#laoft io

[tssdresses]

The dress of Io

@tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors (hi please let me know about any pronoun mess ups and I'll edit the post, I think I got them right, but... just to be safe)

There have been a few iterations of designs for Io’s dress— all of which have very flowery inspirations. I sent Violet an ask and the first thing bay said was “something vaguely gauzy with a petal skirt,’ so that’s been a heavy part of all the deign ideas thus far. 

So, over various asks and time and fics, the needed elements are:

Colors: Reds and deep purples, like mulberry fruit, and white and cream, like mulberry flowers. Greens as needed. I'm thinking mostly a pinky-red. If you look at the first image below, there are three mulberries in a line at the top left-- look at the one in the middle and/or the one under it (not in the line of three) for a good color reference.

Thigh holster: Knife. Hot. Io needs a knife under ly skirt because it’s what lu deserves. I'm thinking either a faux leather, because that's what I use for part of Remus's dress, or strap made of several green fabrics woven together, to give it a homemade vibe, like Io made it laself. And it will be accessible via... :

Skirt shape: Petals. The first idea I had was a petunia, to make a solid skirt with five panels, each which would have a scalloped edge to create the shape of the flower, like these:

Skirt, cont.: But after realizing that lu would need access to a thigh holster for ly knife, I started to think about how to access that in skirt form. One idea is to make the skirt of separate, finished panels that can be easily reached between. One construction idea for the original paneled skirt idea was to make it as several strips with a waistband that tied around. So now the idea is to use that method, but with deconstructed panels to give a very open skirt but keep with the theme of easily removable. Also imagine all the different panels flaring out when you spin!

Fabric: After Mulberry was posted, we learned more about how Io dresses (or, uh, doesn't), so I started thinking more about the fabric type. I want to balance the surreal (shiny fabrics making a less natural looking appearance, nodding to fae) and the mundane (Io being a less powerful nymph, as opposed to powerful gentry). I'm a little at an impasse for what fabric to use. I love organzas (even though they're mean to me) (it's fine, everything's fine), and I think using a mix of organza and a very light-grade tulle would make an interesting texture for this dress.

Sleeves: Again, this depends on the fabric type, but imagine big billowing sleeves of a transparent mesh fabric with discrete embroidery of mulberry themed elements. Thinking the sleeves will be completely off the shoulder, maybe made with casing and a ribbon tie to keep them at the top of the arm.

Bodice: Also going back to Io's tendency to dress less, using a knit fabric which matches skin tone is one option for the body potion, OR, hear me out, a gentle mesh (that doesn't set off sensory hell!) with exposed boning to make a corset-like top! Then, referencing this post, flower or similar motifs sewn into to chest piece. Another part I'll add is an open back element, with some sort of lacing. This works great for me, because zippers and I are reluctant allies at best.

Overall vibes: Basically, I want this to look like a flower nymph ballet costume, because how fucking cool would that be? Here are some images with elements of the silhouette I'm thinking of:

[tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors]

*side steps all the angsty stuff for now* wait so logans hair turned red instead of silver? cause his hairs more like leaves than hair (i think u said that?) so it turned red like leaves do in the fall? bc thats really cute ngl

correct! that hc was courtesy of someone in the laoft server (if you see this please reblog if you please, but i dont wanna direct 4000+ people at you if you dont want me to) during a conversation just after Color was posted and we were discussing the hair = leaf situation of the nymph characters

this also applies (ish) to Io and Remus, though Io's goes a bit more yellow/lime in the vein of mulberry leaves. Remus actually winds up looking even *more* like Roman and Logan as he approaches middle age because of this

[lyracreek]

now for a really niche audience I’ve been thinking about @tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors’s oc Io from ly love and other fairytales series!

Under the keep reading some nsfw aka canonical nudity sketches!

[tulipanthousa]

So Tumblr is being weird and not letting me send an ask from my nsfw blog for some reason. I was wondering, for any of your verses, what are some terms that characters in relationships use for each other that don't leave the bedroom (if you know what I mean)?

