#I at one point had written in greater detail

[youngpettyqueen]

gotta say, carry you, carry me is one of my fav fics in the fandom. pretty please?

Ok first of all that’s so sweet I’m gonna cry

carry you, carry me was surprisingly tricky. It was my first MASH fic ever, before it I honestly hadn’t written all that much fic! So that came with a lot of challenges

For one thing, nailing the characters was HARD. The MASH style of dialogue fits really well with my style already, seeing as I was raised on that style of humour, so that helped. But trying to capture the internal monologues was hard. BJ was very hard to nail down, and one of the reasons I picked him as my POV character because I realized Hawkeye would be even harder. I’ve since grown accustomed to writing them both, and I love writing for both of them, but it was a big struggle at first

My favourite sequence to write in that fic was the aftermath of Preventative Medicine. I looooove Preventative Medicine, but I hate how the ending tries to frame BJ as being in the right. I also wish we’d gotten a proper aftermath of it, because we never really get any. I wanted Hawkeye to have a messy, ugly breakdown over it if I’m being totally honest, so I tried my hand at having him have exactly that in the fic

Hawkeye’s breakdown is meant to be very reminiscent of BJ’s upcoming breakdown in Period of Adjustment. He gets blackout drunk and goes on a tirade, much like BJ will, but unlike BJ, Hawkeye’s focusing all of his anger on himself. This scene is Hawkeye at a very low point, dealing with a whole new level of self-loathing and disgust and rage. Again, I think Hawkeye was in the right in Preventative Medicine, but he does quite literally yell at BJ that he hates himself. I wanted to explore that, really show it, really get into Hawkeye having a nasty, drunken breakdown because he hates himself and he hates what he had to do. He’s in the right, yes, but that doesn’t make the situation any easier to deal with

I also wanted BJ to have to wrestle with it. I think it’s fair of him to have refused to partake, I like that he stuck to his morals, but I hate that he was framed as being in the right. He simply isn’t. And I think there should’ve been a scene where he had to reckon with the ugly fallout of it and his own guilt. He didn’t actually try all that hard to stop Hawkeye, he stood by and let him do it, and now he’s falling apart. He can’t make himself be angry anymore cause he’s just plain worried- Hawkeye’s a wreck and he doesn’t know what to do about it. I ultimately have him focus on Hawkeye and taking care of him, which distracts him from his anger and drums up sympathy he doesn’t particularly want, and in the end he really just can’t make himself be angry anymore

While the rest of this fic is lighter and focuses more on the comfort of hurt/comfort, this section is very much about the hurt. That’s why I end it with BJ calling Sidney, because I think Sidney was definitely needed after the events of Preventative Medicine. I bring Hawkeye to a really low point, I deliberately included this bit-

“BJ feels a spike of annoyance, despite himself. He takes a steadying breath. “That’s not what I meant,” He says, his voice level, “I’m not worried about what you’ll do. I’m worried about you. How much have you had to drink?” He asks.

“Not enough,” Hawkeye snips back, “I’m still alive.”

BJ knows he isn’t joking. Even when he’s low, even when he’s at his worst, Hawkeye is very obvious with his jokes. And right now, he isn’t joking. Not in the slightest. “That’s not funny.” He says anyways.

“I wasn’t trying to be.” Hawkeye growls.”

-to make it clear this wasn’t going to be joking around. It only escalates from this point, with Hawkeye getting angrier and louder until he cracks and breaks, but this specific bit was the real indicator of how bad it was

BJ’s Period of Adjustment breakdown follows soon after this in the fic. I rewrote that section more times than I can count. One of the original drafts was a 5 + 1 which was going to be 5 times BJ carried Hawkeye and 1 time Hawkeye returned the favour, so this scene was originally a lot longer and more detailed. I ultimately scrapped a lot of it once I did away with the 5 + 1 structure

Originally I’d actually written the entire scene of BJ actually seeing the shiner he gave Hawkeye. I did like it, but I couldn’t make it fit with the rest of the section, and it was starting to feel too angsty. I really wanted the Preventative Medicine breakdown to be the punch in the teeth in this fic, and including a ton of detail in this section felt very distracting, so I decided to shorten it and keep only what I felt was necessary to convey the feelings I wanted to convey. What mattered to me most was the parallel between Hawkeye and BJ’s respective breakdowns, so I kept what I needed for that, and also what I needed to make the point that Hawkeye carries BJ in his own way

[doumadono]

Warnings: smut, rough p in v, fingering, some handjob, f!reader, spanking, semi-public sex Synopsis: you and Dabi snag an invite to a party Shigaraki's throwing. Realizing your wardrobe lacks the glam, you strong-arm your boyfriend Dabi into a shopping spree. Despite initial reluctance, he tackles things in his own, cocky style A/N: this little fic was written in honor of the birthday of my incredibly gifted mutual - @dabismoon - I hope you'll enjoy this petite one shot ♥

MY HERO ACADEMIA MASTERLIST

The heap of garments had amassed on the bed, growing steadily as you sifted through the wardrobe, discarding outfit after outfit. The frustration bubbled within you, reaching its peak as you bellowed to Dabi in the adjacent room.

"I can't find a single thing to wear for the party tonight!" you exclaimed, your voice carrying the tone of exasperation.

A mumbled response reached your ears, prompting you to traverse the distance and find Dabi, your villainous boyfriend, lounging indifferently with a beer in hand, fixated on the television screen. His nonchalant demeanor was evident as he puffed on a cigarette, seemingly uninterested in your sartorial predicament.

Without much enthusiasm, he nodded in acknowledgment of your complaint, casually remarking that he was sure you could surely find something suitable to adorn yourself for the fucking party Shigaraki had coerced every League member into attending.

Determined, you declared, "Ok. I've decided that you're taking me shopping... no arguments!"

Dabi attempted to dissuade you, gesturing towards the television where news about Endeavor played, as if it held greater significance. "Babe, seriously?"

Disregarding his protests, you seized his lengthy coat, your car keys, and his hand, urging him towards the door despite his low growls, not bothering yourself to turn the TV off.

"Doll, you've got a plethora of clothes, and you still claim to have nothing to choose from? That's utterly ridiculous," Dabi groaned, wresting his hand free, swiftly disposing of his cigarette in a crystal ashtray. With an unhappy grimace etched across his face, he begrudgingly adorned his coat. "I won't be dressing up like a fucking fool just to mingle with those lunatics," he grumbled, his discontent palpable.

After three hours of aimless meandering through a plethora of shops, the details of each one eluding your memory, you stumbled upon a dress that tickled your fancy. Amidst the sea of countless dresses tried on in pursuit of the perfect ensemble, you finally discovered one that resonated with your taste. Eager to see how it would adorn you, you headed for the changing rooms. En route to the fitting room, you deftly accumulated a selection of lingerie as well.

Thoughts of acquiring alluring lingerie danced in your mind, contemplating the ways you could model them for Dabi — whether in person or through the lens - to keep him company during those prolonged missions with the League. A stack of lingerie, featuring neon shades, delicate baby pinks, and enticing black lace, awaited your scrutiny.

As you boldly pulled back the curtain, Dabi made a move to follow you inside. A quick about-face, a dismissive shake of your head, and a pointed indication toward a chair stationed just beyond the dressing area thwarted his entry.

Dabi complained, "So I don't even get the fun bit of watching you change to brighten up this fucking unnecessary trip?"

However, it was futile - you insisted he wait over there. With the realization that he couldn't join in the fashion spectacle, you swiftly snapped pictures of each lingerie piece as you were trying them on. Seeking Dabi's discerning opinion, you bombarded him with inquiries regarding your sartorial choices. After the final snapshot found its way to your boyfriend's inbox, an air of suspense hung in the digital ether. Yet, as the seconds ticked away, there was no immediate response from Dabi, leaving you with a frown crossing your forehead.

As you cautiously peeked outside to ensure he hadn't ventured too far, the thick curtain was unceremoniously thrust aside. And there he stood – Dabi, eyeing you with a hunger akin to a starving predator, meticulously taking in the alluring contours of your body adorned in a provocative lingerie set. The fabric, a blend of black sheer lace with a hint of hot pink trimming, clung enticingly to your form.

The bra, designed with a daring split in the cups, left your nipples exposed, proudly making their presence known in response to the sight before you as they instantly stiffened. An instinctive reaction led you to subtly rub your thighs together, a silent attempt to quell the burgeoning heat within you. Your boyfriend, tall and commanding, exuding an air of nonchalance, leaned casually against the changing room wall, his gaze fixed on you.

Without uttering a single word, Dabi seized the moment, propelling you further into the confines of the changing room. With a deft motion, he drew the curtain close, creating an intimate space.

Dabi deftly took hold of your left nipple, his slender forefinger and thumb teasingly tweaking it.

The heat rapidly ascended along your neck, and your breaths quickened as he leaned in, delivering a fierce kiss and an ardent suck on your pulse point. Lowering his head, his warm mouth enveloped the other nipple with a determination, unleashing a sweet yet sharp sensation at its base. The overwhelming pleasure threatened to elicit sounds of ecstasy, but you fought to maintain composure as delicious waves of sensation cascaded over you. "Handsome," you whispered, barely moving your lips as you slipped one hand into his soft, black hair.

Dabi's free hand, not content with just teasing, boldly tugged aside the lacy panties you had on, inspecting how wet you were getting. His verdict: dripping wet. With a forceful motion, the elastic was yanked down your legs, severing all of his contact from your eager nipples as his attention fell on the panties. In one swift move, they were stripped from your hips and deftly retrieved from the floor.

As though it were the most ordinary sequence of events, Dabi casually unzipped the fly of his black, fitted jeans, revealing a semi-hardened cock. Nonchalantly, he wiped the pre-cum off its reddened tip with the lacy panties, and thrust the fabric into your partially opened mouth. The mingling taste of both yourself and him on the fabric elicited a lascivious moan that escaped your lips.

Dabi's gaze lingered on you for a moment before he smoothly retrieved his own phone, swiftly capturing an image of your aroused state. "Sorry, doll, but you look adorable, all fired up like a cheap whore you secretly are," he remarked, seamlessly sliding his phone back into the rear pocket of his pants. With a sly grin, he pulled the panties out of your mouth, raising them to his nose and inhaling deeply. "Mmmm, absolutely perfect," he growled, stashing the intoxicating garment into the same back pocket. "Guess we're gonna take 'em."

Dabi slipped his hand between your thighs, and you willingly parted them further in anticipation. A dark giggle escaped him at your eagerness. "Look at you, princess, so eager to help me touch that pretty little pussy. What? Is my doll all needy? Moments ago, you didn't want to let me watch you, but look at ya now, eager as never before."

Staring intensely into your captivating eyes, Dabi smoothly slid his long middle finger deep inside your slick pussy, eliciting an immediate moan and causing you to instinctively shut your eyes in response.

"No, no, princess, we ain't gonna play like that. Look at me, I want your eyes on me, now," he commanded, leaning forward to place a tender peck on your forehead.

Complying with his directive, you followed his lead, biting down on your lower lip with enough force to draw a bead of blood after opening your eyes again, looking into his turquoise ones.

For a span of a good minute or two, Dabi expertly fingered you, exploring every millimeter of your pussy until your spongy walls began to clench rhythmically around his finger, a clear indication of your impending climax.

"You ain't gonna get off so easily, doll," he declared, withdrawing his digit and lifting it to your lips. With a deliberate motion, he parted your lips with his thumb, prompting you to accept his finger into your mouth.

You sucked your own juices off his digit, moaning quietly without breaking the eye contact.

Dabi seized a generous handful of your supple ass, drawing you closer to him in a forceful manner, engaging in a passionate make-out session with you, pushing his pierced tongue down your throat.

Unabashedly, you dared to extend your hand, wrapping it around his now fully-erect cock, expertly jerking it while rising onto your tiptoes for a more comfortable angle.

Your actions proved successful as Dabi moaned into your mouth, punctuating the moment with a couple of spanks on your ass before tenderly squeezing the supple flesh, indulging in a thorough massage.

In the next instant, he decisively detached your hand from his throbbing cock and pivoted you around, urging you forward until you were facing a lengthy mirror.

Dabi positioned your hands high on either side of the mirror, granting you a comprehensive view of your entire form and his presence looming behind you in the reflective surface.

In a hushed tone, he murmured, "Now, we don't have much time, baby. You wasted too much time already wandering throughout all those stupid stores and teasing me like a bitch you are. I'm going to fuck you hard and cum deep inside you. Do you understand?"

Meeting his gaze in the mirror's reflection, you nodded in affirmation.

"Good," he declared, punctuating his words with another firm spank on your ass. His hand deftly secured your left cheek, spreading it as he gripped his throbbing member. With the tip of his cock, Dabi traced an enticing path up and down your exposed entrance, your juices already glistening and trickling down your thigh.

Without delay, he forced your cunt open with his rigid shaft, delivering a single, powerful thrust that brought him to the hilt inside you. "Fffuuuuccckkk," Dabi breathed out through gritted teeth.

Any potential scream was mercifully muffled by his hand wrapping around your neck, applying a tight squeeze that momentarily restricted your airflow. "Don't you dare moan like you do back home. Our neighbors are accustomed to your bitchy moans and whines, but here people are not, yeah? And the last thing I need today is getting caught with my dick stuffed in your tight cunt," he warned, nibbling your earlobe.

You were relentlessly slammed into, the force akin to a piston driving into your pussy again and again and again.

Dabi's hands greedily explored your soft flesh - your breasts, hips, belly, occasionally slipping between your thighs to playfully tease your swollen clitoris.

Little moans escaped your lips as you pressed your cheek against the cold glass, the surface already fogging up from the intensity of your heavy breathing.

Dabi, panting with an intensity akin to a dog in heat, delivered hard spanks to your ass and the back of your thighs. "You enjoy it when I take you rough like this, don't ya, doll? Hmm? Oh yeah, ya love it. You're quite the dirty whore," he chuckled into your ear. "Don't worry, daddy will fuck you the way you crave the most, princess."

Dabi intensified his rhythm, a firm grip on your hips as he relentlessly thrust into your slippery cunt.

The only sounds resonating within the confines of the changing room were a harmonious blend of your mixed gasps and moans, accompanied by the resonating slap of flesh against flesh, each time his weighty balls hit the curve of your supple ass.

"Dabi..." you whined, already breathless.

Smack, smack, smack! A sequence of forceful spanks landed on your ass. "Address me properly, princess, or I'll have to think of a punishment, and trust me, you won't want that," Dabi growled, sinking his teeth into the column of your neck.

"Daddy," you whispered, your mouth parched from moans and panting, the act of swallowing causing a sweet ache. "Harder," you pleaded. "Harder."

"Mmmm," Dabi slowed his thrusts, his cock reaching deep within you, the tip delicately grazing your cervix as he came to a complete stop. "I knew you had a wild side, little whore, but now you've surprised me. Daddy's going to fulfill your wish," he declared with a sultry promise.

And thus, it commenced. Without delay, he placed a hand on your head, pressing you more firmly against the mirror. The intensity escalated, his hips snapping with relentless determination.

"Oh my God," you managed to utter as you slid a hand between your legs, tracing delicate circles over your slick-covered folds.

Slap, slap, slap! Each thrust felt harder and deeper than the last. His strong hand seized a handful of your hair, pulling you further onto his pulsating dick as he forewarned, "Princess, I'm gonna cum. Daddy's going to coat your sweet cunt with his seed."

Bracing yourself, you endured a final series of sloppy thrusts as Dabi's grunts reverberated down your ear. Rising on your tiptoes, you attempted to accommodate the force emanating from his groin. "Cumming, cumming, fuck," Dabi aggressively grunted, and came deep inside of you, his warm, thick semen spurting from the slit of his tip, painting your spongy walls until they were all adorned in a coating of white.

After withdrawing, Dabi took a moment to appreciate his job, observing the mix of his cum and your juices as they dribbled from your well-used hole.

Depleted and breathless, you whimpered, "I need to drink something, my mouth's dry, Dabi…"

"I'll get you water," he responded casually, extracting panties from his back pocket to once again clean himself off. "You were such a filthy whore, doll. Just the way I like ya the most," he added, punctuating his words with a playful spank that made you yelp as he seemingly heated up his palm, leaving a vivid red mark on your ass cheek. "Get fucking dressed now, we only have an hour to get back home and get ready for that fucking party."

Dabi gathered a few bras and panties before leaving you in the changing room.

As you slid your knickers back on, you smeared the cream of your mixed fluids between your puffy cunt lips. You bit down on your knuckle to stifle a reaction to coldness brought forth by the slick wetness.

You haven't cum so hard such in a good two days, you thought to yourself.

Once dressed, you exited the fitting room only to spot Dabi at the checkout, purchasing every item you had tried on. A self-satisfied grin played on your lips, met with a nod from him. Ah, you already had a plan in mind for how you'd repay him.

[felixbobeelix]

In Defense of The Emperor (or, Ansur Is Not A Victim)

GIF credit: @mittthrawnuruodo

The Emperor is, in my opinion, one of the most underappreciated and misunderstood characters in Baldur's Gate 3, and I have spent a lot of time thinking about reasons why that may be. I honestly think it's tragic because The Emperor is such a compellingly-written character, and I think a lot of that gets lost under the landslide of abject hatred people feel for it.

I have a lot of thoughts about this, so buckle up buttercups! Lots (and lots, and LOTS) more under the cut!

I was playing BG3 again the other day, as one does, and was working my way through Emp's reveal, its initial withholding of the details about its escape and the nature of its relationship with Stelmane, and all the Ansur stuff, and I got fired up about this again. I don't think I'll ever stop getting fired up about The Emperor, to be honest pffffff.

There are a few really common reasons I see for why people hate The Emperor. One is its manipulative behavior, lies by omission, and the fact that if you pressure it enough, its attitude toward Tav will change. Another is the fact that if you choose to free Orpheus it will willingly return to the Netherbrain. Then there's its enthrallment of Stelmane and the implication that it led to her illness and death. And, of course, there's the idea that The Emperor betrayed its longtime friend and implied former lover, Ansur.

