#( GET HIM GWYN ! ! )

[pigeon-princess]

Can I please talk about my weird little Warg from Lonely Light? My salt crusted Ironborn bastard whose definitely a Targaryen. Gwyndon "Gwyn" Pyke, my selkie boy.

We've started playing a little ASOIAF tabletop game set during the Blackfyre Rebellions (around 90 years before Game of Thrones). Our travelling party consists of two Targaryen bastards from the opposite side of Westeros and the Hedge Knight holding them for ransom (or so we thought).

[guardian-angle22]

911: Lone Star | TK & Jonah

[venusin-aries]

Gwyn decides to fight dirty by biting Azriel while sparring. Right on his forearm. Hard enough to bruise, hard enough to draw blood. Azriel -depraved as he is- spends the next two days running his fingertips over the mark even after it’s long gone. 

Azriel -depraved as he is- drags his lips over the mark, setting his teeth to it, later that night while he’s touching himself. 

Trying to chase the taste of her mouth. 

Give the quarter nymph little fangs, Sarah, I beg you. Azriel would LOVE it. 

[shadowqueenjude]

Do you ever have characters where you're like...I totally love this character...but the fandom loves them too and they have a group of vehement supporters so you don't feel the need to discuss them at all? And you root for these marginalized characters that somehow get loads of hate and you become more fond of them because somehow so few others are?

[oristian]

Sarah did call Azriel a freak, but that could mean anything…👀 maybe he wants to give up control but he’s afraid, he doesn’t know to just let go and relax.

Azriel and Gwyn in the training ring and they are sparring late at night. They have been practicing a new dagger handling maneuver-turned-self-defense tactic for the better part of the week and Gwyn has nearly gotten the footwork down.

While in the middle of their spar, Gwyn’s eyes suddenly go wide, her back ramrod, and she stares over his shoulder. Azriel tenses, and cranes his neck to see wh-

Azriel is suddenly on his back, his legs kicked out from under him, Gwyn straddling his middle, the blade pressed up against his throat. Gwyn has a teasing smirk on her lips and she boasts, “I win, Shadowsinger. What is my prize?” Azriel stares wide-eyed up at her, as if he had just seen her for the first time in his life. He is wildly impressed, and very turned on.

[not-poignant]

The latest UtR update on AO3 got me hooked and I could no longer constrain myself and had to read the other chapters on Patreon. Now I need to know: does Lucien have any redeeming character traits in the series or can I add him straight to the list of characters that deserve the worst? That attitude of his towards Faber made me so mad lmao

Hi anon!

This actually reminds me of the ask I got recently about how awful Augus is as a character and how it's impossible to consider him through a positive light after reading Falling Falling Stars. Because that's how he seems if you've never read him in anything else of mine!

My narrators are unreliable, anon. We only ever see Lucien very briefly through the jealous eyes of an insecure man.

(Spoilers for a future brief verbal encounter between Lucien and Faber in Underline the Red).

Lucien is an extremely vulnerable omega who is in an institution that has temporary custody of him. They control what he eats, what he does, whether he leaves or not (i.e. he's functionally imprisoned), who fucks him, if he gets to see anyone else, if he can talk to his partner and family back home and how often. He has significant psychiatric issues around his own insecurities re: jealously and his partner, and he clocks Faber as being in love with Caleb, and he's right.

And that's incredibly unethical of Faber, honestly, to not have disclosed any of this to Dr Gary (like Dr Gary will be right to consider firing him over this in the future). It puts Lucien's mental health in direct and severe jeopardy, and is ironically likely what causes his relapse that causes Caleb to suggest domestic discipline in the first place (oh, Faber, the irony).

Because Lucien's there to learn that actually a lot of his jealousy and insecurity is unfounded. Instead, he learns the opposite, that no matter who he bonds with, someone else is there loving his potential partner while he perceives himself as having very little control (and in the case of Hillview - this is true, all he has are his words).

He's a chronically disabled omega who needs a disability aid (walking stick) to get around, he's a second class citizen, he's agreed with his partner to stay at Hillview because they both recognise how sick he's getting.

