#i don't know how bears or armor work
Text
— meet me in the woods
halsin x druid!reader/tav
rated e - 7.2k
tags: double druids, smut with feelings, aphrodisiac (in the form of a fertility solstice), mates/mating rituals, hinted at breeding kink, poly!halsin (but has a connection with you), pleasure dom!Halsin, canon-typical violence, masturbation, miscommunication, oral, PiV, size kink, multiple orgasms, cum play
Living in the city had muted your druidic powers, cut you off. That all had changed, in your journey across Faerûn. Something inside of you had cracked open - letting nature and instinct sink in.
And in spite of the feelings now burning inside you - you don’t know what it means to celebrate the Solstice. Luckily for you… Halsin is there to help you through your first.
The sky has started to slip from soft shades of blue to deep orange and purples. Your wrist aches from where you scrub at your hide armor, removing the layers of grime from the long days of travel.
Your eyes flick up, like they have three times already in the last ten minutes. Across the twist of smoke from the fire that Gale tends, a cauldron of stew that has begun to fill the camp with it's rich aroma.
To where he lounges. To where your eyes meet soft green.
You look away.
"Do you think he's looking at us?"
You don't mean to ask this question out loud. It's a thought that swirls in your mind - slipping between teeth and a tongue loosened from a warm afternoon under the sun and a flagon of crisp wine.
There's the cutting strike of shale against steel. Sharp eyes flicking across to where yours have slipped, once again.
A lip curling, with the click of a tongue.
"Chk. I've seen that look on a male before." Lae'zel's tone is knowing, the slightest hint of a smirk sent your way, as she sharpens the edge of her longsword, "A bear that wishes to devour."
You blink, glancing her way at the humor in her voice. Trying to ignore the fluttering flip in your stomach at the thought.
"Oh, I am not so sure he sees me that way." Your knuckles curl as they press into a stain, your eyes dropping in mock concentration.
A red eye cracks open near your hip, Astarion's head propped up on the wrap of your bedroll. Curled like a cat under the sun and with the wafting warmth of the fire - a hand coming up to shield the bright glare above.
If it had been anyone else lazing next to you, you might have asked them to lend you a hand with the basket of vegetables for the stew - the next in your long list of things to-do. But secretly, you were just pleased he chose to spend the afternoon near you.
"Gods - I took you for boring, darling. But I never took you for stupid." He sighs, with a stretch.
Well, you had been pleased.
He ignores your look of offense as he pushes himself up on an elegant elbow, chin propped in the cup of his hand, "I don't think he's stopped looking at you since he's joined us."
A wistful sigh, "It's enough to make me wish I had saved that child."
Before his nose wrinkles, as he reappraises that thought with displeasure.
"Appreciate that, friend." Your response to his earlier remark is flat, as he flops down again.
"Oh, don't be like that," He drawls, "You were the one who asked."
The misdirection is noted with a small huff of a laugh, as you turn back to work again. Flipping around their thoughts in your own mind.
How you wish that were true.
Your own feelings were no secret to yourself. There had been no pretending in your heart, after your first meeting. Even if you had not always known the strength of your powers, you had always known yourself.
There had been a near-instant attraction with your first meeting. A suspicion that there was something special about the bear trapped in the worg pens. That feeling blossoming with the fluttering in your stomach when he had changed - the depth of his thanks at your aid in protecting the Grove.
A seed had been planted then. A hope that perhaps, with time - with some tending - that there could be more. That feeling only grows since, flourishing, weaving its way between your ribs.
And lately, you think there has been something more. His laugh comes easier. An eagerness to join you when you left the camp. Never far from you, when you return.
You were the first one he turned to after the rage of battle.
“Are you well, teuivae?”
As if you could not mend your own wounds. The word that slipped from his tongue lost as his eyes searched - until he was satisfied that the blood splattered across your leather armor was not your own. Broad hands that cupped your face. Close enough to brush his own against yours, but instead he had hovered.
Waiting - but for what, you did not know.
It had you wondering. You suppose enough now that those thoughts have made their way out into the world. Not knowing what to do, with your friend’s confirmation.
That feeling only increases, the turn of the moon turning it into a surging weight in your chest. Something physical, that gnaws at you. Tipping past want and hurtling towards something that felt like need.
Your thoughts of desire running wild, until you can’t help but slip your fingers beneath the layers of your bedroll. Your teeth biting into the heavy fabric that muffles the quick circle of your fingers, the soft sigh of your relief.
It was hard not to. To see him that way, to want him.
He is kind. Almong the best Elves you have met. He could take care of you. Your mind tells you, now. Protect you.
A very instinctual thought, one that you’ve brushed aside. You don’t need protecting. How could one protect against the tadpole, better than you already are?
But the thought comes back.
He would keep you safe. You know that, as certain as the changing of the seasons.
How quick he already is to race to your side - all teeth and claws. Imagining the honor of sharing his bedroll, how he’d wrap around you…
Only now do you realize you’ve been staring - your damp rag hovering in your still hands. A small shake of your head as you concentrate on your work. Making a point not to look again, to push the thoughts from your mind.
You really needed to get a hold of yourself.
You’re still thinking about it later, as dusk settled. The sky now streaked with hues of purple and grey, the camp littered with small fires and torches. Bellies full of stew, content to wind down after the long day.
Under the stars, it's impossbile to ignore just how much things have changed.
In the city, everything had felt muted.
Even in the outskirts, the small towns you had flitted to. The desire to fit in cutting off your attunement with nature.
But, after the Nautiloid. After you had crashed down to the Wilderness. Met the others - truly embraced who and what you were - things had changed.
You felt more like yourself than ever.
Even when you thought your time left was marked by days. Hours.
The warmth of the sun against your face. Acres of trees, the bark rough beneath your fingers as you climbed.
It seeped into your skin. Invigorating you. That liminal space between beast and body melding as you changed freely, unrestrained by space or propriety.
It was freeing.
You didn't have a coven, in the city. A lone wolf - left to wander along.
Forgetting how it felt to channel the forces of nature, with the night air wrapping around you. A bond formed when you had met Halsin, your first prolonged contact with another Druid in years. Something had been planted, watered with admiration, carefully tended in the absence that had soon come.
An urge to stay at the Druid's Grove, once the fight was over. Something unlocking in you, a need for kinship.
It had been ignored - there had been no other option. But it was like part of you stayed cracked open. Inviting nature, the whims of Silvanus, to eddy inside you. Growing potent, under the wax and wane of the moon above.
Intimate feelings mixing their way in along the way. Undeterred by the quiet, shared murmurs. Of rumors and whispers of Halsin's many lovers - good natured ribbing about his scar.
You had often thought your heart was too large to belong to only one other. It had been a relief, when you heard Halsin speak the same, around the fire.
Not fearing a connection, but not limiting it. Like nature itself, he had said. His eyes had found yours - you had taken it as some sort of lesson, from the Archdruid.
Perhaps it had been an invitation, instead.
The thought is pleasing to you. Enough so that you think… you think it’s worth being brave for.
You can’t help but seek him out, once more. Thick arms cross over a broad chest as he talks, though you’re too far away to hear. But it doesn’t stop his gaze from finding yours over the top of Wyll’s head. The way his friendly smile softens, a look you suddenly feel certain is just for you.
One you return, as that thing inside your chest swells. Blooms.
You’ve trusted your gut so far.
You’re ready to trust it again.
There is a stirring. A rooting, something sprouting in his chest. A feeling that has flickered before, but never this strong.
It had been easy, for gratitude and respect to bleed into something more, after their first meeting. After seeing such a fierce little thing take down two goblins with the flash of sharp teeth, sharper claws. A worg following, almost bigger than themselves.
Few would have stood before him, after. A frown as ferocious as their bear-form as she had offered her own opinion on how to handle the Druid Kagha, though his sentence had already been bestowed.
It had been hard not to smile.
There had been more pressing matters that had kept him away, after. Denying the offer to join her - them - the Emerald Grove had needed him more.
But still, something had lingered.
A connection. Something invisible that ties them together, that has nothing to do with the being that squirms in her mind. It begins lower - beneath the cage of ribs and where, perhaps, something soft lies.
It has him feeling like a yearling again, in spite of his three hundred and fifty years amongst Faerûn.
As the moons have passed, he'd become too accustomed to the gleam of her fur, in the sunlight. Nearly blinding him. Eyes as sharp and a tongue as quick as his.
Her true form as pretty as a field of wildflowers, of the rainbow spray of colors against the mist of a waterfall.
Evenly matched, he has thought. More than once.
The sentiment settles in his bones, trapping him - a rabbit in a snare. Though he's not so desperate to be freed, as he might have thought. The idea of being tied down had never been appealing.
But there is no urge to leave. To walk amongst the forest again, to find his way back to the Druid's Grove, for Spring. To dance and join beneath the moon, like he had for so long.
A more singular focus taking over his thoughts, as the rite approaches. A deep-seated hope, his affections shown in the ways known by his people.
Many have begun their attachments in the span of evenings to follow. Perhaps they would take the same path, if is she was willing.
The thought is more than pleasing.
It has him seeking out the eyes that fall on him so often. Finding where they linger now, in the flickering of the fire. The look she gives him - one of consideration, one of seeing in a new light - is one he knows well.
The beast inside him can read the subtle looks like tracks in the mudbank. The glitter of lights in her eyes like runes - etching a message just for him.
Enough that when she turns from the fire, when she pushes herself so carefully up - slipping like a shadow, into the forest...
It's impossible not to follow.
You can feel him behind you, as you weave through the trees.
Anticipation, excitement, pricking up the hairs on the back of your neck. Guided by the stars that sift through the canopy of leaves above.
Your feet know the way, though your mind does not. Guided by something primal inside you, taking you to a small clearing.
Grass blankets the space, tucked away in the forest. Dotted with wildflowers, a break in the branches above to let down a shaft of moonlight.
The armor you once clung to left back at the camp. An innate knowledge that there was something special about this place - that you were safe here. Protected by your own abilities. Even more so, with him following.
There is much said, in the look that he gives you as you turn. The shift of his shoulders as he approaches, a slow nod of approval as his eyes sweep across the clearing.
“You’ve chosen this spot well. The Solstice, could you feel it?”
His words make you frown, suddenly unsure. The curve of his smile wanes at your silence, as he takes another step closer, “Is that not why you’ve come here?”
The hope you’ve carried sinks, settling low in your belly. So unlike the weight that was there before - one of hunger and desire.
“I must confess, I had been hoping.” He continues, with a cock to his head, “But it seems like we are on different paths.”
You have to answer him, you know this. It takes a second to gather your courage, this meeting quickly taking a much different turn that you have expected.
“I do not know anything of your Solstices. I came here because I hoped…” Your gaze drops, unable to look at him, “I had hoped that you would follow. That this night might be ours.”
A hand cups your jaw, tilting your head up. To your surprise he is smiling, his thumb stroking across your cheek, “Your answer relieves me. We are not so far apart. I thought I had been clear, but it seems you are still unsure of my intentions.”
Something flips in your stomach, melting the spray of ice that has coated your insides. A small flutter of hope, as your eyes search his green ones, “What do you mean?”
“I have become so accustomed to your presence, that I’ve forgotten that our ways are still unknown to you.” His voice softens, and you can’t help but lean into his touch - hanging on to each of his words, “I’ve been courting you for some time, now.”
Time freezes, for a moment. Your mind whirling past all the small moments you’ve collected - held so close to your chest. Reaching out to touch others that now made more sense.
Bringing you your share of dinner at the camp. A solving of the mystery of a fire that had been stoked during the night, an extra pelt placed over you for warmth. Caring for you.
You had mistaken them all for chivalry.
“-and I had thought you were accepting, tonight. With the beginning of the Solstice.”
“I must be dense.” You can’t help but smile, with a sensation of being able to breath again, “I had my own wishes, but I never knew-”
“I should have been more clear. Forgive me,” His hands touch his scars, his smile turning wry, “I thought it wise to let you set the pace of our journey.”
Hence his waiting for you to kiss him, after that battle. His following you, tonight.
Courage rises in you, once again.
“I want you to show me what it means to celebrate.”
He softens, for you. Hands dropping to entwine with yours, bending until your foreheads touch, “Then I am yours.”
The slightest tilt of his head, bringing your joined hands to point at the heavens.
“With the spring comes new beginnings. We lead the way, with the Solstice. Baring our flesh and joining beneath the moon, in an offering to the Oak Father.” His words are a low rumble, it’s impossible not to focus on his mouth, the way it quirks at his next words, “It is… rigorous.”
The heat that has simmered for weeks now flares to life, as his eyes darken.
Bu there's something small tickles at you, making you lean back. Your brow furrowing, needing the clarity.
"Is it just the Solstice that draws you to me?" Is it just duty that has ensnared his affections? Is this no more than fulfilling the desires of Silvanas?
He laughs, with a shake of his head, "If our first meeting had been in the Grove, your beauty would have been more than enough to enthrall me."
The knowledge is flattering. That he still would have wanted you, in another life, in another time. His next words are enough to cast the rest of your doubts aside.
"But make no mistake. For quite some time now, I have desired more. Deeper than the skin, down to the marrow." He brings your entwined fingers to his mouth, his lips pressing against your knuckles, "I fear you stole more than gold that day, in the Sanctum."
There is much that he reveals, with his words.
A sense that your feelings are more than reciprocated. A reminder that he does not mince words, like others you have known.
For as keen as your eyes are, you should have realized this sooner. The last curl of unease lifts, wafting up to stars above.
“How do we begin?”
“Eager. I like that.” Halsin grins - his eyes dragging over you, as his voice pitched low, “For starters… you are overdressed.”
With as large as his fingers are, they are dexterous as they tug at the tie of your tunic. A palm curling around your waist, tugging you close as your face tips up to his.
“And there is usually music.” He murmurs, dipping just enough to brush his mouth against yours, “But I am sure we can make our own.”
His name is a soft sound on your lips, before they press against his. Warm and solid and plush, a sigh in his throat as your hands reach up to grasp at broad shoulders. Slipping to tangle in his chestnut-colored strands, keeping him pulled close.
And you are reminded that he is strong. Abandoning your shirt when your tongue brushes his lip. Hands catching the underside of your thighs to haul you against him.
Your legs stretch wide around his waist. One of those hands moving to splay across the small of your back, a low growl rumbling as you nip at his lower lip.
Hunger gnaws at you, as he deepens the kiss. An ache to be closer, unable to get enough of the taste of him as he licks into your mouth.
Holding you against him as he sinks to his knees. Bringing you down against the blanket of grass, nestling you against it. A low chuckle at the way you still cling to him, entangling yourself around him like vines, as Halsin begins to tug at your clothes again.
Carefully, as if it's a gift to unwrap you.
"Come now, my love." He coos - another gentle tug, as you finally let go.
The air ghosts against your skin, warm with the changing of seasons. A low sound of approval with each layer that is stripped from you. The curl of a palm against your ankle, tugging off your boots. Heat pooling low, as fingertips brush up your thigh, settling at your belt.
"I long to see you bare beneath me."
He touches you as if he can't get enough. The sweep of his thumb over your thigh. Fingers joining yours as your hips lift, allowing him to peel your trousers down, and then off.
You think that perhaps it should feel strange, to be naked in the moonlight. But Halsin eclipses the brief fluttering of unease. The hunger in his expression captures yours, as he leans back to sit on his haunches.
So broad, so big. You think the desire must match in your own eyes, his sentiment so shared.
"Join me," You coax, a hand reaching for his thigh - feeling the muscles jump underneath.
His grin gleams in the moonlight, as he lets you start to do the same to him. Distracting you terribly as his hands skim from your waist to cup your breasts, teasing and pinching.
Only tearing the sleevless tunic from his shoulders before he's curling over you - his mouth pressing against your neck. Inhaling your scent with another low growl, his nose skimming over heated skin.
Those lips pressing against your throat, the threat of teeth as they part. You squirm beneath him, something inside you aching for him to bite down. To mark you.
You can feel his smile against your skin, his hands still teasing the tight peaks of your nipples. One drifting lower across sternum and belly, drifting across the curve of your mound.
It’s easy to arch into his touch, to urge his fingers lower. The sweep of his fingertips is so light, a summers breeze against your skin - a low hum of a laugh as your hips jerk again.
