10: How do your characters react to someone they like buying them a present they absolutely hate?

Well, that depends on the kind of like. If one of Kattar's friends bought him an ugly sweater, he would know it was completely intentional, and probably jokingly threaten to use the sweater to muzzle them before throwing them in his closet.

Now if it was Alicia, he would first question if she realized how ugly it was, if he was absolutely sure she didn't realize he would hate it he would be like "Lise, I don't know if heaven was out of eyes that could see color...and patterns, when they made you..." but if he was sure she did it on purpose he'd probably tell her he refused to wear it in public and would say that he'd only wear it at all if she wore it first, which she would totally do.

If Kattar bought Alicia a present she absolutely hated, there are only two ways that could really have gone.

1. He didn't realize what he bought her was a trigger.

2. He bought her something super pretty but extremely uncomfortable to wear.

He knows Alicia well, so it;s not generally a matter of taste that he would mess up on, but she has a lot of trauma and secrets he doesn't even know about, and sometimes these triggers appear in the most seemingly unrelated things.

If his present triggered her, she would probably quietly tolerate it, thank him, and pretend to like it while wishing the whole time to get it away from her as quickly as possible, probably planning out how long she'd have to leave it out somewhere he could see it when he was at her place before she could shove it in her closet, and he wouldn't question where it disappeared to. She would only tell him it upset her if he noticed and asked what was wrong, and even then, she really wouldn't want to tell him, both because she'd prefer not to talk about it, and also because she wouldn't want to worry, upset him, or make him defensive.

If it was just something pretty, but uncomfortable to wear, she would first tease him relentlessly for buying her a gift in self interest. Then she would agree to wear it, but argue that that was a present for him, so she should get something else in return (don't make him comb your hair for you Alicia, I know you hate doing it, but that's an unfair trade.)

And yes for sure this situation would happen if he ever wanted her to wear most kinds of strapless dresses or tops, a leather dress...(hmmm, how would Alicia leather dress?) or anything that showed the scars on her back.

“Have you thought about what you’re going to wear to the opening?”

“Not much,” I sigh, and by that, I mean ‘not at all.’ “I’m not usually that into clothes and makeup, and I don’t know much about fashion.”

“You looked pretty stylish in that little cocktail dress you wore to the award ceremony.”

“Well, that wasn’t my doing. My friend Kattar styled me for the award ceremony.”

Shannon raises one eyebrow with a skeptical look that embarrasses me more than ever.

“Well,” he says almost sarcastically, “he certainly showed his taste.”

11: Your OCs at an ice cream parlor

Alicia can't decide on a flavor. She for sure is spending ages trying to pick which one she wants the most and Kattar is telling her "Just get two scoops." But she'll be worried about wasting the ice cream if she can't finish two scoops. Kattar will promise to finish her ice cream if she can't just so long as the flavors she selects aren't food dyed a weird color like blue, or green, or pink. Basically so long as she gets something peanut butter, coffee, chocolate, or vanilla flavored.

Kattar gets coffee ice cream because he likes less sweet flavors. Also he gets a cone, but totally also gets a paper cup and spoon because he just wants to EAT the ice cream parlors in-house made waffle cones. He does NOT want to get ice cream all over his hands. Alicia insists that he is neurotic and gets her ice cream in a cone, but of course it starts melting down her hand and she has to try to lick that off her wrist before it makes it's way down her arm, but then she almost spills the cone altogether, and Kattar has to remind her that she is tilting her cone dangerously far, and then she gets another droplet spilling on a different part of her hand. He definitely just gets her a paper cup to put her ice cream and cone in at that point before she loses the whole dessert altogether. She does in fact manage to finish two scoops despite what she thought, and Kattar finds this amusing, though of course he doesn't comment on it, as she distractedly finishes her ice cream and then asks to taste his. He'll allow her one taste, but then she'll ask for another, and he will staunchly refuse to give her anymore, no matter how much she tries to get him to give her some. She should have ordered coffee flavor if she wanted it.

Unrelated, but if the shop carries pistachio, Alicia will sample it because she's always been curious about pistachio ice cream, because she knows it's 'a thing' but she's never tried it. She won't like it, but she will try to be polite.

13: What are your OCs like when watching a movie?

