ianthedisastrous

[ianthedisastrous]

"He's doing better with it now that he knows she won't actually set him on fire." Which wasn't surprising, that had been a reasonable worry when bringing a fire-prone magical creature into the apartment until it was obvious she controlled when and how her fire affected things around her.

It hadn't exactly helped that Tony also had a history of anxiety when it came to fire.

"It is a little challenging to figure out; if she didn't like me she'd still be stuck with me until somebody else had the gem but apparently they're not subtle about their opinions." The idea of having a creature around that made a point of making things difficult sounded abysmal. "I tried to talk her into staying, actually, since I don't really know what I'm doing. But she basically ignored me on that one."

Anar simply ruffled her feathers with a shudder of page turning sound before returning to her rearranging of a few curls she decided were better situated in a different direction in Ian's head. The fretting of the mortal bird was quite amusing but she assumed all magical creatures connected to mortals were a bit eccentric given how unpredictable mortals could be.

"I don't think anyone is taking your job anytime soon Medes," Ian pointed out, not wanting to upset the bird. Medes could be very opinionated at times but he did think most of what he did was with good intentions. It was a little strange to think the owl probably had more knowledge than anyone else in that room; hard to imagine a creature that had been around centuries still got huffy over the simplest things.

That was part of Medes' charm though.

"You probably stand a better chance of asking her than me when it comes to how this works, but she only seems to answer questions when she's in the mood to."

A bit lofty, Ian supposed, but when it came to Arcadia that really wasn't an unusual mindset.

@geehosaphat

Familiars 101 || Martian

[ianthedisastrous]

"And that's what she does when she doesn't want to do something," Ian noted from his spot at the table in the room upstairs in the Rock Shoppe, watching Anar fan her parchment wings, flames licking the edges of them and turning the paper first to brown, then black, then disintegrating away as she dissolved into ashes.

He waited a moment and then, just like always, she reappeared; on his head, feathers spreading before she settled, preening as she tucked her wings in and the twin long feathers of her tail curled and unfurled slowly.

"Or she wants to show off; sometimes I'm not sure which one it is."

There are several things about the Elven Guardian that remained a mystery to Ian, even after her return to the mortal realm with him and her insistence on getting herself quite comfortable in his life, and in the apartment; but that didn't mean she was over exactly clear about most things, her intentions included.

She was hardly malicious, and quite determined to remind him of things that she felt or important to remember for his own well-being, but she also was quite mischievous at times when it came to entertaining herself.

"She likes to wait until Tony is busy doing something and then she'll lay on him and do the whole burst into flames thing."

Thankfully her fire didn't burn anything she didn't want it to, and people did not seem to be on that list unless they were a threat, so Ian didn't worry too much about that. And Tony was adapting to her teasing him, it just did still catch him off guard sometimes.

@geehosaphat

Familiars 101 || Martian

[ianthedisastrous]

Familiars 101 || Martian

[ianthedisastrous]

Greg wasn't the sort of person who talked much about relationships. Ian had gathered that over time, and knowing that was the main reason he didn't take it too close to heart when Greg didn't ask about those sorts of things either. Ian wasn't exactly certain why but there was always some underlying reason that Greg didn't talk about things, why he kept most conversations away from topics that were more involved than the usual.

Ian got closer than some when it came to that, Greg would talk to him more than he sometimes did most people. The exception to that of course was Mr. Moon and Zero, but Ian didn't mind exceptions because he knew he couldn't always reach those places in Greg's head that were so private. As much as he tried to be a good friend it really was difficult for one person to be the sort of person someone needed in every situation.

And it was probably healthier that way, the extremes fell into areas of codependency and everyone needed different outlets. It was very similar to how he and Tony couldn't spend all their time together and they each needed friends that filled different roles in their lives.

