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comfortless · 6 months

Note

I already sent you an ask today so hiiii

(Alright so now I hopefully have your attention, imagine: ancient settling, mercenary könig is made prisoner and enslaved and reader, a cute noble girl, buys him to ☆have fun☆. He doesn't mind at all.)

Have a good day!

anon whoever you are… every message that you have sent has been like you putting a clawing animal in my brain. all of these concepts are so good. sorry it took me a bit to get around to this one. <:•)

captured mercenary! König x noblewoman! reader

content/warnings: 18+. minors do not interact. medieval au (so: gender role nonsense), slightly mean slightly pathetic König, very brief mentions of violence/beheading, masturbation.

“That one.”

You hear yourself speak without thought. Your voice is shy, almost. It’s unbecoming of your station to seem so meek… even as you eye the men lined up before you like cattle prepped for slaughter.

Prisoners, they were. All apart from the one you had chosen would be little more than toys for the executioner after what they’ve done: to think that such a little band of mercenaries would even be planning for a siege… ridiculous. Most of the men have already had their hair cut cleanly away from their necks in preparation for the blade that would be slicing past each vertebrae and layer of muscle to chop away their heads.

This one is saved only because he’s been stripped of his armors, and though his face is rather rugged… there’s strength beneath his skin and such a deep misery in his eyes it sets your chest ablaze with pity. He could be useful, a willing servant if you could only save him from what terrible thing haunts him.

Maybe it’s the old wounds that flare his skin with the raised flesh of scar tissue, perhaps it’s the harelip or the wild thing set between his thighs where he’s forced to kneel. It catches your eye, that last one…

The prisoner’s jaw sets when your finger does point his way, blue eyes narrow just a fraction as realization settles in the pit of his stomach. No freedom to be garnered here, no love, nothing but that blade he had intended to use against you sworn to you instead. If the giant spit at your feet then, it would be expected, welcomed almost with the way your chest roars with sympathy.

He only stares.

You pay off his captors with a few silver coins and watch as they lead him bound to your side. His arms are tied too tightly before him, muscles slack with exertion after trying to fight the ropes for what must have been hours. Whether he sees you as savior or something revolting remains unknown. He doesn’t speak, not even as a servant leads him into the back of your carriage and you step inside after him, holding up the middle of your gown as to not sully it with the dirt and old blood splattered over the stones layered for street.

When the horses begin to move you give the man a proper once over, hiding your smile beneath a handkerchief, free hand curled into the lap of your skirts. He’s not just tall and broad, but incredibly well endowed. Not just sad and downtrodden, but pissed, though the only tell remains his shaking fists. His gaze never meets yours for longer than a moment before it settles back to gaze at the passing tall grass and sheep prancing about the fields, but each time that it does… there is no denying the mixture of confusion, maybe even attraction upon his face.

Your home was something this giant had never had a taste of prior to you: a castle atop a hill, charming and stone with its high ramparts and blunt roof. You didn’t need his confirmation in words, though you do ask and get nothing in turn.

The carriage pulls you right through the gate and it is almost cute the way that this man’s eyes seem to wander as he takes it all in. There are other servants tending to the sheep and horses, the smell of fire and the chiming of blade meeting blade ringing out as men spar, there are cats to keep away pests and modest but cozy homes, a tavern, an inn all beyond the wall. A small city of your own: all for the perfect little noblewoman that you were.

The only thing that you lacked was the trained sword of a man to ensure your safety, and now you had that, too.

You explain to him his place here, the role that he would take for the price you paid as you both disembark from the wooden carriage. He would be fitted for armor donning your family’s crest come the morning, whipped into obedience should he dare raise a hand toward any one here. You even think to warn him of the executioner’s sloppy work, how he may even live with his head chopped only halfway off should you request it…. some horror you had heard one of the travelers speak of.

As the weeks pass, König does begin to settle immensely. His speech is disjointed and parsed, his mother tongue muddled with your own language in a way that is cute… terribly, horribly cute.

He’s intelligent and strong: spends much of his time out amongst the lower men aiding with the animals and teaching them the deft way he swings his blade. It is an art form in its own right, the way that he paints the air with swift strokes… For a woman to fawn over a man’s swordplay was absurd, but it was impossible not to enjoy when he taunts and jabs the way that he does.

He rarely wears that armor the blacksmith crafted for him, both a flattery and an insult. You don’t mind watching him best smaller men in solely his trousers, pressing their faces into the muck while he barks his insults to them in words they can not understand. To you, now, when he flashes the most beastly of grins in your direction and utters the words, “Verpiss dich.”

You aren’t even certain why you stand there rather than hissing out orders to have him taken away. Your stupid corset feels too tight, gown too small, and your chest aches. There's not been a thing you could do to have this man do more than simply tolerate you. He sleeps within his own room in the castle, eats his fill and then some, you talk to him and layer your words with praise. He has not once been punished for anything. Not even now.

“Come here,” you demand without thought, walking down the staircase to cross the yard with your hands balled into delicate fists at your sides.

Your giant only looks confused for a moment as he clambers off of the man he’s just wrestled to the earth and rights himself. His eyebrows raise, his nostrils flare… and then he laughs. At you like you’re the most puny of rabbits, hardly a threat. Your betters would have laughed too at just how fragile you sound, on the cusp of tears over what? Some ridiculous little crush on a captive soldier??

He eventually does as you ask, stomping over to stand before you- not kneel, he never knelt. If his height and stature were meant to intimidate… your god would have to forgive the thoughts that muddle your head then, like filthy water as you drink him in.

“Was…?”

So you explain to him as best you can just how insolent he’s being, how horribly he repays your kindness, how he would be dead on some shrouded mountain pass or have his body tossed into the river if not for you. You explain your heart out when tears come to your eyes and spring forth as your chittering continues, and you don’t even know if the moron can understand; he only stands there with the wildest grin on his face when he sees you beginning to sniffle and sob.

“Was?,” he demands again, blunt even as he takes your face into one of his large hands, turns your head to brush a tear from your cheek with the pad of his thumb. “Why are you crying?”

“You need to learn your place!” And you know you’re being a hypocrite, that a proper lady should never allow a man to touch her like this, look at her the way that König does. You should call for a servant to have him dragged through the yard and whipped… or worse, but your voice only comes in a crestfallen whisper.

He shrugs those massive shoulders, rolls his neck and huffs a breath as he gazes down at you before his hand falls to his side and he merely walks away. That’s it.

Though you had the hopes that your warning had been taken seriously, the days following seem even worse.

König abandons his duties and takes up the most horrendous idea of courtship that he can muster. If courtship is even what it could be considered. It is more like a direct taunt, a jab now that he’s been made perfectly aware just how fragile the maiden he was sold to guard is.

He takes liberties once you’ve bedded down each night, your dresses stripped away to be replaced with a plain linen gown with nothing beneath: your only protection in the form of the wooden door between you two because König is no protector.

It always starts with the sound of spitting into his palm, then a drawn out sigh that rises to a near-animalistic groan. Sometimes he speaks, other times the soft, wet sounds rise in tempo until all that comes from his mouth are sharp hisses and whines.

This night proves to be the worst.

The wood creaks under his weight as he leans back against the door, stroking himself to the thought of you behind it. He makes it apparent when he breathes your name, low and shaky as you squeeze your eyes closed and pretend to not hear the words that follow.

“Scheiße… bet you’re tight,” he hisses between his depraved whimpers, the slick sounds increasing even as he rights himself to stand proper. You can almost hear the way he salivates, can almost imagine the way his jaw must fall slack and his eyes go dazed as he pleasures himself… you squeeze your thighs shut.

“Ja… you want it too, huh…” The bastard is most assuredly imagining you, knelt before him with the most helpless, reverent gaze as you plead for him. It should make you ill, yet it only stokes a fire in your belly, one that bridges between rage and need. “Ich will dich ficken…”

Your breath comes to a halt when your hand drifts beneath your thin gown, forcing yourself to listen as he brings himself to ruin in the halls as your finger presses to the spot that demands attention most of all. A fragile, shaking circle before your breath already begins to catch.

“Bitte…”

The brute sounds so helpless now, no longer the horrid thing that ordered you to “piss off” or scowled in your direction. He doesn’t know a thing about love… about how one should yearn for a maiden, only of spilling blood and seed. It’s only in the quiet of the night when the rest of the castle sleeps does he allow himself to be even this vulnerable… only his vulnerability seems even more terrifying.

