Jun 18
The original sketch vs.
The finished digital piece. I think I like the original better idk. I’m not the best digital artist procreate is my best friend but it hates me so… I’m also a shit renderer so they look a little floaty but idk
seen from Netherlands
seen from Türkiye
seen from China
seen from Brazil
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Guatemala
seen from Malaysia
seen from China
seen from Mexico
seen from China
seen from Germany
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from China
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Australia
The original sketch vs.
The finished digital piece. I think I like the original better idk. I’m not the best digital artist procreate is my best friend but it hates me so… I’m also a shit renderer so they look a little floaty but idk
guess who discovered blank tarot card templates!!!!
in all seriousness though, these fuckers took me FOREVER it’s not even funny anymore
I did this mostly to practice rendering and coloring also turns out lighting sucks like Nick took me years.
ok enough yapping here you go
The line art is fucked up and Nick looks like he’s on coke but whatever
day ten: don’t make the mistake of being too predictable
sup bitches. Crisises not averted, but paused. didn’t write anything.
made some collages tho inspired by @rake-rattrap since I don’t normally make those HAH NOT SO PREDICTABLE NOWWWWW
I’m so tired here you go
Fun little details abt each one:
Bobby’s is inspired by the trans flag! I’m sure all y’all know i HC that bobby is on the he => they => she pipeline so yeah it’s also coquette/pink clean girl idk
oh Jesse. King of gifted child burn out. Added the phrase “per aspera ad astra” which means “through hardships to the stars” in Latin (I think) which gives Jesse to me. I made the main focus quotes like “you can’t help but become the sun” (true blue by boy genius) and “destruction is not what I intended for you/but this is what happens to all who follow in my wake” ( a poem from Apollo to Icarus) because I don’t think he means to be a bitch but he’s been raised in the spotlight and hurt so many times that it’s his defense mechanism and he doesn’t mean to hurt people but he’s come to accept it as the consequence of being around him and that sucks poor baby
Aiden. I put so much effort into this. I was going for siren whorecore y2k vibes I think I achieved that. I added a care bear and a teddy bear to represent Harvard paw (aka the best character) I also included a lot of road signs cuz I think he drives to clear his head. And then the song I chose was teachers pet by Melanie Martinez (awful person fire music) because LOOK AT ME AND TELL ME THIS BOY WAS NOT GROOMED AND IS NOW HYPERSEXUAL SAY IT TO MY FACE (haha projecting on characters is fun isn’t it) but seriously. He is hyper sexual he uses sex as a coping mechanism/self harm technique tell me I’m wrong
I made Dante’s mostly soccer inspired since he’s the only non fencer I did add Ronaldo since his treasure is a signed poster of Ronaldo and I think he would drink sprite idk. Whole lot of unrequited love quotes because this boy is PINING. I did add the quote, “may the calm in you win over the chaos around you” because he’s like the opposite of bobby he’s the rock in the choppy ocean like he stays calm all the time and idk we don’t know a whole lot about him so I didn’t have a whole lot to go on.