When watching alone or with other people, Alicia doesn't know how to be quiet lol. Most of the time she doesn't talk through the movie, but she might have unrelated questions in the middle of the movie (do we have any snacks?) or she might ask questions when she can't remember who a certain character is, etc. This drives Kattar up a wall. She also has a tendency to forget this is a movie and get overly invested, scared, saddened by whatever she's watching. When she's sad Kattar has to stop the movie to try to comfort her because he legitimately doesn't want her upset, but when she's scared by it he finds that cuter than he probably should, especially because she has a tendency to cling to him without even thinking when she's scared lol.

As for Kattar, he watches everything without showing any emotion to the point where it's impossible to tell if he's even enjoying the movies he watches lol. Alicia has on many occasions found herself watching his face instead of the movie just wondering "do you even like the movie?

14 How would your characters try to style their crush (if given the opportunity of course)?

Kattar has done this several times. He really has no issue getting Alicia to let him style her, because she knows she has very little fashion sense, so she usually goes to him whenever she needs to look nice for an event. Usually he picks out a dress that he thinks suits Alicia well, in a color they like, either pink or red, and a pair of heels, then he helps her pick a hair style, jewelry to go with etc. He likes her wearing skirts and dresses, rarely pants or shorts, and basically always picks something without sleeves, it's one of his preferences. Since she's so short, he never puts her in maxi dresses, because they would make her look drowned.

Alicia would have a hard time persuading Kattar to let her style him, but if he did finally consent, probably after much pleading, she'd actually not do that badly. She loves his hair an irrational amount so she'd probably want to try tying it back with a ribbon the way his mother ties hers, and she'd put him in a sweater with a pretty wide scoop neck, blue jeans and sneakers. He basically never wears blue jeans, or sneakers, especially not light-blue jeans, so he would have some strong feelings about that, but tolerate it. All and all, he'd look nice, but not particularly stylish. He'd still be happy wearing it if it made her happy tho.

(he sort of styles her in this chapter lol)

Ahh, I have a few OCs obsessed with weird creatures too. Alicia loves sea life, but weird things like octopi and sea slugs and such lol

15 Your OCs at a festival or a concert?

I'll do both, but I'll start with at a festival.

Alicia and Kattar live near DC so there are a lot of festivals they can attend, and have attended, like the Cherry Blossom Festival and Fiesta DC (Latino Festival.) Alicia loves festivals and is like a bumble at events like these. she wants to look at everything and taste all the food. Kattar never orders anything himself because he knows Alicia won't finish a lot of her food and he'll be called on to finish it for her so it won't go to waste (she's tiny, you can blame her for trying to save space in her stomach.) The primary problem for both of them at festivals is the heat. Despite being basically a snake and getting cold easily, Kattar also overheats easily and he doesn't like sweating. He'll wear linen, but he's also worried about anywhere where there are heavy crowds meaning someone will touch him with dirty hands and get his clothes dirty. He's also just not a fan of crowds, and that has increased ten-fold now that he's in a wheelchair. Before he was in a wheelchair, he used to have to put Alicia up on his shoulders (not that that was that big a deal, since she's not heavy) for her to be able to see any performances taking place. she was uncomfortable with being up that high at first, but she got used to it once she realized he wasn't going to drop her.

At a concert things are way different. Alicia doesn't like them, like at all. Somehow being in a crowd at a concert is way more uncomfortable for her than it is in the open air of a festival and she hates the amount of people touching her at all times when she's in a standing area so she always has to get seats. Before Kattar was paralyzed, he loved concerts. He's been to several, usually rock concerts, throughout his teens and twenties and he almost always dragged a friend along with him, usually Alicia, and they made and night out of it, going to the concert, then for dinner, and probably staying in a hotel if the town the concert was in was far from where they lived. The concert was always the worst portion of the day for Alicia, especially because they're just so crazy loud, but she enjoyed the trip and the dinner.

Have I mentioned that Alicia is horrible to take with you on road trips?

I'll give details on that one next, and then camping XD.

16: your OCs on a road trip?

Let's establish this right away.

Alicia is a road trip demon. Do not take her on a road trip with you. Anyone who loved her any less than Kattar would have lost patience at hour two when she's asking to stop to go to the bathroom for the second time. She also buys tons of snacks at gas stations and Kattar doesn't like it when she eats in his car, but she'll beg to be allowed to eat something because she's so hungry, and she does manage to eat without spilling for anywhere between 20 minutes to 2 hours, but she WILL spill eventually lol.