Zero had always been a different sort of quiet than Greg, the way Ian saw it; it wasn't a sort of quiet that came from being withdrawn or hesitant about things. He wouldn't have called Zero hesitant about much of anything; there was a calm steadiness to him and Ian had seen just how much good that grounding point had been for Greg.

"I don't know, do you understand it?" He countered, "I don't think I always understand why things work between me and Tony. And there are points when he might just be the most frustrating person in my life." The frogs were given a brief reprieve with the shake of his head, the smile. "But something there works, and it worked a long time before either of us managed to admit it. So I guess in that much you and Zero figured things out faster than we did; it didn't take you years."

But there was a fondness to it in a way, friendship had been quite daunting for him sometimes with Tony because of his feelings but it still felt like starting with that friendship had given them both a little more room to breathe.

Everyone was different though, he had seen Zero around R2F before he and Greg were dating, hadn't questioned it because honestly Greg had seemed like he was doing better so whatever was going on in the beginning was clearly something positive for him and Ian hadn't wanted to press the issue then asking too many questions about something that was clearly private.

@notmuchofatail

Spring Cleaning || Gregorian

[ianthedisastrous]

NAME: Ian Lightfoot 

ASSIGNED SIDNEYLAND: Camelot: Games of Magic

JOB TITLE & ASSIGNMENT: Merlin (Face Character)

FAVORITE RIDE/ATTRACTION: Camelot Castle

YEARS EMPLOYED AT SIDNEYLAND: 4

BIOGRAPHY: 

Ian was going to be a writer, he had been certain of that his entire life; there was simply nothing else that called to him that strongly. 

Unfortunately, the practicalities of that idea didn't always work out too well. 

It wasn't that his mother necessarily pushed him out the door to get a job, more that she encouraged him to do so because after he dropped out of his first year of college because of his anxiety she thought it might be good for him to be around people just a little bit more. And his older brother stepped right in to help with the suggestion that he come work at Sidneyland. He'd heard Barley hype up the place and his job there for a few years already and was hesitantly convinced. Less convinced when Barley informed him the job he was trying out for was a Face Character position. 

That caused a bit of a panic. 

He found it was a lot easier to be someone he wasn't, and while his brother unfortunately did not get the role he wanted Ian was cast as Merlin, a fact that secretly delighted him. He did feel a little bad for Barley, knowing how much he wanted it, and then it got a little awkward when his brother was instead assigned to following him around practically all day long. 

But it was fine, they had a lot of fun and Ian got pretty comfortable, it took him a while to forgive Barley after the first time he found out that Merlin was involved in one of the shows in the park and he hadn't been informed of that, but it's all the past now. But it's not like his brother doesn't get a little too into the role sometimes, every now and then Ian has to sneak off just to catch his breath and have a little bit of distance. 

That usually means meeting up at Camelot Castle with Tony, another cast member he met and bonded with quickly, the two of them becoming inseparable, roommates, and finally engaged recently. 

Ian is still writing, he's still working towards that goal, but he can't say that he's not enjoying most days because he gets to be around people in a way that doesn't feel quite as loud as face to face. He's also discovered another positive to his job; people love to talk. He enjoys hearing those stories; it's been an unexpected inspiration to his own writing and his favorite thing about working in the park. 

While he can't imagine he'll be at Sidneyland forever, it's hard to imagine leaving anytime soon, at least not until he and Tony have figured out what comes next. 

[ianthedisastrous]

Even if it wasn't always the case, even if life was difficult at times, just the fact Greg was looking at it that way himself gave Ian not just a sense of relief for his friend but a lot of optimism as well. It was a world away from the Greg who had disappeared off to another country randomly, the one who was never sure the future held anything at all. And Ian could understand having good days and bad days, but it was how a person handled the bad days that shaped the good. So much had changed for Greg, so much the other man had embraced rather than struggled to accept as real.

