Interesting little things about your characters!

Fun with new characters

HORNET MCCONNELL

is actually a big softie once you get to know her. She loves drawing, and has a whole homemade sketchbook constructed of old paper she dumpster-dived for and duct tape. Her favorite things to draw are her siblings and Batty, but she also likes drawing trees a lot for some reason. She dances when there's no one around to see her. Her favorite treat in the world is caramels, y'know, the chewy kind that come in the clear cellophane wrappers and get stuck in your teeth so you can still taste it for hours. As much of a tomboy as she is, she loves feeling pretty. When she's stressed or upset she likes for Kit to brush her hair because the sensation is calming. She had a ridiculous crush on Skid throughout their whole childhood and still kind of does.

KAELEN DEMPSEY

is a massive, massive dork, but he will never reveal this to anyone. He plays the ukulele and loves it, and will sometimes serenade Alyssa just to annoy her - think Vampire by Ansty Pants for hours at a time. He has an undeniable fondness for really really bad horror movies (Creature From the Black Lagoon? It Came From the Swamp? Children of the Corn?) because they're so terrible that they're funny and he likes to laugh at the people being killed in nasty ways, but when he comes across one that's legit scary he's been known to scream like a little girl, drop his popcorn, and wrap himself up like a burrito in blankets. His mother was a piano teacher, and taught him to play when he was five years old. After she died he continued teaching himself, and got very good at it. Playing piano is one of the few things that can calm him down when he's in a rage, and he's recently started dabbling in composing his own music. Despite his book snobbishness with Hemingway, he has guilty pleasure trash reading that he will never confess to liking, namely god-awful paperback romances and Twilight. He was bullied on the playground by Avon Lightwood for his entire elementary school career. She used to steal his books D:

Two more fun things!

KAELEN DEMPSEY (contd.)

• His favorite color is purple, but not dark purple, more the lavender-blue color of the sky right after the sun sets.
  
• His favorite food is any kind of pasta, but he hates tomatoes with a passion, so his usual dinner is just plain spaghetti noodles with butter on them.
  
• He is mildly afraid of spiders and clowns. Since spiders probably thrive underground in Thirteen, he almost always walks around with a shoe or newspaper in hand to slay them. Clowns… there was an incident when he was five years old involving a really creepy one at the carnival, and he never quite forgot it.
  
• He is terrified of tight spaces, total darkness, and complete silence. The story behind these fears is a little less entertaining. After his mother died, his father would usually punish him by locking him in the linen closet for sometimes more than a full day. Inside it was cramped, pitch dark, and totally silent. Prolonged exposure to this sort of treatment gave him a wicked case of claustrophobia. He refuses to take elevators and has full-on panic attacks if he’s in a tight space for more than a minute or two. To combat the dark/quiet phobia, he sleeps with the TV on.
  
• When he was little, he wanted to take dance and/or gymnastics lessons. His mother was all for the idea but his father wouldn’t hear of it. Eventually he grew out of the desire, but there’s still a sort of inherent, practiced grace in his movements.
  
• He’s incredibly good with cars. One summer he and Auggie Dahl stole a junked car from a junkyard and fixed it up into working order and actually had it looking good. They sold it and split the profit so they didn't have to take tesserae that year. Before he left One, he really wanted to be a mechanic when he got out of school.
  
• He has a birth defect called Arachnodactyly. Arachnodactyly, or “spider fingers,” is a condition in which the fingers are abnormally long and slender in comparison to the palm of the hand. While this makes him an exceptional piano player, the joints in his hands are weak and often cause him pain when it gets cold or damp for prolonged periods of time, somewhat reminiscent of rheumatoid arthritis.
  
  
  
• He started smoking because the nicotine buzz took the edge off of the hunger he lived with for most of his life, but he kept smoking because it was a subtle way to stick it to the man.
  
• While he doesn’t have a problem with being around Colt or Lyss, with any other person in the world he has a distinct dislike of being touched. It’s a defense mechanism that’s sort of ground into him from years of trying to avoid being hit, but if anyone touches him without his express permission he’ll generally flinch away and look a little surprised/scared before recovering and verbally accosting the perpetrator.
  
• With the exception of Kiera's Reaping, he hasn’t cried since his mother’s funeral when he was six.
  
• He absolutely hates vegetables of any kind, but he’s fond of fruit and his favorite snack is apple slices and peanut butter.
  
• He really dislikes anyone but Colt or Alyssa calling him Kae. His mother coined the nickname, and thus it’s somewhat sacred to him, something he only allows the people he’s close with to use. If someone else uses the nickname, he’s very quick to correct them.
  
• He has a bad nail-biting habit. He either bites his nails, plays with his hair, or chain smokes when he’s nervous.