She wants to talk rather than listening to music or audio books which is fine, unless you had albums or audio books you were planning to listen to, but fortunately Kattar doesn't MIND talking. Also she takes too long to eat whenever you stop to eat along the road and that makes getting back to the trip take longer than it needs to.

Once they arrive at the locations she's enough fun for Kattar to forget why he dislikes taking her on long trips every SINGLE time until it's time to get home. Basically the only annoying thing she doesn't do is ask "Are we there yet?"

Jinho is horrible on road trips because he can read or watch videos without getting dizzy so he just...does, and doesn't interact with the driver. (Read: Andrew, because he's so much better at driving than Jinho is. And no, this isn't a 'driving while asian' situation.)

a road trip actually happened in "Damsel in the Red Dress" too, several actually, but in the past, so they'll only be mentioned in retrospect, but one is pretty relevant to the third book, as it revolved around Alicia's 21st b-day

200+ yikes. My heaviest queen rn doesn't break two hundred, but she isn't a robot either. Alicia isn't even that heavy, she's just so small you can't distribute her weight well and it feels like she'll smash your leg if she sits on your knee lol.

17: how will your characters deal with their bff being in a kind of bratty/grouchy mood?

Alicia has a tendency to go from 0 to 100 and either be very sweet or very irritable with no in between. Kattar's response to this usually depends on the context. If it's his fault he used to try to brush it off, but he's learning to apologize. But if it's not his fault and she's just being a...woman who complains a lot, he usually tries to spoil her to get her to smile and not be so irritable. typically his go to method for this would be to get her to stop talking first (not an easy feat) and then offer to take her out to get something to eat or get ice cream. When you've had a female bff since Junior high you learn there are a few different kinds of angry.

1. I'm angry AT you
2. I've had a bad day
3. I'm hungry
4. It's that time of the month.

2 through 4 can be solved with food, and in Alicia's case, sometimes with cuddles.

When Kattar is having a grouchy day Alicia can sometimes get irritable herself, but when she controls that urge, she often tries to get him to smile or laugh or be playful and affectionate to get him to lighten up. Her hugging him when he was having a bad day was usually enough to ruin his bad mood, if nothing else, because he felt the need to separate her from him before he got too embarrassed, and she would stubbornly cling to him until he agreed to stop being such a pickle puss.

It's time to deliver

Your OCs while camping?

First of all Kattar has never gone camping of his own volition, period, and he's also never been 'real camping' only stayed in out of the way cabin with some of his friends when they were 19. He doesn't like the woods, he doesn't like that most standards for sanitation deplete significantly the second people get out into the wilderness. He doesn't like that he could drive HIMSELF because his hot rod cars definitely couldn't make the trip so he had to ride with his friends Ryan, Brad, Utkarsh, Lee and Alicia, and there were legit four of them (him being one of them) crammed into the back seat without the proper safety precautions like seat belts.

Then once they arrived he had to share a room with three other people, which he is also not used to being an only child who also wasn't big on sleepovers unless they took place at his own house, and that was usually two friends at a time MAX. He didn't particularly enjoy tramping through the woods, and was worried they'd get lost (they didn't.) He didn't want to go swimming in the lake (and didn't) because he doubted how clean it was.

Alicia on the other hand loves nature. She likes being away from the noise and crowds of the city. Crowds of people are often a no go for her, crowds of trees are totally fine. She went about sketching plants and leaves, and occasionally chatting with Kattar who really didn't want to leave her to wander the woods alone because he was convinced it would be way too easy for her to get kidnapped. She also got a room to herself in the cabin as the only girl present, so win win. She doesn't shower or wash her hair that often, so it wasn't a big loss to her either lol.

Dominic does okay at a farm. He can help move heavy hay bales. He'll be gentle with the horses and cows, so they'll trust him and he learns fast, so he'll probably be allowed to help groom them and braid the horse's manes. He'll also love getting to feed and be around the cute little animals like lambs and baby goats, and he'll be particularly curious about any new kinds of flowers he sees there and takes pictures so he can try to make them out of origami later.

Essence isn't a fan of the farm, just seeing it as more work, but she'll quietly participate and be happy to leave when she's done. Dominic however will be trying to get her to enjoy it. Feeding her farm fresh berries and figs and getting her to sample the ice creams that the farm makes. After visiting the farm he'll take her to a small bakery where he'll tell her to order anything she wants. She'll probably only pick one thing so he'll pick several more for the two of them to share, and they'll eat them with some of the milk they bought at the farm.