The Pixie and her owner might both be relics of a past age, but Tate is an industry pro and is well-versed in the accouterments of a high-end establishment. Her floors and walls might creak and groan, but the old girl has been equipped with a state-of-the-art streaming service jukebox system, so the music choices are endless and its another money funnel for the pub. I imagine the patrons to be more of a rock crowd, and they’re filling the Pixie’s walls with Orcish classic rock and the Orcish equivalent of nu-metal, and despite the way it might make his eye twitch, the Pixie’s proprietor is there to make money.
That doesn’t mean the staff doesn’t commandeer the controls from time to time!
Rukh prefers a bluesier sound, and afternoons when he’s at the Pixie alone are laid back and smokey sounding, Bill Withers and Stevie Ray Vaughn-esque music at a lower decibel than the patrons prefer.
Thessa picks up shifts at the Pixie when needed, and it’s upbeat top 40 pop allllll day, until the regulars show up.
Tate’s musical tastes tend to be, like everything else about him, privately enjoyed, and he can tune out just about everything that’s played on the day-to-day...that doesn’t mean that sometimes he commandeers the controls and makes everyone suffer through eight hours of the Pogues and Flogging Molly interspersed with an occasional kpop banger just because he can. Who’s going to be brave enough to tell him no?
Had a bit of fun experimenting with body paint last night and was inspired by @monster-bait s Girls Weekend. Wine or coffee in The Plundered Pixie mug? 🍷🤷🏻♀️☕️🤫🧚🏽♂️😅
Just got my masks and shot glass from @monster-bait and I'm so excited! Love the feel of the fabric which is always a gamble since I have sensory issues so that's good. And they are adorable!
imagining Tate trying to go viral with his shanty singing cooks has had me giggling all day 😆
Oh, I think he’s already viral.
See, the thing is about the orcs who patron the Pixie: they don’t like Tate. He’s a creepy weirdo, they don’t trust him, they resent him and his whole “put some damned pants on” rules, etc etc.
But where else are they gonna go?
So they tolerate him, and they like Rukh, and Tate is actually funny and charming when he’s not being a creepy weirdo, and he’s very good at being the “everybody knows your name”-style barkeep. So they relax and it’s fine. He’s very Irish, that’s always amusing, and oh, he knows a bunch of songs that are really fun to sing at the top of your lungs after a drink or six?! How fun! They’re all sort of sad and nostalgic and it reminds them of the songs their clan elders would sing around the fires, and it turns out a lot of them have pretty good voices,
So yeah, I’m positive there's already a channel on the multispecies version of youtube called “Nights in Ballygrand” and you can watch a bunch of half inebriated orcs singing Carrickfergus and Red is the Rose and if he can get them to learn some sea shanties he’s going to figure out a way to monetize it for sure.
So I had a random dream involving bumping into Rukh (totally blame you... so thanks 😊), I was working and went to a ‘show and shine’ with restored classic cars and bikes and we bonded over a Suzulight SD 1955 (something an Orc would never fit in 😂😂) and a few beers haha! Made me think if you have any head cannons regarding him. This is a first for me considering he doesn’t have scales hahaha!!
😂😂😂 I love it!! Rukh would adore you—pretty girl who can speak car? That ole timer would get his flirt on for sure, lol! Delight in chatting you up...but it would be a bit bittersweet as well.
I head canon him as being exactly as he has shown up thus far in the story—a gruff observer of few words.
He spent the first half of his life as a mechanic and talking engines and horsepower and coil-sprung suspension, chassis design and speed is his happy place. Tate is a car guy and a gambler, all things that soften his edges in Rukh’s biased eyes, which has greatly leveraged their relationship over the years, lol! Rukh is from a little backwater town outside a nowhere city, and he never expected to leave it. He worked in a garage that he expected to be his home until he was too old to do the job. The girl who worked in the office and balanced the books was also a pretty girl who could speak car; soft spoken and sweet, she smelled like cinnamon candies and had auburn hair and he loved her.
Then everything changed.
