bakerstreet | a scar means i survived } scars meme

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a scar means i survived } scars meme

the s c a r s meme

Most everyone has some sort of scar. Some are from happy accidents. Some are from events you'd rather not speak about. Sometimes, people can share a moment over scars: Be it friendly, romantic, or even with a complete stranger. These are those moments.

01. NEW: the scar is fairly new-- maybe you still need to do something to make sure it heals properly. maybe you're just worried about the new scar that's appeared on someone you care about.

02. DISCOVERY: you've just had someone find out about your scars, or you've just accidentally learned that the other person has scars. do you say something, or let the moment pass?

03. SHAME: maybe you're ashamed of your scars. maybe you want someone else to know that there's no need to hide their scars around you.

04. SHOW: you're proud of your scars, or at least you don't see a reason to keep them covered-- never have, or not anymore. or maybe someone is showing you their scars for the first time.

05. STORY: it's time to talk about the story behind your scars. or, perhaps, it's time to listen to someone tell you about how they came about their scars.

06. TOUCH: maybe you want someone to touch your scars so you can remind yourself you're still here. maybe you want to touch their scars because you want to show them you don't mind them.

07. ATTRACTION: you've heard that people like someone with scars, so you're flaunting them, or you're the person very attracted to someone with scars.

08. KISS: letting this person kiss your scars may be a moment of extreme vulnerability, or just something you like. kissing someone else's scars may be just what you need to do to show someone how much you care.

09. SOULMATE: you live in a world where your soulmate's scars appear on your own skin. what's that like?

10. OTHER: wildcard option.

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Post with your character's name and canon, if you're interested in gen/shipping/etc., and maybe a list of some of their scars. Reply to other people's comments by picking RNG for an option, or pick your own!

Warning: May have reference to abuse, torture, violence, self-harm, or similar.

A mash up of several other scar memes.

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"I do," Robin says on a sigh. His voice carries a note of very real mourning, but he pushes it away after a pensive moment or two. Spending his limited time in Ganymede's company on regret over things unchangeable--and unlikely to be preventable going forward--doesn't really appeal to him. "I suppose I should have guessed that anything here would be in perfect health," he says instead, smiling as he brushes a hand through the leaves trailing into the water.

Willows all have kind of high, reedy voices, but they make a pleasant harmony when they sing together. The cypresses are lower, airy, like notes in the distance.

He settles a little deeper into the water, up to his shoulders, and belatedly reaches up to let his hair loose. Fortunately it doesn't immediately turn into a complicated series of Gordian knots. He ducks under too, following Ganymede's example, and feels roughly two hundred percent better when he returns to the surface and blinks the water from his eyes. "Good luck getting me out of here," he says with a grin, before sinking back down to his nose. He stays just enough above the surface to allow unimpeded breathing.

Honestly, he'll probably get bored of this soon enough, but for the moment, he's more than pleased to be somewhat out of his element. He supposes he'll be enticed by the prospect of Ganymede's photography--and Hestia's cooking, if he's lucky--eventually.

"I'm glad it still is, and always will be," he admits and then ducks down into the water. Spraying it everywhere as he resurfaces, Ganymede sighs, relaxing now that he's definitely cooling off, finally. Wiping wet curls and water both from his face, he laughs in agreement. Still, he can't help the smirk before he slips onto his back to float, talking to the fluffy-looking canopy of the nearest willow rather than Robin.

"You're going to want to get out sooner rather than later." But Ganymede's not going to be the one to hurry them on, even if he's been anticipating the other half of today since they first talked about it. A couple pictures will be great to have, and on top of that, he's very interested to see what Robin will decide to do, aside from the shape Ganymede's most familiar with.

Then there's the movie they're going to see if it can catch Robin shifting.

Smiling at the thought, Ganymede glances sideways, not enough he'll accidentally dunk himself, but enough so he can catch Robin in the edge of his vision. His smile widens at how deep Robin has settled himself, hair floating about him. He almost looks like he belongs. But only almost. Like this, too, he's almost entirely hidden, but Ganymede, having been standing at an angle from Robin had seen what he hasn't thought about in a long while.

