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#I mean why not make it have a more medieval feel to when
insertdisc5 · 4 months
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📚 A List Of Useful Websites When Making An RPG 📚
My timeloop RPG In Stars and Time is done! Which means I can clear all my ISAT gamedev related bookmarks. But I figured I would show them here, in case they can be useful to someone. These range from "useful to write a story/characters/world" to "these are SUPER rpgmaker focused and will help with the terrible math that comes with making a game".
This is what I used to make my RPG game, but it could be useful for writers, game devs of all genres, DMs, artists, what have you. YIPPEE
Writing (Names)
Behind The Name - Why don't you have this bookmarked already. Search for names and their meanings from all over the world!
Medieval Names Archive - Medieval names. Useful. For ME
City and Town Name Generator - Create "fake" names for cities, generated from datasets from any country you desire! I used those for the couple city names in ISAT. I say "fake" in quotes because some of them do end up being actual city names, especially for french generated ones. Don't forget to double check you're not 1. just taking a real city name or 2. using a word that's like, Very Bad, especially if you don't know the country you're taking inspiration from! Don't want to end up with Poopaville, USA
Writing (Words)
Onym - A website full of websites that are full of words. And by that I mean dictionaries, thesauruses, translators, glossaries, ways to mix up words, and way more. HIGHLY recommend checking this website out!!!
Moby Thesaurus - My thesaurus of choice!
Rhyme Zone - Find words that rhyme with others. Perfect for poets, lyricists, punmasters.
In Different Languages - Search for a word, have it translated in MANY different languages in one page.
ASSETS
In general, I will say: just look up what you want on itch.io. There are SO MANY assets for you to buy on itch.io. You want a font? You want a background? You want a sound effect? You want a plugin? A pixel base? An attack animation? A cool UI?!?!?! JUST GO ON ITCH.IO!!!!!!
Visual Assets (General)
Creative Market - Shop for all kinds of assets, from fonts to mockups to templates to brushes to WHATEVER YOU WANT
Velvetyne - Cool and weird fonts
Chevy Ray's Pixel Fonts - They're good fonts.
Contrast Checker - Stop making your text white when your background is lime green no one can read that shit babe!!!!!!
Visual Assets (Game Focused)
Interface In Game - Screenshots of UI (User Interfaces) from SO MANY GAMES. Shows you everything and you can just look at what every single menu in a game looks like. You can also sort them by game genre! GREAT reference!
Game UI Database - Same as above!
Sound Assets
Zapsplat, Freesound - There are many sound effect websites out there but those are the ones I saved. Royalty free!
Shapeforms - Paid packs for music and sounds and stuff.
Other
CloudConvert - Convert files into other files. MAKE THAT .AVI A .MOV
EZGifs - Make those gifs bigger. Smaller. Optimize them. Take a video and make it a gif. The Sky Is The Limit
Marketing
Press Kitty - Did not end up needing this- this will help with creating a press kit! Useful for ANY indie dev. Yes, even if you're making a tiny game, you should have a press kit. You never know!!!
presskit() - Same as above, but a different one.
Itch.io Page Image Guide and Templates - Make your project pages on itch.io look nice.
MOOMANiBE's IGF post - If you're making indie games, you might wanna try and submit your game to the Independent Game Festival at some point. Here are some tips on how, and why you should.
Game Design (General)
An insightful thread where game developers discuss hidden mechanics designed to make games feel more interesting - Title says it all. Check those comments too.
Game Design (RPGs)
Yanfly "Let's Make a Game" Comics - INCREDIBLY useful tips on how to make RPGs, going from dungeons to towns to enemy stats!!!!
Attack Patterns - A nice post on enemy attack patterns, and what attacks you should give your enemies to make them challenging (but not TOO challenging!) A very good starting point.
How To Balance An RPG - Twitter thread on how to balance player stats VS enemy stats.
Nobody Cares About It But It’s The Only Thing That Matters: Pacing And Level Design In JRPGs - a Good Post.
Game Design (Visual Novels)
Feniks Renpy Tutorials - They're good tutorials.
I played over 100 visual novels in one month and here’s my advice to devs. - General VN advice. Also highly recommend this whole blog for help on marketing your games.
I hope that was useful! If it was. Maybe. You'd like to buy me a coffee. Or maybe you could check out my comics and games. Or just my new critically acclaimed game In Stars and Time. If you want. Ok bye
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justporo · 7 months
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Do you have any headcanons on what Astarion and Tav's home would look like? :)
You bet, I do! But I put some more thought into it over the day so may I present you with:
Domestic headcanons about what Tav's and Astarion's home in Baldur's Gate would look like
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After your adventures and some looting of certain castles you go to buy a small but luxurious townhouse in the Upper City of Baldur's Gate - probably criminally under its actual worth but you two are just so convincing, aren't you?
Dark wooden floors, high windows (with thick brocade curtains of course), wrought-iron balcony and fence - it's giving gothic and dark academia but in a homey and warm way
Soft lighting everywhere, lots of candles and candelabra, a fire place of course and oil lanterns that make every room feel warm and cozy
Astarion has impeccable taste and enjoys a bit of decadence (of course) and really finds joy in picking out furniture and decorations - he's going for noble, rich, palace-y, posh vibes, but tasteful
Also Tav would stop him from going overboard - she's not used to all the pompous stuff and cares more about the pracitcality of it all; also she's definitely the one who brings in some plants and greenery; also some nice stuff for Scratch because I'm sure Tav would insist on being the one to keep him
When Tav says she'd rather likes it simple tho... "Simple, love? Everyone can have simple, but not just anyone can have beautiful!" "So... you are not denying that beautiful means more complicated?" "No, but isn't that also why you chose me after all? Because I'm intricately complicated and incredibly beautiful?" Can't argue with that logic
Tav's also focused on making it cozy though and especially creating comfy little corners where they can just lounge together: like a little alcove to sit and read or look out the window or some pillows on the wood floor so you can sit in front of the fire place
There's a chaise-longue somewhere in the house - maybe in the incredibly over-sized dressing room, so Astarion can lay on it and watch Tav dress
DEFINITELY NO MIRRORS - no need to remind Astarion of that particular part of his condition; also why would he need it if you can tell him how beautiful he is everyday?
There's also a piano (as we have learnt before *wink*) and lots of books and trinkets and artworks - Astarion likes all stuff having to do with arts
It might be messy, at least at the beginning, you're both not used to having and holding onto stuff, also Astarion's desperately trying to find himself - that comes with creative chaos
Is there even a need to mention the bed is huge? And also has very much cliché dark red silk sheets? But it's probably the piece of furniture where you spend the most of your nights, not only for mingeling but just sitting and laying there, reading, drawing, talking, teasing each other
Also at some point you'd probably get a joint portrait but you don't want it to be too stiff and regal rather wanting it to show how much joy you give each other
The kitchen is to spoil Tav: when Astarion finds out you enjoy cooking and are pretty skilled at it he gets you all the best equipment he can find - even though you don't know how to use half of it - yet
Oof, I could maybe keep going some more... Thanks for the message, it was fun to think about this. (Also I know I might be swinging between medieval and more victorian vibes but hush, it's a fictional world where everything is possible) Also I knew I wouldn't yet do requests - but really that was just me putting something out there I already thought about. And I'll do some requests soon!
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youraverageaemondsimp · 3 months
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Just mine alone. // Dark!Aemond Targaryen x CommonerMaid!Reader
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MDNI, DD:DNE; reader discretion is heavily advised.
block the tag #MAE:DARK!CONTENT to prevent seeing dark content from me.
based on merged requests, this and this. // divider creds: @cafekitsune
WARNINGS: noncon to dubcon, coercion, power imbalance, unprotected p in v sex, breeding kink (if you squint), tiddy play, nipple play, multiple orgasms, power abuse, status difference, medieval era bullshit, infidelity (kind of, reader is betrothed), jealous aemond, dark!aemond, oral f. receiving. + notproofread.
WC: 1.7k
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You walked inside Prince Aemond's chambers with freshly washed linen sheets, ready to change the coverings as it was your duty as a maid, the prince would usually be out of his room at this time giving you no trouble to finish up your work.
But today, he wasn't.
You were surprised to see him, “My prince?” you question and he turns to face you, eye wide and lips pressed tightly together, almost as if in anger.
“You're getting married?” He questions and you stiffen up, before swallowing thickly, you shift your weight onto your other leg and clutch the sheets tightly to your chest, “My prince i–”
“Drop the act Y/N, there is no one around.” He tells you sternly and you take a deep breath and look behind you, finding the door closed before you once again face him. “Aemond.” You call out his name and his lips twitch.
“Yes? Answer my question.” He demands and you sigh heavily, before nodding, “I am.” you tell him and he scoffs.
“So I don't mean anything to you after all?” He questions, his voice laced with a condescending tone which makes you fidget nervously, “Did all those years mean nothing to you at all? I thought you loved me.” He grits his teeth and that takes you back into the past when you first met him.
He bumped into you when you were both kids, while trying to run from his brother at the street of silk and ended up taking refuge in your house, that's how your friendship first bloomed, securing a friendship with a prince came with many benefits but you did not like to rely on others, so you found work at the red keep as a maid, and thus deepening your friendship furthermore.
As years progressed, you fell in love with him, yet you knew your place and quickly awoke to the harsh reality of both your status difference. You were nothing but a mere commoner, yet he is a prince, so pushed those feelings away and moved on. Even going as far as agreeing to a proposal your parents had arranged for you.
That man wasn't as highborn, yet he owned a bakery while your family owned poultry. This marriage is more of a trading business rather than anything but you had actually met the guy and he is extremely nice and polite, which made you immediately say yes to the proposal.
The only thing you forgot about was Aemond.
It shouldn't matter to him as much right? Then why is he acting as though he was betrayed in a way?
“Answer me!” His voice snaps you out of your memories and you visibly flinch, “What do you mean by the love we shared, Aemond? There was nothing between us.” You furrow your brows in confusion, did Aemond even like you back? “And what made you come to that conclusion?” He strides towards you angrily and you take a few steps back, dropping the sheets on the floor.
He traps you in between himself and the wall before grabbing your face harshly, squeezing your cheeks tightly, “Speak now.” He spits harshly and you begin to tremble, scared at his angry personality. “I- We cannot be together, Aemond. There is a difference in status between you and me.” You tell him and his grip on your cheeks become tighter, “Why does it matter? Why could not have confessed? I love you.” He confesses, which makes you freeze in shock, “Tis’ already too late.” you wheeze out as he finally let goes of your cheeks and stares at you, his eye scans your form up and down before a smirk forms on his face. “Not if I ruin you, if you're already defiled then nobody would want you, you'd be mine forever.” He tells you his horrendous plan which makes you feel terrified. “Aemond, no.” you tell him straight forward but he doesn't listen and presses his lips against yours, and bites your bottom lip, pulling on it harshly, “You're mine, only mine.” He mutters before he notices that specs of blood are beginning to leak from your lips from where he bit it, he licks them up before kissing you once again, hands roaming upwards your body as he gropes you, before squeezing your breast, making you gasp. He uses this as a chance to push his tongue into your mouth, further deepening the kiss.
He grabs you off the wall by your arms and takes you to his bed, gently pushing you onto the mattress, you try to get away but he pushes you back and traps you between his arms, and begins to kiss down your neck, “Fuck, you are mine, always been mine, I can't let anyone have you.” He growls as he undoes the lace of your bodice, pulling it off you. You place your hands on his chest, trying to push him away gently but he grabs your hands and pins them to your sides. “I know you crave it too.” He coos and you swallow thickly, you hate that he is right but you know that no man would want you after this, especially your betrothed, so you try to reject Aemond’s advances yet he doesn't budge.
“Shhh, just let it happen.” He whispers gently, as he let goes of your hands and grabs your skirt, hiking it up, revealing your legs which makes you shiver as feel the cold air bite your thigh, he travels down and let goes of your skirts while grabbing both your thighs, arms wrapping around them and pulling them apart, his warm breath hits your core making you clench around nothing, “You're so divine.” is all he says before he is lapping at your cunt like a wild animal. Your mind becomes hazy as you try to register the pleasure he's giving you, you squeal when you feel him bite your bud, before he continues lapping at it. His tongue prods at your entrance and soon he is tongue fucking you, his nose pressing so perfectly onto your clit, you wondered if he is even able to breath.
You try to protest still, but you are cut off by your own orgasm hitting you, your arch your back while pressing his face further into your cunt at the feeling, he laps at your bud slowly, bringing you off your high gently. He pulls away and trails upwards, weight supporting his hands and you stare at him, taking in how messy he looks, his lips glossy from your essence and his hair messed up.
You hated to admit it but seeing a prince this messy knowing the reason is you makes a spark of arousal to form inside of you.
Before you can process what was happening, Aemond was now kneeling on the mattress as he placed both of your legs on his shoulders before properly positioning himself, his pushed his tip inside slowly, his thickness was practically making you feel as if you are being split open. This caused tears to well up in your eyes and you sniffed, Aemond chuckled meanly, your reaction likely boosted his ego, “Look at you crying, all because of my cock yeah? You look so fucking beautiful.” He grunts, he is now fully inside and unable to hold it back anymore, he begins to thrust at a face pace, giving you no time to adjust and you cry out, “Shhh, sorry I'm sorry okay? I'm sorry.” He mutters over and over again, yet not slowing down, it took a while for the pain to convert into pleasure, and all the while he kept apologising while you whined in pain. He pulls down the bodice to reveal your breasts before he massages them, playing with your nipple and twirling it in between his thumb and index finger, he leans forward, causing your knees to press against your chest, in order to kiss you.
He pulls back stares at your stomach, noticing a slight bulge whenever he thrusts inside of you, and you feel his tip kiss your cervix, causing you to twitch in slight pain.
“Aem ‘s too big— pull back please.” You whine and he actually listens to you and pulls back slightly, the positioning of his tip was now perfectly aligned with your sweet spot, as he repeatedly hit it making you whine and whimper. You knew from the noises he was making that he was near too.
You both peak at the same time, the pleasure washes over you like a tide while he fills you up to the brim, “Fuck fuck fuck, you're squeezing me so tight, your cunt is so desperate for every drop of my seed huh?” He groans.
He stays like that for a while before pulling out, watching as his seed leaks out of you, you lay there frozen as the aftermath of the high occurs and you realise the weight of the situation, aemond just took your maidenhead, in other words, you are soiled.
You think of your betrothed and how you had betrayed him, sobs almost broke out of you but Aemond suddenly flipped you around, making you lay on your stomach and grabbed your waist to pull your power body upwards. “What are you doing–” You are cut off when he spanks you, shrieking at the pain, “You are thinking of that bastard aren't you? Your fucking betrothed.” He questions and your eyes widen, how did he know? “I could tell from your face, seems I need to fuck you dumb enough to forget his name and face.” He replies as though he had heard your thoughts.
You balance yourself on your hands, and turn your head to watch as he lines his cock against your entrance once again before pushing it inside, causing you to arch your back at the stretch. He begins to move again, roughly thrust in and out while his hands gripped your waist, his thighs smacked against yours and the room was starting to reek of sex.
Aemond had lived up to his word, because by the end of it, you had nothing except him on your mind.
You knew there would be repercussions of your actions, but as Aemond ripped peak after peak out of you, you began to care less about them, and let Aemond take you however he wanted.
After all, you belonged to him.
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— !  ݈݇- thank you so much for reading! i hope you enjoyed it <3 comments and reblogs are appreciated greatly ♡
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ja3hwa · 5 months
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♡ 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐓𝐰𝐨 | 𝐒𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐁𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐃𝐫𝐮𝐧𝐤 ♡
【Synopsis】 : The aftermath of Seonghwa ravishing, you had left your thirsty. Good thing whole you wander through the large easte, a grumpy vampire is more than happy to help show you the kitchen. After all, he, too, is thirsty.
『Word count』 : 1.89k
-> Genre: Fantasy. Gore. Suggestive. Mafia au.  
Pairing: Vampire!Yeosang x Reader | Vampire!Seonghwa x Reader [Eventual Poly] 
[Warnings] : Mention of sex. Blood drinking. Kissing. Seonghwa is already whipped for the reader. Nakedness. Pet names. Swearing. Mention of death. Mention of gore scenes involving flesh being ripped from bone by teeth. (whoops) Blood drinking. Yeosang is a grumpy boy. Modern meets medieval
Part One | Masterlist | Mini Series Materlist | Navigation
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564 years later
Music infected the brain making it hard to hear your own thoughts. Liquor was everywhere. From the mouths of the drunk to the floor of the poor bar. Night clubs were where singles could find a chance to walk home with another and takens to hide their love affairs. It was sickening, to say the least. People throwing themselves at each other, hands falling to parts of the body only the private eye should take advantage of. Guess the saying "think with your dick" was invented at a club because all everyone does here is just that.
Yeosang sat quietly in the VIP lounge, sipping his drink while closely watching his entertainment for the evening. A piss poor excuse for humanity. He regrets agreeing to this ordeal now. Why couldn't San be the watchman or even Wooyoung? They love to spend time around humans. Especially when they get to drink off them. Yeosang was not the same. The idea of partying or drinking from a filthy human's neck, it scream disease in this era...
The thought makes Yeosang cringe. Have you ever tasted the flavour of a sexual disease in blood? It’s not pleasant. Bitter, tangy, and downright vial. Like tasting death. But alas no matter how much Yeosang pleaded his pain to the older males, they declined saying ‘We need you there tonight. Everyone else has their duties, now do yours’. Yeosang huffs reminding himself he needs to kill San and Wooyoung the next time he sees them.