EUGENE MY BABY BOY I could not find ANY of him on Pinterest (where I make these) like y’all we gotta lock in and post some Eugene to Pinterest anyway I added some orange postage stamps from the Philippines and included the phrase “mahal Kita” which means “I love you” in tagalog i did also add every Eugene image I could find what about it. I made him orange because Jesse already had yellow and I do see Eugene as yellow but I wanted each character to have their own color and he ended up rocking the orange so good for him. Added a goldfish cracker cuz I think he likes gold fish cuz his you get siblings eat them all the time so they’re always in the house therefore he eats them a lot too
Harvard is purple to me. I don’t know why. He is purple. I added some of those aesthetic definition things because he seems like the type to hang those up in his future minimalistic apartment lol. I added fencing elements into his unlike any of the others because I found a pretty stained glass one I liked and then it kept suggesting them and then I found that one picture of the fencing mask on the Christo redentor statue and I added it cuz I think he’s Brazilian idk
ah. Nicholas. I made him a silly little rockstar girlfriend one I did add a lyric from music to watch boys to (I live to love you and I love to love you) that I thought he would listen to while watching Seiji fence and be like “shit why am I listening to this I don’t like him FAH”
Seiji Katayama is old money yacht party pearl necklace striped umbrella summer in Italy. Need I say more? I added a lot of butterflies because they symbolize change and metamorphism and I feel like metamorphosis is a huge part of his character like he goes through a lot of transformations (before Jesse/after Jesse, before France/after France, before Nick/during Nick, etc) also i support suicidal Seiji with all my heart tell me that boy has not stared at knives and his parent’s pills thinking “I could do it. I won’t, but I could” and then convincing himself he actually isn’t suicidal and that thoughts like that are normal
wrote way more than expected and accidentally added a character analysis for a few of them? Also yes, I did add an “admit one” ticket to Eugene (cuz he’s the only one in the actual team who isn’t mainly shipped with someone else on the team) and Aiden (because he thinks he’ll always be alone and self sabotages) what about it
wow I put way too much effort into this lol also feel free to download these I use them as a rotating Lock Screen like feel free I wouldn’t post them if I didn’t want them to be used yk
@fencesummernationals
found a random nichoji doodle in my sketch book I did at like, 3am and have decided this concept should be explored.
Aiden 100% put them there and Harvard is in the corner shaking his head, half in disappointment and half to hide the fact that he is this close to bursting into laughter.
Coach Williams walks in on it, takes a picture and leaves while Nick and Seiji’s please for help follow her down the hall.
Just… Nick and Seiji’s Getting Along shirt.
idk it makes me happy
day five: girls team
funny story, when I wrote this, I hadn’t finished all of the available fence books yet. Therefore, I didn’t know there was a girls team. Heh.
yeah I thought y’all were tryna get some fence boys genderswap yuri which NO HATE ME TOO but I was tired so I wrote this
KEEPING UP WITH THE KATAYAMAS
2150 words
in which Seiji introduces Nick to his little sister Suzume
a song: Fourth of July by Sufjan Stevens (ignore the obvious sad air about the song, I just think it’s how Seiji sees Suzume as like a “I should have done better you should be happier” yk idk do you understand)
I didn’t do a cover art for this one I just doodled some Seiji and suzu over the years so here ya go
Ignore the shitty shadows on the bottom left whenever I have characters with divorced/fighting parent I always have to draw them in that one picture of the wolf crying while his parents fight YOU KNOW THE ONE ITS TUMBLR YOU DO I KNOW IT it’s just a thing one must do
okay that’s it @fencesummernationals
Puberty Headcanons because these boys are suffering
id like to apologize in advance to the fandom because what I am about to confess goes against every thing we’ve excepted as fanon I’m sorry.
acne Seiji is not my thing
(Gasp)
(Boo)
(Tomato tomato)
IM SORRY
I just think that he has SUCH a good diet, hygiene, and skin care routine that acne does not dare mess with this god.
HOWEVER
acne Aiden who just wears a shit ton of concealer which then makes his skin worse?
that is my Roman Empire.
I also believe that nick’s teeth are crooked because he never had braces
I firmly stand behind Eugene is transmasc and that’s why he works out and is a manly man all the time and it would explain why his roommate is never mentioned (the school is obvs super accepting of queer kids I mean look at Aiden however they prob wouldn’t room Eugene with any boys if he still hasn’t surgically transitioned for his own safety so…) he’s def on t tho and has been since 8th grade. His parents seem like they would totally support him and maybe he had top surgery idk
Harvard had a phase in middle school where he tried to grow his hair out and get dreads but his mom was like HELL NO BABY YOU LOOK AWFUL and forced him to cut them off. Idk I feel like Harvard just doesn’t have the face shape for them yak and I firmly believe mama lee knew this
Bobby has known they were gender-fluid since they popped out of the womb it has always been a fact. I use they them pronouns for Bobby just cuz why not idk
Jesse. This man has not grown a single chin hair in his life. Robert told him in middle school that Costes just don’t have beards and at first jesse thought he meant like “oh just shave it it’s an image thing” but no they just don’t grow beards. He’s still not sure how he feels abt it
Nick Headcanons!
