AGAIN FOR THE BENEFIT OF ONE SCALY BASTARD

Why is my right eyelid puffy? I didn't do anything to it. I haven't been crying or anything silly like that. I thought I was just imagining the sensitivity of the right side of my face because I stupidly imagine oversensitivity sometimes with random parts of my body and I used to have a horrible whining window in my bedroom that triggered it. And now anything that lingers on the right side of my face too long triggers it.
WHY IS MY RIGHT EYELID PUFFY. THERE IS NO LOGICAL CAUSE FOR THIS.
I normally wouldn't mention it but it's bloody well creeping me out.

Anyway.
MASCS/FEMS IN THE LUNARVERSE. EXCITING STUFF, EH? And at request, no less. This is the first time anyone's actually specifically asked to know more about a particular aspect of one of my universes.

I think I'll put down the question too so I don't forget what was specifically asked for:
"You should write a blather on masc/fem in your universe and what all it entails--what it means, what they go through, all that."
I am also going to try to write this in CONCISE, STRUCTURED FORMAT without any ADHD-wandering. I'm aware that's kind of the point of what blathering is supposed to allow to encourage the flow but I want this to be informative, thus it has to make sense.

DEFINITIONS: Masc/fem refers to an individual, specifically heterosexual, who has switched gender roles. Mascs are women who naturally possess masculine attitudes, in every way--clothing, manner, and thought. They are basically just like everyday men, they just happen to be women and (assuming they've settled on their identity as a masc and aren't in a questioning phase that teens go through) experience no confusion over their sexual or sexuality identity.
Fems are the same, they're just men who are feminine, in every manner, dress, and thought.
I'll briefly explain what I mean by thought, just in case it isn't clear--fems think like women do and mascs think like men do, to the extent it can actually affect what are considered to be scientific rules, such as women not being as easily aroused or preoccupied with thoughts of sex as men are based on hormones. Masc women are often considerably more easily aroused and think about sex more than typical feminine women, and are the aggressor in sexual intimacy in a relationship. They are almost always the ones to initiate or at least pursue sex(fems are just as likely to go "Sorry, sweetie, I'm just not in the mood" as women are. That's right. Men that will TURN DOWN SEX. PREPOSTEROUS?). While many women may enjoy male strippers, not many may be genuinely aroused by them as men will be by female strippers. With mascs, they are almost often as easily aroused by a fem stripper as a man would be by a woman one. The difference in this is that mascs have much more sensitive taste--a fem stripper must be healthy and fully beautiful in appearance, whereas a woman stripper would probably get by just for wearing lingerie and having boobs. Mascs are very sensitive to body type and facial structure. You are not likely to find a masc who will "settle" for a man of unattractive appearance just because he has a solid job and a good personality. They idealize physical attraction in fems just as much as men do in women.
When it comes to personality attraction, mascs can vary wildly depending on what they want from someone. For a masc looking to have fun, she won't care about personality in all likeliness. For a masc looking to settle down with a relationship, being attracted to the fem's personality is as important as being attracted to them physically--a masc may not even be capable of being aroused by a fem who's an absolute snotty bitch. This is one of the very key differences that still exist between mascs and men--"their personality was a total turnoff" may end up being an absolute truth instead of a justification for why they couldn't get in bed with someone hot.
I've mentioned to some people how a man being pretty and feminine is often enough to make me fall in love with him, and to an extent that does ring true. However, in the future of Dollface, where mascs and fems are becoming commonplace despite society's best efforts, I believe this probably wouldn't be true for many mascs. I fall in love with a pretty girly boy on sight just because they're so rare and I'm ready to take any chance I can get. I'm not ashamed to admit I'm desperate in a society where chances of me meeting a man I find attractive on the street are -.001%. In a city with clubs full of them, I'd have the luxury of getting picky.

As for fems, much of the parallel is true with some exceptions. Fems are often much more completely obsessed with their appearance than actual women and intensely more insecure. Many of them feel they have a lot to make up for since many of their features are "naturally masculine." They'll undergo operations to make their features more delicate, physique as well as face, and many often apply makeup and wear female underwear--man-tailored bras included--under their clothes just for the feminine feel of it. Most mascs do find these girly enhancements attractive, but others may also be attracted to what society considers to be a more masculine appearance--a toned body and an aggressive personality. There is a subcategory of fem called "sex-fem" which refers to men that aren't necessarily feminine, but are attracted to mascs and are submissive in bed. They don't wear women underwear and if they could be considered girly it would be the punk, tough-ass sort that isn't actually girly but more tomboy than anything. It's hard to explain. You'd have to see it to know it. (Sil is actually attracted to both fems and sex-fem types. Glow falls somewhere in between, which is probably for the best. He's feminine enough she'd never dare get physically violent with him, but his personality also develops into something tough enough that he doesn't submit in every way. Lyre is attracted only to fems. She privately considers sex-fems "uncouth" and entirely a turn-off, but would never be so impolite as to disregard them socially for this.) Sex-masc does not exist, and the closest thing to it would probably be a dominatrix. However, there are feminine women who end up with fem men(usually the man hasn't come out until after they're in the relationship)and end up being okay with it or enjoying it. They usually still require the fem to be the aggressor in the relationship, which will cause difficulties at times.

Fems and mascs are not attracted to one another's masculinity/femininity rooted in their appearance. Mascs may still find jugulars and the shape of a slim man's body attractive, while fems are still attracted to breasts and smooth necks. A fem is attracted to the masculinity of a mascs's personality and not firstly her body. Fems still undergo operations to slim and prettify themselves, and mascs still take steroids and height enhancers, and the two find the traits these result in within each other attractive--fems are attracted to muscles and height and mascs are attracted to pretty faces and slim waists. The idea is that neither of them consider the other's body to be the representation of femininity or masculinity in the human race. Fems do not consider breasts feminine and mascs do not consider jugulars masculine because in this future among this subculture such roles have been pretty much entirely severed from body parts.
Fems being attracted to muscles has to do with the strength and power they rightly represent. They are not attracted to breasts because they represent beauty or femininity--they're just attracted to them for the same reason mascs are attracted to flat chests. Sexuality.

The terms masc and fem are specified to refer to straight individuals to prevent confusion among sexualities. It's all very well and good to call yourself an open-minded straight woman, but regardless you aren't going to be pleased if you accidentally make out with a woman you thought was a fem while you were drunk. In Lunarverse homophobia is largely nonexistent, and disgust has nothing to do with the morning-after revelation and entirely to do with frustration and irritation at being deceived, whether intentionally or no. It is for this reason there are masc/fem exclusive clubs just like there are still gay-exclusive clubs. Gender-trad friends are allowed in if they're vouched for and it's considered most polite that the voucher introduce the gender-trad to as many people as possible so word and description of the trad girl who just came in with her masc friend gets around to prevent any misunderstandings. It is also an unwritten rule that trads stay off the dance floor after eleven pm. This may see controvist(shorthand for controversialist, those specifically against gender-traditionalism just as there is gender-traditionalism against gender-controversialism aka the masc/fem movement)but it's meant for the best of all involved. When it comes to actual employment at these clubs, there are no policies against trads working there, but it is likely that a masc/fem applicant will be chosen over a trad just because it is harder for them to get work.


The sorts of things mascs and fems go through are pretty on-par with what happens with gay people and trans people nowadays.

"If this is your fault, I swear to God I will vacking kill you," Violet snarled, jabbing a finger in Sil's face.
"Down boy," Sonny said hoarsely. "It's not Sil's fault."
"How would this possibly be my fault?" Sil demanded angrily, glaring at him. "Why do I keep getting blamed for shit like this?"
"Because it usually IS your fault, sweetie," Glow sighed, sitting on the edge of Sonny's bed.
"How?" Sil demanded, glaring at him next.
"Well, if you hadn't been in the gang when Sonny came around, she wouldn't have gotten shot the first time."
"You're still going to tell me about that," Violet muttered threateningly to Sonny. Sonny winced and tried to grin innocently.
"If I hadn't been the gang, I never would have owned the garage, and we probably never would have even met Sonny," Sil argued. "So technically--"
"Sil," Sonny cut in. "I just want to stop you because you're about to go somewhere really vacking stupid with that thought and I just wanted to warn you not to before you did."
Sil paused and thought about what she had been about to say, then looked at the look on Glow's face. It was the look of I am right and that is the end of it and if you really say what you're about to say you are sleeping on the garage floor tonight.
"...Whatever," she muttered, crossing her arms across her chest and leaning sulkily against the ward wall.

