idk why but im suddenly thinking a lot about logus/cardmaster as a ship & am particularly preoccupied with how stupidly desperate and needy the cardmaster is. like idk if he could function without logus. i’m pretty sure he thinks he could (bc thinking of anyone as irreplacable is dangerous) but like,,, god. he’s really pathetic. he loves getting to protect logus and soothe him when he’s frantic and so forth (which is…frequently. lougs is very high-strung), but like. if he himself is feeling more anxious or otherwise on-edge than usual, logus is the only person he will tolerate in his presence. usually he’ll project whatever is bothering him onto logus and deal with it by “reassuring” logus that everything is fine, but sometimes he drops that pretence and logus gets to see him looking honest-to-god distraught or depressed or helpless. not like, drug-induced helpless (though there’s also that): fully in his right mind (insofar as he ever is), but in a really bad mental state. logus gets to see this on a semi-regular basis, and he knows he’s the only one. that’s a huge point of pride for him. it’s part of what gives him a lot of his superiority complex: he’s the only one the cardmaster trusts to see him like that. he’s the only one who can help. he gets to see him sexually desperate too, and in a much more fragile way than most do.* but this goes hand in hand with getting to see him at his most malicious—and not infrequently that will be directed at him. sometimes the only thing that makes the cardmaster feel better is telling logus how much he hates him in really nasty and personal ways, or dealing logus painful cards & laughing at how they effect him, or humiliating him in front of other people, or generally doing things to logus that he knows logus hates, that he knows lougs would object to if he could, but he won’t, he can’t, he’ll take it—he doesn’t even have to force him with cards or other spells, he’s that devoted (and testing the limits of that devotion makes the cardmaster feel powerful and in control). and it isn’t that logus doesn’t understand any of what’s going on. he does get, on some level, that there’s something profoundly unsatisfactory about their relationship, that the cardmaster doesn’t quite love and respect him in the way he really wants to be loved. it’s frustrating that when he can’t fix the problem the only thing he can do is offer himself up for abuse—that even that isn’t enough, that no matter what he does he’s never enough. but he’s almost enough. he’s closer to enough than anyone else in the house, and that’s what makes special. no one else understands the cardmaster like he does. no one else (logus thinks) is remotely intelligent enough to get on his wavelength. and his pride in this is everything to him. he won’t part with it. so yes, sometimes the cardmaster traumatizes him to the point of malfunction and then doesn’t even bother to fix him, but logus wouldn’t dream of giving up his position. it’s a privilege. it’s proof that he’s the best. *the cm usually isn’t intimate with anyone unless he’s already in a really good mood, but logus he will actually allow to comfort him with certain forms of intimacy. he’ll be weirdly shy about this when he wants it, though: he could order logus to do anything, but he’ll never order this. he’ll hint at it really obtusely instead, then gaslight pretend he didn’t, act surprised when logus offers, then finally break down and beg (very pathetically, very quietly) for whatever it is that he wants. this is actually remarkably similar to how logus requests emotional or sexual intimacy from osk