I also think there's a secret fifth option that maybe happens unconsciously. The vast majority of people spent a lot of time crafting their Dream Guardians into gorgeous feasts for the eyes, which is something the devs intentionally encouraged players to do. So when the game hit them with the twist and their beautiful Dream Guardian was replaced by an (ostensibly) unappealing Illithid, their sense of betrayal was amplified; they were predisposed to greater anger and hatred for The Emperor than they may have felt if it had retained the pleasant visage of their Dream Guardian.

Emp's Manipulation:

I find the argument about Emp's lying and manipulative behavior a little strange, when, for example, so many people are willing to overlook Astarion's abject manipulation of their Tavs. Personally, I think the reasons here are twofold. One, Astarion enjoys the privilege of being conventionally attractive and Emp does not, plain and simple. Two, sticking it out through Astarion's lying and manipulation will eventually lead to satisfying gain: an endgame relationship with him. There's no such satisfying outcome with Emp, so players are less inclined to put up with behaviors they endure for Astarion's sake. It's actually arguably easier to get Emp to admit to its manipulation of Tav than it is to get Astarion to do the same thing, and yet Astarion is more readily forgiven.

There may also be some degree of people being skeeved out by Emp's mind reading and its apparent ability to enthrall. But even this is a little odd, since Tav and their companions are all telepathically joined and that doesn't scare the player. The Emperor also never actually makes an attempt to enthrall Tav even when they're being combative and resistant. My only conclusion is that player distaste in this context is a product of the negative narratives about Illithids throughout the game. Which, for the record, are narratives I think we're meant to challenge as players.

(As an interesting side note, those narratives seem to be easily overriden when an Illithid is seen as helpful, as in the case of Omeluum. Despite clear evidence that it has not entirely denounced Illithid culture, and despite its membership in a morally questionable organization, players have a largely positive opinion of Omeluum simply because it tries to help them. They seem to forget that it was experimenting on Tav, and its miscalculation could have seriously compromised them.)

I think it's also worth pointing out that an Illthid in hiding is going to find particular challenge in simply surviving and remaining undetected, and even moreso in avoiding being attacked and killed, especially if it does not have the benefit of allies. Even Omeluum (who has the benefit of allies in the Society of Brilliance) has to disguise itself when it moves about the city. If you visit Omeluum and Blurg in Baldur's Gate you can listen in to their conversation, and Omeluum admits it sometimes takes the form of Blurg when it goes around.

I staunchly maintain, for one thing, that Emp is a true neutral character. It will resort to nearly any means necessary to assure its survival and freedom - though, again, it does stop short of robbing Tav of their autonomy, which I think is significant. And really, all things considered, Emp's methods are some of the least insidious when compared with the behaviors of other notable characters in the game. Even its insistence that Orpheus must be kept imprisoned is driven more by fear and a lack of real alternatives than any kind of malice. And alignments aside, when you consider the attitudes people have about Illithids, it's suddenly not surprising that Emp resorts to things like lying to protect itself and convince others to ally with it.

This concept was something I had to explore in depth when I worked with a DM friend who helped me construct a playable Illithid character, and I was challenged to run with a party of adventurers without them discovering my true race. It is NOT EASY. Almost immediately, despite my best intentions, I realized I would likely need to resort to some questionable methods to maintain my character's secrecy. The Emperor is the same. I'll touch on this more when I get into Emp's dynamic with Stelmane.

Player Influence:

Maybe the most frustrating observation I've made is that The Emperor is one of the only characters players will typecast based on the worst potential dialogue outcomes. Tav's relationship with pretty much all of the characters can be either improved or totally soured by the dialogue options they select. In most cases players are able to make the distinction that their choices are what influence the attitudes of the characters they're interacting with. But in the case of The Emperor, players will refuse to believe that any positive interactions with it are genuine because there are dialogue paths that lead to negative outcomes. I have to wonder why this standard does not apply to companion characters who break up with Tav, treat Tav questionably, or leave the party altogether when the player selects negative dialogue options.

Because of the potential for the Emperor's attitude to sour and for it to turn away from the player, it is written off as an entirely disingenuous character. However, Emp repeatedly demonstrates a capacity for veracity and emotionality, and I believe that when you foster a positive relationship with it the feelings it shares are genuine, just like with any other character. I'm guessing it doesn't help that Emp can be very matter-of-fact and pragmatic even during positive interactions, where the companion characters are often downright poetic in their regard for Tav and willing to make sacrifices for Tav when their approval is high.

I can see how this would give the sense that Emp's feelings are lesser, because it brackets those feelings with discussions about things like whether Tav is embracing tadpole abilities. But 1) Emp stands to lose its freedom again if the conflict with the Elder Brain goes awry and is, I think very understandably, preoccupied with what it believes are the necessary steps to ensure victory, and it seems anxious to affirm that Tav is as dedicated to the best outcome as it is. And 2) if this kind of pragmatism is the barometer by which people are measuring their trust of a character's feelings about them, I'm honestly a little afraid to know how they feel about their interactions with very pragmatic people IRL. 👀

Some people just are less prone to emotional expressiveness, or will ease their discomfort around emotional expression by diverting conversation to more practical matters. That doesn't mean the feelings they express are not genuine. We see over and over that Tav has a way of awakening strong, unexpected feelings in the people they meet throughout the course of the game. There's every possibility that this is what happens with Emp, and that it is taken aback by its feelings and is steering the conversation back to the matter of the conflict with the Brain as a way of avoiding being caught up and losing the plot.

I think that because the game does such a good job of playing up the idea that Illithids are soulless and inherently manipulative and evil, players are overly willing to accept it as fact. However, the game does also give us opportunities to question that narrative, and I think we'd do well to seize those opportunities. Even in raw DnD Illithid lore has shifted toward the idea that Illithids are more than the vicious monsters they started as. I think it's far more compelling and creative to consider that Emp is being genuine when you pursue positive interactions with it.

Relationship with Stelmane:

This begs the question, then, of whether the Emperor is truly upset about Stelmane's death. It certainly seems to be, but when you begin to suspect that it was enthralling her and forcing her to do its bidding you begin to doubt that it really cared about her.

Honestly? I'm not sure whether it did or not. Perhaps what it's truly upset about is the realization that it no longer has the option to return to its previous life as a major player in the Knights of the Shield. Maybe aside from the enthrallment, it actually did respect and even like Stelmane. Perhaps they had a rapport at some point prior to her enthrallment, and it is nostalgic about that. I think its feelings in that moment are real, it's simply unclear as to what those feelings are about.

In any case, I am openly and unabashedly here to disabuse anyone of the notion that Stelmane was a good person. A lot of what we hear about her we hear from Wyll, who (like pretty much every other character) is an unreliable narrator. The truth is unfortunately not as nice as Wyll would like to believe. With as little information about her as we have, this seems a bold claim for me to make, but I make it confidently, and here is why: her membership in the Knights of the Shield precludes her from being a good person.

The Knights of the Shield is an organization dealing in political manipulation, information brokering, and financial gain for its members. At the very least, Belynne Stelmane was concerned with underhanded political maneuvering and the accumulation of wealth, and at worst she was a willing servant of Gargauth, the god of betrayal and political corruption. It's unclear what level of seniority she held in the organization, though Emp's decision to have her as its avatar implies that she held significant influence. Either way, at no point was it possible for her to be involved with the Knights of the Shield and still be a good person.

And, yes, the same can be said of The Emperor. To be clear, I am not claiming that Emp is a "good" aligned character. However, its motivations are inherently different to Stelmane's and the other members of the Knights of the Shield. Rather than being strictly financially or politically motivated, Emp's involvement with the Knights was most likely born as much out of necessity as any desire for power. The Knights were a viable cover, a way for it to remain hidden and still secure a life of relative freedom for itself. To be sure, it could have attempted to ally itself with another organization, such as the Society of Brilliance. However, the Society is comparatively smaller, less powerful, and less profitable. Emp also does not appear to have any interest in the sorts of experimentation and data collection as members of the Society of Brilliance.

Based on Emp's characterization, it is not suited to a life of exploration and travel. It does not have the same innate arcane ability as Omeluum, who is able to exist and still maintain its autonomy in regions where the influence of an Elder Brain is relatively strong. It's more likely that The Emperor's ability to maintain its autonomy is linked to its proximity, or lack thereof, to an Elder Brain. Likely, it chose to secure a life for itself in a single location far enough away from the reach of an Elder Brain that it could escape enthrallment, and allied itself with the Knights of the Shield because they were the most proximally convenient and had the best capacity for security.

At any rate, I think it's entirely reasonable to assume that if Stelmane had not been enthralled, she would have ripped the rug out from under The Emperor the moment she stood to gain from doing so. Emp stood its best chance of success by enthralling her, and while that is certainly a morally questionable thing for it to do, be assured that it was not taking advantage of some wholesome paragon of goodness. Likely as not, if the roles had been reversed, Stelmane would have subjected Emp to a similarly morally questionable form of subjugation until the moment came for her to discard it entirely.

As an aside, the game works pretty hard to give the impression that Stelmane’s enthrallment led to her illness and eventual passing, but it's also entirely possible that she truly did simply have a stroke. Or, perhaps more compellingly, her condition had nothing at all to do with The Emperor and was potentially infernal in origin, given the way that she allegedly stared unwaveringly at Wyll the last time he saw her, which was shortly before he was targeted by Mizora. She was already well into her illness at that point, and didn't seem cognizant of anyone else at the time, but Wyll was of particular interest to her. Maybe it's nothing, or maybe the game intentionally misled players into believing The Emperor was responsible for Stelmane's decline, when it was never Emp's fault in the first place.

The Emperor's "Betrayal" of Ansur:

Here is where my opinion diverges most significantly from the opinions of other players. Put plainly, The Emperor did not betray Ansur. That is an idea that is given by Ansur, and by the following passage, which can be found during the challenges in the Wyrmway:

The note preceding the author's writing gives the distinct impression that the author is - yes - an unreliable narrator. They are not only giving a secondhand account of the events, but they are dramatizing that account.

Then, after defeating Ansur, the player finds the following letter on Ansur's body:

We also have additional story from The Emperor itself about the events that led to Ansur's death.

The reality is that Ansur, motivated by his love for Balduran, saved The Emperor from its enthrallment by the Elder Brain in the hopes of restoring the Balduran he knew and loved. Despite being asked over and over to stop, despite The Emperor's insistence that it was content with its new form, Ansur doggedly searched for a way to return The Emperor to its previous form as Balduran. Rather than accept that Balduran's new form was permanent, rather than accepting him as The Emperor, rather than being happy enough that his loved one was no longer a slave and that the memories of their time together were still intact, Ansur was not satisfied. He could not look past Emp's Illithidness, he could not let go of the narrative that Illithids are monsters. His refusal to adjust his paradigm, his unwillingness to accept The Emperor as a valid friend or ally or lover, was a failing on Ansur's part, and it was incredibly selfish.

Emp's letter to Ansur is incredibly heartfelt, and focuses entirely on Ansur and his happiness. Emp clearly still values Ansur and wants him to be contented. Even as Emp draws its boundaries, it keeps the focus on Ansur's well-being. It is a really good letter, and nothing about it implies that Emp held any ill will toward Ansur. It simply wanted Ansur to give up the pursuit of reclaiming Balduran as he was. But Ansur was unwilling to do that. So unwilling, in fact, that he felt it would be better to kill The Emperor rather than accept its new form.

Therein is the true betrayal: attempting to kill your friend while they're sleeping because you can't make them fit your ideal of them is, put simply, super fucked up.

The idea that it's a betrayal for The Emperor to have killed Ansur in self-defense, but Ansur attempting to murder Emp in its sleep is somehow not a monumental betrayal, is absolutely wild to me. Ansur was the one who betrayed The Emperor, and his rage is as misguided as the hate players have for Emp. I think players are blinded by the heroic narrative around Ansur, and the narrative that Illithids - and, by proxy, The Emperor - can't be trusted undermines the explanation that The Emperor gives. Players want to believe Ansur despite the evidence that his feelings of betrayal are unfounded, because they're naturally more inclined to trust a heroic figure than an Illithid. Again, I think this was a place in the game where players were challenged to question accepted narratives.

Of course, it's entirely possible that Ansur's attempt to kill The Emperor was driven by something entirely separate from the story we're offered in the game. Maybe Ansur took issue with The Emperor's movements with the Knights of the Shield; though that would beg the question of why he would be so determined to eliminate Emp and not any of the other members. Or, maybe Emp killed Ansur unprompted in a bout of pure Illithid malice, which would be a betrayal indeed - though that seems highly unlikely after reading its letter to Ansur. Ultimately, however, without any indication otherwise, we have to take the story we're given at face value. As far as we know, Ansur was motivated to kill The Emperor as part of his cognitive dissonance around its change from Balduran to The Emperor, and that selfish, misguided act constitutes a betrayal of Emp by Ansur, not the other way around.

The Emperor's Return to the Netherbrain:

I saved this for last, because it's actually very simple. When you choose to free Orpheus, The Emperor declares its intention to return to the Brain, and true to its word it does exactly that, and fights against you during the final battle. Why, after fighting so hard to avoid the Brain, would Emp so willingly return to it?

Put simply, because it has no choice. Or, it has no choice in the context of the game as-is. What reason does Emp have to believe that Orpheus, an avid enemy of Illithids, having been subjugated by this Illithid, would be willing to extend his protection to it?

Emp knows that the moment Orpheus is free to give or take his psionic protection, he will refuse to protect it. The jig is up. The game is over. In its pragmatic way, The Emperor concedes defeat. Its anger is palpable, you have forfeit its hard-won freedom. But the cards are on the table, and it knows that without Orpheus' protection it is going to be enthralled whether it wants to be or not. So it goes willingly. At least it can make one more choice before it loses its autonomy.

Final Thoughts:

There is so much more to say about The Emperor and its feelings and motivations. Again, in no way is it a good-aligned character, and even with the best outcomes it's still clear that Emp is at least somewhat driven by a desire for greatness, whatever form that greatness takes. That was true even when it was Balduran. But I do think it's worth remembering that when you foster a positive connection with it and side with it for the endgame, it regards your parting with some sentimentality, and then just...leaves. It's all fairly benign. The player's choices go a long way in influencing how malicious The Emperor is, and I think that's important to remember.

I could go on for hours about this, it is absolutely one of my hills to die on, but I think this is enough for now lol. I just wish The Emperor were respected more as a complex, compelling character. I wish it were at least afforded the same defiant love some of the villains are given. I genuinely hate to see Emp flattened and written off when it's such an amazing character!

[neil-gaiman]

Dear Mr. Gaiman,

I’ve been meaning to write to you for a bit and today -  May 1st - is a prefect bit of timing.

I’d like to address 2 1/2 things if I may: You recently posted a conversation you had about losing a cat and how much the death of a pet hits you. My spouse and I have and have had a number of pets - best friends really - pass away. One of the ways we have come to deal with their moving on is to make up a story.

(To be honest, yet another story. Our friends live very full lives, indeed.) Our Tuxedo cat, Tybalt, is now playing bass in a Journey cover band that tours. I travel a lot for work and that allows “Tybalt” to send us postcards telling of his latest adventures. Since today is May Day and the expiration of the Writer’s contract I wanted to say bravo to you for posting about it and the subtles of the issues at hand. Most people looking at Hollywood will not give carful consideration to what is at hand.

Since you have the currency of a celebrity that is thoughtful and nuanced your voice carries over much of the rhetoric. I thank you for that. I should say at this point that I also work in film and television and have for most of the last 30 years. I am a grip and enjoy the craft of my job.

While the concerns of your Guild are valid and should be addressed i would like to point out that your voice and those of your colleagues are heard. All the national pages and news outlets are carrying the story. As they should. In 2021, IATSE (the union the covers all the below the line craft people in the United Staes and Canada with approximately a 150,000 members) was set to renew our contact that August. Our asks for that contract were minimal and most of us assumed the contract would be updated with little haggling. The producers balked. They, in fact, wanted to get rid of a number of long held points in our contract. This went on for four months. Something that never happed in my 30 years of work. I won’t go into all the details. I assume that you have a passing familiarity with the issues.

My point to all of this is that our voice was never heard. All the news outlets merely interviewed the producers and only gave their side of the story. And this happens every time the is a contract or safety issue (Think “Rust”. Reporters never interviewed other armors. The closest that came to a below the line voice was an essay written by a Prop Master - who happens to be Martin Scorsese’s daughter.)

Most producers have little idea of what it takes to make a show. But they are the only ones who are quoted. Overlapping during these 4 months was the John Deere strike (with just over 10,000 members).  And good for them. 

It should be noted that their coverage was far greater than ours.

There are 7 stories about the John Deere strike in the New York Times morgue. There are none for the IATSE contract negotiations. I can go on but I feel I should wrap this up. If you’ve read this far, I thank you.

I have an ask for you. The half of my 2 1/2 things to say. When the IATSE contract comes up for re-negotiation next year, would you please put a posting on your social media sites about it? 

The same as you have done for your Guild? It would give us a voice we have not had before. Thank You, Spider Goat P.S. Also thank you for all the wonderful stories you've written. I do so love visiting the worlds you've created.

I was pushing IATSE on Social Media last time -- for example

and pushing things like the @ia_stories Instagram link -

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by IATSE Stories (@ia_stories)

I will do it again. And I was disappointed by the outcome of the negotiations last time, too.

[hollowed-theory-hall]

Can you talk about your thoughts on hinny? I have no problem with people shipping it but to me personally it just doesn't work. It feels like Rowling tried too hard or maybe just wasn't good at writing romance and messed it up. Maybe it was too rushed? The ship doesn't work for me but I'd love to hear your views.

