#i watched beaujes grow organically

[fiovske]

plus, in my opinion, I feel like ever since the hiatus, every beauyasha interaction has been... idk, moments like carrying beau; and yasha taking her on a maiden flight... feels like rushing to the climax to something that is absent space, something that wasn't set up quite as well as it should have been, it doesn't feel earned in the sense that "transferrable" isn't really what feels "the non-comparable, nothing like beau's ever felt before" loving your best friend to loving a completely different woman in almost every aspect should feel like. it feels like an insult to both jes and yasha as characters, as if they are just... interchangeable? which is Not A Good Look To Have.

as a lesbian beau is often seen as this predatory by fandom which just Wants Her Out Of The Way so they can pair off Jes with either of the other two men who are romantically interested in her and use beauyasha even as a background/underdeveloped relationship to Pair Off The Lesbians so neither of them are a threat to their m/f pairing. I would even argue that Yasha and Jester are emotionally closer than Beau and Yasha are, and Yasha catching a falling Jes and taking her on a maiden flight or Yasha carrying an exhausted Jes would've felt more satisfying, a better payoff because there is depth to the relationship already built there through character interactions.. which isn't just fanon-interpretation of their relationship but closeness that exists in acts of love both jes and yasha perform for each other, see it as platonic or romantic, however you will.

whereas, with the comments of "she is sparkly and shiny" and "easy to lust", I imagine some thought was put into how beau would move on, since I speculate the cast would have had a conversation w which romance to advance w and ashley and marisha decided to go forward w beauyasha which is completely fine and all good, but the closere to beaujes could have been, "I had never experienced a strong platonic relationship w women before... so it was hard for me to distinguish where that line was. I still love jes, I do. but... maybe not in the way I thought I did. love can come in all forms and the idea that my feelings have a chance to be reciprocated actually make me want to pursue yasha, but this doesn't mean I love jes any less. I just love her differently. and will always want what's best for her, she's my best friend. I still care tons for her, even if I initially let myself into thinking the love I have for her is... not the same kind of love... as what I feel for yasha." that way I feel it wouldn't have felt as invalidating as it did with the "easy to lust" comment? as a brown wlw south-east asian woc, I have to admit, I have quite an attachment to beau, since beau is also a brown wlw with south-east asian features, the comment plays into harmful stereotypes of not only how lesbians are portrayed as predatory in media, but also how not only brown women but woc in general are caricaturized as more sexual and predatory too... so. it's like taking double damage on a personal level.

and I admit while the dialogue I suggested, still pulls away from beaujester, I also feel like its less... disrespectful? to both yasha and jes? and I won't send any of the cast any kind of commentary on it (and no beaujes shipper has to my knowledge, we're just sad on our own blogs and no self-respecting celebrity is gonna have a Tumblr account dude) bc parasocialness can exist as a two-way street and I refuse to submit to that kind of relationship w the content creators of a show that I watch + the show exists to be criticized/analysed in fandom spaces.

don't we as wlw deserve better? don't we deserve a growing budding relationship between beau and yasha where calling each other "girlfriends" feels... earned more than just playing it off as a joke that I am not even sure was in character? shouldn't beau talk to yasha about trying to get to know her? comment on her harp-playing skills or even talk about how the Hag scene impacted her, or even how Yasha was the first one who walked unflinchingly into the hut at the merest suggestion that Beau might leave. How Yasha has been having these dreams and I feel like there is a lot they can talk about, connect on in a emotional level explicitly instead of constantly passing off the awkwardness they have as "🤷y'know... disaster lesbians🤷". like... sit down. have a conversation in a while. connect.

