Study Of Michelle Yeoh For The Sunday Times Style Magazine

•☽────✧˖°˖ GOODNIGHT HAWAII ˖°˖✧────☾•

(COMMISSION)

★ Summary: A Compilation of Headcanons Featuring Salesperson ENA X Reader Who Suffers With Dissociative Episodes

★ Commissioner: Wishes To Remain Anonymous

★ Character(s): Salesperson ENA (ENA: Dream BBQ)

★ Genre: Headcanons, SFW

★ Warning(s): None - Completely Safe!

★ Image Credits: @JoelG

☆ She writes your name on her arm in marker. It was after the third time you forgot where you were, or worse—who she was. ENA had been in the middle of a passionate tirade against “the modern marketing mythos” when your eyes glazed over like glass, and you blinked yourself into some distant fragment of unreality. You said, “Who are you?” She didn’t yell. She didn’t even twitch. Instead, she pulled a marker from her cap like a magician might, uncapped it with her teeth, and scrawled your name across her forearm in an all-caps blocky font. “THIS IS YOURS,” she said proudly, holding it out like a trophy. It didn’t fix anything. But it felt like it could.

☆ Salesperson ENA tries flashcards. You open your eyes in her room one evening and don’t recognize a single thing. Not the bed. Not the ceiling fan that’s spinning in stilted, fractured time. Not even her. “Oh! You’re awake! Hang tight—commencing memory recovery protocol.” She whips out a little stack of index cards with hand-drawn doodles: A triangle. A cracked megaphone. A stick figure labeled “YOU.” Another labeled “ME.” She flips them one by one with such speed and enthusiasm that it makes your head spin. You forget your name again by the fourth card, but you remember her laugh. It’s enough.

☆ Meanie ENA yells at your dissociation like it’s an enemy. The first time you zoned out mid-conversation and didn’t respond for several minutes, she snapped. “HEY! HELLO?! EARTH TO MEMORY GLITCH! WHAT KIND OF SCAM IS THIS?!” You flinched—like she’d caught you doing something shameful. But then she quieted. “…I wasn’t yelling at you. I was yelling at the thing that stole you.” She sat beside you in awkward silence, gripping your sleeve like she could anchor you to now. “You’re not allowed to go on solo missions anymore,” she mumbled. “Take me with you next time, idiot.”

☆ Her business metaphors get painfully heartfelt. When you get overwhelmed and feel yourself slipping, Salesperson ENA will rattle off a strange pitch, like: “You’re an asset under temporary recession, but your emotional capital remains intact!” “I’m projecting a 12% rebound in your cognitive presence, just give it time.” It’s ridiculous. It’s corporate nonsense. But it’s her nonsense. And the sincerity behind the words is so fierce it almost hurts.

☆ She starts narrating your life when you go nonverbal. When your words vanish like fog at sunrise, ENA’s voice fills the silence. “Today, our protagonist finds themselves amidst an internal coup, the memory department on strike again. Will they recover their agency? Or will the villainous void claim another victory?” Sometimes she makes you a hero. Sometimes she makes you a fish. One time you were an onion with a tragic backstory. But always, always, she ends with: “And yet, against all odds, they persist.” You mouth “thank you” through the static in your brain.

☆ Meanie keeps a logbook—just in case. She never admits it out loud, but tucked under her pillow is a tattered notebook full of messy scribbles. Things you’ve told her. Things you’ve forgotten. Things she wants you to remember, but knows you might not. There are entries like: “They laughed today. I don’t know why. But it made me feel less gross inside.” “Tried to yell when they forgot my name. Didn’t help. Will try quieter next time.” You found it once. She slapped it out of your hands. “HEY! THAT’S NOT FOR YOU YET!!”

☆ She builds you a ‘reality anchor’ box. One day she arrives with a cardboard box full of the most useless junk. A cracked plastic clock. A plush that vaguely resembles her. A page torn from a magazine with your name spelled wrong. “I call it the HERE AND NOW box!” she beams, adjusting her hat proudly. You stare at her. “…That’s just a spoon.” “It’s a symbolic spoon, okay? Grounding! Therapy stuff! I researched it on the shady side of the internet.” You touch the spoon when your mind feels foggy. It’s warm from her hands. It’s not a cure. But it’s a reminder.

☆ Meanie learns to stop blaming you. At first, every memory slip made her feel like you were betraying her on purpose. “Why do you always disappear when it matters?! I’m not nothing to you!” But one day, when you forgot her name entirely and said it in tears—“I don’t want to forget you”—something shifted. She just sat down. Quiet. “You’re not doing this to me, huh?” She apologized. Clumsily. “S-sorry for acting like your symptoms had intent. That was…dumb.” You said, “It’s okay.” She said, “No. It’s you. That’s why I care.”

