what is given by your hand

This is a semi-artful expansion of a simple bullet-pointed headcanon text file. Please enjoy.

Addam's handwriting is sloppy and childlike. The baseline is nearly immaterial. What is the difference between being childish and childlike, anyway? He toes that line somehow expertly - well, not always. The responsibilities our prince has shied away from, he cannot exactly make up for in an upright penmanship, and in truth he doesn't. Perhaps someone who never wanted to grow up, and then did so all too fast.

Minoth's handwriting is scribbly and slanted, and it gives an air of intrigue. You needn't even peruse the actual content of what he's written; you already know it's exciting. There's not much else to be said - he is our international man of mystery, as ever, and master of our scene. Brava, and all that.

Flora's handwriting is like a font. It's incredibly aesthetically pleasing, and from the uncharacteristically maudlin paragraphs of her will to a simple shopping list, you never want to stop reading it, seeing it. Of course, when she tips closer on to that age, she finds it faltering, and...a flower wilts. That's okay.

Xander always makes nice by-the-book shapes - just like his mother taught him. All the glyphs follow the same general template, not necessarily because he likes things to be neat so much as he likes them to be constant. Adapting to change, he finds, is harder and harder the older he gets.

Mythra, despite what you might expect, is the picture of neatness, tiny letters etched in with mathematical precision. If she ever made a mistake, it would bother her to no end, but she never does. No, she's not perfect, but she's the Mythra we know, and we wouldn't want her any other way.

(Pyra is much the same, but larger and a little rounder. If she's a little more hesitant, she's still comfortable, perhaps that same more, in the space she takes up. And of course, Pneuma...the perfect synthesis. If you simmer in it for a little while, you find that hers is the origin from which each was derived, the definitive home and source.)

Malos uses big blocky caps that slant in on the bottom half and slot together in an unexpected way. There is an elegance about him, if you only bother to look. Not that anybody's quite looking for that from him, just a willingness to grow and change in the way that he had insisted humans never would, but it's a fun plus!

Jin etches out stick-thin small caps, everything perfectly straight up and down. Quite like him, and then again quite unlike him. His reputation is for being kind, in the same breath as he is swift and deadly, and perhaps he too struggles with that unlikely dichotomy.

Haze's letters slant backwards as if blown by the wind, and the differentiation between upper and lower casing is minimal. They never tip over, however, and the distinction, though minute, is always there. To have a sense of self, to never be forgotten...I won't say much more about it, because you already know. Buffeted but never fully whisked away.

Lora's handwriting is a little messy but pleasant to read, and there's a common looping feel throughout. You can almost see her bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet as you scan it. And that's just her, isn't it - almost annoyingly in your face with her enthusiasm, yet so naturally so reassuring and warm to have around. She's on your team, always.

Aegaeon has doctor's handwriting. Good f---ing luck. (I'm sure there is more to be said for him, ever so much more, but...well, a lot of it would indeed simply boil down, pun unintended, to my wishing you good luck with this awkward, adorable fellow.)

Brighid's writing, on the other hand, is intelligible...if you have the patience. Every letter is a variation of the same flame shape and all are connected in a ravishing cursive. Intimidation she strikes, yes, but ever so lovely in every motion, always. Perhaps she is suited to peacetime, after all, and not just her beloved battalioned reason to be.

Hugo also has a beautiful cursive, and he gives everything an air of professionalism and care. Handwritten invitations are his specialty. A monarch of the people, indeed. He is not perfect, we should not deify him, yet who better is there to lead a nation like Mor Ardain through this age's dread and dreaded turns? Look up to him, even though...yes, even though most would have to look down. My apologies, Your Majesty. Your soul is ten feet tall.

To our more bit players:

Akhos, of course, has elegance, is elegant, in a practiced way, sometimes with overly ornate serifs. The beauty is cerebral, for the most part. Patroka, meanwhile, is all pointy constructions. If she misses a line, she leaves it out. Something admirable, but also something violent. Of course.

Vandham doesn't write words so much as ideas - you either get it or you don't. Roc makes the words in one big swoop, and no one can read it, not even the big man himself. Azurda's writing is large and deliberate, and he nods his horn liberally as he writes.

Milton makes lazy but scholastic letters. His lowercase As use the additional arc up over the main loop, but it's not unapproachable; indeed, it's very friendly, almost like a written smile snuck in there. Mikhail's strokes are very faint, but then will randomly become darker. The shapes are neither rounded nor square. Somewhat unpredictable, yet it does make sense, after it all.

Khanoro's handwriting is the pen-and-paper equivalent of someone with a beautiful accent speaking a language that is not their native own. It is lush. You could bathe in it, were it gifted axes and motion. Zettar's handwriting, on the other hand, is worse than Addam's (of course it is). He hates having to deign to scrawl something out himself, but then who else would want to take his dictation? No one at all.

Amalthus's handwriting is ugly. What he has not copied down from someone else, no one cares to read, save perhaps Stannif. Baltrich's handwriting is not ugly, but it's not exactly pleasant either. Palatable is the word. He knows how to approach people, and he knows how to approach the page.

And, then, there wasn't exactly much time or reason for these ensemble players to be writing to each other, was there? Not in the originating canon of their lives, no. Mark the genesis, anticipate the end. Find a revision, strike out your desolation, and...oh, scratch all that. One cannot pen down what is immaterial. ...can one?

(Not every character here ended up appearing in YDDHYUIS, but these choices were informed by those versions that did.)