Gay people and transsexual people at this point have the advantage of court rulings and constitutional rights, because society considers there to be something tangibly different about them--a different sexuality, a need to physically alter their born gender to their true gender. Mascs and fems are considered to be just plain freaks. There's no brain chemistry or differing sexuality or genetic difference(there is physical editing of their bodies, but that just adds to the blasphemy of the issue) nothing that can be named and scientifically studied. Mascs, prior to any physical enhancements, don't have higher testosterone levels than women and fems, don't have lower ones than men, yet they still display behaviours originally typed to levels of testosterone and estrogen. There's nothing that can be pinned down and labeled about their difference. Most of society considers them to be gender or sexuality confused, transgender people or homosexual people in denial about their true nature. Because of this, they aren't taken seriously by many organizations who could help or defend them at the least, while the rest of society hates them for arguing the one last thing many people consider certain about human nature. Gay people can change gender roles because they're court-ruled to be different. Transgender people aren't changing gender roles, they're adopting the roles that truly belong to them. Women "pretending to be men" and men "pretending to be women"(though that isn't what they're doing) are clearly just trying to fuck around and make life difficult for everyone else.

I have to go for the time being and I'll finish this when I get back. Hope you enjoy it so far!

Back again for a little while, I'll try to squeeze in some more before we head out for the festival again. Fortunately I am not in fact getting a headache after my scare with Starling! She was also a perfect little aristocrat at the vet's with the very excitable catahoula dog that kept barking and lunging. She growled a little when another dog came in, but I'm pretty sure at that point she was just starting to get stressed and irritated. It got to the point where she was so annoyed with the catahoula she sat facing away from it. It was adorable.

After some previous social upheavals with transgender and homosexual (and all the other sexuality) rights movements settling down, this being a couple decades or so previous, human society is settling back into itself when the masc/fem movement comes along and stirs everything up again. You'd think most people would just roll with it by now, but no. Human society considers the masculinity of heterosexual men and the femininity of heterosexual women to be one of the ultimate basics, the rock solid foundation on which all things of our society are built and rebuilt. It's the one thing you can take for granted. The last certainty you can count on. No one SAYS you HAVE to be gay or pan or straight or bi or whathaveyou, no one SAYS you HAVE to be a girl if you're born physically a girl. But the one thing society still pounds into people's heads is men HAVE to be MANLY MEN and women HAVE to be, whatever they do or think or want out of life, feminine. It's the one politically incorrect thing people are not only allowed, but encouraged to say. "Boys will be girls and girls will be boys" but by God boys and girls WILL ACT their gender at least.
It is for this reason that in a hyper-modern society where everything is acceptable there is still massive, intense hatred against the masc/fem movement. In almost any level mascs are raped or gangraped in school to be taught what a real woman should feel like, and the rapists may be protected or even encouraged by their parents. Fems are beaten up to be taught how to stand up and fight like REAL MEN. Revealing yourself as a masc or a fem will get you ostracized from almost all levels of society, from highschool to the work force to the social network. Some consider it worse than before when mascs and fems weren't recognized or named--when people just recognized you as a very odd, eccentric girl and couldn't say anything out of courtesy. Of those that prefer the days before, most are mascs who used to be able to walk down the street blatantly in drag and were merely mistaken for dykes or transsexuals or simply pretty men. Very few fems prefer the before, as before they didn't ever dare walk out in public in drag(if they did they had to do it in large groups of gay friends and it was almost impossible to meet a masc). Now they are still afraid, but take strength in numbers. Many are still in hiding, but just as many are walking out and about now.
Levels of violence range from insults to outright rape and in the lower levels, to murder. Fems and mascs "travel in packs" to keep themselves safe and these are very close-knit groups. One or two may be kidnapped and used to lure the others into a back alley where they will be shot execution style. Most mascs are raped before they're murdered, in many extreme cases fems are also castrated.
Very little is done about this. Rape is taken much more seriously in the hyper-modern society, but when it comes to mascs there seems to be a regression to the "she was asking for it" attitude. If the cases of murdered mascs and fems fall on the desks of male detectives they may never be investigated at all. If women detectives investigate they run the risk of facing hostility from male cops. The first ten years of the movement are the worst, harsh, brutal, bloody, and outright inhuman. Not merely inhumane, just plain inhuman.
The first ten years are what Sil is born into. She lives in the levels that draw the line between middle-class and lower regions. Her mother, a born-and-raised wilder that moved to the city, suffers from culture shock-inflicted depression, but won't go home because her husband won't let her bring Sil with her(immigrant spouses are not allowed to leave the domes with children that have been born in those domes without written consent from the other spouse.) She dies when Sil is around twelve. Whether it's suicide is never ascertained. Sil becomes the epitome of the angsty, angry teenager. She smokes, does drugs, and gets involved with a gang at first to piss off her dad, then because she enjoys the power and security.
Masc gangs in these levels are among the most common types. They are comprised mostly of bitter, angry, scared women. Many of them have been sexually abused after revealing themselves to be masc. Many of these develop man-hating attitudes that bring abuse into relationships they may have with fems including physical violence, emotional abuse("You're fat, you're ugly, you're weak and disgusting"), and minor paranoia about the fem's fidelity. Yet many masc gangs attract fem groupies seeking the protection they've earned by brutal, bloody conquest among the other male-dominated gangs. Mascs are more cutthroat, brutal, outright cruel, and bloodthirsty than gangs run by men, purely because they have to be. Every now and then fems are allowed to join the gangs as actual members, usually after sick hazing rituals to prove their loyalty and submission. Masc gangs usually only have one or two actual fem members, and are similar to lion prides, except the male isn't exactly king. The females hunt, fight, and protect while the male often provides purely sexual services. The lower levels are a savage, primeval place.
Sil narrowly avoids this attitude, largely because of her interaction with Lyre, who Sil met in the early days when her dad and mom still visited Earth with frequency. Lyre is Sil's closest and only friend, though she comes close to losing her a couple times as she goes through some incredibly angry stages in life. And then she meets Glow, who cements her personality the way it is and prevents her from becoming like the other mascs in the gang.



For most mascs and fems, their identity is certain to them from a young age. Fems have the easiest time figuring it out when they surpass age 5(the age at which gender conditioning usually sets in) and realize they still want to play dressup with Mommy and keep some of her clothes. Mascs usually have a little more difficulty, since at this point in the future it's still considered alright for girls to engage in "boys'" activities for much of their life, such as sports and wearing pants. It usually hits them when they realize they actually find that fem two rows in front of them in Mrs. Cherry's Algebra class, seventh grade, to be very attractive, while they aren't attracted at all to that pretty good-looking football player who keeps trying to get their number. Many mascs will indulge in somewhat feminine activities and clothes until they realize themselves, at which point they will usually do an abrupt about-face and throw out any clingy shirts, dresses, and invitations to tea parties and sleepovers and then fall into the habit of stealing clothes from their brother(s), dad, or try to get them from male friends. Fems who attempt to communicate their nature to their mothers at an early age will usually have an easier time coming to terms with themself--mothers with younger children who fear for them will be quicker to reach out with the other mothers at daycare who seem to have similar "problems" with their little boys. Such mothers, feminine as they are, may come to terms with their sons early on and become fiercely protective of them as they grow and mature and deal with their natures.
Mascs usually have a harder time of it. Mothers want their little girls to grow up and be bigger girls and be the prettiest young lady at the prom. Meanwhile, the sympathetic element is rarely to be found in Dad, who wants his daughter to be his little princess, and thus they have little to no guidance on masculinity from either parental figure. Brothers of their generation may be more sympathetic or wish their sisters would grow up and starting acting like girls. Mascs often band together at a young age for companionship, and then later to feed off each other for any sort of masculine advice they may be able to glean from observation of others. Depending on how schools are set up, say, if a school is all one campus, middle school mascs may swarm(meaning the manner, there's rarely more than two or three mascs that have realized themselves or come out about it at that age)highschooler mascs seeking guidance and a role model. It is less common for fems to reach out to other fems purely because they're older and wiser; they band together for the sake of being together, rather than seeking guidance.
Sonny's somewhat unexpected, sudden attachment to Sil and persistent attempts to win her approval are actually completely normal. They're from very different backgrounds and social classes, but Sonny's need for direction and a masculine figure to learn from drives her beyond this--it's also likely she is one of the only mascs at her entire school. She is intimidated and a little afraid of Sil at first, but this actually intensifies her desire to befriend her--she wants to be like Sil. Tall, strong, intimidating, experienced, and (in Sonny's mind) not afraid of anything.
Meanwhile, Sil sees Sonny as what she could have been if things had been different for her. And she sees Sonny has the drive and ability to achieve impressive, possibly even great things. She wants to teach Sonny how to be strong as a masc so she can be strong as a person, strong enough to face the awful things many mascs have to face. Sil is by no means a kid person, but Sonny is by no means a kid. Many mascs and fems mature ahead of other kids out of necessity--they are faced with real, violent danger often at an early age on the playground and then turn around and seek explanations for and refuge from this, usually from older homosexual and transgender people, who don't sugarcoat the truth of what they're likely to face as they get older.

