Umedes: genderflux, has an unknown number of genders (very mysterious)
Corcra: genderfluid, has 2 genders
Garleth (Spinder's adoptive dad): genderfluid, has probably 3 or 4 genders
uep and neriem are kind of edge cases because their gender system works differently than nonroot gender systems but I'm going to count a couple of them anyway:
Tirias: he/she, would be androgyne if she was nonroot
Rae: any pronouns, would have many genders together as a gender of many facets
Rigo: he/they, would probably be genderflux between dude and at least one neutral gender
also please be aware of me, resident genderfluid genderqueer androgyne faggot ^-^
Today's WIP Romance Week prompt is "classic example of their love", and for that I'll refer you to this short scene:
OCs: Marcus Asalun (aka Anchesh Pabat) and Umedes Oret-Pabat
Words: 608
Content warnings: none
Notes: Anchesh and Umedes have been married a
Their dynamic is usually Nemoru trying to protect Marcus in one way or another, because even if he doesn't need supervised his mental health feels scarily fragile, and Marcus trying to draw Nemoru out of their shell and sense of unimportance. This hasn't really changed with the move to Tobarsha, but they've both found that there's a lot more room to grow out here, outside of the palace.
The first prompt for WIP Romance Week is just to introduce my chosen pairing. I don't have many excerpts for these two, but I do have a nice intro for you:
Marcus and Nemoru Asalun are relative newcomers to Tobarsha. They've been living on the upper east side for five years, in a spacious house that Marcus has filled with magicraft paintings and knitting and Nemoru has filled with the smells of strange local spices and a collection of dresses and parasols. Like half of Tobarsha they speak with accents from a faraway locality, but like no one else in Tobarsha, they're royalty back home, and it's critical that no one ever knows that.
Marcus Asalun (he/him), aka the Heir of Iecunem, Anchesh Pabat, is a black cyoran (grey fox gijinka person) with close-cut curls usually dyed a bright color. His wardrobe is all flowing shapes with patterns that look like real-world teacups or dishtowels or linoleum floors, but that a Tobarshan would probably compare to a parasol. He's a pigment magician with a particular knack for making paintings that move, and he takes commissions, such as the sign outside Horatio's Flowers. He's also unfailingly polite, and five years has given him a decent sense of Tobarshan manners, but underneath that he is full of anxiety and dread. To be honest, he's glad that Nemoru was the one who came with him, since their steadfast presence is so calming.
Nemoru Asalun (they/them), aka Heir-Magister Umedes Ores-Pabat, is a silver ferasca (dragon person) with bright pink eyes and mica-like plating. In the palace, they wore almost exclusively robes and other draped looks, but since that would stand out more in Tobarsha they've switched to dresses cut with a similar silhouette. They work in the registrar's department at Tobarsha Community College, mostly answering calls and emails about the arcane rituals of registration. They were the only one of Marcus's five spouses who both wanted and was able to accompany him on his escape. People often comment on how quiet they are, but don't always notice how gentle they are, in words and actions.
So I misnumbered my posts and forgot day 5, but to be honest, Marcus and Nemoru aren't super cut out for day 6's prompt, "the tropes they embody". Are there tropes? Of course! Do I have any idea what those tropes are? Not at all! I don't usually write specific tropes, and they happen to be one of my couples that didn't naturally fall into existing tropes that I'm aware of. So let's skip to that sweet sweet sketch for "a visual rep of your pairing":
Today's prompt for WIP Romance Week is "the lengths they'll go to for each other".
Marcus and Nemoru's story isn't the kind of story where opportunities to die for each other present themselves, but Nemoru never would - they're here so Marcus can live, and them with him. Marcus would hypothetically do it. If he was in a situation where dying for Nemoru made sense, surely it would be easy...? But he hasn't considered that's the depression talking.