Town made friendships complex; it wasn't that friendships were simple other places necessarily but when magic and disaster or such a normal part of life everything else to come a different sort of intensity. It wasn't just people you saw day to day but people who lived entirely different lives alongside a person in dreams, people who went through impossible situations too often to count, and all of that built a sort of connection that felt rare. Sometimes it also felt awkward because dreams could lead to strange places, or left scars from the dangers that shouldn't have existed in the real world, or it built relationships between people from shared victories and defeats that felt like something out of a storybook; that town took nothing lightly.

Very often it showed the intricacies of people highlighted and ways that peeled the surface away; and himself knew the people closest to him had seen him that perhaps his best and his worst. That sort of connection forged relationships that ran deep. It wasn't something he would have ever traded, and it meant the moments when he saw his friends truly happy he had a multitude of memories of how they had gotten there and the struggles along the way. Ian had only seen the surface of Greg's struggles at times, some things were still very private; but there was no understanding how far the other man had come.

And no real knowing how far either of them would go from there; sometimes the world outside of town felt very far away and time within it was something else entirely.

"Of course,' Ian agreed, surprised he had to wrap his brain around the idea of the changes when he knew that had been the point of the conversation in the first place, "you don't really need an excuse for that, I'm not going to be that busy." And time was an important commodity, the threat that held people together, Ian had learned. How a person spent it and who they spent it with was a matter of choice, but an important choice.

"Besides, I still have to figure out this thing with you and Zero," he added, only joking, but it was an old joke, a familiar one. He hadn't tried to pry into that relationship because how it worked was really more between the two of them than anyone else, but naturally people were curious. Ian found it particularly entertaining that the two people he knew to be the least talkative about anything or of course the ones who ended up being so strangely suited to each other. "Neither of you make that very simple," he laughed, "sometimes I think it's on purpose."

@notmuchofatail

Spring Cleaning || Gregorian

[ianthedisastrous]

"Hey, it's not like I'm going to be far away," Ian replied, "I can still walk here from the apartment." Sometimes that small town felt even smaller in ways that weren't constricting and didn't push inward but rather stayed as a reminder that too far didn't exist in some situations.

But he would have argued the same about Mona, about Virginia; places people he cared about were far away, he couldn't reach them easily at all but if he had to it was always a way. Distance was a difficulty but it was not an impossibility, and Ian couldn't fathom putting something like that unravel the good things in his life.

But Greg wasn't wrong, sometimes the way people and places overlapped a person's life changed this time, the need changed, it grew alongside someone when they were too busy growing themselves to realize it wasn't just a singular change but one that branched out into everything that touched their life. People changed, that was really the only consistency in the world; and sometimes if they were lucky the things around them changed as well anyways that still fit together into the puzzle of their life.

If Greg, of all people, was telling him that embracing the changes was something that people had to do, could do, it really was a little easier to believe it, knowing how very different those words would have been only a few years past. Everyone changed; seeing Greg change for the better and slowly need his help less around the shoppe hadn't felt like losing something so as it had been watching the other man gain something instead.

They would both be okay.

"Until the end of summer at least, I'm not going anywhere until I know what the internship involves," and that too made it more of a gradual change, one more stepping back more and more I'm going to feel less and less like stepping away, "but you're right; the way I need to be here might not be the same as much anymore. I don't think the ways you needed me to be here are the same anymore either."

But that was nothing to be sad about.

"And I'm glad you don't, because I know this time it's honestly that you're doing better, happier, and not just trying to act like you're okay so it's less on other people." And he didn't have the exact right words, he thought, to express how important that really was. "But just in case you're not some days, it's not too much for me. I don't want you to forget that."

Ian chuckled softly, still so often caught off guard by what a few years had brought not only for himself, but the people in his life. There was a certain sort of wonder to that, a little stumbling uncertainty at times, but mostly he'd figured out it really was true that everything, everyone, built their lives in tiny steps while they were just trying to figure out what to do along the way.