His older brother had always been a bad seed: mean and violent, a drunk and a cheat. Rukh hardly even remembers what triggered the fight that day...something about money, something about drugs, but his brother roughing up their old man was the final straw. He remembers his fist clenched so tightly around the crowbar that his entire arm seized up in tremors. There was a bloody heap on the ground before him, blood on the ground, on his hands, spattering his clothes, and behind the sound of approaching sirens,s the sound of a girl screaming.
He didn’t anticipate his life getting a second act. Saddled with a prison record and shunned by his clan for the bloodcrime, he didn’t have any expectation of being anything but an outsider for the rest of his life.
Rukh is still gruff and rough around the edges, but he truly loves his new life and people in it. He adores Cymbeline and does magic tricks for her kids on the odd day she’s toting them around and stops in to drop something off schedules at the bar; loves Thessa’s sharp bite and dedication to the businesses, thinks Silva is a perfect angel and has made a vow to cut Tate in half if he ever hurts her. As much as Tate leaves him feeling unsettled, and even though he knows Tate isn’t actually as youthful as he looks, Rukh can’t help feeling slightly paternalistic towards him; he respects Tate’s tenacity and ambition, feels deeply indebted for him having taken a chance on the old man as well as keeping his past in confidence. He’s found camaraderie amongst the Pixie’s clientele, is protective of this second found family, and for the first time in years, feels truly content.
So I'm pretty sure I saw you answer another ask about this and how Tate is always rallying the patrons of the Pixie into singing shanties and drinking songs, but is there any particular ones you know of you think he really likes? I am obsessed with this new Sea Shanty/Union Song revival and like to sing them while I adult around the house so I'd love some more to learn! Especially if I can imagine pleasing Tate as I do xD
Tate’s memory is very long for things he actually cares to remember, so he knows a LOT of songs. He doesn’t have a preference on what he gets the orcs singing, because the point is to get them to start singing, period. Once they start, it’s easy to turn them to Irish folk songs, both Elvish and human, which is all he really wants.
He can get them started with easy ones: Drunken Soldier and Roll, Boys, Roll. Leave Her Johnny is a crowd favorite, and his personal favorite is Lowlands Away...now everyone is nice and loosey goosey, the liquor is flowing...and now he has them where he wants them and flips the script. Spanish Ladies one minute and Carrickfergus the next. It’s not even a song about the part of Ireland he’s from! But it matters not, because, and I can’t stress this enough, Tate is the most basic of bitches, and getting a bunch of drunken orcs to sing “But the sea is wide and I cannot swim over,” with him brings him an enormous amount of satisfaction.
Soooo 👀 you got anymore HCs up your sleeve on Rukh? He has been living rent free in my brain for a while now (like a lot of your OCs!)😅🤩😍
Here are some HCs for Rukh, our favorite gruff bartender in the GW universe. (I've already started writing a small one-shot of Rukh's job interview with Tate, because once I started writing these, I couldn't get the idea out of my head! That will be posting to Patreon shortly!)
If you're interested in learning more about any of my existing characters, all ko-fi contributions earn a headcanon! (Higher amounts will be more detailed!)