In the reverse situation, Marcus can't imagine killing someone for Nemoru, but he's imagining it as political intrigue. If Nemoru's life was imminently in danger, he might. Nemoru would exhaust every other possible avenue, but if push really came to shove, they could probably kill someone. Then again, they think they're much tougher and steel-hearted than they actually are.
In terms of what they have done, Nemoru volunteered to go with Marcus to a planet a hundred lightyears away, where neither of them spoke the local language and they knew almost nothing about what it was like on the ground. And they would do it a thousand times over. Had it happened in reverse, Marcus would do the same.
I think metaphorically Marcus is always asking Nemoru if he can be their sword, their shield. He could withstand anything if only he was useful to them, if only he wasn't a burden. And Nemoru will do anything to prevent him from becoming their sword or shield, because he was never a burden, and they're sure that what he needs more than anything is a shield of his own so he has the space to accept that he doesn't need to do or be anything to be worthy of them.
17 & 18 of the group situations for any of the polycules <3
Finally getting to this one with Marcus and Kiatcarmen's polycules :3
17 - One of the characters in the group has been replaced by an evil doppelganger. How does the group figure out who it is?
Marcus: gonna be honest, if he seems too relaxed there's gonna be suspicion. Yera would be the hardest to fool because she is both discerning and has known him the longest. So she has a pretty solid sense of how much emotional constipation and anxiety and depression he has.
Yera: this one might be a challenge because while everyone knows Yera pretty well, her MO is to have fun. So as long as the doppelganger doesn't do anything that is obviously at someone else's expense/actually mean, they could probably explain away just about anything. But they would also have to remember the ten million little moments she has shared with people and if they forgot, Gren and Hossan would figure it out.
Umedes: the biggest mistake a doppelganger could make is treating Umedes' alienness and relative distance from everyone else as an excuse to stay aloof and do whatever. Pali and Gren would figure that out easily (Marcus would kinda figure they were just trying something new and of course they're tired of him. he's such a sad boy).
Hossan: he defines himself in very specific ways. Yera and Gren would know something is off the second he starts using words like "kinky" and "polyamorous" about his triad.
Pali: it's way too easy to try and play Pali as conniving and scheming but she really is not an evil mastermind type. Her goals and her door have to be just open enough to keep Umedes or Marcus or Gren from figuring it out.
Gren: he's the slut spouse, not the seductive spouse. He's not much for innuendoes or specifically flirting, versus just being really nice. So really any serious seductiveness will have everyone wondering if he's okay.
Heith: the doppelganger would have to walk a fine line between being very cynical and also not being depressed, which would be hard with Marcus tipping everything depressionward. Unfortunately Marcus is also the one Heith spends the most time with and is most likely to notice something is wrong.
Kiatcarmen: it would be hard, ngl. But she's not equally mean to everyone or mean to them in the same way. Still, as long as they don't do something as obvious as badmouthing Jimmy, they might go undetected if there aren't any nuances that Jimmy or Pirianus pick up on.
Ashmalo: the giveaway would probably be him being vitriolic about Kiatcarmen, or him being overconfident as a dad. It's kind of a toss up who would notice first but my bet's on Orvi, since he's both very observant and friends with Ashmalo.
Jimmy: probably getting involved with Marcus and Minaya too much. He's always been distant from them, and any deviation from that would be odd to everyone else.
Pirianus: his whole MO is opaque to everyone else, yet it does follow a pretty predictable logic of being extremely emotionally repressed. If he got more transparent or just less judgmental it would be a tip-off. Thade would probably figure it out first.
Caladea: the biggest possible mistake is to assume that she is both soft and kind of weak-willed in all areas of her life. The only people who believe that are the ones who have never seen her strategize with Ashmalo or met her in the bedroom. The opposite is true too: what Caladea would talk back to Kiatcarmen, or talk to her at all if it wasn't necessary?
Thade: he can be annoying, but he chooses his moments because he wants attention more than anything. Someone constantly being annoying just for the sake of being annoying would raise some flags.