His eyes wandered aimlessly at the passing face. One of his jobs here was not just to see who entered the club but to also do some side deals, moving drugs, importing expensive alcohol. You name it. So of course that means he had to deal with humans. Typical drunk humans. Typical horny drunk humans. Typical…. “Wait….” Yeosang cut off the cowardly man in front of him with the raise of his finger. His eyes locked on to a young woman dressed in black sitting at his bar. She was nursing a drink while another woman in a tight skimpy dress had caught her attention. They seemed to be chatting about something. More like yelling at one another but that was beside the point. The girl in black looked so familiar like he had met her before, a long time ago.
You shifted slightly, feeling an ache on your upper thighs. Your eyes were hazy, trying to look around the dim room. You felt a weight on your waist, making it hard to move. Your head turned to the side seeing Seonghwa’s peaceful face. You could still see some of your blood stained on his bottom lip. A tingle surged against your neck, reminding you about the small wound on it. Hwa hadn’t full-on bit you like vampires would normally do to their prey but the idea still lingered on your mind. He was a beast that had fed from you, slept with you and you like it? Something must be wrong with you.
“I can feel you staring at me.” His voice was deeper, more gravelled. It sent shivers down your spine. But you didn’t know how to answer, so instead, you leaned in closer, sealing your lips on his. He gladly took them, deepening the sensual yet passionate kiss. It didn’t last as long as Seonghwa would have liked though, as you pulled away you spoke softly.
“I’m going to go get a drink.” You shifted once again but this time, pulling away from Hwa’s bare body. He whined in the loss of your warmth but you just giggled reassuring him you wouldn’t be long.
“Are you sure you don’t need me to go with you? It’s still sunny out. No one will be awake other than our workers.” He yawned clearly still in rest mode. Once again you eased his mind by saying if you needed help you’re sure one of the workers would help. And as you finished chatting to a sleepy Seonghwa while putting on your sleepwear, you left, slowly making your way down the hall. It might been dim inside but the sun was slinking its way in through some of the curtains as you passed them. One by one, until you reached the end of the seemingly never-ending hallway. It dawned on you that maybe you should have taken Seonghwa’s advice about him going with you or maybe just asked him which direction was the kitchen.
Huffing out, you place your hands on either side of your hips, trying to think about where it could possibly be but your thoughts don’t last long as a tall man with thick biceps and slicked back hair that seemed to have a slight tinge of green in it appeared suddenly. He was very handsome, just like the others and the minute he closed the door behind him he knew you were in the all with him. A low grumble surged through him, making the vibrations disturb the ground, shocking its way up your legs. H was intimidating but you weren’t scared. If anything you felt safer with the idea of creatures like him roaming around, making you aware no human from your village and by that you mean your mother, would have no second thought in coming to the ruined castle.
“Wooyoung was right, you do have a staring problem.” His sharp voice made your heart sting a little. He seemed uninterested in you compared to the others. Which you didn’t mind but part of you wanted to know why? What made him feel different?
“I uh…” He had caught you so suddenly, that you probably looked like a deer in headlights from his perspective which made a sly smile paint his god-like features.
“Cat got your tongue, human?” He made it painfully aware to you that he was no mortal like you, showing off his fangs in the smile. His eyes were glowing and he was clearly not in the mood for small talk. Taking a few steps, he was suddenly in front of you. You could finally take in some details noting he was still wearing outing clothes instead of sleepwear. It only then dawned on you, that he was either Hongjoong or Yeosang. The vampires you hadn’t met yet. his smirk faded quickly, huffing out a shallow breath. He took one last step in front of you, chest to chest to him. Letting you feel his breath on your cheek, your heart started racing. You could smell death around him as if he had been hunting recently. His eyes staring at you harshly, such a familiar gaze. And then you realized as you noticed some of the blood stains sticking out from his undershirt who he was…
“Y-You are the one I saw last night. The one that bit…” Your voice was slacked and shaky, with your eyes wide. His pupils were blown out, with his iris’s changing from a brown to a deep red. His fingers dance along your exposed collarbone, dragging up over the already healed where Seonghwa had pricked you a couple of hours ago.
“Oh no, Pet…” His chuckle was dark, seductive. “I ripped his jugular out.” His words made your breath hitch, imagining long teeth shredding flesh down to the bone against Lucas’s neck. His face tilted down towards your neck, rubbing his nose against your skin. “He tasted fowl, tainted. I’m surprised if he lasts the day.” his tongue licked a stripe up your hot neck, taking in your scent.
“He’s still alive?” Again with the stupid questions. Did you even care about knowing? Why would you want to know about the life of a guy who could have done such terrible things to you?
“For now…” He pulled away with a groan, his hands holding your waist. “Sadly Hongjoong had patched him enough so if he is…'strong', then I guess he’ll live.” It fell silent for a moment, you had no idea how to respond. So he was Yeosang and from what you’ve heard, he was known for having a temper. “Enough about him. I’m more interested in why Hwa didn’t bite you properly. Hmm? All that talk about being your first for everything and oh I mean everything. Yet he didn’t drink from you?”
Your face was flustered at his words. Seonghwa wanted to be your first in everything. How long have these men been watching you? You gulped, not breaking eye contact with the vampire. His lip was sucking in tightly between his teeth, taking in yet another deep breath, as if he needed to get your scent in his system to live. “I guess he wouldn’t mind if I took the offer.”
Your eyes widened, feeling his grip tighten on your hips. One hand freed itself, snaking out to the back of your neck, pulling your head to the side sharply. You hissed at his forcefulness but did not dare to voice any such uncomfortableness, not wanting him to push away from your aching body. He didn’t waste another breath, not caring whether you even wanted this or not, licking a strip along your main vein before his long sharp fangs sank into your soft flesh.
“Y-Yeo…” You squirmed against him, the pain was nothing like you experienced before. It wasn’t a burning pain like a broken bone or a sprained ligament but a dizzy pain. One that is mixed with pleasure, or euphoric notions. You felt like your brain was in the clouds, untouched, protected. His grip got tighter, the hand that held your hip was now wrapped around your middle, caging you in his tight grasp. Your fingers dig into his shoulders, pulling at his tunic. His groans rumbled in your ears, making your core wet.
He finally pulled back, blood pouring down his chin, staining his button-up and neck. His groans were music to your ears, the velvet vocals melting your brain. “Fuck pet, if I’d kept going I’d drink you dry. I’ve never tasted such sweetness.” He lapped at your wounds, cleaning any blood that had spilled out down your collarbone. The air seemed thinner to you, while your heart was racing, trying to pump more blood in you from the large amount you had just lost. “I wonder if other parts of you hold such palatableness.”
You had no clue the meaning behind his rambles, but if they meant anything like Seonghwa’s charming words, you soon realized where it makes you end up. He finally lets go of your head, your neck completely clean to the best of his abilities. Sadly he couldn’t say the same about your pj’s. one a nice baby blue, now covered in crimson. Your head was dizzy but no longer just from the loss of blood but more so from the intoxicating undead beast holding your caringly. Your body was yearning for him, like some sickness, wanting nothing other than these vampiric men. Not one, not two, but all of them.
Yeosang couldn’t control his feet, weaving quickly through the crowd, trying to get to the hypnotic woman sitting at the bar, but as he finally pushed the last drunk pig of a human past him, the woman was gone. He stood there for a moment, in disbelief. Was he dreaming? Was he losing his mind? Becoming unattached from the world? Raking his fingers through his hair he sighed out a frustrating growl, needing to contact someone. Holding his finger in his ear and the phone to the other, he searched through his contacts, but no one seemed to answer not until one did, “Jongho I think I just saw her…”
-♡
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wordstome · 5 months
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kingdom come - iii
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king König x princess & assassin reader
2nd person, no y/n, she/her pronouns, afab reader, romance, enemies to lovers, arranged marriage, kind of age gap because König has been king for a good chunk of time but it's not really much of a factor, fantasy/medieval setting
7.7k words
tw: explicit smut, animal death, mentions of child death, violence, mild body horror, ableist language (use of the word "cripple")
[PREVIOUS] [NEXT]
"I'm not going to sleep with you." -quote from woman who is about to sleep with him
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There’s a portrait of a woman in your room.
Of course, König offered to have it removed or replaced, but you’ve procrastinated the decision because you never thought you would be here long enough for it to matter. Yet here you are, staring up at this lovely young woman on the wall.
You tilt your head, studying her. Her expression is neutral, almost pensive, but the artist captured a playful sparkle in her eyes, as if she’s keeping some sweet secret.
It’s the first queen, of course. König’s first wife. The one who died many years ago. It’s strange that after so long, he hasn’t gotten rid of the portrait.
What happened to you? you wonder. If someone had asked what you thought when you first arrived here, you would have said, without hesitation, that König had her killed. All your life, you had been taught that he and his father were evil, unfeeling tyrants. Now, this conviction has wavered.
You keep trying to tell yourself that it’s ridiculous, to be thinking better of his character. You only ever wanted to know him better to kill him. But the more you understand about what makes him tick, the less you think that he would do such a thing. Perhaps it’s true, then, that she died in childbirth.
Your eyes travel all over the portrait, poring over every detail of her features. Did you know him? Did you understand him? Did you love him?
Did he love you?
What did that feel like?
“Good. You haven’t left yet.” Calliope comes into the room, bustling with energy even before the sun comes up. You don’t know how she does it.
“We’re about to.”
“That’s why I’m here.” You notice she’s wearing gloves, but more importantly, she’s holding a necklace: a silvery chain with a small, intricate pendant. Vine-shaped pieces of metal hold a white, almost clear jewel in place, its various facets reflecting the candlelight in vivid colors.
“Jewelry? I’m going to be living in the woods for the next few weeks,” you tease as she lowers the necklace over your head. It does look quite durable, but you’re not exactly dressing for a costume ball here.
“Consider it a reminder that I await your safe return,” Calliope responds, securing the necklace behind your neck. “Look at it and remember me. You’re not to do anything reckless out there, am I understood?”
“Understood.” You give her a soft smile as she arranges the necklace on your collarbones. You’re grateful for the gift: though she can’t come with you, a small piece of her will always remain with you.
“Good. And don’t let that handsome husband of yours distract you and get yourself killed.”
“Calliope! What happened to ‘something’s not right with him’?”
“That doesn’t mean he isn’t handsome!”
You snort and roll your eyes, but there’s a smile on your face.
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You used to think that living in König’s home already exposed you to an exhausting amount of the man. As it turns out, going on a journey with him is even worse.
There’s nobody else to talk to, nowhere to run or put distance between you two when he frustrates you. It’s not so bad for the first few days: the towns surrounding the capital are still populated enough to provide some respite from him. But once the two of you have made your way outside the bounds of civilization, it doesn’t take long for things to become stilted and awkward.
“You’ve been awfully quiet since we left the last town.”
“I don’t feel talkative.”
“Really? I’m out of my mind with boredom right now. Come, you’re not in the mood to get to know each other a little?”
You give him a look. “What else is there to know? I’ve lived with you for several months.”
“But we don’t talk.” König nudges his horse to walk closer to yours. König is such a large man, his horse is massive too: comically so, next to your normal one. You let out a sigh.
“There’s nothing to know about me.”
“I doubt that. All I know about you is you’re a princess trained to be an assassin. ‘Your whole life’, according to yourself,” he says with a touch of mocking.
You purse your lips, determined not to let him get under your skin. “There’s nothing else to know.”
“Truly? Nothing about what you like?”
“What do you mean?”
“Like…your favorite food. Or hobby.”
“Hobby? …I suppose I spend a lot of time at target practice.”
“That’s not a hobby.”
“It’s relaxing to hone my skills.”
He gives you an amused look. “You remind me of myself as a young man.”
Something about that irks you. “We’re nothing alike.”
“I used to have the same mindset as you, at least. I held one objective in my mind and didn’t seek purpose outside of it.”
“I…”
As much as you loathe to admit it, he’s right. You have been focused on one objective your whole life. If you probe deeper, you can’t remember having any friends outside of Calliope, nor any interests outside of the curriculum your father set for you. “It wasn’t as bleak as you seem to think it was.”
“Oh?”
“It’s not like I never had fun. I had my own way of finding it.”
“Such as?”
“Well, when my training progress stalled, I’d be sent to bed without dinner. Naturally. I eventually learned how to climb out of my window at night and go foraging in the woods for something to eat.” A smile curls your lips as you reminisce. “Eventually I even worked my way up to hunting—little things, like squirrels. I spent many a cozy little evening cooking for myself over a fire.”
You turn to find an abject look of horror on König face. “What? What’s wrong? Is there danger?” You turn around to scan your surroundings, but nothing immediately jumps out at you.
“No. No danger. I just…he sent you to bed with an empty stomach so many times you learned how to crawl out of your room and hunt squirrels to eat?”
You blink at him. “You’ve never had squirrel before?”
He looks scandalized. “Of course I have! That is not the issue with what you just said.”
You shrug. “It was important discipline. Besides, it gave me hunting experience at a young age. Squirrels are hard to skin, but I could do it in twelve seconds flat if you gave me one now.”
König looks like he wants to say more, but instead he looks up at the sky. “We should make camp soon.”
“Is it that time already?”
“It needs to be set up before it gets dark. We should also start hunting while it’s light out—not all of us can catch things in the dark, squirrel-girl.”
“Hey!”
Later, you’re both chewing on a rabbit when he speaks.
“You know, when you said you wanted to travel with me, I was quite concerned.”
“Yes, I know. You didn’t think I was capable of handling myself.”
“Not just that. I was worried you would be…unaccustomed to living rough.”
“You thought I would be a spoiled princess.”
“I wouldn’t have put it that way, but yes.”
You snort. “Well, now you know. I can handle myself in the outdoors.” You toss the rabbit bones you’ve just picked clean into a small hole dug into the dirt. When you leave, you’ll cover it with dirt to prevent predators from smelling the remains and following you on your journey.
“You want the other leg?” you ask. König seems startled, for some reason.
“You caught this one.”
“Yes, but you’re bigger than me. You need the food.” You reach up to pluck a leaf from a nearby tree and wipe your hands. Rabbits sure are greasy…
There’s a strange look in König’s eye as he regards you. You raise an eyebrow at him in response. “What?”
“…nothing.” He reaches for the rabbit while you shrug and walk off to find some water. The back of your neck prickles as you go, as if his stare is physically touching you.
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You can’t stand to be near him nowadays, and you don’t know why.
Of course, you have no choice but to. There’s a tension that feels weighty, forbidden. You know he can tell, because he’s been more cautious around you, giving you as much space as he can afford to. Somehow, that irritates you even more.
Tonight, the two of you are camping in a dense, thick part of the forest not far from a road. It’s quiet, secluded: even the usual soundscape of ambient animal noises is silent.
The fire crackles and pops as you stare into the flames, as if you’ll find any answers in it. Instead, the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end as König returns from washing himself in a nearby stream, approaching you from behind.
“This won’t work if you’re constantly upset with me for some unknown reason.”
You don’t turn to look at him, though some invisible force compels you. “Why? Because it makes you uncomfortable?”
“I’m worried about your comfort too, you know. If you just told me what I’ve done wrong, then we can resolve it before it breeds resentment.”
“I’m just stressed.” Everything he does or says seems to irritate you nowadays, but you know in your heart of hearts that it’s not his fault. It’s your own problem—you assume camping outdoors for so long has taken its toll on your psyche.
He frowns at you, but doesn’t pry any further. You can’t help but watch as he walks around to the other side of the fire, drying his hair with his shirt. God, he is a work of art: all chiseled muscles and glowing skin. Your eyes travel down his torso, drawn by the line of his abs, down to the happy trail leading to the slightly askew waist of his trousers.
“You’re drooling, princess.”
Your eyes snap back up to his face. His eyes are dancing with mirth as he realizes he’s just caught you ogling him. You make a face at him, but it only makes him laugh. “Was not.”
“Incorrect answer. You should have attempted to strike at my ego. Now I know you were looking.”
“I think I’m just being driven mad by spending so much time alone with you in the woods.”
“I know several ways to drive you mad, sweetling.”
You slouch against a tree, your face hot—and not from the fire. In a blink, he’s standing before you, with a gleeful expression on his face like he’s just discovered a cure for dropsy.
“I know what’s making you sour as vinegar. You need to be fucked.”
You bury your face in your hands, unable to look at him. “I thought we had moved past this,” you groan, trying to ignore your rapidly quickening heartbeat.
“What, your ever-growing carnal lust for me?”
“You being a pervert.”
“I’ve never made a secret of it. You, however…” You suck in a startled breath as he leans down, trapping you against the tree just like he had the day you sparred with him. “You’ve been denying yourself.”
Your breath is ragged as he looks you in the eye, the tension between the two of you as taut as a bowstring. A familiar sense of panic rises in you, the same way you feel every time he’s close to you like this. Before, you thought it was because it felt dangerous to be so close to your enemy. Now, you’re second-guessing yourself.
“So what if I have?” you mumble.
“There’s an easy way to fix that.”
“…The last time you had me in this position, you were threatening me.”
He tilts his head slightly, a wicked gleam in his eye. “You don’t feel threatened now?”
You don’t respond immediately, and heavens forbid, he takes it as hesitancy, his demeanor instantly transforming. “One word. One word, and we will never speak of this again. But if you tell me you want this, I will fuck you senseless.”
“Yes,” you whisper, and his lips on are on yours.
It’s a strange sensation, considering half of your mouth is pressed against the cold, smooth surface of his mask. You don’t even ask him about removing it—it’s become a part of him in your mind. And maybe part of you even finds the mystery of it alluring.
You all but melt into the kiss, against him. It’s different, everything is different than that first awkward kiss from when you were younger. It makes you ache, makes you long for him in a way you’ve never wanted someone before.
You have to separate to breathe, but your reluctance to break apart from him is clear by the way you chase his face with yours. He laughs at you, but it’s not condescending at all. It settles in your chest, warm like honey.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” you murmur.