☆ Salesperson ENA leaves you voice memos. She installs a strange little recorder on your jacket collar that plays whenever it senses you spacing out. “Ping! You’re still here! You’re doing amazing! I know you’re scared, but your brain is not broken—it’s just… buffering!” Another message is her reading you a poem about ducks. The next is her explaining quantum physics very, very wrong. You never know what’s coming. But her voice, bouncing in your ear like a lifeline, always pulls you back.

☆ Both sides learn that being earnest matters more than being perfect. They try so hard. And most of the time, they get it wrong. Salesperson ENA overwhelms you with charts and graphs about recovery rates. Meanie ENA tells dissociation to “go punch itself.” But they never leave. They never act like you’re a burden. And when you finally say, “Thank you for trying,” ENA looks stunned. “Of course,” she says, softer than usual. “You’re the only investment I’d never divest from.” Even Meanie turns red. “Ugh. You’re lucky I’m sentimental now.”

I got dared to draw this

•☽────✧˖°˖ TAKE SOME TIME ˖°˖✧────☾•

(COMMISSION)

★ Summary: You Confined In ENA After Being Trapped In Her Reality For A Long While

★ Commissioner: @namosaga

★ Character(s): Salesperson ENA (ENA: Dream BBQ)

★ Reader pronouns: Not Specified

★ Genre: Short Story, SFW

★ Word Count: 1265

★ Warning(s): None - Completely Safe!

★ Image Credits: @JoelG

You don’t remember when ENA first took your hand. It probably wasn’t a momentous gesture, not even a gesture at all—just something that happened mid-monologue, mid-run, mid-deal gone haywire. One moment you were flinching at the yelling sky and the stairs that ran sideways, and the next you were being tugged forward by a mitten hand and a clawed one, ENA in her stripy suspenders skipping confidently into nonsense.

“THE BATHROOM IS THAT WAY,” she’d declared, pointing at a blinking neon orb hanging in a tree. You’d learned not to ask questions by then. Or at least not ones with answers.

Now you were in some place called the Marketplace of Ephemeral Trades, which ENA explained was either:

A) a bazaar where you could exchange your current mood for another,

B) a job fair for imaginary careers,

C) a scam,

or D) “YES.”

You cradled your overpriced juice (it tasted like memories of kindergarten) and tried not to wince every time someone’s head turned into fruit or a phone began sobbing behind a stall.

“I’ve been considering investing in… wrist confidence,” Salesperson ENA said thoughtfully, adjusting her cap. “Strong wrists? Very persuasive. Not for strangulation, of course—unless I’m pitching a mob boss.”

“Or resisting an existential collapse,” you mumbled.

“Exactly! Cross-marketability!”

She was always like this. Half-interested, half-deep, half-jumping-through-sentient-hula-hoops just to get from point A to point Q. Even Meanie ENA (the one that barked into megaphones and cursed at sand) didn’t entirely know what they were doing. You were pretty sure no one in this world did.

But ENA made it survivable.

Even now, walking through this marketplace of wiggling perspectives and twitchy signs, she kept one eye on you. Not always the same eye. Sometimes it was a triangle, sometimes it blinked wrong. But she noticed when you stumbled, or when you flinched at a too-loud bell someone mistook for a baby.

“Would you like to scream into a pillow-sized coupon?” she offered helpfully. “It’s scented like meh.”

“I’m okay,” you said, lying like a badge pinned to your chest.

You weren’t okay.

You hadn’t been for a long time.

You’d been in this world—her world—for… you weren’t sure. Time made pancake flips here, randomly deciding to burn one side. It might’ve been days, or it might’ve been a second you couldn’t stop dreaming about. You didn’t exactly arrive so much as leak into the place, like a coffee spill no one cleaned up.

You remembered routine.

Waking up, brushing teeth, emails, masking smiles, fluorescent lights at the grocery store that made your spine crawl, being praised for doing things “normally” and then wondering if anyone actually knew what normal meant.

Now you lived in ENA’s pockets.

Sometimes literally. The striped ones were deceptively deep.

That night—if you could call it night, when the moon rotated between cartoon faces and equations—was the first time ENA invited you somewhere quiet.

Not funny quiet, not wrong quiet, not “we’re inside a living teacup that gurgles when we speak” quiet. Just quiet.

The “room” was a slow, dark hill that unfolded like a crumpled napkin. There were no walls. Just fog that politely minded its business. The stars above you flickered like old VCR static.

“THIS is the Department of Melancholy,” ENA whispered.

“…Is that real?”

Meanie ENA’s voice rumbled in the air beside you. “Of course it’s not real, YOU SUBURBAN SOCK MONKEY. It’s a name, not a tax form.”

