#ldad lore

[teacupfulofstarshine]

This chapter was forever ago, but I'm still confused about it.

I was rereading LDAD (lovely fic, btw, one of my faves) and Logan turns into a human and is unable to use his electricity.

HOWEVER, during chapter 9, it says that he can use his electricity and he even eats multiple raw fish, despite being human. Virgil takes him to his room to sleep with him, and later, Logan like... glows in the dark.

I'm confused with the situation? Is Logan human or a merman during these scenes?

hello!

once logan turns into a human, he’s too weak from the change and the shock (plus the strain of learning to walk and his injuries) to use his electricity in that form. he’s still able to eat raw fish because his internal organs/stomach tolerance for raw fish hasn’t changed at all, and the glowing/bio-luminescence of his skin isn’t something that he has to consciously devote energy to. it’s just how his skin naturally is, the way that cats’ eyes naturally reflect green in low light

[teacupfulofstarshine]

This is gonna sound real stupid but Lovely, Dark and Deep made me for some reason want to be a marine biologist, and now here i am with a few fish-related qualifications and aquariums bigger than me in my livingroom

that’s not stupid at all!!! i’m so happy that i could inspire you to be a marine biologist! live your dreams, sweetheart!

[teacupfulofstarshine]

Idea: Logan and Virgil from the mer!au (I forgot the name but it has Eldritch Patton) go swimming together? -Eclipse

the au is lovely, dark, and deep! 

- logan: man, i wish you could go swimming with me, virgil

- virgil: i mean, if the doc will let me break out the scuba gear i can

- logan: what is . . . scuba

- virgil explains the limitations to logan very clearly; he can only go so deep, he can only stay underwater so long, he has to go back up slowly or he’ll get really sick, he won’t be able to hear logan, et cetera

- logan: hears almost none of this because he is so enamored with “virgil said yes to swimming with me!!!!!!!!!”

- logan shows virgil around his favorite coral reef, showing him where he hides his seashells and showing off all of the beautiful fish and sights underwater. logan is so bright-eyed and shiny and he’s glowing with happiness and virgil is So Gay

- he gets so distracted by the sheer gay that is a happy logan in his natural habitat that he almost runs out of oxygen. luckily he gets back to the surface in time, so it’s all well and good. logan apologizes for virgil almost getting sick, but virgil insists it was his own fault

- virgil: i’d love to do it again sometime 

- logan, happily stimming: excellent

[teacupfulofstarshine]

I was reading chapter 9 of the lovely dark and the deep (Again-) and it came to my attention that Virgil, unsurprisingly, takes anxiety medication and my brain went-

What if Lo asked what it was and Virgil said that it kept him happy and calm and one day virgil forgets to take his meds and Logan takes it on himself to remind the other cause he doesn’t want virgil to worry and be sad

a;sdkjf ;alksjdf;l ajsd;lkjf ;lkdsfj THIS IS SO CUTE

virgil, internally: that’s not how ssri’s work, i’ll be okay if i miss one day of medication 

virgil, internally: this is the sweetest fucking thing i have ever seen i can never let him know that this isn’t how meds work

logan, every single day: take your medicine! i want to make sure that you’re staying healthy and not being upset, i care about you!

virgil: sir do you know i would commit an Atrocity for you

[teacupfulofstarshine]

In LDAD how long did it take Virgil to warm up to Thomas? Was there that initial wariness and fear of messing something up and making Thomas hate him? At what point did Thomas go "Ah. My son now."?

virgil does take a very long time to warm up to thomas. this is the best opportunity he’s ever had and he’s worried that he’s gonna do some Big Unspecified Thing wrong and fuck up this opportunity, which is a Major Opportunity 

thomas decides that virgil is his Son when he mentions in passing that he’s going to a pride parade so virgil will have a free day and virgil just looks at him with this wounded, open expression and goes “. . . that’s allowed?”

thomas: well this baby gay is Mine Now i Guess

so he takes virgil to pride with him and virgil has a blast bc he’s never rlly gotten to celebrate his sexuality before? and then they have a Heart to Heart in the car ride home and thomas decides that this is His Child 

[teacupfulofstarshine]

hey! i'm sorry your day was rough, i hope you're taking care of yourself and getting some down time now! i can't really think of questions, but i would love to hear about some ldad stuff! just some headcanons perhaps, soft or angsty, or whatever you feel like! stay safe!

alrighty here’s some water children! 

