#vancouver crew

[hulklinging]

y'all: The Raven Cycle needs more diversity!

Vancouver Crowd: *exists*

y'all, drawing faces on cardboard cutouts of the Dream Pack: not like that...

[randykorn]

Vancouver Crew [1/8] - Ryang

Half-Japanese, half-Korean

Trans boy

Mrs. Woo’s (favorite) nephew

Aglionby agreed to let him enroll on the condition that he didn’t stay in the dorms (”Imagine the scandal!”), so Mrs. Woo took him in without any hesitation.

Only his family, the Litchfield boys, and a few Aglionby administrators know that he’s trans

Everyone knows that he’s Gay As Hell though - he will not shut up about it

The day school lets out, he always goes and gets his hair done to be “as gay as possible.”  He immediately runs back to Litchfield to get approval before everyone leaves for the summer, bursting through the door while yelling “Do I look gay enough now?”  His worst fear is someone mistaking him as Straight.

He has to get it fixed right before school starts back up because Aglionby has a strict policy against dyed hair :(

He can’t wait for college so he can dye his hair without consequences

His parents want him to become a lawyer or a doctor or something prestigious, but his heart is set on art

Specifically, he likes 2D art like painting and drawing, but he took a ceramics class at the nearby community college and found that he enjoyed it, so now he wants to experiment with 3D mediums

His favorite medium so far is watercolors

Aglionby doesn’t have a very good art program, much to his dismay, which is why he started poking around at other schools

His parents are making him finish at Aglionby though, so he can be funneled into an Ivy League (and, therefore, A Stable Career)

He wants to go to college and get a fine arts degree, but he’s not sure what type of art he wants to do.  Traditional?  Animation?  Illustration? Definitely not Lawyering or Doctoring, though.

His loud phone arguments with his parents are a staple of Litchfield, and starting junior year he stays with Mrs. Woo for almost the entirety of summer break instead of going home

They all still love each other, but he’s felt a growing disconnect with them over the years, and it’s getting harder to fix as time goes on

He was on Crew for two years before quitting so he’d have more time to focus on his art

He’s in the Helping Hands Club (volunteer work around Henrietta and other nearby towns) for all four years, and he’s found that he enjoys working with kids and the elderly

He has entered art into local fairs, and has won prizes at almost every one

He’s the one who started the Litchfield Playlist because he wanted new music to listen to while he worked on his art

He can’t speak Korean very well, and he thought that learning the language might help bring him closer to his mom, so he asked Koh to tutor him in Sophomore year

Tutoring led to kissing which eventually led to dating Junior year

They’re aiming to get into the same college, or at least schools that are within easy driving distance of each other

[ketavinsky]

though far from achieving the legendary reputation of nino’s, there’s a fairly shady pan-asian ‘sake’ bar that the more adventurous of the aglionby cohort swear by. the vancouver crowd are more fond of the hole-in-the-wall korean bbq place around the corner, while sicksteve has been known to fly states for good pho; every second friday, when rutherford cant be fucked to cook and leesquared to attempt to emulate tastemade snapchat recipes, they head out and celebrate. inevitably, ryang and koh will argue over what they will get. henry will have to book a private room, a day in advance. sicksteve brings a pill and blasts edm over the table. chengtwo singes all their food. they bicker and banter and sing well into the early morning, unfazed by the other patrons, happy and young and free, made for each other.

[di-glossia]

Vancouver Crew Headcanons

Koh -The baby of the group -Just the sweetest, most adorable guy you've ever met -170 cm in cleats  -Not the best soccer player but he tries. The Aglionby soccer team isn’t exactly going to regionals (the crew team is really good for a team from the mountains) -Koh is one of the three Vancouver crowd members not actually from Vancouver (the others are Rutherford and SickSteve). He’s from Incheon, outside of Seoul, and only learned English in school -The worst at foreign languages. It's amazing he speaks as much English as he does. Very noticeable and cute accent. Can’t pronounce anyone’s name correctly. The VC rolls with it -Will probably end up following in his dad’s footsteps and working for LG Chem  -Loves Ryang. LOVES Ryang. He finds the pretentiousness funny. Most of the time

SickSteve -Going head to head with Adam Parrish and one other dude for valedictorian -Film buff. Obnoxious film buff. Only Ryang can top him for obnoxiousness -Such an asshole. The VC highkey love it. SickSteve is very good at pinpointing the crux of an issue and confronting people about it. Don’t debate SickSteve. Don’t. Also don’t say ignorant shit unless you’re prepared to get your ass handed to you -Dealing with a lot of issues, including internalized homophobia, due to a Baptist upbringing and strict parents. Not the only one in the VC with strict parents but definitely the only one with super-religious parents and the threat of losing an entire community if he goes against them -Is definitely going to elope with Lee-Squared at some point  -Koh's bestie primarily because SickSteve is first generation. They largely speak in Korean. Koh makes fun of SickSteve’s Jeollado and SickSteve makes fun of his aegyo, and both just find the relationship really comforting