“Luckily for you, you’re in good hands.” It’s the cockiness in his voice that does you in, what makes you let go and give yourself over to him.
You feel flustered, awkward, and like the least desirable creature on earth, but he looks at you like he wants to devour you. Like there’s nothing else he wants more than to have you right now.
“You can trust me,” he says softly. You try to respond, but suddenly find you’ve gone mute. All you can manage is a small nod.
To your surprise, he lowers his mouth to your neck. You gasp, a full-body shiver running through you as he kisses you there, sucking and nipping at you as he goes. “W-wait, I’m—”
“Sensitive? I can tell.” You squeak as he continues to lavish you with attention, his fingers trailing down the front of your torso to undo your pants. His movements are deliberate but slow, giving you plenty of opportunity to stop him. But of course, you don’t.
You let out a quick little breath as he finds his way to your pussy, his deep chuckle reverberating against your throat. “You’re so wet…did I do that to you, liebling?”
You’re about to respond, but instead let out a sharp gasp as he dips a finger into your pussy. “How are you ever going to take me into this tight little hole of yours…” he taunts.
Oh, God, you hadn’t even thought about that. Your mind flashes back to your wedding night, and the first time you tried to kill him. You had mostly been shocked by his audacity, but only now do you recall how big he had felt between your thighs.
He’s gentle with you at first, patiently stretching you open as you whine and beg in his arms. You just about sob when he finally pays your clit attention, circling it with his thumb, and in what seems like no time at all, you’re cumming, hard.
“That didn’t take long at all,” he says with that awful smirk of his.
“Th-that’s not fair,” you stammer. “You know…”
“I’m only teasing you.” He presses a quick kiss to your forehead as you come down, shivering with pleasure.
He makes you cum twice with just his hand. Your legs are trembling by the time the two of you properly get undressed. You’re soft and pliable, helpless putty in his hands as he lines the tip of his cock at your entrance.
“Ready, liebe?” he asks.
“That is not going to fit,” you say, eyes wide and fearful. There’s absolutely no way, you think, staring down the absurdly thick and long monster between his legs.
“Trust me, remember? We’ll take it slow,” he reassures you. You bite your lip and nod, giving him the go-ahead to sink into you.
Instantly, you realize that no matter how well König could have prepared you, there was no chance that it would have been enough to ready you for the stretch of him. You feel like you can hardly breathe as he splits you in half with his cock, your mouth dropping open in a wordless cry.
“Fuck, you are tight,” he groans, but he keeps his promise to go slow, feeding himself inch by inch inside you until he’s sitting snug up against your cervix.
The two of you stay there, suspended in a moment in time, connected to each other in the most intimate way two people can be. It makes your head spin, makes you dizzy with the sensation of his body pressed against yours.
You nod, and he starts to move.
If you had thought before that his fingers felt good inside you, then his cock is something else. The delicious stretch of him is almost electrifying, and you wonder how you went all your life without it.
All you can do is let him take control—you don’t have the presence mind to do anything but hold onto him, gasping and moaning. He’s all around you, above you, inside you, and it feels like nothing else in the world matters, or that there is a world other than König, König, König.
Your third orgasm surprises you, waves of pleasure flowing through you as you cry out, your pussy sucking him in as if it wants him to stay inside forever. That’s what seemingly pushes him over the edge too, a string of expletives bursting from him as he floods you with his cum.
You’re limp and weak, all but purring as he shifts to lay next to you and pulls you into his chest.
“You are sweet when underneath me like this,” he purrs.
You swat him in the chest, but it must feel no heavier than being hit by a branch, because he just laughs.
“There’s no reason to be shy now. I’ve seen everything at this point.” You pout at him—something that only seems to bring him delight, because he pulls you in for a kiss.
“This isn’t how I wanted to take you the first time,” he says, a hint of shame in his tone.
Your heart twinges with affection. This isn’t how you imagined your first time, either, but the idea of him wanting you so badly he thought about it beforehand, fantasized about it even…“I’ve slept in trees before, this is nothing,” you reassure him.
He shoots you a concerned look. “You continue to share alarming events from your childhood.”
You sleep together that night, curled up against him with your legs tangled with his. He falls asleep first, the slight rumble of his chest as he sleeps against your cheek. You lay awake a little while longer, watching him, breathing him in. Now, you have no choice but to be confronted with the truth that you’ve been refusing to acknowledge this whole time.
You don’t hate him anymore. You don’t even dislike him now. And you certainly don’t want to kill him.
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On one hand, things are easier. Crossing the line feels more like having torn down a wall, with no more need for pretense. On the other, König is somehow even more insufferable than before. Or perhaps insatiable is a better word for it. You go from having daily sexual tension with him to daily sex, period.
It’s like the floodgates have opened. He’s always loved to tease you, but it gets a hundred times worse now that he knows just how to make your cheeks feel warm.
“I was thinking…” he muses one night as you cuddle by the fire. “You may have to start riding on my horse.”
“Don’t I already do that?” you ask, sleepily playing with his hair.
He snorts. “Your susceptibility to my corrupting influence is truly something to marvel at.”
“You’ve been enacting psychological warfare on me for months.”
“Anyhow, as I was saying.”
“Your horse is quite large, but I don’t think it could handle me astride it as well.”
“Well. Certainly something else that’s large could handle that…”
You sigh. “Get to the point.”
“It’s becoming quite distracting, watching you moving up and down with the horse’s stride.”
“I cannot believe you. Innuendos twice in a row?”
“This is a legitimate grievance!”
“Riding on your horse would not fix the problem. Unless you plan for me to sit behind you in the saddle, which I refuse to do.”
“You’re no fun.”
You lean forward to kiss the corner of his mouth instead of responding.
Your newfound…activity, however pleasingly distracting, can’t eclipse what comes next.
The mood is somber as you arrive in the village: it’s a quiet, sleepy place, just a scattering of simple houses dotting rolling hills and one singular street lined with buildings in the center of it all.
In sharp contrast to his playful, almost jubilant mood on the road with you, König instantly snaps into his authoritative persona. It especially suits him when he puts on the hood: it makes him seem that much more intimidating and threatening. Almost inhuman.
The first order of business is to hold counsel with what passes for the leader in this tiny village: a local merchant patriarch. He’s a sturdy man in his older years, face lined with both wrinkles and scars. He must have been quite the warrior when he was young: you can tell by the way he carries himself.
He gives both of you the lay of the land, and it’s a grim predicament indeed. Herding the livestock is a job most often given to the children, as it’s a relatively safe job with less skill required than the tasks the adults take care of. That’s changed, of course, with the arrival of the beast a few weeks ago. He confirms the most gruesome details that have been brought before König by previous messengers, and it turns your stomach just to imagine it. Those poor children…
The two of you set off early the next morning, with directions from an experienced hunter who had been keeping track of the beast and reporting its movements. At first, it feels normal: just another walk in the woods with König. The solemn silence between the two of you serves as a stark reminder that this isn’t like normal—followed promptly by increasing signs of a presence in the woods. Snapped branches, giant pawprints, and worse, streaks of blood.
Then you break though into a clearing, and your blood runs cold.
The beast before you could only be described as a wolf for lack of a better descriptor. It’s monstrously large, being König’s height and half again, with all of its proportions just slightly wrong: its legs scrawny and just slightly too long for its body, the snout lean and far too sharp to fit the rest of its head. Dried old blood crusted into the fur of its muzzle and chest belies the savagery of the creature, even streaking onto the fur along its neck. And the most obvious tell-tale sign of an unnatural creature is that fur: a dark, rusty blue that shifts with impossible pinpricks of light, like the night sky is ensnared in this feral animal’s coat.
You heard its growl before you saw it. But now when it lays eyes on you and König, it opens its snout and…speaks.
“What do we have here?” The voice comes out as a broken, reedy croak, as if stretching vocal cords that haven’t been used in a long time.
Something about it raises your hackles, like your body’s responding to an ancient, ingrained fear. Fae.
“Don’t listen to anything it says.” König’s voice is suddenly soft, dangerous. “None of it is trustworthy.” Slowly, deliberately, his hand moves to his back and draws his sword.
“Ah, the boy king,” hisses the beast. “You simply couldn’t help yourself, could you?”
“You’re eating my subjects,” König responds. Your eyes flit to where his hand tightens its grip on his sword. “This is not personal.”
“But it always is, is it not?” The beast and König circle each other, like two combatants in an arena. “You are as ever driven by your past mistakes.”
“König, what is it talking about?” You feel like you’re witnessing a conversation you shouldn’t be, but you feel helpless to do anything about it. If you tried to make a move towards the beast now, it would have its jaws snapped around you in an instant.
“It’s lying, liebling. It’s what they do. It’s trying to throw you for a loop so it can catch you off guard.”
“Liebling now, is it?” The beast lets out an awful, barking laugh. “My, the two of you have come far. But not far enough, it seems.”
König gives you a quick, sidelong glance, then tilts his head back towards the beast. The message is clear. We need to distract it. I’ll keep it talking.
“From her response, it seems you’ve been keeping secrets from your lovely little bride.” The beast shakes itself, its fur puffing up to look larger and more intimidating.
“There’s nothing to keep. None of that is important.”
“I would beg to differ. And if your liebling knew what it was, she would disagree as well.”
“You know nothing about us,” König growls. Yes, you’re in a life-or-death situation right now, but the viciousness in his tone sends an excited shiver up your spine. You’re opposite König now, almost completely hidden behind the beast’s monstrous form.
“You know nothing about each other!” Before either of you can react, the beast whips around. Its glowing-white eyes are fixed on you. “Not that it matters any longer.”
You barely have time to scream before the beast is upon you.
“No!” König’s voice rings in your ears. You can feel the creature’s hot breath, its vile drool spilling onto your clothes, its teeth closing around your neck—
Time slows to a crawl, the events unfolding one after the other in sequence. The first thing you’re aware of is the beast’s roar of pain, booming deafeningly all around you. I’m inside its mouth, you think numbly. The second thing you notice is your necklace: it’s glowing red, as if the metal has become molten hot. But you don’t feel any burning sensation, just a faint tingle.
The third thing you see is König shoving himself between the two halves of the beast’s snout, physically holding it open with his body.
It’s truly an impressive sight, like watching Atlas hold up the sky. For a brief moment, all you can do is stare up at him in awe.
“What are you doing?! Get out!” he yells, and you snap back to your senses.
You roll aside out of the beast’s range, scrambling to get back on your feet. König dodges out of the way just as the jaws snap shut.
“Is that..?” the thing wheezes. You rush to help König up as it glares balefully at you. Its beady eyes focus on the pendant around your neck, narrowing in disgust.
“Calliope,” it spits. “I should have known. This bears marks of your meddling all over.”
Your blood runs cold. “What did you just say?” What does your lady in waiting have to do with this?
“You—” The beast doesn’t get a chance to finish its sentence, because König takes advantage of its consternation to stick his sword into its neck. The creature bellows in pain and lunges at König, who barely manages to dodge the strike but loses his grip on his sword in the process. The monstrous animal whips around and around, attempting to grab hold of the sword with its teeth.
“Strike, now!” König calls before promptly getting clocked in the head with the pommel of his own sword as the beast thrashes and screams.
You don’t hesitate to spring into action, unsheathing a wicked-sharp blade as long as your forearm and sprinting towards the creature. König’s left you a perfect opening: as long as the beast is trying to get ahold of the sword, its chest is wide open for attack.
You don’t waste the opportunity. With the running start, you leap forward, sinking the blade into the wolf’s chest, right where its heart lies. The long, keening wail that the beast lets out is confirmation that your blade has struck true.
You have to throw yourself into a roll to get out of the way before the massive body crashes down on top of you. It lies on the ground, its heaving breaths growing shallower by the moment, its wounds staining the ground with a faintly shimmering golden ichor. So the fae do have golden blood, just like the old legends said, you think, watching the macabre scene with stunned terror.
“Brought low by two fae-touched mortals with barely a fight…” the beast huffs. It sounds weary and resigned to its fate, strange for a creature that had seemed so deadly and menacing just moments before. “Fate is cruel.”
“Fae-touched…what do you mean?” you ask, eyes widening. “Wait! What do you mean by that?!”
The beast doesn’t respond, its chest now hardly moving with its breaths. It’s not long for the world, now.
Behind the hulking, dying animal, you spot König staggering into a standing position. “König!” You gather yourself and rush towards him.
He’s visibly unstable on his feet, swaying slightly and looking dazed. The sword must have hit him hard, because his hood has been partially torn away. Despite everything, though, you can’t see any visible blood or injuries from this angle. Until he turns.
A bloodcurdling scream tears its way out of your throat. König cringes slightly at the sound, but you can’t help yourself. The sight is terrifying.
The skin above one half of his mouth is simply gone. He has no lip, not even any flesh up to his nose. His upper teeth and gums on one half of his mouth are just exposed, giving him a grim, unnatural appearance. He looks like Death itself, resembling the skeletal depictions in the manuscripts.
You should be afraid—scratch that, you are afraid. But you realize quickly your fear is not of him, but for him.
“Did it do this to you?!” you say, panicking. You dash forward and grab ahold of his face, turning it so you can examine the injury more closely. The act seems to startle König, who simply looks down at you in confusion.
“What are we going to do? There’s no way this village has a healer who could dress this wound…” you fret. An injury on this level is almost certainly a death sentence if he doesn’t receive adequate attention immediately, and he certainly won’t last the night if you’re forced to travel by horseback again—
“Schatzi…” König grabs your hands with his and removes them from his face. “I’m fine.”
You stare at him in shock for a moment. “You—how can—you—”
He heaves a heavy sigh, as if a massive burden has been placed on his shoulders. “I’m alright. The wound is…not new.”
“How can it not be new.”
König screws his eyes shut for a moment as if trying to gather his composure. “It’s been this way since I was young. Look,” he says, touching the area with a finger. “There’s no blood.”
On closer inspection, you realize he’s right: not only is there no blood, but the skin around his mouth and nose appear to be completely healed. And not even as if it were a true wound: there’s no scarring, no uneven flesh. The skin and muscle are simply…missing.
“What…how…” You’re at a total loss for words. Since he was young? What happened? How had he survived such an injury as a child? You have a million questions, but you find yourself unable to ask any of them.
You watch him, stunned, as he walks past you towards the beast’s body. It lays completely still now, all semblance of life having fled from the corpse. With one hand on the grip and one foot braced against the beast’s body, he wrenches his sword free, then bends to pull your knife out.
“I know you must have questions,” he says, wiping the blood off of both weapons onto the wolf’s fur with a grimace, “but I can’t answer them here. Please, if I promise to explain, will you…will you wait until we’ve left the village?” He turns to look at you beseechingly.
“I…” Now that the adrenaline and initial panic is beginning to fade, your whole body feels heavy and exhausted. You don’t have the energy to be angry, or afraid, or demand an explanation now. You have no choice but to agree, nodding quietly. König seems relieved at your calm response.
“So that’s why you always wear a mask or a hood,” you say numbly as you watch him take the ruined hood off, shaking his head to get the hair out of his face. He gives you a sad, regretful look.
“I didn’t mean for you to find out this way.”
“Did you mean for me to find out at all?”
“I never meant for anyone to find out.”
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The villagers throw a celebration. A modest one, to be sure, but the relief on the peoples’ faces is enough of a reward for you. You can tell König is glad to see it as well—though every time you look at his face, hidden once more behind his mask, you feel a twinge in your heart as you remember what lies underneath it.
You can’t find it in yourself to enjoy the celebrations, even as excited children and grateful parents swarm you to give their thanks. You give them all a smile and a kind word, but that’s all you can manage. Dread and curiosity mix to form a terrible feeling in your gut.
The days between your defeat of the beast and your departure go by in a blur. You’re grateful for the rest, but you can’t stop thinking, worrying, about König’s condition. You manage to stop being petrified that he’s going to drop dead of infection at any moment, but you can’t look at him anymore without thinking about it. About the secret that he’s kept from you, from everyone who’s ever met him. You can’t even wrap your mind around what it all means. You have no point of reference for what could have happened to your husband’s face.
Husband. What a strange thing, to be wed to someone whose full face you had only seen a few days ago, months into your marriage. You haven’t thought of him like that at all. He’s always been König: the king, the enemy, the annoyance. And your lover, you suppose. For the first time, you start to wonder exactly what kind of man you’ve bound yourself to.
Because it’s exceedingly clear to you now. You can’t kill this man. Not just because you don’t want to anymore, but because he might be unkillable.
The village hasn’t yet vanished in the distance behind the two of you when you speak. “What the hell?”
König’s eyes slide to you, then back to the road ahead. “Language.”
You sputter in indignation. “Lang—that’s not what I want to hear!”
“Forgive me. I couldn’t resist.”
“König, this is serious! You promised an explanation.”
“I know what I promised,” he says, a slight edge creeping into his voice.
“Well?”
König takes as deep breath. Inhale, exhale.
Then he begins.
“Well. What do we have here? You’re awfully young for this, little prince.”
He’s fourteen. He’s about to make a decision that will shape the rest of his life.
He had done as the crone’s old tome instructed. Bone from an animal slain in its youth. Flowers bloomed under the cover of pitch black night. A blade whet on the summoner’s own flesh. He’s knelt under the light of the full moon, round and blindingly white.
The ethereal creature standing before him is easily twice his height, with an unearthly glow to their skin and hair and a smile that could almost be mistaken for kind and benevolent on their unnaturally beautiful face.
He’s done it. He’s summoned a fae.
With no small amount of difficulty, he rises to his feet, leaning heavily on the cane that helps him walk. The fae lets out a noise of amusement as they watch the young boy struggle.
“Usually, mortals don’t gamble away their lives until they’re older, and greed begins to dictate their actions.”
He glares at the fae but doesn’t respond.