-Kytia

you cant send an ask from sideblogs, only your main, an issue we've been complaining about for ten years

Pieces verse

Logicality - theyre very switchy and they do this kind of teasing, sweetly condescending brand of degradation. Logan's not a slut he's PATTON'S adorable slut who he loves very much, and vice versa. however Logan would absolutely never use or enjoy these outside the bedroom (even if patton wouldnt care, he cares about logans boundaries)

prinxiety - okay so Roman does get in bratty moods for Virgil sometimes but its so aksjhaskjdh just precious kinda of bratting. pouty boy. feet stomper. the worst he ever gets is a "brat" dripping with fondness, and its saved for when theyre alone.

Dukeceit - most of them lol. they both talk a big game about exhibitionism but Janus is mortified by the actual vulnerability of it, so they are always at least mostly alone/at most will be overheard.

LAOFT

okay so the thing about dirty talk in laoft is that roleplay and degradation are a bit difficult for virgil and logan, who cant lie. Virgil first heard most deragatory names used during sex by humans in the context of people flinging it in slur form at greta, which pretty much irrevocably stored them in the "insults" part of his brain, so he's a no-go Logan is a little more complicated, because he knows they dont have to be insults, but he could still never manage to say them because he believes they're insult, mostly do his own hang-ups about being polyamourous leftover from when they were teenagers.

however i do have like 15% of an idea where io and remus (who have none of the above stated hangups) joking call each other whores all the time (because the entire reason io exists is because me and remus have the same sense of humor lol) and logan and virgil are Scandalized but it makes them re-examine their positions

and also so i can write the silver foxes fucking nasty

[graydrawssometimes42]

So I drew Io from @tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors 's fantastic Love and Other Fairy Tales au. I'm obsessed with ly work, and ly writing and character work is just chef's kiss! I hope I did Io some justice! And if you are interested in ly au you can read it here https://archiveofourown.org/series/1111962 !

[graylikethecolor42]

I made some picrews of @tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors oc Io cause I’m obsessed with la.

[10moonymhrivertam]

Spoilers for Love and Other Fairytales!!!

Night Roman

[[MORE]]

“Doesn’t matter. I didn’t swear allegiance to ‘the’ king. Just mine. Funny how that works. Although I will thank you for putting him to sleep finally. I haven’t been out in days, he’s been too anxious to sleep. I was starting to feel a bit cooped up.”

[tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors]

if laoft remus is poisonous, does that mean laoft logan is also poisonous?

nah different green men/nymphs are all different plants. Remus is a poisonous plant and logan is a flower. io is a mulberry bush.

[tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors]

ooh wait im interested in the orange side spots uve left open now if its not too spoiler-y to share 👀👀

LAOFT

Cousin from Remus's birth grove (Affectionate)

relative from remus or io's birth grove (deragatory)

least likely, but a scrapped secondary antagonist from the main story, who i would rework into a sort of recurring annoying trickster in the Kittens+ era of the timeline

Pieces

guy who widows thomas in like 10 in-universe years

various miscellaneous characters from the long-form political drama that takes place after Feast of the Turning

RHOYH

replacement goldfish for remus

emile's (who is colorblind) boyfriend, who is deceiving him about them being soulmates, which we will know because remy is his actual soulmate

Cat!sides

i dont have specific plot plans for him but ive done about a billion cat dress up games designing him in various ways

Ping verse

floated a lot of ideas, most of them antagonistic, but my favorite is him becoming the new official clearfield city keeper when LMP defect, which could go either way for if he's an antag or not

[tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors]

(Sorry for the back-to-back asks, I was looking through your blog and got distracted by the postman)

I've been trying to find a post I swear I remember you making explaining the rules of Tali, but am coming up empty when I try to search for it on your blog. Can you help me out? All good if not, tumblr do be tumblr. Hope you're having a good day!!

i too suffer from 'cant find my own shit in tumblrs garbage search" disease i had to pull this from the laoft discord server akjsdhaksjdh

Tali, named for the game pieces, which are the talus bones of ruminants.