SURGERIES
Since their identity is often clear from an early age, fems and mascs will usually try to start getting treatments as early as highschool. This is usually impossible for them, because of parents and because very few places will treat for the enhancements they desire. Because of this mascs and fems are also driven to get jobs and to befriend older people that can drive before most other kids, so they can finance their own treatments and get themselves where they need to go. Many are driven to independence prematurely of "normal" kids. Many of them may resort to posing as transsexuals in order to get what they want(psychological therapy is no longer a necessary process, but a recommended one)and get another older fem or masc to pose as a parent to sign off consent.
Because treatments start early, by the time many mascs and fems are coming out of puberty mascs will be as muscular and tall as average boys their age and their testosterone levels will be similar. Fems usually manage to remain shorter and have gotten their features feminized to be pretty. There are more dangerous treatments to detracted muscle and bone from the hands to make them smaller and more petite, but these are not yet perfected and considered dangerous, possibly resulting in permanent nerve damage and weakened bone structure(Violet lost mobility in half of his left hand for a year when he was sixteen, and the bones in that hand remain very delicate today.) The bone structure may be easily broken and may not even be capable of growing back together when splinted.
Lower levels fems, unfortunately, are often incapable of taking these treatments for reasons that have nothing to do with parents or finances. Because of the dangers they face in lower levels many fems decide to limit their treatment to prettifying the face and slightly editing their height. Even this may be out of the question, if they live low enough that being recognized as a fem is simply too dangerous. Lower level fems need the advantage of their muscle and can't afford to be flamboyantly fem. Julian retains most of his natural muscle mass and even works out a little bit to stay strong enough to take care of himself. He tweaked his face a bit and enhanced his eyes, and he does do flamboyantly fem despite this, mostly because he's a cocky idiot and is going to get himself into trouble.
Honestly, though, Julian spends most of his life locked in his room at home or at masc/fem clubs. The streets pose the most danger, but again, he and Tris are usually travelling in a small pack of mascs and fems.
Mascs in lower levels can't afford not to get treatments, for the same reasons fems cut back on theirs. They need to be able to protect themselves. If a masc can't get it done professionally they'll resort to illegal steroids and unlicensed doctors, which can be dangerous and without being advised mascs can overdose themselves. Sil mostly avoided doctors and took new drugs on the market to enhance her height without operations. They made her violently sick when they interacted with the steroids, but it paid off. Sil tops off at 5'11".

Glow was thirty years old when the masc/fem movement kicked off, and seventeen years into being a cyborg. For the most part he was a total recluse from society, getting by doing cheap repairs on cars and other mechanics. A few new cyborgs added to Skar's little kingdom in the Burnouts were the ones to introduce Glow to the movement, one masc in particular who went by Theo. She talked him into trying out the sex-fem aspect, and Glow, insecure and very lonely(he doesn't LIKE being a recluse), let her have her way. It turned out he liked it, and he cautiously explored more of this fem thing. While Glow never got into makeup and skirts, she convinced him to get in the habit of wearing tight clothes and taught him to embrace his submissive nature. Theo dumped him a year later for a prettier boy and Glow's reclusive nature responded like whiplash. He retreated into the confines of his little den for several years. Fuschia barely managed to coax him out of it to start making money again when his nitro stock started running low.
Yes, he was wearing tight clothes when Sil met him, and at the track where she met him for the second time. No, he doesn't wear them now because Sil can't help herself when he does and he can't help himself when she can't help herself.
That's all I can think of for now and I'm very hungry. Post any more questions you may have that I didn't think to answer!

WHAT'S THIS? TWICE IN ONE NIGHT? ABSOLUTE MADNESS.

"...Mom?"
My voice croaked like an eighty year old toad. I swallowed hard. I didn't know why I was doing this. Because my boss called me a stupid vacking cow? I'd been called worse. A lot worse. By people who'd meant a lot more to me at the time.
My mom, for one. Part of why I didn't know why I was even doing this.
"Hhello?" Her voice was slurred. She was high. Or drunk. "Whoizzthis?"
"It's me." The word cracked. "Um. Julian."
Silence.
"...Whho?"
Tears stabbed my throat and clawed out of my eyes, which were already pretty red and puffy. I could feel my mascara running, down the corner of my eye, staining my pillow, along the bridge of my nose to the tip, where a drop hung and tickled. I scrubbed it away with the back of my hand and sniffled.
"Julian. Mom. Your son."
"...Uhh."
That was it. It wasn't an "uhuh" or even an "ahh". Just "uhh."
"You know? Blonde hair, bl--" crack. "Blue eyes? You gave birth to me a little over nineteen years ago? You kicked a nurse in the eye and said I--" God, why was I vacking saying this, I wasn't even sure it was true, she'd told me this when she was high and I was eleven, "You said I was beautiful like a little angel."
More silence.
"...Jjuliann?"
"Yes," I said, feeling a little excited. I smiled and sniffled some more. "Your son. Remember?"
"...Whherre are you?"
"I'm staying with my boss."
"Whho?"
"My boss. Her name's Sil. She runs a garage--"
"Wherre have you beenn?"
"I just said. I'm staying with my boss--"
"'s been lookingg all overforryyouu."
"What?"
"Louis's been...lookinggforyou? He wann'ed to knnow...where you werre..."
"Louis beat me up, Mom. That's why I left." I was afraid I was losing her.
"Whhat?"
"Louis beat me up. Really bad. Because I lost his...package. Or whatever."
"His packagge."
"Yeah, Mom. He gave it to me to give to someone and I lost it."
"You lost it?"
"Yes, Mom." Getting frustrated. Be patient. She'll come around. "I lost it. And I went home. And he beat the shit out of me."
The silences were getting longer.
"You were there," I said, and felt tears welling up again. "You were right there. You were right there in the living room and you stood there and he wouldn't stop kicking me and it hurt--" I squeaked and stopped for a minute, taking a long breath, "You didn't do anything. Remember?"
More vacking damned silence--
"Mom!" I said, and sat up. "You were right there. You were right there and he wouldn't stop--are you even listening? Do you even understand anything I'm vacking saying?"
"I...Louisss...Did hhe hit you?"
"Yes, Mom. He hit me. A lot. And kicked me. And he wouldn't stop. And I--I asked you to help me--I was--I was crying--and you didn't--you wouldn't--" Mascara ran into my mouth and I gagged on it, choking and spitting it out. I scraped at my mouth with my fingers, trying to get it out, crying with my throat closing up and choking on vacking mascara.
"Julian? Jjulliann?" She actually sounded vaguely alarmed. "Jjuliann. Juliann?"
"Yes?" I asked. "Mom. I'm here." I'm here. Tell me you miss me. Tell me you're worried. Tell me what moms are supposed to tell their kids when they've run away from home and miss you and call you because they want to come home and need you to tell them to come home before they can.
"Louiss...'s been lookinngg forr you...youshhouldd come hhome."
I stopped breathing with disbelief.
"Why," I said. "Why would I do that, Mom?"
"He...Louiss wantss tto talk ttoo you..."
"I don't care about Louis, Mom! I don't give a vacking shit about vacking Louis! I just--God, I don't know why I--I've been crying, Mom, and it hurts, and I'm tired, and I feel sick, and I--oh, God."
I collapsed back on to the bed, shoving my face into the pillow.
"Jjuliann?"
I had a couple sobs before I pulled myself together and made myself say it. I didn't think I could and then I made myself say it.
"Mom. Mom? Mom."
"Jjuliann."
"Mom. Mom...tell me you love me. Please. Say I love you. Just once." I sniffled and wiped i on my sleeve. "Please."
Silence.