Orvi: it might be possible to skate past Thade and Caladea if they got some small details right. But either the complex web of politics in the court or an overdeveloped sense of power from Orvi's personal surveillance network would trip them up.
18 - One of your characters is sick in bed. What do the rest of the characters do to help them feel better?
Marcus: the most often repeated phrase with him is "take the pills". He's so ready to just suffer through it but nobody will let him. And pretty much everyone will come to say hi to him at one time or another but Umedes will be there the most.
Yera: she has the window cracked open so that someone can hang out on the other side of it and be somewhat protected from whatever has her sick. But she's suffering not being able to be around anyone and they try to be extra social with her in other ways to make up for it.
Umedes: half the time they won't even tell anyone they're sick—they'll just recede into their chambers. They don't want to make people take care of them, but they almost inevitably get found out and taken care of anyway. I think there's some kind of Vick's equivalent for scales and that's what they use, and it's hard to feel too much like a burden when hot guys are insisting on giving you a scale rub.
Hossan: he hates being sick so much. He will take the pills without being told though he doesn't always believe they do anything. But Gren and Yera have discovered the best way to make him less miserable is just to give him a space Switch and not bother him too much while he plays games in bed.
Pali: Umedes and Gren especially are checking in frequently to make sure she hasn't decided to return to work while they weren't looking and make sure she has enough water and snacks and such. Luckily she doesn't like working in bed, so it's hard for her to pretend she wasn't working.
Gren: for the most part they all just staying out of his bedroom, because he's determined to sleep it off. But it's also answering his messages as quickly as possible so he can get his meals in before going back to sleep.
Heith: she will let Marcus in to hang out with her periodically and also Gren so he won't worry, but mostly she wants soup and to be left alone with the space netflix password.
Kiatcarmen: she has Jimmy on video call half the day every day, because she doesn't want to get him sick, but she can't be without him. The rest of her time is spent either watching trash TV or sleeping. She used to just rely on the staff to leave what she needed at the door, but she's discovered that Pirianus is only too happy to play her nurse, and sometimes she lets him.
Ashmalo: he doesn't like being sick by any means but he does like that Caladea takes it on herself to take care of him. She doesn't hang around a ton, just because it's boring for her, but she will make sure he has everything he needs and massage his shoulders and tuck him in.
Jimmy: he tends to have a short temper and very little energy for socializing when he's sick, but he also can't stand being left completely alone. So he will have Kiat or Caladea on video chat for a few minutes here and there.
Pirianus: well, in his ideal world, Kiatcarmen would dote on him like he dotes on her, but he has to make do with mostly Thade, who operates on a strict "don't shoot the messenger" policy. Thade is just delivering stuff. Don't blame him for anything that goes wrong, just send him to get something else. But Thade is also decently likely to not be home when Piri is sick, so then it's Orvi, or some representative of Orvi, fetching things, and occasionally Caladea will see him until she gets tired of him, and even more occasionally Kiatcarmen will drop by.
Caladea: she wants everyone to stay away from her. Well, maybe Orvi or Thade or Ashmalo can sit far away from her and talk to her from there. But for the love of god do not let in Pirianus, because he wants to be her Big Brother TM, but he's just overbearing.
Thade: if he's perfectly honest he kinda prefers getting sick in his hotel suite in Landris, because then he doesn't have to think about socializing with the polycule beyond his phone—he can just call his assistant Wyn to get him some stuff and then chill in his space. In the palace Orvi and Caladea and Ashmalo are checking in on him, and that's nice, but why do they all have to do it every day. Can they not just coordinate.
Orvi: he has tried to just be sick in peace but Caladea won't let him. Which is mostly a good thing, honestly, because otherwise he would just vanish for a week, and would barely interact with anyone. Ashmalo and Thade will also visit him, though he's not sure if Ashmalo only comes if Caladea tells him to.
For day 3 of WIP Romance Week, I bring you "how they show affection".