“I know it’s affected you.” There’s the slightest pressure - thick fingers split, tracing the crease where your thigh meets groin. Purposely avoiding where you need him, where you know you’re wet and wanting.
Another sharp intake of breath, before he’s pushing himself up to hover over you, “At camp. Your smell. It was difficult to hold myself back.”
He touches you, then. Twin moans as his fingers slip against slick flesh. Dripping, for him. Almost making you forget your words as the pad of his fingers circles your clit, as your hand brace against his biceps, nails biting skin.
“W-wasn’t the coming of Spring.” You protest - the rhythmic swipe of his fingers stealing your breath, “It was just you.”
The look he gives you then - it’s all soft edges, wrapped in a focus that’s so intense your eyes flutter shut. It’s too much, his gaze, his touch.
A low groan from his chest then, in recollection, “There were many nights lately where I wished to offer myself for your pleasure. Perhaps I should have.”
For your pleasure. Few would word it that way - conjuring images of him beneath you. His tongue tracing the same path of his fingers, your thighs pressing against the long points of his ears.
It makes you clench - the simmering fire in your belly sending up sparks, stoked by the way his head moves lower. Your fingers slipping to twist sharply in his hair, as his tongue peeks out to brush your breast.
“More, Halsin. I need you-” You pant, your free hand fitting under the bulk of his shoulder. Reaching to nudge his hand down lower, until his fingers are brushing your entrance.
He traces you, before he sinks into you, down to the first knuckle. His hands are so much bigger than yours, there’s already the slight stretching burn as he eases deeper.
The tilt of his head, chin pressing against your ribs. The fire burns in his own eyes, a heavy press of his hips against your thigh, letting you feel him.
“If we had been at the Grove, I would have hoped you would have chosen me as your mate for the duration of the three nights.” It’s a confession, the word mate ringing out - enthralling you, “Now, I do not know what tomorrow brings. I will give you all that I can, tonight.”
In a fluid motion, he moves. The ripple of muscles as he shifts between your thighs - their breadth stretching them too wide. Enough that you have to hook one over the curve his shoulder, before his head dips.
The heated swipe of his tongue hits you just as his finger presses deep and curls. You’re instantly thankful for his three hundred and fifty years, with the pointed exploration of his mouth.
A groan as he tastes you, those green eyes fixing on yours again. Fitting another finger into you as your heel digs into his shoulder, as your head tips back with a cry.
It’s too much. Pleasure skitters through your stomach, your hips moving on their own, matching the steady thrust of his fingers. How he drags them against a spot that makes you keen and squirm, before sliding them free to fit them between his lips.
Tasting the honey of your arousal, his lips already shining with you, before filling you again. Muscles clenching like the pull of a bow, waiting for the arrow to fire.
Halsin moans into your cunt like he’s feasting, like he truly means to devour you. His own hips pressing into the ground, easing his own need for friction.
Too practiced with the tight flicks of his tongue, the way his lips kiss and suck against the sensitive bud. The press of his fingers loud with how wet you are, matching your sharp, panting breath.
His name is a whimper before your muscles string even tighter. Going stiff as your breath catches, a pathetic whimper of a sound before you’re crying out.
The pleasure ignites, ripping through you as you come. As your thighs press around his ears, though he does not slow. Fucking you through it with his fingers, soft growls that buzz against your clit with each press of his tongue.
Leaving you breathless, boneless.
His mouth soft as kisses are pressed to your thighs, as you come back to yourself. It feels like you’re glowing, a soft haze settling over your limbs, down to the curl of your toes.
A broad hand smears your slick across his jaw, as he pushes himself up to kneel between your thighs. Where his cock strains against the leather of his leggings, tenting the soft fabric.
You ache to make him feel as good you feel. Something primal roars in your belly, as you follow him. Hands pressing against his chest, the flicker of shock turning warm as he lets himself be eased back.
Until it’s your thighs straddling his, moving up until your slick cunt is pressing against that heavy curve. His lips parting with a soft pant as you lean over him, your head dipping to kiss him.
He tastes like you, the sweet tang of your orgasm. Another shudder of pleasure coursing through you at the thought - as his hands find your hips, coaxing you to rock yourself against him.
Back home, you don’t know if you would have had the courage to climb this mountain of a man. But the images that flicker through your mind - the ones of him beneath you - are too strong, tugging at you. Beckoning your limbs to follow.
“I want to-,” You’re mumbling, between kisses, “Will you let me?”
“Follow your urges, my heart. Wherever they lead you, I am here.” His words sound strained, his hips flexing up, against you. More than content to be your guide, or to let you explore at your pace.
Your fingers drop to tug at his belt, with his consent. His hands coming to cover yours, lifting you with the rise of his hips. Freeing himself, his clothes joining yours on the forest floor.
It’s only here that you pause, as your thighs stretch across his waist. Where it becomes evident just how proportional he is - his cock full and flushed and heavy, curving up towards his stomach.
Unable to help touching him, his eyes fixed on the slight frown and then panic that flits across your features. A low rumble as your hand fits around him, your fingertips unable to touch.
“You-” You stammer, suddenly unsure, “Halsin, I don't know if I can-”
His eyes darken at your insinuation, his teeth flashing with his smile. Fingers curl around his base, tilting himself up. Pressing himself against your belly, the tip smearing a wet spot on your skin.
Measuring. Your grip tightens and he groans, his hips flexing into your touch.
His voice ragged, rough in the night air, “You can take me. Know you can, my love.”
You can’t pretend you’re not eager to try. Hands pressing against his chest, eyes flicking between his face and his cock, as you lift yourself up.
One leaving to hold him steady, taking a second to feel him slide against you. Muffling a sigh when he bumps against your clit, slicking him up with your release. Before you line him up, and start to sink down.
He splits you open. The pinch of his fingers against your hips hurts, as he tries to resist thrusting up into you. Even with your orgasm, your cunt slick with pleasure, he still stretches you wide.
Taking an inch, and then another. A tremble in your thighs as your knees press into the earth, a strangled whine as you make room for him.
His murmured encouragement catches in his chest, the moon and spring calling to him - only his experience keeping him from taking matters into his own hands.
A strong jaw ticking as you sink onto him, achingly slow - until your hips finally lie flush. Your hand flying to your belly, as if you could feel where he fits inside you.
His gaze is heavy, reverent. The press of fingertips against your skin as his grip eases, lips parting as you carefully begin to lift up - to rock back down.
The sensation flickers through you like faerie fire, the slow and sweet drag of him. Making you feel impossibly full, your head dipping down to hang between your shoulders. Hands curling into the hair covering his chest, as you figure out how to move.
It’s impossible to describe. A desire like you’ve never known bites at you, curling in your belly. You think perhaps you understand now - this need to bring forth the Spring and celebrate its arrival. It’s been something inside of you this whole time, waiting for guidance.
You have it, now.
“I-I did not think there was anything that could rival your touch,” Your words some out shaky - your thighs already twinging with the effort of moving. The steady rise and fall of your hips, the hitch in your breath when he sits flush within you, “I am happy to be wrong.”
The corner of his lip lifts in a snarl, but it’s one of pleasure. Just as gone as you are, with the drag of his eyes from your face, down to where you bounce on his cock. The thick peek of him each time your rise, shining with your slick.
It’s enough that his hands slip lower. Fingers slipping to rub at you again, each time you sink down.
“Use me, then.” He rasps, “Come on, sweet one. Take your pleasure.”
Your heart races, breath caught in your throat at his words, his touch. The slow pace increasing, as you try to do what he says.
Instincts flooding wisdom, drowning it out - tilting your hips until your thighs tremble, as he knocks against a sweet spot inside you.
Again, and then again. His eyes are fixed on you now, and the look he gives makes you clench - coveting his attention. Wanting him to only look at you, tonight.
To sear the feeling of you into his memory, as he has done to you. You think there is nothing that could make you forget tonight.
To forget this swirl of magic, as if you’re tethered to the ground, the sky, him - all at once. Utterly free at the same time, your body moving on its own without inhibition, encouraged by the sound of his moans.
The clench of teeth - the heavy press of hips that have begun to snap upward, no longer able to hold back.
“Oh gods-” You keen. Once, and then again - a grinding circle of your hips against his fingers, as that feeling inside you threatens to burst again.
Halsin chases the rock of your hips now with his own, with his fingers. His laugh rough, caught between his teeth.
“The gods may be listening, little one. But only I will answer.”
It makes you shudder, makes you beg.
“I’m so close. Please don’t stop.”
His fingers stay true. Pressing just a little harder, a jostle of his thighs as his feet plant against the ground. Fucking up into you now, as your pace falters. Too focused on the rushing white noise in your ears, the feeling that’s so big that it feels like you’ll choke on it.
“Let me feel you.” The words are muted, miles away. Digging into your skin to weave around your ribs, “Sweet one, come on-”
Your cry rips from your lungs, as you tip over the edge. He’s there to catch you, the steady pound of his hips as your own legs fail you. Fingers sweeping as the pulse of your cunt matches the heartbeat in your ears, clenching around him as you find your release.
Pushing himself up to meet you, as your arms wrap around him. Letting you chase the last waves of pleasure with the grind of your hips, your mouth panting into his neck.
A sweet sweat beading at the nape of your neck, across your skin. Your head turns just enough to meet his, his hand coming up to curl around the back of your neck.
To hold you to him, hovering over him, as he buries himself in you again. Again and again, until he is panting as you steal kisses. Tasting where you still linger in his tongue, another melding of your spirits.
“How do you want me?” His eyes are bright, hands slipping down to cup your ass, to help you ride him, “My heart, I fear I won’t last-”
You had made a pretty coin, brewing herbs and potions. Enough that you could do it in your sleep, your talents extending to camp. Teas of protection brewed openly and without shame.
The need for him to spill in you floods your senses, your own breath ragged at the thought.
“In me, my bear.” You beg, leaning back - the snap of your own hips sharp and loud, “I need you in me.”
The groan he makes is laced with relief. The feeling coursing through him as well - an innate need to spill himself into your cunt. To rut himself into you, until you’ve taken every drop.
Your name is ragged on his lips, as his thrusts turn shallow. As you take over, riding him until his hands grasp at your waist, as he goes stiff beneath you.
He throbs, a warmth flooding deep inside you. A pretty sight, his strong back arching into you - lips parted, hair streaming loose amongst the wildflowers. A snap of teeth as he grinds against you until you drip with him, too full of his cock to keep everything inside.
Fully joined, beneath the moonlight.
Afterwards, you melt against him. A hand smooths down your back as your fingers wander. Across the fur of his bare chest, the curve of his lip. The swirls of scarred and tattooed skin - your lips following.
He’s beautiful beneath you. Eyes content and half-lidded as an arm tucks beneath his head. A little inhale of breath - his broad chest rising as your lips move to his neck.
If you were Volo you think that, perhaps, you’d write a song about this. But that would mean that you would not be with him now, and the thought all but fills you with agony.
That hand on your waist tightening as you push the thought away - stretching up to reach the curve of his ear, a groan as your tongue traces the point.
It moves you against him. His cock slipping part-way out, only to sink deep again with your exploration.
He’s still hard, achingly so. You’re more sure whether it is a blessing of Silvanus or just him - this being so perfectly crafted in nature’s image.
Your teasing winds him up, even as his release leaks from you, shining against your thighs. A groan buzzes against your lips, where they still press against his throat.
A shifting beneath you, a pointed lift of his hips that nudges him against that sensitive place inside you.
“Let me take you, once more,” He husks, his face tipping up to yours. Knuckles brushing your cheek, tender in spite of the fire burning in his eyes, “Like the Oak Father intended.”
Desire still burns in you. An ache at the thought of having him another time, enough that you’re pushing yourself up to straddle him.
Nodding, your begging “please” making him smile, as he pushes himself up on an elbow. His eyes raking over your body, bathed in the glow of moonlight. Where he’s still buried deep, kept warm by you.
Before he’s moving. Hands gripping at your waist - a soft whine when he lifts you off him. His cock flushed and shining where it rests against his belly, as he rolls you beneath him.
“Hands and knees, my love.”
You’re eager to do so. The grass soft against your palms as your knees press into the ground. Arching your back - feeling the weight of his gaze as his thighs brush against yours.
The curve of his cock pressing against you, as he squeezes the flesh of your ass. His touch reverent and hungry, grinding himself against your core as he groans.
“If I could keep but one image in my mind, it would be this one.”
You moan at his praise, rocking back to meet his press of his hips. His hand dropping to wrap around his slick cock, notching it at your entrance.
Holding himself there as his chest presses against your back - warm, as his other arm wraps around your middle. It does something to you. The position, the feel of him overwhelming you.
“Halsin-” You pant, each second ticking by feeding into your desperation, “Why do you wait?”
“My impatient little she-bear,” He laughs, but the sound is strained with you beneath him, “Do not fear, I will give you what you want.”
And he does, the thick tip of him parting you. Sinking deep with a rough thrust of his hip, making you cry out as he fills you.
You had thought he was big before, when you rode him. But you had been in control - taking him at your own pace. Bouncing at your leisure, aided by the span of your hands against his muscular chest for balance.
Now, it feels like he’s in your throat, as he seats himself completely. As you make room for him, gripping him so tightly he chokes on a breath, fingers biting into your skin.
Yours wrap around his wrist, braced against the grass for balance. Nails biting into skin as he noses at your neck, his breath warm where it ghosts against your skin.
A kiss pressed there, so tender that you feel yourself relaxing. Rocking your hips back, whimpering at the feeling of his cock dragging against your walls.
“Take me,” You beg, wanting more, “Feels so good, I want you-”
He groans, and you can feel him throb inside you. There’s the sharp snap of his hips, starting shallow. Sliding out further each time, until pleasure is crackling against your skin.
The little clearing filled with the sounds of your joining. Panting breaths and the slick sound of you taking him. Fucking his own cum deeper into you, lewd with the way you cry out when his cock grinds against that spot. When the heft of his balls kiss your clit again and again, heavy with his arousal.
It feels right. Halsin’s body pressed against your back, bending you until your chest is flattened against the grass. Fingers finding purchase in the strands and flowers, giving you something to hold onto as his thighs crash against yours.
Each deep thrust pushed your breath from you with a soft whine, leaving you panting.
Trapped beneath him, until all you can do is take it.
Squirming against the cage of his chest and arms.
Fuck me. Take me. Fill me-
It comes from deep inside you. The want to be filled. An ache at knowing he’s already spent himself, that each thrust brings him closer to a second.
You must say the words out loud because he makes a noise that sounds wounded. A stutter of his hips, his words a jagged rasp, “Let go, my love. I've got you.”
So, you do. Releasing your hold on that last ounce of control. Leaving yourself in his hands, letting your sounds and cries flow freely. Embracing the mounting pleasure as it swirls through you.
You babble - half-formed words as he holds you against him. Shifting when he hears you sob, rutting himself against the spot that sends you up to the stars above. The broken “oh, oh, oh’s-” bleeding into “Gods, Halsin-”
His teeth press against your neck, pinching against your skin, “Give yourself to me.”
The arm curve around your waist moves. Fingers carefully wrap around your hair until it’s fisted in his grip. Pinning you further as he pants in your ear, soft grunts and growls that sound like music in the night air.
Not stopping until you’re shuddering beneath him. Until he feels the tight pulse of your cunt, his own release not far behind. As sweet as the taste of you, as your muscles jump under his touch, as you arch and claw at the grass below you.
It’s bliss. It feels like you’re channeling the forest itself. Feeding off the pleasure that radiates from him. The new beginning of the season, the pull of the moon above.
The Gods are pleased, you think dizzily, they must be, for I have never felt like this.
The slap of his hips is louder, as you soak him. An overwhelming instinct to claim you, as his teeth sink into the curve between neck and shoulder.
Holding you still against him as he growls. Eyes flashing gold as you cry out again - pleasure and pain melding as your orgasm flares out, beginning to ebb in sweet bursts. As the sensation drags him along to find his own end.
Spilling into you a second time with a shout. His hips moving on their own, shallow thrusts with each pulse of his cock. Your head twisting to meet his mouth, a press of teeth and tongue as you swallow his groans.