"Mom. Please."







"Please."




"Hhehllloh?"
"Mom?"


"...Whhoissthiss?"




...Click.

SURPRISE POST OF DOLLFACE STORY

I watched him working magic with the tools and his slight little hands, the unnatural green eyes like little lasers of concentration. The world went away for Glow when he was doing his thing. There was nothing but him and the gears.
I loved him.
I loved him with that horrible, awful, sick, twisting-in-your-gut kind of love. That kind of love that was a rose when it was sunny and all thornbush when it went cold. And right now we were in winter.
I hated loving him. I loved him and I knew there wasn't any going back, that even if he looked me in the eye and said he hated me and always had and walked out right in front of me I wouldn't stop loving him. I couldn't. And I hated not having control over how I felt like that. I almost wanted to hate him for taking that away from me.
"Sil?"
"What."
"You're doing that creepy thing you do where you stare at nothing like a serial killer and scare our customers away."
"Our kind of customers don't /get/ scared away by that, Julian."
"Well you're scaring the shit out of me, so please stop?"
I wanted to hold him and tell him how sorry I was about all the times I vacked everything up again. I wanted to tell him I was bad for him and he should just go away again. I wanted to tell him to go be safe again. But I couldn't do any of that because I was too selfish and I was scared that if I did he'd listen this time.
"Sil?"
"Go get me a beer, will you?"
Julian made a face and sauntered off, waggling his little ass like he did. There was a time when I would have taken that alone as invitation and followed him and done something about it.
I couldn't hardly see anything about Glow when he wore his black overalls. That was torturous and a good thing at the same time. If I could see him I'd probably be saying stupid things all the time instead of just most of it.
The bell rang while Julian was off and I looked up.
"Yeah?"
"Uhhh..." Some kid was standing in front of me, holding something wrapped up and looking like she wasn't supposed to be here and knew she wasn't supposed to be here. I narrowed my eyes. She had short brown hair that hung in her eyes a bit and was dressed in baggy, loose clothes. Boys' clothes. She was wearing a pair of sneakers that looked like they had traveled for miles. The whites of her eyes were grey, but not as dark as mine--mine were almost black. I'd lived in lower levels most my life. She lived in the middle-class regions.
She looked nervous, which was a good thing. Mascs and fems weren't well-liked in my area. Partially because of the gang, mostly because of shitforbrains genderists that thought they had a right to tell other people how to live when there was nothing wrong with how they dressed and acted other than it was different than what most people did.
You didn't see mascs getting vanished off the street and turning up raped and dead, or fems turning up just dead, nearly as often as you used to since Duke and us had come to town in this level. But it still happened, and it was best for this kid to be on her guard.
"You need something?" I asked, nodding my head at the long, narrow something she held in her arms, some kind of dirty tattered bathtowl wrapped around it.
"Um. Well, I...I heard you do all kinds of mechanics?"
"Some kinds," I corrected.
"Um, right. More than one, I mean. Do you do...prosthetics? Like, animal prosthetics?"
"Uh...no," I said slowly, raising an eyebrow. "They do have professionals for that, you know." And I am obviously not one of them. Vack off, kid.
"Yeah, but, they're...really expensive," she mumbled. I could barely hear her.
"Speak up, kid."
"They're really expens--"
"I heard you. Look, kid, I don't do prosthetics and I definitely don't do animal prosthetics. Sucks if you're hard for money, but a lot of us are nowadays. Save up and go to a professional." Nice and final. Now tie it off, turn away--
"Can you just--"
"No." Walk into the back---
"I just need someone to replace the part," she said quickly, all in one mouthful. "It's just...it's a really expensive part, and...can you just look at it? Please? I'll pay you for it."
I turned back and saw she'd unwrapped the towel. At first I didn't recognize what it was.
"...Is that a prosthetic raptor leg?" I asked, in something like disbelief. "You have a one-legged raptor?"
"Yeah," she mumbled. I guess my face made her think I needed more of an explanation, because she quickly added, again all in one mouthful: "I got him from a breeder, one of the ones who breeds Fancy raptors, but he was born with one leg and I heard she didn't want him and couldn't sell him and was just going to dump him, so I..." Apparently that was explanation enough. Instead of a period she ended the sentence with a shrug.
She still hadn't looked me in the eye. Not this whole time. Not really in the eye, just glancing at my face now and then, like she was making sure I was actually paying attention.
"Sssooooo yooou...don't have faith in our city's animal shelter system?" I asked, trying to pick up where she left off. She looked confused.
"Huh?"
"You didn't want to let the breeder dump him?"
She blinked at me, then her eyes went dark.
"Out of her car. Down an open Bowel shaft.
"
"No shit?" I asked, a little stunned. I heard about people doin' shit like drowning kittens in the old days, but I didn't think they still did it nowadays. And not just because animals could get lawyers.
"Yeah." Her voice was heavy, like she'd like to throw the breeder down that shaft. I didn't blame her a whole lot. Someone who takes the time to raise an animal, then commits to arranging for that animal to have babies and then means to kill one of them for no real good reason doesn't really deserve a lot of respect in my book.
And when you own an animal that you love and you hear about someone doing something like that, you tend to wonder, "what if that'd been my girl?"
I glanced at Dewey sleeping in the corner. She'd just had a full breakfast and always needed to sleep it off or she got an upset stomach. The vet called it a tender belly. Someone coulda dumped my girl down a shaft right when she was born and I never would've known she'd been alive. That was some painful thinking. I didn't like thinking about that.
That almost had been this kid's girl. Or boy. Whichever it was.
"So you have a one-legged raptor," I said slowly.
"Yeah. He can get around on one leg for a little while, I mean I worked with him when he was younger to build up the muscle, and he can keep his balance, but he just can't keep it up. He needs the prosthetic."
I looked at it. It looked expensive.
"Looks pretty expensive."
"It was...yeah."
"Couple hundred?"
"Little over a thousand."
"Damn." My eyes got kind of wide. Now, see, some people might think that's too much to spend on one little deinonychus. I'm not one of them. If someone loves their pet enough to put down over a thousand dollars just to help it get around the house, they've got a good mark in my book.
I rubbed my head, roughing up my hair a bit while I looked at the leg. I couldn't see it proper without cracking it open and seeing the guts. But I didn't think I wanted to take the kid's money just for that, either.
I let out a long sigh.
"Alright. Take it back with me and I'll look at it." She started fishing around in her pocket.
"How much do you--"
"Keep your money, kid, I'm not gonna take it for just lookin' at the thing."
"Oh. Uh, great. Thanks." She sounded pretty happy about that. She was grinning. I pushed the curtain aside that lead to the back room, the tool room.
"Yeah. No problem. ...What's your name?"
"Sonny. You?"
"Huh?"
"What's your name?"
"...Sil."
"Thanks for helping me out."
"Yeah, don't mention it. Ever. To anyone. Even looking at prosthetics without a license isn't on the right side of legal, got it?"
"Yeah. I know."
"You could probably even get arrested too, y'know."
"Yeah. I know."
"Love your raptor, huh?"
She went pretty quiet as I pulled the curtain back behind us.
"...He's kind of my only friend." She sounded embarassed, putting it like that. I chuckled a little.
"Yeah. I've been there."