His groans morph into pitiful sighs as he no doubt slows his motions, drawing out an impending orgasm in the hope that you will crawl to your door to let him in and fuck you rough on your bed.

“Just let me…”

Your thighs tremble as you weep between them in longing. The sooner it’s over the sooner you can close your eyes and drift back to sleep, no longer needing him the way he seems to need you now.

Your motions grow more heady, the patterns traced quicker and more deliberate as the heat rushes down further like the most vast wave of pure fire… When you tense, when your lips part to allow a low murmur of pleasure to slip from them, you’re met with laughter from the other side of the door.

“Ja… my lady… you do want it,” he hums as you draw your covers up and over your head in shame. You hadn’t been that loud, surely… but the way that he follows after, coming undone himself with a loud grunt as though it were some ridiculous competition…

“Let me fuck you next time,” he rasps, panting soft as he leans back. Depraved as he was, you were certain he was probably admiring the pearly paint he left along the stones. “That is my place, hm?”

#könig x reader #konig x reader

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vaokses · 1 month

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I shall be (Pirtir, Ch.3)

Series Masterlist

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Pairing: Aegon x Rhaenyra's Daughter!Reader

Summary: After what you're certain has been the longest dinner you have ever endured, you prepare to retire for bed. You must face the consequence of a secret you once shared when there's a knock on the secret door of your apartments.

Word Count: 5.4k (sorry 😔)

Warnings: Topic of arranged/forced marriage. Usual Targaryen incest stuff.

A/N: This makes a tad more sense if you've read the prologue on Aegon's PoV, "How long this love can hold its breath". I hope you enjoy, and I would love to hear your thoughts on this!

Title is from "I never again shall tell you what I think. I shall be sweet and crafty, soft and sly", by Edna St. Vincent Millay.

After Helaena leaves you by your apartments, you enter and dismiss your handmaidens, unwilling to stand another moment of scrutiny, of performance. They have left the hearth lit and you set out to undo your hair slowly, trying not to remember the last time you stood in this room, sitting by this very hearth as your mother explained to you how you weren’t safe here anymore, how you had no choice but to leave.

It somehow makes the truth of what awaits you more real, that these are the rooms they have decided to assign to you. It makes all of this, the reality of what has happened and what will, more solid, more tangible.

Your thoughts are interrupted, as are your actions, by the faintest clicking sound, as if something is knocking quietly on glass.

You have only recently learned of the secrets of the Keep, after listening too many times to your mother and father reminisce about their encounters over the years, between Daemon’s exiles and wars and returns. You only recently learned of the hidden door in the middle glass window behind the bed, the one where someone is knocking softly right now.

With an impulse so stupid you would believe it beneath you, you approach the door, and quietly open it.

On the other side, the deserted ramparts of the Keep at his back, stands Aegon. When you open the door fully, he offers a small smile, somewhere between daring and apprehensive. A familiar smile.

Your eyes widen, and your next words leave your lips in a hiss, “What are you doing!?”

He shrugs, “I was knocking like an idiot here for a while, whe-…?”

Before he can finish his answer, you have reached for him, fingers grasping at the sleeve of his shirt and pulling him inside before anyone can see him standing at the hour of ghosts outside your rooms.

You step back, startled and confused -and, most of all perhaps, affronted at your own choice, at your own carelessness-, and for a few breaths you seem to merely stare at one another, perhaps equally surprised at finding yourselves here.

You find yourself uncertain on how to move, how to play. Any mask you might find useful to wear now wouldn’t have opened the damn door, wouldn’t have participated in this foolish risk by allowing Aegon to enter you rooms.

A reminder, perhaps to yourself and not him, and you voice, “You shouldn’t be here.”

“I believe I should be saying that,” He comments, defiant glint in his eye, lips pressed into a thin line. “You traveled to every city but this one, visited the seat of every family but this one, in these past two years. I assumed you had decided you would only return to King’s Landing to lay waste to it.”

You aren’t sure why it is he feels he has any right to reproach you for not visiting, or why it is you feel the need to defend yourself, explain the reason behind your absence all these years.

“I traveled only to where I was welcomed.”

If he knows you’re lying, which you doubt, for you doubt he ever cared enough to ask if you were extended an invitation from the Keep, he makes no mention of it.

Silence lingers, and though you know you should ask him why he’s here, tell him to leave, summon the guards, you say nothing. Instead, for what feels like the first time since you arrived, you look at him.

Stupidly, the first thought that comes into your mind, and the one that lingers, that brings to the tip of your tongue questions you know better than to ask, that fills you with the reckless impulse to want to know the story behind it -and each story you’ve missed out on-, is that his hair is shorter.

“We are to be married,” Aegon says. You take a deep breath, and find that you cannot release it. You nod your head instead, wordless. “Have they told you why they agreed to it? My mother, my grandsire?”

“The King, no matter the…state of his body or spirit, can overrule his wife and his Hand.”

“You know it was not my father’s doing. As…happy he seems to be that you would dare resign yourself to a man like me, he didn’t arrange this.”

Years ago, you might have offered an apology he won’t hear from those he deserves it from, you might have crossed the distance between you, you might have offered comfort. Years ago, you might have not turned a blind eye, you might have not looked away.

You turn towards one of the shelves by the hearth -strange, how you still remember it is this wall that first illuminates when the sun rises-, and grab the napkin dragon Helaena gifted you from a nearby table and place it upon the shelf.

Turning back around, you answer the previous question, you offer a safe answer,

“No one tells me much of anything, so I’m afraid I don’t know their reasons. But I could venture a guess.”

A truer answer would be that love for a daughter doomed the Greens, while a daughter’s love granted victory to the Blacks. That in refusing to marry Helaena either to Aegon -to give him heirs, to secure his claim as your mother secured hers- or to someone else -a royal womb, a wife in exchange for an army, for another House sworn to their cause-, Alicent accepted defeat. That in betraying who you were -who you might have been- to allow for the most useful lie to wear your face as if truth, in chasing that safety you believed you would achieve by turning the Realm to your cause, you helped Rhaenyra win her war.

Aegon turns his head to look at the dimming flames of the hearth, a furrow between his brows.

“They refused before.”

“Helaena would have been sent to Driftmark were she to marry Jace, y-…”

“I don’t mean them,” He interrupts. He doesn’t look at you still, finding the dying embers apparently fascinating. His hands twitch, much like his sister’s did before, opening and closing, as if needing to release nervous energy. “I mean you and me. I asked, my mother refused.”

Your stomach does a strange flip, as it does when Vermithor makes a vertical ascent into the clouds. No, not quite like that. It feels more like when he just narrowly avoids a crash against a cliff face when speeding through the clouds over the Stormlands. It feels like that faint moment when Vermithor loses his footing on unstable ground and fails to land.

“What? When?”

“After you left,” He replies. He ventures to look at you, only briefly, and at your questioning look Aegon shrugs and explains, “You wanted to stay.”

That isn’t the explanation he seems to think it is, but doesn’t seem inclined to clarify any further. And you aren’t sure you want him to, because an echo of a promise you once made -when you were younger, and the world was smaller- is getting louder.

Instead of asking anything else, you remind him, and yourself, of the war that loomed over this family.

“When we left, Aemond didn’t have Vhagar, and my bond with Vermithor was too new. Now…there haven’t been so many grown dragons with riders since King Jaehaerys’ reign,” You point out. “Your mother understands now, as I hope the rest do, that if a war for the Iron Throne is to be waged, there will be naught but ash and charred stone to rule over once it’s won. Destruction is assured, mutual destruction.”

“And you are here as…what? A sacrificial lamb to prevent bloodshed?”

You look at him, and with more impulsivity than you should allow yourself, you answer plainly,

“Baaa,” Dumbfounded, Aegon blinks, once, twice, before a smile lights up his expression. His shoulders shake lightly with laughter, and you find yourself smiling in kind. And relentless, like a weed you couldn’t pull from its root and now regrows, is that impulse from your youth, that familiar warmth in your chest and in your cheeks at being the one to make him laugh. “I gather it depends on who you ask. I’m sure many would see me a herald of doom and not a sacrificial goat.”