Until his strength is all but sapped from him.
Until he is more man that beast again, those eyes soft and green again - a field of clover on a bright spring day.
It’s an easy thing, to take you with him to the forest floor. To curl around you - blocking your smaller form from the midnight chill that’s begun to creep in.
Warm and strong - an arm wrapping around your hip, a large hand splaying across your belly. As if those thoughts still lingered.
Still pressed inside you, keeping you filled with him. You think you’d be content to stay like this all night. Longer, if there was not more work to be done, tomorrow. More paths to be taken.
It’s not long though, before you find yourself shifting. Dozing in his grip, a sleepy rock of your hips in an effort to feel him move in you again.
“Oak Father, preserve me.” Halsin stirs behind you, as he huffs into your hair, “Insatiable little thing. And to think I worried about you lasting through the solstice.”
Your teeth bite into your lip as you grin, as his arms wrap more tightly around you.
“I should have been concerned about myself. This old bear needs rest, little one.”
But even with his low rumbling, his hand drifts. The pad of a finger brushing against your clit, sending another shot of pleasure coursing through you.
Your thighs part, a knee bending to give him access. Another soft whine as his circles against skin that is slick with his release, as his hips slowly match the lazy rhythm.
“Do not worry, my love. I will not leave you wanting.” He rasps.
“And there are many left hours until dawn.”
omg I started playing recently and I am so in love with this game. this was so much fun, I hope you enjoyed! I love Druids so much (and am playing one) and thought they for sure would have a 👀festival👀 of some kind and wanted to explore that in the context of like, act ii/iii (I am still playing so please let me know if I got any lore wrong!!)
Teuivae – ‘Moonlight’
(tags: @samspenandsword, @amywritesthings)
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can we get medieval slow burn crumbs pls 🤲🙏
I have had this idea with Knight Ghost bouncing around in my head since I saw an absolutely destructive to my psyche insta reel, so here it is
Ghost helps you get his mail shirt over your head, far too big and far too heavy for you to practically wear, but he's insistent. You try not to tense your shoulders at the weight of it, try not to buckle your knees when it drops into place. You knew knights were strong but to wear this every day without so much as a complaint? Plus the rest of the armor? Your eyes roam over Ghost's broad shoulders as he turns away from you to fuss with the rest of his armor. You always thought he'd look smaller without all the metal, but it almost feels like the opposite it true.
He's larger than life. Life being the operative word here. A living breathing man of flesh and blood, and greater warmth than the fire. His linen shirt pulls tight across his shoulders, revealing the firm musculature as he moves. You grab the mail shirt in your tightening fists, feel the well worked metal press its indents into your skin, still so warm from being on Ghost. You want to touch him. You won't, you're not supposed to. Not supposed to want to. You think that's what the armor is for, to keep you from thinking the man underneath is human, to keep you from wanting him.
"You alright Princess?" He asks, his voice is so low and rasping it makes you want to melt, "Thought you'd be complaining about the weight by-" He turns to look at you again, and his voice falls another impossible degree, "-now. Jesus." His eyes drag over you, fresh kindling for the fire in your stomach, the heat in your cheeks.
You must look silly in your dress and his chain mail, but the way he looks at you... God, the way he looks at you. Not even at your best dressed has a man looked at you like that. You swallow, and hold onto the mail rings a little tighter.
"It's heavy," You tell him, and although you mean it to sound like a complaint, to whine and put on the spoiled princess act that keeps all the other men away, you find your voice quiet almost reverent. Ghost nods, his warm brown eyes meeting yours. The only man in the kingdom with the impertinence not to look away, not to bow his head to your gaze.
"It'll keep you safe," He barely breathes, his eyes don't leave you, can't leave you. There's no where safer to look than your face, and no where more dangerous.
"You're doing a more than suitable job of that already," You know that twitch in his brow, the way his lips draw thin.
You remember the bandits that had ambushed your carriage, the way they're battered their daggers against your door, made slow battle with your guards. How they'd dragged you out of your safety kicking and screaming with harsh laughter. How Ghost's blade had torn through them like paper, his eyes red with fury. The physical shield he'd put between you and your assailants, the sound their swords had made bouncing off his armor was still ringing through your ears. Blood still soaked the hem of your dress.
"I'm not taking any chances," His eyes leave yours, turning his attention back to his armor. It's like having cold water thrown over your head. With you, you think, he's not taking any chances with you. "Can you move at all?" He asks, not looking at you, it feels purposeful. You hesitate, before testing the weight over your arms, hopping to feel the drag of the chain try to pull you down. You shake you head.
"Not much, I don't think I'll be swinging a sword anytime soon." He chuckles, and the heat returns to you, your heart clenching tight in your chest.
"That's good," He nods, "Violence doesn't suit you."
You wish it did, sometimes. You've begged him enough to at least show you how to properly hold a sword, but he always refuses. Always tells you, your future husband won't want your glaring to hold real threats. As if your gaze doesn't already bear his shadow, doesn't command Ghost to act as your sword. Wouldn't he come with you, to wherever you did marry? You couldn't stand to be apart from him.
Ghost lifts you up onto his horse with a quiet grunt of effort. "We'll have to take more rests, she's a strong horse but with two of us..." He shakes his head, pets a hand down the horse's neck. "Do you think you can stomach a few extra days of travel, my lady?" His hand lingers on your dress. His lady, you think, he never shortens the words like the others do.
"Of course, I'm hardly one to complain," for you, you tack on silently.
"Of course not," for me, he seems to agree.
#cod x reader#simon ghost riley#simon ghost riley x reader#x reader#ghost x reader#simon ghost x reader#ghost mw2#knight!Ghost#princess!reader#medieval au#I want him so fucking badly I am screaming I want him#his lady and her knight#soft pining looks across ballrooms neither of them able to make a move#Ghost seeing his girl in his armor and losing all ability to think#cod ghost
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okay, shipping brainrot from my last post aside, i'm still thinking about the shapeshifter arc. the other sites i use don't have inline posting or do but it's clunky, so i guess i'm theorizing here. some of this may seem obvious; bear with me, i'm not trying to be patronizing, just working through things. this will probably be long.
(edit: i've since learned there's canon explanations for all of this. regrettably i don't like them. enjoy my ideas of what would be better maybe? but keep in mind i wrote this before i knew it had been explained anywhere else.)
laios reveals what he knows of shapeshifters, and that they function on memory:
no one ever really suggests in chapters 39 or 40 who thought of which fake except in the case of which ones laios must have thought of, but i want to posit who i think each one came from, and what it means narratively if i'm right. so, mostly a thought experiment/character study that i could be wrong about or that was never meant to be clearly defined in the first place. but maybe fun to think about? (i'm sure other people have done this before too, but i think it'll be fun to write up.)
from the outset, i think it's worth mentioning that chilchuck knows all three laios fakes are, in fact, fakes. two chilchucks say this, but the one on the right is the real one. senshi and marcille immediately corroborate this, though we can't tell which of them it is except that it's not any of the really obvious fakes.
what i think this suggests is that, brought to the surface, the warped perceptions of the rest of the party that chilchuck, senshi, and marcille have can be easily discerned when compared with the real thing. each of these laioses is from one of them, but they immediately figure out none of them are right with the real laios right there in the room. this is important.
as for who's who...
i think it's fair to assume that giant laios is from chilchuck. laios is the tallest member of their party, at six feet; while chilchuck sees marcille and senshi as their correct heights, laios is a giant to him, and his bulky armor doesn't help. that's why, even if this is his perception, it's glaringly obvious that it's wrong as soon as it's made physical. it's the only big one, and easily falls into the camp of "doesn't seem to know much about monsters" that the others also do.
stupid laios is, i think, from marcille. because the giant one is so likely chilchuck's and i don't think senshi sees laios as someone who stupidly wants to eat everything (even if senshi's opinion of him isn't stellar right now, "i have to eat it" wouldn't be paired with being an idiot to senshi), it tracks that marcille would be the one to remember him this way. to someone who doesn't appreciate their monster eating and otherwise thinks he's an idiot just as much as the others do, dumbly muttering about eating things seems like a reasonable portrayal of laios.
feminine laios, then, is from senshi. i think his physical perception of the other party members is the most off-base; this is likely because he's known them for the least amount of time, and his idea of what they look like is based more on their races than anything else. i think the resemblance to falin might not be intentional--someone suggested to me the other day that the dwarf perception of tall-men is probably more feminine in contrast to how Macho dwarfs are. i think that makes sense (if it ever comes up canonically, i haven't seen it yet). laios and falin do just... look like gender-swapped versions of each other, also. so if senshi sees laios as a feminine person, well... that just winds up looking like falin.
so this leaves us with only the real laios. confronted with their perceptions of him, his friends can immediately tell all three are incorrect.
moving on, we eliminate the three most obvious fakes from the rest of the party, starting with marcille:
if we take into account what i just said about senshi, i think this is his. racial stereotypes about elves being what they are, him not knowing the party as well as the other members do... she stands out, and that's why.
now this is where things start to get interesting.
the next two fakes to be eliminated aren't so blatantly incorrect that they can be struck right out at a glance, but it's not hard to notice the flaws when you look closer, and chilchucks A and B are the ones to point it out. chilchuck is naturally observant; most of his fakes seem to emulate this. (the one who addresses the fakes is A, the real one, but B is proving himself able to pick up on the things A notices. this is important.)
notably, chilchuck and senshi assume these must be laios's versions of them.
we can assume this is correct, if we want to. we can take the framing of this as being an intentional reflection of the truth.
or... or... we can look a little deeper. we can wonder if, perhaps, this isn't a reflection of laios, but a reflection of his friends and what they think of him. laios may not immediately notice the problems, but i don't think it's because he doesn't remember these details. i don't think laios sees much of anything in vague terms; he's observant in his own right, but in ways he doesn't really recognize, nor does anyone else. i think he was so focused on their faces and mannerisms that he didn't notice the bigger picture, glossing over something because so many other factors are at play.
senshi and chilchuck think laios doesn't take notice of things, but the vast majority of the shapeshifter arc is about them and marcille not trusting laios's judgement as it is, given how things went recently. is it possible there's more to their assumptions here than what the text explicitly says? i think so!
so then who do these two belong to? marcille, i think.
if we assume dumb laios is hers, then we can also assume her perceptions of the others are kind of broad and vague. she doesn't think poorly of them, necessarily (at least not in as obvious a way as she does with laios, who, i'll remind you, she's currently upset with), but she doesn't commit unimportant details to memory, like chilchuck's neck band or the damage to senshi's helmet.
we've got three more "obvious" fakes to get through, and laios offers another lore tidbit on how the shapeshifters work:
anyway, the first of the next round is marcille again, setting the stage for how these three next fakes are eliminated.
marcille changes her hairstyle all the time, so this isn't a surprise. the last one pictured here winds up being our next fake, as indicated by her grimoire:
so the fake marcille in this section is the one with the most visibly different hair texture (who even draws attention to this), and the spellbook that's woefully incompetent. i think she's from chilchuck.
he's observant, as i said before; even if he didn't commit her hair to memory, he did remember the stuff she's said about how important hair is to magic. maybe that's why the texture is so striking. more importantly, chilchuck isn't wary of magic quite the way senshi is, but he also doesn't understand it. the general tone of the low-quality grimoire also just... sounds like the way he'd frame something like that. (plus, the "how to turn back time" bit is a thing he specifically called her on when she suggested it a few chapters ago.)
so the next fake chilchuck and senshi are revealed via their tools:
i think the chubby-cheeked chilchuck with the simple lockpicks is from senshi, and i think the ordinary-looking senshi with the simple cookware is from chilchuck. the former speaks for itself--senshi sees chilchuck as a child, and knows absolutely nothing about picking locks. as for the fake senshi, chilchuck has a decent mental image of him but knows nothing about cookware.
so now we're down to the final three fakes, and there's only one person left who they could be from: laios. nobody thinks this, not even laios himself, but i want to explore the concept because i think it has extreme merit. the three remaining fakes have some key similarities between them, namely in that they're all close enough interpretations that making a distinction is difficult. they look a tiny bit different, but both the real people and their fakes make plausible cases for why they're the actual person. i want to talk about why i think laios is the one who made that so, and what that means about him.
chapter 39 ends with all his companions--real and fake--doubting his skills. seeing a pattern?
chapter 40 opens with laios determined to regain his friends' trust in him...
...while his friends (and their fakes) talk about how he's liable to like the fakes more, because they're monsters.
this is a needlessly cruel interpretation of laios, but after how things went post-falin-rescue, it's not a surprise. they see him as reckless and single-minded, more interested in the things he's weird about than in the people around him.
laios is really bad at talking about what he's thinking--not because he's hiding it, but because it doesn't occur to him that it's important. meeting the lunatic magician in the paintings is a prime example of this, but he does it a lot. they likely have no idea why he told toshiro about falin and the black magic; to them, laios was being flippant with sensitive information, not worrying about their safety. to laios? he was trying to get help. he trusted toshiro, and his perception of their friendship made him think the information would help them gain an ally who cared about falin as much as they do. he wasn't trying to put falin or marcille in danger--far from it, in fact. but he didn't tell his friends about his thought process. he didn't think it was important to share.
(he's autistic but we all know this. moving on)
so, we have laios's plan: the pairs cook together, while he watches for behavioral differences to discern who's who. it doesn't occur to him, or anyone else, that the people he's watching for mistakes are his own perceptions of his friends. and now we get into the meat of why i wanted to write this post.
assuming i'm correct... let's talk about laios's view of his friends, and how he challenges those perceptions.
starting with my favorite, chilchuck:
chilchuck A, of course, is in fact the real one. this is a pretty significant character moment for him too, in my opinion; we know he has difficulty expressing his emotions, and that a lot of his conflicts so far have stemmed from that. the fact that "chilchuck B asked for help with a menial task" is a gotcha moment to him is... telling. not only because it's so obvious to him, but because it's not obvious to any of his companions. he thinks they know this about him, but he's never openly expressed anything to make them think this is an issue he'd have, in addition to having sought help in the past.
his "convictions and pride and all that" seems to them like someone trying to convince them of something, not someone reminding them of facts he assumes they know.
anyway, back to laios. if we accept that chilchuck B is made from his memories, this suggests several things. first of all, chilchuck B is, despite his softer eyes and willingness to ask for help, still a fairly accurate portrayal of chilchuck. he's easily annoyed and he's observant, two traits chilchuck is known for. i think the reason chilchuck B has the kinder eyes and the more gentle disposition is because to laios, those things are indicative of someone being a good person, and he very much thinks chilchuck is a good person.
we know laios isn't especially good at reading people in general. thus, his idea of who his friends are is skewed in broad strokes, but not in the ways they think. he knows who chilchuck is, but he also associates chilchuck with his own ideas of what makes someone "good", which results in a chilchuck who's less rough around the edges. confronted with this--the real chilchuck asking him if he can tell--laios compares the two and thinks, reasonably speaking, the nicer one who trusts him has to be the friend he respects so much.
senshi and marcille also want to accept this chilchuck, likely for similar reasons. they also respect and care for him; they've seen him go through a lot. laios's ideal of him is just that, ideal. in a roundabout way, it's only their deep fondness for who chilchuck really is that makes them want to see him this way.
next up, we have marcille.
the fake, marcille A, is a radical departure from what makes chilchuck B a fake. laios notes that the real marcille is exactly the same as she always is. the reason, then, that marcille A confuses him--and the others--is that after everything they've been through, their perception of her has changed radically.
if we look back to senshi and chilchuck's marcilles, it's readily apparent when they're eliminated that both interpretations hinge on the knowledge that she performs black magic. senshi's tries to use it to prove herself; chilchuck's has a grimoire loudly proclaiming it's what she does. contrast this to marcille A: she doesn't mention black magic at all, and her grimoire looks strikingly similar to the real one.
that's because laios doesn't think her performing black magic changes anything about who she is. her doing so proved her to be just as dedicated to falin as he himself is, and the knowledge that her goals involve it doesn't faze him. (additionally, marcille has been teaching him magic, and falin had tried in the past. though his image of a grimoire is flawed to someone experienced, to anyone else it looks fine.) thus, marcille A isn't a flagrant black magic wielder; she's someone who's been fundamentally changed by what they--and falin--went through.