show, not tell. I argue that the show has felt predominantly different since the hiatus bc suddenly overnight beau's feelings for jes transferred onto yasha the moment they landed on rumblecusp and I just feel like as wlw in media we shouldn't settle for so little as "transferable feelings". wlw rep is not interchangeable. we shouldn't be "grateful" for the scraps we get but ask content creators, who pride themselves on being lgbtq allies, to do better. I think we deserve more, I believe we deserve a better fleshed out romance arc (hey, there's still time) but like I said, all those big events of yasha carrying beau, taking her on a maiden flight... feels it it should be a climax to something.... to absent space, something that isn't sown yet, that isn't really quite there yet. which is part of the reason its... underwhelming. there's a narrative gap there, and using the excuse of "d&d is improv!!! can't expect it all to make sense!!!" undermines how intricately d&d/ttrpgs is a strong method of storytelling.

and beauyashas, this isn't something petty as ship-wars. you also deserves better.

I’m honestly a little baffled as to why WLW Beauyasha shippers aren’t also upset over the handling of Beau’s crush on Jester. I get that they’re probably excited that their ship is looking much more likely to happen, but...

Don’t you love Beau and care about her feelings? Do you really want Beau to just “turn off” her previously established deep feelings without actually resolving them so that she can be with someone else? Doesn’t the “transferable feelings” comment make Beauyasha feel a bit cheap and forced? Aren’t you, as WLW, uncomfortable with a straight woman having her lesbian character brush off her “incomparable” love for Jester as lust?

I love Beaujester, but I will happily enjoy watching Beau and Yasha form the first PC gay relationship in CR—IF it gets the same care and buildup as Beaujester. I want to see Beau drunkenly ramble off a list of things she loves about Yasha with a cheesy line like being her beacon, not struggle to come up with anything more than “there’s something there.”

I want to see Beau and Yasha together because they develop a deep relationship, not just to pair the lesbians. I would think people who actually prefer their relationship to Beaujester would want that too, but instead there’s this pointless ship war going on.

We should really be standing in solidarity of wanting to see well-handled lesbian romance, regardless of which characters end up together. Let’s focus our criticisms on how the cast treat these WLW relationships in comparison to their straight ones, instead of on each other being more invested in different romance tropes.

(Which, by the way, is not the same thing as attacking the cast. No one to my knowledge has actually harassed Marisha over this, and people are allowed to analyze and criticize within fandom spaces—that’s what they’re for.)

We’re used to fighting over table scraps for gay rep. Having another ship block yours usually means that a straight ship is blocking a gay one, so we’re used to being on the defensive. But that’s not what’s happening here. Beau is a lesbian, and no one can take that away. We all love our buff blue girls, so let’s support each other in that love, yeah?

((PS. bashter ftw))

[itcameuponamidnightqueer]

Beaujes prompt? First kiss?

and you stood at your door with your hands on my waist,and you kissed me like you meant it.and i knew that you meant it(that you meant it)

//

“Talk to her,” Fjord says, his words dripping with more than a little frustration.

You roll your eyes and fling a handful of sand back at him.

It’s new, this thing you do together. Caduceus is so good at meditating, so comfortable with being still. But you and Fjord—the son of no one and the daughter of too many—are still struggling with it. He seems very intent on establishing himself as a proper follower of Melora, someone who takes time to consider his role and relationship with his god. Fjord is settling nicely into piety, and you simply need to learn how to exist comfortably inside yourself.

So most mornings you sit together wherever you are, even if it’s just for a few minutes. You have coats and furs when there’s snow, the shelter of trees for rain, boulders to shield against strong winds. No matter the weather, you find time to be calm with each other.

And so you find yourself on a beach in Nicodranas, sitting back-to-back with one of your first friends, watching the sun rise over the ocean. This is your favorite place in the entire world, and only slightly because of the place itself.

Fjord is breaking protocol by speaking but you’re not too bothered; you were itching to move anyway.

“It’s not—it’s stupid,” you mumble. “But I can’t.”

“Beau, if anyone can talk to Jester—and really, anyone can—it’s certainly you.”

“No, I know, but like—” You dig your hands into the sand and clam up, digging as much as you can within your reach until you find a rock. It’s a small one, and you’re too far away from the water to make it in, but you throw it anyway.