“Lamb,” He corrects, pointlessly, aimlessly. Silence lingers, and a few breaths after, he presses, “Is that why you are here, then? For…for the future of the family? You didn’t want to leave in the first place. I thought…”

When it seems he cares not to continue his sentence, you clarify,

“It was once my home, it’s true, but I…no longer recognize it,” You admit, with more honesty than you should allow yourself, perhaps. From your window you can see the Dragonpit. When you were children you would go there so often, and though the trip had to be made on carriage, in between jests and games, or sleeping in your mother’s lap, it seemed such a quick trip, such a short distance. “It all seemed so much smaller, before. Easier.”

You shake yourself from this foolish nostalgia, and return your attention to the present, to the inside of this room. You return your attention, and your gaze, to Aegon, who still stands there, almost awkwardly, in the middle of the room.

“Wine?” He asks, faintly moving back and forth on the balls of his feet, a jarringly nervous, almost childish, gesture. You do not understand the part of you that finds it endearing.

“No, thank you.”

“I would like some.” He states, but makes no move to pour himself a glass. Instead, he merely looks at you, expectant, eyebrows raised and smile a taunt.

With a deep breath, refusing to let him anger you as easily as he would when you were younger, you acquiesce, and turn your back to pour him a cup of wine.

“I-…They told me you wanted me,” Aegon confesses, the last two words stumbling on an eager tongue. You keep your attention on pouring the wine, and keep your back turned to him, somehow knowing it is while you aren’t looking that he speaks freely. “I was told you chose me.”

You finish pouring a cup -and one for yourself, for you gather this won’t be an easy conversation-, and turn to face him. Aegon stands tall, head held high, and yet you look at him and think only of someone trying to hide, itching to curl in on themselves, make themselves smaller.

His expression struggles for the same control he demands from his body, eyes guarded, jaw set tight.

Not unlike the first time you approached Vermithor, you find yourself waiting for his next move, awaiting a signal to follow, an opening for you to act.

And yet he doesn’t move. You aren’t sure if he is expecting you to, but regardless, you follow his example and hold your ground. Extending your arm, you offer the drink, but he makes no move to accept it.

“Was it a lie?” Aegon asks, quietly.

Something within you is begging you to admit the truth, to say yes. A part of you wishes to risk ruin the very purpose you serve being here, bring forth further division if you must; if that means getting to start the life that begins once you marry with no lies, with your true face.

But you have been a liar far longer than you have been anything else. You weren’t allowed to train with a sword and shield, you have been sent to roam unfamiliar halls and live with unfamiliar faces, you have been parted from your protector as Vermithor retreats to the outskirts of the city. You are alone, with no weapon and no dragon.

You have nothing but teeth and nails and lies, and you have no choice but to put them to use.

“No, it was not a lie,” You tell him, and the surprise he doesn’t bother to hide, the flickering vulnerability you doubt he could hide even if he wanted, that part his lips for a breath and bring a momentary tremble to this brow; they make that part of you wish to offer an apology. The closest you can offer to one is a half-truth, “If I am to marry, I would have it be you I take as a husband.”

And in the blink of an eye, Aegon retreats, cautious again. It feels entirely too close to failure, to deficiency, to let him take from you your advantage like this, because you let a face you don’t wear any longer decide on the words to leave your lips.

Petulant, he corrects, “That isn’t what I asked.”

And now he does approach, taking the goblet from your outstretched hand and downing half the wine in one gulp. You follow him with your gaze as he walks past you to sit in one of the lounges by the hearth.

“Is it not enough?”

He answers with a smile, somewhere between bitter and resigned. The smile hasn’t yet fully curved at his lips when it has already fallen leaving in place an expression torn somewhere between uncertainty and a reckless kind of longing.

You are a Velaryon in name alone, this everyone knows. You are not salt and sea, but even you know the mightiest of vessels can be brought down to the depths by a single crack, a single leak -a single leak, that allows the ocean a way in, a way to reclaim what it deems hers-. Perhaps that is why it is so easy for you then, to take a step back, the beginnings of a frown furrowing at your brow, the faintest movement of your head as you deny his unspoken admission, as you refuse hearing the ever-louder echo of a past long gone.

You were barely more than children, with no understanding of the world or what it would ask of you -of either of you-, when you made the foolish promises you did. It was a folly of youth, and while nostalgia does often cloud your gaze and leaves a faint stinging in your eyes in its wake, you understand, as he should, as he must, that that is all it was.

But doubt creeps in, saltwater through a crack in the hull of a ship, for you understand now, that whatever you had and forsaken, whatever you have made yourself forget, Aegon has kept, and remembered.

How could he, after all this time? How dare he, after all that has and all that hasn’t happened?

You once were naïve enough to think love might prevail over war, but you knew nothing of either. Now, you know better, now you see things as they are, as they were.

And still, something like regret pulls at your chest, something like a dead hope digs under your skin. Foolish, reckless. You tell yourself to take another step back, but you cannot move.

But before you can forget yourself, before you let echoes guide your actions or your voice, Aegon turns away, a humorless and quiet chuckle leaving his lips, his gaze for a moment falling to the cup of wine in his hand before gazing upon the quiet flames of the hearth.

“It is preferable to the alternative, I suppose. My mother wouldn’t forgive me if they had to have my betrothed dragged to the Sept against her will.”

What is expected, what is needed to get the upper hand, is to offer comfort, empty if it must be, that no woman would have to be forced into a marriage with a Targaryen Prince such as him, that the mere idea of a woman not being delighted to be his wife seems impossible to you. A lie, a false promise, anything.

And yet you cannot speak, you cannot move. You will tell yourself later that you were observing, as Lady Mysaria so often reminds you to do while at court.

As if by instinct, an instinct older than your oldest one -you feel robbed of all you learned since you left this place, for a moment, stripped of every instinct your exile imposed upon you and every mask you learned to wear since leaving-, you recite a lesson,

“Betrothals are sacred, in the eyes of any of the Gods. Any daughter, any loyal daughter, would sooner die than dishonor one.”

A groan answers your words, mocking.

“Don’t you tire of it?” Aegon asks, drawing you away from your own thoughts that seem intent on chasing themselves in circles. His head tilts to the side as he considers you and your silence, before he answers his own question with a humorless scoff. “But there’s no reason you would, really. It has always come easy to you, you just-…it’s easy for you.”

“What is?”

“Perfection,” He blurts out, before shrugging one shoulder defensively. He takes yet another sip of wine, and seems to laugh at a joke only he hears before he says, “The Realm’s Delight’s first and only daughter, as Valyrian as the ones in the histories. Rider of a dragon second only to Vhagar. So famed for your grace and beauty you might as well be the Maiden herself.”

Your brow furrows and your eyes narrow.

“Is this your attempt at an insult?”

“In all these years, not one story about a mistake. Not once I heard about you stepping out of line.”

“Court gossip rarely cares about daughters. I was never relevant enough to be gossiped about.”

“You are your mother’s heir. If she ascends the throne, you are to be Queen of the Seven Kingdoms after her,” He insists, lifting a finger off the goblet to aim it in your direction in accusation. At your answering silence, Aegon smiles, humorless and a tad mad, and after a sip from his drink starts again, “If she doesn’t, you still might be, now that you are to be my wife.”

“You speak of treas-…”

He interrupts you with an exasperated groan, letting his head lull backwards on the chair.

“Oh, don’t start. You shouldn’t take me seriously,” He advises, lifting the cup in a mock toast to his self-pity before adding, “No one does.”

“Yet many would have you and not my mother sit the Iron Throne.” You admit, not thinking twice about walking to the hearth and taking the seat by his.

In your mind lingers the thought, the reprimand, that you should know better than to do this, to say this. With lies and charm you’ve learned over time to loosen people’s defenses, to bring forth truth from them, and it does not surprise you that Aegon makes it frighteningly easy, still driven by a reckless kind of honestly -or a helpless one perhaps, truths escaping him like sand between his fingers-, still leaving himself exposed. And you should know better than to allow him to bring forth in you the same kind of carelessness.

You keep your attention on the flickering flames, and notice out of the corner of your eye that he has seemed to move closer and is watching you with some strange glint in his eyes. You turn your head to look at him, a question written in your own gaze.

He motions you closer, as if about to tell you a secret, and foolishly, you oblige.

“It’s because my cock is bigger than your mother’s.”

You lean back with a scoff that he only grins at. That, that is entirely becoming of the boy you remember from your youth.

“By the Gods.” You mutter, false disgust attempting to mask something childish, something like laughter. He leans back, stupidly proud at having caught you off-guard, and you furrow your lips to hide a smile.