I used the back room for keeping tools and other random shit. It was connected to the kitchen, which led to the stairs that went up to the apartment. It was also connected to the garage. I could see Sonny behind me, peeking in as we passed. I wondered if she saw Glow. I wondered if she was seeing my very nice car that was obviously not bought on a mechanic's salary, even if that mechanic ran the garage.
"Put it here," I said, pointing at my workbench. She looked at it. I looked at it.
I cleared off enough space for her to actually put the thing down.

Sprites.

For use in some alternative universe, possibly Erth or Yrth. Whichever one has magic and things as commonplace.

Sprites are pretty much just like faeries, they're just elementally themed. The most often seen are seasonal sprites. These are the boldest and most common, as they are among the strongest.
While humans have very effectively harnessed fire, water, electricity, light, "earth", and even wind, they can't do much at all about the seasons. And they can't really harness them. There's no source of energy to be had, and even if there was, there's no way to strap a turbine on a season and pump it into wires. It's not a piece of nature, it's an intangible force of it.
ANYWAY. The harnessing of other elements over time is what has badly weakened most other sprites. They only survive now in the furthest reaches of the wild, where they get up to many wild, wild things. Every now and then, when one of them gets a decent foothold, they like to come back and wreak havoc, just for a little revenge.
Seasonal sprites, on the other hand, are going strong, possibly even stronger since humans go so far as to encourage certain seasons. Everyone loves summer for being summer, they love spring for preluding summer, they love autumn for the colours, and they love winter because of CHRISTMAS.
And Saturnalia too I'm sure but mostly CHRISTMAS.

For each season, there is of course a master being, a creature that is Summer, Spring, Autumn, and Winter incarnate. And they are called simply by their incarnations--Summer, Spring, Autumn, and Winter.
Incarnations have sprites for the same reason Santa Claus has elves, to put it in very rudimentary terms. It's a big planet, and one incarnation does not have time to get it all done if they want to be on time. Incarnations cover big areas, large swathes of nature, while their sprites handles the individual details. Sprites are, believe it or not, most often seen in cities and towns, where there's still nature and other forms of life that express seasons, but not huge tracts of it. Sprites handle the sidewalk trees, the parks, the window boxes, all that good stuff. One incarnation can't pass over a whole city and express its power over it, otherwise you get spillovers on things that AREN'T nature. Autumn leaves clogging up toilets, cars sprouting vines and suitcases putting down roots--overall it would be very messy and probably even counterproductive.
Romances between humans and seasonal sprites aren't uncommon, but they don't usually work out. Only autumn and spring romances usually are fine, because those are the mildest seasons--spring is warm and wet, autumn is cool and breezy. They don't have the harsh temperatures of summer and winter, which, up close and personal, embodied and concentrated in one humanoid form, can kill a human being.

Mostly I feel the need to blog about these because of the story ideas I get off them for this world. Like an autumn sprite that pauses on a windowsill to look in on a ballet class at a beautiful ballet dancer, or a winter spirit attracted to a professional ice skater practicing late, or a romance between a winter sprite and a halfling autumn sprite, or an autumn sprite that saves the life of a reclusive cabin-dweller in the dead of winter, or a spring sprite who lives in an apartment where one of her neighbors suspects her(sprites that take care of cities don human identities when they're "off work", since sprites can't travel large distances without the master incarnation's help, and most don't want to bother expending the stress and energy on migrating every year. They aren't necessarily trying their hardest to fit in, but it can be more inconvenient when they don't pass for human at the least--humans can get obnoxious,rude, uncomfortably curious, or downright fetishist.)
I think I maybe want to draw some of em.

Sick and tired of being sick and tired.

I feel like some kind of drug addict.
I drank a little coffee yesterday to see if I could take caffeine in that form, since my mom has the same problem but can still drink coffee. And now I've got a bad, bad headache.
I already took six ibuprofen and I know I shouldn't take more because it could do something terrible to me but I really really want to and now I'm getting nervous and restless and twitchy because I want it and I know I shouldn't take it. I'm reacting to every little itch and doing nervous things like running my hands through my hair or just rubbing at my shoulders or wrists or whathaveyou.
Probably the only reason I'm bothering to blog about this is because my mom left at three am this morning for a week-long vacation with my aunt in Hawaii and my dad works all day and my mom was my only source of real human interaction and I'm incredibly lonely today. Even most of my internet messenger friends haven't been online.
I'm sure this isn't a hundredth of what real drug addicts feel and I'm not actually addicted to painkillers anyway, none of the ones I take are addictive.
Moreso I'm addicted to the sensation of not being in pain because lately I'm always in some form of unrelenting pain and I don't remember what it feels like to not be in pain and I really really really want to take the painkillers.
About the only thing holding me back is knowing that my parents would be upset with me.
So now I'm worried that when I'm out of the house and on my own I'll kill myself by ODing on painkillers.
I'm going to shoot for nine, nine-thirty before I take the Nyquil.

FOR THE BENEFIT OF ONE SCALY BASTARD

HERE IS THE STORY OF HOW GLOW AND SIL MET.
Or at least the basic outline, since the whole thing would be a story in itself and I don't have time to write it all out now.
(Also I heard that song Candy Shop by Andrew Bird's whateveritis and I really liked it, but can't find it on Youtube to download. So. If you have a torrent would you be willing to share?)
The story of Sil and Glow meeting begins with Sil getting herself into serious trouble. Go figure.
At this point in Sil's life getting herself in trouble and getting outright arrested is a pretty frequent occurrence, generally for minor infractions, and she pretty much always gets bailed out by her dad, who is too valuable to his company to fire for bad publicity, so instead they spring his kid when she does something embarrassing. And take it out of his paycheck. Which he isn't happy about.
He finally gets not overly happy about it to the extent that he and Sil's many fights get physical. He's still in denial about Sil being masc--he's convinced she's just some kind of confused dyke and wishes she'd just admit her sexuality already instead of bringing home similarly confused "gay" boys--so when he starts hitting her he doesn't have the foresight to expect her to hit back. Which she does. Hitting eventually escalates to outright fistfights, which Sil doesn't win because she feels bad about beating up her dad, and he doesn't win either because she puts up enough of a fight that he can't. She's been involved with a gang for some time now already, having gone to Duke and her gals for cheap street steroids that mascs in the lower, poorer levels will resort to, as opposed to the preferable, safer muscle enhancement surgery. She's been on the steroids a little over a year now, and her dad isn't exactly muscular himself, so she's very capable of holding her own against him.
One night after this has been going on for some months, Sil's dad's work buddies convince him to go out drinking with them. He can hold his liquor well enough, but he's a stupid, violent drunk. He owns a gun, because everyone owns a gun on the lower levels unless they're idiots. He takes it out and starts brandishing it at Sil. She tries to knock it away from him without him accidentally setting it off in her face, and is unsuccessful, in the sense it DOES go off accidentally. Sil's dad has his hand over the barrel to get a superior grip while she's trying to get it away from him, and one of his fingers gets shot off.
So Sil moves out. Duke puts her up in one of the buildings they regularly rent, paying the owner by not beating the crap out of them. Sil's not great at stealing cars, which is the gang's secondary source of revenue, but she's a pretty good mechanic, which makes her a valuable asset to their primary source of revenue, which is street racing. They make good money off bets on the races, and even better money off the cars they win when they race for keeps. When Sil shows a love for racing, Duke starts training her up and letting her race for small fry.
Small fry races are risky, almost riskier than big time races. The cars are lower quality, the crowd is less of people who love the game and more people who just want to make some easy money, which makes them less reliable and more likely to name faces if they get caught, and small fry races are held on "raw ground". Raw ground is the term for streets that aren't usually raced on--they're usually any less-traveled street that a couple gangs can grab and barricade in a short amount of time. The people who frequent and live on the street are considerably less likely to be under influence of the gang in that area, which means they're bolder with talking to the cops. Raw ground is also used once or twice for a race and then never again, which means people don't know the area as well, making getaway routes harder to plan. And as the people of the area are less influenced by gangs, they're quicker to call the cops. Raw ground races and their gatherings can only last for minutes at a time. They're planned and marked a week or so in advance, which would ideally give anyone who's showing up time to drive through the area and map things out, but the problem being small fry is that you don't have connections yet and the people who plan the race or know about it are less likely to talk to you. So a small fry racer isn't going to know where things are until a day or so in advance.
Overall, cops show up faster, you can't rely on people to cover you, and you're more likely to get caught. Also, being small fry, you have no friends yet. No one is coming to bail you out. Your car is going to get impounded, and you're probably not going to be able to afford the fee to get it out. Meanwhile, cops are going over it, and (if you're the average small fry lower level racer) they're finding the illegal nitro installments, drug residue, and a dozen other "personal modifications" that don't quite meet dome safety requirements. All of these are additional charges to what you're already facing.
Since Sil is being sponsored by Duke, she gets to bypass some of these risks. She knows what's what as early as anyone and has time to memorize the area, modifying her ride doesn't break her bank, since Duke's investing in it too and gets a cut of the winnings, and since people know who she is, and who she's associated with, they're less likely to turn her in if they're caught lest Duke take a chunk out of their hide when they get out.
However, what Sil doesn't know yet is that if there's too much heat on her Duke isn't going to pull her ass out of the fire. She also has no intention of bailing Sil out. Raw ground races are usually broken up by cops from higher levels, who have the time and resources to go out after individual gangs that happen to piss them off. Duke does not want to be one of those gangs.
After a year or so of bringing in consistently more money with each race, Sil's about to move up to the big games, which she's more than excited about. And cocky about. This is a mistake. During her last small fry race, even after the alarm goes up that cops are breaking into the barricade, Sil punches the nitro, thinking that she can win the race and go back for the money later. She wins the race, but she won't be going back for the money.
The cops get on her tail and Sil can't shake them. If she'd saved her nitro and broken off and scattered like everyone else, she would have been able to punch it when she needed to and lose them in the alleys. She still makes for the alleys anyway, leading the cops on a merry chase, but ultimately hits a dead end when the tube she's riding is blocked off for maintenance. Sil pulls a suicidal move and punches the gas, ramming her car straight through the tube wall out into free air. Her car can't support itself without the magnelectric wiring the tubes supply, and falls. Sil doesn't manage to hit the escape latch before it slams into a building and crushes the mechanism, so she's stuck for a long fall down. She loses consciousness about halfway.

