Profile
The very first second Unbleeder ever made, Joel is Llawes's lost Unbleeder prototype. Of course, thanks to a particularly rigorous campaign to scrub his existence from the public consciousness, people are more likely to know Joel as, well, Joel: a laidback (and, truth be told, a little spacey) member of the Concerned Citizens.
If not a member, then suffice it to say Joel can nearly always be found trailing behind its de facto leader, No-One.
Easily Joel's most noticeable feature is his halo -- that is to say, his insert, which floats shattered in aimless orbit above his head. Spilling constant moonlight, it's easy to guess that Joel's memory is far from perfect -- and true enough, Joel struggled to remember virtually anything about his life most days.
Miraculously, however, they seem to have regained some of their memories of late...
last name unknown
white-passing
shattered halo; two wing-shaped anchors
First Face : The World
Given the company he keeps, one couldn't be blamed for glossing over Joel entirely at first glance... well, save for the halo. Physical peculiarities aside, the primary impression Joel seems to leave on people is "chill."
It's clear that Joel is kindhearted, but they have a tendency to space out often. Maybe it's for this reason that they tend towards extreme passivity. Fortunately, there's rarely a shortage of strong-willed and high-energy Concerned Citizens about -- and even when there is, Joel always has No-One guiding him along.Second Face: Close ones
Though his laidback nature ensures Joel is on good terms with most people he meets, these friendships are usually casual. The people he would consider himself truly close to are, conversely, few and far between.
For those precious few, however, Joel tends to take on a big brother type role. Expect an extra helping of doting, encouragement, and gentle teasing -- all in typical chill fashion, of course. Though he tries to trust that the people he cares about can take care of themselves, he can't help from being a little overprotective at times. Occasionally, this includes intervening where he doesn't belong... but surely good intentions count for something, right?
Third Face: True Reflection
Who is Joel? In some ways, that's easy for them to answer. Joel is No-One's boyfriend and protector; Joel is Rez's partner; Joel is the Gwion's kids' big brother.
But who is Joel when they're alone? The question unmakes them. For so long, they thought it would be easier with their memories back, but now they've found so much of their identity is scrambled, mismatched, rooted in ill-fitting descriptors and outgrown clothes. Even the scant comfort of being the person with no memories has left them.
As for an obective answer, Joel is someone who deeply wants to protect the people they care about, but is sometimes thwarted by their own cowardice -- not in the face of danger, but in the face of making hard decisions that may hurt more than help. In search of greater gravities, they wander, and hope for anything but a falling star to show them the way.
Blue Bells
Moonflowers
The Moon
Six of Cups
- Photography
- Baking
- Taking care of kids
- Being late
- Having his heart out
- Llawes
- No-One getting hurt
- Hurting someone with their heart out
- ███'█ ███ ██████ ███ ████
- Keep No-One safe
- Take care of his family
- Keep piecing together his memories
- Photography & baking (again)
- City-wandering
- Book club with Weddy
- They struggle with chronic fatigue and hypersomnia, even after becoming an Unbleeder.
- They don't know their birthday. Since regaining some of their memories, they've realized No-One also doesn't know. #VirgoGate
- His Cor changes brightness slightly with the phases of the moon.
- He has 0 taste. He thinks every book he's ever read, every movie he's ever seen, etc. is amazing.
He was pointing at the moon but I was looking at his hand. He was dead anyway, a ghost. I'm surprised I saw his hand at all.
All this was prepared for me. All this was set in motion a long time ago. I live in someone else's future. I stayed as long as I could, he said. Now look at the moon.
(— richard siken)
Joel spent most of their life looking as discreet as they come... until coming to work for Llawes. With the prototypes, "angelic" was the angle. Putting gold in Joel's hair seemed dramatic -- that is, before the halo spilling moonlight.
Now, with the halo having broken and a certain incident sending much of their hair white... well, Joel has gotten used to getting looks in public, at least.
- Joel is AFAB and rarely binds.
- Though not visible on their reference sheet presently, they have Cor bands (moonlight) around their arms.
- When his heart isn't out, he has a scar-like slit on the left side of his chest. It's relatively subtle!
In a word, Joel is gentle. Considering that most of the time they can be found baking, reading, or doting on their siblings, some find it surprising that they can fight at all.
But with his heart out, Joel is a ruthless combatant. The only person to date capable of beating Ari, Joel's distaste for fighting certainly doesn't seem to dull his abilities -- or soften his hand when it's holding his heart.