Lee-Squared -Puts up a good front of being incredibly nice and supportive but agrees with SickSteve on basically everything -Chubby. Struggles with his weight. His family doesn’t help -Probably the only one completely and utterly unafraid to tell Henry his mind -Will almost certainly go into immigration law or a similar field -Along with Koh, Henry, and SickSteve, fluent in Korean  -Has the hots for SickSteve like woah. Talk about slowburn

Ryang -Slightly nasal voice -Trans boy -Art snob hipster. Black and white photos are his fave. He’s actually pretty good but his pretentiousness outweighs it -Koh tries to gush over his photos but it’s more feeling than words -Mom is a semi-famous daytime soap star; dad is her former personal trainer. Has an older sister who is a niche underwear model -Guess who hates paparazzi -Third generation. Ryang speaks almost no Korean and he’s more than a little sensitive about it  -Doesn’t fall for Koh nearly as fast as Koh falls for him -Insecure. His insecurities tend to come out as criticisms of Koh and his intelligence (it scares Ryang that the only guy who's into him is a dumb foreign guy who barely speaks English. It scares him that Koh accepts him so easily- does he just not understand? Does he think Ryang is something he's not? -Ryang doesn't know because his Korean is miles worse than Koh's English)

Rutherford -Cryptid and conspiracy theory king. -Thinks he’s the weird, anxious one but he’s actually kind of unrecognizedly awesome? -Dirtbikes, skateboards, surfs, probably a sick snowboarder. His sports friends think his cryptid obsession is hilarious. The VC tends to ignore it -Considers Cheng and Cheng2 his closest friends -Is under so much pressure to make the family proud. Will end up going to Johns Hopkins and his dad will still think he could do better -Dad’s (black and white) side of the family is from Georgia/South Carolina area. Mom is Teochew (Chinese) from Singapore. The Singaporean is strong. Rutherford is almost completely fluent in Teochew -Cheng2's roommate and conscience

Cheng2

-Friends with everybody -Except Kavinsky, obvs -Look, no one is going to like this but I have a headcanon/AU thing where Cheng2 messed around with Prokopenko back when Cheng2 was going to substance parties and racing and that shit did not go good for either of them -Prone to saying stupid shit -Has a tendency to speak in a mixture of stupid frat boy, social media star, and SAT vocab list -When he’s really upset and/or angry, he slips into his native Appalachian (he grew up splitting his time between his bio dad and stepdad in Pigeon Forge and his not bio-dad in BC) -Mixed Chinese/white. The product of a biracial gay relationship, Cheng2′s bio-dad is white and his not bio-dad is Chinese. They searched a really long time to find the perfect egg donor. Then Cheng2′s bio-dad cheated on his husband when Cheng2 was five and now Cheng2 only sees his not bio-dad during the summer and on holidays. It’s a big story and no one at Aglionby cares (it’s not even close to the biggest amount of family drama to grace the halls, the Lynch clan’s not included) -Has a massive, completely obvious crush on Henry and a much less obvious crush on literally every other member of the Vancouver crowd. Is somewhat married to Rutherford -So good at Econ. So good. This boy is going to do great at Berkeley

[f0x-meets-w0lf]

sicksteve and henry cheng are hip af

[hulklinging]

Concept: the Vancouver crowd at Vancouver's 420.

[f0x-meets-w0lf]

your faves are problematic: the vancouver crew edition

ryang

regularly beatboxes ‘drop it like it’s hot’ by snoop dogg in its entirety even though he would be perfectly capable at doing other songs

got a job at the local ice cream shop just to be able to ‘sample’ every single flavor every single day but somehow hasn’t gained any weight

still counts on his fingers for simple everyday math problems

owns more pairs of shoes than most people do t-shirts and has an entire cubby shelf storage system in his closet for them

is naturally talented at cooking but is usually too lazy to actually make the effort and mostly depends on top ramen and dried fruit from trader joe’s for his nutrition

lee-squared

has eaten a whole pizza by himself on more than one occasion, and not just cheese, either - he prefers either loaded supreme or meat-lovers

kills every plant he has ever attempted to own, including several different species of succulents and cacti

quotes and references outdated memes that only he remembers

couldn’t decide which teenage mutant ninja turtle to name his pet tortoise after so he combined them all and named it leoraphdonangelo (which cheng2 thinks sounds like a species of dinosaur)

won the spelling bee five years in a row in middle school and has impeccable grammar yet types his text messages and blog posts like a shitty dumb frat boy on tindr looking for a hookup

sicksteve

inherited a huge collection of vinyl records from his older brother and owns a record player but primarily listens to spotify through his awful laptop speakers

buys his hard-to-find specialized hair products online even though the shipping costs are ridiculous

refuses to get snapchat because it’s ‘stupid and pointless’ but often sabotages cheng2′s dog filter and flower crown selfies

has perfect eyesight but wears glasses anyway purely for the aesthetic

took up guitar in seventh grade and is a natural, learned classical and jazz techniques but insists on playing mainly post-punk acoustic jams (with whiny vocals happily provided by lee-squared)