“Do you think you’ll ruin your friendship?” Fjord prods.

You’ve thought about that before, when you first told Nott about your crush on Jester. It used to worry you but it doesn’t anymore, not after spending time with Jester afterwards without noticing any changes. Certainly there were changes on your end—feelings sit differently within you once you’ve said them out loud—but Jester was the same, cheery and understanding and so, so bright. She relaxed you immediately even if she didn’t know she was doing it.

“No,” you finally reply. “But it’s like—remember how Yasha was once we got her back? Like, how it just seemed like she was waiting for one of us to beat her up and she kind of flinched whenever we smiled? It’s like that.”

“I don’t follow.”

You sigh. “Whatever she feels, Jester is going to be so nice about it, and I—I can’t handle that, man.”

“So you’re just going to suffer in silence?”

“What are you guys talking about?” Jester yells, and you’re more startled than you should be. You whip around to see that she’s maybe thirty feet away, smiling and carrying a plate of donuts.

You elbow Fjord as hard as you can without Jester noticing. “You couldn’t warn me she was coming?” you hiss. “I’m gonna make you suffer.”

“Oh, I’m quaking in my boots,” Fjord responds monotonously. But you feel him rubbing his side, and you’re soothed.

You get up and dust off your pants, walking over to Jester to take the plate from her hands. “Nothing, Jes,” you say with a smile. “Just meditating.”

“Okay.” She hugs you, squishes in closer the way she does when she’s cold and wants to steal your warmth. You can’t fight a smile even as you roll your eyes, hugging back with the hand not holding the plate. As she pulls away she presses a kiss to your cheek, leaving behind a few sugar crystals; you wonder if maybe that was closer to the corner of your mouth than she intended.

“Uh…”

“Good morning, Beau!” she chirps. 

“Yeah, mornin’.”

Jester hugs Fjord with the same enthusiasm; he gives you a very deliberate look over Jester’s shoulder and you furiously shake your head.

“Are you guys about to work out or can we eat a big sugary breakfast?”

You should say no. You should stick to your training. Your body is your weapon and you can’t run the risk of letting it malfunction.

Your father and the monks trained you to be hard—for Jester, you will endure sentiment and sweetness.

“We can take a day off, I guess.”

Fjord quickly pumps his fist as the three of you sit down, plate of breakfast pastries in the middle as you all face each other. Jester immediately grabs the biggest one and smiles at you as she takes a bite, her eyes twinkling as if she knows a very good secret.

It takes everything you have not to visibly swoon. From the way Fjord coughs, you think maybe you did anyway.

Fuck, you have to talk to her.

/

But Jester sweeps you up in her energy the same way she always does, pulling you along for the ride and allowing you to forget, even for a few hours, about the part of you that is going to explode one of these days.

Every time you’re in Nicodranas, Jester wants to be outside, to do something fun or show you some special, secret place. But you’re just as happy to stay inside as long as you’re with her, so you don’t mind when it starts to rain and the two of you hole up in her bedroom.

It’s just as chaotic as Jester is, which isn’t a surprise. There are drawings and figurines shoved into drawers and shelves, worn and well-read books piled wherever there’s room. Organized chaos, but chaos nonetheless. You smile to yourself over the next few hours as you imagine Jester at the Cobalt Soul, frustrating every monk who might have tried to rein her in. Not even Dairon has that much patience, you’d wager.

As the afternoon wears on into evening and the rain doesn’t stop, both of you mellow out, setting aside card games and childhood mementos for storytelling. You never had any of this growing up, the kind of bonding that comes at night when people are relaxed and close to each other. You got along with some kids at school but your father was too protective to let you out of the house even for a night. Eventually, your friend group tightened and moved on without you.

You never really missed it until Jester, until you found someone with whom you deserved to share quiet nights.

“Beau?”

Your head bounces a little from where it rests on Jester’s stomach as she speaks. You’re both laying down—Jester vertically, her ankles crossed over each other, and you horizontally, so you can bounce a rubber ball off her wall. Using her as a pillow is just an added bonus, really, and you’re sure she would have suggested it if you hadn’t assumed.