Each bone has four sides - a broad convex side, worth one, named "Iron," a concave broad side, worth 2, named "Stone," and convex narrow side, worth 3, named "Gold," and a concave narrow side, worth 4, named "Silver." (yes silver and gold are in that order on purpose, humans consider gold more valuable but fae are the other way around)

(when i play these games myself or write them, i just use a d4, but technically talus bones are not equally likely to land on every side. a closer (but still not perfect) analogue vis-a-vis probability would be to use a six-sided die and treat 1 and 2 like Iron, 3 and 4 like Stone, 5 as Gold and 6 as Silver)

you roll four tali - most rolls, you simply add up the total value of the sides, but certain combinations of sides are treated different

First combination roll - 1, 1, 1, 1, or four irons, also called "Cursed Irons." this one varies the most in behavior depending on exactly what game youre playing but its always bad, and usually not worth any points, sometimes worth negative

and there are three categories of trump rolls

Akind (4 of a kind of 2 or 3) which are worth double points,

Doubles (2 pairs), 1122 is lesser doubles (worth 15), 1133 is odd doubles (worth 20), 1144 and 2233 are both middle doubles (worth 25), 2244 is even doubles (worth 30), and 3344 is greater doubles (worth 35)

Finally, Crowns, also called high trump - four 4s, called Silver Crown OR one of each (so 1234), called a jeweled crown

The game Remus and Io play is called "Riches" and is a simple first-to-100 game. the only real odd mechanic is that Cursed irons "robs you" and cuts your points in half.

a variation of Riches called "Iron Riches" has multiple rounds, and is played somewhat in reverse - the first to 100 in each round immediately loses all their points, while the rest keep theirs. at the end of all the rounds, whoever has the fewest points wins.

there are other games you can play but thats the only ones i have real concrete ideas for. "playing blank" means to play without magic, on chance alone. most games can be played in such a way to incorporate some element of gambling, but its not an inherent component of any of them

[tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors]

I spent my time at work today reading every laoft fic with Remus in it and have been reminded of my love for him and Io. May I request some fluffy head canons about them? Hope you are having a lovely day :)

bullet points!

Io likes long swishy dresses, remus likes short punky ones, sometimes they wear dresses (and other clothes) in matching fabrics because they are That Couple. on their ken and barbie shit but theyre both simultaneously ken and barbie

Their wisht hound Brand is a gremlin, they had like 5% of a plan to crate train him and then he looked up like O^O and now he sleeps in their bed or (later) with one of the kids

Io is terrified of rodents (its sort of tied up in ly fear of being hurt while overwintering) so Remus has Brand trained to run them out of the house

Their house is made of bittersweet, mulberry brambles, and climbing roses, woven together into walls about a foot thick. chillier in the winter when theres no foliage, but not so much Remus can't keep it warm enough on his own when ios asleep. and its nice and breezy and shaded in the summer

most of the kids are Seelie and overwinter with la, but Collie, Mimi, and Seren dont. so its just the three of them and their dad in the winter, which can get a little lonely when the house is normally so full, but remus tries to "include" the sleeping family members in daily activities in small ways, so the unseelie kids dont miss them quite so bad

[tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors]

How common is fae cannibalism is LAOFT? There's been a couple mentions of it in the extras. Io mentions "being dug up for a midwinter snack"

Like during Dee's reign, if somebody got killed in a duel and their opponent ate the body would that be an insane thing to happen or ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

What if it happened at a revel?

During Virgil's reign is it forbidden or is it just "well they're dead have at it"?

If it's common, what context? Like do fae kill other fae for eating or is it "they already died it's free meal time" if they came across a dead fae?

Sorry I'm just morbidly curious

fae are quite varied on the topic, and its more complicated than "do they or dont they" but in general they do not have the same extreme taboo against cannibalism that humans do, no.

basically, the deceased's loved ones very much do not want their loved one eaten. they will do everything they can to prevent this, and be very upset if they fail.

some types of fae are more likely to do it, and some types more likely to have it done to them. some fae mostly eat other fae and humans, like ogres, hags, most ghouls, some kinds of goblin. wild fae are more likely to be targets, especially if theres something else about them thats appealing, like being small (pixies), easy to catch (overwintering seelie), or otherwise valuable (white and her pelt)

whether or not its legal depends on who is in charge, and how complex the situation is, and who is beholden to who vis-a-vis hospitality, which can be up to interpretation. one situation might be a guest who kills their host for mistreating them, and claims the body as recompense. another in the same situation may be ruled in the favor of the host's children, who rightfully inherit the body and did nothing wrong, and the wronged guest must take a different price for the debt.