koh

only ever joined the aglionby soccer team because he thought the goalie was cute (and just happened to actually be pretty okay at soccer)

still wears heelie sneakers out in public

is afraid of piranhas to the point of having nightmares about them even though he has never been in any waters where they are naturally found

exclusively drinks super fruity cocktails (mainly tequila sunrises and malibu bay breezes) even though they give him terrible hangovers; often vows to ‘never drink again’ but never holds to it

plans and budgets entire trips to europe and asia almost monthly but closes every tab without actually buying any tickets or booking hotels because he hates flying and is waiting for teleportation to be invented

henry broadway/cheng2

prefers eggo waffles over ryang’s homemade belgian waffles and eats them straight out of the box (still frozen). also does this with frozen blueberries and then complains when he gets brain freeze

regularly gets too stoned to do his homework and has to copy off of henry cheng’s in the mornings before class

has read the whole harry potter book series seven times and has watched all of the films even more than that and still cries every time dumbledore dies

names 99.9% of his possessions even though he usually forgets what he names them and then has to rename them

has spent a shocking amount of time on his playstation4 building an incredibly accurate minecraft replica of the litchfield house

rutherford

is very academically gifted but puts in minimal effort whenever he can and often scrolls through reddit instead of paying attention in class

joined the aglionby lacrosse team on a dare from ryang even though he’d never played lacrosse in his entire life (he was terrible)

learned american sign language with his younger brother just so the two of them could complain about their parents’ strict rules without their parents knowing

has seen every true crime documentary on netflix at least once

can’t tolerate spicy food at all. at ALL. he thinks uncooked and unseasoned green bell peppers are spicy

[ketavinsky]

Can you tell us more about Rutherford/Lee-Squared?

lee and rutherford are my go-to ship along with chengsquared and my koh ships … truly! i luv them! the thing is, litchfield are a pretty tight-knit group, peppered with a two or a three here or there that get more looks and raised eyebrows than others, (the chengs are an example– they’re pretty notoriously close, the cricket team reserve places for henry to sit and holler at chengtwo at training and meets, henry champions, jokingly or not, chengtwo’s unofficial fanclub) but none of them are really inseparable, you know? the vancouverites are self-aware and ambitious enough to acknowledge that everything is temporary. as a whole, they are a finely-oiled machine. as a rule, they don’t play favourites.

except, lee and rutherford … do. they’re a little odd as a couple– really, the general consensus amongst the aglionby girls, particularly the more slanderous of the first-years, is that any other pair would make much more sense. rutherford and chengtwo have always been close, leesquared and sicksteve’s banter frequently edges on flirting, leesquared’s casual, constant, closeness to ryang and koh has always bit of a piss take amongst the wider aglionby population, etc, etc! that’s probably the reason they’re dating, though– their dynamic is so domestic and unremarkable and … un-scandalisable that they can settle quite comfortably into each other’s lives without, say, carruthers asking lee what sicksteve’s been up to all-too-knowingly, or the swim team hounding rutherford on his thoughts on chengtwo’s latest infatuation.

they’re, like, the indisputable parent couple see– no one really knows when they started dating, least of all themselves. leesquared’s a touchy-feely sort of guy and rutherford’s never minded it, and two weeks into the second semester of their first year koh starts addressing them as a twosome when assigning weekly duties. they never really had a honeymoon phase. neither of them can ever recall obsessing over the other, or meeting eyes for the first time, or their first conversation. they’ve always just …. sort of been? leesquared’s always been able to find a home in rutherford’s arms when he gets home late from lacrosse; in turn, rutherford’s memorised the feel of the curve of lee’s waist against his palm when they spoon to muffled reruns of rutherford’s favourite episodes of the x-files. they move around each other’s orbits like clockwork, their relationship only apparent in the ease and lack of thought with which lee leans his head against rutherford’s shoulder as they queue up at the dining hall, or rutherford’s ability to rattle off lee’s preferred toppings to whatever poor soul manning the booth at nino’s, who’ll have to divide one pizza into seven flavours, and make it dairy-free on top of that.

see, litchfield house is really constantly in flux due to ryang’s rages and henry’s secrets and chengtwo’s … entire existence, but there are some constants within the mess of it all, and one of them is that come evening, or afternoon, or really any other time when they’re all present and friendly with each other, leesquared and rutherford will always have returned to each other. (another is that sicksteve will be complaining about the stock of ice cream– henry likes pumpkin cheesecake, sicksteve likes phish food. ryang only likes the really absolutely fucking ridiculous flavours, like urban bourbon and confetti cake, jesus. leesquared is the friend who keeps a lock on his ice cream. koh is a vegan and hates them all.)

they’ve always just been sort of married, you dig? the chengs are the couple who everyone knows are going to get married, and they do, just with the addition of blue and gansey. leesquared and rutherford? they are married. they move in, just like that. they’re so good at arguing with each other, they can time how long it’ll take for them to make up again.

but, y’know, there’s never been any doubt that they do care for each other, and they are in love. there’s another constant, i guess.