“You still make the same face when you get ruffled.”

“I do not get ruffled,” You argue, “I am merely appalled at your…your vulgarity.”

He shrugs.

“You let me in.”

“I-…shut up.”

He laughs again, and you shake your head, looking away.

“Do you wish for me to leave?” He asks, and something gives you certainty that he will obey if you say you do. Which you should, for it is beyond inappropriate for a maiden to allow a man into her private apartments, not to mention unbecoming of your mother’s heir to wish for the company of the largest threat to her claim.

You cannot tell the truth, duty binds your lips with precise stitching; but you cannot lie, for in the quiet of it all the world seems smaller again, easier to handle.

And for those few breaths of silence, you think this is the most honest you’ve been tonight.

When you first arrived in Dragonstone, it was to you as wild and foreign as it must have been for your ancestors when they first reached the island; and like them, you too were escaping, fleeing from what you were promised was certain doom.

You were asked to call that place home, and yet you were not taught the layout of the castle or its surroundings, you were not taken sailing between Dragonstone and Driftmark by Laenor as your brothers were, you were not shown the path into the Dragonmont and into Vermithor’s lair, no. You were asked to call that place home, but Lady Mysaria sat with you on that balcony that looks in the direction of King’s Landing -on that same spot where you said goodbye to her a mere day ago-, and she told you that a home is a lie and a heart a shackle, and she promised to teach you to survive as a woman in a world of men.

You were taught to lie, to mask what you felt and what you thought, and to offer instead of the truth what was most agreeable, most useful. It was an easy lesson to assimilate, almost an instinct you were merely reminded of and not taught, and you dread to think of what that makes of you.

What was most useful then, what kept you safe then, what was needed from you then, was being a loyal daughter, with no ties to anywhere beyond her mother’s home, with no bond to anyone beyond the safety of her family. And so that is what you became.

You made yourself forget the world and the life that was before, the girl you adored and the boy that in another life you might have loved. More importantly, perhaps, you made yourself forget what could have been, what would never be.

You could not, not entirely, because there’s a box of dead bugs in your room that you meant to send to Helaena and yet you never did, and there’s a feeling you weren’t allowed to voice but you couldn’t swallow, and so some words remained stuck in your throat for over three years; but you tried.

You tried, you tried with everything that you are to forget about it all, to believe the tales you told others about the fickleness of youth, but now you’re back here and memories are not so easy to push away -and there’s a napkin dragon in your shelf and warmth in your chest as you sit beside Aegon-, and the words unsaid tighten your throat at each lie you attempt to tell, each mask you attempt to wear.

But there’s safety in the lies, in the masks. Anywhere in the world, be it Dragonstone or the seat of some House or another, you can wear a mask. Anywhere in the world, alone or surrounded, you can protect yourself with lies.

And you cling to them, even now, especially now.

“I-…you should leave,” You say, but then remind yourself that there is no room for mistakes. For half-truths, or half-lies. So you correct yourself, “I want you to leave.”

To your surprise, and to the dismay of a part of you the long night and the even longer absence make difficult to force down now, he obeys.

___

It is only you, the Queen, and her handmaidens in the room as you sit together for tea, and you are eyeing the window behind her as Alicent attempts to entertain you with talk about the wedding preparations. That the guests from the Reach are to arrive earlier than expected, that the Lord Hand has called for a septon from Oldtown to perform the rites, that the eldest son of Lord Tyrell has sent you a crate of hippocras as a betrothal gift.

You can only sit in silence and listen, listen and linger in the realization, horrifying and painful, that these celebrations are months in the planning. The realization that while you were travelling the realm in service of your House and your mother, foolishly believing you were free to choose a husband or not choose one at all, your choices were being stolen from you.

“I was younger than you when I married,” The Queen comments. “I would have never imagined you would remain unmarried for so long.”

You care not for polite conversation, nor any games. With a deep breath, you finally take your eyes off that window and blurt out,

“You advised me and Helaena, when we were children, that if the men were to ever come to take us away, we should ask our dragons to unleash dragonfire on them, or on ourselves,” There’s something quite close to horror in her expression, in her widened eyes and parted lips, when she looks upon you. “Does it truly surprise you, that we understand the…the gravity of marriage?”

The Queen is quiet for a few breaths, returning her attention to her plate and busying herself and her hands by cutting open a biscuit. The silence is starting to become uncomfortable when the Queen clears her throat and speaks again, voice tight, hoarse, “You remember.”

“Should I not, Your Grace?”

She scarred you, with her grief, her grief for two girls that weren’t yet dead, that hadn’t gotten yet a chance to be alive. She scarred you and in doing so she taught you; she taught you much more than your mother ever could.

Many times, Rhaenyra spoke with you about the life and death of her mother, and what fear she had for motherhood, how it was for many years a death sentence in her eyes. But her admissions were always followed by a soft, loving smile, by her hand grasping at yours, and the promise that her fears pale in the love she has for you and your brothers.

Alicent never made such promises, such assurances.

“I was…not myself. You needn’t heed the advice I gave that night.”

She was drunk, and tired, and angry; but neither of those things made her any less herself, nor her words any less honest. Of course, she won’t admit that.

You want to call her out on her lie, for you remember that night, and you remember well. You remember that when you told her you had no dragon, for Vermithor was still asleep and unknown to you and the egg placed in your cradle never hatched, Alicent merely looked at you with rage and sorrow over a decade old and replied, neither did I.

You were children, you were foolish and naïve children, and the next morning Helaena asked for you to accompany her to the Dragonpit, and tried to explain to Dreamfyre why she had to obey you if you ever came to her and commanded dracarys.

“It was advice I valued then and now.” You admit, finding her gaze and offering the faintest of smiles.

“It…gladdens me to hear that then, Princess.”

“Advice my aunt must value as well, for she remains unmarried.”

It is a provocation, and a careless one at that. You knew that before you voiced it, but you trusted the Queen not to falter. And she does not disappoint.

She drops the knife, and the noise of it hitting the plate rings in your ears. For a moment gone as quickly as it began, as if a compulsion she has tried to bury, the Queen lets her nails dig at the skin of her thumbs.

“I resented my husband, for many years, for allowing his daughter the liberties he did, for turning a blind eye the way he did,” She admits, and there’s that tone in her voice again, the tone of that night, tangled in anger and helplessness and regret. Now there’s shame, in the bow of her head, in the restless movements of her fingers. “And yet…my girl, I couldn’t-…”

“I would venture to guess many have vied for her hand in these passing years?”

“My father would have her married and shipped off somewhere far in exchange for an alliance, but…she wishes not to,” She looks at you then, lifts her warm gaze to yours. You’ve seen that look in your mother’s eyes before, you’ve seen it in Mysaria’s, in Rhaenys’. You realize now, with horrifying certainty, how fortunate you are that you haven’t seen that look in Baela’s or Rhaena’s eyes, or in Helaena’s. Alicent gestures with her hand aimlessly, to the nothing and the everything around you. “What use is there for all this, for any of it, if I cannot protect her?”

“I cannot speak on a mother’s duty or choices,” You say, and though you wish it would, it is not a mask like the one you presented to your grandsire last night, telling him what he wants to hear while you grit your teeth at what leaves your lips, no. It is the closest to truth you can offer. “But I am very glad to see her contented, happy even.”

The closest to truth you can offer, without revealing something wrong, something rotten. Like envy, like jealousy.

But you gather the Queen hears it regardless, for she sighs, and adds, “Which she achieved by remaining unmarried.”

You hear the words she doesn’t say, you see something like regret in her warm eyes, and stupidly, some part of you still the child that brought a sweet pastry to the Queen after finding her heaving panicked breaths and paler than a ghost, you want to reassure her, to accept the apology she doesn’t voice.

But Alicent starts again, composed again, distant again,

“You are a woman grown now. I trust in time you will learn to…handle Aegon, guide him. You must a-…”

You know where this is going. You just want one conversation where you aren’t asked to do something for someone, where you aren’t reminded of what is expected from you. One.

You stand from the table with a scoff, walking away and towards the window, “I am not a shepherd, and your son no sheep.”

“I only mean to help you.”

“I do not recall asking for help, Your Grace.”

The Queen joins her hands before her, head held high, back straight. A picture of a woman’s role, a woman’s duty. You look away and instead look out the window.