let's go back to chapter 27:
chilchuck and senshi are appalled, and will continue to be. while they ultimately don't prevent marcille from doing this, and care enough about both her and laios (and in chilchuck's case, falin as well) to be in tentative support, this changes their view of her in a negative way. she's dangerous now, in a way she wasn't before, but she's still marcille--goofy and a little reckless. thus, their views of her, and the illusions that result.
laios's opinion of her changes for the better.
she is, all at once, both competent and loyally dedicated. she will stop at nothing to help falin. whatever goofiness she exhibited before now is gone, replaced by the cold demeanor of someone who is doing something extremely dangerous for reasons that are inherently selfish, but ultimately too important to reject.
thus, we return to marcille A: cold, sharp, dedicated. not reckless or goofy, but methodical and haunted. she may have returned to "normal" since they left the castle town, but laios's opinion of her, and understanding of her love for falin, has been forever changed.
so faced with the real marcille--still silly, still whining, still frequently annoyed with him--he's confused, because that's deeply familiar, but it doesn't line up with what he knows about her now.
the truth, of course, is nuanced--these things are true about marcille, but only under duress; it's similar to how laios becomes a competent leader when the going gets tough. she has this within her, but it's not her default state of being. still, the shapeshifter picks up on the strongest memories laios has of her, this new interpretation of someone he thought he knew.
now then--onto senshi, the punchline of this particular joke about the differences between the copies. i still think it says a lot.
i think this one speaks for itself, though i find chilchuck's agreement interesting. senshi is the newest member of the team; little is known about him. laios happily notes that senshi "always looks cool" while chilchuck says he looks normal (and chilchuck B insults the real one). laios sees senshi this way because he thinks senshi is cool as hell, and this manifests in an idealized version of a face he's not as familiar with as he is with chilchuck and marcille.
this is clearly comedy, but it also speaks to the same desire to see the best in the rest of the party. marcille is the only one who notices likely because her opinion of senshi isn't so romanticized. chilchuck's senshi, of note, wasn't a perfect replica: we don't see much of him after the obvious fakes are hauled off, but he's a little squashed (he's the top one):
which indicates that chilchuck's visual memory of senshi is already flawed. if we compare this to giant laios and the marcille with the unique hair texture, it tells us chilchuck's attention to detail is more specific than the others'; he can remember the hole in the helmet, the importance of hair, but he doesn't quite see the bigger picture. giant laios is also surprisingly... rugged? which i imagine has to do with chilchuck's perception of him as a tall-man. (or maybe how he clearly has trouble seeing laios's face half the time, lmao...)
anyway. laios thinks senshi is super cool and chilchuck has an imperfect idea of what senshi look like as it is. (i wonder if chilchuck is some degree of faceblind? not enough to not recognize someone at all, but can't pinpoint specifics.)
and so, we arrive at the moment of truth.
so let's go over what i'm theorizing here... all the remaining fakes are illusions based on how laios sees his friends. the illusions manage to make mistakes that reveal the truth to him, but i think the reason for that harkens back to what laios said earlier... the illusions are being updated over time.
laios isn't considering any of the things that give the fakes away until this moment. if it had taken a little longer to resolve things, maybe they'd have started course-correcting, but they aren't given the chance. laios makes sure they aren't--he acts very quickly. even as he presents the three pairs with his findings, he's aware that everything will fall apart as soon as he does... and he's banking on that. while the shapeshifter illusions defend themselves from being killed, he gets right to the heart of the matter in the only way he knows how: confronting the actual monster involved.
when all's said and done, laios reveals how he figured it out:
potentially of note, all of these details happened before the red dragon fight. chilchuck fighting a mimic and revealing his history with them, senshi gushing about the dungeon's ecosystem, and marcille being attacked by the undine weren't super recent memories. when laios brought them forth in his mind, he had a delay before the shapeshifter updated its illusions.
well... except with marcille. marcille A actually didn't show her hand so easily; it was the real marcille's carelessness that proved her identity.
but what this suggests is that, when confronted with the realities of marcille versus his idealized version of her, laios had to make a choice: did it make more sense for her to have been radically changed by the revival and subsequent loss of falin, or was the presence of a marcille he knew so well proof of an illusion? she was the one who was the most different, and as such, the contrast was the same one that eliminated all three laioses at the start: with the real thing in the room, the fake became apparent.
so, to reach a conclusion: one again, laios has proven he's not as scatterbrained as his companions think, but this time he did so on a more personal level than usual. to them, he reveals that he knows their quirks enough to define them by such when they're otherwise faced with convincing copies. to us, the readers, if we accept what i've suggested here... he's revealed a lot more. he respects, admires, and idolizes his friends, all out of fondness: he wants to see them in an ideal way, whatever that means for each of them as individuals.
anyway thanks for coming to my TED talk
#dungeon meshi#extensive spoilers for chapters 39 and 40 but also a little bit 27 too#I REALLY LIKE WRITING META SORRY. THIS IS LONG#tox.txt
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How I think Stray Kids Members would date a Plus Size girlfriend ~ Hyungline
Maknae line
-Bang Chan
This man deadlifts 350lb....do you think it's only for our benefit????? NAH this boy got an actually plus size gal in his minds eye. Large arms, soft shoulders, STOMACH, back???, calves???!?!?!?! Why does no one talk about calves!?! Where this man can man handle and grab and pull to his hearts delight and not break her. Lord knows one spank from him would probably break someone's pelvis if it didn't have padding.... Now I do think he would need to work on himself internally on some of his "complexes" and self image and self confidence?? I love this man to death, but you'd be reassuring him just as much as he is you. He went from the body checking capital of the world to the plastic surgery capital of the world at a formative age; it fucks with your head.
But he would love you, becoming friends would be faster than blinking, but I get the vibe it takes a while to fully trust? He trusts too easily and has been hurt by it in the past so he needs to know that you're gonna he there for him as he is you. He would 100% be the bf to make sure that there are clothes you can wear in his closet but not say anything. He's conscious of how he has insecurities and understands that it takes more than kissing it better and a love making session. It takes work. And he'd be there to remind you every step of the way how much he loves you.
-Minho
This quiet man might surprise you. Now I don't think he'd be the first to come to mind when possibility dating a plus size gf, but this man is a intelligent one. He is introspective, quiet, understanding. He is one of those people in life that either body size wouldn't even cross his mind when dating you, or he would be very conscious of it. Not in a bad way of course.
He is just very concerned about you in how people treat you because of your size, not liking that he gets treated so special cuz he happened to end up being traditionally handsome. Where he sees the mistreatment you deal with and feels protective over you. So he plans ahead, makes sure the restaurant has chairs without arms, would rather people look at him and how OH LOOK ITS LEEKNOW than make you uncomfortable that you think people are staring.
If diets and conversation around diets make you uncomfortable I can see him changing the topic even around the members if you're there. He wants you to be happy and comfortable around him. While he isn't very affectionate or loud about his love its just as deep.
Also.....you got the best ass even if its flat
-Changbin
I think for someone who goes to the gym as much as he does he would understand if someone was having bad experiences tied to it? Like he is paid to work out and have a nutritionist and a stylist and all these team members. Not everyone has that. So he wouldn't pressure you into going with him unless you wanted to go. If you did though he'd be the first one to brag to everyone that you can out-leg press him. It would be the first thing in the group chat in all caps.
Dating Changbin, it is so domestic? I imagine? Like you start dating and he is just this big ol' teddy bear and he would feel so honored if you let yourself be timid around him. Being plus size (insecure or not) you have to have a thick skin, you grow to defend yourself, you protect your heart because people have been cruel and society is a bitch. In doing so the walls are a bit higher, and the fortress is a bit more imposing. But with Binnie, he is a hug that is open anytime anywhere. The absolute pride in his man once you allow yourself to lean on him, or dare to lay on his chest while cuddling? ahhh thats the good stuff
I also think he would be the first one to defend you, knowing the boys love language is poking fun he wouldn't have it if it was you. Be prepared to be presented with one of the boys' heads in a headlock by Binnie if they say anything. He is your knight in shinning armor and will make sure you are laughing and smiling and having a good time. Also he like chan feels more at ease knowing you aren't gonna break if you two get up to something more rough or naughty in the bedroom. Even on a more innocent path just knowing you aren't gonna judge him for how he looks like he doesn't judge yours makes his heart soar.
-Hyunjin
Hyunjin I think would have the most obstacles in regard to dating someone of size. Not that I don't think he wouldn't, but I think with the Korean beauty standard he has a lot of internal stuff he needs to work out before he could be in a healthy relationship. He knows what its like to be judged on only by how you look. He wouldn't want that for you or any of his friends, so I think he would be friends to lovers? You are a great deal of a reality check for him, when he gets very internal and in his head about stuff he goes to you.
So by the time he figures out he has a crush on you his entire art book has already started to look like Renaissance drafts of plus-size women. Starts seeking out media and art that reminds him of you. I don't even think hes conscious that he's doing it? I think it feels like an itch he can't scratch just right and its driving him insane because he doesn't know how to pin down this feeling. Not in art, not in lyrics, it evades him. Till he is standing in front of you, at your apartment, with an Idol worthy bouquet of flowers. Opening his heart and hoping you don't reject him.
Which....would never happen? Your relationship is one of the ages, he writes songs about you, and draws you constantly. In-person he has to be near you, even as simple as playing with your jewelry or showing you memes on his phone while you eat silently side by side. It is a love that is comfort, its like warm clothes out of the dryer for hyunjin.
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@7ndipity @kaciidubs @itshannjisung @dreamescapeswriting @moonlightndaydreams
#stray kids#stray kids x reader#bang chan x reader#Hyung line#Leeknow x reader#Lee Minho#bang chan#Changbin x reader#Binnie x reader#Hyunjin X reader#plus size reader#skz x plus size reader#skz X reader#skz x you#skz imagines#hyunjin#leeknow
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random thought, but i had a vivid image of, if helsknight and welsknight ever saw each other without armor (or just helsknight out of his armor tbh), helsknight showing welsknight the scar tanguish gave him and saying "this was intended for you."
i don't know how in character that is, but tbh it's haunting me. maybe it's part of helsknight's revenge against welsknight or something, calling out his unknightly behavior and unhonorable conduct.
"You didn't answer my summons."
Helsknight froze. It was a quick, momentary startle, a short-circuit of normality. The moment he did it, every instinct told him to keep moving. That old command [Do something.] blared loud in the quiet surprise of his mind. So he moved his hand to pick up the brush on his table, and pretended to be unconcerned.
"I'm not a dog. You can't call me to heel," Helsknight said simply. He smirked and growled, "Though if you feel like losing some limbs, feel free to try."
Behind him, Wels shifted uncomfortably. Helsknight liked making Wels uncomfortable, he didn't handle it well. He was a creature used to comfort and ease. Inconvenience often galled him more than a sword to the throat. Different tactics for different battlefields, and this battlefield was a delicate one.
Helsknight was cleaning his arms and armor, which was one of several reasons why he hasn't leaped for a fight when Welsknight had called him to one. He was only in a tunic and breeches. It was luck he even had his boots on. He had offered to run errands with Tanguish, but Tanguish had said he was visiting his church and wanted to go on rooftops. So Helsknight stayed home, and he left his boots on. That was the other reason Helsknight hadn't answered the call: Tanguish wouldn't know where he was, and he knew Tanguish got paranoid about being left behind. Besides, Helsknight had chores he could do at home [like cleaning his arms and armor] so he stayed. Cleaning the chainmail was almost a formality. Hels was hot and dry, and he wore it often enough that the rings clattering together cleaned themselves. But sometimes he just liked putting an extra shine on things, so he took out his brush and oil and started brushing it down for any miniscule specks of rust or broken links he could find.
Wels, always keen on the times he wasn't wanted, decided now was the perfect time to show up in his living room. He stood awkwardly, waiting on Helsknight to make some aggressive movement. When none came, he cautiously stalked further into the tiny living space. His emotions were loud and uncomfortable without the distance between their respective worlds to dampen them, and they clung like smoke against Helsknight's skin. Caution at an unfamiliar space. Disgruntlement at being ignored.
[Guilt, like ash on a burn.]
"Is this... Yours?" Wels asked, glancing around.
"No, I'm just squatting in a random house. Sounded like a fun way to spend a Tuesday."
Helsknight felt the ant-bite sting of vicarious agitation and smirked. He was already getting on Wels's nerves.
[Good.]
"Couldn't build something nicer?" Wels snapped impatiently.
"I'm a fighter."
Helsknight found a place on his chainmail to brush down and got to work. The rough, grating twinge of the coarse bristles on chain made Wels wince. Helsknight always found the noise pleasant. Like scratching an itch.
"So?"
"I have better things to do than spend hours building the perfect house."
Wels scoffed and looked around the room with renewed disdain. "Where's your little devil?"
It took Helsknight a moment to place what he was asking. He sneered, a quiet bearing of teeth, and caught the flicker of red in the reflective shine of his chainmail. Wels looked pointedly away from him.
[Like ash on a burn.]
"Not feeling remorse... are we, crusader?" Helsknight asked, finding a new place to polish. The coin-drop clatter of chain, and the shrill scrape of bristles filled the silence like an accusation.
"Of course not," Wels sniffed disdainfully, still refusing to meet Helsknight's eye.
"Careful." Helsknight murmured, that red flash reflecting off his chainmail again, anger simmering. "Lying's a sin."
"Why would I feel remorse for protecting my home?"
"A crusade well fought I'm sure."
"It's not a crusade!" Wels snapped, his own anger a living thing raising hackles. "A crusader invades! A crusader fights a holy war just for the principle."
"Right. And you're fighting because--"
"Because I'm protecting Tango."
"-because it's for his own good?"
Wels didn't exactly wince, but he did still, as though he'd heard someone draw a blade from its scabbard. Helsknight might as well have unseated his sword. He had stopped scrubbing, all pretense of work falling. The need to pace, to circle, to corner, rose up in Helsknight like a waking beast.
"Interesting choice of words. Protecting." Helsknight said, his voice low, his hands still. "I was under the impression they were friends. Do you often protect Tango from the people he's begging you to spare?"
"That doesn't matter." Wels said so firmly it was almost convincing. Almost. "People are convinced they need an abusive relationship. That doesn't change the fact it's bad for them."
"So many interesting words today," Helsknight hissed. He stood like a dark tower rising, all embered fury slowly stoking. Wels didn't bother turning to face him. He could feel his intent like thunder. "Abuse. Brings to mind the image of power. I do have a question."
"I didn't come here for your stupid questions."
"No, you came here looking for a fight."
"I didn't."
"You really do need to tame that lying tongue."
"I didn't come here for a fight."
"Did it feel powerful?" Helsknight demanded, pacing a step, and loathing the tiny room for denying him the space to circle. "The voice. The command. How did it feel."
"Shut up."
"To have someone begging you not to hurt them," Helsknight continued relentlessly. "Not your stupid play fighting on your stupid little server. True, shaking, terror. Did it feel good, crusader? Just?"
"I told you to shut up!" Wels shouted, taking a threatening step forward only to find Helsknight had closed the space between them and stood looming like a rook on a tombstone.
Fear, a caged thing howling, battered against Helsknight's anger. It made Helsknight feel almost giddy, the crash of malicious schadenfreude and self-righteousness against Wels; a flickering thing of brittle will. They made a terrible ouroboros together, fear feeding anger feeding elation feeding fear. They were always like this. No matter how calm either of them tried to be, once anger kindled in one, their emotions burned until there was nothing left but fury and loathing. Helsknight had been made to cut Wels down to size.
"Do you know what that kind of fear does to people?" Helsknight demanded again, his voice so near a whisper it was smothering. They were so close together, but they made so little noise, all will and wide eyes. "What happened to mercy for the helpless, crusader?"
"He wasn't helpless," Welsknight said, trying very hard not to back down. "He stabbed me."
"And a drowning rat bites. I wouldn't call it an apex predator. Certainly I wouldn't call it a danger to you, with your full armor and sword." Helsknight bared his teeth at Wels, something like a bitter grin. "I wasn't wearing armor."