Okay, sorry it took a while to answer this, I actually have a lot of thoughts and I have posts on some of them that I hope to get out soon-ish. I also wanted to go back to the books to make sure I'm not talking out of my ass. But I don't like Hinny, never did. And my reasons are kinda divided into three categories.

Disclaimer: I don't have anything against anyone who ships hinny, it's just really not my thing and I don't see it working with the way I see their characters.

And that's like the core of it. I just don't see Harry and Ginny as compatible on a character level. That and their relationship never really read as believable to me in the books.

The 3 categories I mentioned are:

Harry's character

Firstly, I think Harry is gay. Not bi, but gay. I think he was never actually attracted to a woman and I have a whole post to prove it. So, because that's how I read his character, I just can't really see him with any girl.

(Now, I don't think JKR intended for Harry to come off as gay, but he did)

Secondly, he never thought about Ginny, like, up until book 6, and even during large portions of book 6, he just isn't thinking about Ginny as a potential romantic interest. And when he does think about Ginny in the final two books it never reads like he really likes her. It reads like they decided they are dating, but I don't think Harry knows why he supposedly likes her. He just decided he does, but doesn't know why. It was kind of the same with Cho, where he said he had a crush on her and was nervous around her, but if you asked Harry what he likes about her, his answer would be: "Ehh...."

Like, Harry doesn't really seem to know why he's dating Ginny, and neither do I. It's just how it's written.

2. Ginny's character

So, this is again my opinion, but I don't like Ginny. I just don't like her character. I wish her off the page whenever she talks.

And, when it comes to shipping, for me, I need to find both the characters involved interesting and fun for me to explore to ship them together and care about the pairing. As I don't like Ginny and don't really care for her, I can't really ship her with anyone, not really. It's not even like I hate her (not the way I hate Dumbledore), I just find a lot of her actions and behavior iffy and she annoys me more often than not.

I'm not going to list everything I don't like about Ginny (some of it appears in the rest of this post). But her treatment of Fluer, for example, really soured her character to me. Like, sure, Ginny's young, but, she's 15, and by that point, I think she should take responsibility for being awful to Fluer who was nothing but nice to all of them. Envy is not a good look for Ginny.

3. How they are portrayed together

Like I mentioned in the Harry section, their romance just never really felt there to me. The descriptions were off and left me feeling annoyed at their scenes together more than anything else.

Again, I'm writing a more comprehensive post about it, but the gist of it is that Harry's thoughts about Ginny in books 6 and 7 are weirdly detached for a supposed crush at best or outright uncomfortable for me to read at worst.

Now, we know Harry can describe characters he finds attractive in greater detail. There is none of that detail with Ginny. He only mentioned her hair color and that her hair is long and smells nice. Like, he doesn't talk about her eye color, her facial structure, eye shape (like he does sometimes with characters he does find attractive) — nothing. He doesn't even call her pretty once! At least he referred to Cho Chang as pretty twice in the series.

In the books there is never a scene (not even one) that convinces me they should be together. Like, they have no chemistry. They kinda remind me of Ron and Lavender tbh. They make out and are present in the same space often, but they never talk. Not really. I don't think Ginny actually knows Harry all that well because he never honestly talks to her about anything real. They don't really have chemistry or a relationship, they're just together. At least, that's how I always saw them.

And yes, Harry has his jealousy moments (that are portrayed so weirdly I always narrow my eyes at them to make sure they were actually there, but that's a whole other post about Harry's chest monster of jealousy), but he still doesn't really explain what he finds in Ginny. He doesn't mention she's attractive or pretty at any point, nor does he mention anything he particularly likes about her personality (except that she doesn't weep like Cho and is good at Quidditch. Neither of which are particularly good basis for a relationship).

Like, Ginny mentions why she likes Harry and that she does multiple times. Harry by contrast, just feels so incredibly uninvolved in his own relationship, to me.

Also, personally, I just find the setup of their relationship iffy. Like Ginny outright says she never gave up on Hary and always knew they'd end up together. It means, that since she was 11 (or earlier), she was crushing on Harry, never gave up on her crush, and considered them ending up together fate. She dated other guys to make Harry jealous and pay attention to her, and that's just really gross. I don't like her long obsessive crush on Harry or her treatment of the other guys she dated on her way to get Harry.

Proof of that, for those wondering:

“I never really gave up on you,” she [Ginny] said. “Not really. I always hoped. . . . Hermione told me to get on with life, maybe go out with some other people, relax a bit around you, because I never used to be able to talk if you were in the room, remember? And she thought you might take a bit more notice if I was a bit more — myself.”

(Half-Blood Prince, page 647)

She literally said she dated other guys so Harry would take notice of her. That just grosses me out.

So, no, I don't like Hinny (or Ginny).

[fayes-fics]

When The World Is Free: Chapter 2 -  La Valse de Paris

MASTERPOST PREV | NEXT

Pairing: Benedict Bridgerton x fem!reader, WW2 AU.

Warnings: none

Word Count: 1.7k

AuthorsNote: Chapter 2 of new multi-chapter fic based on a request by the lovely @amillcitygirl! Please see the masterpost for a synopsis of this story. This details our reader settling into Paris and the outbreak of war. Benedict turns up next chapter. Thanks to @colettebronte for beta reading. Enjoy! <3

Paris, September 1939

Your first few weeks in Paris are a delightful blur. 

Spending late summer exploring the city - with Solène as your occasional guide and Eloise when she is not at work. You soak up every moment, from the windswept magnificence of standing atop the Eiffel Tower, your words being stolen by the wind, to the monastic silence of the Louvre on a quiet Monday morning. And everything in between - from Notre Dame's atmospheric incense-laden gothic darkness to the airy, resplendent glass dome of Galeries Lafayette that glitters like a prismatic jewel even on cloudy days. 

But perhaps your favourites are the little slices of city life: sitting watching the world go by at a corner cafe, the crunch and warm, pillowy softness of the first bite of freshly baked baguette as you wander back from the boulangerie, the lingering fragrance of the rose garden at the Château de Bagatelle in Bois de Boulogne... It's all pieces of a puzzle that fill your heart in ways that make your life before now seem drab, almost in black and white, like a photograph.

You have written to Stanley once since you arrived, effusive in your praise, a homily to your new home, however temporary. While proclaiming his happiness for you, his response tempered, a touch dismissive of your wonderment. I can scarcely believe any city could truly live up to the praise you so readily heap upon Paris, my love, he wrote back. That was a week ago, and your urge to reply has been muted. 

It's during an idle lunchtime by the Seine, eating a sandwich as you dangle your feet over the river wall, that you genuinely feel a local. An elderly French couple, likely visiting from the provinces, approaches you and asks you for directions to the Musée de l'Homme. Part of you aglow they think you sophisticated enough to look Parisian, and French. And you are able to help them, giving them the information in French, not fluent but sufficient that they are surprised when you confess “je suis américaine”.

In your third week, you secure the art gallery job Eloise had seen posted. An opportunity to meet many new people, primarily British and American, who share your love of art of all persuasions. You spend many a happy hour answering questions and building your knowledge of art, not just in your gallery but across the city. Part of you is wistful to study the subject in even greater depth than the books you borrow in copious quantities from the library where Eloise works.

You grow so close to Eloise so quickly that it’s as if you have known her your whole life. A sense of kinship, a near familial bond. You know, on some instinctive level, she will always be a part of your life somehow. Your evenings are often spent in lounge bars together—venues awash with art deco splendour as you listen to jazz through a cigarette haze and flirt aimlessly with a carousel of handsome men. Life seems so full of potential, a hum in your very being.

“What do you think the purpose of life is, y/n?” Eloise sighs as she flops onto your bed after returning from one such decadent night out.

“Aaaand we are done with the brandy…” you declare, taking the bottle of Martell cognac from her grip and placing it pointedly on the dresser, your high-handed point only mildly undermined by your own unsteady gait.

You collapse down next to her, the intricate ceiling rose around your light fixture swirling slightly before your very eyes.

“Love?” you hazard in answer to her question.

“Boo! Cliché!” she jeers, elbowing you good-naturedly.

“I don’t just mean romantic love,” you protest, “the love of family… friends…”

“Ah, yes, family. Endlessly large family. Don’t suppose you want an extra sibling or two, do you? I could be persuaded to let a couple go,” she squints comically.

“Depends… can I have the artist?” you jest.

“You have to stop staring at that painting; it's getting weird,” she opines with her typical bluntness, “and no, you can’t. You know he’s my favourite,” she pouts.

“I think he’s my favourite too,” you opine over a stifled yawn, any embarrassment about being called out for your unbridled admiration overridden by the sleepy state your comfortable bed lulls you into.

“If you end up being attracted to my brother, I will have to disown you, you know,” she pats your hand drowsily.

“Hmm, good thing he’s so far away…” you trail off with a lazy giggle, eyes drooping heavily.

It’s the last words you exchange before you both fall asleep on your bed.

–

Perhaps, as with all things that are too good, the idyll is temporary. It's the news you wake up to that following morning, September 4th, which throws everything into uncertainty. Solène knocks on your door early with an uncharacteristically sombre expression, wordlessly handing you the morning paper and flicking on the wireless on your mantelpiece, the fine lines on her face deeper etched, furrowed with worry.

‘La Guerre!’ the headline screams from the newspaper. And the voice on the airwaves, your ear more attuned to the language now, details how Britain and France have jointly declared war against Germany for their invasion of Poland a few days prior.

At the sound of the radio, Eloise emerges from your room, blinking and hair asunder, a little delicate from your previous night's revelry. You sip coffee at a loss for what to think or do. It’s an odd cognitive dissonance when life at once seems identical but also changed by an invisible shape - an undercurrent of fear, of the unknown, a punch to the pit of your stomach that you don’t know how to acknowledge - even as you go through the motions of your daily routine and head to work.

By the evening you are more phlegmatic about the situation. Your spirit dampened, yes, but not crushed. You feel an immense sense of privilege that conflict is not yet at your doorstep, but equally knowing being in the capital city of a nation that just declared war against a neighbouring country is not exactly safe.

You and Eloise splash out on dinner at an upscale brassiere that night, one you have both passed and commented you’d love to dine in some time. Both of you seized by the unspoken “what if”, the previous reluctance to treat yourselves entirely absent.

Talk on all the tables around you as you dine - on heavenly butter-soft steak - is about the war. What it could mean for Paris, fear of another major European conflict so soon after the last, the economic concerns - the bite of the early 30s depression just relinquishing its hostile grip on the somewhat bruised denizens.

Afterwards, you wander the cobbled streets back to your apartment, arms looped, bellies full, occasionally staring up at the starry night sky in mostly contemplative, sober silence. It’s a beautiful evening, but something in the warm breeze feels melancholic.

When you open the door to your building, Solène is waiting, rocking on her heels.

“Eloise, a telegram has come for you!” she announces, shoving a piece of paper into her hand. “And a telephone call from England earlier,” she adds, gesturing to the black rotary phone outside her place—the only one in the building.

Eloise gives you a brief glance and then opens the message. You watch her eyes ping across the text before her shoulders slump.

“My mother,” she sighs in explanation, “it appears she is summoning me back home.”

“What?!” the selfish reflex of not wanting to be left alone is the first thing flaring in you.

“It’s not fair!” she whines in a flash of child-like defiance before continuing in a more subdued tone. “She is sending my brother to come get me. She doesn’t specify which, but seeing as Anthony is a Lieutenant General in the Army and has likely been called to Churchill’s side, I'm presuming Benedict,” Eloise surmises. 

Your thoughts instantly fly to that painting hanging in your apartment upstairs. A strange flutter under your ribs at the idea you could be about to meet its creator. Quickly followed by a wash of guilt that you could even focus on such a frivolous thing.

“What will I do without you?’’ You fret aloud, grasping her arm tighter.

“There was a call for you too, y/n,” Solène pipes up. “Your father wants you to exchange your return ticket for a sailing home as soon as possible,” she relays.

“But.. I just got here!” your lament as defiant as Eloise’s. A frustrating sense you are losing a fleeting opportunity you already hold so precious - like a new toy being ripped from the meaty fist of a truculent toddler.

“Mes amis, what can I say?” that trademark Gallic shrug seizing Solène’s shoulders. “While Paris is safe for now, we do not know how much longer that will hold true… it is likely best you return home. Perhaps this will be over in weeks, and you can return?”

You know your parents have paid your rent upfront for a whole year, likely similar for Eloise, your landlady not impacted financially by your leaving, merely a wish for you to enjoy your Parisian adventures.

As you unlock the door to your apartment and wander in, both of you sigh; the illumination from the Eiffel Tower that refracts upon your window pane just adds to your melancholia, a sight that before had never failed to warm your heart.

“When will your brother get here?” your inflection dull.

“Tomorrow, most likely. It only takes a couple of hours to cross the Channel, and as you know, the train ride from the coast is just a few more. I expect he’ll be waiting for me right here when I return from work,” her tone is just as flat as yours.

You want to ask if she will pack tonight, but you stop yourself, seeing the flame that usually burns so bright behind her blue eyes dimmed. Wordlessly, you draw closer and pull her into a firm hug.

“I will miss you like a sister,” she whispers into your hair, returning the embrace just as fiercely, “maybe moreso.”

You nod and band your arms tighter briefly before letting go, bone-deep exhaustion overtaking anything else you see in her mirrored stance.

The last thing that captures your eye as Eloise turns to her room is that painting of her childhood home and, strangely, how it feels closer now than ever before.

Benedict taglist: @foreverlonginguniverse @aintnuthinbutahounddog @severewobblerlightdragon @writergirl-2001 @heeyyyou @enichole445 @enchantedbytomandhenry @ambitionspassionscoffee @chaoticcalzoneranchsports @nikaprincessofkattegat @baebee35 @crowleysqueenofhell @fiction-is-life @lilacbeesworld @broooookiecrisp @queen-of-the-misfit-toys @eleanor-bradstreet @divaanya @musicismyoxygen84 @benedictspaintbrush @miindfucked @sorryallonsy @cayt0123 @hottytoddyhistory @truly-dionysus @fictionalmenloversblog @zinzysstuff @malpalgalz @panhoeofmanyfandoms @kinokomoonshine @causeimissu @delehosies @m-rae23 @last-sheep @kmc1989 @desert-fern @starkeylover @corpseoftrees-queen @magical-spit @bunnyweasley23 @how-many-stars-in-the-sky @amygdtjhddzvb @sya-skies @balladynaaa

[themotherofblood]

Dark!Daemyra x daughter!eeader but it’s their actual biological daughter (meaning rhaenyras the mom).

Remember in episode 4 when everyone thought that rhaenyra had her virtue taken by daemon? What if they actually had a kid?

Gosh I kinda made this a little too angsty so bare with me. I’m just really bad at writing to the point, I wanted to add some context to the smut hehe. So I hereby present

Dark!Daemyra x Daughter!reader

tw: incest, infantilism, cheating…(kinda?) murder, talks of more incest babies and kinda non con-ish? jason lannister (🤢) smut! oral, missionary kinda courrpution vibes. Threesome

7.8k words

A mistake, a grave mistake.

Not you, the one that had brightened Rhaenyra’s world with your little laugh, the one that had her hair and her uncle’s charisma - but the deed done to conceive you had been the most terrible of errors.

By right, you were Rhaenyra’s first-born child and heir; however, given the time of conception and the beautiful (pale, too pale) features you had been born with, it was obvious that you were not the offspring of Laenor Velaryon, but of her brutish uncle Daemon Targaryen. What remained were the rumours of Rhaenyra and Daemon coupling at a notorious brothel on the Street of Silk. Bastardy or the Iron Throne, that remained the question of your birthright to many. Your conception was a greater source of whispers and slander than that of your brown-haired ‘Strong’ brothers.

You weren’t raised in the Red Keep; with the brunt of the court upon your muña’s shoulders, she’d hoped to keep you shielded away from the cruel gossip that surrounded you even at the mere age of five. You hadn’t even set eyes upon her for years, making do with the letters that detailed how much she missed you and a chest full of trinkets and dolls to share with the young daughters of the vassal lords sworn to Dragonstone.

Daemon Targaryen, on the other hand was truly banished after word of his murdering his first wife Rhea Royce reached his brother’s - your grandsire’s - ears. While there was no formal accusation nor trial, Viserys was simply at his wit's end with the reckless goings-on of his younger brother. He had left Westeros even before your mother had realised that the moon tea she had consumed had not worked.

Daemon found his family elsewhere. After slaying a sea lord who was promised the hand of Laena Velaryon, he married her and then fled to Pentos with her and her dragon. The word of a Targaryen bastard being born from the Crown Princess was most certainly to spread like a plague, far enough to reach your kepa’s ears. He wanted to come back the second he heard of you, but his brother denied his request. When you were shipped off to Dragonstone, he wished to fetch you - but this time, his wife refused him, not wishing to raise the love child he had with his niece.

He had begun to send letters of Valyrian poetry, old texts of Valyrian romance and many other trinkets. You had written to him the day you claimed your dragon, which happened in a hilarious accident as you had trailed through the Dragonmont to make friends with a silver dragon, a she-dragon named Silverwing. Though the letter you had written had gone without reply, you had waited for a year and then accepted the dark truth. He had other daughters and another family. By request of the King, you were raised by Septas and the handmaidens at Dragonstone.

At present, you waited by the Painted Table. While one might not have been eager at the sound of people returning from a funeral, you indeed were. Mother had spent four moons at Dragonstone, leaving the Red Keep behind for good until the time arrived for her ascension. These four months had been bliss; you were introduced to your brothers. When you had first departed, Lucerys was still a babe suckling at Rhaenyra’s breast. Now, she returned with another little babe. -Your good-father returned as well, the one knight that could have flung your body high to the skies and caught you right in time. He had engulfed you in an embrace the moment he saw you.