His confidence had taking root in that job, somewhere he finally felt he knew what he was doing, somewhere he felt in control and capable. The first step that had led to so many others and now that confidence that branched out not just to root in that job but in himself, countless moments had shown him as much but he couldn't forget where the start of it all had been.

"Working here or not isn't going to change that I'm not leaving," he added; changing spaces maybe, but not letting that history between them fade. The future might have been difficult for both of them to navigate in spots, that's when a person needed to be able to reach out and know someone was going to be there.

It was spring that day but life came in seasons, new things flourishing in each, and they were far from the rough edges of the winters of the past; he would have taken being a friend over being an employee any day. It might have been time to grow into that more as well.

@notmuchofatail

Spring Cleaning || Gregorian

[ianthedisastrous]

Z Cheats their way through the resolution task.

Part One: Looking Back

Part Two: Character Check-in

CW: Death, depression, anxiety, abusive relationships, body horror, injury, terrorist acts, trauma

Edward

Ian

Isaac

Sorrel

Zero

Hiro

Ren

Lucky

Sid

Part Three: Moving Forward

Well, I started this off choking on my water and I ended it spraying myself in the face by accident with hand sanitizer. Managed to come full circle being a disaster this evening, recorded these hours apart even.

[ianthedisastrous]

Runaway Riley || An Epic Adventure

Summary: Riley Anderson has decided the mortal realm is no place for them anymore. They have packed their bags, written their letters, and decided to move on with their life in Arcadia. However, the plan does not go accordingly and chaos ensues. When: July 8th - July 12th Trigger Warnings: Mental Health, Depression, Suicidal Ideation, Violence, Injury, Kidnapping Mention, & Magical Racism Additional Warning: Between these threads, this is 236 Google Doc pages & around 112,121 words (I did not filter out the names between replies but)! This is a chonky boy and has taken us a very long time to write! Thank you: The hugest shoutout of love for Z & Lins!!! Thank you both so much for sticking with this with me! This has been an incredible journey! I am more grateful than I can say!

The Letters Left Behind:

Nick @wilde-fun

Hatter @davidhatter

Mim @madmagicmim

Hiro & Luca @superhiro-hamada & @lucathedreamer

Jess @notbad-justsungthatway

Laurel & Barley @barleythebrave

Ian @ianthedisastrous

Mom & Dad

Self-Para Set Before the Adventure:

Face-Off || Riley

The Riley Threads in Order:

Longing For Home

Follow the Yellow Brick Road

Night Knight

Knight Night

The High Elf Seas

Meeting the Parents

Nightmare on Elf Street

Story Time with Elves

Other Threads Set During the Adventure:

Guess I'm Heading Home Now || Colorwild

Self-Para Set During the Adventure:

Trip Down Memory Lane || Nick

Illuminate || Ian

Self-Para Set After the Adventure:

Most Improved: Riley Anderson

[ianthedisastrous]

@thegcldenguard

Trans pride for the golden boy

[ianthedisastrous]

@knightley--phillip

Some Pride vibes for town's Bi King 👑

[ianthedisastrous]

"The Board is probably harder than running a kingdom," Ian could only speculate on that one of course, but politics did seem incredibly complex.

Time had been such a strange concept for Ian for years, he could thank the curse for that; if he could thank it for anything at all. But he knew on some level he could, as outlandish as it sounded. Because Greg was right anyway; it wasn't always the things a person expected that ended up changing their course in life. He still had trouble embracing change in some ways, maybe he always would, but watching things unfold made him feel just a little better about whatever it was that remained uncertain ahead.

Ian exhaled, uttered a chuckle as he looked at the water. Ruff to Fluff had been the first place he had felt any sort of confidence in his own abilities, that too had been unexpected; but it had meant a lot. Now there wasn't really a job that needed to be done in that place that he didn't know how to do, and that had felt like a journey all in itself.

Coworkers, friends; for his younger self it had all been so very new. And there had been a lot of stability in it when everything else around him had felt likely to collapse under his feet.