Flips himself back to standing, because he can't ask something like that while appearing to not pay attention.

"Do your scars bother you much, any more?" he asks quietly, serious now

Robin can't help himself--the question makes him flinch, a subtle full-body thing that hunches his shoulders and curves his spine. His gaze sidles away and settles on the water, on the way it ripples when he uncurls his hands from their instinctive clench and spreads his fingers. The impulse is to sink even lower, duck down under the surface and somehow stay there until either Ganymede forgets about the question or the subject no longer bothers him.

Both seem equally unlikely. He's never been quite that good at holding his breath.

Instead, he lifts up a bit, head and shoulders out of the water again, and he meets Ganymede's eyes. "It's better," he murmurs. "Much better, honestly," he amends, with a rueful little quirk of his lips, because he absolutely never wants to minimize the miracle that Apollo worked for him. When he imagines enduring the gnawing pain he'd lived with half a millennium ago for the last five centuries... He can't suppress a shudder that runs straight through body and soul. "No pain unless I push myself far too hard for far too long."

He's mostly learned his lesson about that. There's still that little edge of resentment buried beneath the smooth facade, like a flaw that catches rough against his fingers, now and again, because he remembers a time when he wasn't bound by the limitations of a body once broken and put unevenly back together.

"Sometimes I can still feel them." It's a bittersweet confession, and he doesn't stop smiling, but he knows the expression is sharpened by helpless sadness. "It's not real and I know it, but... I don't really want to give it up, either." The feeling is hard to explain and he's probably doing a bad job of it.

He'd apologize, except asked is asked. If it's not better at all, maybe there's something they can do about that, too, and they can't if he doesn't know if it is. So Ganymede bites his lip and waits, keeping his gaze on Robin's turned face and nowhere near whatever glimpse of the scars he might still be able to see.

Exhales in a soft, quiet huff when the answer finally comes. Robin might lie to him, but he doesn't think he's lying right now. Especially not so when there's the hedging, proscribed limits Robin clearly doesn't like. It's not until those last couple sentences that Ganymede sucks in a sharp breath and grimaces, only belatedly managing half of a sympathetic smile.

"I don't think I would, either, if it were me," he says quietly, stepping a little closer to Robin but not reaching out then and there. "I'm glad it has gotten better, from what it was."

Sure, the healing alone had made Puck's life instantly better, but that had probably partially been thanks to the massive reduction in pain, not no pain at all. It'd been such a massive injury, after all.

"I probably should have warned you," he says, sheepish, and ducks his head, gaze landing on the water instead, "but I was reminded, even when you can barely see the scars now, and if it wasn't better at all, maybe something could've been done about that, as well."

Robin doesn't particularly want to admit that he'd have tried to sidestep the question if a warning had been given. He doesn't really need or want to lie, especially to Ganymede, but he can't escape the sick sense of shame that swirls up in his throat whenever anyone notices or worse yet, asks. Only the tiniest shred of his insecure psyche still believes that he might have deserved what Oberon did to him. He still hadn't been able to prevent it, despite a supposedly quick wit and a reputedly silver tongue.

The failure is written over his skin in a language none of his own kind is likely to misinterpret, and that will always taste bitter in the back of his throat.

Ganymede is close enough now that only a half-step more lets Robin lean their heads together, temple to temple. Releasing an unsteady breath, he concentrates on relaxing the line of his shoulders--letting go of that tension inch by inch. "I think you of all people would be able to tell," he says on a wry note. "You noticed right off, even when you were too polite to say anything."

Perhaps polite isn't the right word, but they'd both still been so hesitant around each other, relearning the boundaries of a friendship gone fallow.

Pulling back, he gives Ganymede a little smile. "They ache sometimes, right before the weather turns wet. And saying that makes me feel as old as I actually am, so I'm absolutely never going to repeat it."