Then came the letter of Laena Velaryon’s passing, and the world shifted under your good-father’s feet. With respect to Laena’s memory and the illegitimacy of your station, the Queen Alicent had advised Rhaenyra to not have you come along with the family. You were accustomed to such treatment; it mattered not. Yet the news of your kepa’s return churned your belly. You had never laid eyes on the man, having seen a mere few portraits hung in the grand galleries at Dragonstone. He looked much like you when he was a babe, and yet the older he grew you imagined him to be the embodiment of the courteous knights you read of in your books.

You had worn your nicest dress, and your preparations had begun with digging through all the letters he had ever sent you, having the chefs prepare his favourite foods and procuring a fat sheep for Caraxes. The household staff all lined themselves up by the halls. It had been years since their Rogue Prince returned home. While many admired the man, others feared him. Regardless of his reputation, there had been respect for his name upon every rock on the island.

Rhaenyra had walked in first with your brothers, her face softening at seeing you looking eagerly at the grand doors. She hugged you, rubbing the side of your arms as she stood behind you. Your sisters… You weren’t sure if they would have taken it well if you called them such. They were introduced first as a knight called out their titles. They bowed first, reminding you that you were a Princess and they only ladies. Then, everything went silent - you heard the thudding of boots before your vision was clouded by the image of shoulder-length silver hair.

Daemon Targaryen stood atop the steps, hands held together in front of him. He commanded the room with just his purple eyes. Your eyes. You were so entranced by his presence you almost forgot to ask about your good-father. He approached you, a princely smile upon his lips, and you failed to keep your lady-like composure.

The first thing that came from his mouth was your name. Your name had never sounded so wondrous as it did at that very moment. He greeted you, and your voice abandoned you as you opened your mouth to return his niceties. You must have looked like a fool, mouth parted as no words came forth. Your mother’s voice snapped you from whatever had possessed you.

“The honour is mine, my Prince,” you said, bowing your head. You wanted nothing more than to call him kepa - but there was so much unsaid. It didn’t seem appropriate to you at the moment.

Another two fortnights passed, and you were still grappling with the thought that both the people that created you now sat with you as you broke fast. Your brothers again ran wild in your chambers and now, you had two little sisters - twins.

One night, your mother came to your room, looking far happier than she usually was as she sat at the edge of your bed. You put your book away on your lap, awaiting whatever it is she wanted to tell you.

“Your kepa and I are to be wed!”

You had helped dress her for the very day. Your legitimacy was now sealed with fire and blood as your parents swore their vows to the Fourteen Flames. You had hand-lit every yellow and red candle along with your siblings, being perhaps the happiest you had been in all your life. Maester Gerardys had perhaps shared your joy, having raised you in these very halls and witnessing your disappointment whenever there had been no letter from Rhaenyra nor Daemon.

Their marriage was beautiful. Both looked far deeper in love than any poet could ever profess in words. There was longing, a sense of time lost between them. Perhaps, in a way - as they looked at you after sealing their union with a kiss - you were their love made flesh and bone, their blood running through your veins. Two ears, ten fingers and toes, and eyes that flared with the same longing Rhaenyra and Daemon had so long had for one another.

Both made concerted efforts between the sheets to reclaim the years lost, and they made efforts with you, offering you the attention you deserved from them. Daemon smiled ear-to-ear as he saw you loving up against his grandmother’s former mount, an elegant creature that matched your demeanour.

Daemon had once said “the gods give, as they take away.” Those words had come to royally interrupt the quaint life he lived with his family at Dragonstone. Word was to indefinitely spread about him marrying his niece, and soon did it grace the ears of his brother - and his cunt of a Hand. A white raven, the symbol of urgency, bore the demand that the entire household of the Blacks were to present themselves at Viserys’s court. There was no indication of whether the King approved or not, but naught was to be done other than abide by his brother’s demands. Thus, the older children mounted their dragons along with Daemon and Rhaenyra and set the course for their journey to the Red Keep.

Your memories had been rather faint of these halls. You remembered walking them and all your heart felt was its cold aura. It wasn’t home. Their welcome hadn’t been warm to be sure - a wheelhouse had received you at the Dragonpit alongside your parents, Baela, Rhaena and Jacaerys. Your Septa had squeezed you into a tight corset, one that you had never worn before, your hair braided far too tight for your liking. It was how the ladies dressed at court, they had told you.

The Targaryen guards had led your family straight to the Throne Room. Crowds of people assembled on both sides and the gallery crawled with young ladies, some your age, some younger. You had slotted yourself behind your kepa’s larger frame, finding an odd urge to hide as every eye in the room seemed to have been fixated on you and every whisper called your name. You hoped you were a lady enough to satiate whatever expectations these strangers had thrust upon your shaking hands.

Viserys was furious, as furious as he could be given his condition. He wasn’t the man you remember, his full cheeks and the head of hair that you had inherited and a hand gone. He pulled himself by using his sword Blackfyre as a cane, accusing his brother - your sweet kepa - of terrible obscenities. You wanted to defend him, you truly did. You wanted to scream, lecture the court on the man Daemon Targaryen really was. Of how much he loved his family, so much so that he had abandoned you the day his late wife begged him so.

There was much said and done, most of which made the corners of your eyes water with furious tears as you reached for your mother’s hands. Everything Viserys and Otto Hightower questioned about their union directly mirrored your existence.

It was a sham. You weren’t a sham.

It was a manipulation. You weren’t a lie.

It was a crime, that much was true; you were a bastard, after all. You were Rhaenyra’s first-born, yet stood to inherit nothing. You were the shield that politically protected your brothers. This marriage put everything into question. Who were you anymore?

What you were was a perfect example and a trap for Otto Hightower to lay in the King’s lap, offering you as an auspicious match with House Lannister. Of course, the words were never to be said, but this marriage was a blessing from the gods for the likes of you. You were ambushed by the Small Council on the second day of your return to the Red Keep.

The second the name of Jason Lannister spilt through your grand-sire’s lips, Rhaenyra was outraged. Never had you witnessed her this crazed over something, her eyes dark and voice low. She matched the intimidating aura of your father, perhaps giving you a glimpse of the similarities between them.

“She is to be my heir!” Rhaenyra argued, her voice booming through the chambers. “I will not have you sell her like you tried with me, father!”

The debate had grown heated. Jason was a proud man, from what you had heard, and your mother fought on your behalf for a different right altogether. For once (in your own stupidity) you saw purpose, a purpose you viewed as your grand-sire’s affection; a sense of duty you had never felt before. After so long spending your days wandering in the world of your own head, for once you felt a woman. A false sense of naive hope. When Rhaenyra urged that they in the least listen to what you had to say, your words echoing through the chambers were the last thing she expected.

“I will do my duty if that is what the King wishes,” you nervously mumbled. “The throne would not agree with me, mother.”

That had been five years ago. You were a proud lion now, or so said the letters that you sent home every other moon. You had been a dutiful wife to Jason Lannister, to be sure. Your bastardy had been allayed by the magnificent dragon you claimed, and your womb that would finally bring the glory of possessing dragon eggs to the Lannister name. He had been a good husband to you, showering you with gold and fineries beyond your needs, a perfectly dolled-up Targaryen wife dressed in the crimsons and gold of the Lannister heritage. You wanted to enjoy it, you truly did. You had craved such attention from a young age, but something in your mind nagged that it wasn’t genuine.

You spent much of your time hidden in the library, which Lord Jason had at first said would have made your little head spin.

You had claimed victory over it in a mere year, and so you had asked for more books; if he was to spoil you so, perhaps he could provide you with something of more use. And yet, your chests continued to be filled with more jewellery, the finest dresses and boots. You would scold yourself for not finding joy in this. There were children starving in the country and you complained of fine dresses being too much.

The love-making between you was respectable, quick. It was far easier than the complicated mess your Septa had chastely told you about. You would spread your legs for him and just lay there. However, once the first year of your union passed and you still hadn’t borne a child, things grew ugly.

Jason had been dismissive at first, petting your head and claiming your youth as the impediment of your lack of conception. Then, it was the Maesters hounding you with ways to be with child. from putting your legs high in the air after being pumped full of your lord husband’s seed to avoiding wines at feasts. They recommended positions to be placed in; then, they requested that you refrain from dragon riding. Your favourite foods were targeted soon after, the spices in them after that; and soon, your meals were left with just salt in them.

That bled to the third year of your marriage. The gossip that had been abandoned because of your wedding was now set ablaze yet again. You suffered it all with a stiff lip.

The latest requirement had been for you to remain abed for most of the day, a consequence for going against your husband’s wishes and riding Silverwing after eight moons without. There was just something in her eyes that begged you to ride her, perhaps to save you from your own misery. When you returned, you had been grateful that you rode her.

The flattery that your lord husband had doted upon you with before bedding you had long faded with frustration. Couplings had always been a chore, but now it was painful as you laid there wishing for it to end. He would enter your chambers, undoing his doublet and you just knew. You would push down your small-clothes and spread your legs for him before returning to slumber alone. You had counted every petal embroidered onto your canopy as Jason grunted in your ear. You would run your fingers down his back, his hair, hoping to make him peak sooner.

One night, you simply couldn’t bring yourself to lay with him from how exhausted you had been, barely being able to eat the boiled food and enduring yet another feast that ran from dusk to dawn. You refused him politely, hoping that he would lounge with you or leave you to your endeavours alone. Instead, he lectured you on your duty, his breath stinking of strong wine as he forcefully yanked you towards your bed. You had protested, fought against his hold, but it had no effect on him. He had easily torn through your shift as he had turned you to your belly. All you remembered were the stern words of your inability to provide him with heirs when the whores down at brothels of Lannisport had already birthed bastards for him, your head shoved into the pillow to muffle your protests, and then the dread as you felt his seed from within you spill onto your sheets.

He took you in such a manner twice more, growing further irate with the judgments of his family. He was your husband - he had the right. That was, until your sheets were stained in red once more. The handmaidens and the maesters all huffed in defeat yet again, and you were sure your husband had been at a brothel for his business down at Lannisport.

So you ran.

Silverwing roared as she perched herself upon Casterly Rock, scaring the knights in their golden helms away. She flew you swiftly through the skies, heading towards the one place you felt the safest, the one place you should have returned to years before.

“Dārilaros, Silverwing ēza sepār māzigon naejot se Dragonmont,” a Dragonkeeper hastily informed Rhaenyra.

Rhaenyra’s eyes shot to Daemon who was seated next to her by the Painted Table as they went over season books for the fourth moon. They wasted no time in hurrying past Aegon’s Garden to see you, their daughter, dismounting Silverwing in a red gown. They rejoiced, finally setting eyes upon their blood after five years. The second you laid eyes upon your mother, you rushed to engulf her. Daemon wrapped his arms around both his wife and you, placing a kiss atop your head.

You had returned to your bedchamber in the Sea Dragon Tower, claiming that you were overdue a visit and your duties had freed you for long enough to fly home. Neither Daemon nor Rhaenyra were daft; you had arrived devoid of any riding clothes, dressed in a heavy gown and jewellery. With no clothes nor belongings, it was obvious that something had happened, but they allowed you your space.

You were overjoyed at being able to let your hair down and wear your old gowns. You had slept that night, sprawled across your bed like a happy child, fed and tucked in.

As the days passed, you were introduced to your new siblings - not half-siblings, but ones who shared the same parentage, the same blood as you. You learned of the toddler named Aegon and a babe of one and eight moons named Viserys, and the healthy girl your mother had named Visenya. You found much joy in meeting them. They reminded you of your childhood, though you were perhaps a little envious that they would grow up in much better circumstances than you did.

Rhaenyra had found you one afternoon, humming a Valyrian lullaby to Visenya, the words of which you had forgotten years before but you had hummed to yourself at nights to remind yourself of the memory of home. You were the blood of the dragon; you were the daughter of dragons. That glint of sorrow in your eyes had told Rhaenyra all that she needed to know.

“It is a matter of heirs,” she had told Daemon as he helped her onto their marital bed. “I fear what they might have imposed on her, Daemon.”

Rhaenyra knew first-hand of Jason Lannister’s pride.

“She doesn’t look herself anymore,” Daemon agreed. While Rhaenyra dreamt of a beneficial way of helping you, Daemon had already dreamt of a far more violent one, for years beforehand.

A prideful man with a runaway bride has never been a great song. Jason had set sail himself to retrieve his wayward wife from Dragonstone, winged beast to lead back into your golden cage. His ship was filled with more trinkets and fineries to sway you and your parents to hand you back to him, a place he believed you belonged.

He presented himself at Rhaenyra’s court as she sat the throne at Dragonstone. Without an inkling of enthusiasm or warmth, she accepted her son-in-law’s presence with Daemon standing next to her, also unimpressed by the blonde fool.

“I have come to convey my sweet wife home. Casterly Rock is much too cold without her fire,” he cajoled, his voice echoing through the Chamber of the Painted Table.

Rhaenyra had sent for you the second she had greeted your husband in the chambers. You arrived but moments later, your cheeks filled with colour from devouring your lunch of roast goose. Your feet abruptly halted the moment you saw the hair yellowish-blonde hair, knowing it could mean only one thing. Rhaenyra’s eyes caught yours first, and then your husband turned to find you in what he would deem a distasteful gown.

You hiked your skirts and bolted down the other corridor, paying no mind to the rain pouring heavily outside and running through Aegon’s Garden. Silverwing had already perched herself atop the Dragonmont as she had felt your distress. Her roar echoed with the thundering in the clouds above. Daemon chased after you, his quick feet catching up to yours with ease.The household guard blocked your path from exiting through the gates of Dragonstone.

“No, no! Please!” you wailed as Daemon caught onto your hands. “I cannot go back! Please, don’t send me back!”

Daemon’s eyes flared in concern over your distraught face. He opened his mouth to reassure you, but you only screamed louder over the heavy pattering of rain.

“I will throw myself off the Windwrym Tower if you send me with him! Please, please, do not make me go back,” you cried. Your kepa pulled you closer, shushing your pained sobs as you begged harder.

Daemon had managed to reassure you that no one would force you back to Casterly Rock unless you wished it so. He had been horrified at how miserable you must be to threaten your own life in order to remain at Dragonstone, and his blood boiled to learn the truth of the matter. Rhaenyra had the servants prepare a room for your lord husband in an entirely different tower. You felt secure in knowing that Jason wouldn’t be allowed in the Sea Dragon Tower since it housed your chambers as well as your parents' chambers a floor above.

This is where you were brought after your handmaidens had helped you out of your soaking wet gown, huddled by the hearth crackling with a freshly stoked fire, a blanket of soft furs and a cup of warm tea in your hands. While you chose to sit on the floor, Daemon sat on his armchair, hoping to make you speak. Your wet hair clung to the sides of your face, a face that was once filled with so much light. Now, it hid something from him, and he couldn’t bear it.

“If you won’t tell me what happened, I cannot protect you,” he urged, placing a comforting hand on your shoulder. “What has happened, zaldrītsosi?”

You shook your head once more, making Daemon groan in frustration. You played with the rim of the tea cup, circling your finger around it, over and over again. You felt your father’s frustrations, gods know you had endured it yourself for years. In truth you were embarrassed of your inability to be a good wife, perhaps the harshness your lord husband had showed you- you deserved it.

The chamber door opened once more with Rhaenyra finally making her way to you, while Daemon felt clueless about what caused your outburst. Rhaenyra had her suspicions, she shuffled her skirts to lower herself next to you, she didn’t ask a thing but just wrapped her arms around your shoulders. Letting you know that you were taken care of, that you were home. Whatever tactic was this, it worked as the first words of your confession echoed through the chambers.

“I cannot go back,” you said, “He deserves to find another wife.”

You had tried to be the loveable wife your mother had been to both her husbands. She bore three sons for the first and three more children for your kepa, within the matter of five years when you couldn’t even conceive one.

“He is lucky to have a wife like you,” Rhaenyra pressed a kiss to your temple.

You shook your head again “I’m not so…perfect like you.”

Rhaenyra frowned, never once had she wanted you to feel this inferior but your insecurities had been radiating through your skin. Daemon remained silent, letting his wife coax your reasoning out of you, perhaps you would do it quicker so he could fetch Dark Sister and resolve the matter.

“Lord Jason is my husband, he has a right to be sure,” you whispered, nuzzling further into Muña's embrace. “The way he held me down, for refusing to lay with him…” your voice trailed “I n-never want to feel that, ever again.”

Daemon saw red, even more so for the reason that you had not a clue of what had happened to you. A crime he had dismembered many during his days as the commander of the gold cloaks, his wife’s eyes shot to him. Silently begging him to not act on his anger just yet, he agreed - you needed them more. Your cries were silent, calmer than the onslaught before, Daemon let your head as you whimpered in your mother’s arms.

Somewhere along the evening you had succumbed to your exhaustion, Daemon had carried you into their bed and tucked you in. The silence left Rhaenyra and Daemon with a grave decision, they would have to petition Viserys to have your marriage annulled, however to lay the history of what you had suffered bare in court. The plea had to come from you, Rhaenyra had shuffled under the furs that night, her warm fingers trying to soothe the frown you sported even in you sleep. Daemon hummed that familiar lullaby as you stirred, feeling their bodies mould to yours - only this time you remembered the words.

Come morning, Rhaenyra had sent for Jason Lannister early in the morning; she had left her lady in waiting - Elinda Massey - to watch after you as you slept sprawled across their bed. In very distasteful words, Rhaenyra shunned your husband, Daemon stood beside her with his hand eagerly gripped around the pompel of Dark Sister. He paced back and forth, internally begging his wife to let him have the Lannister cunt’s head.

When you awoke, Elinda had helped you prepare yourself for the day. Your shoulders felt lighter, like a burden lifted from your shoulders. A content smile had finally adorned your face as you lounged in your parents chambers (far too elated). Rhaenyra returned from court with Daemon at her heel, trying to walk away the burning rage within her before she greeted you. She had sat you down, telling you of how Jason had returned to Casterly Rock and that the Blacks were to petition the royal court once more to have your marriage annulled. You threw your arms around Rhaenyra, profusely thanking her as she petted your hair.