“Come, now. Do not look at me so. Give me your name, little prince.”
“…you may call me König.”
The fae’s expression sharpens, ever so slightly. “Clever boy. ‘König’…don’t you think you’re getting a bit ahead of yourself?”
“I want to make a deal.”
The fae sighs. “Straight to the point, I see. Well, I can’t fault your efficiency. Or is it desperation?” They smirk at him, their eyes taking the rest of him in. He knows he must make for a pathetic sight: a cripple with a harelip, spine curled and legs thin and spindly.
He doesn’t care. This is the last day he will ever be this pathetic.
“Let me guess. You wish to no longer be a cripple.”
“I want to be able bodied. I want to be strong enough to defeat my enemies. I want to be rid of my harelip.” Clear, concise language. He’s spoken these words to himself in the mirror countless times.
“You’ve certainly done your research. Then you know what price I will ask for such things.”
He swallows nervously. “Yes.”
“Very well then. Let us begin.”
It starts in his toes, the strange sensation that flows up through him that he will know all his days. He can feel the strength rushing into his limbs, feel his spine straightening, withered muscles coming to life.
Then comes the pain.
It’s white-hot torment, as if his body has become a living coal. He falls to the ground again, screaming and writhing as his bones crack and realign themselves. Somewhere, in the distance, he can hear the fae’s cruel laughter as they watch him suffer. For a brief moment, some primal, animal part of his brain thinks he’s going to die.
“Fret not, boy king. You won’t perish—I won’t let you until you give me what you’ve promised me,” the fae says, as if they can hear his thoughts.
He’s not sure how long he lays there on the ground, body wracked with agony. It feels like hours pass before he regains use of his limbs. But the pain does eventually fade away, leaving him dazed but still alive. Slowly, he manages to stand up again.
He stares at himself in wonder, legs and arms stretching. For the first time ever, he’s able to stand tall and straight on his own, his cane discarded to the side. And he feels strong. At last, he doesn’t feel weak for once.
“There. That wasn’t so bad, was it?” The fae’s face has changed: they still look the same, but there’s a beastly, ugly quality to their lovely features that chills him to the bone.
His hands fly instantly to his face. The harelip is still there, he notes with displeasure.
“You forgot something,” he says, frowning in his lopsided way.
“Oh, I didn’t.” Before König can react, the fae’s eyes hollow and grow dark, becoming two pools of endless void. Their teeth sharpen, their face grows gaunt.
“Remember what you owe, boy king,” they remind him. “On the day and the hour your first child is born, I will come to collect.”
He doesn’t even have time to scream before the fae reaches forward with black talons and tears off his mouth.
You’re rendered speechless by his story. Where do you even start?
Your first thoughts are of the way he described himself as a child. König, weak and crippled? König? You look at him now, eighteen hands high astride his horse, the picture of raw strength and dominance. You can’t imagine it at all.
Your second thought is— “You made a deal with the fae? Do you know how foolish that is? Fae never give you what you want, and the cost is always far too high!”
“Don’t lecture me,” he says tightly. “I know what I was getting myself into. I had no other choice.”
“What do you mean, no other choice? You were the king’s son—you are the king! You could have had servants carry you everywhere if need be!”
“You don’t understand what it was like,” König snarls, turning to you with fire in his eyes. “Nobody would have accepted a cripple as their king. My life would constantly have been in danger, having to rely upon others. Unable to even defend myself if an assassin set upon me in my bed.” He’s getting angrier, more worked up as he goes.
“I told you that I was once poisoned as a child with nightshade berries. Did you wonder why there was such a plant in my mother’s garden? Why the royal heir was unsupervised for so long in the first place?” König’s expression is twisted, his voice turned bitter with betrayal. “It was a plot against me by some of my father’s advisors. They conspired with my nursemaid to make it seem like an accident…they expected me to die.”
“I…I’m sorry, König. I didn’t think.”
He glances at you and takes a moment to collect himself before speaking. “I was lucky. My father sent for the best healers he could find. My mother cried at my bedside for weeks.” His brow furrows. “My lot in life could have been worse: my parents loved me, at the very least. But it made me hate myself even more—that I was such a profound disappointment.
“My mother had a difficult birth. Some whispered that it was penance for what my father did: that the spirits of those slain during his campaigns had cursed my mother’s womb. She never was able to conceive again…so all their hopes rested upon my shoulders. My crippled, useless shoulders.”
The venom in his voice when he talks about himself makes your heart ache with sympathy. You move your horse closer to his and put a hand on his arm, squeezing him in what you hope is a comforting manner. His expression softens as he looks down at you.
“It would have been easy for you to kill me if I were still like that, liebe.” You feel your face grow warm again at the term of endearment.
“It makes sense, your strength being fae-given…Calliope said there was something not right about you.”
“Calliope is a perceptive woman.”
You study his face, eyes regarding his mask in a new light. “It really doesn’t look so bad. I only reacted that way because I thought you were injured.”
He shrugs. “Never was that good-looking anyway.”
You make a face. “Are you suggesting I sleep with ugly men?”
“You’ve only slept with me.”
“I’m trying to compliment you.”
“You think I’m handsome?”
“When you’re not annoying me.”
He huffs out a laugh. “Well, now you know.”
You study him. He seems relieved to have finally gotten this off his shoulders. “Do you regret it?”
He gets a faraway look in his eyes. “…No.”
The village’s leader had advised an alternate path back home: it might take you a day or two longer, but it was less remote and lined with other villages. You arrive at the first inn just as the sun is about to duck beneath the horizon, the sky streaked with orange.
It’s a serene part of the wood, and the inn is quite quaint as well. Whoever runs it has done well for themselves, you think absentmindedly as you and König dismount and prepare to unload.
A side door swings open, and a quite frankly huge man walks out, facing away from the two of you. Your sense of scale is attuned to König now, so he’s of course not the biggest man you’ve ever seen, but he’s broad-shouldered and thick with muscle. You can’t see his face from this angle, but you can just about spot his blond hair—
“Shit. Shit.” König instantly spins around so his horse is between him and the man who’s just walked out of the building. You squint. Is he…hiding?
“What’s going on? Should I be worried?”
“No. Yes. Maybe.” Is he cringing? “Do you think it’s too late to set up camp?”
“Set up camp? When there’s a perfectly good inn right there?”
“Yes!”
“What has gotten into you? That man is quite big, but he’s not that sc—”
“I’m not scared of him, I just recognize him. And I don’t particularly feel like seeing him.”
You’re agog at the scene before you. “You’re the king.”
“Even kings have their hangups, alright?”
“I am not sleeping in the woods.”
“As your husband and supreme ruler, I demand it.”
“Come now. I know you’re tired of fucking me outside.”
That gives him serious pause, which almost makes you giggle. Ridiculous man. You could probably lead him onto an executioner’s block if you held him by the cock.
“Please,” you beg, stepping forward to hold his hand and giving him the biggest, most wide eyes you can muster. “I’m not ready to go back to sleeping on the ground yet.”
His face scrunches up in a hopelessly endearing, almost childlike way. “Fine. But you have to go in and talk to the innkeep. I’m going to stay out here.”
“I don’t know what all the fuss is, but fine. You big baby.” You hand him your horse’s reins and make your way to the front door of the inn.
You’ve barely pushed the door very far at all before you hear a friendly voice from inside. “Welcome, traveler! Come on in.”
“It’s wonderful to make your—” You stop in the doorway, frozen with shock.
“It’s wonderful to make your acquaintance, your highness.” A pair of familiar sparkling eyes look back at you. “And you can tell his majesty that he can come inside, I’ve already seen him.”
König’s first wife stands before you, watching your reaction with clear amusement.
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Forgive me for that smut. It's been years since I've written anything nsfw, and I wrote this at like. 5AM after a very long day because when I'm not exhausted, writing smut becomes impossible. It's quite the pickle.
Well...I did say that part 3 was going to be a doozy! I'm looking forward to all the reactions...🤭
Comments and feedback are of course always appreciated <3
@kneelingshadowsalome @crowbird @poohkie90 @cumikering @iytatsworld @papaver-decervicatus @anxietyrain @riotakire @ax0lotly @cookiepie111 @kacchasu @no1runawaymilkdad @chthonian-spectre @backwards-readings @yxllowtxpe @garbau @hexqueensupreme @queenthorin1 @violetstyless @her-majesty-theking @vegan-peppermint @peonytarian @ghostslittlegf @euuuuuuun @e1x03 @kokonoiwife @deaddainish @dragonfang @teehee-47 @keiva1000 @catluvwr @waves-against-a-cliff @channelsoph @cutiecusp @channelsoph @itsagrimm @dins-riduur-anthe @lexuria @complexivelovely
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bunnyshideawayy · 7 days
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a rumored bastard and a proven, disinherited, legally illegitimate recognized bastard are not the same.
Rhaenyra’s sons are rumored bastards, i know the show has a lot of team green stans feeling bold but just as in the books, they are never legally considered bastards in the show either. they are speculated to be via their physical features and Laenor’s apparent sexuality, but since Laenor and the KING (btw Westeros is a absolute monarchy, meaning the king IS law) both claim all three boys as legitimate heirs, unless someone demands a medieval dna test, those kids are legally Laenor’s true sons.
this is apparently a very hard concept to understand for some, hell even Alicent in the show says something like “we can all tell” which fair point, but that is not proof enough. looks, accusations, and rumor are not the same as actual proof of adultery or bastardy.
someone i was having a “discussion” with used Joffrey as an example to point out a flaw in my logic, but ultimately proved my point. Joffrey was a rumored bastard. Ned himself had no more proof than Alicent does, just hair color and a hunch, so Joffrey was never legally disinherited from the line of succession. I hate to defend either of these men but King Robert never publicly disowned him and called him bastard, which is why Joffrey ascended to the Iron Throne. now the rumors did hurt, and caused huge political issues leading to the War of 5 Kings, which is exactly why Alicent and Team Green is so insistent that Rhaenyra’s children are illegitimate, they know they cannot legally or physically prove her children are bastards, especially when Laenor and the King are claiming them are true born, but they can spread the rumor and call into question Rhaenyra’s honesty and morality. think episode 8 when team green takes their chance with Vaemond to attempt a coup of sorts for the Driftmark Throne, why would the succession of Driftmark need to be settled if Rhaenyra’s sons are true born? why would Alicent / Otto need to make this decision in place of the sick king and mia lord of tides who both had already been stating Luke would inherit for years. it’s all apart of the scheme to tarnish Rhaenyra’s reputation as Vaemond has no other proof either, and promptly loses his head (both metaphorically and literally) by calling the recognized heir to the throne a whore and her children bastards with no proof in front of the whole court.
it is a political scheme on both sides, Alicent cannot prove anything, and Rhaenyra cannot disprove the rumors no matter how many times they are claimed as true born sons. Rhaenyra has to live in the comfort the law gives her, as legally her sons are seen as legitimate, and thus legally they are protected. and from an unbiased pov with both in universe and historical references, those kids might be bastards in actually but not legally.
Rhaenyra goes through hell to keep her children legally protected, not only for their sake but for hers because should the truth come out both her and Laenor would be seriously punished, i wouldn’t go as far as executed but that would depend on if Viserys was old and bed ridden or dead. which is why im making this incredibly long post repeating myself in every point. you can argue all day about Rhaenyra’s children and their parentage but i am making this to make it clear that her children are not *legally* bastards by Westeros law. in order for Jace, Luke, and Joffrey to be illegitimate bastards Laenor, Rhaenyra, Harwin, and/or Viserys would have to publicly acknowledge them as such and disinherit them. no, Laenor and Viserys dying do not magically make Rhaenyra’s children legal bastards either. they would, again, need to be claimed and proven as such and disinherited.
and at the end of it all, true or not true, the rumors made a lasting impact on the story. so much so this fandom is still debating this topic, and frankly i am dreading the season 2 release when all the bad takes and bad faith arguments start up again.
anyway other famous rumored bastards are in Targ history are:
Maegor
Daeron II
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Consequences | Two
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Word Count: 6.2k~ | Warnings: 18+ MINORS DNI, dark, medieval-canon sexism, heavy dub-con/noncon, mean Aemond, manipulation, abusing power, gore, blood, violence, major angst, oral (m receiving), fingering, oral sex (f receiving), Aemond being a possessive horny weirdo with a power complex
Series Masterlist  ​​
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Hedi had noticed her praying more often, with soft tears in her eyes.
 But no matter how much Hedi asked her what was wrong, the little maidservant would shake her head and insist that she was merely homesick having sent a few copper coins to her siblings.
 In the room she shared with her fellow maidservant, Alanna, who luckily worked quite the opposite shift to her, she would sit on the stool before the pale of water, scrubbing at her skin to wash herself. Trying to rid her mind of the experience altogether. The taste of his spend on her tongue. The uncomfortable prod of his cock at the back of her throat. The way his voice sent a jolt of both fear and a thrill through her. It made her question everything about herself. That perhaps she didn’t know herself as well as she thought. And it was this fact that disturbed her the most.
 That she was beginning to lose touch of herself.
 She’d not said a word to anyone. And when she attended to him in the mornings as she usually did, she tried to make herself as small as possible, hoping that if she hugged her arms around herself tight enough, she might actually begin to disappear. Prince Aemond had almost pretended as if nothing had happened, with his usual one word answers, faint hums and lack of presence in his chambers.
 The little maidservant wondered if she had done something to irk him, or if he had not enjoyed the experience and wished not to repeat it. Secretly, she hoped so. Hoped that he would lose interest and slowly slip into the old habits, ignoring her completely. Then she could go about her life, picking and cleaning up the royal Prince’s mess, and hers into the bargain as well. She thought that royals such as him do not think about the messes they make.
 In that way they are like children.
 She wondered if anyone, in Prince Aemond’s life, had ever told him no.
 It was doubtful.
 Perhaps that was why he felt entitled to torment her in the way he had. Perhaps it was the effect of privilege in the pursuit of pleasure.
 It was a morning like any other and she dressed in silence, careful not to wake her fellow colleague whom she shared a bed with. Alanna was a night owl, through and through, but it did not mean she was not exhausted after performing her night shift duties and when she had come back in the early hours, it was like a prod for the other little maidservant to wake for her morning duties.
 Who she saw in the looking glass looked very much like her, but didn’t feel like her.
 The weather was pleasant enough, warm with a cool breeze as she carried Prince Aemond’s breakfast tray, a heavy bubble in her gut at the thought of seeing him again.
 She’d turned at the call of her name. The young boy who served alongside the staff rushed up to her carrying a scroll.
 “What is it?”
 “Message from your family, miss” the boy’s voice broke as he spoke, he could not have been older than three and ten and still had that nervous wide look about him.
 The little maidservant swallowed nervously and gestured for him to read it. She recognised him as the son of one of the staff, almost born for the role of being a hasty little messenger, and thus he was taught to read. Perhaps a benefit of his sex and his environment.
 The letter read:
Your pestilent brother and sister are well, but their stomach’s are never full and the boy in particular has almost completely cleaned out the pantry. I will, for the love I had for your mother and father, continue to look after them, however I must request three additional copper coins per week to fund their insatiable appetite. Otherwise I shall be forced to send the little beggars on their way to earn their own coin, the young girl is certainly old enough.
 The maidservant delivered a large sigh, an uncomfortable weight that was already on her shoulders was becoming heavier the more the boy read on.
 “Thank you” she nodded to dismiss the young boy, only allowing herself to breathe a shuddered breath once she was alone. She told herself to not panic, to not cry and that everything would be alright in the end. But there was a small piece of her inside that allowed herself to be a child again, wanting the comfort of a mother and father. She wondered how she would be able to come up with 3 additional copper coins a week and still be able to feed and clothe herself.
 Steadying her breath to keep herself from becoming emotional, she knocked twice and was allowed to enter when she once again heard the muffled tone of his voice.
Tray on the nightstand. Draw the curtains. Tie them back. She kept going over what she was going to do in her head, eyes downcast the entire time, not wanting to look at him.
 And yet in her peripheral she saw him rise from his bed as she tied the curtains back
 Her heart lurched into her chest when she saw his arms hook underneath hers to lean against the windowsill in front of her, and then when his bare chest had nudged against her back. She felt as if she could not make a sound and so she didn’t even acknowledge it at first, screwing her eyes shut to draw in a shaky breath. Aemond had smirked behind her, knowing what her reaction would be and his finger once again came to the little curl at the side of her head that perpetually made itself free of her braids.
 “My little maidservant is shy today” he said lowly, pressing his form tighter against her back, thinking about how if he bucked his hips just a little, his hard arousal would prod against her dress-clad backside.
 He looked down as she purposefully did not look back at him. He watched the way her lips were slightly parted, as if so afraid that she had to breathe through her mouth, albeit quietly. He chuckled at the effect he seemed to have on his little maidservant, smoothing his finger over her hair, then her neck, which he can tell made her shudder slightly.
 “Tell me, sweet girl, do you still taste it…” he whispers in the shell of her ear, looking down he can see the shadow of her skin beneath her dress, but it becomes too dark to truly see anything. He allowed himself to wonder what her bare form would look like.
 Would she have small, well-rounded breasts, easily fit into his palms. How he thought he'd grip them so tight he wouldn't let go, intent on making her at least whimper at the pleasurable pain.
 Would she have a smooth curve to her hips, the line leading down to her cunny, to where he imagined that little patch of hair would welcome him.
 Would she have supple thighs, ones he could leave bruises and marks all over. Perhaps even a bit of blood. The thought of smearing blood over her skin thrilled him more than he thought.
 He remembers how she'd told him she'd not been with a man. Would she bleed so nicely for him, once he'd taken her maidenhead, be good and muffle her little whimpers of discomfort into the pillow. Or rather, he wondered if he'd quite like to hear them, while curling his fingers around her throat and squeezing tightly.