"I don't think I ever really believed that you weren't supposed to be here," Ian replied, quietly, because he didn't; he preferred to believe in the resilience that people didn't always even know that they had. The world wasn't always as kind as he wished it might be, but most people were anyway. And maybe it was selfish but faith had never been something he lacked, it was just faith in people; even through the hardest days. "I'm glad you don't believe it anymore either."

But he supposed things did change.

"I don't know if I'm going to be able to be here as much though, after the summer; when I start school again I mean. And I don't even like saying that, because I feel like everything here was what I needed when I found it. There are a lot of friendships that I wouldn't have without being here," he couldn't say that was exactly the reason he had become friends with Greg though, of course not; their friendship had come from online games and working together had been what had built it stronger.

Back at that point it wasn't just because of a job, it was also because Greg had bad days, and Ian wanted to help; and it took so little to help. But Greg wasn't the same person anymore; he was happier. The bad days didn't hold on to him as tightly.

"It's terrifying," he admitted, honestly, "putting all that time into that degree and now this internship coming up with Jimminy and everybody always says you're ready for that sort of thing, and you want to believe it but who knows?" Greg would understand, Ian knew, how hard it was sometimes not to doubt just a little even for something a person really wanted. "The writer thing seemed a lot easier in comparison," he uttered a soft, humored sound, "and it wasn't really very easy at all."

@notmuchofatail

Spring Cleaning || Gregorian

[ianthedisastrous]

@eilonwy-notjustgirl @foreverydinger

[ianthedisastrous]

"I know you all seem to be very determined to convince me, but I don't think I'm ever going to be an adventurer like the rest of you." Ian laughed softly. There had been a time in the past when he thought he needed to be, when he thought he had to keep up with everyone else to keep those connections with people. And he had tried, he had managed it, but it had taught him maybe being able to do something when you had to and wanting to do it weren't always the same thing.

And it wasn't always necessary to fit into what worked for everyone else; he might not have been the first to jump at the idea of adventure, but he was the one who would be there regardless, just a couple of steps back so that he could make sure the more adventurous of the people he knew always had someone to back them up when they really needed it.

She had helped him see it wasn't always about keeping up, it was good enough just to be there.

Maybe he worried more than he should have, maybe that was always going to be a part of who he was; but Ian didn't look at it as the worst thing anymore, it had gotten people out of trouble plenty of times in the past. And ultimately he hadn't had to change himself the way that he thought he had to; he just needed the people who understood the value in how he saw the world.

So he would worry while she was away, those worries would diminish over time but they would never fully dissolve, and he would always be looking for updates to make certain everything was okay. That she was okay, and that she didn't lose herself in those obligations. Because that was his job, that's what family did.

"I guess I'm willing to do that anyway, for you." He smiled; not wanting to think too much about what her absence would feel like. He didn't want that to be what occupied the space around them. She couldn't go too far, there wasn't anywhere so far that he wouldn't find a way to get there if she needed him.

There would always be a way, somehow.

@eilonwy-notjustgirl

Some Assembly Required || Eilian

[ianthedisastrous]

In some ways Ian didn't think it was fair. Not ways that had anything to do with himself, or the amount of distance between them, but for her. Because he knew she had an important place there on that island but he thought she had an equally important place out there in the world. If there was a specific sort of person who was meant to go out and do big things, to change things, to help people; she was what that was supposed to look like. And he had seen her struggles in coming to terms with the idea of where her freedom would go, he couldn't honestly say he didn't wish there was a way to change that.

But he also couldn't say it out loud, because in the end it had been her choice. And even if it wasn't the choice he might have made for her it was the one she decided and all he could do was respect that. It wasn't even about how much less they would see of each other, the bigger part of it was he hoped she was happy. And she would be, he knew she would find ways to be happy; but anymore Ian knew there were a million ways to find happiness and there would always be a million others left untold.

He hoped this one was the right one for her.