Rhaenyra’s eyes lingered over your face for a little longer, the fullness of your cheeks, the purple of your eyes; gave her glimpses of herself and Daemon. There was something that overcame her, a subject Daemon and Rhaenyra had spoken at length about - first after their wedding night and second was last night. Her thumbs stroked your cheeks before her rosy lips found yours, it wasn’t a chaste kiss and yet the feeling that churned in you belly. You had yearned to feel it through the five torturous years of your marriage, when she pulled away you were stunned. Eyes glossed and mind in shambles.

“You are the glorious thing that came from us, sweet girl,” she whispered “you are to remain with us now, forever.”

She had pulled you up to stand in between your kepa and her, he was silently observing your reactions. You felt entrapped, not in the malicious way you had been caged in your marital bed, but the tenderness they had for you anchored you down, engulfing you in warmth. Daemon turned to hold your face in his hands, his roughed digits stroking at your heated blush stained cheeks.

“Let us take you the way you were meant to, let us show you riñītsos,” he requested. What were you to do? Pull away from the affection you were being dotted with after beggin for it for years. You nodded, mumbling a meek yes.

Rhaenyra turned you towards her again, both kepa and her working with haste to strip your body off your gown, leaving trails of sweet kisses upon your pale skin. The back of your neck to the pulsing at your wrists, they showed you reasons to live; showed reasons of why you were the most precious thing in the Known world. The smell from Rhaenyra’s flowered soaps mixed with Daemon’s woody ones, encasing you between their larger frames. You perked breasts spilt free first, your mother’s warm mouth immediately trapped the pebble between her lips. Suckling to harden them, and leave bruises of passion apon your milky skin. Daemon joined her efforts, his lips claiming your neck as he held you hand.

You couldn’t breathe, one would find lust, passion or even contentment within the feel of their lips but a deeper pit bubbles in your stomach. When you blinked your eyes open, they welled in tears and your breath hitched. Fighting to take in a bigger gasp of air, the years went on and you truly felt as beastly as they saw Silverwing. One incapable being found desirable, that your husband would resort to pumping bastards into tavern whores. You face scrunched, scolding yourself to enjoy this and yet you didn’t want them to see you bare; perhaps they would hate you too.

Rhaenyra’s eyes softened the moment she saw your discomfort and kissed your cheek. Hoping you would confess your feelings without coaxing.

“I won’t be to your liking,” you hung your head low, more tears streamed down your face.

“Nonsen - you are the most beautiful girl in the Known world,” Rhaenyra reassured, lifting your face to look at her. Perhaps it was something in her eyes that made you want to believe her flattery.

“How can you know?” You sniffed, wiping the tears with your wrists.

“We made you, who else would know better?” Daemon said, his voice softer than usual as looked down at you.

Mother had been incapable of bedding Daemon since birthing Visenya two moons ago, she was still healing. They believed that it was your husband’s incapacity to impregnate you; all your life at Dragonstone your moonblood’s course had been near perfect. It was to their benefit, your womb deserved to carry pure Valyrian babes anyhow. A witted mind may even see this as an advantage, with you as Rhaenyra’s heir. The silver of your hair, the smile that matched Daemon’s and little Valyrian babes of your own. Your mother’s claim would remain untouchable.

Daemon had led you to their bed, perhaps now your own. Rhaenyra had stripped herself to just her corset and chemise, while she intended on assisting her husband she would be a fool to not find pleasure in Daemon bedding you. Your father had been displeased as you crawled into bed and spread your legs open for him. While he admired the gesture of you presenting yourself to him, he tutted at how bereft of pleasures you were.

“Fucking is a pleasure you see, for the man and woman,” he had sultry eyes set upon you as he devices of ways to have you screaming for him.

Your legs already remained parted for him as you held your inner thighs, you were expecting his cock to penetrate you and yet he was fully clothed. It was horror that filled you next as Daemon kneeled by the edge of the bed, his fingers gently stroked the sides for your mound before he flattened his tongue on your slit.

“K-kepa what are you d-,” a whine tore through your lips as you felt his lips suckling at your sensitive flesh. Daemon feasted on your cunny, like a delicacy with exotic flavours plated just for him. You muña had skittles herself next you, bracketing a leg to hold your thigh open as she paid much needed attention to your nipples. Her fingers toyed with one as her mouth nibbled on the other.

The throes of coupling were all you’d known awhile you dutifully suffered in the sheets, this - this - was tenacious; never ending as it hurtled you further into its depravity. The sounds of your squelching cunt and Daemon humming against your folds as Rhaenyra whispered the sweetest of endearments in your ears, their little girl…made just for them to ruin.

Daemon locked his palm against your, tangling your fingers between in him a silent call of, he was here for you, he would take care of you. Rhaenyra caressed your flushed face, the tickle of delicate fingertips distracted you from your insecurities. Your cunny felt the stretch of your Kepa's fingers, his thick digit knuckle deep within you. You hadn’t realised your body could even feel this way, so weightless that all you felt was the throbbing around your puffy bud. The textures on his tongue fondling with the tender flesh, how soft his actions were along with your mother’s ministrations of keeping the rest of your bare body ablaze.

You found your voice, as your breathy mewls turned to a shameless moans because of Daemon’s finger gracing a foreign spot within you; pumping in and out repeatedly. Your hips hiked off the bed, grinding into your kepa’s mouth. He gently held your hip down, you arched you back, unable to decipher the waves of tingles that ran up your thighs.

“Please, please!” you begged, unsure of it as you pleaded for, all you body seemed to yell at you was to find the ending.

A sudden, furious bliss burst through your core; you hadn’t felt anything like it before. You screamed their name, praying to the Gods to save you. You felt his tongue still laying soft licks on your bed as your thighs clenched around his head. You fell flat back against the beds, heavy breathing as you tried to gather your bearings.

“Wh- what…?” You couldn’t finish the question clouding your mind, your words lost on your lips.

“That sweet girl…was your peak,” Rhaenyra gingerly placed a kiss upon your temple. Her fingers mindlessly trailed up and down the valley of her breasts.

My peak…my peak you had incoherently whispered under your breath. “Will you bed me now?” You looked at your father expectantly.

“Would you like me too… would you like kepa to pump you full of his seed?” He whispered against your folded thighs as he pressed wet kisses across your pale flesh.

Your head eagerly nodded, wanting to feel more of what the art of pleasures had to offer. You wanted this ecstasy that Daemon spoke off. You wanted to drown yourself in it, having someone touch you so brutally broke a part of your aura - tragically - but your kepa and muña sewed your pieces back together. A cascading light that hurtled towards misery now floated high above the clouds, happy as you should have been.

“Say it riñītsos,” Rhaenyra whispered against your lips.

“Please bed me, kepa,” you asked, eyes flaring purple as did theirs. You shuffled against his hold on your thighs, the skin w clawing at your insides.

Daemon looked at Rhaenyra and chuckled, shaking his head at your niceties. “Such a polite thing, our daughter.” Rhaenyra indulged in stripping her husband for you, peeling his doubly away from him before freeing him from his breeches. Your kepa’s member was far more monstrous than your lord husband’s, it spurred a fear under your chest; the memories of bedding and the last night you had shared Jason’s bed were fresh within your mind. Daemon caught onto the apprehension that flared in the purple of your eyes. He pressed a kiss to your knee. “M’ going to be gentle…unless you ask me not to be,”

You hadn’t understood what he meant but your heart eased, preparing yourself to feel the bitter stretch of his bulbous tip at your entrance. Braced in position you waited for the burn to flare through your nethers but it never came. Merely the pressure of the hard line pushing you open, a little uncomfortable at best but the pain you had expected was nowhere to be found. You blinked your eyes upon, pulling yourself to grace upon where yours and Daemon’s body connected. You hissed at the fullness but appeared shocked, you looked to him; his eyes softened at the state of your discovery. Coupling was never meant to be a chore.

Rhaenyra circled her fingers upon your yearning pearl, you greedily raised your head pleading for her to kiss you and so she did. Her rounded mouth moulded against yours, a kiss that once rose bile to your throat - the tongues being far too much - your kittenish hum invited her in willingly. You could taste your shared breath, commanding you with the grape scent of her lips. Daemon had begun rocking himself, determined strokes rutting into your - his sweet cunny - his baby’s warm walls as he could barely contain himself from watching your mother dote upon you with honeyed vulgarity.

Daemon grunted, wanting to feel the touch of your lips as he tucked his hands behind the small of your back. You held your kepa’s face in your hands, lifting yourself just enough to taste the spiced wine that linger on his lips; his tongue raspily greeted yours. You mewled into his mouth, legs wrapping around his rear as your Rhaenyra and Daemon took turns whispering sweet obscenities in your ear. They made this cunny for them to use… kepa would breed you swollen of his Valyrian babes, pure babes. There perfect little dragon

Naught was of importance as you begged kepa to piston within you harder, you body smothered between the ones of your blood (warm, far too warm). Trickles of tears that fell from the corners of your eyes disappear in your hairline, Daemon wiped them - grunting louder - with his adoration directed straight st you. Rhaenyra had pulled him closer for a kiss, tasting you upon his lip as his hammering never once faltered. You wanted to peak again, you wanted to fly again.

“K-kepa, I- so good,” your words muddled at the tip of your tongue, but the way your cunt fluttered around his cock. There was just one reason to be sure. He looked to Rhaenyra, a short nod of his followed with your muña fingers working in tighter - quicker - circles around your throbbing nub.

“Oh - that’s it, pretty girl, come for kepa…wet his cock,” Rhaenyra cooed at you, your back arched off the bed. A longing whine tore through your lip, pleading Daemon to go harder. He obliged, haunching his body over as his shoulders laid flush against your chest. His heavy stones slapping against your rear. You wanted it, your insides clawed at you to peak.

“Our sweet little dragon, come - come now.”

Daemon’s order hadn’t gone unheard, in true fashion of a father’s daughter you peaked for him, your pleasures gushing through you core as your scream lodged itself at the back of your throat. Leaving only whimpers and squeaks behind as your finger nails dug into Daemon’s shoulder.

Days had passed since, once you had tasted the world of pleasures, the next four day you had spent either bouncing on your kepa’s cock; begging him to fill your cunt or muña fingers pulling peak after peak from your body.

The moment of truth arrived sooner that you had expected, you had flown to court once more. Viserys had been gravely ill, as a mourning grandchild your heart ached for what had become of the once proud king. As a wronged wife, you feared if Otto Hightower would have your best intentions in sight. Whil by marriage it would have been appropriate for you to wear an alarmingly bright red gown and jewellery of gold. You had come dressed in the darker crimsons of your house as you stood in between your kepa and muña.

Jason Lannister presented an elaborate case, claiming you as his - how your place was at Casterly Rock and not behind your mother’s skirts. He even made attempts to approach you, but the deathly glare Daemon had set upon your husband made Jason’s cowardice known. The Blacks and Greens had separated them on each end, and by the passing day it had become rather evident that if you returned with Jason, your support of your mother would be squandered under their golden foot.

Otto Hightower then called the Blacks forwards as he sat upon the Targaryen throne as if it were his own. Rhaenyra stepped forward to petition on your behalf but was dismissed by her old bitter companion Alicent Hightower - the Queen.

“Your daughter is far above her age to petition for herself, Princess Rhaenyra, unless she is daft…?” Alicent retorted.

Your eyes darted between your mother and father as they looked to your covering frame, they wanted to protest but what other choice had they given you. With cautious mannerisms you stepped forward, cultivating your sentences of beggary in your head to not stumble upon them. Your fingers fiddled with one another as you stood at the front of the throne room; with the entire court gathered to see your humiliation. Much of everything had sounded muffled to you, they would send you back, he would take you back. You should have flung yourself the first chance you had.

The night before, Rhaenyra had visited her father’s chambers. Maternal tears coating her face as she begged her father for you life. Daemon had told her of your threat to end your existence. What she thought were pleadings fallen to deaf ears, she had hoped to use her inheritance to save you from this curse or have Daemon flee with you to Essos. To remain there until Rhaenyra would take the throne.

Perhaps a call from the heavens answered your pleas (Rhaenyra’s efforts in truth) the grand door to the Throne Room opened, your grand-sire limping his way through a startled court. An old dragon lashing out to protect his blood once more, you moved away. Mouth agape just as the rest, Viserys had come to sit on his throne after four years of sabbatical.

To shield your honour, as your father - Daemon approached his brother to present your case in private. Telling him of the cruelties you had suffered and Jason’s inability to provide you heirs. To which Viserys coughed out his disdain on the Lannister’s lack of providing his granddaughter with heirs.

“Her heir? Tis my family that would be shamed because she is barren. Yet I choose to take my sweet wife back to my noble seat.” Jason scoffed, looking at Rhaenyra like she was delusional.

Rhaenyra passed a knowing look to Daemon before letting go of your hand. She looked right at the vast lords gathered at the court “My first born, my daughter is to be my heir. Your future Queen and a second wife to my prince consort.”

Horrid gasps echoed through the Throne Room, Alicent looked disgusted along with her father. You looked at your mother in shock, unable to grapple the titles she had just placed in your lap.

“Your grace! This is an abomination!” Otto Hightower protested, hoping for the King to see reason.

“She cannot be Queen…” Jason muttered, just as shocked as you.

“And w- why is that?” Viserys coughed.

“Well she is…” his blond brows furrowed tightly, his glare fixated upon you for embarrassing him. Your father raised a challenging brow to him, say it…say it Daemon prayed as he once again clutched the pommel of Dark Sister, he looked to his wife and begged like a toddler to let him end this. Rhaenyra looked at Daemon through his periphery and agreed, subtly nodding at him.

“She is a bastard,” he shrugged, looking appalled, finding this entire situation ridiculous.

Viserys groaned, huffing as he unsheathed his dagger; angered and ready to place his judgement. “I will have your tongue for that!”

Thwack!

You hadn’t realised when your kepa had moved from behind you to trail behind your husband - headless husband - your mother yanked back to look away from the decapitated corpse as knights all around charged at Daemon. He merely wiped his sword away at his cape, before returning to stand next to you.

“You’re a widow now,” he smugly whispered in your ear.

[allmannerofmalady]

In continuation of my clownery, I started a new DATV playthrough because my beloved Inquisitor looked so jarring I had to remake her and replay like 20 hours of the game. But hey, I made peace with the fact that I am playing DATV to wrap up Inquisition and get an ending scene at this point, I'm not currently foreseeing a second playthrough, so I gotta do it right, y'know?

Spoilers, and me complaining at extreme length, yet again, about my own personal expectations vs reality into the void. Please ignore if DATV negativity is something you prefer to stay away from, protect your peace & what you enjoy.

So I replay HOURS. I'm having fun killing everything as fast as I can - I don't know what it is about playing as a rogue in this game that has tickled my ADHD brain so much, but I'm surprisingly really good at the arrow bonanza and relentless enemy aggro?! This turn based bitch? I digress.

I see my bb Inquisitor Lavellan - she still doesn't look like herself, but I can live with it. She got some ill-advised fillers in Tevinter, she's been through a lot, let her LIVE.

This time around my strategy is pure lore hunting. I'm getting every codex, I'm SQUEEZING this playthrough for whatever lore/easter eggs I can get because idk if I'm going to play again. I got all of Solas' murals early on, got Mythal's essence before Weisshaupt even, I think. BUT WAIT! I have one more treat! The locked room in the Lighthouse! Solas' study! There must be something juicy for all the effort, right? RIGHT? :'D

I know it's been beaten to death, but PERSONALLY, the game still feels incredibly flat to me, jarringly so. If I'm in the Dreadwolf's home, I want to snoop. I want Rook to look through his library, his books, his garbage bin. I even remember the devs saying they wanted being in the Lighthouse to feel an old friends house, or something? I could be wrong, my brain is fried. It's not just a Solas thing - I'm playing this game because I'm desperate for info about the characters I love, but as Rook, we are IN Solas' HQ and I want to rip open the floorboards. I'm trying to RP as much as I can RP in this G.

Anyway, I was so thirsty for something more, something deeper than just these lovely environments I cant do much with, and notes on how Solas hoards raisins - so I collected the wisps and did all the things to unlock the second door in the Lighthouse, forever booboo the fool, thinking I would get some juicy content or something. Trying to stay positive.

No. NO. I got some gear, another empty room Rook has no comments on, and fine, some of Solas' observations on the anchor. It does seem to confirm he kept the Inquisitor’s arm aaaand I love him your honour.

Back to backflipping and shooting arrows in the air, and wanting to grab Emmrich by the beautiful lapels to shake him and ask about the Pentaghast family. Where's my WIFE --

On to the Weisshaupt mission, which was actually ridiculously fun to play - until I was told Weisshaupt is gone haha wow great love that at least the Inquisitor & gang are keeping Southern Thedas safe *subtle foreshadowing* 😃🤞 weeee

I was SO MAD at myself for expecting more like the clown that I am, it was something dumb but just annoyed me all over again and got me all… opinionated 🫠

So, I'm mad again. I cannot begin to articulate my feelings about the incredible amount of storylines and lore we've lost with the decisions made in DATV's writing - they've already been written so eloquently by much greater minds than myself. SO I'm just laughing my way through the pain 🤡

People pleaser that I am, I see other creators I've followed and loved for ages defend the game's choices, tell others they lack media literacy, that your criticisms mean you have rose tinted glasses about the previous games - whatever, your opinion can be valid without tearing others down. So, I genuinely thought something was wrong with me for being so hung up on details. But I can't even engage in fan theories anymore because I'm so jaded at this point. When I see new deep dives into lore-based theories on the game, 99% of the time my mind goes "There is no deeper meaning. They just wanted to wrap it up." Why do you think this thing happened? What do you think that thing is hinting? Nothing. And this is coming from someone who played all the games, owns all the novels, art books, World of Thedas I and II, the bloody Inquisitor lamp from the BioWare store LOL, I was primed and ready to engage in these conversations, but I can't. I have nothing to say that won't end in a cynical answer, and maybe that's because I'm also jaded by working in the game-adjacent VFX industry.