yeah I’m doing this again lols idk I drew another thingy so I might as well
Plays guitar really well his favorite songs to play are wonderwall (it pistes people off) all star (for the same reason) and the scientist (Seiji likes Coldplay and sometimes plays piano along with him and Nick loves it when he does that so…)
scared of the dark bc of his mom’s boyfriends when he was a kid so he sleeps with a nightlight and has an old stuffed dog that he hides from Seiji because it’s embarrasing
speaks Spanish and english
oh yeah 50% Mexican on his moms side 50% white af from robert
favorite movie is legally blonde because he and his mom used to watch it and eat cold pop tarts together when her boyfriend was out of town
favorite animal is a pit bull he used to want one really bad but got bit by one when he was seven and is now content admiring from afar
started fencing foil when he was 12 but didn’t start fencing epee till he was 14 and joe finally gave up on trying to get him to hit on target.
can read, but not well
adhd are we surprised
not fully vaccinated.
lives off monster energy drinks like it’s not even funny he always has like 3 in his bag. Seiji once saw him chug one 5 minutes before a bout and then he won 5-1 like it’s scary
likes f1 I would elaborate but I know nothing about it I just feel like he would enjoy it.
mom lore cuz I did this with Seiji so I might as well
I named her Serena cuz I think that’s gorgeous also look at the few drawings of her SHE IS A SERENA idk if she actually has a name but idgaf.
after hooking up with Robert, she met this guy I still have not named and started dating him. He was a trucker so he was out of town a lot but when he was around he was super sweet and caring
she gives birth to Nick and unnamed boyfriend is pissed bc Serena said the kid was his (the timelines were close enough) but the kid looks NOTHING like him (I think mysterious trucker is also Hispanic) and trucker man is pissed. He completely switches up he’s not abusive but he drinks a lot and is always angry. Serena wants to leave him but he pays the rent and she is also holding out hope he’ll go back to how he was at the beginning
as Nick grows up, trucker guy just gets madder and madder and definitely slaps him around when serena is at work. When trucker guy is out of town (which slowly becomes less and less as Nick grows up) Nick and his mom are super close. Nick never tells her abt the abuse from trucker guy because he knows she’s already super stressed and doesn’t want to make it worse
Serena tells Nick abt his dad when he’s seven he doesn’t really care at first but he was shocked bc he grew up thinking his bio dad was trucker guy.
when Nick is 10, trucker guy stops going out of town completely. He gets serena mixed up in drugs because TURNS OUT when he’s not out of town he’s a drug dealer great. Serena gets addicted and trucker guy convinces her that Nick is the problem and she kicks him out.
Nick couch surfs for a year before meeting coach joe who pulls a mr mushnik (elite ball knowledge required) and gives him a bed crust of bread and a job and teaches him to fence foil. Nick is lwk buns at foil so joe is like fuck it kid you can never hit on target so let’s try epee. HE IS SO GOOD AT EPEE ITS SCARY. Nick is like yeah lol my dad is robert costs. Joe is super shocked but supportive but tells him not to tell anyone bc it could end badly. Nick ends up viewing joe as a father/grandpa figure. joe is like shit we gotta get you into a good program the rest is history.
Apologies for the shitty Mexican flag I did this at 3 am
EDIT: I forgot to mention but in my brain, Serena overdoses when Nick is 14 but doesn’t die, Nick pays for her to be sent to a care facility in Maine so he works after school trucker guy pays most of it but still
Seiji Headcanons!
so for my summer nationals fics, I went back to nichoji a lot (what do you think I am of course I did) and in order to make it interesting I may have sprinkled some headcanons in there. I made a lot of lore and was it so much that Seiji is basically an oc now? Pshaw. Perhaps. But I don’t care. Is this mostly me projecting on my comfort character? WHAT OH MY GOD HOW COULD YOU ACCUSE ME OF SUCH A— yes. Absolutely. But I don’t care. Okay. Here we go.