Wels looked down, where Helsknight had drawn up his tunic to reveal the new scar in his abdomen. Wels looked like he'd stopped breathing.
"This was intended for you," Helsknight said. "You should thank me."
"You're-- you're here telling me he's harmless," Wels laughed nervously. "But he almost killed you. You."
Something in Helsknight snapped, and in the moment it took him to reach for it with white knuckles and compose it again, he'd shoved Wels hard in the chest. It didn't knock his other half off his feet, but he stumbled back hard enough hit the opposite wall. Not hard enough to hurt, but certainly hard enough to warn.
"He did," Helsknight snarled, pacing forward slow steps. "That's what terror does to helpless people, crusader. It makes them bite. It makes them beg. It makes them clamor to live. You. Did. That. What did it feel like to abuse that kind of power Wels? To turn someone into a scared animal? To make someone so desperate they would almost kill a friend? Did you find your righteousness there crusader?"
Helsknight didn't know what he planned on doing. Violence was in his blood like a serpent, and he wanted it. And Wels knew he wanted it. There was the ring of drawn metal, and the silver-bright glint of an enchanted blade in a dark room. Helsknight's advance stopped at the top of Wels's sword, not close enough to hurt, but close enough to warn.
"Stop." Wels said. A command. A plea.
"I'm unarmed."
"That doesn't matter."
Helsknight smiled, and there was loathing and euphoria in it, and the wine-dark dread of Wels right on the other side of it. The knowledge of a line crossed, a battle he hadn't even realized he was fighting made forfeit.
"Fine." Helsknight said. "My blood's already been spilled once on your behalf. At least this time do it with your own sword, coward. I'll make it easy for you."
He took a step forward, and nudged the blade with a knuckle, resting the point against his scar. The metal was cold, even through his shirt, the enchantments alive and writhing so close to his skin.
"How cruel have you gotten while I wasn't there to keep you in check, crusader?"
There was a long breath of silence between them. Helsknight stood, precarious and predatory, daring Wels to kill him. And Wels stood there, and dared himself to as well. And the room was dark, lit only by red anger and blue dread, and the pale, languid flicker of enchanted steel. And neither of them breathed. And the universe watched.
A loud clatter sounded on the roof. Both knights looked up towards the ceiling, Wels in startlement, and Helsknight in resignation.
"And he stays my hand once again," Helsknight sighed.
"What--?" Wels didn't get his full question out before Helsknight moved. He knocked the sword aside and lunged forward to grab Wels's shirt. In a move that would've made Martyn proud, he dragged Wels forward into his knee, knocking the wind out of him. In the time it took Wels to collapse to the floor, Helsknight had taken his sword, and held the point beneath his other half's chin.
"Go home Wels," Helsknight said, "before I send you there the hard way."
Wels, breathless on the ground, let out half a strangled laugh. "Why don't you?"
"Because I was asked nicely not to go running off and killing you."
"Helsknight?" A loud knock sounded at the door. Tanguish's voice, a bright comfort even in spite of its concern, called to him. "Is everything okay? I thought I heard something fall."
Helsknight glared meaningfully down at Wels, who only hesitated long enough for Helsknight to draw back the sword before slipping back to his world. The moment he did, Helsknight felt his breath leave him, the great void of being left to his own thoughts and emotions. In the wake of everything that was Wels, he felt ridiculous.
[What in hels had he even been about to do? Die on someone's sword to prove a point? Idiot.]
"Helsknight? The door is locked."
"I'm coming," Helsknight called, pausing only long enough to hide Wels's sword beneath the couch, where Tanguish couldn't see it and inevitably worried about it. He checked his tunic to make sure he hadn't managed to actually stab himself [he hadn't] and went to let Tanguish inside.
#rns ficlets#helsknight#welsknight#tanguish (kinda)#this one feels very dense and dramatic#i feel like wels actively seeks out hels when he feels guilty / bad / self loathing#its like a compulsion: punishing yourself because you did wrong#even though its ultimately unproductive#also something something helsknight making some kind of point about how#instilling terror in something to confirm your bias that its dangerous#is more even than the terrified thing causing harm#case and point i scared you into drawing your sword on an unarmed man#i dont know im tired and that was a really badass phrase to just drop on me anon#*evil not even alskdjfjf im going to bed
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"If it's amazing, they'll know."
When talking about "George Lucas' vision" and the original six Star Wars films, there's one thing to bear in mind and that's Lucas' style of filmmaking.
These are movies for kids, designed to emulate the Saturday matinee serial format from the '30s, à la Flash Gordon. You see this most of all in the dialog. But something else you notice is George Lucas' filmmaking style, particularly in how he films and edits.
Take Darth Vader's introduction, for example.
Look at the composition: Vader stands tall, in contrast to the - as the script puts it - "fascist white armored suits of the Imperial stormtroopers". They're all in white, he's all in black, he's bigger badder, emerging from a cloud of smoke. What an entrance.
But if you think about it, it's just a single full shot. Very basic.
Compare this to Kenobi, wherein Vader is treated like a monster out of a horror movie. First, you glimpse his shadow, people reacting...
... then ominous bits and pieces like his boots or his lightsaber...
... and finally Vader himself, in all his terrifying glory.
That's a modern way of shooting it and it admittedly makes ol' Darth seem that much more imposing and absolutely badass.
But Lucas comes from a background of editing, experimental filmmaking and used to work as a documentary cameraman.
So what he did is just put the camera down and have Vader walk in. It's a faster yet differently-efficient way to introduce the character. It's more about dynamic pacing and visuals.
And that is Lucas' style. In his words:
"The way these films were put together, they're shot very much like a documentary film and the action of stage, and then I shoot around it. I don't stage for the camera. And as a result, there are a lot of things that happen pretty much by accident. It lends an aura of authenticity to everything."
- Star Wars - Episode I: Podracing Featurette, 1999
Another example: the introduction of General Grievous.
A door opens revealing his ugly mug and he walks in. Boom.
But in Star Wars Storyboards: The Prequel Trilogy, you find that - as envisioned by the storyboard artists - our introduction to Grievous would've been very different.
"We wanted to have the introduction to Grievous be a series of really close shots that would be a series of details: his creepy foot, his creepy hand...
... his scary alien eyes...
... but George brought up an interesting point. He didn't want the film to concentrate on one design detail or one element— but rather let the world be there and let the viewer find those things without necessarily having it shoved in their face."
- Derek Thompson, SW Storyboards: The Prequel Trilogy, 2013
"George nixed the idea, saying: 'I don't want something to be special because of how it's filmed, but because of what it is. Just put the camera on it and let it play out in front of the audience. If it's amazing, they'll know.'"
- Iain McCaig, SW Storyboards: The Prequel Trilogy, 2013
That's it in a nutshell. "If it's amazing, they'll know."
The above storyboards look awesome and seeing Grievous be introduced that way would be great... but it wouldn't be Lucas' Star Wars. It would be some other director taking a crack at it.
And this way of shooting can be weird, even boring, at times. I mean compare Mace leading his troops into battle...
... to Aragorn leading his, in Return of the King.
The latter is so much more emotionally impactful. For a number of reasons (eg: Aragorn is a deuteragonist, Mace is a secondary character with less development), but one of them is that the moment is just shot in a way that's more interesting.
First we have an angle on Aragorn as he smiles and charges. Then the rest of the other characters as they react and follow suit, then the troops do the same.
With Mace it's, uh, *checks notes* he flourishes his saber and charges, the clones follow. Hell, for half a second we're looking at just an empty screen.
But y'know what the shot does look like?
It looks like something out of a WW1 documentary.
It's that authenticity he was mentioning further up.
At the end of the day, you can call it campy or bad... it's Lucas' style. It's cinema. There's a logic to it.
"To me, the script is just a sketchbook, just a list of notes, and, sometimes, I prefer the documentary feel of free flow, so I let my instincts tell me where to go. I like to create cinematically; I don't like to have a plan. I like to have a rough idea of what I'm going to do-certain themes, certain issues I'm going to deal with-and then I try to do so."
- The Making of Revenge of The Sith, page 116, 2005
He doesn't try to make a character look particularly badass with camera angles or make the shot too choreographed, he just goes with the flow, and makes the deliberate choice to shoot it that way, because for better or for worse... it's his movie.
So yeah, just a tidbit I thought would be interesting.
Edit:
@schilkeman added this very interesting point in the replies:
"He doesn’t stage for the camera, but he does compose for the camera. The documentary style, while somewhat detached, requires the filling of the screen with motion and light. The way things move through frame seem very important to him. These are things his films excel at."
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I always wondered how the romanced companions would react if Orin kidnapped the player character. Any thoughts?
Be prepared for some angst because PHEEEEWWWWW
Astarion
At this point in the story, romanced Astarion and Tav are very close. He even states that Tav is the only person he's ever cared for, so I can imagine he'd be devastated if his beloved was taken by Orin. He'd take a relatively unhinged approach to saving them, running in with fangs bared. Daggers swinging. He'd make quick work of Orin, slicing and dicing to save his love. They've always done so much to save him so he'd feel it was his duty to do the same in this instance. Once he's able to hold them in his arms again, he'd allow himself to cry. Sob, even. He'd hold them close, smooth their hair back, bury his face in their neck to deeply inhale their familiar scent, but not until telling them how stupid they were for allowing themselves to be kidnapped by the shape-changer in the first place.
Karlach
Tav is Karlach's first taste of intimate touch in YEARS. Her first taste of love for as long as she can remember. When she finds out Tav is the one taken by the shape-changer, it would break her. Shatter her into a million burning pieces. Her engine would run hotter than the searing fires of Avernus. She'd yell and spit and grab the nearest bludgeoning object she could to absolutely decimate Orin where she stands. The pale eyed woman has caused enough problems and with Karlach's already crushed morale after seeing Gortash again, she'd go absolutely ape shit. She'd fall to her knees in front of Tav. Hug their legs. Cry as she rubs her nose across their thighs. Cling to them like a child. "Don't ever leave me again, Soldier. I can't bear it."
Wyll
First and foremost Wyll, I think, would be the most level headed in this situation. He'd quickly devise a plan to save his love. The Blade of Frontiers or the Blade of Avernus, either way, he'll prove his heroism and his devotion to Tav. No one lays a finger on his prince/princess. Their Devil in shining armor. He'd make an entrance similar to when Tav first encounters him in the Emerald Grove. Bold and brave, ready to dominate the fight. And once Tav is assured safe, he'd sweet them off of their feet. Shower them in love and praise of their bravery during this traumatic event.
Shadowheart
Shadowheart is very reserved and quiet about her feelings and thoughts. If her love was taken by Orin, I think she'd play calm about it while absolutely losing it inside. She's mentioned previously that she isn't one for romances, more just short lived flings. With Tav, however. It's incredibly different. She'd rally the other companions and rush into Bhaal's temple to find Orin. Slay here right there. And then take Tav into her arms and check them other, make sure the shape-changer caused them no serious harm. If she had, Shadowheart would heal them. Make them feel safe once more.
Lae'Zel
Lae'Zel's love of Tav goes from 0-100 real quick, and hearing that Tav was taken by an enemy, I think she'd LOSE it. Lae'Zel has not known love like her love for Tav. Tav showed her freedom and no one is going to take that away from her now. She's not known to show very intense emotions, but I think she would let herself cry this time. Lae'Zel is trained in combat so taking Orin down would not be a difficult feat with the help of the other companions. Once Tav is safe, she'd embrace them with all of her strength. Hold them close to her as she mumbles softly in their ear "Zhak vo'nfynh duj. Source of my joy."
Gale
Gale is such a soft lover. His prior relationship with Mystra caused a lot of trauma and I think his romance with Tav is his key to being happy again. With himself and in general. Even the threat of having to blow himself up is softened by Tav's presence. "One moment with you could sate me for a lifetime, and prise the fear from my heart." Once he learns that Tav was taken, I know for a fact he'd go into bad bitch mode. He'd storm his little wizard self right into Bhaal's temple and fireball the hells out of Orin before she could get a word in edgewise. Where'd all this courage come from? The lovely idea that after all of this is over and Tav is safe, they can return to the illusory scene of his tower in Waterdeep and reside there whenever the feeling arises. Not without a lecture on why it wasn't the smartest idea to get kidnapped, though.
#bg3#baldurs gate 3#baldur's gate 3#bg3 fanfiction#bg3 headcannons#companion headcannons#gale dekarios#karlach#astarion#wyll ravengard#shadowheart#lae'zel
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What She Deserves
Summary: Melissa hears a painful truth, and you're there to help her recover.
Content Warnings: Unhealthy coping mechanisms, discussion of infidelity, emotional neglect, emotional abuse, disordered eating. Don't worry, it's all hurt/comfort!
AO3 Link
You come home one day, and she's crying.
There were warnings when you entered the house: Her high-heeled Docs, discarded sloppily like she'd yanked them off right in the doorway. The open bottle of wine and the lipstick-smeared glass on the low table in front of the plastic-covered couch, a stack of photo albums just by them, a few opened and in disarray. Her leather jacket thrown right onto the carpeted floor. You knew there was something going on--a bad day with the double class? A fight with Barbara?--and you squared your shoulders as you went up the stairs.
You weren't, aren't, ready for what you hear. You've never heard her cry like that, in real, deep sobs, body-wracking things that must be shaking her to the roots. You find yourself hovering outside the bedroom door, just listening for long, awful seconds, trying to understand it, that that sound could be coming from Melissa. And knowing, because you know her, that she doesn't want you to hear this. That there'll be a fight if you go in that room. No matter how desperate she is to be held and comforted--first, there'll be a fight.
It's how she's always been. Your tears turn her buttery-soft, gentle and sweet, her rough edges showing only when she offers to beat the shit out of whoever's hurt you. But her tears? Her tears are a vulnerability. And Mel--she can't stand being vulnerable. When she knows she's showing weakness, that there's a chance someone, anyone, even you, could go in for the kill, her claws come out, twice as long and sharp.
(She told you, one time, about her dad; how Kristen-Marie's tears would make him do anything to soothe her, turning the gruff, remote man into a teddy bear, cradling his baby girl in his arms. How Melissa's tears would turn him mean, how she was the eldest, she was supposed to take care of her family, and here she was howling and whining like a pathetic pissant baby, and she should go help her Nana with dinner and her siblings with their homework and stop bothering her dad, who worked so hard, sunup to sundown, to provide for this fuckin' family, and don't fuckin' touch me again, Melissa Ann.)
You're getting to be okay with it. She's getting to be better with it, too, which helps. But you know this isn't going to be a time she can reel herself in and catch that anger before it flares. You need to be there for her. You open the door.
She's at her vanity table. You love that she has one of those things; it's so Old Hollywood, covered in the skincare and makeup that didn't fit into her bathroom, a secret stash of gummy bears in one drawer, a picture of her and her Nana, framed, where she can look at it whenever she needs her. You love that picture, Melissa looking so terribly young, her hair still dark and undyed, her Nana with those green Schemmenti eyes and a look of profound love and pride on her aged face.
When she hears the door creak open, Melissa whips around to look at you. She's not that girl in the photo anymore, but you see shades of her in her crumpled, flushed, tear-stained face; you see that woman, young and hurt and afraid, behind the armor that she's been building for so long, layer on layer.
"Baby," you say.
"Fuck off," she barks at you. You wince. She winces, too, hearing herself; her brows knit and her head ducks and she trembles as she fights another sob. "Sorry, I'm sorry, I--" her voice is hoarse. "Babe, fuck, just go," she whines, sounding like somebody else, some scared, struggling stranger. "Just go, I don't, I don't--" you can hear so many ends to that sentence: I don't want you to see me like this. I don't want to hurt you just because I'm hurting. I don't want you to know how vulnerable I am.
"Hey," you say, "it's okay, it's okay," like she's a hurt kid or a shying horse, and every instinct in you calls for you to put your arms around her, pull her to your chest the way she does you when you cry. Instead, you move closer--slowly--and you sit with her. You get down on the floor, maybe a foot from her chair, and you don't touch her. She looks at you with her mouth twisted and eyes narrowed. Tears are still trickling from her reddened eyes; her body is shaking with it.