Previous Rukh headcanons, including the extremely memorable moment of IvyMemnoch finding a Celtic flute version of Despacito (my fav Tumblr moment of the year, by far! 😂) can be found here
RUKH
Had never heard of the tiny resort town where the Pixie is located before responding to the job listing, despite the fact that he lives in neighboring Starling Heights. He’d been working in one of those quick-service garages before then—an embarrassing waste of his skills, but he figured with his prison record, he was lucky to find a job at all. He’d not been planning on leaving his position, was only looking for a part-time gig, but the job post for the Pixie was too intriguing to scroll past—it was written in Orcish, practically unheard in a mixed-species society, catching his eye immediately. Unlike the other half-a-dozen bartender help wanted ads he’d looked at, the Pixie’s post said nothing about requiring an “upbeat personality” or his “smile being part of the dress code,” all descriptors that made him cringe. Punctuality, accountability, and an authoritative presence were the expectations, experience a plus but not required...it was straightforward and direct., it was clearly directed at orcs...he fit the bill, he thought. He considered himself to have a finely-tuned bullshit meter, and the Pixie’s ad didn’t set it off at all
He has since admitted to himself that he has fallen for Tate’s particular brand of bullshit repeatedly over the years
Rukh is a very tightly closed book. He’s definitely the strong silent type and is not at all comfortable talking about himself. (Despite that, he spilled his guts and told Tate his whole life story during his job interview—falling for the bullshit instance #1)
He discovered a love of reading during his incarceration, one he didn’t possess in his younger days. When he moved to Starling Heights, he was low-key delighted to find his apartment was on the same block as the library. He prefers mysteries and crime novels to anything overly literary, doesn’t have the patience for the endless world-building of high fantasy, and enjoys a wide spectrum of non-fiction. It’s become a game of sorts, engaging Ainsley in conversation and being able to not only keep up, but add his own insights and facts.
Another mental game he likes to play is trying to pinpoint Tate’s actual age. He’d never come right out and ask but sometimes Tate will chime into conversations knowing things he just...shouldn’t, or else will make references to things that Rukh can barely remember from his *own* childhood, things he remembers his parents reminiscing over. He’s added some Celtic history books to his rotation and surreptitiously jots down notes on the random head-scratchers Tate will casually drop and follows rabbit holes looking into said notes...as a result, he’s even more spooked by Tate than he was before he started snooping 😂
When Rukh first started at the Pixie, he thought they would fail. He was positive about it. Too small, in the middle of nowhere, an owner who very quickly made enemies with most of the people in town...he was shocked when the old girl's business plan actually fell into place. Shocked and thrilled, of course. He loves having a routine, loves having a reason to get up and feel energized every day, likes the clientele and takes his job of overseeing the “sightseers” during tourist season seriously. Since the bar turns a respectable profit, they're constantly receiving promotional odds and ends, which is how Rukh wound up with a Bourbon of the Month club subscription for a free year. (Tate hissed like a cat and shooed the offending pamphlet away as though it might bite.) He continued the subscription once the free year ended, and looks forward to his monthly ritual—he waits until his night off, puts on some moody jazz, cracks open the month’s bottle, and enjoys it with a cigar. Thessa referred to it as a self-care routine once, after asking him about his plans for the night, and he nearly turned inside out in mortification.
He doesn’t talk about his time in prison, nor the crime he committed to wind up there. Tate is the only one who knows, and Rukh is happy to keep it that way. It’s not that he regrets the act itself all that much—he has no remorse for his brother, but rather the way it fractured their family, upended his life, and had branded him as someone to be wary of since his release.
That being said...things he did pick up during his incarceration—the ability to keep his head down and just get by, the knowledge that sometimes you simply need to kick someone’s ass, and the value of tidiness—are assets at the Pixie.
Loves nothing more than his solitary days at the Pixie during the off-season. The night-time regulars, while they consistently fill the cash till, are still a handful. He loves the quiet of the daytime, the handful of day drinkers, the time to hear himself think without needing to watch over every aspect of the business. Speaking of which—he knows how to do everything in the Pixie. The ordering, the inventory, the budgets, the schedules, the upkeep...he's not entirely sure why, as Tate very much micro-manages every bit of the day-to-day management, but it was something the boy insisted on and Rukh wasn't about to argue. "Someone needs to be able to take care of her if I'm not here anymore," was the only answer he got, and he decided it was easier not to ask questions. Since Silva has been on the scene, Rukh has been left to his own devices more often and it is *bliss.*
He thought he'd left his days of vice behind him. He drank, he smoked, he dabbled in recreational drugs, he worked on souped-up hot rods and bet on drag racing...prison changed all that and his life afterward left little room for any of it...but Tate and Ainsley are terrible terrible influences. Gamblers and hustlers, he has someone to talk cars with again, to trade intel on illegal street racing with, the chance to get his hands just a littttle bit dirty again, and he loves it
Smokey blues, soulful R&B, moody rock
Sloooow dancing
He is *incredibly* protective of Elshona. He’s the first person who meets her once she arrives in her new home, and he recognizes the fear in her eyes. He’s the only one who understands what it means to be cast out of one’s community, he knows what it means to have to start over again. He doesn’t understand the relationship she has with Tate, doesn’t know all of the details of her expulsion and shunning from her clan, but he’s made a quiet promise to himself that she’ll never be left to flounder completely alone again.