“Hm?”

“We haven’t really talked about, well, about Kamordah, and I totally understand if you don’t want to, I really do, but—we’re best friends, right?”

“‘Course we are.”

“And best friends should be able to say everything to each other, even the hard things.”

You catch the ball and don’t throw it again. “Especially the hard things,” you say, trying very hard to calm your quickening pulse.

“Okay.”

Jester rests her hands near your head, absently tickling your hairline whenever her fingers get close enough.

“What’s up, Jes?”

“Do you think you’ll ever go back?” she asks, tripping over her words.

You crinkle your brows. “What, like to stay? Not a chance.”

“No, no; not to stay. But, family is complicated and I know your dad is a shitbag. He doesn’t deserve you, any part of you, and I wanted to punch him so much…” Jester takes a calming breath or two; you turn your head and look up at her, at the way she consciously works to relax her pursed lips. You can’t help laughing when she catches your eye.

She smiles back and scratches your forehead on purpose this time.

“You would be such a good big sister,” Jester says, her eyes soft and sincere. “You’re so good, Beau—you’re so, so good—and you deserve the chance to give that to someone.”

“What do you think I keep you around for?” you tease.

By the way she looks at you, you think maybe Jester didn’t take it as teasing.

“Right,” she says, laughing halfheartedly. “It’s stupid; I shouldn’t tell you how to feel about your family.” She sits up on her elbows and looks out of the window, sighing when the rain doesn’t stop. “Sorry we’ve been stuck inside all day.”

You hum, just a little noise to show you’re there, that you’re listening. You want to pull her fingers down and tangle them with yours.

“What would you do,” you ask gently, “if you had a sibling?”

“Oh my gosh.” Jester huffs out a large breath; you can practically see the swirl of images and fantasies that must be playing in her mind. “I would teach them so much, like how to steal food from the kitchen or sneak up on Bluud or how to prank Mama’s clients, except I would make sure they were better at it than I was so they wouldn’t get caught.”

“You’d still want to get caught?”

“Well, yah,” Jester says, like it’s the most obvious answer. “If I hadn’t gotten caught, Mama wouldn’t have sent me away and I wouldn’t have found you. It’s like, I guess it’s like you and the Cobalt Soul only with less kidnapping.”

“Mm. Yeah, that’s a good thing to not have in your life.”

“Maybe I wouldn’t have needed the Traveler if I had a sibling,” Jester muses. Maybe the Traveler wouldn’t have needed you, you think, but that’s a conversation for another day.

“That’s okay, though,” she continues. “I found most of this stuff on my own anyway.” She gestures to the knick-knacks that litter the room. “I guess it sounds stupid, when I put it like that. Wanting a sibling just so I can show them pranks.”

“Are you kidding? That’s exactly what siblings are made for.” You sit up and try not to jostle Jester too much. You look around the room, taking stock of all the stolen trinkets and homemade crafts. “Here, okay.” You stand and reach for a music box on Jester’s bedside table. “This? This is the coolest fucking thing I’ve ever seen.”

You cross the room and reach for a figurine on top of Jester’s bookcase that seems to be made of dried fruit and noodles. “This?” you say, pointing to it with an exaggerated finger. “Also the coolest fucking thing. And this?” You reach for a small ceramic owlbear, holding it between two knuckles as the noodle-man rests in your palm. “Absolutely fucking rad. This whole room is full of memories, Jes. Even if you only wanted a sibling just to share this stuff….what a gift, man. There’s like—” You flip the owlbear into the air and catch it on the back of your hand. “I could spend a whole day in here, just to listen to you tell me the stories of how you got all these things.”

You shove your hands in your pockets and look around at the piles and stacks of brightly colored novelties. Something buzzes inside your chest, a forgotten yearning. “Maybe I will go back again,” you mutter, mostly to yourself.