 It was getting harder to breathe for Aemond. And unbeknownst to him, it was increasingly so for her as well. Frozen in absolute fear.
 “...do you still feel my cock in your throat, hm?”
 Yes, she thought, with a shameful twist of her stomach. She could still feel his hands holding her face, forcing her to take him as deep as he wanted, still feel every thrust of his hips against her, his fist tightening in her hair, tugging.
 He released one of his hands on the windowsill to rest on her waist, making her inhale sharply. He’d not touched her intimately, only solicited the use of her mouth on him that one time. Aemond felt the movement of her ribs beneath her dress with her breathing, as if he’s just realised she was a living, breathing person before him.
 “Have you touched yourself, sweet girl” he asks.
 She managed to gather all the courage she has inside her and cleared her throat, “I…am not sure what you mean, your grace”
 Fucking cock tease, Aemond thought. But she had really not known at all what he’d meant. Of course she had touched herself, to bathe herself, to brush her hair?
 “I mean…” he starts, his large hands moving to gather her skirts in his fist. And this time she did shudder when the air hit her legs, skin that outside the boundaries of her own bedroom, should never be seen, “...have you touched your little cunt for pleasure”
 She clenches her fists when his palm runs up the side of her thigh. It’s so wrong. So, so wrong for him to touch her like this.
 Aemond breathes hot against her neck at the feeling of her soft skin. Just like how he'd imagined it. The curve of her hip, so feminine and squeezable in his hand. He thought of the way he would grab at them to fuck her, for leverage, using her body the way he sees fit. And now that he'd done so with her mouth, he thought of the rest of her little holes and how they would squeeze him too.
 “Bought yourself to peak with your fingers…”
 She could cry. She thought she’d lost his interest. Thought she might be free of it. Calm down, is all she kept trying to tell herself. She counted in her head, trying to ground herself.
 He squeezes her hip tightly when she doesn’t respond, “Answer me now, or I will not be so nice”
 “A few times” she admits, voice thick with tears, “a few times, your grace…”
 But never to peak, she thought, embarrassed.
 She spoke like she may have been in trouble for it and dreaded what he might do now that she’s given her answer.
 “Hm” she chuckles, giving the skin of her hip one firm squeeze, one that is so tight in his palm it almost makes her whimper in pain. He lets her skirts fall as he moves away from her, looking much pleased with himself, smirking like he knows a secret.
 “Go now” he orders, still with that gravelly authority but ever so slightly softer, now that he'd been thinking of her cunt. But the softer tone does nothing to calm her and if it were possible, she guards herself even more, keeping her eyes to the ground. She doesn’t even look back when he says, “I shall see you tonight, sweet girl”
 She did not want to know what that meant, if it meant anything at all.
 Aemond watched as she left, scared completely out of her senses.
 Good, he thought. He loved that terror-stricken look in her eyes, the sharp taking in of breath when she was trying not to cry in his presence. He’d remembered wiping her tears away when he’d fucked her mouth so ruthlessly in search of his own pleasure, the way the slickness of it had smeared across her face. Aemond found that he wanted to know what she tasted like, every single bit of her. She would be so sweet…his virtuous little maidservant. He had to make sure she was entirely his, so that she knew nothing else but him.
 Young women like her are so helpless in the hands of amorous men.
 Whatever words were said to them, whatever touch and manipulation on their bodies seemed like love to them, the poor, silly little things.
 He would make sure that whatever words, whatever touch inflicted to his little maidservant would be sweet, delightful torture.
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All the while she was dismissed until the evening, she busied herself with such menial tasks such as helping the others with the laundry for the day. It was nice to get outside, free from the suffocating confines of the Keep, even if it was just for a moment. The hallways now served to remind her of him, dreading the moment she would be walking down them and he would round the corner, with that predatory gaze he always gave her.
 It was a calm day, so she revelled in the lovely breeze for a moment, allowing herself to be happy.
 There was some relief in the idle chatter of the other maidservants, as she scrubbed the white bed linen against the washboard, her sleeves turned up to prevent from getting wet.
 “I hear the Princess Rhaenyra very well may be returning to King’s Landing soon”
 Freiya was a little younger than the others and as such, had a wandering imagination, a large mouth and a bit appetite for gossip. So it was no wonder she’d already managed to receive the latest even if it was barely early afternoon.
 The other, who went by Mari, also probably short for something but she would never tell anyone, rolled her eyes at the younger woman. Mari was one and twenty, but her mind was mature beyond her years.
 “You must not believe everything you hear, your ears will fall off one day, you little tyrant”
 Freiya pulled an offended frown, “No! I heard such news right from the source, while I was attending to the Queen. She said herself that the Princess will return to contest some…birthright or something like that”
 The little maidservant raised her head and gave Mari an amused look, “You should not be listening to them while you attend to them”
 “You get away with it if you pretend you’re not listening at all” Freiya snaps back with a mischievous smirk, “the Queen is understandably not thrilled with their arrival”
 Mari huffed a laugh, “Neither are the Princes”
 “Why is that?” she asks with a confused lilt of her head,
 Despite being younger, Freiya talks over Mari when she’s about to open her mouth. Such a carefree little thing, it made her laugh. She cared not about such hierarchies.
 “Supposedly they are here for the little Prince Lucerys’ ‘right’ to Driftmark”
 Mari wrinkles her nose in distaste, “Prince Lucerys? The…”
 “Exactly” Freiya responds,
 “What on earth are you two talking about?” she asks, completely lost.
 Mari sighs, “Prince Lucerys is the one who took Prince Aemond’s eye all those years ago, both merely children” she explains, folding the damp cloth in her arms, “the Queen was so distressed for her son, she barely allowed him from her sight”
 For a very split second, something akin to sympathy washes over the little maidservant. But then underneath that is another feeling still. Something questioning.
 “When are they to arrive?”
 “Allegedly, within a few days” Freiya responds excitedly, ecstatic to receive some drama in her no doubt monotonous maidservant life.
 For a man who had been so wronged in his past, with such a traumatic past, to turn into the person he was today. Someone who could be cruel, taking the little power she had in her own life into his own, greedy for more. She had done nothing to him but merely exist and attend to him, as was her job. And she wracked her brain about it. What had she done to incite such cruelty in him, if anything at all? What harm could she do to him in her position, that he had not done to her a million times over.
 With her heart weighing heavy in her chest, after scrubbing the living daylights out of the linen, she carried the dirty water back with Freiya, chatting idly. She was good company, she had to admit, even if she was obsessed with the inner workings of the royal’s lives. As melancholic as the little maidservant felt, she let out perhaps her first genuine laugh when Freiya ‘accidentally’ bumped some of the water over the front of her dress. She’d given the young girl a friendly swat and told the little tyrant to scarper.
 If what Freiya and Mari had said was true, there was a possibility that his typical Targaryen temper could possibly become worse. Perhaps irreparably so.
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  She waited in his chambers until it was impossibly dark. Later than usual, Aemond eventually returned, in a much more sour mood than this morning.
 She’d knelt in front of the fire, placing more wood on it to heat the room in the cold that had captured it now that the sun had gone down. Was this how it was to be now? In the morning, he was one person, not burdened by the mood of others and his own not dependent on what had happened during the day. And at night, after the weight of his day had weighed heavy on his tired soul, his desire for release, of any kind, was insatiable.
 “Your grace” she greeted with a bowed head, her soft, fearful voice barely carried above the crackling of the flames. Quite the opposite of the other night, while he was still angry, he let the door shut softly behind him. She just stared at his legs as they made their way towards her, and a flash of her pushing against his legs, in an attempt to push him away from her zips through her head. He was so much larger than her, she thought. It would take no effort on his side at all to subdue her.
 She notices how he stands before her, fists clenched white.
 “My little maidservant does not meet my eye today” he says with a hint of irritation to his tone, “Why”
 She swallows nervously, trying desperately to regain her breath “Apologies, your grace.Just some problems at home that are of no matter”
 When he remains still and quiet, she worries for a moment that she’s overshared, spoken too much and that depending on what mood he’s in, she might have set him off.
 “What problems” he asks, and despite him asking, she gets the impression from his tone of voice that he is completely and utterly unbothered about the reason and just wants to hear her speak. She looks up to meet his eye and immediately wishes she hadn’t. His gaze is cold, uncaring, dark, like she is an annoyance.
 “My…siblings, your grace. I am required to send them more coin, to pay for their support…” she replies nervously, insistent that she has shared too much information and that he very much does not care. She sees this, because his cold expression does not change.
 His eyes roam her face, seeing the discomfort there at her situation. But he cannot find it within himself to care. All he cares to remember is how her smooth hip felt that very morning, how hard he had squeezed it, how he had dreamt for his fingernails to create little indents in her soft skin.
 “You do not smile in my presence” he says simply.
 At this, her lips part in shock. What did he mean? And also, what reason would she have to smile in his presence while attending to him?
 “Pardon me, your grace?” she says in a quiet voice, immediately sucking in air as he steps closer to her. Her feet didn’t move from their spot.
 “With the other maidservants, you smile so widely and yet in my presence…” he hums, his finger reaching out to twirl the little piece of hair at the side of her face once more, as if obsessed with it, “...I believe you fear me, sweet girl”
She could say nothing but try and keep her breath steady. He was right, he frightened her. But what woman would not be frightened at the way he leered at her, kept her in his sights firm and unyielding.
 Only a woman who would want it, she thought.
 “But no matter,” he says, his hand trailing to her the buttons of her dress at the top of her chest. Undoing the first…then the second…”I will have your fear if I can have nothing else” he smirks only slightly.
 Her brain was all over the place. He said it with such conviction. Uncaring if she had wanted any of it or not. She could feel her stomach bubbling in her gut, feeling as if she might either cry or vomit. Aemond could not help but smirk at her efforts to keep herself calm, and failing miserably. His hand barely floated over her chest, over her clothed nipple and she’d flinched only slightly, with a slight inhale of her sweet, hot breath.
 He had seen how she had smiled with her fellow maidservant, the way her dimples had shown on the upper apples of her cheeks, the pink that coloured them when she laughed. He had seen the way the little cock tease had water splashed down her front, turning her dress completely dark and sodden. Aemond would not be able to rid his mind of the image of her hardened nipples beneath the fabric for days, weeks, months to come.
 “Sit” he gestured to the end of the large bed, while Aemond stalked to the fireplace for a moment.
 She gathered her skirts in her shaking hands and sat herself down, closing her eyes to catch her breath, feeling as if the walls were closing in, and that the air was becoming difficult to breathe.
 When Aemond turned around, his eyepatch had been discarded and he was shucking off his leather doublet, with the cream undershirt the only thing beneath it. He walked with such purpose towards her, until his tall, broad form was completely staring and looming over hers. His sapphire eye caught the light of the fire and at this moment, he looked almost possessed.
 “I do not want your hair up when you are in my chambers”
 There was a beat of silence, timed by the beating of her heart.
“Well?”
 The intensity of his voice seemed to wake her from the impregnable fear for just a moment, and her shaking hands reached up for her hair again, quicker about her movements than she had been the previous time he’d aske-no, demanded for her to do so. It was wrong firstly to have her hair loose in his presence, but if anyone
 “Look at me”
 With her hair now falling in their waves down her back, she barely has time to look up before his large hand flies to her jaw,  fingers squeezing painfully at her cheekbones, almost bruisingly. He pulls at her face slightly upwards and towards him. Aemond revells in the shocked and doe-eyed expression on her face and the way her skin blossoms pink under his firm, hard touch. His lips are drawn into a tight line, as if getting angrier by the second, and in his grasp he felt her tremble.
 “Did you enjoy my cock in your throat” he says, his thumb drawing across her bottom lip, only slightly dipping inside into the warm embrace of her little mouth. He can see that she’s too shocked to say anything, her pupils shaking.
 “Did you enjoy swallowing my spend…” he goes on, his thumb pressing against the wet muscle of her tongue, emphasising where his spend had been before he had demanded her to swallow it.
 If he dipped beneath her skirts, would she bet as wet as her mouth? Accepting his digit so willingly.
 “I think you did, sweet girl”
Did I?
 He collects the wetness of her mouth on his thumb, still grasping her face tightly. When she briefly looked down, she saw how hard he was beneath his breeches and the memory of how he had felt in her mouth, heavy and hot. As well as how he’d tasted. At this she feels her gut tighten.
 He pulls his thumb out her mouth, again, smearing the wetness over her lips and then her face as he grips her tightly once more.
 “Do you like this job, sweet girl” he asked and her heart froze in fear.
 “Yes, your grace” she whispered back,
 “Then you will do as I say if you wish to keep it”
 He quite forcefully pushes her back, making her support her torso on her elbows, looking over to the bed with parted lips when Aemond kneels on the floor, his eye forever on her face as he rucks up her skirts. It’s here she realises what he may intend to do and goes to shut her legs tight against each other.
 “Are you going to be a good little maidservant and be quiet?”
 She nods, voice failing her. Not that she would trust it to be steady at the moment.
 If it were possible, his mood flattened completely. Aemond growls and hooks both his hands under her thighs and pulls her closer to him, his fingers digging into her bare, soft skin.
 “Your grace, I-” she starts. Aemond glares right at her, forcefully parting her thighs and painfully squeezing the meat of her legs, emitting a whimper from her.
 “What did I fucking say about being quiet” he snarls, hooking his fingers into her smallclothes and ripping them down her legs. She would shut her legs tightly if Aemond were not so strongly holding them apart, and she feels her heart going fast when she feels his hot breath on the juncture of her thigh. His tongue runs over the line there, inhaling deeply the heady scent of her sex, which he has no doubt is seeping with arousal.
 “Stay still while I taste you, sweet…sweet girl”
 He dips between her thighs and sees her bare cunny before him. It was just as he’d imagined it, the luscious hair framing it just for him was waiting there, his thumb ran over her lips, parting them to brush his thumb over her clit. She was wet. So wet. Her slick aided his movements and when he’d brushed over her swollen bundle of nerves, she’d released a shuddered breath, tensing up somewhat. Aemond was tempted to reprimand her, but now faced with her perfect cunt right before him, ready for his taking, he cannot find it within himself to care.
 He dives in, flattening his tongue against her sex and he feels her body jolt beneath his hold, fingers curling into her hips.
 “Mm…” he hums. She tasted so sweet for him, the intoxicating taste of her arousal flooded his tongue, waking his nerves and something deep, dark and ancient within. His eye opened somewhat to look up at her, being so good and quiet for him and he smirked against her cunt, quickening his motions when he saw that she’d laid back, keeping her hand over her mouth to obey him. Aemond watched as her chest and body writhed with each movement of his wet muscle against her clit, her other hand fisted the bedsheets and he could faintly hear her whimpering behind her hand.
 Aemond pushed her legs further apart, granting his tongue access to her wet and waiting entrance, he dipped inside, using it to fuck her repeatedly. The only sound in his otherwise quiet chambers was slapping of his mouth against her cunt, lapping up her juices with a new vigour. He thought, the longer he continued, the more addicted he would become to it. He wanted to have this sweet cunt for all his meals; it gave him life and sustenance.
 But it wasn’t enough.
 His little maidservant was not letting go of herself enough. He could not bring her to peak like this.
 He wanted her climax on his tongue, like she had his.
 Aemond moves his tongue out of her, running up slowly to her bundle of nerves and sucks eagerly, giving her a new, deeper sensation in her gut that makes her hips buck against his face against her will. A new sound floods out her mouth against her hand that has Aemond’s ears perked up and his lips turn up into a smirk. He briefly breaks his contact with her to pull her hand from her face, pinning it by her wrist to the bed harshly.
 “I want to hear you when I make you peak”
 Her eyes are shut tightly, but Aemond doesn’t wait for an answer and goes right back in, licking and sucking her clit, one hand forever at her thigh to keep her open for him. He can feel her body trembling beneath him and the little sounds of her breath as she tries to keep it under control, and now that her hand is not muffling her sounds, he drinks in the various whimpers and tiny, tiny moans with renewed purpose.
 She lets out halfway between a choked whimper and moan when Aemond mercilessly thrusts one finger into her, he moans against her sex at the tightness of her, and how she would feel when she was finally wrapped around his cock. How she’d squeeze him as he used her body for himself and milk him for his spend when her cunt convulsed with the force of her climax.
 Aemond moved his head side to side against her sex, licking every bit of her he could as her moans had become louder. Stray tears ran down her face at the foreign feeling. It was strange and slightly unpleasant, as she’d never put anything inside her before. But his finger crooked up inside her slightly, rubbing against somewhere she never knew existed and it gave her the urge to move her hips, searching for something.
 Uncaring if she was ready, Aemond hastened all his movements and inserted a second, stretching her little cunny with his long, thick digits. He thought she would need to be prepared, for when he would eventually have his cock inside of her.
 It would hurt. It would be painful.
 And it was this that excited him the most.
 As he fucked her with his fingers, focussing his tongue on her clit quickly, he noted the way her body began to spasm in his grip. She was close, just that bit more.
 He loved it when her pink lips parted to give him a quiet moan. It was like praise. And when he concentrated the pads of his fingers against that rough spot within her, her back began to move off the bed, her breath coming in hurried pants. Her tears joined the rest, sliding down her face at the absurdity of the feeling she was having. What was this? Was this pleasure? What everyone else sought so much? It didn’t feel entirely pleasurable, she thought. But there was something deep, dark about the way it was being drawn from her that set shame heavy in her.
 “Come on, sweet girl…” Aemond murmurs against her, “come on”
 He keeps his mouth on her the entire time, body wracked with painful pleasure. So much so that even her voice doesn’t manage to form coherently and her mouth is slack open, frozen in place as the warmth floods her body against her will.