Leaning in a little more firmly against Robin, glad he stepped that little bit closer, Ganymede doesn't quite swallow down the half-noise of agreement that slips out. He had noticed, yes. It had taken him a little to decide it was indeed something, and then whether - and when, and how - to ask about it, but notice he had. Still though.

"You do hide well, even if I did notice," he says, and then laughs, gently shouldering Robin before he's quite out of reach to avoid it. "Your age was going to catch up with you sooner or later, but at least you still don't look as old as you are!"

Quickly splashing further out into the pool to attempt to avoid well-deserved retaliation, Ganymede shakes his head.

"But it really isn't that noticeable, any longer," he promises, quickly not to stave off what might come, but because he wants to reassure. Compared to with earlier, it really is so very easy to forget - as long as Robin is covered of course, which is the sour note in this. Anyone who knows what he is, what he should have, would of course know what was missing, seeing those scars, and Ganymede doesn't like that thought, but there's little to be done about it.

"We'll see what happens when your age catches up with you," Robin calls after him, and the glint in his eyes is definitely wicked. Water isn't his element, but he still has enough power to wind up a whirling little ball of it and lob it--splashily--towards the middle of Ganymede's chest.

He's sure he's older than Ganymede, but he doesn't truly know by how much. At the point of this many thousands of years, the difference is becoming more than negligible anyway, but he still intends to claim seniority as cheekily as he possibly can.

Sinking down below the surface of the water again, he thoroughly wets his hair and scrubs at his scalp for a moment or two before reemerging with a shake of his head. He's perhaps more touched than he should be by the reassurance that the scars aren't so noticeable anymore. The centuries passed since the injury, along with the bone-deep repair of Apollo's divinity, have healed them enough that he can cover them more thoroughly with glamour when appearances truly matter. That takes energy, however, and requires yet another division of his concentration that he could expend on something else.

He doesn't quite trust the water enough to try floating on his back like Ganymede, but he does stretch his legs out in front of him and lets the buoyancy carry his weight while he keeps hold of the dangling willow branches. "Does it..." He pauses, because he doesn't want to somehow offend, but he's started already and he is--as always--curious. "Does it bother you not to carry any kind of marks?"

Maybe it's a silly question, but Robin has known mortals enough to learn that a great many of them value their scars. Ganymede doesn't have so much as the minor callouses that even a life of leisure can't entirely avoid.

"Hey!"

Ganymede's laughing protest doesn't help him avoid the ball of water. He'd been so focused on getting some distance as his means of escape from retaliation he'd completely forgotten Robin had more resources available to him. Too, he's so used for that magic to be used for him, not against. Doesn't help that he's deeper now, so he has to tread water - he's practically a sitting duck and has to squeeze his eyes shut for the spray of water as the ball his his chest with a loud splash.

Besides, he did deserve it, so Ganymede does nothing much but vaguely slap the surface in Robin's direction before he goes back to floating on his back, staring up at the sky and the willows' canopies.

Carefully tips his head back to catch sight of Robin, now re-emerged and even floating a little, too. The question takes him aback for a moment. He can't shake his head, but he carefully shrugs a little.

"Not really. I didn't exactly have much of any before I was brought to Olympus, anyway, and now..." Pausing, Ganymede bites his lip. "I'm not invulnerable of course, not even the gods are, but it takes more to, say, bruise me. So I'd really rather not imagine what sort of injury I'd need to get that might not be able to be healed enough it would scar."

He smiles tightly. Really, he'd been terribly sheltered before Zeus came, even when he'd spent time hunting or those three years herding sheep, on and off. A little noise escapes Ganymede and he flips himself back straight again, swimming over to Robin.

"I do have one scar, though. I got it when I was ten." This time, the smile is wider, more relaxed, as he holds up his right hand and traces a very faint line down the ball of his thumb. "I took my little sister out hunting."