Has a FWB relationship with a half-troll woman in his building. Single mom, splits custody with her ex, so has several nights a week free, and she’ll spend one of them in his bed. It’s casual and neither of them is interested in pursuing more, but it’s occasional companionship and scratches an itch.
He's not immune to the plethora of easy sex the commune attracts. There would be hell to pay if the staff acted on anything beyond mild flirtation at the Pixie, but he'd be a liar if he said he hadn't drifted down to the parties and pool-side bar before to check things out. He's been on the receiving end of more than one edge of the party blowjob to know how addictive that sort of access to easy sex could be; he sees the commune residents and the reckless way they behave and knows how easy it would be to slip into that lust-crazed mindset, and makes a point of only indulging in visiting that side of the resort occasionally
He much prefers to find his partners the old fashioned way: closer to home, in one of the dimly lit little pubs around his neighborhood. He loves the adrenaline rush of a flirtation turning into close talking and lingering hands, that first heat-filled kiss. He doesn't mind the evening ending back at his or her place, he's not picky, and prefers to savor the night (as opposed to the fast, anonymous sex at the commune parties.) Ladies on top or old-fashioned missionary, any position that lets him see their faces: heads dropped back, faces screwed up in ecstasy, that moment when they come...he'll take that over a blow job in the dark any day of the week
A skill that Tate possesses that Rukh greatly admires and strives to emulate: easy banter which leads to confidences shared. They were talking about cars one minute, and in the next Rukh was revealing the details of the day he killed his brother, the shunning of his clan which followed, and his incarceration. He left that initial interview feeling shaken, positive that he'd been the victim of fae magic...but he's come to realize that there is truth in the old adage of hairstylists and barkeeps being the keepers of the whole town's secrets. Tate knows everything about everyone, is able to tease out information as casually as pouring the next drink, and Rukh has begun to employ the same tactics. He was shocked to find that it actually works. As the years have gone on, he's improved his game and knows much about all of the Pixie's regulars, hears the commune gossip and news from town, and is gleeful with the power of being able to pass on information that the Pixie can use to leverage her business.
There is very little that scares him in this world. Possessions are just things and things can be replaced, he's been in fights with bigger, meaner dudes than the Pixie's roughest patrons, and he's not afraid to meet his maker. He's let go of the past and the people in it and tries to live life one day at a time, and that's not a mindset that lends itself to fear much. Tate is a wholly different story. Rukh knew his type in prison: those who viewed other people as pawns, who traded and secrets gossip to advance their own positions; had a minotaur cellmate who was that sort and he got his ass kicked on the regular for it. He knew a lizardman who was as slippery, who contorted himself in and out of trouble, ingratiating himself with the guards and the inmates of the upper echelons to hold himself out of real hot water...but he's never met anyone with the same capacity for mischief and spite as his current employer, has never met anyone so terrifyingly adept at causing trouble while staying out of it. The boy isn't overly concerned about making enemies or worrying about his own hide and wreaks havoc for havoc's sake, and Rukh might be impressed if he didn't actually care about him. Silva is, in Rukh's opinion, Tate's perfect match. A sweet little angel, an absolute beauty, wide-eyed and innocent looking and, Rukh (rightly) suspects, just as shrewd and self-preserving as Tate. He has a feeling the entire town will be set ablaze if/when their relationship consumes itself, and only hopes it happens on his day off.
I hope you enjoyed this little peek into a character who doesn't get as much page time as some of his peers! If you'd like a headcanon of your own, visit my ko-fi! Thanks so much, IvyMemnoch!