 “That’s it…” he coos, all while his tongue earnestly laps up every single bit of her climax from her, drinking it down like the air he breathes. Aemond can’t help but smile, now that he’s tasted her, seen what she looks like when she comes apart. He can’t not have her and fully intends to have her little cunny at his disposal. One hand dips beneath his breeches, to pump himself, feeling that he did not need much friction to climax himself.
 Her body slumps against the mattress, limbs now entirely limp and feeling both warm and empty at the same time. She eventually cracks her eyes open when Aemond delivers one more warm, stripe upwards, collecting what little is left of her. She looks up to the ceiling, to the canopy and realises her vision is fogged with tears and her hand comes up to wipe at them, now being able to feel the wetness of them against her cheeks.
 Aemond had travelled up her body, still furiously stroking his cock, aching for completion.
 “Do not let it go to waste” he ordered, holding his manhood close to her mouth as he fisted it furiously, fingers once again running through her hair to grip harshly as he pulled at the back of her head.
 Without warning, he shoves his cock into her mouth, prodding the back of her throat and moaning loudly when she splutters around it, having not been prepared. She could smell his musky scent, now even more amplified from his efforts on her previously and it completely flooded her senses. Not a second later, was the familiar flood of his spend into her mouth as he softly thrusted into her, wanting to prolong his friction.
 He took one long breath and pulled his cock from her mouth. But her eyes were firmly shut, whimpering as she swallowed the thick, bitter substance. Again.
 She had a strange thought. That there may have been more spend than food in her belly. And it rattled her beyond comprehension.
 Why am I crying, she thought, having not felt them even come. Her body felt strange, like she was on the outside looking in at herself and she wondered how pathetic she must look. She wondered how other people would look at her if they saw what trouble she’d gotten herself into. What other people thought…
 …it frightened her.
 Regaining her strength, she finally sits up, looking around bleary-eyed to see Aemond, on the other side of the room, already seated in his armchair with a cup of wine in one hand, watching the flames of the fire in front of him. She could see from this angle that his lips and the skin around it was glistening and his other hand was at his lips, smearing whatever wetness was there more over them. She wondered how long she had been laid there.
 In the soft light of the fire, he almost looked handsome. She thought that he, Aemond Targaryen, would be remembered as a skilled swordsman, rider of the largest dragon in the world, Prince of the Seven Kingdoms. History books would record him for centuries to come, on his skills, his wit, his fearsome victories.
 And she…
 …She who had been owned first by her father. And now owed her life to servitude under him. She had always been owned and perhaps always would be. Any husband would own her as well as her money and her children, doomed by the determination of her sex to perform the duties of them for the rest of her life.
 History would not remember her. It would scarcely even know she existed in the first place. Even her own name would not even be remembered by those she worked alongside, she feared. Those she called her friends.
 Forgotten. Replaceable.
 Gathering her breath and wiping her face, she’s unable to control the soft pants of her weak cries and pulls her dress back over herself. Aemond turns, but does not look at her straight on.
 “Leave” he orders flatly.
 She would be shocked, if it hadn’t already happened before. So she took shakily to her feet, feeling entirely degraded and empty within, despite the hum of pleasure still present inside. He didn’t say anything else as she struggled out of the door, her hair still loose around her shoulders.
 It was only when she was in the lit safety of the hallway that she finally allows herself to comprehend what happened and a few more fat tears make their way down her face and her neck.
 Am I his maidservant, or his whore.
Maidservant.
 Whore.
 Whore.
 The way back to the staff quarters was long and wracked with quiet sobs.
 She’d brushed Hedi’s shoulder as she walked past and Hedi had looked wide-eyed at her, as if only just recognising her with her hair down. Hedi’s face immediately fell into a sombre, sorrowful one,
 “Child, what is wrong?” she says, cupping her face in both her hands and looking over her for any sign of injury. She simply shook her head and hastily wiped her cheeks til they were red,
 “I am just tired, please Hedi I-”
 Hedi pressed a hand to her forehead, acting very much like a mother, despite the age gap being small between them, but she found no fever there and she was only very warm from all her crying.
 “Why is your hair down, child?” she asks hesitantly, her eyes darting about her face in search of a clue. Hedi had noticed. Her loose hair, her two undone buttons, the shake of her hands.
 “Please, I just need sleep” she insisted unconvincingly, tearing herself from Hedi’s grasp to wander through the halls to her own quarters, intent on scrubbing herself raw once again with the brush. Desperately trying to erase any memory of touch.
 Hedi had watched her disappear, the other few maidservants followed with their looks, cementing their thoughts in their sour expression.
 “Whore”
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General Aemond Taglist: @risefallrise​ @valeskafics​​
Consequences Taglist: @iiamthehybrid @manitskatrina @dahlias-and-marigolds @okfashionista @the-common-cowgirl @toodlesxcuddles  @darkenchantress @magnificentdelusionr   @tinykryptonitewerewolf @tssf-imagines @mandiiblanche @xdeath-soulx  @daemonlover @iiamthehybrid​ @thedamewithabook​ @hiatuswhore​ @apollonshootafar​ @ladymarg0t​ 
*Bold means I couldn’t tag, DM me if you wanna be removed besties
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yveaart · 2 months
Note
"you know other girls"-hhu was so cuteee💗💗
can i request the same for vocal unit?<3
“you know other girls?” — w seventeen vu !
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🍒woozi
seriously stop playing with him
he was ranting about a bad experience while he was going to get coffee outside his studio for once.
“and then i bumped into her spilling coffee through some of her documents, i had to compensate for it”
“what?!”
“what do you mean what?” he said
“you know other women?” you sneered trying to keep giggles in
“women are literally more than half of the worlds population.” he deadpanned at you
you just told him to finish his story tbh
🍒jeonghan
unpredictable man
there was this choreographer who kept on touching jeonghan’s shoulder every time she came by
she conversed with him freely and giving him wide smiles
you would throw blank stares at her and even a few coughs when she came by to return during the break time
“how can you know other women?” you glared at him, jealousy raging over your chest
“hm?” he said innocently (not rlly)
“that was my cousin” he smiled wider, he let you fall onto his trap knowing you were some possessive woman.
“cat got your tongue? maybe you could tie me up so i won’t have to know anyone else” he said with a sly smirk displaying on his lips
you couldn’t ever pull this shit anymore because he will turn the tables every time.
🍒joshua
in a world of boys he’s a gentlemen
same thing that happened with jeonghan.
an old classmate came by and was being touchy with him, grabbing his biceps or caressing it
it was as if shes getting closer and closer to merge with him
“could you please step back? you’re making me and my girlfriend uncomfy”
that woman fled so fast
“jo-“
“no baby, i don’t know any other significant women other than you and my family” he smiled placing a kiss on your forehead
no more asking anymore.
🍒seungkwan
side eye
CRIMINAL SIDE EYE
like what did u even say
“you know other women?” you said voice steady eyes piercing through
he would laugh HYSTERICALLY. sad to say that h lost ur pride and ur rights to be jealous
“wait you were serious?…” he said wiping his tears off his cheeks
“no..”
“WAIT NO YOU ARE, i have to tell the gc lol”
he would realize it later that u were serious and tell u how he had to work with different idols including women in his work industry
but there’s nothing to worry
BECAUSE HE CHOSE U🫶🏻
🍒seokmin
bad date idea
watching his past performances
arthur. (iykyk)
you were joyous seeing his performance, his singing ability
and him looking a tad bit silly in his medieval costumes
all those smiles drop seeing the ending.
you were not that type of woman, but you decided that it would be fun to tease your boyfriend. ofc you knew it was for work.
“so did it feel good?” you *jokingly* sneered
“not at all, i prefer your kisses” he smiled assuring you
full of assurance, why doubt this cutie? but he said it wrong so don’t take it to heart bc he meant “i only want your kisses”😓
“prefer huh? you know other women?”
“NO BAB-“
yeah he had a grocery bag over his head the whole day as his self torture for “doing you wrong”
would hit into things trying to find your moving figure to apologize and bow to you (you had to give him cuddles telling him you were joking.
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randomuser678 · 10 months
Text
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So Harriet has shown on screen that she is terrified of living a mediocre life on the shadow of her clone mother and that speaks so well to people of color’s pressure into fitting into white definition of success and societal approval and so many things about Harriet’s plot lines reflect that
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Harriet is constantly trying to appease Joan and try to sound as friendly and passive as possible.
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And then when Harriet makes the slight criticism toward Joan, Joan throws a pity party and Harriet needs to back away for JOAN’s feelings, it feels really implicit how Harriet is trying to live up to white approval, by making a show that would get hollywood’s attention, casting the hot white couple of the school, by TWISTING herself backwards just to please a white woman’s sensibilities.
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And as a result Joan just completely disregards Harriet’s art and makes it her own, and makes it way more whitewashed, and set on medieval times for some reason? (You could argue it’s bc Joan of Arc’s real life) but also! The fact that so many art that’s met with prestige is white and old and European, Joan understands these things are “meaningful and deep” but that is only meaningful to a specific set of ppl, as opposed to Harriet’s wide-appeal show. Joan is convinced she’s on a moral high ground but the way she communicates is mainly through a white person’s biases when creating art.
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“I know I’m the clone of Harriet Tubman, but that doesn’t mean I can’t have fun silly stories too!”
Harriet genuinely likes the story she made and how silly and fun she is, but she lives in the shadow of an important social figure and is terrified of failing that image.
Many poc and specially black and brown ppl feel pressured into making their experiences and prejudice they face part of their art, that every black character on something set on the past is either a slave or non-existant, that art of color has to be about pain and tragedy that can spell out our suffering to a white audience, Harriet here wants to escape from the pressures from being a clone but also from being a black artist in 2023 in general.
The conflict between Harriet and Joan’s white womanhood is great bc it shows how Joan lets her feelings and desire to make a “meaningful” musical that is just a bunch of edgy stuff and white people is so well written, specially because it brings to question why do we make art at all? And how does one decide what kinda art they wanna make? Does making something black and white and dreary make it automatically more meaningful and therefore superior to a musical about twister? The answer to the last one is no, and I love how this episode showed these cool discussions.
And I haven’t even touched on the song about white guy confidence, because I think that was a plot b where that theme was the most apparent, and I wanted to show how the same theme of white privilege shows up in the plot a, Cleo, Carver, Sacagawea and Confucius also aim to get a white audience’s approval, that is what these characters all struggle with and it is an ungoing war called living through high school as a person of color
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fourstarsoutofnine · 6 months
Note
Hellooo, i noticed that requests are open! If I may, can I request courting shenanigans with Four? Man's gonna have a full on war in his head (AND a full on brawl if they split )if the Colors have different ideas on how they want to court the reader. Even better if the Reader has feelings for them but is as Dense as A Rock.
In any case, please do take your time with this! I don't want you to burn yourself out, and I don't mind waiting.
One last thing, I hope you know that your writings make me smile whenever I see that you posted.
Ok that's it lmao, take care of yourselfff
A/n:AAA thank you sm😭🫶you’re so very kind. Also I’ve been wanting to write for the colors for a while, thank you for giving me a way to do that!!
Also, I read somewhere a while back that to make a courtship official in medieval times(typically between a man and a woman, I’m not sure how it worked for other couples, it didn’t say so I’d just say it was an overarching thing), the man would give his lover a cloth torn from his garment but I didn’t want to have four slice his tunic so I settled for an extra headband ribbon <3 anyway enjoy!
How to date.
Four x reader (ft. colors)
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The smith was normally a pretty easygoing guy. Calm, collected, able to figure things out relatively well on his own….when it came to regular issues.
But you, though—oh, you.
You were an entirely different story. He had no clue how to gauge the situation of his thoughts and feelings towards you.
He knew he’d fallen for you—faster than the champion when his shield broke while surfing—but the thing is… he was torn inside on how he wanted to go about asking you, and courting you.
You, of course, were clueless as a blind detective. Not a single thought of his feelings behind those eyes. But he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t relieved by that. It just meant he could look at you longer without you wondering why he was doing so.
Vio hated keeping this from you. He wanted to figure out some way to tell you. It’s your right to know how he felt. It would be wrong to continue your friendship without your knowledge of this, as it was something that, Hylia forbid, could end the friendship all together if you found out and didn’t feel the same way.
Red wanted to tell you, but by the three the poor thing was paralyzed by fear. His feelings towards you were so strong he felt like he could explode. He adored you—he had the smith looking at you like you were the goddess herself. If it took being dragged here by the shadow for you to meet, it truly will have been worth it. He reveled in every aspect of you.
Even Blue was smitten. You knew how to fluster every part of the smith, and he was no exception. Your willpower and strength amazed him, as did your sharp wit and ability to shoot a comeback right back at anybody with a snarky remark, and that was something that could easily melt him to a puddle.
Green had no words, really. You just captivated him. He was the head of the group, the calmest of every color, the least easily riled. But you had him, all of them really, wrapped around your finger. If they could only agree on one thing, it would be that they’d do anything for you… so why couldn’t they come to an agreement on how to ask you out?
“A library’s the clear choice. It’s a calm, quiet environment facilitating a feeling of ease and comfort, and that’d be best.” Vio stated matter-of-factly.
“Oh please—you just wanna read after, whether we get rejected or not.” Blue rolled his eyes.
“Alright then, what’s your idea?” Vio shot back
“Picnic.” He shrugged. “Easy. It’s a calm, quiet environment facilitating a feeling of ease and comfort.” He repeated in a mocking tone. “But way more romantic. I mean—what can you even do in a library??? Recite love poems to them?”
“Yes! Exactly, Blue!”
“Hey!!!” Red shouted. “Stop arguing, this is getting us nowhere!”
“Do you have a suggestion, then?” Vio pressed
“Um-…well…” he thought. “We could…I’ll take them shopping! That way I can buy them things that accentuate their beauty…” his cheeks turned red as he smiled dopily at the ground.
“Not a bad idea, only, where will we get the money?” Blue asked. “We’re practically pisspoor traveling with the others. Hardly a rupee to our name and I wouldn’t be caught dead asking to borrow from someone to take our partner out. We’re not a scrub.”
“…yeah…” he mumbled ashamedly, a blush of embarrassment now across his cheeks. Vio patted his shoulder, assuring him it wasn’t a bad idea despite their lack of funds, and it would definitely be something they’d do in the future when they got more money(if you reciprocated their affections, that is.)
“Green? Any lifesaving ideas?” Blue crossed his arms, tired of this charade.
“….honestly, gang? I got nothin. I’m coming up blank..”
The other colors groaned. Unfortunately for them, it was loud enough for your passing form to hear. The sound caught your ear and drew you closer. When you got to the source, you saw four brightly colored iterations of your lovely smith, each one of them a representation of the color on the tunic you most consistently saw him wearing. You’d become rather close to him and the sound he’d made concerned you. This, however, wiped all other worry from you and you stood there shocked and confused on the scene playing out before you.
“Are you serious???” The small man in blue let out another groan and held his face. “My goddess were never gonna tell them at this point; this is ridiculous. They’ll be back where they belong by the time we can come up with a stupid plan.”
“Easy, Blue. Don’t be so dramatic; you’d sound like Red if you weren’t so negative.” The one in a lovely purple(or violet, more accurately) said.
“Hey..” the one in red pouted.
“No offense.”
“Offense?? You’re comparing him to ME!”
“All I said was you’re both dramatic, you’re just negative too—“
“I oughta—“
“Hey!!” The one in green finally shouted, bringing the others’ bickering to a halt. “Even if I did have a plan, would we even agree on it? You three can’t seem to even stop arguing, much less come to an agreement or come up with a solution we all like. Maybe-..maybe we just try to…since it’s causing us inner turmoil and making us bicker with ourselves…what if we just suppress it…”
“No..!” Red shouted. “I-I don’t want to..! Loving them is so nice… I don’t wanna push that down…”
“Honestly? Me neither. Besides it’ll just make us sick. You know what happens when we bottle it up.” Blue stated.
“Exactly. We get physically ill and I’m not a fan.” Vio added.
“But the thing is—what if it’s all for naught anyway? What if they don’t like us?” Green sighed.
“What if they do?” You finally piped up after not being able to hear of the scenario any longer. You loved the smith. You just never in a million years would have thought he returned your affections. But yet here he stood, the four major parts of him split by the foursword, bickering over how to take you on a date.
The colors eyes widened, faces blooming a bright red immediately. They’d been caught.
“What if I do?” You said. “And…I might have a solution to your issue… how about we go out to eat, or just for a walk or something..? It doesn’t matter what we do, I just like to spend time with you… we can to that when you’re all together again, and then someday later, you four could go on whatever individual dates you had in mind that you couldn’t agree on…” you smiled nervously.
Red was the first to break the standoff between all of you. He ran up and hugged you tight. You smiled and hugged him back. The other colors joined before they backed up and merged again. The smith stood in front of you with a sad smile. “You really—meant all that..?”
“Of course..” you smiled. “For one, I’d never lie to you, and two, why would I ever not reciprocate your feelings? Smith—Link, you are brilliant, in every single way. And all of this just adds to that. I can’t wait to get to know every single part of you.”
“Can—can I-….can you bend down here so I can kiss you?”
You laughed and nodded, bending down to let the small hero kiss you. It was careful, calculated, and so full of love that you were sure he’d gone over it in his head a thousand times on exactly how he’d do it. When you both broke away, his face was bright red and he smiled like a dope. “That—“ he started with a lovestruck laugh. “Was so much more than I ever dreamed it would be…”
“I could say the same…” you were just as lovestruck as he was. “I just-…never would’ve thought you’d ever think of me like that…”
“You kidding? You’re literally everything I’d ever dream of. Every aspect of you’s the most incredible thing I’ve ever had the pleasure of experiencing…”
“Smithy…” you sigh, beginning to refute.
“I mean it.. and if you’ll let me, I’d love to show you how much you mean to me..”
