#red arc

Quick outfit sketch for Elias' wedding to the Red-handed Queen!!!! (ignore that they're standing this, they sat back down right afterwards and this was also just for clarity of outfit lol)

elias wants to be loved and wanted and accepted. but for various reasons (mental illness, pervasive loneliness, others' prejudices, the deliberate emotional starvation and exacerbation from certain powers) they feel like they're not getting this.

so this leads to elias coping and trying to solve this in unhealthy ways. because elias is a very hopeful character, and they are convinced that they can fix this. but time and time again when things go wrong, that hope and determination have lead them to worse and worse places.

elias is also convinced that the fault lies with them. they're the fixed variable. and they're the thing they can change and fix most easily. and surely if everyone treats them so badly, they must all be correct, yes?

it starts with people pleasing. anything that others find unsavory, anything they don't like, that all gets removed. (which is to save, it gets buried deep in their heart and never acknowledged)

and from there everything else springs. ingratiating themself to society and the like. making themself irreplaceable. beloved enough that they can't be kicked out and left alone and forgotten again. made a paramount presence, made regent, made known to each and every faction so that everyone knows who they are, and they can't be fully gotten rid of. it's a safety net and a backup plan and fame has its price and its hurts. because being even more in the public eye, elias must conform to fit those standards even more. there's greater and greater pressure, and the higher up you are, the fuether you have to fall

and elias mistakes their own wants and needs. they go looking for it in the wrong places, and ignore what their heart says. elias wants acceptance and friends and not to be lonely. and they think the solution is for all of london to love them. they want to be everyone's best friend, but they have to realize they can't do that. and elias deserves to live as weirdly and strangely as they like, without fear or shame of who they are. and they have to let themself feel love from those they care about. but they can't, because if these people can love them, genuinly love them, platonic, romantic, or anything else, then that means all the maltreatment they suffered was not justified. that means that others were wrong to hurt them. and elias is always worried that their closest circle will suddenly drop them and desert them, and they would believe they deserved it. elias wants so desperately to be so close to people, but they can't bring themself to let their friends and loves in. they're scared of the contact and of what it means and of rejection. so it's easiest to not let them get close enough to hurt them and deal with that debilitating loneliness that drives them to those awful places.

pros: it's Genuinly Helpful in the long run 9 times out of ten

you find out the synthesize these stains themself

you find out they synthesize poison as well

they learned this by performing a water and blood ritual in the super toxic water of the fuckung blood red river

they use these poisons while playing a game where you kill people. slowly.

they're possibly fucking the master that runs these games

(and half of the damn neath too)

this master made them royalty and adored whereever they go

(they're friends with the Poet-Laureate?!?!?!)

(they're paramount presence and every single faction knows them)

royalty made them unhappy, so a fucking Parabolan Power kidnapped them off that poison river

they won a game after being kidnapped and traded their heart to the Dream Controlling Horror

said Horror also gave them New Powers

they can't control these new powers once they start.

they corner you in a room and read off all you hidden wants, desires, and secrets while you feel them tugging on your heart strings

they start crying and get really upset at you?

they've cut you open with the dagger they got from their spouse from that master