Faber is not a mental health patient/omega like Lucien is. He's a staff member who is nursing unrequited loved to an alpha companion, that he's refused to disclose, while still interacting with Caleb and his omegas. Imho, while Lucien is very good at lashing out, he's not wrong to, and that's why Faber fully acknowledges what Lucien is saying and listens to him, and basically never interacts with him again, and avoids Caleb where possible.

Lucien's mean about it, but Lucien is right re: Faber trying to hide his feelings because he knows what will happen if people find out, and that it's also wrong/unfair to put Lucien in that position.

And Faber knows that.

So yeah. The reader is meant to hate Lucien on a surface level, in the same way that Faber does.

But consider that Faber also sometimes seems to hate all omegas. He finds the smell of their heats disgusting. It's actually pretty normal for people to go through a phase of rejecting the thing that they are, if that's something hated in society. Faber's oscillating mixed feelings of bitterness, resentment and cutting attitude is actually mirrored in Lucien.

Faber has thought extremely savage, scathing and unforgiving things himself to the people around him (and himself). Lucien responds to Faber like Faber is an omega (something Faber doesn't recognise yet), because Faber...kind of acts like one in moments like that. (Efnisien also picks up on this, Faber is not great to him in the beginning of Underline the Black, in a very specific way designed for Efnisien to pick up on, and for Gary to miss. Faber behaves jealously, and constantly suggests to Gary that he should get rid of Efnisien, before he finally adjusts to the absence of Gary in his life. Faber is possessive and manipulative!)

Lucien ultimately doesn't need any redeeming characteristics because he's a victim who is at Hillview to heal and Faber is jeopardising that. We can hate him, but that's just the fact. He didn't try to kill Kadek when he arrived at Hillview, he hasn't tried to destroy memories of James, things Efnisien has done even though we love him all the same (ideally). Lucien felt understandably jealous/insecure (literally the thing he's at Hillview to be treated for, safe from people who will be in love with his lover until Faber) and he lashed out meanly.

If a staff member of Hillview can't handle some rude words, they shouldn't work there.

But yeah, I like the Lucien and Faber encounter because they are both extremely similar people in some ways. They are both bitter, jealous, resentful people capable of very scathing thoughts (and words). The only difference is that in that moment, Faber is the recipient and we feel bad for him. I mean, I do feel bad for him. Faber is in a bad place psychologically, it's a horrible thing for him to experience.

If we were getting Lucien's story from his perspective, and saw the panic attacks he had afterwards, and the regression he went through, etc. it might be different. But it doesn't have to be! Lucien in that moment functions as a reality check for Faber, and a very effective one at that. We're meant to hate him, but also meant to understand that Faber's love for Caleb is not as subtle as he thinks it is in the sense that - omegas can see it for what it is.

I personally like the one moment where we see that Lucien might have a heart when Faber admits his parents are dead, and we can see that he doesn't react with savage satisfaction, but like Faber broke the narrative he'd built for himself in his own insecure, jealous, scared mind.

[lainalit]

If Azriel doesn't beg and apologize on his knees to Gwyn for the necklace debacle in their book

[thatpurpledudetrey]

acotar modern au but feysand and nessian relationship got ruined ever since rhysand and cassian started to binge watching skibidi toilet and scrolling through yt shorts

[unstatedmartini]

"Don't let it take TK." That's so important bc Owen talks about how Gwyn tells Owen that's he's sucking the joy out of their family after 9/11. And Owen knows how deeply their family falling apart hurt TK. And now he sees TK with someone who loves him so much and he sees Carlos about to make the biggest mistake of his life and he just wants to stop history from repeating itself. And Owen knows how important it is to Carlos to show him that he'll always take care of TK and I believe that Owen can see the similarities between himself and Carlos and he knows that Carlos would never be able to live with himself if he'd actually pulled the trigger. And it ties so well into Owen's speech at the rehearsal dinner about saving TK and TK and Carlos being meant to be and then the moment with Gwyn at the wedding with her telling him that TK is going to be okay

yes yes yes to ALL of this! and especially this part: I believe that Owen can see the similarities between himself and Carlos and he knows that Carlos would never be able to live with himself if he'd actually pulled the trigger