You want to cradle her face in your hands. You've learned she can't take it, not when she's in the middle of the feeling; she can't stand being touched at all. She has to get the emotions out in their first, horrible frenzy, and then she can let herself be comforted, once the frightened, angry, hurt little girl inside has let go of the wheel and let the grown woman take back over.
Her hands are fists on her thighs. There's something crumpled in one of them, a paper.
"Baby, what happened?" you say.
"You should just fuck off," she says hoarsely. "You should just fuck off outta my life. You're gonna, anyway, so--" her face pinches. She fights another sob that shakes her whole body. Her mascara is a wreck. "I'm gonna hurt you," she says, "and you're gonna hurt me, and I can't take it. I can't take it, so, so--"
"What happened?" You lean forward. A little glimmer of intuition comes. Your own eyes are starting to tear up, seeing her, but your head stays level. You can't get whipped up into her pain or you won't be able to help. "Did Joe do something?"
Now she lets the sob out, deep and hoarse. Her clenched fist opens and the paper drops. You recognize it once its face is turned up on the floor: it's a photo from one of the old albums she still keeps, one of the loving records she'd made of a marriage that failed. She let you look through them a few times. ("I don't keep them 'cause I want him back or nothin'," she'd told you. "He can drop dead, for all I care. But I..." A cloud passed over her face then, troubled and sad, and you didn't push; you knew she was giving you a privilege letting you see her like this, much less look at these mementos of a young woman desperate to be loved.)
The photo is her and Joe cutting the cake at their wedding. It's a four-tier monstrosity, probably made by a Schemmenti relative, with thick frosted swags and rosettes and topped with a hokey little bride and groom. Mel's in her big puff-shouldered princess dress, her huge eighties hair and thick makeup. Joe's got a five o'clock shadow and looks like hell from his bachelor party the night before. She's told you how hurt and lonely she was that day, even though she's smiling in all the pictures; how she starved herself, ate one meal a day and drank nothing but water, getting ready to fit into her dress, and he rolled out of bed an hour before the wedding, hungover, stifling burps through the ceremony.
"What happened?" you repeat.
"Nina called," she says.
You straighten. "Are they getting married?" It would make sense: the tears, the photo, the terror of being left again. That sack of shit Joe, you're going to take Edith Houghton and--
"What? No," she says, so startled by the suggestion she's speaking in her own voice again, not the one hoarse and strained by tears. "No, they're not--no." Her other hand opens in her lap and she looks down at the pair of them. You can see her trying to make herself relax, make herself stop crying and shouting. "Sorry, baby," she whispers, "I'm sorry. I don't want to hurt ya. I didn't mean..."
"I know." If you took Melissa at her word every time she cursed, well... "I'm not fucking off anywhere. Can you tell me what happened?"
She gives you a look, harrowed and bruised, then drops her gaze back to her hands. She opens and closes her fingers, working on herself still. "Nina called. I was still at the school. She called to thank me for dinner," she says roughly. "And she said she had to tell me somethin'. She said..."
No marriage. Your next thought is, Oh my god, she's pregnant. That's one of the sorest subjects of Melissa's whole life, and if Nina had the audacity to tell Melissa that over the phone, while she was at work, to deliver such crushing, awful--where's Edith Houghton, you really are going to--
"She thanked me for dinner," Melissa repeats. She's getting more control and tips her head back against the welling of tears in her eyes, like it will save her makeup now. She's staring at the ceiling when she says, "Nina said she had somethin' to tell me, because she knew you and me, and her and Joe, all of us, were gettin' closer, like bein' friends."
That's true. You aren't so crazy about the Joe you know from Melissa's stories, but apparently he's a changed man now, and you can still see shades of the guy Melissa liked so much: his silver head of hair still full and sleek, his trim, Selleckian mustache, his way with a grin and a laugh. You like Nina better than him, a woman about twenty years his junior, tough and smart with arms covered in tattoos. You've never pointed out that she's like a different shade of Mel, a version that Joe hasn't had time to hurt, although you've had the thought many times.
Last week all four of you had gathered at Mel's for dinner. Melissa refused to cook--she'd never cook for Joe again, she told you privately, not after all the housekeeping and nannying and babying she did in their marriage--but you all got takeout and sat around the table and talked and laughed, openly, comfortably, the way friendly couples do, and you could believe that all that history was far behind them, that there was a future where Joe and Mel could admit to their scars and what they'd inflicted on each other, and be brothers-in-arms, veterans of the fight, not soldiers on opposing sides.
"Nina said," Melissa says, and wipes away a tear. "She said they were together. While me'n'Joe were still married."
You stare. "What?"
"They were together," she repeats. "They've been lyin', this whole time. 'Bout when they met. It was way before the divorce. He was fuckin' her on the side." Her lips pinch together and her mouth twists. She stares at the ceiling like the answer to it all is up there and fiercely bats away another tear. "I..." You watch her. Her throat works as she tries to get words together. "Nina said she couldn't keep lyin' to me. That she always felt awful about it. And now I got you and she likes ya and wants things to be fair, for us to... To choose our friends right, and..."
You've always had an impression of Nina as like Mel in this way, too--as rough, but fundamentally decent. Prone to a little lie here, a little sleight-of-hand there, but not enough to really hurt somebody, never playing games where it really mattered. What's awful is that this sounds like her all over, that single-minded sense of fairness, a toughness inside that made her willing to face the music, to blow up this burgeoning friendship if it meant being honest.
"Baby," you say softly, and inch closer on the floor. It's enough. The wall crumbles. Melissa slides straight off the chair onto the floor with you, practically into your lap, and her whole body sways into your arms. You take her, you hold her. She shakes in your grip, crying, still, though no longer those sobs that seemed to scour her from the inside out. You carefully stroke her hair back from her face as she clings to your encircling arms, and you ride it out together.
She comes back from it slowly, stilling, relaxing into you. Then she hiccups, in a loud, distinct hic, and instantly leans back to give you an accusing look, daring you to laugh. She hiccups again. It makes you smile. You touch her red, damp cheek, brushing your thumb against its flushed curve. "It's okay," you tell her. She hiccups. "I'm going to get you some water. You wanna sit on the bed?"
When you come back, she's not on the bed; she's back at the vanity. She's scrupulously wiping her makeup off with little micellar pads, lips still pinched like she's trying not to cry, leaning close to the mirror to make sure she's getting it all. You sit on the edge of the mattress with water in one hand and ibuprofen in the other, waiting, and when she's done, she turns to accept your offerings, her eyes lowered, a little shamefaced.
"C'mon," you say when she's knocked the pills back. "C'mere." She gets up and joins you, crawling right to the middle of the bed, and you crawl after her, settling on your back so that she can curl into the protective curve of your arm. You look down at her face--her long nose with its cute, turned-up snub at the end, the lashes shielding her reddened green eyes, the mark at the corner of her mouth that records every smile and frown--and you don't get it. You don't get why Joe is... Joe. And why he did what he did.
More's going to come, you know that. The air's heavy with it. Finally Melissa starts to talk. She stares across the room while she does it, your hand stroking her hair.
"I knew he was cheatin'," she says. "I think he was bonin' some of the other firefighters' wives. And he probably would go out and pick some girls up, too, some, y'know, whoever he could get his hands on, right. At that point, it was, what, the last few years, and I wasn't puttin' out, so. I mean, I'd blow him, to get him off my back, but not the real thing."
"That doesn't mean it was your fault."
She doesn't answer that. Instead, she says, "I didn't think any of 'em were serious. Like, that it was an affair affair, you know. Like that made it better. Anyhow..." She presses more closely into you. You're sure she can hear your heartbeat, and you feel it as she tries to steady her breathing to match you. "Nina said it was happenin' the last year," she says. "The very last year he and I were married. Funny thing is, I was tryin' to make it work."
You've seen photos from that time in her life. You know what trying to make it work entailed for her: back on the one-meal-a-day diet, trying to get her menopausal body back to a twenty-five-year-old's slimness; the brightening of her hair to fire-engine red, trying to be enough to catch his eye; the clothes she wore, trying to turn herself girly, like her princess-gown wedding dress had been so girly, and so unlike her. Oh, she's always feminine, Melissa--luxuriously, wonderfully feminine--but not girly, pink and wispy, delicate. Not like she tried to make herself for Joe.
"What was it all for?" she says wonderingly, voicing your own thought aloud. "What did I do all that shit for, baby? He was already fucking her. He already... Loved her." Her voice is hollow and lonely. You think of that story about her dad, what he told her, again and again, all her life, about her role in the world, about who she was. You're supposed to take care of this family. You're supposed to give up everything. You're supposed to give us what we want, we're supposed to have our cake and eat it, too, and fuck you if you try to keep even a crumb for yourself. He probably never said it as plainly as that, but it was what he meant.
"S'what I get," she says, very softly, almost to herself; it's a child's voice, meek and small, from that place deep inside where she's forever the self-loathing little girl, crying alone in the kitchen. "S'what I deserve."
"No." Her eyes flick up to yours. "You don't deserve that. You did it all because you cared about him," you say, petting the soft hair at Mel's temple. "Because you loved him. There's nothing wrong with that. That's not shameful." Her eyes dart away. You know you've caught a little bit of what's dragging on her--the shame. The shame of giving up everything for a man who didn't know her favorite color, her favorite ice cream flavor; of sacrificing her dream of a real home, a baby, the life she'd always imagined, for somebody who'd turn around and stick his dick in God knew how many other women.
"I hate him," you confide in her softly. She doesn't quite smile, but the corners of her eyes crinkle tenderly like she feels the smile inside. "I hate him so much." You echo her promises from all the times your roles were reversed, your tear-wrung body cradled in her arms: "You want me to beat the shit out of him?"
"Yeah," Melissa says at once, "please." She sniffles, then hiccups. "Jesus." Her head lolls against your chest. Her arm drapes over your waist and pulls you tight against her. "I really liked her," she says softly, into the quiet room. "That's... What fuckin' sucks about it, huh? I liked her, and I... I was likin' him again. He was my best friend, before you'n'Barb. And I... Wanted my friend back."
"It's okay." You scratch your nails gently against her scalp, tracing the sensitive skin at her nape. "It's okay you wanted him back, as your friend. You can still care about him. About both of them. And be angry, and hate them, even though you care, and not talk to them for a long time. What you feel is okay."
She takes a deep, shuddering breath. You wonder if she's ever heard those words before. If Joe or anyone else in her life has embraced this chaos of contradictions, this woman so full of passion that she can't help but feel, all of it, everything at once. That's why she's so tough, you know. Because despite it all--her shitty dad, her vicious sister, her awful ex, and everyone in between--she never lost that thing they all zeroed in on, that weakness. She never lost that sensitive, loving heart. She had to protect it; no one else would do it for her.
Now you can. Now you will. You lean down and kiss the top of her head. She hiccups.
"You want me to run you a bath?" you ask. Her head bobs against your shoulder in a little nod. You give her another kiss and start to extract yourself from her arms. She rolls into the warm space left by your body as you enter the en-suite.
You love Melissa’s bathroom, same way you love the vanity table. It’s an extension of herself, a little bit organized and a little bit chaos: hair care and skincare products on every available surface, eyeliners worn down to a nub, her perfume, her lip gloss. Tucked into the edge of the mirror, wrinkled from long exposure to the steam of her baths and showers, are two pictures. One is herself and Barbara at Barb’s sixtieth birthday party. “We looked like a whole meal,” Mel told you frankly when you asked about it. They’re both in dresses that cling to the generous curves of their bodies, heads tilted together, wearing mirror smiles and a shade of red lipstick that’s nearly the same. It washes you with tenderness to see it.
The other picture is her and you. The guy she dated before you tried to take her to Dave & Buster’s on a first date, so of course, you two had to go. It’s a strip of photos from an automated booth, the two of you in outrageous poses: her pretending to take a bite out of your cheek in one, your tongues lolling and eyes crossed in another. In the last photo, the camera’s just caught you looking at her, eyes full of love, while she’s squinting over her glasses at the lens, trying to tell if it’s taking the next picture.
You start the bath running. You make sure it’s hot as hell, just the way she likes it, and add a judicious amount of the first body wash you grab, letting the water churn it into bubbles. A shuffle and a rattle behind you; it’s Mel in the doorway. “Hey, baby,” you say. She looks like shit, which you don’t mention. “It’s filling up. Here, I’ll let you relax.”
“Stay with me,” she says.
You sit next to the tub while she lowers herself into the water. Her clothes are a messy pile on the floor; you pull them toward yourself and start folding them, piece by piece, making her roll her eyes affectionately. She tips her head back against the edge of the tub and looks at you, and you feel yourself prickling with the focus of that gaze.
"What are you thinkin'?" she asks at last, quietly.
"I'm thinkin'," you echo, rubbing the fabric of her silky pink blouse between your fingers, "that you're tired, and I'm tired, so in a little bit, I'll order some dinner." Maybe Indian? You've learned never to get Italian with Melissa; everything's scrutinized, down to the texture of the breadcrumbs. "Then I'll wrap you up in your bathrobe. We'll watch a movie..." You move on to her jeans. They're still warm from her body. You smile a little to yourself as you tidy them into a small square. "A Paul Newman movie." Her favorite. "And drink wine. And then you're going to go to bed. And you're not grading anything tonight, okay? And I'll hold you until you fall asleep."
"What are you thinkin'?" you ask, and look at her. What you see makes you straighten your spine, makes you feel spotlit and strange.
She's staring. She looks... How can you describe it? Unsmiling, but not unhappy; tender, but not amorous; vulnerable, but not afraid. She looks... Wonderstruck.
She reaches out with one small hand and her manicured nails brush your cheek gently. "I think I never been taken care of the way you take care of me," she says. Her thumb brushes your lower lip. "Thank you, baby. I..." You see the questions in her green eyes, the sensitivity and confusion: How did this happen? Will I get to keep this? What will happen to me when it's taken away?
"I'll always take care of you," you promise her, voice soft. You dip your head and kiss the pad of her thumb. Kiss her palm, making her sigh. You take her hand in yours and she squeezes hard. You make her a soft promise, one you know she's never heard before: "Melissa... It's what you deserve."
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hellooo, so this is my first time writing for something that isn't my college classes. okay well that's technically a lie but I haven't written for Tumblr in years sooo that doesn't count. I've been in intense choso brain rot lately, and had this idea about yandere choso who develops a ✨️savior complex✨️ I hope you enjoy, if the interest is there I'll def make a pt. 2 ♡
TW: yandere themes, stalking, obsession, delusional thoughts, mentions of kidnapping
Yandere!Choso who first saw you at his favorite coffee shop. You were a new hire, and so so so pretty. He was star-struck from the moment he laid eyes on you. ‘Angels really do exist’ was all he could think, embarrassing himself when you had to repeat, "What would you like, sir?" to snap him out of his thoughts that are now overrun with you.
Yandere!Choso whose obsession starts out harmless, or at least as harmless as an obsession could be. He always checks through the window to see if you're working, not bothering to waste his time if you’re not there. If you do happen to be working, he’ll spend hours 'working' on the laptop he brings, when in reality, he's secretly studying you from afar, his coffee long becoming cold and forgotten.
Yandere!Choso whose observations from afar quickly become not enough for him, he needs more. He starts following you home, being careful not to get too close. ‘Why are you walking home alone? Don't you know it's dangerous?’ He's only protecting you, or at least that's what his mind tries to tell him. He's not a creep, he's just making sure you get home safely.. right?
Yandere!Choso whose mind can't find any justification for hiding outside your bedroom window, watching you go through your nightly routine. He just can't help himself :( How is he not supposed to watch when you’re right there? Revealing things that make you, you. Things that no one else gets to see but him at this moment. It feels special to him.
Yandere!Choso whose heart breaks one night hearing you cry to a friend about how stressed you were, how unhappy you were, how you felt stuck. How you wish someone would save you. At that moment, his purpose in life was made clear to him. He could be your savior. No.. he would be your savior. Him and only him. After all, no one could ever love or care about you the way he does.
Yandere!Choso who doesn't spend as much time at the coffee shop, takes the time to work extra hours at his job to begin making his home perfect for you. A home that will bring you more happiness than your heart could bear to handle. His heart swelled with determination to be your knight in shining armor. He doesn't care how long he has to work, not when it's for your sake.