He wasn't sure he could have done something like that, he hadn't really even been able to accept being a sorcerer for the longest time and while he did now he still couldn't reason the idea of his entire life centering around magic the way it probably should have. In some ways he had probably not lived up to what legacy carried through his father's family, even though he thought he probably should have sometimes.

But she was putting everything into her kingdom, and that made her a good Queen, but the place where Ian had the most trouble accepting it was where he knew his sister before he knew her to be a Queen.

"I'm pretty sure we'll be right here when you come back, at least for a while longer." He agreed; but he didn't know either or life was going to lead. "And if we're not we'll figure out a way to be."

After graduation Tony might end up with a job somewhere else, he would always have his writing to fall back on himself, and while he would be quite limited in his ability to find a job as a therapist outside of places where private practices allowed Magicks to work they were still possibilities. He and Tony had to make things fit together wherever they did; Ian was in no hurry to leave that town, even less hurry to leave the people within it.

But sometimes things didn't last forever, and he had learned that taking a chance wasn't something to be as afraid of anymore. By that same logic he had to look at her taking this chance as a possibility.

"I would say you could leave Edward in charge for a while and take some time off at some point," Ian chuckled, "but then you would be leaving Edward in charge." He joked; he had spent enough time with Edward lately to know the man was in fact generally very proficient in what he needed to do. Just incredibly idealistic and very easily distracted. Enough time to actually like him, and mostly except he was good enough for his sister, because Edward did everything he could to make her happy. And sometimes that was more important than anything else.

But Edward really needed to get on that proposal idea, and knew he was just waiting for some perfect moment and he couldn't quite get Edward to understand moments were what you made of them, perfect or not.

@eilonwy-notjustgirl

Some Assembly Required || Eilian

[ianthedisastrous]

"I'm hopeful for the next little while at least I'm not going to hit too many points where I have to." Ian replied, although he did appreciate the vote of confidence, he was also very ready for things to just be a little calmer for a while. He knew it wasn't going to happen; the next year was going to be even more complicated and busy for his last year of uni, he had to sort out so many things that were big and it was starting to feel like he had to make more of those life decisions that everyone kept saying you made when you were actually an adult.

Sometimes it was hard to really register; sometimes it felt like if he blinked something would come all undone and so would the past few years. He wouldn't have minded in some ways, starting over those years and uni, finding more about himself along the way and having the chance and more moments with the people in his life that distance now separated from him because of where their lives had gone.

Except that he had seen through Tony that people really couldn't hold on to time slowing down for them. It wasn't an escape, eventually it turned into a prison; he didn't always feel like he was ready for how quickly things moved around him but when he had more experience than most people seeing the alternative where time didn't move at all and how devastating it could be. He wasn't worried about not having enough time, he was just always surprised that it seemed to go so quickly.

Stepping away from the sleeping infant he found Elionwy grabbing hold of him and he smiled, giving her a squeeze with that hug. "Don't think it's too far though; if you need me I'll find a way to be there." That went without saying, but sometimes it was the things that didn't have to be said and still where people needed to hear.

"You might not be right here but I'm not going to miss Primrose growing up, or seeing you every chance I get." It wasn't any different than most siblings, Ian supposed; eventually someone's life took them somewhere else. It did bother him, it did ache, but it could ache in private because she was the one caught up in some many changes and stability in being there was the only he could help in that. "We all will; holidays, vacations, whatever; your home is still here with us too."

@eilonwy-notjustgirl

Some Assembly Required || Eilian

[ianthedisastrous]

Moonbows

A moonbow, also known as a lunar rainbow or white rainbow, is a rainbow created by moonlight rather than sunlight. It's formed when light from the moon refracts and reflects off water droplets, like those in rain or mist, creating a visible arc of light in the sky. Moonbows are generally fainter and less colorful than regular rainbows, and they are much rarer due to the need for specific conditions like a full or near-full moon, clear skies, and dark skies.