because i think that really gets at the heart of why owen's journey has made him uniquely equipped to reach carlos in the depths of his grief. of course owen wants to support and protect carlos - the same way he's supported judd and tommy and tk and mateo etc when they've experience loss - but there's a particular reason why he doesn't just say, whew! murder averted! take care son! and drop him back off at the loft where he knows tk is anxiously waiting for him

and that's because he knows how seductive it is to take one tiny step back from the edge but keep staring into the abyss for years and years because it feels like somebody has to. he knows how dangerous it is to think, okay, i didn't do the worst thing. so whatever else i do is justified

and he knows that the world won't stop him. in fact he knows from experience that if carlos goes down the rabbit hole and devotes his entire life to chasing some measure of meaning, almost everyone will understand and many will actually laud him for it. they'll call him a survivor. a leader. a hero. and the few people who truly love him enough to stand in his way will become collateral damage, because they have made themselves the enemy of his greater purpose

owen wants better than that for tk and everyone else carlos loves, yes, but above all he wants better than that lonely life for carlos and he knows that gabriel does too

[fluffypichu876]

guess who beat dark souls 1 for the first time???? ehehehehehhehe

this game is soo very good! it's such an unique experience, and honestly, despite the (kinda mild?) difficulty, it's one game that i would recommend to everyone.

oh, and i'm doing ng+ btw >:)

[swallowtail-ageha]

Messmer/gwyndolin is cool 1) because aha snake yaoi and they actually share a shit ton of similarities character wise but also 2) they'd definitely make each other worse. Put two people with THAT big abandonment issues together and you'd get the worst failmarriage ever

[emc2beans]

Gwynedd: "Friendship ended with Thancred, now Wuk Lamat is my best Tank Bro."

[latent-thoughts]

"Azriel is a fuck boi." "Azriel has the personality of a wash cloth." "Azriel is a creep." "Azriel is a stalker." "Azriel doesn't understand consent." Etc. etc....

I keep reading these mind-blowing takes in the Azriel and ACOTAR tags here, and....

All I can say is...

Well, reading comprehension is a rare commodity these days. 👀

[bitchfitch]

I'm working on a new design for Conrí, a character I've mentioned at most twice, and on one hand i love a man in big clunky armor with a Big ass sword. and really like the contrast of this armor shaped to look fierce and snappy being put on a mostly mellow and really laid back guy and it does make a lot of his confrontations with Gwyn way funnier but on the other I'm not sure it Fits.

Conrí and Gwyn are in a kinda weird spot rn. They went from another failed attempt at a little red x big bad wolf concept, to a king looking to the leader of a warrior band of monsters for help, to a monster hunter who is just Dead set on killing this big fucker and has had no luck doing it.

I guess I could flip the script a bit and let Conrí be the one with a reputation and honor. Maybe he's the knight sent on a quest to kill the sorcerer. Maybe they meet as enemies on opposite sides of a war. Maybe they meet as a general and a thief. Idk. I'm still mulling them over.

[separatist-apologist]

Wait.. is today your birthday?! If so I hope you’re having a wonderful day. Actually I hope that even if it’s not your birthday, you always deserve a wonderful day. Also I am very excited to read naked Azriel, thank you for bestowing this future gift on us, your horny and loyal readers. I still am shocked and appalled (and sexy) that you’ve converted me to finding him interesting?! You’re the best, happy (possible) birthday love you bye

Tomorrow is my birthday! Thank you for the well-wishes though!!

[the-lonelybarricade]

The amount of times I’ve reread the small nessian interaction in ACoFD’s latest chapter is unhealthy. ISTG THAT HUG AND THE WAY NESTA WAS SO TENDER WITH HIM AND SHE JUST SAID HIS NAME *screaming crying throwing up*

I am so happy this fic is back l but my poor babies are GOING THROUGH IT CAN’T FEYSAND GET SOME WELL DESERVED VACATIONS

And I love how they’re all worried about Azriel meanwhile he’s busy flirting we’re not going to mention the torture no I’ll get sad again

I am so glad we're feeling unhinged about this exchange because I felt so feral writing it 🥹 Cassian managing to barely hold his shit together until the moment he sees Nesta as a fearie and just absolutely goes to pieces 😭 Everyone in ACoFD could absolutely do with a very big hug right now.

Meanwhile Az is laying on a dungeon floor, writing so you do want to play the question game? hahaha idk in his own blood