Robin blanches a bit, because he hadn't really thought about what that level of injury might mean and now he definitely doesn't want to think about it. "No, let's not test that hypothesis. Ever." Somewhat distantly, he remembers that they'd actually discussed the idea at length, once upon a time--the potential for what might have happened had Puck not stumbled across Ganymede on their first meeting. He certainly wouldn't have died, but he probably would have spent an increasingly unpleasant afternoon and evening until Zeus came looking.

When Ganymede swims over, Robin drifts a little closer, enough to meet him without quite letting go of the willow branch. It's hardly a terrible mark, but it's certainly still there, and it dispels the notion of Ganymede being entirely freed of the trappings of mortality when he'd arrived on Olympus.

"Ouch," he says with a grin. "Bowstring? Arrowhead?" He has a mark of his own from one of those, through the left shoulder. The Iron Age had been an unlucky time for him. "I don't suppose your parents were particularly thrilled with either one of you."

Funny, really, because these days ten seems terribly young, even to Robin's limited experience with human lifespans, but that had hardly been the case when most humans had lived a lengthy life at forty or fifty. He doubts that many of today's parents in so-called first world countries would happily let a child of ten go out hunting alone no matter what weaponry they chose, slingshot or bow or (shudder) gun.

"Knife," he says with a shake of his head, touching the faded scar. "Cleomestra took the knife I gave her to gut the rabbit we'd caught with slings a bit carelessly. I pretended I'd cut myself on one of the sling stones when she noticed."

Smiling wryly now, Ganymede ends up laughing. His poor little sister, so eager to start with. Their poor parents, too, yes. Especially his mother, being the one to notice something first.

"She was seven, so no they weren't! But they wouldn't have been happy if I'd gone out alone, either. I'd only just started to being taken along with Father or my brothers," Ganymede says with a shrug. "They were going out boar hunting with quite a large party, and she wanted to go along. Not even I was allowed, but she really wanted to know what hunting was like, so I helped her dress in some of my clothes and we sneaked out. I have the faint suspicion that didn't help their displeasure either."

At the time, neither Ganymede nor Cleomestra had understood why, of course. Ganymede had figured it out before Zeus came, old enough to realize they'd been really quite reckless, sneaking out like that.

"Mother asked her father and Simoeis to help look for us, and they were the ones who found us," he adds with a grin.

"It was kind of you, anyway," Robin says with a wry smile. "You meant well." He can't imagine Ganymede as anything but an objectively good elder brother, despite Ganymede's own descriptions of himself in his youth as terribly competitive and somewhat impatient. Robin chuckles, imagining the two of them tracked down by their divine river ancestors, complete with expressions of stern rebuke. Having actually met one of the two, he can picture the moment perfectly. "I suppose they might have been more lenient than your parents at that particular moment."

Simoeis and Scamander might have had the divine omniscience to know that their wayward descendants were relatively safe, at least, when the parents probably did not.

Robin pushes himself up to sit on one of the stones half-submerged at the pool's edge, pleased to find the surface smooth enough not to scratch his bare skin. He's cast off most of his human glamour, and when he gathers his hair over one shoulder, the strands reflect the water with an unmistakably greenish gleam. "This was an arrow," he says, sliding the glamour away over the opposite shoulder to reveal the star-shaped dull patch against the subtle glittering of his skin. That one is old enough--and small enough--that he keeps it covered most of the time without much thought. "It was an extremely impolite surprise, but... I seem to remember earning it."

The rueful note matches his smile. He's never much enjoyed being found out in the middle of one scheme or another, but that one had gone epically sideways before the end.

"Seeing chickens getting necked wasn't the same as killing and gutting a rabbit herself," he says, a little sheepish, and nods. The river gods had been lenient. Very lenient, honestly. Had just found them, picked them up, and walked back to Troy with them. Not that they'd exactly gotten any punishment after. He didn't get to go hunting for a couple months, which had annoyed him, but that, on the whole, wasn't still an actual punishment, really.

Ganymede freezes for a startled moment, then peers over, reaching out to just lightly brush the spot Robin indicates, now bared of glamour. There's a little noise in the back of his throat, half thoughtful, half acknowledgement.