Glow and Fuschia find her amongst her battered wreck of what was once a very fast, very shiny car. Nowadays the insides of cars are pretty hardcore, and luckily she's not dead or even dying from any immediate organ damage. She's got several broken bones and some pretty bad gashes, not to mention she's unconscious and probably has a severe concussion, but she'll live.
If they decide to take her with them.
Glow gets very upset at Fuschia insisting they just leave her to die and salvage what they can of the car--which is what they do regularly to make money--to the point he starts doing what is a cyborg version of crying. Cyborgs can't actually cry, since they have no bodily fluids other than nitroglycerin, which only has router veins leading to the cooling mechanisms around their miniature cold-fusion energy generator that serves as a heart and provides their energy. They still have lungs to breathe with, but they aren't actually breathing--their lungs provide a sort of...massaging movement? that keeps the nitro moving and constantly circulating their "heart" to keep it from overheating and exploding. They draw air in and out, but it doesn't actually do anything and it's oxygen coming out as well as going in.
Anyway. Crying. Instead of tears, Glow just makes whimpering unhappy noises, sort of strangled noises that are his throat constricting in a human reaction to human emotions that can't actually produce tears. It's very sad, in the sense it's downright pathetic and a little disturbing. Fuschia hates it. (To be fair, Glow's had a rough month. His stutter's been acting up terribly, he has once again tried to get in touch with his family and been shut out, and, well...Glow's really just a tender soul. The idea of anyone dying in general upsets him, a trait that is further nourished by living in a community of cyborgs where people CAN'T die and don't even age unless they want to. The harsh cruelty of letting someone real and bloody and broken into bits dying right there in front of him is just too much for him to handle.)
So Fuschia caves, and they end up hauling Sil back to the Bowels under the Burnouts, as gently as Glow can manage. There are a couple doctors among the large cyborg community, and one of them helps patch Sil up pretty well with the help of some medical nanos. Sil finally wakes up a couple days later, badly weakened by hunger and thirst--IV drips are not really available to cyborgs, along with most human hospital supplies. They manage to get her some water by taking ice down from the Burnouts and melting it by exposing it to a cyborg's cold fusion core. Food is a bit harder, and Sil passes out briefly during the few hours it takes them to buy some food from human areas. Glow hovers over her and does his best to take care of her.
Fuschia wants nothing to do with the human, and most borgs share her side on the matter, so Sil's left alone except for Glow and the doctor. Glow feels bad that she's all by herself when the doctor isn't there, so he has her moved into his little workshop area to keep an eye on her for the doctor. For the first few days, Sil can't do much of anything other than eat and drink(and piss, Glow manages to rig up a makeshift toilet for her), which means she can't talk much, other than to ask for food or water or help getting up and taking a piss(something truly humiliating for her, which gets her Glow's sympathies). Glow gets to feeling kind of safe around her, so it's easier for him to talk to her when she starts being able to talk again.
Sil asks about what happened and how she got there and why, and Glow explains as best he can. Sil's allowed to stay until she's pretty much fully recovered, but then the cyborgs pretty much run her out of town.
Sil gets back in touch with Duke. She's demoted back to mechanic duty for totally destroying the car she had, though Duke is willing to give her a second chance if she shows she's worth one. In the meantime, Sil has to put up with being mechanic for another small fry racer Duke's sponsoring, who's basically her replacement.
A few weeks pass, and Sil ends up running into Glow at one of the small fry races--Fuschia's hiring him out as a mechanic for people who need repairs or quick tune-ups before they get going. Glow doesn't have to do much talking, he just listens to people telling him what needs what and he gets it done. Sil manages to chat with him a little before the race starts.
It's one of the few that the cops don't find to break up, so people hang around a little while afterward. The car Glow worked on ended up being one of the losers, and the racer blames him for screwing up his ride. He gets in Glow's face, pushing him around, and Fuschia's nowhere to be seen. Sil sees what's going on and steps in, earning herself a few bruises and dealing out a few fractures in return. The hothead goes to cool off and Sil ushers Glow away from the street. He's obviously very badly shaken up. Having deeply rooted social insecurities is bad enough when he has to work among hundreds of people on a race ground, someone he doesn't even know yelling at him and physically roughing him up is pretty shattering to his daily quota of tolerance. Sil does her best to make him feel safe, not even trying to talk to him other than to ascertain he's alright and not hurt. She just walks around with him until he calms down, then guides him back to Fuschia, who as it turns out had been on the other end of the street collecting on a bet. Fuschia warms up a bit to Sil after hearing how she stepped in to defend Glow.
Later on Sil convinces Fuschia that Glow signing on to be Duke's mechanic is the best way to protect him on the track and get them to bigger tracks and bigger money. Glow's not too happy about getting involved with a gang, but he's starting to really like Sil at this point and Fuschia manages to push him into it.
Over the next few years, Glow and Sil get closer, then get together, and after that until Dollface their relationship is on and off. Their main recurring argument is Sil's involvement in the gang. After a nighttime shootout at a race, Glow got scared out of it completely and was scared for Sil too, who was far more perishable than he. He tried to convince her to leave Duke's gang, but Sil was too close to having another shot at real racing and told him she was going to race until they had enough money to get out of the lower levels. But when she had that money, Duke came to her with an offer to open a mechanic's shop and run some of the gang's operations through it. Duke could tell Sil was thinking of leaving and, knowing Sil was a smart woman who could get out if she tried, pitched the offer at her to convince her to stay. It worked. Sil ended up staying in the gang, if in a less active capacity, and lied to Glow about it, saying she'd left and she needed some time to get more funds together to open her own business. It wouldn't be in higher levels, which he wasn't happy about, but he agreed to it and they got back together.
Sil did her best to keep the gang's activity in her mechanic's hidden from Glow, but a year later he found out about it when he found her other set of books(this is why Sil now keeps books in paper instead of electronically, which Glow was able to easily hack). He broke up with her again and moved out back to the Burnouts. After a few months there Fuschia tried to convince him to get back into hiring himself at the races. Pissed off at her for it, since he considers it dangerous and also full of painful memories thanks to Sil, he drops off the grid for a while.
This freaks Sil out beyond measure. When he hears about her frantic search for him, he comes back out of solitude to assure her he's fine. She tries to talk him into getting back together, and he refuses. So instead she begs him not to disappear again, and he consents to that at least. He rents out an apartment near the mechanic's and Sil hires him on. It's very hard and painful for both of them for the first several months to be near each other and not be together, but Glow refuses to get back together until Sil leaves the gang. Things get easier when they settle into being friends-yet-also-boyfriend-and-girlfriend-on-break, and their manner relaxes and they can be at ease around each other.
This is roughly the situation when Julian enters their lives, though by that time Sil has managed to distance herself a bit more from the gang. Sil and Glow are just entering a bit of an off-period in their relationship, though it's not really like they were back on, it was more Sil managed to convince Glow to have sex with her again for a while before he got frustrated with her stance on the gang issue again. Sil finally tells Glow she's leaving the gang for real during Dollface after Sonny, the kid, gets caught in some crossfire and almost killed. By then, Duke has invested too much in Sil and isn't willing to let her get away alive, so Sil ends up having to outright kill Duke.
However, Sil has enough security and respect in the gang that she realizes she's in a position to actually take over.
So she does that instead of leaving the gang. She does this because she believes that having enough power will keep her and Glow safe, so they won't have to move up to the lower levels and she won't have to leave everyone and everything behind.
Glow absolutely loses it. He packs his stuff and walks out the same day, dropping off the grid completely.
Sil actually killing Duke and Glow leaving happens between books. I'm not sure how it leaves off with Sil in Dollface, either just saying she's going to do whatever it takes to leave or actually loading a gun and walking out the door, but that's about where it'll end. Sometime in the next book Glow is still vanished when Sonny manages to track him down through Lyre, who's still in contact with Glow for her job's sake. He's modified some of his appearance, going from permanently sixteen to more in his early twenties, changing his freckles to something more extreme, like leopard spots or something, and changing his skin colour to outright black(or white, I haven't decided.) Though he has kept his glowdreads, and neon green is still his favourite colour. Sonny talks to him about a job offer for Sil.
By the end of the second book, Sil has grown good and tired of being gang boss(this is about five years later)now that Glow, her reason for taking the position in the first place, is no longer around. Sonny, who's moved up the levels quite a bit and has a secure job in a video game firm, has a good friend she met in college who's dropped out of the fashion scene to open a club. This friend needs a couple good, scary-looking bouncers who have the experience in being tough to back up the appearance.
It pays good by law-abiding citizen standards, but it's honest money and it isn't half of what Sil's gang makes. It's humble work. But Glow has promised to come out of shadows and give her another chance if she leaves the gang behind, once and for all, moves up the levels, and takes the job.
She takes the job, and Glow stops by to see her after work after a couple weeks. He's older, and more mature, and he's better at taking care of himself. He doesn't stutter as much anymore, and he can talk to strangers without freezing up or shutting down. None of which Sil cares about. She's just incredibly happy to be near him again.
I'm not sure how big a part Glow plays in the second book. I'd like he and Sil to have equal importance, and actually interact with each other a couple times, but Glow still needs to maintain his cold shoulder and his distance.
I'll work it out.
I think I broke auto-save with the size of this post.