“You valued advice I gave before, and I ask you to do so again. I only mean to make this easier for you, child.”

She doesn’t wait for an answer and knows better than to press for one. Instead she murmurs your title and your name as a goodbye, not waiting for a returned goodbye of Your Grace or a gesture of your own, before turning around and moving to leave the room.

“You lied to him,” You blurt out, an accusation you are risking much if it ends up being wrong. When the Queen turns to look at you, you force yourself to hold your place, force your hands to remain in place even when you want to cross your arms, force your eyes to look at her even though a part of you fears her. You push on, “You told Aegon I wanted to marry him.”

Alicent takes a breath, and says nothing for a few beats, expression carefully flat as she regards you.

“Did you admit to him that it was a lie?”

“No.”

The only give she allows is the slight widening of her eyes, surprise but not quite. A breath, two, and the Queen bows her head in goodbye again, though now at her lips curves a smile. Sad, as all her smiles are, but a little defiant also.

Thank you for reading! I hope you liked it!

Though she admitted a little bit to what her stance in regards to the marriage is, the aspect of the lying and especially the lie about choosing him are still the point of this story, and will develop further in the upcoming chapters.

Next Chapter >>

Taglist: @21-princess @mrs-starkgaryen @nymeriiiia

#aegon ii fanfic #aegon targaryen x targaryen!reader #aegon ii x reader #aegon targaryen x reader #aegon x reader #fics by me

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tangents-within-tangents · 1 month

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Hot take:

Crosshair does not have the Imperial disillusionment and redemption arc of The Bad Batch

Emerie does.

Crosshair has an arc for sure yes but it's not that.

I was thinking about this scene:

and how it got right what this scene kinda didn't:

(It was so close but then bad writing decided to undercut the moment with a joke rip)

And I think it's really interesting that these characters who were more or less raised into the Empire/First Order and chose to leave it are all directly asked why.

But take a look at Crosshair's answers in comparison:

Different context for the asking, yes, but still, compare that to clones like Howzer, Cody, Slip and Cade who left or turned against the Empire because they knew what the Empire is doing is wrong and they weren't just going to blindly follow orders:

Crosshair - Loyalty, Purpose, and Survival

Crosshair didn't choose to join the Empire (though the show isn't very clear or consistent about how much control the inhibitor chips have) but he did, for whatever reason, choose to stay. By the end of S1 we know his chip has been removed and as he definitively says "This is who I am." There were likely still other influences on his decision, but listen to how he talks about the Empire in the S1 finale:

Hunter: Crosshair, I've seen what the Empire is doing. Occupying planets and silencing anyone who stands against them. You know it's not right. Crosshair: You still don’t see the bigger picture, but you will. Hunter: Can't you see they're using you?

Crosshair: We’re not like the regs, we never have been. We’re superior. The Empire can’t protect the galaxy without strength, this is what we were made for. Think of all we could do, together!

Crosshair: You all are meant for more than drifting through the galaxy. It’s time to stop running. Join the Empire, and you will have purpose again.

Hunter: They destroyed an entire city! Crosshair: They did what needed to be done. Kamino, regs, the Republic, that time is over. The Empire will control the entire galaxy, and I am going to be a part of it. Hunter: Don't fool yourself. All you'll ever be to them is a number.

He undeniably knows what the Empire is doing, but he does not care. In fact it sure sounds like he actually supports it and finds self-meaning in it. Hunter spends those episodes trying to convince him it's wrong, he doesn't change his mind. In the end they offer him an out and he doesn't take it.

Wrecker: You coming with us? Crosshair: None of this changes anything. Hunter: You offered us a chance, Crosshair. This is yours. Crosshair: I made my decision.

The next we see Crosshair in "The Solitary Clone" (S2:E3) he follows orders and shoots the Desix governor, right after Cody heartbreakingly tries to do what's right and find a peaceful solution.

Cody: Tell me something, Crosshair. This new Empire, are we making the galaxy better? Crosshair: We’re soldiers, we do what needs to be done. Cody: You know what makes us different from battle droids? We make our own decisions, our own choices. And we have to live with them too.

After this (glorious!) conversation, Crosshair stays. Maybe this began to seed some doubts, but he actually smiles a few scenes later when Rampart assigns him another mission. It seems like for him it truly is as he said in S1:E1 (chip not enhanced yet but still influencing him enough for his brothers to notice he's acting strange):

Crosshair: Republic, Empire... what's the difference.

Crosshair: Orders are orders.

This unethical mission that finally pushed Cody over the edge does not change Crosshair's mind about the Empire, at least not enough for him to take action.

But what does?

Mayday: And here we are, the survivors. Combat troopers stuck babysitting cargo shipments. Crosshair: Mission’s a mission. Mayday: Yeah, I used to say the same thing.

Mayday: After all the clones have done, all we’ve sacrificed. We’re good soldiers, we followed orders. And for what?

This mission has nothing to do with how the fascist Empire treats the galaxy, it's about how they treat their soldiers. It's about how Mayday loyally fought and served his whole life and Lieutenant Nolan let him die

Lt Nolan: He served his purpose as a soldier of the Empire. Crosshair: You could have saved him! Lt Nolan: Perhaps you didn’t hear me, he is expendable, as are you.

Crosshair thought he could find purpose within the Empire, and Nolan shows him exactly what that will be.

His turning point is accompanied with this powerful visual of the ice vulture, a symbol (and threat) of death, and also set up within the episode a symbol of survival:

Mayday: Vicious creatures, but you have to admire ‘em. They find a way to survive.

This critical moment (that gives me chills, oof this episode is a masterpiece!) comes right after Nolan calls him expendable and directly threatens him:

Lt Nolan: And if you speak to me again with such disrespect I'll see to it you meet a similar fate, clone.

then Crosshair sees the vulture's shadow and turns to Mayday's dead body (ahh visual storytelling my beloved) then makes his decision:

Crosshair turns against the Empire not because he believes Hunter was right about this:

Hunter: I've seen what the Empire is doing ... You know it's not right.

but because he was right about this:

Hunter: All you'll ever be to them is a number.

Redemption (both in fiction and irl in my humble opinion) comes with making amends and reparations (which is why death 'redemptions' bother me so much but that's a rant for another time). Unlike Emerie, Crosshair never explicitly denounces the Empire or his own actions within it. He never says anything to specifically show if and how his views have changed from what he said on Kamino. He makes amends with his family (sending the warning message, helping Omega escape, making up with Hunter) but that's about it. The most we get in terms of acknowledgement is this:

Crosshair: I thought I knew what I was getting into with the Empire. I thought I was being a good soldier. Hunter: Nobody really understood what was happening back then. Crosshair: I’ve... done things. I’ve made mistakes. Hunter: I have regrets too, Crosshair. All we can do is keep trying to be better, and who knows there just might be hope for us yet.

Which is nice and all but it's more about them making up as brothers so it's way too excusing tbh ("no one knew what was happening back then" ummm? "The Empire will control the entire galaxy, and I am going to be a part of it" remember? And even if at first Crosshair was being controlled by the chip, the fact that he chose to stay after it was removed* means he condones and is therefore still accountable for those actions).

There's also a bit of self-destructive guilt:

Crosshair: Omega, don't risk anything for me. I belong in here.

Crosshair: Omega needs you both. So I’m doing this alone, it’s what I deserve. Hunter: Don’t even think about plan 99, Crosshair. Omega needs all of us.

(which thank you Hunter for pushing back on the death redemption bs and oh look is that a wrap up for the purpose thing?)

But there's no action taken on his part to make up for what he's done or to stand against the Empire (aside from the bare minimum of help with Tantiss, only after it became personally relevant, which like yeah he had trauma to deal with but still).

While I do think the implications/follow-up of Crosshair's turn should have been handled better in S3 (like rip Howzer! he deserved an apology, but that's a rant for another time), I don't necessarily** think this arc is a bad writing choice. It's just saying different things than we expect:

Maybe Crosshair's story is not about standing up against an unjust system, like we see with many other characters (who deserved more screen time but that's a rant for another timeeee). Maybe his story is about how even those who are loyal to the Empire, who actually believe in it, still suffer under and within it's rule. Not to garner sympathy, but to show that there is no winning.

Crosshair has another 'so what changed' convo in S3:E14 with Rampart, in which they draw parallels to each other:

Rampart: You used to believe good soldiers followed orders. Crosshair: Depends on who's giving them. The Empire betrayed us both. Rampart: And you think you can fight them? That's not you. You're like me, loyal to no one but yourself. Crosshair: I've changed.