“I-… I’d love to..” you smiled softly. His eyes lit up and he grabbed a spare piece of ribbon he uses for his headband and tied it around your wrist.
“I’m not sure how it works where you’re from, but this is how people know we’re courting.” He smiled. As did you. Courting, what a cute way to say dating… with the colors satisfied, the smith felt satisfied as well. So did you. A happy ending for all of you<3
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jaylleoo14 · 6 months
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An Octopus First Impression II
part I
His first proper introduction and your "first" impression
>GN!ReaderxAzul
A/N: This is starting off right where it was finished so please check out part I first to get better context ^3^ And yes, this one is much longer
[disclaimer] A certain someone can't take a damn genuine compliment 🙄 (okay but understandable)
[characters] Azul & a little of a jesting Jade
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In all honesty, you knew who Azul was. Who didn't know the dorm leaders when they are the most prominent leading representational figures in each dorm? You've met some of them personally, getting to talk and spend time with them on not so irregular occasions. Sure you see them more than often compared to the others, but it differs and varies. It's usually expected for students to at least show some respect for the dorm leaders, I mean they are dorm leaders for a reason. Yet there really are some arrogant nobodies from time to time and it's only then the wrath of the dorm leader's power and authority gets put into action, reminding everyone just who they are messing with.
Azul was no exception. In your mind, he is a dorm leader, automatically making him more powerful than the average students here and has qualities fitting for this role.
There you sat with the poised man, sitting aside from you on your left as he sat with his back perfectly straight. His posture made you a bit self conscious so you fixed yourself up properly once you realized that your posture wasn't the best against the wooden back of the chair. Just by the way he was sitting and talking, the way he gestured and pointed, everything about him seemed to just radiate professionalism. The way he would explain terms or the events leading up to the main wars, what magic played into what part and so on.
How kind of Azul
Your thoughts are only interrupted for a moment when you think to yourself how kind Azul is, his willingness to help you with your studies. Once that thought is processed in your brain, it then goes back to listening and following along with Azul.
You nod along with his explanations, following where his pointer finger would end up on the pages and his little personal opinions of why things are the way they are.
"Hey Azul? How about we take a break? I feel like I kinda need it" A hand props up on your cheek as your posture goes back into a relaxed curve and your elbow propped on the table and you let out a little sigh. He continues to keep up with his prim sense of etiquette, pushing up the frames of his glasses.
"Why of course. I'm sure going over the material for about almost an hour straight must be daunting and draining for someone such as yourself. Though we'll get back into the lesson once 20 minutes has passed." He flashes a smile your way, a stark contrast to your more drained self.
Perhaps it was because this is the first time you and Azul have ever interacted with one another, but one of your first thoughts is rather if you'd prefer his tutoring or Riddles. As you consider it some more you think as of right now you'd rather stick with Azul because you're pretty sure Riddle is a bit fed up with you right now and you don't want to feel the pricks of the thorns from the rose.
"Hey Azul? Thanks so much for taking the time to help me out. I appreciate it" Clasping your hands as you stretch yourself out, he lets out an affirmation that it was no trouble at all.
There are a diverse set of students here at Night Raven College. To brute strength guys to the most pretty silver tongue guys out there. If it weren't for your careful judgment in knowing when and where to proceed you probably wouldn't have made it this far with your companion Grim by now. Pomifiore is known for its elegance, the dorm based on the tenacity of the Fairest Queen. The students residing there you'll see are full of fair skinned and perfect silky haired individuals, looking as if they are from the richest medieval fairytale books you'd read in dark romance.
You've never got the chance to properly look at Azul, the whole session's main focus being the studying part. So when you come to take in his features, you can't help but to take a moment and stare in awe at how handsome and dashing he was in an unobtrusive manner.
He's so pretty
The way his lips looked plush and prettily pink, is that his natural color? His eyes looked calculative and thinking, yet looking so enchanting. The mole diagonal under his lips, giving it a nice accent. Sure you've seen some fairly good looking people who don't belong in Pomifiore, but his fair clean and glistening skin and his perfect features could fool anyone into believing he was a part of that dorm if he were to wear the uniform. Vil will always be the fairest of them all, but something about Azul enraptured one's heart just as well. The tentacles pull at the heartstrings as it lays there beating in the grotto. His look almost humbling despite his beckoning alluringness, as if it could draw me into the depth of deep waters like a siren calling in passerby sailors.
"Prefect, may I ask why you were watching me during flight class?"
"What?" In real time, despite all these thoughts running in your head you could say that it lasted for only about a minute - which is long enough for him to be aware that you were clearly staring even if you were trying to be discreet about it.
You feel your cheeks turning a warm red, embarrassed by such a blunder. "Oh well, I mean I can't take flying classes so you know, whenever flight class is in session I'm usually in the back doing exercises. And during one of our joint sessions way back I saw a glimpse of you then"
"I see, what a terrible time to see me truly"
"haha, what do you mean? It was pretty f- ahem. I mean, I think despite not being the all time best at wielding the broom, your skills prove enough to pass the class"
"Don't think that I didn't catch what you were going to say '' A little scowl forms on his face and I cant help but to laugh a little instead of feeling intimidated.
"Sorry sorry. But at least you guys can ride the brooms, it looks fun." Your voice sounds a little left behind as you recall the memory. "Being magicless isn't all that great when everyone is in the air and you're the only one on the ground doing sit-ups"
A shiver runs up your spine just thinking back to Vargas impeccable-muscle brained shouts.
"As the kind hearted person I am I can say that I can sympathize with your situation prefect, i'm sure being magicless in an a magic-filled school has it's risks." Azul twists his upper body to face me, sharing indulgence in our conversation. "And as the benevolent man I am, my doors are always open thus you need any sort of assistance, I'd gladly like to help in any way possible"
He places those gloved hands of his on his chest to give off a welcoming presence, a charming smile to top it off.
How generous he is
"Has anyone ever told you how pretty you are Azul?"
Now it was Azul's turn to stumble. "What? Are you trying to ma-"
"Look I didn't mean to get you off guard like that, but I think you should just know that. Take my compliment as a thank you for your generosity."
Azul can only give you a suspicious look, as if you had some hidden intent or meaning to those words. His piercing gaze shooting you like a triton. It was a rather sudden change in topic, he cant help but assume something was up.
"You don't have to believe me, I'm just saying you're pretty jeez. Take a compliment will you? It's not everyday you get one"
Clearing his throat he straightened his posture which he didn't even realize faltered.
"Why then, thank you for the compliment, Prefect." Just barely a light hue of peachy pink can be seen on his ears, and you were right. It's not every day he gets compliments. Weird, why wouldn't he? He's so pretty.
Because this is an all boys school full of cocky bastards who can't compliment others genuinely for shit y/n. Of course, an inner sigh comes out.
"Why are you suddenly so awkward now?" A mirthful laughter springing passed my lips.
"I'm not being awkward in the slightest, perhaps you should be better at reading others before deducting a conclusion"
"Someone sounds defensive" You divert your eyes to look up to tone it as indirectness, leaning against the creaking wooden chair. 
“And someone thinks they are being rather cheeky”
“Haha, no way! It was just a simple compliment. Did you want me to start teasing you instead and genuinely not mean it?”
“If you think someone such as yourself could tease me then you’d be terribly mistaken. I’d say you’re acting rather comfortable with me if you can so easily say such a thing.” Tilting his head up as an artful smirk paints his face, perhaps to better describe it better; a machiavellian one as his lips pursue to open to speak. “Comfortable enough to even shamelessly stare at me. But I am pleased to know my physical appearance is to your liking, Prefect.”
“I think it's normal to stare at pretty things though.” A lighthearted chuckle fills the air around me and I share a similar smirk to his, only this one was painted as amusement and playfulness. “Were you thinking you had something on your face instead? That would be a little entertaining to see you freak over that, if I were to say.” 
He doesn't reciprocate the playfulness however and just shoots back a more stern face. “I see you are feeling rejuvenated enough to want to fool around now, I think that’s enough break time for you.” Readjusting his position he turns to flip the textbook page over and you can’t help but laugh a little.
He’s kinda funny
He’s smart
Almost endearing even
With a slight pout and a feigned whine you scoot up your chair to prop yourself better against the material laid table and lean in to ready yourself to listen and follow along with Azul. With your eye going back to their attentiveness on the book, darting back and forth to write and scribble in your notes, next to you a small smile creeps on Azuls lips. His cheeks slightly a little red; it’s shade comparable to one of a watered down crimson sunset sitting on the edge of the sea. 
Pretty is what they think of me
You can say this study session went well as you both now exit the library, feeling not only drained but confident and pleased to have more self confidence in yourself now. It was not only productive, but you get the impression that your personalities interact with one another well. 
Azul sees you off, insisting he were to personally escort you back to your dorm but you firmly decline. You deemed that it was already enough that he used up at least 4 hours of his time to use it to tutor you.
“I was born with legs, but not a brain big enough as yours to comprehend all of that material in one go or two. Have a pleasant evening Azul, I greatly appreciate your help,” hugging your textbook and notebook stuffed with writings and notes. You wave him goodbye as you walk off.
They have a better image of me now, good
Azul walks back likewise, in a better mood and his mind more at ease. Not only can he use that study session to pull out some favors from you but he was able to wash away that pathetic self of himself on the broom from your head. Killing two birds with one stone, how easy it was. 
‘Has anyone ever told you how pretty you are Azul?’ your words echo like a ripple in his head. On the walk back he can only smile to himself remembering your words of what can be assumed of honesty from the heart and not some simple lip service to butter him up. 
They are rather interesting. We got along better than I expected
Being able to make the Prefect indebted to him is a big score today, the reason why he’s in such a good mood - is what he’s telling himself. But the overly pleased and delighted air around him tells Jade that there is more to it when Azul begins to share the success of today, arriving back at the chic and sea-themed office.
“You seem to have enjoyed your time with the Prefect, Azul. Perhaps if you continue to accompany them they may drown you out with compliments and poke holes in your heart.” 
Purposely saying that in a way which could be taken in two ways, selectively picking and choosing his words, Jade can only teasingly comment.
“I assure you it was all in my own self interest and benefit Jade. I don't let such words to affect me in such ways,” Azul combats his jesting with a serious look in his eyes. Jade can only chuckle a little, going along with Azul’s words to assure him that he meant no harm and it's back to work after spending so much time neglecting them. 
“Of course. It would take some time to poke holes in three hearts instead of one after all”
There you were, lazing on your striped cushioned couch back at the shabby dorm which you can respectively say is your dwelling and your little companions, alongside the ghost who you’ve managed to coexist with dwelling there before you. Your notes are put away and neatly tucked in. Residing in the corner of your history notes, a little ‘he’s kinda cute’ is scribbled on a random page.
Not like he'll ever know though, right?
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olderthannetfic · 2 months
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Apropos of world building.
No one is this whole wide world is allowed to say Harry Potter has good world building.
Always hated how people are super fascinated by this parallel society, but the only reason it works is because "Magic fuck you" until it apparently doesn't. It's so cheap and wishy washy. If literally every issue is just waved away with "magic" that's just cheap, because even problems that can't or shouldn't be fixed with magic, get fixed with magic. But then we still constantly hear about rules and that magic isn't a fix all, but only when it's convenient. It works for children's books maybe, but the moment it went beyond that, and then the entire "Extra lore" that happened later, it just started getting real stupid.
How do they keep their secret? -Magic.
Ok but obviously they are living somewhere so... -Magic expanding alleyways and areas.
But how does that work that literally no one notices, even from aerial shots? -Magic.
What about all the creatures that aren't normal? -Magic.
What if someone finds one of them or the plants? -Magic.
Ok, what about cross-cultural exchange? Even if you live in your gated community you gotta know some stuff about tech. Nope, magic.
Huh... -Also everyone is chronically stupid when it comes to tech, and even just normal "muggle" things, it's an entire field of education to figure out what human stuff does, that's why everything has this weird medieval vibe. And no, they couldn't "literally just go out and check it out." For some reasons the Wizards like dying out and being stupid, and pooping on the floor and magicking it away. Magic.
What about the schools? -Oh you mean the like 5 schools for millions of students? Eh forget about them. Hogwarts is the only one that makes any lick of sense in terms of size. You'll love to hear that the entirety of Asia has like 1-2 schools, and it's called something like "Magic castle" in real bad google-Japanese. Btw, don't expect any effort having been put in the names or places of other Wizard places, the author didn't give a shit to hire some editors to make sure she didn't just write some pointlessly dumb shit in that regard. And btw, please ignore other tensions because clearly Wizards would not have any kind of social tension across borders.
What about big events in the human world? -They don't care, they dealt with Wizard Hitler conveniently at the same time as WW2.
What about deadly sicknesses and their cures? -... yeah nah fuck the muggles. Magic. Also always hated how absolute braindead every thing is. Spells exist to find out what someone's last spell was. Is that used when some dude gets accused of murder? Of course not! How absurd.
--
HP has magnificent sense of place.
Personally, I care far more about that than about internally consistent world building of the type SF fanboys jerk off to, at least in most genres.
(EXCEPT FOR AGE OF SAIL! TACTICS, BABY! HOW DARE PEOPLE ADD ANACHRONISTIC OR FANTASY TECH!!!)
But yes, when people try to say HP has good "world building", they mean that it has good vibes and that it feels good if you don't look deeply. They do not mean the economy makes sense.
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calisources · 20 days
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𝐌𝐄𝐃𝐈𝐄𝐕𝐀𝐋 𝐓𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐏𝐄𝐓𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒 𝐒𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄𝐒 𝐌𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐒.
All of these sentences are mostly taking by my own mind and i'm not joking. It was hard finding material quotes regarding tournaments in historical or fantasy setting. Some are from shows or media but eighty percent is all from my own mind, please give credit if use these. Change pronouns, names, locations as you see fit. All of these involve the medieval event of a tournament and what happens around them.
I fear I am already bending far too many rules just by taking you, my young princess.
Show me your hands, you will have blisters soon.
Lady Eglantine doesn’t believe in love, only lust.
In the world of competition, only the strongest shall prevail.
A true champion is not defined by their victories, but by the obstacles they've overcome.
Victory is sweetest when it's earned through sweat, hard work, and determination.
Will you not participate in the tourney, my lord? 
May I have the honor of wearing your favor today, my lady?
Good luck to you, my Prince.
The tournament is not just a test of skill, but a test of character as well.
Is it always this bloody? Will those poor men die? Someone must see them.
I want him to wear my favor.  Only him. 
If he wins, the knight has the right to name his Queen of Love and Beauty. And at the feast, they shall dance.
Be careful. A tourney is a grand place for courtly love, but also, for blood to rise and affairs to appear.
Call me what you like, say I'm without honor, I don't care. I'm not getting on any more horses to whack you people with a stick.
Kings may be chosen by God, but they still make the mistakes of men.
When even those who rule can sink this low, it is not possible to change anything.
It's my lucky charm, be sure to bring it back to me.
My favorite blue ribbon. Take it.
It will bring you good fortune and you will return from joust unharmed.
I was hoping to ask for the Princess's favor.
How about a kiss, for luck?
Courtly love was the culture around the performance of love at court.
And now, rather than admit these feelings, you're dancing around one another with this mind-numbing and frankly boorish mating ritual.
The knights take on the duties of shadows with pride.
Whoever wins the tournament, shall become the prince/princess’ new betrothed.
You want to marry my daughter? Prove yourself worthy.
Petyr survived only because I begged Brandon not to kill him.
When Petyr heard of my engagement, he challenged Brandon to a duel. 
You do qualify to marry my daughter.
What matters most is who she will give her favor to. 
Her face is one that can create dynasties or crumble empires.
I was hoping for a word before you rode on the tourney, my Prince. 
My brother is the one competing against you, please be gentle with him.
The games are done for the day, please, feast and drink as you wish. 
You have been staring all day, my lord. I was beginning to wonder if I had something in my face.
Any damsel that's in distress - she'll be out of that dress when she meets Jim West.
Great men do not seek power... they have power thrust upon them.
My daughter seems. . .infatuated with you. I have yet to see why.
The princess is naive and thinks any man who is kind means well. A tournament will only show her the reality of life.
You honor the arena with your combat. May your swords and shield preserve the peace.
In the songs all knights are gallant, all maids are beautiful, and the sun is always shining.
I will be brave for Princess Pea.
As a squire, your first duty is to your knight’s armor. Your knight’s armor is more important than your own life. 
You will be knighted and you will have earned your knighthood.
You are hurt. At least let me tend to your wound.
The men laugh and fight and the ladies search for husbands.
Nothing like a good tournament to find a husband, or a companion for the night. 
Rumors are always spread with ease in these.
Can I have your daughter for the rest of my life?
You say I'll never get your blessing till the day I die.
We're married now, but we still haven't told your dad. This is the right time.
Are you promised to someone?
My sister's getting married. It's a love match. A rare thing. I’m not so lucky. My husband is to be chosen by who can hold a sword the longer.
Why can’t women participate in the games?
There are games for the ladies, Your Grace. But they are less. . .gruesome. And of course, the dancing.
Princes and Princess all over the realm and across the sea are coming for this event. You must shine brighter.
Let me help you with your armor. It appears loose.
As I promised, I return your favor to you, my lady. 
The Prince never loses a joust. He will crown his queen and then all will be well.
I do not understand the appeal of this. 
I spend days making these favors, let me stay a little longer.
My lady, I do not need your favor to win, but perhaps, a kiss of good faith. 
I do not care who wins these games, your hand is already arranged for another.
Men are scoundrel, specially when blood runs hot after a good battle, stray away from them.
These games are done in honor of the king’s heir.
The lord’s daughter is said to have bloomed, and the man chooses to announce it like this. 
A tournament is for men to boost their strength, fathers sell their daughters like mares and for affairs to happen.