But Jester is waiting for you when you turn back around. She’s standing so close you’re not sure how you didn’t hear her sneaking up on you.

“Do you mean that?” she whispers. Your face falls at the heaviness in her cheeks, the worry and wet in her eyes.

“What, about Kamordah? I dunno,” you shrug. “Not for my parents, but TJ—”

“No.” Jester shakes her head. “No, not Kamordah. About—about all these stupid things.”

“Oh. Well, yeah.” You rock back on your heels a little. “Nothing’s stupid when it’s yours, Jes.”

She looks at you like she might cry, like she’s carrying entire worlds behind her eyes and they’re on the verge of spilling out. You think about the few people you’ve looked at like that—you wonder, just a little—but no—

Jester kisses you just as you’re trying not to get your hopes up.

It’s clumsy, little more than just a firm press of her lips, but it’s so—Jester is everywhere else, insistent and enveloping. She walks you backwards and your surprised when your back hits her door—surely you were floating a moment ago.

Jester rests her hands on your hips; she’s unsure where to put them, you can tell. You also couldn’t care less, and you wrap your arms around her and kiss her until you run out of breath.

“Fuck, Jes,” you huff, at the same time that she heaves and “Oh my god, Beau.”

Both of you laugh, quiet and special and only for each other. 

“Well.” You lick your lips, cup her cheek and swipe your thumb gently over the bridge of her nose. “We have some things to talk about.”

“Mhm.”

“But maybe, we could nap first?”

Jester smiles and nods, takes your hand and leads you back to her bed. You realize when you lie down that you’re still holding the two toys.

Jester lifts up her covers and waits for you to settle against her. You balance the owlbear and pasta-creature on her stomach and laugh as they immediately fall over.

“I’m gonna fall asleep soon,” you yawn, “but tell me a story first.”

Jester’s voice is just as warm as her arms, and when you sleep, you dream of her.

[mithrilwren]

ok idk if this has been asked yet but #22 for shadowgast or #23 for beaujes?

I finally finished this!! Thank you so much for your patience

soulmate au prompts: the one where once you meet your soulmate, it’s physically uncomfortable to be apart from them for too long.

[also on Ao3!]

1.

Jester doesn’t realize it, at first, that anything has changed.

Her whole body is in pain, everything is in pain, she has never felt pain like this before. She doesn’t think she could bear to again.

Three days in the dark, with manacles around her wrists, a gag in her mouth, and her heart clenching every time she hears a scream ring out from the chamber beyond. Sometimes, it clenches with no reason, an ache in her chest like a scarf wrapped too tight around her heart, and no way left to tell if oxygen is still making it into her lungs. Her fingers have long gone numb.

She thought she heard Beau’s voice, while they were on the cart, crying ‘Molly’ into the open air. In her mind, she cries ‘Traveller’, who has never left her alone before, and when he does not answer, she cries out to the only others who’ve stayed. She cries ‘Molly’, and ‘Caleb’, and ‘Nott’, and ‘Beau’, and doesn’t let herself lose hope, though she doesn’t know how long she can hold onto it.

(Cries ‘Beau’, softer now, as she relearns what it is to sleep alone.)

—

Beau doesn’t realize it, at first, but that’s not really surprising. She had nothing to compare the feeling against.

She’s never had anything like this group before.

(Had never had-)

The squeeze in her chest as she looks over to Jester’s bedroll and finds her blanket empty is disproportionate to the gravity of the situation, at least then, before any of them know what’s happened. Later, she’ll call it a premonition, that aching churn inside of her - not a fortune or a magic trick, but just the inevitability of it all. Like she should have known that this would fall apart.

Molly is dead, and the others are gone, and she never said goodbye to Tori, and thought that was what loss was. She was thrown out of her parents’ house, and thought she knew then, better still.

She didn’t.

She doesn’t know if she’ll live through this, if they don’t-

They have to.

She can’t do this alone.

(Not anymore.)

2.