Virgil is pretty much always anti-cannibalism. He treating sentient things like food is disrespectful. .This is an odd stances for mostly-carnivorous fae, but not that odd for gentry, who generally consider it a bit base and uncivilized. for exceptionally horrific crimes, he might allow it specifically as a sort of... unpersoning, almost, like "this being is no longer worthy of even more respect than food" but it would have to be Really Bad, im not sure what. serial killing of children, or smth like that

Durant also never ate anyone (the "uncivilized" reasoning), but he was more willing to let people get eaten, especially the above "weak" targets.

[tulipanthousa]

EATD dukeceit + iolanthe you say 👀👀- 💪🌟

the progression is basically io doing the same thing as in main-laoft with both of them but only remus picks up on it, so remus is the hinge for a while and io's like "oh ok :(" thinking durants not interested and durant is Being Very Healthy And Not At All Possessive Or Jealous x 2

but then remus is like [looks between them] hey, wait a minute....

and procedes to put them in increasingly ridiculous smutty situations including but not limited to

orchestrating one of them walking in on him having sex the other

threesomes "for him" in which he subtly extricates himself so durant and io winding up fucking before they notice

threesomes in which he outright says he wants to watch them fuck

leaves them alone at revels so io will stick to durant if lu gets bothered and durant will do Possessive Things (like make out publically) to "help la"

among other things

basically i just thought it would be hilarious to have remus be like "wait... am i the brain cell in this romance? i dont like that. you two need to emotionally bone so i dont have to be the braincell anymore"

[tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors]

It’s my birthday today, and I woke up to not one, but TWO adorably sweet LAOFT extras!! The timing makes for a wonderful present 💝 LOVE how Linda being both human and fae helps her figure out the solution, and Io being all blushy when Remus calls la pet names is SO cute 🥰

Also I noticed the Eoin Colfer quote - are you also an Artemis Fowl fan?? 👀 👀

no i just spend too much time on goodreads writing down decontextualized soundbytes to i can write them in calligraphy to fill my assigned quota of white girl behavior

[tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors]

What nooo I haven’t been tuning out of class sketching Io dress idea and scrolling through the laoft io tag only to realize I’d forgotten that io needs access to a knife holster under la skirt and then resketching a whole new idea that would be silly— anyway thoughts on a dress made with a skin-toned leotard and lots of gauzy and translucent fabrics layered in *waves hand* vaguely petal-y shapes? -tssdresses

oh sounds quite a bit like one of the outfits ive been picturing for la! (also the possessive is ly so "ly skirt" /nm)

and i think the skin-tone leotard is an excellent way to accomplish the look alkjsklaj

[tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors]

May I ask how long after they get together do Remus and Io start having kids?

Also, I know you said that one type of fae can have another type of fae (like Logan is a green man and his bio-bitch is a banshee), but are they ever like wildly different? Like a nymph has an ogre child or something like that?

i have them kind of grouped into loose reproductive categories - green men, all nymphs, and banshees are one category, ogres and hags are in another. a child is always in the same category as at least one of their parents.

all these categories can reproduce magically (a nymph could have a sprite child with a sprite for example, because sprites mainly reproduce via spontaneous spawning from flowers and nymph sometimes the same way) with each other but only some can reproduce the tab-a slot-b way, mainly because of incompatible equipment or size discrepancies

honestly the size discrepancy was the main reason i put this system together, because a smaller creature giving birth to a dangerously large baby (ogres are about twice the size of nymphs, forget about sprites) is a really huge squick of mine so i just built it being impossible into the verse from the get go

Short answer: only if one of the parents is an ogre or hag, and with the age of magic. Io and Remus are both in the same category so all their children will be as well.

and as for your first question, it takes 24 years! which i know sounds like a lot but keep in mind theyre immortal and were around the equivalent of 23-24 ish when they met. For fae, thats a pretty normal amount of time to establish a romantic relationship before having children