- powerful
- fast
- precise
- unstoppable
- all-consuming
- empty
Abilities
Joel's Unbleeder weapon is a scythe. Though its range is well-defined, a heart-out Joel has no shortage of ways to cut people to ribbons with it. Perhaps due to their mutual status as prototypes, Joel and Ari seem to be the only people on equal footing with one another in terms of combat prowess.
Though all share the innate lack of compassion, the specifics of each Unbleeder's heart-out state tends to differ. For Joel, having his heart out is characterized by brutal violence -- second only to suffocating, all-encompassing emptiness. Crushed by lack, the only solution seems to be to protect (usually No-One), crushing anything that gets in his way.
humanity
TL;DR: "Third Quarter"
WARNINGS: death
- An orphan who grew up with leader of the Concerned Citizens, No-One, at Gwion's Orphanage.
- Lived at Gwion's his whole life; however, was scouted to become one of two prototype Unbleeders by Llawes. Agreed on the condition that Gwion's could prosper.
- Lived as a celebrity -- one of the prototypes -- alongside Ari for two years. However, it never fit him entirely, and upon realizing Gwion's had been converted to Ceridwen's, he decided to leave.
- Got his insert completely shattered by No-One as part of their attempt to escape their contract. Insodoing, lost all their memories. In a panic, No-One lied and said it didn't know what happened.
- Stayed by No-One's side for three years. Grew even closer; however, eventually learned the truth. Went off on his own... just in time for No-One to die at the hands of Llawes Corporation.
- Regained some of his memories due to some interference on Ari's part. Rescued No-One from complete annhiliation and took care of it during its unusual revival period.
- Now stays by its side, overprotective and doting, attempting to process both recent events and the deluge of memories they've suddenly gotten back.
Chapter One: "Waxing Crescent"
WARNINGS: no explicit warnings.
Back before Llawes rose to ubiquity, when a star had yet to fall to soil and Unbleeders were an idea yet undreamed, Joel was a normal human boy. This normal human boy spent their youth at Gwion’s, an orphanage lovingly managed despite its modest means. Here, they spent their days laughing, reading, and helping to take care of the younger children – eventually joined by a particularly troublesome kid, who would later come to be known as No-One.
This life was one that filled Joel with contentment and a sense of purpose. Were it up to them, they would have remained this way forever. But even as they stayed on as an employee into adulthood, it was clear that Gwion’s’ star was fading fast. With dwindling funds and rising rents, it seemed like it would take a miracle to preserve Gwion as it was.
And so did come a miracle... of sorts. The CEO of the Llawes Corporation, tailored in white, came with a contract in hand: a guarantee, in writing, that Gwion’s would receive proper financial support, and that all the kids would be taken care of. In return, Joel only had to agree to a simple experiment: become the prototype for Llawes’s attempts at immortality.
In the end, leaving the only home he’d ever known seemed to be the only way to properly save it. He signed.
Chapter Two: "Waning Gibbous"
WARNINGS: no explicit warnings.
Two feelings predominated, in stark contrast, the next two years of Joel’s life. The first, that of emptiness, of isolation: of living a new (un)life, as a new (un)person, a beacon of change in a coming age of immortality. The other, more slowly, that of love – not just for those he’d left for, but for Ari, his fellow prototype. It took time, but eventually Joel began to consider Ari part of his life: someone to talk to, to laugh with, to make food for when he was unwell.
Still, the feeling of emptiness pervaded. After holding out for nearly two years, Joel risked a chance visit to Gwion’s – to remind himself, to steel his heart, to say hello. But his feet didn’t take him to Gwion’s; only where Gwion’s was supposed to be. In its place now stood a sleek, minimalist building labeled Ceridwen's
Ari was sympathetic. Ari was comforting. But Ari didn’t understand, and he certainly wasn’t going to leave the only home he’d ever known. In their panic, No-One was the only person Joel could think to call..
Getting back in contact was hardly easy, but insodoing, the two spun a plan: Joel wasn’t free to void their contract, but Llawes was. If Joel broke, surely they would spare no expense diminishing his presence in the public consciousness as efficiently as possible. A broken prototype? A failure? Not Llawes.
And soon enough it was done. A staged skirmish involving Unbleeder #002 started by members of the Concerned Citizens coalition. N01’s hands on Joel’s insert, the metal parting for it as though at its command; moonlight and memory spilling all at once from Joel’s head.
Chapter Three: "Flower Moon"
WARNINGS: death, injury
Breaking an insert -- in itself a rare and difficult task -- will put an Unbleeder out of commission for at least a few days. To shatter it completely was completely unheard of, and it followed that Joel remembered nothing of himself or his past upon waking. Just is there is a unique terror to not knowing, there is a unique terror to being unknown, even for No-One. In this terror, No-One told a single lie: it had no idea how Joel's insert broke.