(note how he says who's giving the orders, not what the orders are)

"Loyal to no one but yourself" describes Rampart much more than Crosshair, since we often saw Crosshair pride himself as a loyal soldier of the Empire whereas we saw Rampart abuse power to be self-serving within the Empire (like when he killed Wilco to save face). But they were both betrayed either way. Vice Admiral Rampart, snively Imperial opportunist through-and-through, shouts "I was following orders!" as he is arrested for the Empire's purposes. (Edit: and where Crosshair rejected the Empire and found new purpose fighting for his family, Rampart was still self-serving in the finale. He still tries to gain power for himself and he gets his comeuppance).

Even Hemlock, the final boss immoral Imperial scientist, who has to be benefiting the most from this system, echoes the expendability idea:

Hemlock: What I am working on is beyond your understanding. Something so vital to the Empire it makes me indispensable.

Then there's CX-2, also set up as a parallel/foil to Crosshair (fight me), who in the end is discarded as no more than a weapon, a tool that served it's purpose, showing us what would have become of Crosshair if he had stayed.

There is no winning in the Empire. Loyalty is not rewarded, it "doesn't go both ways." Everyone has to fight for their value. Even high ranking individuals** who for a time benefit from the injustice, in the end are just pawns to be used up and cast aside at a whim for the Emperor's gain. Even people who are motivated by self-interest alone cannot survive within this system, the only viable option in this galaxy is to fight the Empire and dismantle that system. (unless you conveniently find a magically safe island to hide away on but that's a rAnT fOr AnOtHeR tImE)

Which brings us back to...

Emerie - Cooperation, Compassion, and Choice

(Okay this post has already gotten away from me but I still want to talk about her to show the contrasts.)

Emerie may not have been given a lot of screen time to really flesh out her development, but there is a lot that is pretty clearly implied with her:

Crosshair: They’ll never turn her [Omega] over. Hemlock: They don’t have a choice. She is a clone, and therefore Imperial property. *Camera cuts to an angle more centered on Emerie’s face*

Crosshair: Give me your access card! Emerie: It won’t get you outside!

Emerie: I tried to warn him what would happen if he did not cooperate with the Doctor.

Emerie: Prisoner? Omega, you are no such thing. It will take time to adjust, but you will acclimate. It is far safer in here than out there.

Emerie: You should go back to your room. Crosshair: You mean her cell?

Emerie: Why children? Hemlock: Children are easier to attain and more agreeable to the subjugations. They are unaware of why they are here and what they possess.

Emerie: They're children. Like I was... Was your plan to discard them too? Nala Se: The Empire will keep them in order to control them.

We don't know a lot about Emerie's background, but it's clear that she had a lot less choice than Crosshair and less opportunity or ability to leave. Unlike Crosshair, we never directly hear Emerie's views of the Empire (and she was most likely 'taken under Hemlock's wing' before the Empire even came to power), but lets look at how she talks about the Tantiss:

"Remain calm. Cooperate and you might survive."

"Don't make this worse, Crosshair! There is no escape!"

"All of us serve a purpose here."

"The Doctor will inform me, if it's necessary."

"It's best not to ask questions."

"Escape is not possible, Omega. This is for your own good."

She honestly does the best she can within the system she is also trapped in. She tries to help Crosshair, Omega, and the vault kids in the only way she knows how (warns Crosshair about the hounds and security, tries to protect Omega from Hemlock, tells Scorch his "actions were extreme" with Jax, insists on overseeing Bayrn's retrieval, double checks his m-count (to give him an out), and tries to find out where he came from). When she gives Omega, and later Eva, the doll, I think it shows just how little she really is able to do here (and it's kinda heartbreaking imo).

The framing of this shot especially (after Jax's escape attempt) visually shows how Emerie herself is trapped/imprisoned:

Despite the fact that very little of this is Emerie's fault, she has very little power and she is doing all she can, the narrative does not excuse her role in the Empire:

Nala Se: What will you do, Emerie? Emerie: There is nothing I can do. I don't have that kind of power. Nala Se: Don't you?

Emerie: I- I was doing my job. Echo: Yeah, I’ve heard that before. You’re a clone. How can you be part of this?

These fighting-the-Bystander-Effect conversations parallel these exchanges:

Hunter: We made a choice, and so did you. Crosshair: Soldiers follow orders. Hunter: Blind allegiance makes you a pawn.

Crosshair: We’re soldiers, we do what needs to be done. Cody: You know what makes us different from battle droids? We make our own decisions, our own choices. And we have to live with them too.

which did not change Crosshair's mind. And honestly, all respect to Echo's disappointed mom glare™ but I think it's clear Emerie had already made her decision, she just needed help to actually be able to do anything about it. When she stopped Echo, with her voice wavering on the verge of tears (ahhh v good voice acting), she clearly had no intention of turning him in. She's on her own in the Empire's most secure facility with very little resources, if she had tried anything on her own she most likely would have failed and been killed

Omega: Emerie, you don't have to do this. Emerie: (sigh) I’m sorry, but I do.

but as soon as she is enabled by an ally, she immediately turns around to help: giving information and getting Echo through security, helping the kids escape, and giving Omega the tablet that allows them to free the other clone prisoners.

Where Crosshair's turn is accompanied by the symbolic imagery of the ice vulture, Emerie's is the removal of her (literally rose-tinted!) glasses:

Symbolizing how she has shed her previous views/indoctrination that altered her perception of the Empire and blinded her to it's wrongs. It's disillusionment.

Emerie's story shows us that even those who are raised and indoctrinated into this system can, should, and will escape (with needed help). Even those who did not choose to be apart of the Empire and are not making the decisions still have the responsibility and ability to act on what they know is right.

Emerie, whose name means 'Home strength' 'Brave' and 'Powerful', and "reflects the importance of leadership and authority in the workplace".***

While Emerie is only in one more scene after her turn, so the wrap up is a bit rushed, she still very simply does what Crosshair does not:

Emerie: Because I was wrong about this place. And I'm trying to do the right thing.

Echo: I’m sure Senator Chuchi would find what you have to say very helpful for our cause. Emerie: I have a lot to make up for. I’d like to help out however I can.

She admits wrong, takes accountability, commits to making amends, and leaves with Echo to go take on the Empire (which hopefully we will get to actually see more of some day).

So, in short, she's showing us how redemption is done right!

---

Notes:

*Whether this writing choice was good/logical/in-character or not is another discussion entirely, but I'm going off of what we were given, what the show is presenting in the canon text and (reasonably inferred/intentional) subtext. Crosshair is pretty multifaceted and I could only touch on so much here. There's a lot of ways to interpret his character/choices, but I tried to avoid the realm of speculation or fanon explanations (even if they sometimes make more sense lol).

**History and political theory are not my area of expertise at all, so I have NO idea how well this aligns with real-world fascism stuff and therefore what implications this storytelling choice could have. I think the message of like 'if you think you could survive or gain power by doing what the Empire/fascist system wants you are wrong' could be good (like how everyone is actually harmed by the patriarchy type of a thing), but I hesitate bc maybe there are those who would benefit, since it's a hierarchal system, right? If anyone more knowledgeable than me has incite to share, by all means

Either way, I do think it works in-story and in-universe though. It's just in the execution. The main problem (even from a strictly theme/character arc stand point) is the lacking follow-up/consequences for Crosshair in S3. Like you gave your character accountability by removing the chip and I think that's great setup for an arc but you gotta follow through with that and actually hold him accountable!

***I'm always curious when clones have 'normal' names, like why did they chose the name Emerie of all things? So I looked it up. Idk how reliable sources are for name meanings so take it with a grain of salt but it's still fun. Fits pretty well, and clones names have definitely had significant meanings in the past (like how Rex and Jesse both mean 'king') so I'm pretty sure it was intentional.