"Iron, I'm guessing?" Ganymede asks quietly, then smiles but does try to smother any actual laughter. "The only one you have earned, I bet. It's almost pretty, really. The shape of it makes it look as if you got it done deliberately."

He can't say with certainty that it's the only scar Robin has earned, since maybe there's others, aside from the ones on his back from his wings being--- Being removed. Those he hasn't earned, Ganymede is absolutely sure, and so the star-shaped arrow-scar gets to be the only one named as such, and by Robin's own admission, too.

Robin nods, wry, but he visibly pauses when Ganymede calls the mark almost pretty. His first impulse is denial--what iron does to his kind can't possibly be termed attractive--but he bites his tongue, instead. After all, he trusts Ganymede's opinion. Especially where aesthetics are involved.

Even if those aesthetics include the appearance of his actual body, not just the fashions covering it.

"I can't say I've ever thought of it that way," he says at length, words slow and considered. Looking at yourself with a new perspective is never an entirely comfortable experience. He does it anyway, twisting his neck enough to get a glimpse of the puckered shape on his skin. It's fairly symmetrical, at least, and maybe that's part of what Ganymede is seeing. Maybe it's the difference in color and texture from the rest of his skin, as well. "It's definitely the least objectionable of them all," he grants, "but I don't think I can bear to call it pretty."

He leaves it uncovered, anyway, as a partial compromise. The discarded glamour dissolves with a shimmer before it hits the surface of the water.

Leaning forward, he rests his elbows against his knees and kicks his feet under the water, enjoying the feeling of the current between his toes. "I still wouldn't wish it away, even if I could. It might not have been a particularly important lesson, but I learned it." Mostly he'd learned his own limitations, along with the very real risks of overconfidence. "And I'll always have reason to remember it, this way." He fears forgetting so many things. The ones that show up on his skin are more or less guaranteed to stick with him.

"I wasn't expecting you to." Ganymede shakes his head, honestly surprised to have Robin consider the comment as a positive at all. The gods, and the fey, too, Ganymede feels pretty sure to say from what he's seen and heard, wouldn't consider scars something worthy to display, never mind to have. A fault in perfection, a lapse in ability and power.

Ganymede is really not the sort of human who, even when he was still mortal, had spared much thought to scars and that they would be marks of accomplishment, of survival, and thus desirable. For this, though, it felt important to say it. And anyway, he's not lying. That particular one does look almost pretty. It's a strange sort of pleasure - privilege, almost, maybe - that Robin leaves it uncovered.

"The only lesson worth remembering, maybe." He flashes a little smile, pulling himself up on the branch partially arching out over the water and sits there, feet dangling down into the sweet coolness. It's still warm, even up here on Olympus, but after cooling down from the choking heat of the mortal parts of the Earth, the warmth up here is far less oppressive. "It's definitely the least objectionable of them, though. I don't have any more to compare, in looks or in the gaining of them."

Ganymede shrugs, the smile wryly amused as his hands fall to his hips, oriented backwards towards his ass. Looking over his shoulder, he shakes his head.

"Zeus was careful, when he picked me up. Held me right here, I had to clutch to his neck or I'd ended up dangling terribly awkwardly. He barely even ripped my clothes, despite that his claws in that shape are as long as my fingers and as thick as two of them together, at least, and bronze, too."

So very, very careful, even if the only reason Ganymede had appreciated it at the time was the fear of being torn apart, even after the eagle had said why it'd come. He's of course glad, now, that he never got any scars from that flight.

Edited 2021-10-30 22:51 (UTC)

Reaching up, Robin hooks both hands around the branch and gives it a little jostle--not enough to tip Ganymede off of it, just enough to sway him around a bit and force him to hold on. He stops, however, at the description of the abduction, and his eyes flick helplessly downward when Ganymede illustrates the point with both hands.

And then biting his lip is no help at all, and he laughs despite himself, loud and bright enough to make that peacock squawk in the distance again.