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FUN FACTS ABOUT KOLT THAT WILL MAKE YOU 'AWWWWW' (did an OTP Meme on tumblr and this is what happened) -

• big spoon/little spoon:

  Kae would be the big spoon since he’s so much taller (he’s 6’5”, Colt’s 5’8”) and the other way around would be awkward.

  
  
• favorite non-sexual activity:

  There are activities other than sex? Hmmm. I feel like they really enjoy just cuddling and watching movies and having quiet nights in to themselves every so often. But as for the more fun stuff, they’re both pretty musical and probably have lots of awesome jam sessions.

  
  
• who uses all the hot water:

  Kaelen, because he’s a spoiled princess who has to take long showers so he can deep-condition his hair.

  
  
• most trivial thing they fight over:

  They fight a lot, over a lot of stupid stuff, but the most trivial thing that’s ever caused a big fight was a little incident with Colt leaving his toothbrush in Kae’s toothbrush mug that exploded into a screaming match about commitment.

  
  
• who does most of the cleaning:

  Kae. Definitely. He’s OCD about keeping everything tidy whereas Colt just sort of leaves everything lying all over the place.

  
  
• who calls up the super/landlord when the heat’s not working:

  Kae because he’s an expert at bitching at people until they do what he wants.

  
  
• who steals the blankets:

  They’re both blanket hogs, but they’re usually all wrapped up in each other and don’t have to have a tug-of-war with the blankets. In the early, friends-with-benefits stage of their relationship Kaelen would get all petulant and roll himself up in a blanket-burrito so Colt wouldn’t steal all the warm.

  
  
• who leaves their stuff around:

  Colt. 100%. Messy boy is messy.

  
  
• who remembers to buy the milk:

  Probably Kaelen because he makes very meticulous lists for everything, groceries included.

  
  
• who remembers anniversaries:

  Colt’s the more romantic of the two, but both of them remember their anniversary. Colt, however, remembers the anniversary of when they met, the anniversary of their first kiss, the anniversary of the first “I love you,” etc.

  
  
• who cooks normally?:

  Kaelen does, not because he’s a fantastic cook or anything but more because Colt would burn the house down if he tried to make anything more than cereal.

  
  
• how often do they fight?:

  A LOT. Their relationship is one of those high-low ones and the rough patches get reallllly nasty. There’s typically screaming on opposite sides of the room and plates thrown and someone sleeping at a friend’s house for a few days every time they have a big blowup, but they always work things out.

  
  
• what do they do when they’re away from each other?:

  I can’t really speak for Colt since he’s not my character, but Kaelen gets really morose and bitchy and snappish if they’re apart for more than a few days. Colt brings out the best in him and when he’s not around, Kae reverts to the condescending ass he was before they got together.

  
  
• nicknames for each other?:

  Well, Colt’s one of maybe three people in the world that Kaelen doesn’t death-glare at for calling him Kae, but they don’t have any ridiculous pet names or anything. Colt’s usually just his name or baby or sometimes love if Kaelen’s being disgustingly affectionate compared to his normal standoffish bullshit.

  
  
• what would they get each other for gifts?:

  Kae always asks for books, so that’d be what he’d expect to get for a gift. He’d probably splurge on getting Colt a really nice guitar, or if he was feeling really sappy he’d do something ridiculous like learn to knit and make him a woefully ugly sweater.

  
  
• who remembers things?:

  Colt would forget his head if it wasn’t attached to his shoulders. Kaelen’s very good about writing things down and keeps both of their schedules in line. A cute little thing he does is that he usually leaves post-it notes around the apartment with little things that Colt (who’s dyspraxic and just plain scatterbrained to boot) usually forgets to do - “remember to eat breakfast” on the fridge, “you can’t wear flip flops to work” by the shoe rack, “this is conditioner, not body wash” on the bottles in the shower, “I ironed your outfit, please put your pants on right-side out this time” on the closet door and finally “have a nice day :)” on the front door so he’ll see it as he’s heading out.

  
  
• who cusses more?:

  Kaelen. Kaelen Arthur Dempsey, potty mouth extraordinaire. Colt isn’t innocent on this, but Kaelen has a genius-level vocabulary with plenty of filthy vernacular thrown in. He can call someone a blithering troglodyte of a fucking shit-head douchecanoe all in one sentence.

  
  
• what would they do if the other one was hurt?:

  Depends on physical or emotional hurt. Again, can’t speak for Colt, but Kae would like… flip if Colt got physically hurt. He’s a former Career, so he’s used to seeing wounds and knows how to handle them, but his hands would be shaking the whole time and he’d be having an internal panic attack depending on how bad it was. Emotional hurt… Kaelen SMASH. He’s super protective and would basically annihilate anyone that even thought about hurting his man >:c