Yandere!Choso who shows up to the coffee shop months later, the day he's carefully planned to take you away from all the frustrations of life and give you the happiness and love that you deserve. Yeah, you'll be sad about your friends and family.. but they don't truly love you. They just tack on to your burdens, and he'll be patient with you in getting you to realize that. He won't let you suffer any further.
He's come to save you.
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What is it with Baldurs Gate 3, that this game has so many characters I completly obsess about? I am usually a "one-true-blorbo" kinda girl. Fenris, Solas, Garrus, Jaal. Those are my Bioware blorbos.
I might try to smooch some one else but it never really works out.
Now for some reason, in BG3 my brain makes blorbos out of half the cast.
Astarion is my No 1. He is a very angry feral cat and I will love him till I die. He is perfect and sweet and angry and deserves sunlight and hugs and sweet gentle kisses and patience and a fucking hero in shining armor who stands beside him, without expecting shit in return. Who is there and is his shield and voice of reason. Some one who doesn't save him but gives him the space and chance, so he can save himself.
But damn, there is Raphael who takes way to much space in my brain lately. Give me that pillow princess and I will make him so much better he forgets what contracts even are. This poor sweet devil prince who never experienced love or someone who truly cares about him. All he knows is terms and conditions and life is so much more than transaction. Such a shame that he cant be romanced ingame. He is just the best devil and damn he looks soo soo yum. (WHERE IS MY RAPHAEL ROMANCE)
Karlach who is the bestest ever and I want her to ride me into the ground, and I want to hug her and hold her hand and never let her go and tell her is is the best thing since the invention of icecream and she deserves EVERYTHING!
Gale, sweet Gale who deserves unconditional true love, kindness and so many kisses. Someone who tells him "you are enough" and just loves him and blows him till he sees stars.
Wyll who deserves someone loyal, and sweet, who stands beside him and doesn't throw him away and tells him he is perfect the way he is. Also dances in the moonlight yayyy!
Dammon with his cute smile and sweet voice who needs to be smooched very gently. (WHERE IS MY DAMMON ROMANCE? Also he and Karlach would be perfect for each other if not romanced)
Rolan with his snotty attitude who needs to be smooched very hard. Also he needs to be fucked against a wall. (WHERE IS MY ROLAN ROMANCE)
Zevlor who deserves all the hugs and love. Also he needs someone who grabs his horns while riding him into the ground. (WHERE IS MY ZEVLOR ROMANCE)
Lae'zel and Shadowheart are made for each other. They are my sweet angry baes who really need to take a room and fuck it out of their system. Sorry, I would love each one of them but I just don't dare to come between them. But I will be their cheerleader and be the most embarrassing friend when they finally stop being silly. How sad is it that our companions dont find each other if we dont romance them. They deserve love, and Tav/Durge cant kiss them all!
Halsin who gives the sweetest bear hugs and seems somehow lost in Act 3, and should be kissed and hugged and be given lots of little ducky plushies.
Jaheira who is just the coolest and a damn good friend and gives great (bad) advice and who would share a blunt and a bottle of wine and I would listen to her stories all day, I love her so much. We all should have a Jaheira in our life.
Minsc who also tells the best stories and if you want really good (bad) advice you would ask Boo. He would be the best (worst) wingman, and the no 1 person you go to when you have a bad day. He just makes everything better. When in doubt just go and do some asskicking and everything is good.
How can ONE (1) game have so many wonderful characters, where I want to band almost every single one of them.
#bg3#baldur's gate 3#baldurs gate 3#astarion#raphael#bg3 raphael#karlach#dammon#rolan#zevlor#lae'zel#shadowheart#gale#wyll#halsin#jaheira#minsc#companions#blorbo
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SAM hsr idea: Imagine you're just on cloud nine, after doing something you really love, a good book or exciting movie and you're chatting about whatever it is nonstop, and Sam is sitting on the side as someone repairs a faulty bolt or hunk of material.
That mechanic working on him is your friend, why you came here, and said friend leaves to grab an item from storage and... suddenly you're quiet.
Normally, Sam wouldn't ask questions, wouldn't engage. He's not interested in such "trivial affairs." But he sees how longingly you look after your friend, now robbed of an opportunity to ramble and the momentum is leaving you. You look almost... sad. Deflated. It bothers him, but he doesn't know why yet.
So he talks. Maybe he asks something stupid, like if you've ever seen the inside of a black hole, or something silly "Would you rather fight tigers or bears?" as awkward as can be. Voice fierce as always. Or maybe he just fills the space with equally mundane chatter (or gear grinding) because he wants to hear your voice.
"If you're going to stand there and gawk, better pick up a broom and be useful." Maybe he's mean, anything to get you going again. To watch your soul set itself ablaze and soar across his sky like the star you are.
And one day... you notice. You catch him staring at you. Maybe it'll take a few days to wheedle it out of him, but he'll say something that confuses you.
He can "hear the hum of your engine." (Your pulse, the flow of blood to your extremities.) He can "see the forge that folds the weak to test mettle and might" your compassion (folding weaker metal to make it stronger referencing the people you pick up and help and he sees how you make them stronger, how you inspire merely because you're kind, he might not understand why you bother but he still sees it). He'll be vague or off putting or rude (maybe state how soft you are, how he could crush you) but suddenly you catch something new. He has a static lacing his voice now, a sort of low purr whenever he's around you.
If you touch him, it grows louder, a thick thrum. He gets hotter, and you have to be careful, though he now has dampeners when walking around specifically so you can touch him (it's Kafka's doing, "for our safety").
Everyone else has figured out he's fallen in love with you, now they're just waiting for you to pick up on it, too. They've even made bets (Wolf and Kafka mostly, but Blade joins in because he's bored).
And imagine their surprise when Kafka convinces him to wear a suit to a formal meeting of group members at an anonymous ball (where crazy costumes are the theme so they don't stand out). Sort of over his armor but also incorporated, like Svarog or even Screwllum.
Oh, and he'd be HUNGRY, too. Once all is said and done, and you finally reveal "your weakness," (that you like him, either because you blush/how your heart races when he asks certain questions or invades your personal bubble, cornering you) he'd be relentless. He'd be touching you everywhere, he'd poke and caress wherever it got the greatest reaction out of you.
And if ever you fall melancholy, depressed, he'd never stop trying to reignite your passion. It will take a long time for him to say "I love you," but he'll say it in a million different ways. By learning your favorite food, and being the "SHE ASKED FOR NO PICKLES" guy lmao
Figured I’d just stick both parts together for convenience :)
But oh my gosh Sam content thank you I’m SCREAMING I’m CRYING I’m SO NORMAL ABOUT HIM I SWEAR-
Sam fans we are eating WELL thanks to anon here~
Okay a couple of my fave bits and my opinion…
I’m VERY intrigued by this whole “wearing a suit” thing. Especially with what you said about him wanting you to perceive him as a man, even subconsciously. That’s so?!?! I never would have come up with that, you’re a GENIUS-I am punching the air and kicking my feet right now-the implications are IMMACULATE~he wants to be perceived as something familiar to you, so you’ll take an interest in him, at least a little bit…I’m saying it again: IMMACULATE…10/10.
And your description of his robotic traits were such a treat~the static lacing his voice and such. Your DESCRIPTION was so good I could practically hear it.
And, okay more of an opinion thing haha I do think you’re right in the variety of ways he could interact with you, but something about him being a little more on the rude and curt side makes sense to me, at least initially when he’s first discovering he has some sort of “affection” for you. He doesn’t like it. He at first finds the sensation unpleasant. Something about you makes him feel…weak.
But YEAH, thanks so much for the Sam ideas~
#honkai star rail#honkai star rail x reader#Hsr Sam#honkai star rail Sam#Hsr Sam x reader#honkai star rail Sam x reader
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toni's fanfic masterlist
a collection of all of my fic, mostly ft. Din Djarin and Joel Miller
Key: 🏴 = dark, 💕 = fluff, ⛓ = bdsm, 💀 = dead dove do not eat
18+ ONLY, minors DNI. All fics on this list are explicit and f!reader unless otherwise stated.
also on ao3
dividers by @saradika-graphics
last updated: 4/6/2024
Din Djarin
Series
⛓💕 well it's love, make it hurt
(Complete, dom!Din Djarin x f!reader)
summary: After The Mandalorian begrudgingly teamed up with you for a big-ticket bounty, you find you work surprisingly well together, and you propose a short-term partnership. Weeks become months, and your hunting partnership becomes muddled as you explore a new dynamic onboard the Razor Crest.
🏴 live to rise
(complete; gladiator!Din Djarin x f!reader)
summary: The Last of the Mandalorians have fallen; their Mand'alor captured. Stripped of his armor, his weapons, his people. Din rises to fight another day, grasping onto the hope that his son still lives.
No fighter has won their freedom from the Empire's arena before. With the help of a servant girl, can he hope to break free?
One Shots
don't let me get carried away
summary: Mando finds the toy you use when he's gone and makes you demonstrate.
for Manda'yaim (Din Djarin x f!reader x Paz Vizsla)
summary: Now that they have reclaimed their homeworld, the Children of the Watch resurrect an ancient ritual to secure the future of their people. Reader is one of the volunteers chosen to bear the next generation of Mando'ade.
🏴💀 worry not
summary: Mand'alor Din Djarin is haunted by the Darksaber, and you suffer the consequences.
💕 mhi ba'juri verde
summary: After Din is crowned Mand'alor, you make good on your promise to fulfill the rest of your vows.
🏴 ori'skraan
summary: The Mand'alor needs to feed to regain his strength, so you are called upon to fulfill the most sacred of your duties.
🏴💀I'll take care of you
summary: Din takes care of you after a head injury leaves you helpless.
stuck in a lonely loop
summary: Din can't let go of the feeling that something's wrong, even if you deny it.
🏴nobody is coming to save you
summary: You get caught by a Mandalorian bounty hunter after fleeing your marriage.
Din Djarin x reader x Boba Fett
copaani gaan? (Din Djarin x f!reader x Boba Fett)
summary: Din catches you blushing after Boba Fett flirts with you. He instigates and encourages you to fuck Fett while he watches.
mhi me'dinui an and prequel (Din Djarin x f!reader x Boba Fett x Cobb Vanth)
summary: After the events of The Book of Boba Fett, you get railed by Din Djarin, Boba Fett, and Cobb Vanth.
Joel Miller
Series
🏴💀 all I did was what I had to (complete; dark!Joel x f!reader)
summary: this is a series of snapshots following dark!raider/hunter!Joel Miller and f!reader, who he saves from her abusive spouse for a slightly better situation. It's very dark and so far all the parts involve watersports, if that's your kind of thing.
you know you never stood a chance (complete; qz!Joel x f!reader)
summary: When your neighbor Joel finds out you've resorted to prostitution to make ends meet, he makes sure he's your first client, and proposes a different deal.
ain't no rest for the wicked (complete; tess x f!reader x joel)
summary: Joel would never complain about what he and Tess have. The only thing is that, sometimes, he’d like to be the one in control. Tess has a proposition: she’ll find a sub for Joel that they can both enjoy. It’s not an easy feat... until they stumble upon you in a dark alley.
🏴💀 the art of breaking (pt. ii coming spring 2024)
summary: Your meeting is happenstance, but everything that follows? Well, that’s all Joel. He just knows you’re going to be his perfect little toy. He just has to show you how.
🏴of rage and ruin (ongoing; werewolf!alpha!Joel Miller x f!omega!reader)
summary: Joel Miller made it twelve years into the apocalypse without getting bit. He turns into a much different kind of monster than he expected, though.
One Shots
🏴💀 the devil you don't know (or however it goes)
summary: When Joel's men bring back the (adult) daughter of a rival group of hunters, he sees an opportunity. This is VERY dark.
-- the aftermath (by demand; my thoughts on the possible endings. i stand by the original though.)
💕 a home amongst the stars
summary: Joel gets home after a late patrol and finds solace in your warm body.
💕 to know that you're mine
summary: Joel Miller is a pussy eating king with a praise kink. That's it, that's the fic. sub!Joel if you squint.
remember what you're staring at is me
summary: A videotape is left on your porch one morning, and it changes everything about your budding relationship with Joel Miller.
drabbles/ficlets
🏴💀 too much
summary: you never know when to shut up.
🏴 not enough
summary: a companion to "too much;" it's rough sex and choking with Joel. that's it, that's the fic.
🏴💀no one could save me but you
summary: You're under the care of Dr. Miller at an inpatient mental health facility. He has a vested interest in your "recovery."
🏴💀seasons don't
summary: Your husband dies a hero, but it's no comfort to you.
🏴💀no loyalty in the apocalypse
summary: Your group falls victim to Joel Miller's hunters.
🏴💀better run
summary: You should have never tried to run from Joel.
💕 let's all go to the lobby
summary: a date night with joel miller
💕 could be
summary: jackson is not your home. joel miller is not your boyfriend. but they could be.
Honorable Mentions: Events
(most of these are in the other sections but if you want to read through in order, there's this.)
Kinktober 2023
Febuwhump 2024
#joel miller x reader#din djarin x reader#the mandalorian x reader#mando x reader#the mandalorian fic#din djarin x f!reader#dom din djarin#joel miller x you#the last of us fanfic#din djarin x you#the mandalorian x you#joel miller x f!reader
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Campaign idea I've LONG had but would require a fair bit of setup: time loop adventure.
The party is having dinner at the tavern, when a rumbling rocks the foundations of the earth. Everything explodes in a wave color, sound, and immense pressure, but it parts around them the crest of a wave to a ship's bow. That bow being a small imp-like creature, screeching with the effort to maintain whatever shield is keeping the wave at bay. As quickly as it began, it ends, the world outside the bubble going greyscale.
"Noble heroes," the creature pants, slowly turning. "The world hangs a second from death, I'm afraid I have to break my oath and call upon you once...Who the fuck are you!?"
It collapses to its knees as it sees its intended targets, one table over. Epic heroes with legendary kit. Despite trying to maintain a low profile the party might even recognize them, or at least the gear spilling out of their robes. Most seem to be shrinking into their armor, though the gnome's just turning green. The whole bar is doing the same, come to think of it.
"HOW. HOW DID I MISS. I- ok, ok. I can work with this. That's fine. they used to be chumps too, we just had more time to work back then. Hi. Welcome to the end of the world. If you want to roll it back, we can talk."
The paladin's all for it. The rest of the party is conflicted, but they eventually decide they've got nothing else to do. First thing though, who is this?
"Got a lot of names, been around for a while. Maintain time, maybe you've seen my work? Yeah, not gonna have it undone by a punk with a wish. One that wished for more wish granting items, and again with with all of those, until eventually they had enough for thier whole tribe of hundreds. and the tribe had one wish, a wish with enough power to bind even the gods."
"They wished for 'Goblin'. And with neither the world or the goblins themselves having any idea what that's supposed to mean, creation answered with 'Yes.' There's not a thing under the sun that's not becoming goblin. Or over the sun. The sun's not outta the question eith- look, it's everything, ok? I don't know the reach, I don't want to either, I just know we can't stop that blast."
The party grumbles. how do they save things if the gods themselves are bound?
"I can chuck you back in time. Only about a day, I had to snap most of myself off when the corruption started. We can do this for a while, but we have to do this. Find out where they are. Figure out how to get to them. and somehow stop them. Can't be that hard, right? they're just goblins, right?"
One way to find out.
Basically this would start out consequence free. The world is set up, and full of FAR stronger creatures...at first. If they die they lose thier gear, but NOT thier info, the day just resets. Milestone experience, the players will slowly level up as they discover things. Discover how to get what they need more efficiently, skip parts, etc.
I said 'at first.' Once they've gotten far enough, gotten their bearings, etc...they notice something's slightly different. Someone's slightly greener and nobody notices. A butterfly is a little goblin with goblin-patterned wings. something slightly changes in thier loop. next loop the little time gremlin's got a green ear. maybe they notice the bubble's slightly smaller. You've learned how things work, now execute. Whether you progress toward a failstate by amount of deaths/loops, or just give the illusion by going off progress, the pressure ramps up. The dragon they have to convince? goblin dragon. The city? slowly becoming goblins. Wild magic starts effecting party members, as even the concepts of reality start becoming goblin, under a sun that's starting to tint green.