He slides back down into the water, floating now without even thinking about it because he's too busy grinning up at Ganymede in wicked delight. "I'm so glad he thought carefully about which part he was grabbing," he says, nearly choking over the words before giving up and dissolving into laughter again. After only a few--maybe several--seconds, he wrestles control of himself enough to speak again. "He certainly wouldn't have wanted to do any damage to your lovely, um, assets."

It's just a tease, because Zeus obviously wouldn't have cared to do harm to any part of Ganymede, from head to toe and back again. But the image is just a little too marvelous to ignore.

Squawking and being forced to clutch to the branch, Ganymede huffs before he's allowed to continue and then, of course - he should've expected this - Robin laughs.

It's not as if he doesn't know where he indicated, and it's not as if he hadn't been confused and flustered over it back when it happened. It's also such a long time ago, and yet, with Robin's pealing laughter around him Ganymede's reduced to blushing as if he really is as young as he looks - and he feels it, too, if just for a moment. That's the price to pay for eternal youth at the age he was given it.

"He did start out a little higher, more on my hips," Ganymede argues, but then he snorts and buries his face in his hands because again, that doesn't actually help him at all. Then Robin adds the last and Ganymede can no longer hold out and bursts out laughing as well.

"Uhm--- of course." It's choked out between laughter, and he manages to calm enough for a breath to pause, lowering his hands enough to peer at Robin, eyebrows arched. He switches to English for what he says next. "Ass-ets, indeed."

And then he's shaking with laughter again, breaking off into a yelp as he falls off the branch and into the water with a loud splash, coming up sputtering on water and laughter both.

"I'm so sorry," Robin says, but he's still laughing and the words probably aren't believable even if they are--at least a little bit--true. He didn't really mean to make Ganymede blush, although the fact that he still can is something of a surprise and a guilty pleasure. "It's not as if he could have easily grabbed you anywhere else in that form!" Under the arms, maybe, but that would have been both uncomfortable and undignified, and Zeus is neither one of those.

Well, maybe undignified, now and then, when base instincts or outside plotting get the better of him. He's hardly alone in that. One need only call to mind the memory of Titania embracing an ass to prove that particular point.

Then Ganymede suddenly splashes down, and Robin makes a little sound of alarm. No panic is necessary, of course, but he breathes a bit easier when Ganymede is back on the surface and still laughing. Grinning, he says, "The important thing is that you and your assets emerged unscathed." He knows Zeus' intentions weren't so devious at first. Otherwise, the Cloud-Gatherer would never have waited an entire year to court Ganymede's full affections. Robin still can't help teasing when he gets so marvelous an opening.

At that moment, he realizes he's treading water rather than standing on solid ground. He chooses to return to the pool's edge instead of clutching onto Ganymede like a particularly anxious vine.

"I suppose we might try the photography now, if you're no longer moments from heatstroke," he says, as he pulls himself back up onto that friendly stone. He twists his hair between both hands and wrings the water from it, nose wrinkling at the splatter over his upper thighs.

Coughing a couple times, which is made all the harder by still laughing, Ganymede shakes his head, smile lingering.

"My waist, I suppose, but no, there really isn't any good method for a giant eagle to carry a human, even when they are large enough to pull it off."

Never mind all those paintings that contain even weirder positions and precarious clutching on bare strips of cloth while the rest of him is naked. Ganymede is just going to be glad he was most definitely fully dressed when Zeus came. Sighing in that sort of relief that comes after a good burst of helpless amusement, Ganymede wipes his curls from his face.

"Definitely feel a lot better, and you look like you're done playing nice with water," he says, gentle comment instead of making it teasing, the smile earnest. "So I'm ready."

Still, he swims a couple circles around the pool and dives under one more time before he gets back up on the shore, snagging the towels and offering one to Robin with a silent question in the tip of his head. He doesn't need it, of course, and with Robin present Ganymede doesn't technically need a towel either, but just because magic is available to be used to dry them both, doesn't mean Robin should have to be relied on using it, especially not for both of them.