The factions are, yet again, fun but shallow, the logic confusing, and lack much of a backstory for Rook (I think Grey Wardens and Mourn Watchers seem to be the best developed from other reviews and playthroughs, I've only played extensively as a Shadow Dragon, to be fair). Why are you a mage in this one faction? Why are you a rogue in another when it doesn't make sense without a story to support it? It's all this beautiful candy floss that melts away the minute I stop and think about it. And then the cynic in me thinks - these are probably vestiges of the live service part of the game that EA was pushing for. I have to slap myself and stop looking for deeper meaning within corporate decisionsssss there is no swimming pool behind that closed door you needed 7 wisps for 😃

I desperately did not want this to be the case. I was hyped. I preordered the game and organized vacation around it, I'm too old and dealing with way too many crappy personal things to just be a hater for the sake of being a hater. Gaming and Dragon Age are my comfort spaces. But for the LIFE of me, I can't imagine playing DATV again once I finish, let alone more times than I can count like the previous games. Or imagine listening to 4 hours of Youtube videos of party banter to analyze, or even imagine how companions would react to certain things because they feel so stiff. Everything is beautiful, but sterile.

I do love Emmrich - I'm enjoying his storyline and romance, it's like the loveliest most whimsical Vincent Price Pixar romance, but still, something is always missing with the characters even as some do grow on me. I can't imagine anything close to just the party banter ALONE between Solas and Iron Bull. Cole. Fenris and Anders. And to be clear - the whole DA was GRITTY and DARK, DAO supremacy - NOT ME. I love all the games but they have always been whimsical and silly, cringey at times, and did not take themselves seriously. I remember doing the quest where Hawke is running around trying to keep Aveline's date with Donnic from going south, cracking up at how ridiculous it was, and just thinking - gods I LOVE this game.

Speaking of romance, while I'm enjoying how sweet the romance with Emmrich is, when I see others complaining about lack of spice... ahem. I still cannot get over the art style when it comes to characters. This is subjective, and a me problem - I still find it jarring. I don't like the proportions, the bloom, how smooth everyone looks. They still mostly look like cartoons to me, with no body hair and the big heads, and I find everyone's hands so distracting because they look like plasticine. I'm ok with no spice between these characters with their current designs lol let me leave it at that. Ok, except for Felassan and Solas, chef's kiss, no notes.

Solas and story elements directly around him still mostly hold the familiar weight, for the most part. I think credit goes to his amazing VA and the strength of what was likely written for his arc from the very start, before the rewrites and dev hell the game went through. I still have opinions, obviously, but even as a ride or die Solavellan I don't like having the Solavellan angle hijack conversations, so I'm not going to go there. If I'm going to criticize stuff I'll do it as a gamer/DA fan first, egg lover and apologist second.

As I reach the end of Act 2, the game continues to makes me feel like I'm stripped of all agency after a lifetime of playing choice-based games. I talk to companions when it allows me to, then they are relegated to set dressing. My conversation choices all feel the same, or don't match what I'm choosing sometimes. The Lighthouse does not feel like the vibrant hub it was sold as. I am on quests I mostly cannot accept or reject. I cannot interact with my surroundings unless it is gameified (light a candle, move a crystal). The companions abilities are all just - platforming? I know I sound hyperbolic, but it's all I can see currently.

I played Persona 5 from end to end, twice. I played FFXVI. I loved both, had no issues with their linear storytelling, and how the game led you to their end points. Those games are not DA, they did not have the expectations you would have from a BioWare title 10 years in the making. You were not lured in by tales of an incredible character creator, teased about what might be coming from previous games, told this was a sequel to an immersive fantasy RPG series in a beloved fantasy world where the defining studio mechanic was CHOICES MATTER, even when they changed a lot of other things from title to title. In P5/FFXVI you were Clive, you were Joker, you were playing out their story. They were not direct sequels to anything. I'm loathe to be seen as a mindless critic who just wants to shit on things, but a part of me does feel emotionally manipulated for $$$. I still resent how much hype was built for the game by maligning the previous ones (we're fixing Inquisition's mistakes!!).

I'm back to my mission of finishing the game I paid for, enjoy what I can, and get my Solavellan ending scene cause I'm down BAD for literally the only ship I have ever shipped🧍🏻‍♀️I appreciate that it was included. But also - wow does it exacerbate what wasn't included for everyone else's choices.

Something I hate is how everyone immediately jumped on the Baldur's Gate 3 comparisons - BG3 was a life changing game for me, but it's not perfect, and the comparisons are not fair. The one thing I will say is that when I first played BG3, despite its issues and the later criticisms of how Larian reacted to pressure from fans, I remember my earliest impression was - it feels good to be respected as a player. I didn't feel the game was talking down to me, and I got SO much for what I paid for (700 hours baybeee). Jaheira and Minsc were included as companions in homage to the previous games. Yes, they did Viconia dirty, nothing is perfect - but for example, Jaheira would tell you about her husband Khalid from the original games, which came out in 1998 and 2000. There was a lot of world building/easter eggs that not everyone was familiar with or even noticed, because not every player played BG1 and 2, or were familiar with DND 5e - but it was included. Drizzt Do’urden was mentioned ffs, they didn’t overthink about who read those books or not. I’m aware of my biases and I may very well be looking through rose tinted glasses, but I did not feel like the information was presented like I was dumb, or "ah they'll never understand this - SCRAP IT". It just feels like it’s there to honour the past and out of love for the world Larian were playing in.

—> edit to say that I do notice and enjoy the codex entries, callbacks to Tevinter Nights, Masked Empire, the older games. I wish that care and detail was woven into the main story and overall end product and not just background fluff. I know others are satisfied with those additions, wish that were me. I saw a tweet saying that every callback to a previous game or storyline actually pissed them off even more lol, I relate.

I don't feel that respect for the player in DATV, I'm sorry. There is love there, but as hard as I try, it feels like it's there despite of the overall design of the game, not part of it. I keep remembering interviews before the game was released and things that were promised, and I don't see it. At all. No more meaningless fetch quests!! Most companion-focused game! The quests are largely boring or formulaic, but addictive and fun because they are so packed with mindless combat that my brain enjoys. Sometimes it feels like filler - we didn't know what to add here, FIGHT! You unlocked a poignantly named gate in the Crossroads? NO STORY MORE FIGHT! And I'm eating it up, let me not be a hypocrite, I have 80 hours in the game. But personally, it feels designed to pad out this beautiful, sometimes fun, but bitterly shallow game. I can't even go into companion specifics because I have nothing to say, no story I want to analyze. Some have grown on me, but there is no bite or nuance to the writing that compels me and I have no urge to know more. In the previous DA games I would take the long route wherever I went just to get more banter from my companions, and I was instantly interested in them, even if I disliked them. I've seen the comments, I tried, I don't think it's because "I haven't spent enough time" with the DATV companions.

The level design of long narrow corridors, which do remind me of DA2 and FFXVI, has become so predictable to me that I almost always know exactly where I'm going to find loot. So it becomes this admittedly satisfying run of grabbing and fighting to the end point, getting the dopamine hits of collecting pointless stuff, but not really taking in the environments and enjoying the adventure. The level design is not immersive. These do not feel like real cities or real people, and that was intentional. It feels like “levels”, not a World. No one reacts to a single thing you do. Even in the ultra minimalist style of Zelda BOTW, townspeople would react to things you did. Sometimes I walk up to yet another obvious fight arena where the enemies are just chilling, waiting for me while standing still - almost like they're on shift at a haunted house LOL. I can imagine the Venatori stubbing out a cigarette, "C'mon guys, she's here, showtime". The funny part is this has all been seen before in older games, and it never bothered me. My own expectations and overhype might be to blame, but it feels like a big step back when so many games are stepping forward. Me = clown

I keep going back to my first reaction when the disappointment hit me. It feels like being given Persona 5 Strikers or Hyrule Warriors, and told that it's the sequel to the actual RPG. It's fun, it wears the skin of the thing you like that makes you happy, but stops there.

Other things I shake my fist at

Cheap ass The 6th Sense ass Varric death. Yes, yes, Solas villain arc whatever - it was cheap. Way to honour a multi-game beloved character and the player, even if the time had come for him to die in the story.

No, I cannot find a single redeeming reaction from a companion that makes Varric dying make sense in hindsight, except that they are all made of cardboard. I saw comments saying on a second playthrough it's clear Harding is in mourning - sorry, I don't see it.

So. Dorian, the Inquisitor, Charter, Harding, your party, Maevaris, Isabella, list goes on - not a single one of them asks about Varric or mentions his death? Expresses condolences? Nothing? Cheap. Even if Solas was playing with your mind, doesn't it make the overall characters in the game seem even more wooden and unrealistic to the player? It was not the gotcha they seem to think it is.

When the novelty of the cameos and the emotion associated wore off, they were just flat and felt random. Cassandra should have been there, doing Seeker shit (my WIFE). Ok no cameo? Casual dialogue with Emmrich about having a Nevarran in the Inquisition (or as the Divine?!) Lucanis info dumping about Josephine as an Antivan, Zevran as a Crow, nvm, time for a coffee joke. Merrill, eluvian queen, how is she a nonentity? Habibi Fenris should have been in the Shadow Dragons, spitting on the ground after being approached by Solas to join his uprising (lol what uprising amirite). Ok I'm cooking hire me Bioware 🍳 but at least they can remain untainted by the Isabella Treatment (tm)

This leads into the yeeting of the Keep, world states, choices, and hypocrisy around claiming to want to level the playing field for new players. No, all I can see is - it was treated as a buffet that they picked from as it suited. This is the one disappointment I will never let go of. Facsimile's of beloved character cameos were tossed in, you could not really talk to them outside of what limited dialogue you were allowed. Certain world states are now canon apparently - Dorian being recruited in the Inquisition, Morrigan drinking from the Well etc. You want a reboot and you've committed to tossing the choices and burning down Thedas (literally)? Go down with GLORY! Have all the previous main characters/companions alive. Have them all mentioned, even in passing. A portrait on a wall. Say goodbye to them, get your reboot. Honour what you built your business on. But yeah, Emmrich and Harding get to have their picnic in Fereldan fml bye

The argument of: well, the games are old now, it shouldn't matter. Ah - not too old to capitalize on the IP and DA name? Not too old to use some cameos to lure old players? The argument of - it was too many choices to track. Ok cut them down, but don't go scorched earth? 3 choices, mostly irrelevant to those who don't care about Solas (could never be me), and then literally telling you everything else in the South and Weisshaupt is now razed to the ground. But also the illuminati did everything.

FINALLY - the Inquisition should have been in charge of the hunt for Solas, hill I will die on. Fine, have Rook, but Inquisitor should have been the other protagonist. The people... who knew Solas best and betrayed by him... who were in an organization to save the world... Why did we have that cunty dagger stabbed into the map of Tevinter cliffhanger to have the Inquisitor reduced to a pyjama wearing husk BIOWAAAAAAAARE

It's this stuff that builds up, and makes me think - does this game hate its fanbase and source material that much? I very obviously need to go touch some grass 🤠

I keep engaging with Reddit, Tumblr, Twitter - all to my detriment because it makes me feel like there's something wrong with me for not loving it, all over again. I also desperately have a fic in me I would love to write, an ode to the story in my head from years of loving the world of Thedas, a love letter to my Lavellan and others - but idk what to do with the post-DATV world atp. I just want to get through Act 2/3, get my Solavellan smooch, ignore the ~secret Illuminati ending, and be grateful I'm not a Mass Effect fan so I don't have to go through this again 🐣

[ianthe-is-a-bitch-and-i-love-her]

Sapphic vampire fiction mini reviews, ranked from least favorite to most:

House of Hunger: Bland characters, a story that barely scratches the surface of the implications of its premise, and a central relationship with nothing underpinning it make for an aimless story with a climax that hits like a limp noodle. If the dynamic between a vampire and her indentured maid appeals to you, try The Wicked and the Willing instead.

An Education in Malice: For a Carmilla retelling, the titular character really lacks bite. Laura at least has some interesting contradictions in her, and De Lafontaine could be quite compelling if we saw things through her eyes, but the central relationship isn't built on a lot, and Carmilla herself is really disappointingly bland. The prose comes off as overwrought and melodramatic in the first act, and the constant leaning on poetry feels gratuitous, but it picks up steam and becomes appropriately gripping by the one-third mark, and it carries the book enough that I had an enjoyable but rather shallow experience. I struggle to think of a reason to recommend this over In the Roses of Pieria, which plays with similar thematic and aesthetic elements much more adeptly. Also, it's a pet peeve of mine when a story makes a point to establish a specific historical era for its setting but has characters that feel utterly modern.

The Deathless Girls: This book does a much better job with its sense of time and place, and the characters and their motivations are quite strong. I only rate this one low on this list because the main characters don't actually deal with vampirism as a condition until the very end of the book. On its surface, the premise might seem quite similar to A Dowry of Blood, but there's actually very little thematic or narrative overlap.

Ex-Wives of Dracula: An excellent exploration of the queer teenage experience in conservative small town ~2015 USA along with some pretty novel twists on vampire and horror movie tropes. Strong, vibrant characters with a rich, messy, and compelling relationship carry a solid mystery plot and some pretty pointed critiques of its setting, but the actual climax and resolution don't quite hold up to the quality of the rest. Also I simply must warn anyone who didn't grow up in the time and place this book explores about the profound and casual bigotry and nastiness of that setting, which this book replicates to a T.

The Wicked and the Willing: A thrilling and compelling dark romantic drama centered on a British vampire in 1920s Singapore, her newly hired and desperate to escape poverty personal maid, and her majordomo who is struggling to keep her conscience under control after years of aiding and abetting her mistress's dark appetites. Extremely strong character writing pairs with deft exploration of themes of colonialism, entitlement, class divisions, sexism, and the ways in which certain types of status can and cannot afford one leeway to be nonconforming in other ways. Intermixes diagetic and non-diagetic BDSM very organically also, if that's your thing.

In the Roses of Pieria: Rich prose dripping with atmosphere follows an obscure academic as she digs into a series of ancient correspondences and discovers a millenia spanning love story between two vampires. The character writing is solid, if not quite as impressive as some other entries on this list, but the quality of the prose more than elevates it. The text makes elegant and powerful references to Sappho throughout, and the whole experience is heady and compelling in ways that I struggle to describe in greater detail. Funnily enough, the vampires are the least interesting part of the world building. This one has a sequel coming, and I can't wait.

A Dowry of Blood: A darkly enchanting epistolary novel that takes the form of letters written by the first of Dracula's wives to him as she attempts to make peace with killing him. She unpicks a delicious and horrifying knot of feeling and history as she revisits their millenia together, recounting and reckoning with the manipulations and abuses that defined the good times and the bad. The characters are evocative and rich, the narrative voice by turns sparse, longing, furious, contemplative, and mournful, and the story simply springs to life. It accomplishes an incredible amount in approximately 200 pages, and I absolutely cannot recommend this one enough.

[nuria-schnee]

Hi! ❤️ For this week's sneak peek, have the boys having A Moment™

Most of the time, Edwin was aware of Charles’ presence around him, even if he wasn’t looking at him. It surprised both of them when Charles touched his shoulder and startled Edwin.

“Edwin?” Charles muttered, pulling his hand away and sitting on the edge of the desk, facing him with kind, bright eyes. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” Edwin answered, readjusting his posture and straightening his back. “I only wished to note down tonight’s indecent before I forget any details.”

“I don’t think that’s possible, mate,” Charles smiled at him.

Edwin sighed, wishing that was actually true.

“Could start filing some of these,” Charles added and reached for the first report over one stack of cases. “If you want.”

“No. Not yet,” Edwin sighed, opening his notebook and picking up his pen. “It is alright, Charles. It has been quite a night. You may rest, if you wish.”

“What about you? When will you take a break?”

“I have not had to fight a poltergeist and escape a legion of rabid bumblebees,” Edwin noted, remarking the last part. Then he dropped his gaze to the pages before him and began taking notes.

“Yeah, but,” Charles grimaced a bit. “You’ve been overloading yourself since this started. You should take a break too.”

“Considering the current situation, I do not think that is the wisest decision.”

Keep reading under the cut!

“But it might help? You know, to see things from a new perspective and all that?”

“If you wish to rest, I am not against it. You do not need to feel obligated to do anything else,” Edwin said absentmindedly.

“That’s not what I meant,” Charles muttered, keeping his voice cheerful, but tinged with sadness. “I just— I think you really should stop for a bit after you’ve finished with this, yeah? We could do something fun. Or just laze about. Play Cluedo, maybe.”

Edwin stopped scribbling, raising his eyes to Charles. He was starting at him with a plea written in his expression, shining with hope. When their gazes locked, his smile turned softer.

“Come on, mate,” Charles tilted his head to the side, his earring dangling enticingly. “It’s been weeks since we’ve done anything but work. Things are calmer now and we should make the most of it, just in case. Catch our breath. Get our energies back, yeah?”

For a few seconds, Edwin just stared at his friend, hopeful and bright in the warm light of the office. Admiring the way he was breathing evenly, deeply, his body tense with expectation, with quiet hope. Edwin had trouble remembering why he was so adamant about depriving himself of a bit of time together. The resolve to keep working until he solved the case, until he cracked the greater mystery, was slipping away with every second he kept his eyes fixed on Charles’. An incessant thought that this was precisely the reason he was doing it, to have more quiet moments with him, simmered in his mind. However, Charles had him transfixed with the way he was pleading at him with such fondness, with a need for company he wasn’t sure he could refuse.