Empath shapeshifters

An idea that popped into my head last...night/this morning? ...Can't remember. Thought it was last night.
DOESN'T MATTER ANYWAY
In whatever world they existed in, these would be the only kind of shapeshifters. Empaths that are capable of shapeshifting not based on emotion(though that's another interesting concept)but will change race/species/etc when close enough to a member of another race/species/etc. Or, if they are in a room of those of several different races, their shapechanging trait may be dominated by the most powerful race in the room(weaker empaths) or they may simply be in a constant state of flux as other race members move nearer and far away(stronger empaths.)
Many empath shifters find employment as ambassadors, spies, assassins, or special defense soldiers--soldiers sent into battle against enemies that possess monsters or very powerful races on their side. For instance, a special defense soldier may be sent into combat against a horde of goblins that have an elder troll fighting for them. The soldier, having been trained to better control what their empathy targets, would be able to match the elder troll's physical form and strength. They would be able to match the troll while the foot soldiers worried about the goblins.
The Library LOVES empath shifters. Once they've been trained, they don't need any special magic or anything to blend into a population or world for a mission. One major drawback is they are incapable of using magic, in any manner--and it can't be used on them, either. They can use magical items that possess their own triggers to set them off, such as a magic sword that activates when hostility is near, but an empath shifter can not use a magic potion that's activated by magic words or anything. They can still say the words and go through rituals and do all the motions, but the magic simply will not respond. Alchemy also doesn't mix well with them either--you can't make a chimera out of an empath shifter, their bodies simply dissolve. Chimeras also hate them. No one's really sure why, some suspect empath shifters may give off a certain scent or a chemical pheromone that drives chimeras into a craze, similar to what the colour red does to a bull.

The most powerful influence on an empath shifter is touch. If another race/species touches them, it doesn't matter what's the strongest will in the room or how many more there are of one race than another. If a stronger will tries to force influence on the empath when another race is touching them, the result is extreme agony and the empath shifter's flesh will convulse in agitation.
Not the empath.
The empath's flesh.
The best result is the empath may pass out and wake up feeling like they've been gone over with a sledgehammer and a steamroller, accompanied by a severe migraine and a few days of dizziness, vomiting, very bad vertigo, broken bones, a few charlie horses, and, in some cases, organs may be twisted and flipped.
The worst result will kill the empath. The flesh will rip itself from their bones, their organs will convulse and implode, lungs will collapse, the heart will leap into an irregular rhythm several hundred times faster until it either explodes from the chest or falls apart--in short the body tears itself apart. Touch is an excessively powerful influence, and someone else powerful enough to try and influence the empath at the same time is simply too much for the body.

An empath's body may settle down into one form when they spend enough time surrounded by one race or with a specific loved one. Empaths do not form particular attachments to their original body, the form they are born in. They naturally lack any emotional regard for their body, disregarding any concerns for beauty and ugliness when it comes to their own person. An empath is concerned with their body as far as it is healthy and able to flow easily through different forms. Their emotional disregard for it is considered a beneficial result of emotional and mental evolution--for, say, a natural human being, suddenly having no control over the appearance of your body when it can transform several times a day can be a mentally shattering and deeply traumatizing experience. However, for a born empath shifter, even if their nature was hid from them and they were isolated from all other species for most of their life and lived consistently in only one form, if their nature were revealed to them and they did suddenly start going through transformations, it would not be shocking or traumatizing. They would naturally accept it and get on with living how they were always meant to live.

Empaths tend to be pretty laidback sorts of people. As their bodies naturally flow through different shapes that they have no control over, it is very easy for them to adapt and adjust to even drastic changes in their life. Certain monks revere them as they are considered to be "above the illusion of control" in life.
However, they do form attachments of emotional nature to the people around them. Emotional attachments may be stronger among them than even among human beings, as for empaths emotional attachments and the solidity of self-identity are the very few foundations they rely on. Even as they adjust to change easily in the environment and conditions around them, empaths place a magnitude of importance in actual PEOPLE staying the same. Teenage humans of our modern day would drive them nuts--uncertainty, instable self-identity, impulsive, contradictory, all sorts of mental and emotional chaos. Empaths do not really go through any major emotional or mental transitions like human beings do in their teenage years or any stage of life. From the beginning of their lives empaths carefully study themselves, and are hesitant to enter hypothetical situations involving them unless they're absolutely, unhesitatingly certain of their actions. If they aren't, they'll refuse to even guess as to what they would do in a situation they've never encountered.
However, this same self-analytical semi-paranoia is also turned on others. Even as they disregard control over life, they like being able to predict what a person will do next. Physical things are fleeting. Emotional and mental security are what will help an empath survive.
WELP I've babbled on quite enough.
BACK TO WORK.
Actually TO LUNCH and then BACK TO WORK.