I’m going to go sleep in my own room.

Jester shrinks back, cheek smarting like she’s been slapped, though Beau is across the table, too far to reach her-

Too far to-

But it’s only one night, right? And- and Yasha will be there. It won’t be the same as waking up next to Beau, but at least she won’t be by herself.

There’s an empty pit in her chest, growing hollower, and Beau is still there so she really shouldn’t feel this bad already, but what if this is the end? What if Beau never wants to room with her again?

(What did she do wrong?)

—

I thought that’s what you wanted.

Of course it’s not what she wanted. Of course it’s not. Beau wants-

Well, she only said it because she thought if she didn’t, then she’d have to hear Jester say the same thing to her. That she wanted a garden room to herself, filled with all the pretty things that Beau can’t provide: luxury, security, a door that latches with a key. Peace and quiet. Something beautiful to wake up to.

(And besides, pain’s always a little easier to bear when you’re the one holding the switch.)

But now Jester’s hurt too, and Beau doesn’t know how to make it right, other than to take back her words, pulling them back inside herself with a new sprinkling of guilt on top. Guess it’s true what her father said: she somehow manages to break everything single thing she touches.

(How’s she supposed to be there for Jester, in all the ways she needs, when she can’t even fix herself?)

3.

Beau doesn’t need to think hard to come up with an offer.

It needs to be a sacrifice, of equal weight to what Nott’s suffered.

It would hurt, to be alone. It would hurt more than anything else she can imagine. But she knows now she could bear it. She can bear a hell of a lot more than she knew. And even if she can’t, well- Nott can’t bear much more either. And it’s better that it’s Beau. It’s better. Then at least, if it’s all got to end sometime, the pain could actually mean something.

She doesn’t look at Jester as she walks into the hag’s cottage. Doesn’t look at anything but her own feet.

At least if it’s only her, nobody else has to feel this way.

—

Beau walks out the door, and says what she offered, and Jester can only think in syllables.

No.

No no no-

No time for thinking. No time to contemplate the way her heart is pulling out of her with every step she takes away from Beau, pleading with her to stay.

If she closes that door, she might not come out alive. She might not survive this, if it all goes wrong.

But if she lets Beau go, Jester doesn’t think she’d survive that either.

She shuts the door before anyone can stop her.

4.

Jester always thought it was strange, that her body should feel so hot inside, when what comes out of her is ice. Tieflings are supposed to burn, but it’s frost that courses in her veins.

And still, she’s always felt warm. Her mother used to tell her so. Even Beau gives her most of her share of the blankets on nights they share a single bed, saying she doesn’t need them with how hot Jester runs.

(Beau never lets Jester close enough to see if her olive skin is just as warm as Jester’s blue, though her feet are always cold in the morning.)

Lots of things in this world are cold. Jester’s magic is cold. The ocean is cold.

Stone is cold.

She watches Beau’s skin turn ashen, that skin that might have been warm go icy and grey, and she freezes too. From her throat to her stomach, any trace of warmth snuffs out, and she is screaming, and she is running, and she is-

—

-glad this is the last thing she sees: a blue lake, and violet eyes, open wide and shining. Beau gets just enough to time to turn her head towards Jester before her neck locks in place, before her vertebrae fuse and her spine becomes one rigid column. She gets to see her, one more time, before everything goes dark.

She’s almost glad, that it’s her chest that petrifies first. By now, she can hardly stand to be out of Jester’s sight - mere minutes before the ache becomes unbearable. She’s not sure her organs could take the pain of saying goodbye with a look, instead of words.

If she has to live forever in a body that will never touch Jester’s again, then at least her heart will hold together. It won’t have a choice.

Her vision fades, and fades, and she sees grey. Grey water, grey eyes, and-

Blue.

So much blue.

The tension releases from her shoulders first, as small hands knead warmth back into her bones, and Jester is here, in front of her, alive and smiling, and as the oil drips down her back and seeps between her ribs Beau’s chest feels-

—

-warm.