Edwin felt he had to be running out of luck by now. He just had to. Even if his life and death had been plagued by suffering, the fact that he was there, accompanied by that beautiful, diligent creature, couldn’t be anything but a causality born out of pure luck. He had escaped Hell and met him. After only a few hours of knowing each other, Charles had decided to stay with him, and chose to again and again, for forty years. They could have lost each other a lot of times and hadn’t. Edwin confessed his love, and Charles still stayed, comprehensive and supportive until the point Edwin found himself struggling to believe he was real at all, all over again. Every time he could have lost Charles, he hadn’t. More often than not, Edwin was shaken by the fear that the next time would be the definitive, the time he truly lost him. Whatever he could do to avoid that, he would. He had to keep working. He had to keep the agency productive and remain useful himself. He had to solve this case, once and for all.

But Charles wanted time with him. It shouldn’t be as baffling for Edwin as it turned out to be. They’d only had each other for decades and Charles still enjoyed his company, looked happier when they spent time doing things together outside cases. To be honest, Edwin hadn’t realised how long they had gone without a break. He’d been too absorbed in the case to notice. Charles’ expression was making him realise how much he too yearned for it. For a peaceful night, spent with Charles on the couch, looking at him, hearing him laugh—

When they got back from Port Townsend, there had been a part of him still scared of how his confession might have changed things between them. Crystal had been mostly doing her own thing those first weeks, and that had left them alone for long stretches of time again. The relief he felt when he realised they seemed to have grown even closer after those experiences was unmeasurable.

Charles’ absolute easiness about his feelings escaped him still, in some ways. Edwin suspected it had more to do with some of his unearthed shame, still encysted in the core of him, than with Charles. Edwin hadn’t felt anything but loved by him, even if his heart yearned for more. That was enough.

If his inability to get rid of those feelings would cause problems in the future, he wasn’t quite sure. He wasn’t inclined to examine that at the moment. Not that he had the time either.

“Alright,” Edwin conceded in the end.

“Yes!” Charles lighted up like a thousand suns, his smile blinding, and he pushed himself away from the table, ready to jump into whatever activity Edwin proposed.

Edwin couldn’t help the smile curving his mouth. “Once I am finished with this,” Edwin added, swallowing down the laughter in his tone. “It will be only a few minutes.”

“Brills,” Charles said, cheerful.

[grassbreads]

What Tai Sui is and Why Everyone Should Read It

So if you follow me, over the past couple weeks, you've probably noticed me obsessively screenshotting and posting about a book called Tai Sui. And now that I've finished it, I'd like to try and convince y'all to give it a chance.

What Is Tai Sui?

Tai Sui is a chinese web novel—a relatively unpopular work by the very popular author Priest (author of Guardian and Sha Po Lang, among others). Unlike a lot of the most popular web novels on tumblr, it's not a danmei. It's in fact rather important to the plot and themes that there is almost entirely no romance, but I promise you, it is absolutely worth it regardless.

What is Tai Sui About?

Tai Sui is a steampunk xianxia cultivation story. For those unfamiliar with xianxia and cultivation, this is a particular genre of Chinese historical fantasy.

The official summary of Tai Sui reads as follows:

“If I had a choice, I would only want to be a little insect in the mundane dust, born in confusion, dying in mediocrity, never seeing the light of day beneath the fog of Jinping City.

Better than taking this wrong road to heaven.”

You may have noticed that this summary is not in fact really a summary. It gives you a glimpse into the story's themes, mood, and destination, but it doesn't exactly tell you what happens in it.

That's because Tai Sui is one of those works that's incredibly hard to summarize. The story is incredibly wide in scope and changes massively over its course, to the point that any summary that encapsulates the whole thing is going to feel like a spoiler. However, I can try my best to add a little detail without giving too much away.

Tai Sui is the story of Xi Ping—an obnoxious, trouble-making rich boy with no interest in cultivation—who gets unwittingly involved in a plot to resurrect the "evil god" Tai Sui. This plot pulls him into the cultivation world against his will and, over time, threatens to rewrite everything he is.

Tai Sui is the end of immortality.

Why Should You Read Tai Sui?

Tai Sui is one of the most compelling stories I have ever read. It is a love letter to the power and promise of the whole world and its many mundane people. It also has some of the best worldbuilding I have ever seen.

Tai Sui is written in omniscient perspective, and though Xi Ping is very much the main character, as the story progresses, we spend more and more time alongside characters that aren't him. By the time the novel ends, his entire continent is at stake, and we the audience know that continent and its troubles inside and out from countless angles. Everyone from the immortal demigods of the cultivation world to the most wretched, miserable paupers is given a grand sense of emphasis.

Tai Sui is a deconstruction of the cultivation genre. It establishes a magic/cultivation system and its history, lets the main character live in that system for a while, and then dives deep into that system's depths. It looks at the cultivation genre, at the idea of people who leave behind their status as mortals for greater things, and asks "How does this really work?" and "Is this how the world should be?"

Tai Sui is the story of countless people who were never supposed to be powerful coming together to make the world a better place. It's well written (and very well translated), exciting, heartbreaking, and incredibly beautiful. It's also funny as hell.

I cannot recommend this story enough.

Warnings/Caveats

As I said before, Tai Sui is a deconstruction of the cultivation genre. If you're unfamiliar with this genre, while the book is certainly readable, you are going to be thrown head first into the deep end with the tropes and terminology at play. It's absolutely worth the learning curve, but it will be kind of a lot. Maybe do some light googling about what a cultivator is before you pick it up. (Or just ask a fan. I think most of us would happily explain anything that would win a new reader).

There are portrayals of people/cultures in Tai Sui that are heavily inspired by minority cultures in real-world China, and some of these portrayals play into pretty harmful stereotypes. It's not SPL "Barbarian" or TGCF Banyue levels of racist, but it's something to be aware of and careful about. I'd really recommend reading from the perspectives of those from the cultures in question (including but not limited to the post I linked) for more about the issues I'm talking about.

Tai Sui's English translation is 930,000 words long. I believe this is a strength, since its length is what allows it such an incredible scope. It is also a fucking daunting commitment, and I acknowledge that.

Finally, while Tai Sui doesn't need too many trigger warnings, it does contain some pretty viscerally upsetting depictions of inequality and mistreatment, as well as a few instances of violence toward children. You can't uplift without first seeing what the people need uplifting from, and hooboy. They need it.

There's also some scenes that are technically rather violent, but the goriness is not presented as gore, if that makes sense. It never feels intensely or overly violent in the way some fantasy novels do.

Links

If all my gushing and propagandizing has convinced you to give it a try, you can find the original Chinese version (where you can buy chapters to support the author) on JJWXC.

The complete English translation is free on the website of E. Danglars, who does a truly incredible job with the translating.

Happy reading :).

[david-talks-sw]

George Lucas & Karen Traviss' visions of Star Wars are NOT the same...

So whenever I come across this image:

I keep in mind that it's from a book written by Karen Traviss, who is a brilliant author (I adored Legacy of the Force: Bloodlines and Sacrifice) but whose stance on Anakin, Yoda & the Jedi and Star Wars morality is this:

As opposed to George Lucas' stance on Anakin, Yoda & the Jedi and Star Wars' morality, which is this:

In a children's story about Light and Dark, good and evil, selflessness vs selfishness, George Lucas marks the Empire as absolutely evil and the Rebels as absolutely good, in the Original Trilogy.

In the Prequels, the situation is more complex (the Jedi are drafted into a war and forced to do things they know they shouldn't be doing, but have to for the greater good; the Sith bring about order to a corrupt government) but the morality stays the same... the selfish, greedy Sith are absolutely evil and the selfless, compassionate Jedi are absolutely good.

That's George's thesis.

And, as a character, Yoda's function is to deliver that thesis. It's no wonder why Lucas treats Yoda's words as absolutely correct:

Yoda is Lucas' mouthpiece in the Prequels, his self-insert.

George Lucas' narrative frames Yoda as objectively right.

So when Karen Traviss questions the Jedi, particularly Yoda's character and wisdom, she's disagreeing with George Lucas' thesis.

Which is fair. Traviss, is a different person than Lucas, she's an ex-journalist with a more "grey" view of the world and a different philosophy re: fiction aimed at children. "Death of the author" and all that. Again, fair enough.

And if you like Travis' interpretation and philosophy more than George's, if her read resonates with you more... also fair enough.

But the EU is not a reliable source on Lucas' vision.

I've talked about this in MUCH more detail here, but if you do care about George Lucas' vision, then maybe don't draw from the Expanded Universe, which includes content written by authors who expressly disagree with him, like Traviss.

Sounds logical, but for some reason people will read the above-posted Dooku quote and treat it as reflective of Lucas' vision, when it's not the case.

George Lucas' Dooku doesn't have an issue with Yoda or the Jedi (at least not openly, as Darth Tyranus, the Sith Lord he wants them all dead). Dooku's issue is with the Senate and the Republic.

George Lucas specifically added that most Jedi share Dooku's concerns. Before he's revealed to be a mass-murdering, Sith who enslaves neutral systems, the Jedi think he makes a good point and are even reluctant to consider him a murder suspect.

But let's not start saying that Lucas' Prequels are meant to be about "the Jedi's failure" and "Dooku being right that the Jedi are corrupt.

Because that's not the case.

If that's how you see them, great. It's certainly how Traviss saw them. To each their own, authorial intent be damned.

But it's not what they were about, to Lucas. Stating the contrary is... I dunno, lying? Rewriting history?

It's as if I got hired to write a Lord of the Rings prequel seen from Gandalf's POV. And y'know what, maybe I don't like Gandalf. So I write him as a scheming asshole going “myahahahah, fuck hobbits! I’m gonna let them keep the One Ring so a bunch Nazgûl will swoop through the Shire and murder them!” and suddenly, everyone starts writing posts about the notion that “Growing up is realizing that Tolkien always intended for Gandalf to be the secret villain of LOTR!” as if that had always been the case and I didn't just reframe him that way retroactively.

Finally, I'd also encourage you to read @rendar-writes' well-made point here about the fact that, while claiming she "doesn't give the answers", Traviss nonetheless shows a clear anti-Jedi bias.

[bonzos-number-1-fan]

TMAGP 26 Thoughts: Sam is awkward. Celia is hot.

Yet another guest writer episodes and this time it's Muna Hussen. She' co-creator and producer on The Silt Verses, and produced and acted in I Am In Eskew. The Silt Verses is a show I can wholeheartedly suggest giving a listen. It's great in just about every way a thing can be. I might leave a pitch for it as an addendum. I Am In Eskew is in the forever pile of things I may one day get to. It's a really well written episode too, I liked this one a lot. It is, unfortunately, another pretty explicit one so I don't expect to have a load to say, but that's not the same as it being bad.

Spoilers for episode 26 below the cut.

Celia and Sam's conversation doesn't have a load of note in it. Yes, they're going to meet Helen but that's for later. The important detail here is how Celia categorises her incidents. Which she does with the least effort imaginable. She's not had any misfiles yet which tells me that either those no longer happen or you just need to get it in the right Section. But more importantly than that it's also a good look at just how little she cares about the job. We've all known she's had ulterior motives from her introduction but it's nice to see ways that is reflected.

Much like the last incident there isn't too too much to rip into for what I talk about. I'm not sure the themes of this one speak to any greater connection and the characters are all new as far as I know. Which only really leaves one detail to talk about. The Archivist or, rather, *an *Archivist as that's the more interesting detail. The Archivist here didn't really do much we've not seen before. The forced running isn't to dissimilar to the forced drowning and Jarrod did seem to be mumbling in classic fashion. No statement to be heard as such but that might just be because of the framing. However, unlike previous run ins with an Archivist they're very much aware that they're not the only one. Whether this leads to something more grand or not is hard to say but it's an interesting detail.

Alice is finally up to episode 11 with the plot. More seriously it's nice to see her piecing things together now. I do wonder if that was Chester's point or not. Gwen was a little weird in this interaction IMO. Alice and Gwen shared a fairly major revelation together, that this ties into, but she seems to have distanced herself a lot from that emotionally already. Which isn't out of character but does come a little fast.

Helen is *very *Helen here. I think of all the returning characters she might have changed the least. At least from where she started. It's lovely to see her back, although I do wonder if maybe they're leaning on these characters a little too much at this stage. It's hard to know if this is one-off fanservice or the way of things going forward. I hope it's the latter because the less of the old cast we get the more of the new cast we'll see. There isn't a huge amount to say here but its good to see them getting more information about the Institute. Also, unfortunately Helen is still a tory. Categorically disproving the "these characters are now living their best life" theory. It's all still hell. I'd also include the transcripts note for the laugh but that's a TMA spoiler and probably one person hasn't seen that show. Besides if you know, you know.

Sam and Celia finally fucked. Good for them. Well, bad for them if TMA is anything to go off for couples in this setting. But, y'know.

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Incident/CAT#R#DPHW Master Sheet and Terminology Sheet

DPHW Theory: 4463 is pretty normal for this, I think. No major surprises.

CAT# Theory: 1 is a 1. I'll maybe try to write an essay on this before the season ends. No prommies tho.

R# Theory: BC seems about right.

Header talk: Exhaustion (Athletic) -/- Compulsion (Tape). Also very very normal.

I guess I will write that addendum then.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Addendum: Go listen to The Silt Verses.

It's a horror audio drama that's more or less a world where the modern religious landscape is a polytheistic one, with fabricated corporate gods putting pressure on local ones, outlawed religions, and all sorts of fun stuff. But it's a world where religions, fabricated or otherwise, are also powerful and gods do exist and perform miracles. It follows two worshippers of the Trawler Man, and outlawed god, on their pilgrimage up its great black river. As you might expect things don't go smoothly and soon enough there's a man hunt, run ins with cults stranger than theirs, and all sorts of revelations.

The world building is a real high light too. It's just the right level of "this world is horrific yet treated as mundane". It's worth listening just to see how that's all built on.

I rate it a strong prisoners-buried-alive-in-the-foundations-of-new-construction-projects-to-bless-them/10.

[leaves-lilies-and-esther]

Why being against trans rights as a feminist is bull

Generally I fall pretty neatly into line with the radfem line of thinking about things (anti surrogacy, anti sex industry, pro choice, anti beauty industry etc). And I don't think that radical feminists who disagree with me on this are evil or anything, but I do believe that it shouldn't be a priority and that this whole effort will be remembered badly.

"But the bathrooms-"

Letting trans women into female bathrooms does not increase sexual assault. According to Media Matters, "...the fear is baseless- completely unsupported by years of evidence from states that already have non-discrimination laws on the books." To give examples:

Rhode Island reported "no increase in sex crimes due to 2001 law"

Karen Richards of the Vermont Human Rights commission said she is "not aware" of any problems from a 2001 law

Jim O'Neill said he was "unaware of any sexual assault as the result of the CT gender identity or expression law" in Connecticut

If you search "Debunking the Big Myth about Transgender Inclusive Bathrooms" from Media Matters you can see the other twelve state level examples

There's also a very well written article from Time called "Transgender Bathroom: Advocates Say 'Predator' is a Myth" . They detail several locations like New York City and California which protect trans rights without seeing a spike in sexual assaults, the fact that school officials and police departments have not seen a spike either, and that several organizations dedicated to stopping violence against women all agree that bathroom rights aren't a threat.

Moreover, according to Vox's article "Anti-transgender bathroom hysteria, explained"- all of the incidences commonly cited of men dressing up as women or posing as a woman in order to commit sexual assault happened before a non-discrimination bathroom law was passed. Meaning that these laws don't cause sh*t.

But to add onto another point, there's a very good reason why we cannot simply say that women's bathrooms must be defined by sex alone. Which is that we end up exposing transgender or nonbinary youth to extremely avoidable violence instead.

According to an article from Harvard entitled "transgender teens with restricted bathroom access at higher risk of sexual assault", quote, "Transgender and non-binary teens face greater sexual assault in schools that prevent them from using bathrooms or locker rooms consistent with their gender identity." 36% of trans or nonbinary youth with restricted access had been sexually assaulted in the past year. In no world is that an acceptable number. Not only does restricting bathroom access not solve anything for cis women, it actively inflicts male violence on transgender women.

And even in the outlandish world where this wasn't enough of a reason, it also leads to cis women being policed on their appearance and how feminine they present in order to avoid looking trans. In Las Vegas a woman named Jay was kicked out because they mistook her for trans according to Advocate article 'cis woman mistaken as transgender records being berated in bathroom'. Aimee Toms in Danbury was similarly harassed, as was Jessica Rush in Dallas. There's several videos in the Vox article "Women are getting harassed in bathrooms because of anti-transgender hysteria". And guess what? This sort of policing what a cis woman can look like is only going to get worse as people continue to advocate against trans women in bathrooms.

And women's sports-

Any physical advantage that transgender people have in sports goes away several years after medical transition. According to the NBC article "trans women retain athletic edge after a year of hormone therapy"

(1) "For the Olympic, the elite level, I'd say probably two years is more realistic than one year" - namely, trans people have standard hormone levels if they wait two years after medical transition. "After two years, Roberts told NBC News, 'they were fairly equivalent to cisgender women'".

There were some limitations to the Roberts study, but there's also a 2015 Harper study backing this up.

(3) Joanna Harper, a medical physicist in Portland, already ran a study on this. "...found that trans women ran at least 10 percent slower after beginning hormones. And, relatively speaking, they did no better against cisgender female runners than they previously done against cisgender men".

Namely, as long as there's been a medical transition for several years, it's still a totally fair competition.

But laws which ban transgender women from sports have had the incidental effect of allowing for state-sanctioned genital inspections on minors. This sounds fake, right? But in Ohio Republicans have passed a bill which "...has a verification requirement, if someone is 'accused' or 'suspected' of being trans... she must go through evaluations of her external and internal genitalia, testosterone levels and genetic makeup." And believe it or not, they only had one transgender girl who was an athlete in high school. One! This is according to the Ohio Capital Journal's article "GOP passes bill aiming to root out 'suspected' transgender female athletes with genital inspection."