But she didn’t sound angry. Not like usual.

“Why bring me here?” you asked, curling your knees to your chest. You didn’t want to be difficult. You just… always felt like a weird puzzle piece from the wrong box. In the real world. In this one too. Always.

“Because the other rooms were laughing at me,” said ENA flatly. “I required a setting that wouldn’t say snide things about my mental architecture.”

You couldn’t help it. You laughed. Loudly.

She turned to you, red side grinning like a birthday card.

“There it is,” she said, and leaned in, whispering like a market secret: “My favorite sound.”

The moment stretched. Not heavy. Just slow. You watched the mist blink around you, yawning in fractals. Somewhere in the distance, a vending machine wept coins.

“…Hey,” you said.

“HEY!” ENA echoed, then blinked. “Sorry. Habit.”

“No, it’s okay. Just… Can I be serious for a second?”

“Oh,” she said. “Are you dying?”

“What? No!”

“Oh. Good. Then yes, absolutely. Be serious. I’ll just… mm.” She dramatically zipped her mouth with a finger and tossed the invisible key into a puddle that squeaked.

You sighed. Looked up at the static stars. And let the words come out without shame. Without mask.

“This world,” you said slowly. “Still doesn’t make sense to me. Even after everything.”

ENA didn’t interrupt.

You swallowed, letting yourself feel the weight.

“And back home… the real world, I mean. That didn’t make sense either. It felt like I was wrong all the time. Too slow. Too fast. Too weird. Too—much. I had routines, I had ways to cope. But I never really fit.”

You didn’t cry. You weren’t going to cry. It wasn’t like that.

It wasn’t sadness. It was just…Truth.

“Not even in a sad way. Just… like I was never built for any of it. There, here, anywhere.”

You waited for her to make a joke. To pivot. To change the subject.

Instead, you felt her sit closer.

“…We are not in business with the universe,” ENA said softly. “The contract was written in invisible ink, and our manager keeps changing shape.”

“…What?”

“I’m saying,” she said, voice gentler than usual, “That what you’re feeling? That’s a reasonable response to unreasonable worlds.”

You laughed once, quietly. “You always say weird stuff like that.”

“Yes. But I always mean it.”

You turned your head.

She was looking at you with both sides now. Meanie and Salesperson. Stern and soft.

“You’re an anomaly,” she said. “But anomalies are just patterns nobody has seen enough to understand.”

“…Yeah,” you said. “But I’m tired of being an exception.”

Silence, thick as syrup.

“Then don’t be.”

“Huh?”

Her voice dropped low. Honest.

“Be a constant.”

“What, like a math problem?”

“No. Like a home.”

You blinked. “What do you mean?”

“People think of ‘home’ as a place. A static object. A hearth, a hallway. But I’ve seen those. I’ve been inside castles made of teeth and apartments that bleed. And none of them felt like anything.” She tapped your shoulder with her claw-hand. “You? You feel like something.”

Your voice came out, wobbly and stunned. “So do you.”

She tilted her head.

“ENA,” you said quietly, “You’re the only thing in this whole twisted reality that feels like home. Not in a… weird way. Not in a way where I need you to survive or whatever. But…”

You looked down at your hands.

“When I’m with you, I don’t feel like I have to pretend. I can exist. And that’s enough.”

She was quiet.

Too quiet.

You glanced up—and for once, saw both sides frozen.

Not yelling. Not selling. Not emoting.

Just… stunned.

You panicked. “Oh god. Was that too much? I wasn’t trying to—”

“No no no—SHUT UP, YOU EMOTIONAL CAVIAR,” Meanie ENA snapped.

Salesperson ENA broke in immediately: “Wha—what she means is—give us a second. Buffering.”

“Buffering?!”

“YES, buffering! You can’t just drop the ‘home’ word in a dreamland! That’s practically marriage!!”

Your eyes widened. “Wait, what?! That’s not what I meant—”

“I KNOW,” they both said in unison. Then paused.

And then, softer, ENA added:

“But I’m glad you meant what you did.”

I know it’s not hard to point out reactionaries hypocrisy when it comes to like safe spaces or hug boxes or whatever but genuinely how much of an echo chamber do you have to exist in for you to think this is a reasonable thing to say

Something I've always been curious about with your amazing Changeling AU, can everyone see the transformations the changeling kids go through in the comics? Or is it like something only those with special eyes/some level of awareness of what the fae and changelings are can pick up on?

Bob Ross and Peapod the Pocket squirrel (1984)

🥳

I'M GOING TO DIE CELEBRATING MY BIRTHDAY?! That's not so bad.

your 12th emoji is how you'll die

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