The least said about most of those paintings, the better. Robin might have considered destroying one in particular, simply to save the world from suffering a glimpse of it, but... Well, the destruction of even very ugly and objectionable things from the past is probably still censorship. Even if he would like to pretend it's for the good of humankind.

"Fully done, I think, nice or otherwise," he says. He doesn't mind waiting for Ganymede to be truly done, of course--Ganymede has always indulged and even encouraged his need for time among the trees, and rewarding that consideration with impatience would be awfully rude--but he does stir up that pleasant breeze to dry them both once Ganymede emerges from the pool. Magical methods prevent Robin's own hair from frizzing quite so visibly, at least. "This way is faster," he says with a grin, and gives the breeze a last little twist to bounce Ganymede's ever-perfect curls.

Robin has the benefit of being able to summon up clothing just as easily as the wind, and he chooses something gauzy in green that layers like skeleton leaves. Bare feet are always best, especially on Olympus, where the grass is velvety and the rocks are smooth, so he doesn't bother with shoes.

He glances up at the canopy and back in the direction of the palace. "Where do you think is best to try this?" He knows nothing about photography except the necessity of good light. Whatever that phrasing might actually mean in terms of practical application, he has no idea at all. The brighter the better, perhaps. "Or did you already have a location in mind?" He's only considered the foreground and wondered whether the camera will even record him in more or less natural form, but Ganymede is the artist, and he's probably put far more thought into the overall process.

"Thank you."

Laughing, and not the least bit displeased to have the need for a towel rendered obsolete, Ganymede drops both back onto the grass and dresses again. The heat and, perhaps, all these discussions about the past has him nostalgic, so all Ganymede belts into place is a kilt that looks as if it could have been newly made, but certainly in style is several thousand years old. Not that those conflict, completely aside from how divinely-made clothing just lasts longer. This particular one is actually rather new, and Ganymede is hardly the only one who wears clothing from even before what's come to be called 'Antiquity'. Quaint term, honestly.

"There's a couple spots in the south garden that should give both indirect light and a nice place to take pictures. And keep us from being bothered."

He doesn't know if that last will matter much. They will be experimenting a little, yes, but when it comes to the other pictures Ganymede really would rather prefer to get to do those without necessarily being stared at. It feels a little like it should be allowed to be private, maybe even more so than taking this bath had been.

"I'll show you. I think you'll like them," Ganymede says with a smile and leads the way back, picking up both his regular camera and the one they'll use to see if it can indeed record magic in motion and use. Crossing the central courtyard and coming out at the back, the garden still stretching out beyond, Ganymede takes them to a shielded spot within a circle of kept-short myrtle bushes. Someone's left a table with two chairs in the middle, but Ganymede moves those to a spot nearer to the edge of the myrtle bushes instead. "It's late enough in the day we could use my garden, too, but the wall around it starts to throw shadow over one of the best spots nearly as soon as the wing the royal apartments are in stop throwing its own shadow over the garden."

He smiles lopsidedly, shrugging. When he's not intending to take pictures, that never matters, but since they are, well. A better spot is needed.

This does feel like something for which Robin wouldn't really appreciate an audience, though he can't say exactly why. He's changed shape plenty of times as entertainment for others, even at court, and looking foolish has never troubled him, so long as he's doing it in pursuit of a good time. Perhaps he's just struck by the strong possibility that this won't work at all, and he would rather share his disappointment with no one but Ganymede, in that case.

If it does work, they can show the photos to whoever they like.

"You know a great deal more about this than I do," Robin admits, following willingly enough and watching while Ganymede arranges things to his liking. He amuses himself by looking over the myrtle bushes for a moment or two. "I've watched the professional photoshoots of the band, but that gets a bit tedious after the first hour or so." All the posing and shifting and adjustment is interesting--and the results always seem far better than the process would suggest--but he doesn't dare participate, and simply observing fails to hold his attention for long. "How do you choose a good composition? Shadows, lighting, scale... It seems like a lot to think about in comparison with a painting."

After all, a painting can be corrected afterwards--more than once if things go very badly. A photo doesn't offer the same flexibility.