It was in the spun silk of this lie that the next 3 years crystallized. Though they didn't remember No-One exactly, they felt a certain gravity towards it -- a positive tug that outweighed any other feeling. A feeling of home. So they stayed by No-One's side for years: relearning to protect it, befriend it, and fall in love with it.
But the collapse was imminent. When Joel discovered the truth, the foundation of their entire world unmoored itself. There was only Ari to turn to -- Ari, wary and betrayed, who could only barely be convinced to help Joel find a place to stay. Still, there was clearly some good will left for Joel in Ari's heart: When No-One was captured by Llawes, Ari carved what shatterings of Joel's insert No-One had managed to salvage from its chest, and returned them.
Of course, this alerted Joel to the fact that No-One was, indeed, captured. Crushed by the weight of a deluge of memories -- not all, and in disconnect, stairways dissected to lead to different heavens -- he lurched through the city, to Llawes... just in time to see its gruesome demise, at the hands of Llawes' anomalies.
It only made sense to save it. It only made sense to take it far away; to let people think it died; to nurse it back to health. To forgive it, despite everything. To love it, because of everything. After all, they understood; how could they not? They've known No-One their whole life.
Now they've returned to the Usual Place, No-One in tow (though still discreet). There is nothing for them but to protect No-One. And if that distracts from the sudden onslaught of a near-lifetime's worth of memories... well, that's fine, too.
"are you going to tell me none of the stars are really there?"
"(well, some are, but some burned out ten thousand years ago.)"
"but i see them."
"(you see memories.)"
"have we had this conversation before?"
(— anne carson)
Dusk: First Love
Joel first met No-One at the age of nine, when it came to the very same orphanage Joel himself had long called home. No-One was a fey sort, so one can imagine it was easily alienated from the other children at Gwion's... all of them except Joel, who found No-One's strange and curious nature endlessly charming. Each of them quickly became shadow to the other. If one went, the other was close behind.
When Joel was selected to become Llawes's second prototype, however, one thing was clear: this was one place it couldn't follow. And thus began their first and only period of separation.
Evening Star: Unconditionally
Of course, when Joel realized he couldn't stay at Llawes any longer, there was only one person he could call. Their half-baked plan to break Joel's insert was only surprising insofar as it worked -- how were either of them to know it would steal away all of Joel's memories, too?
So No-One lied. Pieces of Joel's broken insert embedded in its flesh, it smiled to its most important person -- who no longer remembered a thing about him or all the things they shared -- and said it didn't know what happened; it just found him like that. But it would take care of everything from now on.
Of course, a lie can only last so long. Three years of re-falling in love later, things finally crumbled... and for the very first time, Joel left to be alone, and for no one's benefit but their own.
Even so, when No-One got itself into trouble-- when it was clear it was in real danger-- there was no question. There was never anything but love.
Moonrise: At Last We Meet
The new year collapsed upward and outward: No-One died. No-One was revived. Joel regained a few pieces of his insert, and with them, a few pieces of memory. Through No-One's messy and unusual revival (thanks to its Cor) period, Joel stayed faithfully by its side; when it decided to return to the usual place, all the more.
Armored by their regained memories and the knowledge that they can, in fact, live without it, Joel is more protective of No-One than ever. Even better, they've gained the ability to occasionally put down a firm boundary or two. You know, for both of their sakes. Regardless, all those who wish No-One harm, be warned: Joel will put themself in front of it without a moment's hesitation.
"Someday we will be back together again. We will sit in the candlelight by the west window, and I will tell you how I remembered you tonight on the stormy mountain."
(— li shangyin)
While not everyone from the Gwion's orphanage has kept in touch over the years, those who spent more than a couple of years more often than not have found themselves coming back together as adults. As its longest-standing resident, none are happier about this than Joel. Even before regaining any of his memories, he was drawn to care for his little siblings; now, though, he's especially protective and adoring. Notably close to Joel are Frankie and Walela. (art)
“So much passes through the pupil and still it holds nothing. The eye, alone in its socket, doesn't even know there's another one, just like it, an inch away, just as hungry, as empty.” (— ocean vuong)
When Joel left No-One's side the first time, Ari was their chance at second love. When they left its side a second time, things were a little more complicated. Tangled up in bitterness, abandonment, and lingering affection -- all heightened by Joel's lost memories -- it seemed the two had finally reached a tentative friendship... until Ari ripped the pieces of Joel's inserts from No-One's chest. Now, Joel blames Ari for No-One's death, and even with his memories back sees him as a sparring partner at best and an enemy at worst.