Similarly, Florida has just passed a ban on transgender students in sports in April 2021, with provisions similar to the Ohio law. "A dispute regarding a student's sex shall be resolved by the student's school or institution by requesting that the student provide a health examination... provides for 'routine sports physical examination' of students' reproductive organs, genetic makeup, or testosterone levels." This is according to Changing America, titled "Florida's new ban on transgender students in sports would allow schools to subject minors to genital inspections."

I don't know about you, but as someone who has enjoyed track, swim team, and basketball all through educational institutions- I don't want the government in my pants.

Beyond the creepy implications of the state demanding invasive inspections on literal children, this also goes back to the point I made on bathrooms above- that when we take spaces away trans people, we take spaces away from any woman or girl who society deems as presenting too 'masculine'.

As feminists we can absolutely support trans rights without compromising our integrity. And not only can we, we should.

Edited August 24, 2023: I wanted to add a section about the provisions of these bills for literal genital inspections. I regret that it wasn't in the original, but I remembered these articles earlier and thought that it was important to add here.

The other thing I did later the same day was take out the part referencing women like Caster Semenya competing in the Olympics and being removed because of high testosterone levels. Someone has kindly pointed out that these are intersex women, which the original article I had read referred to as cis. I feel that intersex women in athletics deserve their own discussion, and I haven't (a) read enough on the issue or (b) learned enough about the intersex community as a whole to take part.

[duxbelisarius]

Dune At Home: The First Dornish War, Part One

This is a project I've had on the backburner ever since I finished my Military Analysis of the Dance. I mentioned in my analysis of the Velaryon Blockade that I plan to rewrite the Dance series at some point, in light of the research and further reading I've done into the subject of pre-modern warfare. One can look at this new series focused on the First Dornish War as essentially a trial run for the rewrite, but my reasons for analyzing this war in particular go far beyond that.

The First Dornish War was the largest conflict fought by the Seven Kingdoms following unification, while its outcome cast a long shadow over the history of Westeros and the Targaryen Dynasty. There's Rhaenys' death and the affect it has on her family, the recurrent desire of future monarchs to conquer Dorne and succeed where Aegon failed, to say nothing of the way in which the events of the war have influenced and continue to influence the plot of the main ASOIAF books. While F&B only devotes 10 pages to the war as compared to the 200 taken up by the Dance, the importance of the First Dornish War far exceeds it's limited coverage, and we can probably expect to learn more about it in TWOW, ADOS, and the Aegon's Conquest series planned by HBO. This more than justifies analyzing the First Dornish War and the extent to which it is consistent with George's own worldbuilding and what we know about Medieval and Early Modern war.

This first part of the series will assess the Dornish worldbuilding, what information we have about its people, geography, environment and society as a whole. The purpose of doing this is to establish a baseline of what we can know or reasonably infer about Dorne from what the books tell us, which can then be compared to how Dorne is portrayed in F&B during the First Dornish War. I also recommend checking out the Dornish installments of the Politics of the Seven Kingdoms series written by the late Steven Attewell of Race for the Iron Throne; if you want a second opinion or more detail, his series is absolutely worth your while!

Atlas of Ice and Fire estimates that Dorne's size is approximately 328 472 square miles, using a similar process to TWOIAF editor Elio Garcia; this makes Dorne slightly smaller than Pakistan (340 509 square miles) and slightly larger than the former French Indochina (Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, c.290 000 square miles). Atlas estimates a population of c.3 million in Dorne at the time of the ASOIAF series with his calculations again using methods similar to Elio, but the population may easily be lesser or greater than these extrapolations. Unfortunately the demographics of Planetos are a mess at best, and Dorne's population and that of the Seven Kingdoms should in theory be much smaller at the time of the First Dornish War.

ADWD's map of the south and TWOIAF's map of Dorne identify 16 and 17 populated locations in Dorne respectively, excluding Ghaston Grey, the Tower of Joy, Vulture's Roost and the Water Gardens. 7 of these settlements are located in the Red Mountains, aka the Dornish Marches: Starfall, High Hermitage, Blackmont, Skyreach, Kingsgrave, Wyl and Yronwood. Dorne is divided into eastern and western halves south of the mountains, with the eastern half beginning in the hills around the source of the Vaith and Scourge rivers and extending to the Broken Arm, and Dorne's western half comprising mostly desert save for the sulfurous Brimstone River. The aforementioned maps show only two settlements in western Dorne, Sandstone and Hellholt, while the remaining 7-8 settlements are located in Eastern Dorne: Vaith, Salt Shore, Lemonwood, Sunspear, Ghost Hill, Godsgrace, The Tor and Planky Town. All of the settlements in eastern Dorne are located directly beside the Vaith, Scourge and Greenblood Rivers or to the north of them, save for Salt Shore on Dorne's southern coast.

These dispositions reflect what we know about the settlement patterns of Dorne's past from TWOIAF: the majority of the First Men settled in the Greenblood valley or the Red Mountains, with the Daynes, Fowlers and Yronwoods settling in the latter area and the Wades, Shells and many more settling by the former. Only the unnamed Lords of the Wells ventured into the western deserts, and these were a minority. Only with the arrival of the Andals do we know of named houses settling in the west, House Uller and Qorgyle, while the Martells, Allyrions, Jordaynes, Santagars and Vaiths settled in the east along the northern coast and in the river valleys. When the Rhoynar arrived in Dorne and finally settled they mainly stayed in the east near the coast and the river valleys, further cementing the Red Mountains and eastern Dorne as the most populous areas of the country.

The distribution of Dorne's population is also consistent with the information we have about it's geography and climate. George's inspirations for Dorne in this regard were Spain and Palestine, and Morocco also fits the bill, being regions where summers are hot and dry and winters are cool and wet. These areas also have the bulk of their population situated along the coast and in the major river valleys, which is again consistent with George's worldbuilding. More than three-quarters of the land south of the Red Mountains is arid wasteland according to TWOIAF, with the bulk of this land being flat save for the hills at the source of the Greenblood and it's tributaries, and a small mountain range between The Tor and Ghost Hill on Dorne's northern coast. Dorne's southern coast is some 400 leagues/c.1200 miles long according to Rodrick Harlaw, and is largely barren outside of Salt Shore with few sources of fresh water for passing ships to utilize.

It should also come as no surprise that Dorne's population distribution coincides with those areas with an abundance of fresh water, for consumption and agricultural purposes. Eastern Dorne is mostly scrubland with hard, rocky soil that relies heavily upon the Greenblood for irrigation; alongside the Brimstone and Torrentine, the Greenblood is the only river which does not dry up during any season. Potential sources of fresh water in the Red Mountains include the Torrentine and Wyl Rivers as well as an unnamed river that ends near Yronwood, alongside groundwater from wells and rain/meltwater collected from streams, springs and cisterns. Due to the Brimstone being sulfurous, fresh water in western Dorne comes primarily from wells, watering holes and oases.

The result of Dorne's varied geography, climate and population distribution a history of political division and the emergence of Dornish subcultures following Nymeria's wars. The Rhoynar arrived in Dorne less than 700 years before Aegon's Conquest, following the destruction of the Rhoynar Principalities by the Valyrian Freehold, prior to which the First Men and Andals had warred with each other and their Reacher and Stormlord neighbours for millenia. Nymeria and her people spent more than four years in the area of the Summer Sea before arriving in Dorne and allying with Mors Martell, and it took more than a decade to unify the Dornish lands. Four Dornish subcultures emerged in the centuries after the Rhoynar settled, known to us from the ASOIAF books and TWOIAF as the Stoney, Sandy and Salty Dornish, and the Orphans of the Greenblood.

The Orphans have a small population that lives on poleboats in the Greenblood valley and near Planky Town, and retain the language and gods of the Rhoynar, while the Salty Dornish live along the coast and retain some Rhoynar customs but have adopted the common tongue and the Faith of the Seven. The Sandy Dornish live in the deserts and the river valleys, and are closer to the Rhoynar than the Stony Dornish who live in the Red Mountains, some of whom may still practice male-preference primogeniture as opposed to absolute primogeniture. Internal divisions ensured conflict too place within Dorne even after unification, with Nymeria facing two rebellions during her 27 year reign according to TWOIAF. The Yronwoods rebelled several times in the centuries before Aegon's Conquest and supported 3 of the 5 Blackfyre rebellions; following the death of Nymeria's grandson Mors II, his successors the Red Princes (2 of 3 were female) faced further rebellions and sought to suppress the Rhoynar language, driving the Orphans to speak their mother tongue in secret only.

Other aspects of Dorne's worldbuilding will be discussed in greater detail in subsequent installments, but for now I believe this is a solid baseline for us to use. Similar to my analysis of the Velaryon Blockade, I'm going to offer my potential fix-its or improvements now as opposed to saving them all for a conclusion like I did with the Dance series. I think this is process is better based on the feedback I received for the Dance, as its better to highlight those aspects that still work and what areas can be made better as opposed to just listing off flaws ad nauseum. Although not perfect, I think that Dorne's worldbuilding is a step up from how the rest of the Seven Kingdoms are portrayed, being on par with the North and Iron Islands in terms of the information we're given about their socities and their cultural diversity. With the exception of the Vale and Riverlands to some extent, Westeros between the Neck and the Dornish Marches tends to blend together; for example, we have little indication of any differences in Westerlands culture between the coast and the Western Hills, or the mining communities and peasant farmers, despite having three major POVs from the Westerlands (Jaime, Cersei, Tyrion).

Dorne's cultural diversity is significant as there should be a greater variety of cultures and languages in Westeros just based on the great distances and different terrain, even among the First Men and Andals. That being said, there is one quibble I have concerning the four Dornish subcultures, specifically the 'Stony' and 'Sandy Dornish.' Rhoynar culture had a strong affinity with water due to their original home in the Rhoyne valley and use of water magic; TWOIAF also states that those who settled in Dorne preferred to live by the sea which had been their home during their wanderings, hence the 'Salty Dornish' culture. It doesn't really follow that the 'Sandy Dornish' should be more like the Rhoynar than the 'Stony' based on this information; if anything the reverse should be the case based on geography and settlement patterns.

Access to the sea is greater in the Red Mountains than the western desert thanks to the mouth of the Torrentine and the western coast of the Sea of Dorne, whereas Dorne's southern coast is mostly uninhabitable. The greater abundance of fertile land and fresh water in the mountains would better accommodate Rhoynar refugees than the more scarce resources of the western deserts; despite TWOIAF's references to water witches making "dry streams flow and deserts bloom," the majority of Dorne's population remains concentrated in the east and the Red Mountains, suggesting these were just legends or that water magic did not significantly improve the habitability of western Dorne.

The way the 'Sandy Dornish' and their culture are described is also contradictory; despite references to their living in the river valleys as well as the deserts, TWOIAF makes it clear that outside the valleys, "men live in different fashion" and describes the 'Sandy' way of life as centered around wells and oasis which support life in the desert. We also know that five of the six kings that Nymeria exiled to the wall were from the Red Mountains: Yorick Yronwood, Vorian Dayne, Garrison Fowler, Benedict Blackmont and Albin Manwoody, with Lucifer Dryland of Hellgate being the outlier. Largescale Rhoynar settlement in the marches should have been a priority for Nymeria in light of the opposition she faced from the lords of the Red Mountains, both to repopulate an area that had seen heavy fighting and ensure that the border of Dorne was settled with people that were personally loyal to her and had arranged marriages with the local houses.

The 'Stony Dornish' should be closer to the Rhoynar than the 'Sandy' on this basis alone, and this could have had interesting implications for the story and worldbuilding. Given the significant presence of the Andals in the western deserts, it would have been interesting to see how this remoteness affected the local development and practice of the Faith of the Seven. Ellaria Sand is a bastard of House Uller who are one of the Andal houses that settled in the desert, though we only get glimpses of her in ASOS, AFFC and ADWD; by having the 'Sandy Dornish' be more distinct, we could have seen how her houses' Andal roots affected her character if at all. Perhaps she would be closer to Tyene Sand due to her training to be a Septa, and Tyene could even instruct Oberyn and Ellaria's four daughters in the Faith? In fact this raises a broader criticism of the Dornish worldbuilding, being how the practice of the Faith in Dorne differs from the rest of the Seven Kingdoms. TWOIAF mentions that the more liberal sexual morays of the Rhoynar clashed with the teachings of the Faith, but is the Dornish Faith deemed schismatic? Were there any conflicts with the Faith hierarchy? This is a subject that would be worth exploring since the in-universe author of TWOIAF, Maester Yandel, insists that the Andals learned ironworking from the Rhoynar and that there were relations between the two peoples prior to the Andal migrations. Did Rhoynar beliefs affect the development of the Faith in Essos and vice-versa, and did this have any affect on the adopting of the Faith by the Rhoynar that settled in Dorne?

We're going to cover more issues with the worldbuilding of Dorne once we start discussing the First Dornish War itself, but for now these are the extent of my issues as concerns the foundational worldbuilding. I believe George did a solid job of constructing it despite some flaws, and that greater issues mainly arise when trying to square this portrayal of Dorne with what we're shown in the Dornish Wars.

[yumekittyships]

♡ an in depth analysis on floch forster's character ♡

{ very tired of people treating floch like a fascist nxzi, so i have decided to write this. please note that i am not agreeing with the things he did. this is an examination and analysis of a fictional, non-existent character. you do not have to agree with me, but please keep any hateful or unkind comments to yourself! }

- First and foremost, I'd like to address how I feel that Floch reached the point of the man he'd become in the events of the final season. I'd like to note that, when the events of the final battle at shiganshina happened, Floch was only 15. In addition, he is the ONLY person from that mission that lived to remember Erwin's final speech. It's also important to note that Erwin is not meant to be a good person. He is written as a man who sends child soldiers to their deaths on suicide missions for "the greater good". This is not an attack on Erwin's character, but I firmly believe that this detail is important in Floch's development.

- Now, I'd like to touch on Erwin's character a bit. Anyone who knows Attack On Titan knows that it is a story that is not meant to paint any one side as good or bad. The moral grounds of any given character are more or less very grey, and open to interpretation by the viewer. Erwin, despite being a commander, is not meant to be a good person. That said, I'm not saying he is meant to be a bad person either. That is entirely up to viewer discretion. What i will state about Erwin are the facts. He has sent hundreds of soldiers on suicide missions, he has used his soldiers as bait, he is 100% the type of man that treats his soldiers as sacrificial lambs for a greater cause. Commander Erwin can be viewed as an island devil with justifiable reason. I believe that this is what Floch saw him as.

- Now, before anyone gets mad and says Floch never thought Erwin was a devil, I encourage you to continue reading and/or give Floch's arc a rewatch. He and his comrades learned of the Marleyans, and learned how lowly they thought of Eldians. He learned that Marleyans viewed Eldians as "filthy island devils". This is where Erwin's influence comes into play. The final battle at shiganshina was a MASSIVE turning point for Floch, because it was likely the single most traumatizing and life changing thing he had ever experienced. He was the singular, sole survivor, having watched every last one of his comrades AND his commander die at the hands of one of the Marleyans. Now I will leave Erwin's speech here for reference.

Everything that you thought had meaning: every hope, dream, or moment of happiness. None of it matters as you lie bleeding out on the battlefield. None of it changes what a speeding rock does to a body, we all die. But does that mean our lives are meaningless? Does that mean that there was no point in our being born? Would you say that of our slain comrades? What about their lives? Were they meaningless?... They were not! Their memory serves as an example to us all! The courageous fallen! The anguished fallen! Their lives have meaning because we the living refuse to forget them! And as we ride to certain death, we trust our successors to do the same for us! Because my soldiers do not buckle or yield when faced with the cruelty of this world! My soldiers push forward! My soldiers scream out! My soldiers RAAAAAGE!

- These final words are something Floch carries with him, and even references later on in the show iirc. Even later during Erwin's memorial service, Floch says something along the lines of "I know I'm just titan fodder, that my life is meaningless,". This shows how much Erwin, and his time as a solider affected him. He has internalized the belief that he is an expendable body in the field, that it is his duty to die for the cause. Floch decides later on that the cause worth dying for is protecting Eldia, at ANY cost. He does not have any regard for the lives that will be lost, because he has been taught and shown that death is inevitable, and has internalized the belief that everyone must sacrifice themselves for the greater good. If not everyone, then at least himself. This is proven by his sheer resilience and the way he fought until the bitter end, even knowing he wouldn't make it out alive.

- Why did Floch choose to become a yeagerist instead of being part of the alliance? That much is simple. We can assume from canon interactions between him and Eren that the two were close when it came down to the final years before the rumbling. Not necessarily close as friends, but as comrades. We can also assume that Eren passed on his beliefs to Floch, that Eldia would fall if it did not defend itself against Marley. I believe it's during this time that Floch decides that, in order to save Eldia, he must become the devil that the Marleyans say he is. This belief is only solidified by looking back at Erwin, and the sacrifices he made, the soldiers he sent to their deaths, all for the sake of Eldia's future.

- Floch grew to be ruthless towards the enemy and anyone who stood in his way, because in his eyes, it was the only way to save Paradis from falling into a sea of blood. He believed that Paradis NEEDED to become the devils they were perceived as, because if they didn't, they would all die. In his eyes, it was either "submit and die, or become the devil and win". He was willing to sacrifice anyone and anything if it meant fighting for his home. While it's not canon that Eren manipulated Floch, it can certainly be perceived that way. Whether Eren manipulated him or not, there is no denying that Floch was heavily influenced by Eren. This was not because of some personal bond or connection, this is because Floch viewed Eren as a savior for Eldia. He believed that Eren's plan to start the rumbling was the only way to save Paradis, even if it meant killing everyone else. Because to him, everyone outside the walls was an enemy. In Floch's eyes, this was a fair sacrifice if it meant a safe and sound future for Eldia.

- Now, once again, I am not telling you that Floch's way of thinking was correct or justified. This is an analysis of how he reached that point, and why he did what he did. I may have missed some things, so if I did, feel free to let me know.