- roman once watches virgil put on eyeliner using a beaker as a mirror and is very confused. what is virgil doing???

virgil: it’s makeup. i put it on because i feel good in it.

roman: can i wear it?

virgil: . . . okay so here’s the thing about water

- they do a bunch of tests with waterproof eyeliner and eventually they get it on roman’s face. roman is Vibing Thank You Very Much 

- virgil absolutely doodled himself snuggling with logan in the margins of one of his lab reports and then had to redo the entire lab report lest doctor sanders mock him

- plot twist: thomas has seen the doodled version. he is deliberately pretending he didn’t, but like. at what cost.

- one year, virgil drew a picture of thomas releasing a sea turtle into the ocean and actually inked and colored it and put it in a frame. thomas sobbed his eyes out when he saw it and he keeps it in his bedroom. virgil was very embarrassed but thomas hugged him and he felt better

- as previously mentioned,  in this au thomas is aromantic asexual! he has the aro flag tattooed on his left shoulder blade and the ace flag on his right shoulder blade. he likes to joke that they’re his wings to fly above the world’s allo bullshit 

- virgil also has a tattoo! he has a stylized thundercloud on his ribcage

[teacupfulofstarshine]

Could you talk a bit about Virgil and Thomas in the mer au?

of course!! 

- thomas has basically adopted virgil at this point. he’s never made it legally binding, but he treats virgil the way he would a son. virgil and thomas have never actually discussed this relationship, but it is very much replicated 

- once, virgil spent too long on a rainy beach and got pretty bad pneumonia. thomas took care of him when he was ill, and at one point when he was more than mildly delirious with fever, he called thomas “dad”. virgil does not remember this, and thomas has never spoken of it, but it does warm his heart considerably to know that the way he feels in regards to virgil is reciprocated.

- virgil’s least favorite task to complete is water sample analysis. he thinks it’s bullshit. thomas, therefore, likes to ask virgil to complete them. virgil complains that water sample analysis is grunt work. thomas asks if virgil would prefer thomas to hire another doctoral student to foist the grunt work onto. virgil always vehemently denies wanting another student around, but thomas is never serious about his requests. he makes do with just virgil. 

- virgil came out to thomas kind of by accident? they were having a day relaxing on the beach and thomas took his shirt off to go swimming in the water. virgil saw his tattoos (mentioned in a previous ask: he has the aro and ace flags on his shoulder blades) and thomas noticed him staring. virgil nervously came out, and thomas smiled and patted his shoulder 

- thomas went with virgil when he got his tattoo. virgil’s not a fan of needles, so he held his hand and distracted him with tales of shenanigans that he got up to in his undergraduate days. 

- thomas is not supposed to let anyone else drive the boat, on account of him being the only one with a boat license. does that mean he doesn’t let virgil drive the boat? no. he won’t let virgil drive on official research expeditions, but he will if they’re just dicking around

- virgil hates washing dishes. thomas hates doing laundry. they compromise with thomas doing the dishes for the household and virgil doing laundry for the household. they switch off on who cooks - virgil has a limited repertoire, but he’s learning!

- they like watching the great british baking show together. virgil likes to criticize the bakers who mess up, even though he can’t even make store-bought cookie dough without burning it

[teacupfulofstarshine]

What were Virgil and Thomas’s first impressions of eachother like? And how did their relationship change? Also I think I remember a line about other students who didn’t last so what was up with that? Also also has V always lived with Thomas (when he’s been his student) or did that happen once they got closer

virgil and thomas met when thomas was giving a tour of his lab to a group of prospective interns. he wrote equations on the bored that contained an Intentional Error to see if anyone would spot it. a few of them did, but one of them hung back and was like “hey so there’s also a Legit Error over here, was that intentional?” 

thomas: . . . No but i am Glad Someone Caught It 

virgil is terrified of messing up and losing his internship at first, but as he spends more time working for thomas he warms up slowly. then thomas takes virgil to his first pride parade and they get much more friendly from there

thomas has had doctoral students before! he’s had lab assistants and doctoral students and all kinds of stuff, but most of them were just passing through on their way to another placement or graduating and had other placements lined up. virgil was the first one who didn’t have plans that meant he could only stay for three months or something 

the housing was part of the gig! thomas lives alone when he doesn’t have a student, and he rents out the bedroom to his current student for about $100 a month, which is a super discounted rate