Anyway, thanks for coming to my tedtalk

#this fandom has been SLEEPING on Emerie's arc yall!#like look at her I LOVE her #I was kinda neutral about her on the first watch but now i'm realizing just how sad and scary her story is #she's honestly pretty cool and interesting as a character and i do hope we get to see more of her at some point #also the outpost is such good writing ahhh if only the whole show had the same quality #sorry crosshair girlies your blorbo is kinda a fascist?#like we don't judge a character based off who they were/what they said at the BEGINNING of their arc #they have to start somewhere to end up somewhere else #it's how well the writing executes that transition that matters #but also where did he end up? really :/#star wars #the bad batch #tbb analysis #tbb critical #those rants may come we'll see #star wars finn #emerie karr #tbb crosshair #arc trooper echo #captain howzer #commander cody #commander mayday #tbb cx 2 #writing #writing pet peeves #character analysis #redemption arcs

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bnuuygrils · 4 months

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47news interview with Tamifull

Earlier this month Tamifull, the author of Tsukiatte agetemo ii kana? AKA How Do We Relationship?, did an interview with 47news. I've translated the full text below:

Out of the innumerable manga published every year, there are always a few titles that one simply can't afford to miss. Tamifull-sensei's How Do We Relationship? (Shogakukan) is one of these. It's a story of young love and heartbreak, centering on college students Inuzuka Miwa and Sawatari Saeko. Though fiction, it has a powerful sense of reality that leaves one feeling as if the real Miwa and Saeko might just be out there somewhere right now. If Agasawa Tea's Ramparts of Ice (Shueisha) is the pinnacle of high school romance, then How Do We Relationship? is the pinnacle of college romance. With the help of supervising editor Watanabe Saori-san, we were able to secure an interview with Tamifull-sensei to discuss the story--now on its 12th volume, and at the height of its climax.

The story so far:

Soon after starting college, mild-mannered beauty Inuzuka Miwa joins the light music club and finds herself the center of attention from the boys at the welcoming party. Miwa, who "only likes girls", is rescued from the situation by the energetic Saeko. Saeko, who "prefers women (to men)", buoyed by liquid courage, asks Miwa out on the spot and the two begin dating. But the two are clumsy and inexperienced with love, and fail to be fully honest with each other. By the end of the year, their romance has ended in disaster. After maintaining a sex-only relationship for some time they return to being friends and even move on to new partners... Finally, as their respective relationships have both ended, the two look at each other anew, not as lovers, but as exes, and as absolute allies.

47: How Do We Relationship? has a very unusual structure. Shoujo manga tend to portray a dramatic path to the start of the relationship, but Miwa and Saeko begin dating at the very start of volume 1 and break up in volume 4. As we're now on volume 12, they've actually been exes longer than they were together.

Tamifull: Well, it has stretched a little longer than I expected (laughs), but the story is proceeding as planned from the start. I think rather than starting decisively with some sort of "All right, I'm falling in love now!" moment, real love tends to build up out of small things over time. I didn't want the relationships in How Do We Relationship? to start in this exaggerated, romance story kind of way.

47: And that helps with its sense of reality.

Tamifull: I don't believe dating and breaking up are things that we need to think about in such dramatic terms. It's easy to feel like every relationship has to be perfect, or that you need to have some sort of fated encounter, or that breaking up is a bad thing, something hopeless. Why shouldn't there be manga that throws away those stereotypes? Life is so much longer than a single relationship. It keeps going after you start dating someone, or break up with them. I think that's a message that I've consistently tried to tell with this manga.

47: Can you tell us how it got to be serialized?

Tamifull: It started out as a oneshot I did for Comitia (a doujin festival and marketplace in Tokyo) in 2017. Up until then, I had mainly been drawing yuri--manga about relationships between girls. And I wanted to tell a little bit of a different story at that event. Doujinshi are generally about 20 pages, so usually you introduce the main couple, have them confess, and wrap it up right around there. So I thought, what if they're already in a relationship and we watch them break up? I was basically thinking, "why not draw what I want to read!?"

Watanabe: Ashima Yuki-san, one of the first freelance editors, reached out to Tamifull-san then.

47: At the time, yuri was considered a pretty small market. It felt like unless you got into one of the specialized publications you'd have a very hard time, right?

Tamifull: That's true. There are a lot more varied works coming out now. At the time most of these stories were actually aimed at men, so the relationships would stay platonic, or at most they might kiss. I knew stories like that were easier to market and less likely to ruffle feathers, but I found myself thinking, "If we all settle for that, we'll never get to see what happens next! If no one else is drawing it, why shouldn't I?"

47: What did Ashima-san say to you?

Tamifull: She told me, "I've been wanting to read a story where the characters and relationship feel free like this". I do remember thinking it might be more marketable without the eroticism when I was developing it for serialization (laughs). But I ended up just being like, well, let's see what happens!

47: "Realistic" LGBTQ romance stories tend to end up falling into a handful of patterns. Whether it's manga or movies, you see a lot of stories that feel like "the tragedy of same-sex love", or that seem intended to make you feel sorry for the characters. Like the audience is meant to walk away thinking, "How thought-provoking! I really learned something". But How Do We Relationship? is pretty different, isn't it?

Tamifull: Rather than being "yuri" or being viewed as an "LGBTQ story", I want people to get into the story just because they see it and go "Hey, there's girls dating in here!". Sexual minorities aren't here to be instructional materials for anyone. LGBTQ people live in the same world as everyone else. I want the characters to seem like people you might meet anywhere, and to have relationships you might see anywhere. I want the fact that the relationship isn't heterosexual to just be a detail. That's why Watanabe-san and I decided not to advertise How Do We Relationship? specifically as a yuri manga.

47: Achieving that sense of reality must take a lot of care. I imagine you have to be careful to avoid the set phrases and compositions that readers see all the time in romance manga.

Tamifull: That's true. For example, in the scene where Saeko opens up to Mikkun, their male friend, about her dating Miwa, she asks him if he finds the two of them dating "gross, or wrong, or unnatural", and Mikkun, while looking away, asks in return, "What? Do I have to feel that way about you?". The orthodox move would be to have the handsome guy character looking straight out of the page, smoothly delivering some cool line. But in real life we don't have convenient handsome guys just lying around, and you're not usually looking people straight in the eye. It's not that staged. I think the casual nature of the lines, and the casual nature of the situation, actually make it all the more resonant. I want to keep that natural feeling to the story, and I go out of my way to avoid making it feel "romantic". I think my ideal is for it to feel like a movie.

47: A movie?

Tamifull: That's right. I think one of the strengths of film is the ability to show the drama of everyday life. I always include backgrounds in my panels to try to get closer to that feeling. For instance, in a scene in volume 12, Saeko is on a boat at night looking out over the water with her girlfriend, Yuria. They're talking about breaking up. It's a very romantic setting, but the painful nature of their conversation blots out everything except for the blackness of the water. I want readers to feel like they're there experiencing it alongside the characters.

47: I see. The city you see at night while breaking up with someone certainly does feel different...

Watanabe: And Tamifull-sensei's art has really helped deliver that sense of reality to readers. There are no wasted panels: from the camera placement to how the viewer's eye is led, even the placement of the dialogue, everything serves to guide the reader to what she's showing. Due to my job I read a lot of manga, but there are very few manga artists as skilled as her.

47: Personally, as a reader, it's that sense of reality that has me praying for Saeko and Miwa to end up happy, so next I'd like to ask a little about about how you learned to imbue your writing with such reality, and what techniques you use.

Tamifull: I'll do my best (laughs).

47: First, the depth and internality of your characters. For instance, after breaking up with Saeko, Miwa dates the younger Tamaki. Tamaki is reserved and very low-energy. She's clearly at a loss with the more sexually-motivated Miwa, but nonetheless does her best to reciprocate in her own way. She's straightforward and can be a little childish, but has an intellectual side to her, as well. Accurately portraying such a complex, difficult character must necessitate having an incredibly keen eye for people. How did you learn to understand other people so well?

Tamifull: I think it was mostly my experience in school. In primary and middle school I was low on the pecking order, so I became very sensitive to other people's hostility.

47: Ah, the pecking order... That does happen, doesn't it.

Tamifull: Yes. I'd be in a group of maybe 5 or 6 friends in a class and then once every few months I'd get the silent treatment and end up being ostracized from the group, in this sort of rotation. I'd go through 2 or 3 groups and it would always happen. I think all the time I spent thinking about how to avoid being targeted like that played a big part.

47: Planning out the battle to make it out alive, so to speak.

Tamifull: I think that really helped cultivate my eye (laughs). Like, this girl's the ringleader, and these ones are joining in because they don't want to become the target themselves, but this other girl is actually nice so even when they're ganging up on me she won't join in.

47: I see. Even while you were being mistreated, you were trying to understand things from their perspective. Certainly How Do We Relationship? doesn't have any one character that you would really call a villain.