The bright side is you could do a bunch of the prep right at the start, and have far less to do as things progress. That's also the downside however, and the reason I haven't done it yet.
#dnd 5e#vivi rambles#5e d&d#dnd ideas#Of course when I compare it to a gremlin or imp#I'm really just thinking about Midna
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I have a request if you’re feeling up for it :)
I wanted to know what each clone’s S/O does to get them flustered? 🤔 like all blushy, stuttering, etc? Is it words from their S/O? Light touches?(ticklish,sensitive,etc) I was in a fluffy mood and you are a good writer. I shall pay you in llamas pls & thank u ✨🦙 🦙🦙🦙
Ooh hard to pass up a deal for llamas. But first I need to know, are they smelly? Do they get along with cats? And can they survive on a small apartment balcony?
Cody, Wolffe, and Wrecker melt over sweet and kind gestures. Gentle touches are a big one. It sends such pleasant tingles across their skin and they cannot comprehend how they could possibly deserve such softness. Another is being taken care of, such as their armor being cleaned or being cooked a nice meal. They won't be able to find the words to express how such acts make them feel.
Tup, Dogma, and Thorn will be flushed, stuttering messes over just about anything. Seriously, any kind of attention goes straight to their hearts without a fight, and comes spilling over in the most frazzled and adorable of ways. We're talking compliments, being thanked, brushing arms as they move by, seeing their S/O blush... These three are immediately red as a tomato and utterly helpless.
Hardcase, Tech, and Mayday would need it laid on them real thick before they're even aware. Simple brushes of the hand won't do the trick, they need their head caressed in both hands. Sweet words or silly pet names? No, they need to be taken aside, looked in the eye, and told just how handsome or strong they are. Then they'll start stuttering and blushing.
Fox, Rex, and Echo will get worked into a tizzy any time their S/O shines the spotlight on them in public. Behind closed doors, they are totally fine hearing compliments, holding them close, being doted on. But around others, they cannot function with that attention. It's not even out of embarrassment or anything; the gestures just hit them that much deeper when they're on display.
Fives, Jesse, and Crosshair aren't too easily thrown off their game, but there is one simple thing that will make their brains short circuit: their S/O's smile. They dream about that smile. It is the single most dazzling, beautiful, perfect thing they have ever seen in their entire lives, and it will make them seize up and swoon, without fail, every single time.
Kix, Hunter, and Gregor are more likely to be flustered over things that are... uh, less than innocent, shall we say. They don't bat an eye at the fluffy stuff. It's still enjoyable, don't get them wrong, but they won't be turning pink just by holding hands. No, their blushes only come out when touched teasingly elsewhere, or at suggestive turns of phrase, or even at flirty winks.
Every Character Tag: @dangerousstrawberrypie, @justanothersadperson93, @arctrooper69, @sleepycreativewriter, @techie-bear, @theroguesully
Bois, Batch, and Other Clones Tag: @kaijusplotch, @rebel-finn, @lucyysthings, @marvel-starwars-nerd, @nekotaetae, @severalseashellsbytheseashore, @lackofhonor, @flowered-bicycles, @foodmoneyandcats, @nahoney22
✨Join A Tag List Here!✨
💋 Tender Loving Clones Master List | 🌙 Master List of Master Lists
#star wars#the clone wars#the bad batch#fluff#blushing#flustered#clones#tender loving clones#commander cody#commander wolffe#commander fox#commander thorn#captain rex#captain howzer#captain gregor#fives#kix#tup#jesse#hardcase#dogma#hunter#crosshair#tech#echo#wrecker
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argument pt 2?
[here's argument pt 1 (i guess lol); u don't need to read it for this to make sense fully but if u are so inclined & haven't read it yet it might be helpful context.]
//
you don't know what else you expected. upon a very quick reflection — once your brain reorients itself from beatrice is so hot — you realize you were foolish to think anything else, especially not without a discussion. but, still —
'what are you doing?'
it's clear what beatrice is doing, standing with jillian in one of her fancy labs. she's dressed in all black, a t-shirt delightfully tight on her biceps (focus, ava) tucked into loose pants reinforced at the knees, boots that are tougher than normal but lighter than those you would typically wear in combat — ones she prefers when fighting because it allows her quiet, stealth, full range of motion. 'trying on new armor,' she says, and if it was years ago, the spike of anger that starts in your gut and shoots up your spine — anger, and sheer panic — would have set the halo off.
jillian looks between the two of you — your fists clenched; beatrice's arms crossed over her chest — and says, 'well, i'll be looking over some specs in... another room,' and excuses herself.
wisely.
it hits you, all at once, when you look at beatrice — your fiance, your life partner — that, right now, maybe more than ever, she looks like a soldier. it's not been lost on you over the years, not with her nightmares and the quiet, chronic pain she bears with little more than a tender wince some mornings, the way she loses herself after loud noises or too many people in a crowd, her usually steady hands trembling — it's not been lost on your that beatrice has been fighting for a long time.
'you can't seriously be telling me you're not going to stop.'
'i'm fine, ava. i was cleared by my surgeon and my physical therapist to return to all normal activities.'
you're so used to gentleness, now, even with demons to fight on occasion and the lingering affects of a holy war too great to fully comprehend. you're used to beatrice's loose cotton crewnecks you like to steal; the rust-colored linen pants she loves, light in the breeze off the water. you're used to her whining for posterity about couples halloween costumes, her afternoon naps with her kitten purring on her chest softly. you're used to dates she plans meticulously that you don't even try to mess up because she's so intentional with how she loves you, full of thought and care. you're used to your big house on the beach and her laugh in the afternoon, the freckles on her shoulders, her hand in yours.
'i don't understand.' you release your fists with the progressive muscle relaxation you've worked on in therapy, then take a deep breath. 'you — you want to keep fighting?'
you're the one who changed her dressings after surgery, who took her to months and months of painful and slow-going, steady physical therapy. you're the one who washed her short hair with the gentlest hands you could, even that hurting the bone bruise along the back of her skull. you're the one who filled the prescriptions for her pain meds, who held her hand when she woke up. you're the one who loves her the most. you're the one who thought she was going to die.
'i —' she seems at a loss, for a moment, and then, 'it's my duty.'
'your duty?' it comes out shrill; so much for your muscle relaxation. 'beatrice.'
she clenches her jaw.
'you're telling me that you're, what, just fine getting fitted for new armor because your last vest got punctured by shrapnel and almost killed you?'
'ava.' it's a warning, and a tired one — exhausted from over a decade. 'you're still fighting.'
'i don't have a choice.' you hate yelling but you're overwhelmed by the idea of having to go through what you did again and again. 'don't you want — don't you want to choose?'
she swallows and leans back against the counter. 'if i —' she shakes her head.
'bea.'
'i — i can't.'
'i want to live,' you tell her, an echo of one of the first things you knew years and years ago, and her lower lip trembles. 'for so long i have wanted to live so badly, bea.'
'i know.' her voice is laced with unshed tears.
'i — do you want to?'
she sniffles and tilts her head back to look at the ceiling; it's a sure tell she's trying to compose herself but you can see her shaking, holding it in. 'i never thought i would.'
you step toward her, wait until she offers her hand. you lace your fingers together and wait. 'did you want to?'
'i didn't think — i didn't think i deserved to. i didn't think that me living a good life would be nearly as valuable as, well —'
'dying young in a blaze of glory for god?'
it takes her a moment, because it's the hardest thing in the world to hold, this grief, but then she laughs a watery little sound. 'something like that.'
'okay, but — do you want to now?'
it hangs heavy in the air. you know that she goes to therapy faithfully and you've seen her cry multiple times watching the sunset; she touches you like a benediction. but the answer is impossible to come by, sometimes — worthiness, and belief. 'who am i, ava, if not... this?'
you remember a book you'd read a few months ago, one of mary's favorites, that had made you cry often — where does it all lead? what will become of us? these were our young questions, and young answers were revealed. it leads to each other. we become ourselves. it's easy, to kiss the faithful gold band on her ring finger and then take her in your arms, put a protective hand to the back of her head. 'you're a fucking miracle,' you pray into her skin. 'you're the love of my life. you're a genius, and a black belt, and someone who avidly watches reality tv and tennis, only one of which is worthy of that kind of devotion.' you feel her laugh, snotty, into your shoulder. 'you're so pretty, and so handsome, and really funny when you want to be and sometimes even when you don't. you're remarkably forgiving; an incredible friend, a wonderful sister. you're someone who surfs because the ocean is beautiful and you want to see the sunrise. you're a very hot lesbian, and you're my fiance, and you're going to be my wife. you're my life partner. you give the world so much more than it has ever, ever deserved.' you both back up, just so you can look into her eyes. you hold her face in your hands, as gently as you can, run your thumb along a cheekbone, the constellation of freckles there that have bloomed in the sun by the sea. 'you will always serve the world, i know that about you. you're a child of god,' you say. 'you're beatrice.'
it doesn't surprise you when she kisses you gently and then tucks her face into your neck and lets out a full body sob. you rub her back through it, hold her up when her legs grow weak. eventually, as she always does, she calms and composes herself, steps back and dries her tears, runs a hand along her hair. her eyes are red but she takes a deep, steadying breath.
'thank you.'
you kiss her cheek. 'you're also my favorite.'
'now that i do know.'
you grin. 'don't get me wrong, like, fuck the military industrial complex obviously, but this is kind of a look.'
she rolls her eyes but her shoulders settle and then she looks at you seriously. 'i want to live a long life.'
'yeah?'
'so badly.'
'it's a little scary, right?'
she lets out a shaky, honest breath. 'yeah.'
'well, we'll figure it out.' you kiss her, the first of a kind stretching out ahead of you, infinite. 'i have an idea?'
she sighs, and you can't help but laugh.
(you watch her slice a plum on the shore of the lake in the alps you used to train at all those years ago, the lake you knelt down in front of her and she agreed to be your wife. the fruit is juicy and a color you can't quite bring yourself to comprehend: blood, your favorite sangria at the beach, natal dahlias. the house you stay at now — a few quiet days before you head home — is small and gorgeous, with a giant bed and a wall of windows that overlook the mountains. i love you here, you tell her — i love you like this; i love you however you are meant to be — i love you in peacetime, and you watch her slice a plum, the juice red and sticky on her fingers. she puts it to your mouth gently and the taste explodes like a kiss. she smiles and you feed her too; she sucks your finger into her mouth and you close your eyes — there will be time enough to touch her later. the water is calm, and the flowers are in bloom, and the sun shines bright.)
#wn#wn fic#avatrice#avatrice fic#butch bea 🥺🫡#jillian getting tf out of there lmfao#mostly brought to you by the overwhelming RED of the plums that have been in season in socal lately#& the accidental sincere ending to the lilith pov prompt fill lmao 'i want to live a long life'#whew! wild!
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Marriage of State AU Character Designs: The Mad King of Mezalea
Joel actually has three major looks through the course of the AU; Prince of Mezalea, Trophy Husband, and King Joel, with the subcategories of "armor" for each.
They all have the same base design of "human", differing by (apparent) age and general sense of style.
Some Joel Skins to start us off and provide the base we're working off of, and also the Mezalean banner because color pallet
And also, because it is actually relevant, (bear with me here) some samples of Mezalean architecture.
The Matral Palace and the Villager area.
Based off of Joel's final skin, the vibe is kind of "Victorian military dress uniform" however there is something very, very important to take into consideration from a worldbuilding perspective.
The Mesa is a warm weather biome. Its a colorful desert. Which means high temperatures during the day and cold at night. So tight-fitting, thick fabrics in a Victorian style would be incredibly impractical.
So we turn to the second possible source for fashion inspiration: The architecture, which gives mostly Byzantine vibes.
So what would Byzantine clothing look like, especially for nobility?
First off, taking into account that the Byzantine Empire lasted for approximately a thousand years and, naturally, underwent some dramatic changes in clothing style during that time, we'll pick a specific vibe out of the options. I settled on a bit of a mix between Early Byzantine (think the Theodora Mosaic shown below) and Middle Byzantine (see the mosaic of Emperor Constantine IX below)
And here are just some screenshots from my pintrest board for Mezalea and Mezalean!Joel, because if I put all these on here separately I'll hit the image limit too soon.
(General disclaimer: yes, Pintrest has an art theft problem, yes Pintrest is much harder to effectively use now due to the pervasiveness of ads on everything, no I don't use it for like, formal things. It remains one of the best ways to collect visual references and figuring out The Vibes)
(Yes, we get to go full Material Gworl vibes for the Mezalean King, as is only right and proper.)
General characteristics I'm adopting here for Mezalean clothing:
Brocade (and bejeweled) kaftan/kaftan-esque outer layer. This is a formal wear thing, and is absolutely a "showing off the wealth" power move.
Lots of Big Chunky Colorful Jewelry
I don't know what it's actual name is, but that general style of having jeweled tassel-like things hanging from the front sides of the crown/headdress.
Light-weight and loose fitting under-layers.
And of course, bright colors.
Prince Joel: Before he became part of the main cast in an epic fantasy adventure spanning several hundreds of years and an entire continent (and the adjacent ocean) Joel was the youngest of three princes with two older brothers who were both married and had kids.
Which is to say, it did not look like he would ever be the king.
His role in the kingdom was very much that of an ambassador to and direct connection to their people. He spent a lot of time working on fishing boats and in the mines and quarries. While he did receive a standard royal education on things like diplomacy and combat, international interactions were not his focus at all, much more involved in the day to day operations of his own home. (And yes, that is a very vital aspect of the idea of "royalty" in general, supposedly, and that being a particular point of Joel's upbringing will make more sense when I get around to writing and posting the post about how royalty functions in the Empires. tldr; its related to the whole thing where Pixlriffs accidentally redefined "war")
Basically, Prince Joel = the first skin, the simple green one. He's wearing more lightweight, practical clothes that allow him to engage in physically demanding dirty work without costing a fortune every day. He still dresses up for formal events, but he doesn't even attend all of those and he is far from a daily sight in court.
Trophy Husband: For a couple hundred years, Joel didn't live in Mezalea. Instead, he was one half of the chronological first arranged marriage in the "au in which all the marriages are arranged" situation. And this one was the one that most resembles the set-up of a generic "period" bodice-ripper novel (though that is not how it played out ultimately, for the parties involved, despite the romance that does happen.)
Basically, this is his War Prize Era. In which Lizzie won a husband in combat and then didn't really know what to do with him.
During this time period, Joel mostly wore ocean styled clothing, though during formal occasions he would wear a notable amount of Mezalean accessories, that were part and parcel of the treaty with him. (I'm trying so hard not to derail this into just a breakdown of the events of the Joel & Lizzie arc of the au im trying so hard)
He did tend to mix Oceanic and Mezalean clothing, due in part to Oceanic clothing being primarily designed for underwater wear, while he lived above the surface, finding the balance of practicality and appearances demanded by the political nature of his existence at the time. (Also a personal comfort thing as Mezalean clothing tended to afford more skin coverage and also had shoes) Once he and Lizzie were more comfortable both in the world and with each other he had more opportunities for personalization and tended towards Mezalean styles in oceanic colors. He did develop a significant appreciation for the Oceanic idea of skin-tight under-layers for water travel.
King Joel: He did end up back in Mezalea as king, which is when we hit the style closest to the second skin, which mostly for this is really an indicator of color scheme. Formally, he is now wearing the full Kaftan and Jewelry look, day to day its more of "colorful, simple, and lightweight" because he still is very active in the day to day commerce of his empire. He does usually wear significantly more jewelry than he did as a prince, he grew a taste for it during his trophy husband era XD. The details of his day-to-day wear are also fancier. finer fabrics, more embroidery, brocade hems, etc.
Most of his earrings are gifts from Lizzie, some in Oceanic colors, some in Mezalean, but all with little chips of prismarine to remind him of her even when she can't be there.
Armor: Joel's armor preferences are simple netherite plate. He also does have a ceremonial trident, as a member of the Oceanic royal family. His is gold-plated.
-
art
Lizzie || Jimmy ||
AU Masterpost
#empires smp#empires s1#smallishbeans#the mad king of mezalea#rain rambles#marriage of state au#mos: worldbuilding#mos: joel
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