I saw you on the stands today, my lord. But you did not participate on the games.
My brother wishes to dance with you, my lady. He is all too shy to ask himself.
You were injured. Have you allowed someone to heal them or are you too stubborn to let them?
Princess, you must not stray too far away. 
Mother is too drunk and annoyed to care, she won’t mind. 
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lemonhemlock · 4 months
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i get what you’re saying but i get what dany stans are saying too, what is the difference between dany taking back kl and sansa taking back winterfell? at the end of the day, monarchy sucks and none of these characters are truly "worthy"
I approached this topic more in-depth here and here.
The difference between Dany taking back King's Landing and Sansa taking back Winterfell lies in the construction of legitimacy. When engaging with medieval fantasy, rejecting its political framework and ignoring its limitations in absorbing more egalitarian ideology (and the socio-technological constraints that inform those political/philosophical limitations) is going to prove a fruitless pursuit. Westeros is roughly based on feudal Europe and has a recognizable European political thought inheritance and recognizable medieval technology and means, so I think it would be reasonable to employ political philosophy that could be plausibly applied during the period from which it takes inspiration.
~unnecessarily long essay no one asked for below~
In this regard, what makes for a "worthy" ruler in medieval times might differ with the passage of centuries, as socio-political practices transform. Which is why I feel like the validity of monarchy as a form of government was never truly under question in this setting, even though it has certainly been criticised and points have been made about social injustices arising from wealth disparities and the segregation of social spheres (I hesitate to call them social classes as I don't think the Westerosi have developed class consciousness yet).
I think that this is ultimately an element of disappointment for some readers, who are trying to project onto the text something that is not there, instead of switching to progressive fiction that addresses their concerns and presents alternative political systems. What I mean to say is that dismissing all types of monarchy as illegitimate is not useful within the text, as it renders all differences between the characters null & ignores the entire historical evolution of the concept of legitimacy. So you end up with takes like "it doesn't really matter who sits the throne". It matters very much to Martin, because that is the type of story he is trying to tell, that's... the entire point of the series. He is a boomer writing about dragons and knights in the 90s, not a transformative political thinker who is going to smack us with a new social order at the end of the series. That doesn't mean he can't critique the system or the characters' approaches to ruling. That's why he keeps killing the unfit kings & punishing those who rely on wanton brutality.
Coming back to the question, Dany's family was deposed, meaning that, legally-speaking, she doesn't have any "birthright" to the throne of Westeros anymore, no matter what she tells herself. Is deposition legal? John Locke certainly thought so in his Second Treatise of Government, chapters "Of Tyranny" and "Of The Dissolution of Government". Below we have Jean-Jacques Rousseau, "Discourse on Inequality":
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OK, these are Enlightenment thinkers, but the concept was not new. The Magna Carta of 1215 certainly has a provision for this. That's medieval enough, I feel.
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(Ralph V. Turner, "Magna Carta Through the Ages", Harlow, Pearson Longman, 2003 - the original article was too long lol but anyone can look it up for themselves).
Thomas Aquinas, "Summa Theologica", 1274:
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etc.
You will find these ideas under the term "right of revolution".
Many medieval kings IRL have been deposed or lost their crown. Richard II, anyone? There's an entire play about it. So, yes, Robert Baratheon is the legal king of Westeros at the start of AGOT and Viserys / Daenerys simply are not. There is no birthright to speak of, that is just Dany's entitlement that goes unchecked and unquestioned.
Of course, crowns can be won back by the right of conquest, which is what Dany is trying to do. GRRM's plan for her seems to either be rejected by the people of King's Landing for whatever reason (a la Rhaenyra maybe) or for her to commit such an atrocity on the city in her attempt to seize it that it disqualifies her as a potential ruler because she breaks the normal rules of engagement to a horrifying degree (i.e. dragonflame). Dany's entire plan is questionable from the start, since she intends to mount an invasion on a people brutalised by several years of war already, on the onset of winter - essentially extra suffering. The conditions are there so that the Westerosi might not interpret her actions as liberation, but merely as another pretender to the throne, who is only after her personal betterment - basically no different from what they've seen before, so no reason to join her cause or believe in her propaganda. She will bring fire-breathing monsters, Dothraki and Unsullied warriors to their lands, whom they fear and for whom they have no kinship. They have no particular attachment to the old Targaryen kings either. In short, Dany's father was deposed and she will end up deposed herself because of her own actions (or never recognised in the first place). I'm not saying this because I have beef with Daenerys, she is not a real person who did me wrong, she is a fictional character the author is using to illustrate a political idea.
Whereas the people of the North maintain a very favourable view of the Starks and of Ned Stark in particular. They are seen as the legitimate rulers of the North and their replacements (the Boltons) are almost universally hated. The text is littered with "the North remembers" and "there must always be a Stark in Winterfell" and general Stark-fawning. The people of the North were very eager to name Ned Stark's son as their king. The people of the Night's Watch voted for Ned Stark's 15-year-old bastard as their leader. Ramsay Bolton pretends to marry Arya Stark to consolidate his legitimacy as the ruler of Winterfell and the North. Many other characters covet Sansa for the same reason. The Starks have not been deposed, unlike the Targaryens, they're just missing / presumed dead and Winterfell is up for grabs. None of our Northern characters think how lovely it would be if we had a Targaryen restauration. These things may seem like candy floss to the modern reader and they may not resonate, but they mattered a lot in the past. So when Sansa takes back Winterfell, it will be with the backing of the majority of the Northern population and with the help of the Knights of the Vale, who are seen as honourable and are of Andal descent, so will not be perceived as foreign invaders. No one in the North will be contemplating their right-to-revolution against the Starks, because they will be revolting alongside Sansa to free themselves from the abusive Bolton rule.
Sansa rebuilds Winterfell out of snow and thinks of it warmly as her home, feels kinship and connection with the place she grew up in, whereas Daenerys feels possessive over a land she's never seen and wants to take it with "fire and blood". True, these are not actions, not crimes for Dany and neither acts of benevolence for Sansa. They haven't done anything yet. But they are images. Framing. Hints. That's how literature works.
Could Dany be given a narrative of Westerosi restauration? Could GRRM write her as gaining popular support and as not breaking the social contract while installing herself back on the throne? Had only Book 1 been published, these questions would have had more validity. But after Book 5? Not when Martin frames her like that and literally kicks her out of the city she conquered.
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landwriter · 1 year
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Sandman prompt: Dreamling roadtrip
"Remind me why I am allowing this," says Dream.
Hob casts a sidelong glance at him. Dream, in his car. Dream, stuck in the crawl of London traffic with him. Imagine that.
He reels off Dream's succession of unfortunate choices with poorly smothered glee. "Because your sister said you should spend more time among us humans, which you mentioned in passing to Matthew yesterday, who suggested a road trip, then had to explain to you that a road trip meant 'Just driving somewhere for a while', and you apparently you said-," Hob pauses to pitch his voice as low and poncy as possible, "'Ah, a pilgrimage, then. A journey for self-knowledge.' And Matthew said 'That's right, boss' and you said you would, in fact, be curious about such an experience."
"False pretenses," says Dream, darkly, under his breath.
"Indeed," says Hob, who thinks he loves false pretenses now. Matthew had shown up at his flat laughing so hard he couldn't even speak. When he finally recounted the conversation (after Hob had gotten very concerned and asked if Matthew needed a human counselor or an animal vet, and Matthew had shaken his head and wheezed 'No, a driver', before falling into fits of laughter again), Hob had immediately agreed.
"And then I canceled my plans for the weekend because I'm the only human you know who has a car, it turns out," (A reliable and bright red Vauxhall Corsa, thank you for asking.) "And because I'm a very good friend," he adds. He still relishes the new-word feel of it. It had only been four months since Dream had shown up at The New Inn. Hob was skiving off marking midterm papers for this, actually.
"Yes," says Dream. Hob realizes he'd skive off the whole term for this.
How could he turn down the prospect? His friend, literally strapped into the Corsa for at least the next several hours. Assuming Dream didn't leap out and flee on foot down the M1 - which seemed so thoroughly undignified for a being of Dream's station that Hob felt utterly assured of his company. It had all rather gone to his head.
"This will be fun," he promises. "Feel the grass under your feet, and that."
Dream looks out the window bitterly as a lorry overtakes them. Hob has never been the fastest of drivers. Never really took to it, to be honest. Bit of the medieval peasant in him, he thinks, can't quite make himself go over fifty miles per hour. But he's very safe. Hardly any accidents. Mostly minor rear-end damage.
"I see no grass," says Dream.
"Surely the Lord of Stories is familiar with figurative speech," says Hob, and glows under the heat of Dream's glare in reply.
"Anyways," he continues, "We're getting to that bit. Literally. In, uh, six hours or so? It's a great spot. But in the mean time, this is part of it too." Hob takes a hand off the wheel to gesture with a flourish at the sea of sensible hatchbacks and work vans around them, swimming like fish in the asphalt rivers of London's outer burbs. "Humanity," he pronounces, and the car drifts a little into the next lane. Humanity honks rudely at him and then accelerates safely out of Hob's radius.
Dream's sulking seems to have pushed him fully into the realm of catatonia, because Hob's passengers are usually more animated when he does exciting little things like that. Hob looks over in concern and this time the car barely follows with him.
"Bit rusty," he offers.
Dream deigns to snort softly at that. "My sister is far worse," he says.
Hob raises his eyebrows. It was hard to imagine Death bad at anything, frankly. Dream must see his look because he clarifies.
"Another sister. Delirium. An official of the carriageway stopped us. He would not have us continue our passage. So she gave him delusion of bugs crawling across his skin. Forever."
"Well, that's one way to get out of a ticket," says Hob, and makes a mental note to ask Death for a complete list of siblings and how to avoid angering them.
"He was being rude," adds Dream. He suddenly sounds very much like an older brother.
"Oh, fair play, then," says Hob affably. He'd had little sisters once. He understood.
They drive in silence for a few minutes. Hob thinks about putting on a playlist, and has just decided that nineties Britpop is perfect for this occasion when they pass a junction sign and he exclaims in recognition.
"The M25! Funny story, I know just the loveliest antiquarian book dealer who says his partner - uh, I'm assuming there, but if you heard the way he talks about him - anyways, his partner designed it. Some kind of high-flying civil engineer, I reckon."
"Really," says Dream. "A...high-flying...civil engineer." He sounds fascinated.
Hob hadn't expected Dream to be interested in road design.
"Something like that, definitely," he says, looking over to see Dream, staring at him, rapt. He looks back and brakes just in time to avoid hitting the car in front of him as it turns off onto the motorway in question. "Sorry. Saw him once in passing, actually. Dresses like you. Very fancy and dark."
"Perhaps you should keep your focus on the road, Hob," says Dream, but he sounds like he's smiling.
"Oh, we're not for a while yet," says Hob. Half truth, half optimism.
"Where are we going?" asks Dream. Hob beams. He's just won a bet with Matthew.
"It's a surprise" he says. "Now, have you heard of this band called Oasis?"
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ganondoodle · 8 months
Text
as i was awake in the middle of the night for like 2 hours bc i felt sick i had more somewhat random totk thoughts
one being that i really hate how raurus response to concerned zelda is, after sonia died in that almost funny how little impactful it was way, "im sure you are here for a reason" (actually, i hate how often this sentence is used in general to .. idk i guess its supposed to be inspiritational???)
bc what does that mean actually? him saying that to someone who got there absolutely by accident really just sounds like "i dont care go figure it out yourself bc i dont want to think about anything concerning you or your troubles lol" i guess its meant to sound like OOOOH fate has BROUGHT you here bc you have to furfill a role you dont know yet (spoiler its being a sacrifice girl with no personality) and besides me hating the 'inescapable fate' trope in general (at least the way its usually done in these games, which is not to struggle against it but willingly accept whatever you are told and pretend thats good) its really jsut goddamn boring and is really only an excuse to well .. ignore her and her trouble; shouldnt you, if you were actually such a cool guy like the game wants me to believe so bad, do everything in your power to get zelda back to her own world before shes pulled even further into the war you caused now that her only ""mentor"" that could help her get more use of her pretty much useless sudden powers is gone too?? i know shes basically dead wife sonia replacement (can of worms ugh) but it still grinds my gears whenever i think of that cutscene, bc i cant help but hear it as the lamest excuse in existence to not care about her and just kinda .. see what happens which in this case means leave zelda completely on her her own since both rauru and mineru die as well (honestly shouldnt rauru have thought about like .. any plan to defeat gan besides dying himself, given hes the oh so cool and goodest guy king whos only mistake was not stabbing gan the second he stepped into their kathedral castle thing, like even if you had a plan it can still fail but it seemed like he just kinda went in with a handful of people that didnt seem to know each other at all, never got names or faces -or unique voices for that matter- to fight gan face to face inlcuding the girl that came from a different time and had nothing to do with any of this conflict and couldnt even really control her sudden new powers just seems pretty stupid)
thought 2
how totk really feels like botw but for the people who didnt like shiekah tech, its not a sequel, its botw again, but version of only sonau, its like a pokemon game that had two versions but one has weirdly incoherent story and acts like the other never existed jsut as a whole its like retreading the same points but worse, all shiekah tech that was so integral to the world and had such a long history just vanishing and no one caring about any of it like it never happened, HELL the titans were called divine beasts in english but i guess they werent divine or important enough to keep around LOL champions WHO and isntead a never before seen or even heard of race for that matter showing up and planting their ass in every place the shiekah were before, dare i say it feels weirdly manipulative, like either them or some outside force erasing every fact about the ancient shiekah and replace them with sonau stuff bc they are the hot new shit now
this is a point that just doesnt stop bothering me, how the shiekah tech seemed so carefully designed and integrated into botws world and story, its a difficult to keep balance after all, integrating high tech stuff into a medieval setting, but they made it work! and then totk comes around and throws a bunch modern day tech into it puts some vague greenish stone filter on its exterior and call that even better more ancient tech; why did they even bother to make pottery inspired laser shooting spider legged robots so well integrated when they throw a car and rockets into the next game without a thought and call it a day, what was the fucking point
it feels like someone was dead set on having a set of legos thrown into the game it had no place in, if you want players to build whatever they want make a building game instead!! especially if you are just gonna throw it in with seemingly no consideration how out of place it feels togehter with the fACT THAT YOU ALREADY HAD AND ANCIENT HIGH TECH CIVILIZATION WITH A VERY DISTINCT AESTHETIC THAT WAS ALREADY WELL INTEGRATED INTO THE WORLD YOU ARE PLANNING TO REUSE WITH ALOT OF MYSTERY AND UNKOWN STUFF ABOUT THEM TO EXPLORE FURTHER YOU COULD HAVE USED!! but i guess they just "didnt want to play with you anymore" and that so much so that they went out of their way to erase every trace of it, i dont think the words shiekah tech are ever used in the game, and the purah pad and her towers just drive me more isnane bc they are the same shit but called different and also much worse, liek the purah pad isnt some more developed shiekah stone, no its a glorified camera with a teleport function and thats it
(i know i said this before but i really cant stand how obsessed every single NPC is with sonau shit, you get told to your face every second line of dialog that they are so cool and are so mysterious that it just makes me annoyed of them even more, the game is obsessed with shoving them everywhere and telling you over and over you too should obsess over them, they werent weird like that about the shiekah stuff in botw?? the biggesst talking point in botw was calamity ganon ..... which makes sense and in totk its like ... gan is mentioned what, in a newspaper article??? once???and then not even by name i think???)
aside from that big point which will never let me go, its also just .. its not moving forward anything, it actively walks BACK the progress that was made in botw, call me dumb but i dont really count moving one step up in the social roles of each race as a character development (for the side characters like the champions desc- ahem SAGES) but mainly zelda ... god how dirty she was done, totk pretty explicitely makes her regress any development she made in botw aside from she likes link uwu and some people like her too, but also not enough to notice that that weird zelda being all evil and weird isnt her (INLCUDING THE CHAMP- SAGES WHO YOU ARE SUPPOSEDLY FRIENDS WITH??? you dont have to be a genius to pick up on that my god, were you all given the mc dumbo potion or what)
she gets put back to square one, back into the little itty bitty princessy maiden role forced upon her by her royal parentage, this time rauru edition, back into a white little dress, back into the scared puppy eyed teenager, back into a situation she cant handle, back into losing everyone around her (tho honestly botw made me care more about rhoam than totk did about rauru), back into being forced to do a big sacrifice- but worse actually
in botw she went to FIGHT AND HOLD GANON IN THE CASTLE SO LINK HAD TIME TO RECOVER AND IT WOULDNT DESTROY THE LAND!! and you are telling me in totk rauru takes up her botw role and she bascially killed herself to ... restore the mastersword.
......... she ... she did that only to be a glorified version of the stone pedestal in the forest. and then she gets returned to normal itty bitty girly no problem via magic sparkle beam at the end and
DOESNT
EVEN
REMEMBER.
it really is just botw but worse, you even get yet another ghost king of hyrule to guide you around (rhoam did it better fight me ... we dont talk about the questionable choice to make himself darker skinned when posing as just some guy)
i honestly dont think i was ever truly taken aback by anythign that happened in botw, while in totk, the further i played, the more i had to fight with myself to keep the feeling of unease, disappointment and betrayal down
its such a god damn shame, totk should have stayed a DLC, i will forever mournfully dream of a game that explores more of the ancient shiekah, doesnt erase integral parts of the world, developes characters more instead of making them regress back and make them end up even less developed than at the start of the game, dives into buried secrets and mistakes of dark pages of history without giving into a weirldy nationalist(imperalisitc?) narrative and lets characters have some agency for once
if it werent for the yiga i might have actually considered refunding the game, just to be at peace with myself
anyway, aboslutely incoherent word vomit.
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