral on TwistTube with people thinking that there is a potential coming of age movie behind the videos.

The firs years simply are wondering they’ll get more money out of these videos for the vacation fund.

BUT SRSLY THO YESSSSSS

it would make a lot of sense that they'd theme the video around one of the great seven, which would explain why there's so much sea imagery (they pay off the octavinelle bodyguards to let them shoot their music video lol). and just like in descendants, the story of the music video is someone gathering up a crew to take over night raven college, which-- let's be honest, they deserve to have irl.

with "ways to be wicked" and "rotten to the core", i think yuu could be mal, jack can be jay, ace can be evie, and deuce can be carlos. ortho, sebek, and epel will be the back-up people (the other residents on the isle of the lost for "RTTC" and the students in "WTBW" in the video.)

and of course, the freshmen wait until school's out to record RTTC in the cafeteria, and they pay off pomefiore to let them schoot WTBW in the basement, lol.

since they really don't wanna have to pay off other dorm members again, when vil's dad asks them for music videos, they just send him WTBW. little do they know that the movie is about a queen's descent into madness, so it's the perfect music video for it lololol.

So Eric knows that these kids are good, by themselves they have made three very good videos and only one of them was meant for a professional competition. He knows how the public works and he knows that with young kids like them, they want Behind the Scenes and In Making Videos. So he asks for the footage, and Ortho seeing no big deal in what he was asking-assuming he wanted to see the process behind how they got some of their shots to try and emulate them-sends him the footage without much thought.

Eric sends it to his producers who announce to the people that they will be releasing some Behind The Scenes episodes for the creation of the three most Viral Videos on TwistTube. Ortho sent over so much footage, because he himself is always recording and processing things, so they have hours and days worth of footage to sift through and realize these kids are a goldmine and end up releasing about 3-4 videos of behind the scenes of their music videos.

It was in these videos that everyone realizes not only are theses kids pretty good looking without the makeup and dancing, they where some of the dumbest fucks to ever grace the world and how the hell are they in Nght Raven? They become internet celebrities overnight, many of the events in the BTS videos become memes, screenshots are made into memes, some phrases are made into memes. Their audio is memed. It’s absolute chaos.

They see them grabbing their fellow students from their clubs, which leads to many brands wanting to reach out to have Deuce and Jack be the heads of their athletic brands, some Magishift teams want to scout Epel due to his skill and slim build, Sebek is praised for his skill with horses and swordsmanship, many people wanting to see him in official tournaments. Ace’s card playing skills when he was dicking around with Yuu and Ortho caught the eyes of playing card companies, Yuu was labeled as the teen who never reacted to anything and Ortho was immediately called to be Baby.

But the one thing that was recurring in the videos was a single phrase

Vacation Fund.

It was a whole meme after it came to light they only made the video’s to get money for a vacation they all desperately wanted to take. Anytime any of them complained, they always yelled ‘it’s for the vacation fund, suck it up’ or when someone wanted to stop ‘the sooner we get this done, the sooner we know how much money we have for the vacation fund’ and so on and so forth.

It became a whole thing on the Twst equivalent of Twitter (I am never calling that app X), one if they ever got their vacation with all the residuals and from winning the competition. Everyone is searching for answers and wondering what they would be doing, if this was a stunt or something; but none of them really have Twitter, or barely even use it so they are completely unaware. Magicam is filled to the brim with remixes of some of their most iconic lines and moments, stitches with their audios and people reacting to their insanity. The most popular ones are when they are screaming about the vacation fund and having very exaggerated movements and faces going along with it.