Seiji is only 75% Japanese. The other 25% is German from his mom’s side. Explains why he is a ww2 nerd. Will get into the mom thing later.
Seiji has a younger sister named suzume who is 5 years younger than him and is WAY more intense. I wrote abt her in my girls team fic bc I haven’t actually read all of fence and wasn’t aware there was a girls team until joining the fandom.
Seiji speaks English, Japanese, German, French and Italian. I don’t make the rules.
his mole is drawn on. It has been his whole life cuz his mom has the mole and he wanted to be like her (more on his mom later I promise) do I draw on a mole for the exact same purpose? Mayhaps. Moving on.
he started fencing when he was four and like, was decent at it it wasn’t his favorite thing in the world but his mom pushed him to be the best
he plays piano
he HATES getting wet and being touched like he’s literally a cat only Nick and Suzume are allowed to touch him like NO ONE ELSE
OKAY IM GONNA GIVE THE MOM LORE NOW CUZ I PROMISED.
I named her Keiko idk if she actually has a name but that’s what I gave her
okay so basically she was born in Germany to like, diplomats or smth like someone in the public eye. her mom was Japanese her dad was like GERMAN like blonde eyed blue haired you get the picture. And Keiko looks mostly Japanese except for the fact that she has BRIGHT blue eyes like blue eyes like the devils water it’s BLUE
she grows up in Germany but moves to Japan for college where she becomes an actress. Japan LOVES her like she’s mostly Japanese she looks like she belongs there but THE EYES the eyes are her thing. She also has a mole under her left eye that’s a trademark too. She’s dubbed japan’s sweetheart, like, she’s big. While on set, she meets a lawyer for the movie company named koichiro and they fall in love.
after marrying koichiro she takes a break from film and the public is pissed. She’s freaking out cuz her entire life has been in front of cameras and now every one hates her so she’s like IDEA have a baby. She announces shes preggers and Japan goes WILD they love it.
koichiro is like ehhhh idrc abt the fame I just want a family and stuff so he’s like LETS MOVE BACK TO AMERICA (because he’s from America idk he went to college in Japan and decided to stay for Keiko) and Keiko is like nooooo but koichiro convinces her
they get to America and the Americans go BATSHIT CRAZY FOR KEIKO THEY LOVE HER. The Germans rediscover her and all of a sudden she’s an international star. The baby is born, it’s Seiji. He grows up in front of cameras, his entire existence is a PR dream. Keiko draws on the mole for him because he didn’t have the eyes or the mole so he needed some way to be known as hers or wtv. He starts fencing as a casual thing at 4 but Keiko is like no baby you have to be the best so he becomes the best yk
when Seiji is five, Keiko decides she needs another kid and has suzume, who DOES have the eyes, she just doesn’t have the mole. INSTANT FAVORITISM BY KEIKO AND THE PRESS like omg the next Keiko katayama omg omg Seiji grows closer with his dad.
when suzume is 5 and Seiji is 10, Keiko and koichiro get in a huge fight and all but get a divorce. Koichiro sleeps at the law office to avoid her and Keiko books a ton of movies and acting jobs and stuff, leaving Seiji to basically parent his baby sister. When she turns six, he starts teaching her to fence cuz it’s the only way to keep up with his fencing AND take care of her.
Keiko occasionally drops in but it’s mostly just them in a huge house I mean they have like Nannys or smth but family wise it’s just them. Seiji grows up barely interacting with his parents and Suzume barely remembers them. Suzume ends up being a really good fencer too, but she doesn’t care about it and either way Keiko doesn’t want too many fencers in the family so she decides to buy suzume a violin and Seiji a piano when Seiji is like 12 and Suzume is 7 and they both HATE IT but their mom loves it so what can they do right like that’s why Seiji keeps drawing on the mole bc he wants his mom to love him and be proud of him and stuff.
Okay is this all me 100% projecting because both my parents are super busy, I’m German/Japanese, I have a little sister, and I play piano? Maybe. I don’t care, but whatever. I have more he but like these are the big ones.