He hovers over the cameras, peering at them from one direction and then another, but he doesn't quite dare to touch without invitation. All those tiny dials seem like a temptation that will only lead to disaster.

Blinking, Ganymede laughs, shaking his head while attaching the regular camera to a tripod.

"I can talk about that if you want, but I was mostly going to just make sure we have the sun in the right direction so we both turn up nicely for these photos. Nothing too complicated, unless you'd want them to look more professional?" Glancing up to catch Robin's eyes with that question, Ganymede cocks his head. He's willing to do that, too, however. "Even the ones I put effort into aren't exactly publicity-pieces for a famous band."

He grins, waving Robin over. "Just press this button and it'll take a picture. Hopefully I won't mess anything up when we try the film camera, I can't say I've exactly gotten used to it, just yet.

[whispers I don't know a thing about photography dsvgjfs.]

"Definitely not, no," Robin says, vaguely alarmed. After a moment, he grins. "I wasn't really planning on posing in that particular way." He wasn't planning on posing at all, really--at least not in the staged way a celebrity might. This sort of experimentation seems to lend itself to candid shots. He's not going to make Ganymede describe the process step-by-step, either, especially given that he might not understand a word of it besides maybe lens and picture.

He leans down to squint through the viewfinder but doesn't let his hand drift toward the indicated button. Wasting Ganymede's film on a photo of myrtle bushes, nice as they might be, strikes him as rude. He can wait until one of them is standing in front of the bushes, at least.

Straightening up again, he looks at Ganymede and asks, "What would you like to try first? I imagine you might want a picture or two that's guaranteed not to turn out blurry or otherwise peculiar." He let go of his usual human glamour in the pool, but resuming it now would be simple enough. "So long as you aren't in a hurry, we can do anything you like. And we aren't exactly trying for an Oscar, either, so don't worry too much."

Even if they do screw something up with the cameras or the film, they can always try again at a later date. Hopefully they won't have wasted much more than their time.

[*whispers back* neither do IIIIIII~]

Laughing, Ganymede steps back in when Robin clearly decides to wait to fiddle with the camera and sets up the self timer instead, making sure he's actually concentrating for this. Not because it's hard, really, but rather because he's a little distracted right now, so better be sure it's done right.

"Why don't we start with just one as we are?" he asks, straightening up as he's done. "And then for the next one, you can do as you like and we'll take at least one more."

Ganymede smiles brightly, eyes sparkling, and he can't help but he at least a little excited. Robin, at least, has full control of his transformations, so there's never been any need to worry.

"If you've been thinking of something you'd like to try and get a picture of you looking like that, since we first talked about this."

Seeing what Robin might come up with for this had been half his interest in the idea. The other half, the first and greater half, had of course been to get at least one picture together with Robin at all.

"Oh, I definitely have some ideas," Robin replies, with a distinctly mischievous tilt to his grin. He arranges himself in front of the myrtle bushes and follow Ganymede's directions until he's in the proper place. When Ganymede presses the button and hurries over to beat the timer, he resists the impulse to do something absolutely ridiculous and simply gives his most winning smile, instead, just before the camera clicks. "I suppose we should try a couple more of those, just in case?"

In the end, a couple more are all his good intentions can withstand when up against the promise of trying new and potentially absurd things. It's a bit of a pity that they can't see the results right away, but neither of the cameras are a quick exposure, despite the availability of the technology. Perhaps someday such things will be widespread.

Until then, Robin will have to practice patience. Never a certain success.

"Well," he says, when Ganymede returns to the camera. "Let's try something more impressive." In only a moment, he's twisted in and out again into his favorite stag-shape, all powerful legs and branching, velvet antlers. He looks very much as he did on their first meeting, minus only the wings--he can't quite bear stretching out into those. Not when that shape will never fit quite right again. Better not to dwell, and he stamps his hooves against the garden grass, kicking up a fluttering scatter of tiny moths and shifting his weight while he waits for Ganymede to take the picture.

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