It's okay, Lyre, pretty boys have that affect on me too. Even when they ARE actual whores.

"I dunno what you're even so upset about," I mumbled, shoving the drawer shut with a thud. "Nothing /happened/, Lyre. He didn't do anything. You left before anything got anywhere, it wore off, and you didn't manage to...y'know, claw him or anythin'--"
"What I am upset about?" Lyre hissed, slamming her hands down on the kitchen table.
"Hey Sil, there's something in the books I need to ta--"
"Your number-crunching whore DRUGGED ME, Sil, that's what I'm upset about!"
There was this strangled little sound, like a sparrow's leg getting twisted off.
Julian was standing in the kitchen doorway, holding this past week's records and a pencil. He stared at Lyre, shock and disbelief on his face. Lyre saw where I was looking and turned, and then she saw him too.
"Oh, damn," I heard her whisper.
Julian turned and ran off, dropping the papers and everything.
I hefted the knife and shoved it through the frozen hamburger meat on the cutting slab.
"Vack's sake, Lyre," I grunted. "Like you've never been drugged before."
"I...well, shit," Lyre said, and collapsed into a kitchen table. She pushed her fingers through her hair, yanking it out of its shape, and looked up at me desperately through her fingers. "Vack, Sil, what do I do now?"
"I dunno. The drugs are all through you, right?"
"About--he was just here, Sil, you saw his face--what do I do about your--"
"My number-crunching whore?" I asked. She could hear I was pissed about it now, the way my voice sliced the words like the knife through the meat. "Well Goddagg, Lyre, maybe you should go vackin' apologize?"
"But--Sil. He drugged me."
"So interrogate him too an' shit or whatever."
"Why would I--"
"Because I doubt he did drug you, Lyre. Maybe someone tried t' drug someone else an' you just picked up the wrong glass."
"It was the only glass at the entire party that had only water in it, Sil."
"So maybe whoever drugged it picked the wrong glass. Either way, you aren't apologizin' for bein' mad about him probably not druggin' you, you are apologizin' for callin' my employee a whore."
"But--"
"God sake, Lyre, if you tell me you don't do PR for a reason I will shove this knife through your face. Now go tell the poor fem you're damn well sorry."

I went and told him I was damn well sorry. It took a little while to find him. The whole place smelled like him or Sil or things to do with metal and grease. I couldn't find him by scent. So I stopped and listened.
Oh, damn, I could hear him crying.
I wanted to stop and wait until he stopped, because I hated it when people cried. And I never knew what to do. Or I hated it because I never knew what to do.
But that would have been selfish. And...and Sil was right. Julian probably hadn't drugged me. One could argue he still shouldn't have tried to take advantage of the situation, but from what I did remember I knew he had been rather high himself. He likely hadn't been even aware I was drugged.
More and more I came around to the probability that I didn't know who had done it, which I didn't like because that meant I couldn't immediately punish them for it.
That didn't mean Julian deserved to suffer in their stead.
I found him out back, tucked behind a dumpster. I was fairly sure he couldn't smell the horrible things in it, because if he could have he would not have picked it as the place to have an emotional breakdown.
I hesitated, took a breath, and faced the music.
"I...J--Julian?"
He looked up at me in horror, then tucked his face back into his knees and hunched away from me.
"Go away," he mumbled. He was shaking.
"Julian, I've come to apologize. I was angry. I shouldn't have said...You aren't a whore. I didn't mean that."
"Go away. You hate me."
"I do not hate you, Julian."
"Yes you do!" He turned his face up to me, all his eye makeup running every which-way with his tears. I had never noticed how vividly blue his eyes were--it couldn't be natural.He must have had something done to them. And they were piercing through me like two needles, burning with pain and betrayal. "You hate me because I annoy you! I just wanted you to like me and nothing would work, and last night you suddenly did like me, and I'm sorry I didn't know you were vacking drugged, if I had I wouldn't've--I wouldn've--" he broke down sobbing again, hugging his knees tighter to his chest as he shook.
I felt like the most horrible person in the world. Worlds.
"Julian," I said, and sat down next to him, leaning back against the brick wall. "I do not hate you. And I am sorry, I didn't mean what I said. Being angry is no excuse."
"Go away," he whimpered.
"I can't," I sighed. "I want you to feel better first."
"Yeah?" he asked, looking up at me again. He looked angry now. "Do you really want to make me feel better?"
"Yes," I said uncertainly, unsure of where this was going.
"Then leave me the vack alone."
"That won't make you feel better," I said gently. "Because then you'll talk yourself into feeling worse."
"You don't know a vacking thing about me," he hissed, the words crackling through his bared teeth.
"I know you hate being alone," I murmured. "I know you truly, deeply hate it. You're afraid that no one loves you. Which isn't true, I know Sil cares about you, more than she'd ever tell anyone, and I know Glow admires you, and he's jealous of you. I know you prefer lite beer if you have to drink beer, and you only really like appletinis, but women make fun of you and say you don't know how to have a good time, so you drink heavier to impress them. I know you hate lipstick, and you wouldn't even wear chapstick if you didn't have to now and then. I know you like electropop music and rap and heavy metal, and green is your favourite colour, and you are afraid of needles, which is why you keep turning down Jared's offer to get a tattoo, even though you like tattoos."
He was staring at me now. Lots of people were amazed when I told them things about themselves without ever really interacting with them very much. You didn't have to be a mindreader or ask them thousands of questions to get to know people. You just had to pay attention, and watch what they did, and watch their faces and body language.
My face was very close to his now. His eyes were red and puffy and watery, and he smelled like tears.
What I am not telling you is that I don't know these things about everyone because I don't watch everyone like I watch you. I watch you like I watch you because I can't stop watching you because...I don't know why and that really does frighten me.
"I also know that your eyes would have been beautiful enough before you had their colour enhanced or started wearing all these long faux lashes," I murmured. "And I know you don't really need to wear makeup."
"I look better with it," Julian mumbled, sniffling.
"You are lovely without it," I said. "I've seen you in the morning when you get up and make coffee. You don't look better with it. You just look a different kind of beautiful."
"God," he said, and almost smiled a little. He rubbed his eyes furiously with his sleeve, then looked at it. "Shit," he mumbled. "I forgot I had stuff on and shit. Now my shirt's all..." he showed to me and said, "...icky."
"...Yes," I said uncertainly, though his immature phrasology made me smile. "It is...very icky."
"It sounds funny when you say it," he said, and smiled again.
My God, but he had a beautiful smile and damn I was blushing a little.
"Yes, it does," I grunted, clearing my throat gruffly. I offered him a hand and we stood up. "I am...sorry. Again. I didn't mean it."
His face darkened again and he turned away. I shouldn't have brought it up, I should have let it go...
"Yeah. Whatever. It's okay."
"No it's not," I said desperately. Damn it, why didn't I just let it go? "I...I should make it up to you--"
"Lyre. It's okay. It's just words an' shit, it doesn't matter--"
"I made you cry, I should at least--"
"I said it's fine--"
"--Take you to dinner."
"What?"
What?
"I..." Julian turned and blinked up at me.
"What did you just say?"
"I...well..." What did I just say? "I..." Get a hold of yourself, woman. I straightened my shoulders and cleared my throat. "I asked you to dinner."
"...um." He was smiling, rubbing his eyes again. "Um. When?"
"Ah. Tonight?"
"Really?"
I had a very bad feeling that this was actually in fact a very bad idea, but I couldn't very well retract my offer, could I? I mean, I did want to take him to dinner, and I had for a little while, but I hadn't because I had things to do--I STILL had things to do. I would be too busy to pursue this, I couldn't start this now, it was going to end badly...
"Yes. Of course. Tonight. I'll be here to pick you up at eight."
"Um. Okay. That's awesome." He smiled at me and I felt a little dizzy and forgot where we were for a moment.
"I...yes.
"See you tonight," he said, combing his fingers through his hair, and went back in side.
I stood there in the empty alley, staring confusedly at nothing.
"What just happened?" I asked myself.