Nemoru is not very touchy in general, but with Marcus, they always want to be a comforting presence, so they often have a reassuring hand or hug waiting for him. They also do most of the cooking and do their best to meld local cuisine with Marcus's favorite foods from back home. Marcus, on the other hand, will often paint or knit something for Nemoru. Sometimes it's mostly practical, like a trivet, but he's made a lot of tiny paintings of their favorite things that they've sprinkled around the house. He also loves cuddling with them when it's not too hot (they're always warm, which is kind of a ferasca thing and kind of a Nemoru thing).
OCs: Marcus Asalun (aka Anchesh Pabat) and Umedes Oret-Pabat
Words: 608
Content warnings: none
Notes: Anchesh and Umedes have been married almost two years at this point. Umedes is a silver ferasca - dragon person - and the only one of Anchesh's spouses he's well and truly in love with. Minaya is Anchesh's younger sister, also expected to marry a member of each species, but not interested in doing so at the breakneck speed Anchesh has been keeping. Anchesh is worried, as always, that the human spouse options he'll be presented tomorrow will be terrible, but he'd accept whichever one his wives like.
Tomorrow would be the introduction, and hoping that Pali and Yera took to one of the options. That he did, but if they liked someone well enough he’d probably just sign off on it. Minaya would tell him not to be like that, but wouldn’t she do the same? Well, maybe she wouldn’t, but she had all the time in the world. He slowed and glanced up from his burning stare at the hallway carpet when he heard someone coming ahead. Probably a servant, in this part of the palace. But it was Umedes who stepped out of the cross-hallway and interrupted their trajectory to meet him where he was.
They were maybe four inches taller than him, but between their broad horns and fat build it always felt like more. Time seemed to pause as they stood over him, adjusting his goofy too-big lapels, smoothing their hands along the front of his waistcoat, letting the braids that framed his face run over their knuckles.
“Nervous?” they murmured. They would know that this was the only thing on his mind, because it had been for days.
He sighed. “Yeah.”
“It will be fine.” Umedes had been through a formal spouse selection, so maybe they were right. They lifted one of his newly-wrapped braids in their fingers, turning it slightly to watch the metallic string change from azure to emerald. “Your hair is gorgeous.”
They probably didn’t mean for those things to be connected, but in typical Umedes fashion they made it sound like everything would be fine because he looked good. Honestly, maybe that was what he should focus on. He did look good, with his cornrows flowing around his horns and into the beaded box braids that cascaded down his upper back, and the four wrapped braids in front of his horns that shifted pleasantly against the fur at the edges of his cheeks. His outfit for tomorrow matched the blue, green, and copper of his braids, luxurious but understated. He couldn’t choose who the suitors would be or what anyone thought of them, but not everything was out of his control.
“Thank you,” he said.
Umedes ran a blunt claw back along the edge of his jaw until their thumb settled against his chin, then just as softly tilted his head up and kissed him. The moment he felt the smooth warmth of their lips against his, he was instantly anxious that someone was about to find them in this hallway, but that didn’t stop him from slipping a hand onto their neck, his fingers splitting over the square, fractured-looking plates at the corner of their jaw. He could let his fingers dance over them for hours, following the geological fault lines over and over like well-worn mountain trails. Maybe later he would. For now he was letting Umedes pull back, then changing his mind and stealing one more kiss before they both pretended they’d done nothing of interest in this public corridor.
Umedes stroked the edge of his lower lip before relinquishing their touch entirely. “We’ll all be there tomorrow,” they said, barely stepping back from him, their pink eyes shining. “And I’m sure the human coalition will choose as well as the others.”
“Probably yes,” he said.
Umedes gave him a soft little smile that said everything there was to say, and revealed a tiny corner of one fang. “Don’t sit by yourself all day.” They passed him with a gentle squeeze to his shoulder, and he couldn’t help watching them go, if only for a second.
His fiery stare at the carpet was more of a smolder as he continued down the hallway.