Tamifull: That's right. Take Kan, who tells Miwa "I hate you" in volume 2, or Tamaki's friend Nagi who calls her "gross" in volume 8. I think it would be too convenient if nobody was ever mean or unpleasant, so it's important to have such characters. But I also try to portray them as having their own reasons. It's not like everyone will be good to each other all the time, but for each person, there's a community out there somewhere that will accept them as themselves. I'm always including that idea, that wish, almost, as I write the various members of the music club.

47: The story has this warmth to it you can really feel, and I think that idea has a lot to do with it. That said, it sounds like you weren't always successful at avoiding bullying. That must have been difficult.

Tamifull: I spent a lot of time wrapped in my futon wondering, why do they treat me like that? As the days went by I'd end up sublimating my anger and frustration by telling myself, "They have their own problems so there's nothing I can do about it." Like, this girl might have a lot of stress at home, about her grades or other things, so she just feels too much pressure and gets pushed into bullying, or things like that. I really got in the habit of thinking about things from their perspective.

47: You are an incredibly kind person. I do think the eye you cultivated that way serves you well in writing characters. For example, in volume 3, we meet Miwa's first crush, Shiho. At home, we see Shiho being horribly mistreated by her parents, who only care for her more academically-minded younger sister, Maho. One day Maho snaps at her, saying "Don't talk back to me, moron! You know how much I have to carry thanks to your stupidity!?". But Shiho just accepts it, and keeps her unhappiness to herself. That's in volume 11, that we finally find out how Maho, who's caused Shiho so much pain, has been feeling.

Tamifull: Maho also feels a lot of pressure from their parents, and she's desperate not to fail. She's under a lot of stress from that. When they were younger, Shiho and Maho were actually very close--Maho loved her older sister--but as grades and examinations started to get involved that connection became twisted... I wasn't able to show all of this in the story, but I always think through these details before drawing.

47: That sort of thing does happen between siblings, doesn't it... Just remembering is a little painful.

Tamifull: But, as much as I analyze people like this, it's very difficult to put into words.

47: In what way?

Tamifull: If you say "Well, this person has this kind of background, so that's why they do these things" then everyone will be like, "And what do you know about them?". You'll end up hurting feelings. So I can't say it about real people, but with How Do We Relationship? I'm the author so I can draw whatever I want. When I hear readers talk about the "realism" I'm always like, "Really? You mean I actually did it?". I secretly get a little happy about it (laughs).

47: Did you always want to become a mangaka, growing up?

Tamifull: I did always like drawing. But when I was pretty young I read one of those "So you want to draw manga?" kind of books and I got very intimidated by all the different erasers and tones and things, and I sort of gave up (laughs). It wasn't until I'd completely retired from extracurriculars in college that I realized I didn't have enough to do and started drawing manga.

47: And then you became a mangaka as soon as you graduated?

Tamifull: Yes, that's right.

47: That's quite something. Not many people manage to do that, right?

Tamifull: The reason I started attending Comitia was because in college I finally learned that editors would be there. Up until then I was working with my childhood knowledge--I thought I had to submit my work to a company and then become an assistant before I could become an author myself. When I found out I was like, "Doujinshi will get me fans and even expose me to editors? What could be better!?". I had my heart set on it.

47: (laughs). What kinds of things were you inspired by when you were a child?

Tamifull: All the way through school I was into stuff that was a little different from whatever was in fashion. I liked watching slightly older anime on Kids' Station, for instance. Like, look at me! I'm not into the same stuff as everybody else! Aren't I cool? (laughs).

47: (laughs).

Tamifull: When everyone else was into Cardcaptor Sakura, I was watching Takahashi Rumiko-sensei's Ranma 1/2 and Maison Ikkoku. I remember when I read one of Ito Junji-sensei's works at a relative's house it left a big impression on me. When I was in college I bought the collector's edition of Tomie at Village Vanguard.

47: You grew up into a bit of an alt college student.

Tamifull: In college, going to Village Vanguard and fishing for manga nobody else had became something of a passion for me.

47: What about Takahashi Rumiko-sensei's work did you like in particular?

Tamifull: I especially liked the way she drew girls. In the early 2000s, when I was in primary school, it was very in fashion for girls to be drawn very slender and light, with delicate limbs.

47: Slenderness was certainly emphasized a lot back then, yes.

Tamifull: I preferred how Rumiko-sensei drew them--a little squishy. As far as the story goes, I loved the ending of Maison Ikkoku, how it portrays the characters moving forward in life. I read it over and over. I think that passion for people comes through a little in How Do We Relationship?.

47: In the afterword of volume 3, you mentioned that from middle school until about halfway through college you lost interest in manga, and were more into drama and music.

Tamifull: That's true. Sometimes I'd draw a buff Pikachu or something on the blackboard to try to get a laugh out of people, but that was about it.

47: A buff Pikachu? (laughs). I wish I could see it.

Tamifull: At co-ed schools I think girls mostly end up ranked by looks, but I went to an all-girls high school, so... It was really about who was the funniest.

47: So art was a way of giving yourself a gimmick.

Tamifull: That's right. That continued into college, so I always had the position of somebody who's just a little bit good at drawing. In college everyone was nice, though.

47: In that same afterword you mentioned that during the time you weren't drawing manga, you really enjoyed making things together with a group.

Tamifull: In high school I was in the school band, and we'd all put on plays together at school festivals. I joined the light music club in college. I did percussion in high school so I mostly played drums, or did vocals.

47: Oooh. What kinds of things did you play in the light music club?

Tamifull: Just normal rock. Popular stuff, like Go! Go! 7188.

47: I have an impression of you as being a little bit countercultural, so rock seems perfect for you (laughs).

Tamifull: In college I was also on the student festival committee, so I was doing double duty a little bit. And as much as I enjoyed making things with other people, I started to feel this hole open up, like inside I'd be thinking "I could do this so much better...". Then I started looking into manga again on a whim and realized everything had gone digital. You don't need to hire a bunch of assistants, and you can do tones with the press of a button. It was like this new environment where I could try my hand at manga by myself was prepared just in time as I came of age. I didn't have to hold myself back for anyone, and could do everything just how I wanted. That's why I've always worked alone.

47: What!? You don't have any assistants even now?

Tamifull: I don't.

47: Watanabe-san, is that normal?

Watanabe: It's extremely precious to us. She's really something, isn't she? I don't know how she puts out so much in just two weeks.

Tamifull: I want every angle and composition just so. I can't really express it well, so when I think about trying to explain it to someone else, I just feel like it would end up taking even more time... But then sometimes I'll be working from my storyboards and I'll be like, "Why did I make myself draw it like this!?" and end up suffering a little (laughs).

47: It's certainly a work that cuts no corners. The dialogue is always so well written and moving--do you start by writing the characters' lines?

Tamifull: Yes, I do. I'll write them all out at once, then adapt them to the storyboards as I go. I think all the time I spent agonizing in my futon when I was younger like "I should've said this..." or "And then they'd say that..." might also help here.

47: You always include afterword comics and omake in the tankoubon releases, so I get a sense that you're quite particular about manga books.

Tamifull: I love manga that includes a lot of little extras. And I want readers to enjoy How Do We Relationship? as much as possible, so I always go all out drawing them.

47: Your first announced works were around 2012, and in 2014 you made your commercial debut with Don't Call me a Goddess! in Bungeisha's 4-koma magazine Manga Time. The main character, Saotome-san, is a bit of a tryhard, and as much as that wins her respect from her peers, it also tends to alienate them. Into her life barrels the far less inhibited Ryou. After that, you had My Little Sister and the Sex Doll (Shueisha) serialized in Tonari no Young Jump, about an innocent and naive high school girl and a talking sex doll. Both manga were comedies.

Tamifull: How Do We Relationship? was a little bit of a break in genre, yes (laughs). My Little Sister and the Sex Doll also started as something I made as a change of pace for Comitia (laughs).

47: It's a very rhythmical work--the talking sex doll's lines are incredibly well crafted.

Tamifull: The editors at Young Jump really liked it. It was a little more crude than what I usually write, so I did have some doubts... but they were very kind in offering me the serialization. I had to exercise my vocabulary to the fullest.

47: As much as it made me laugh, I could also somehow feel your desire to break taboos coming through.

Tamifull: That's true. I was trying to make fun of dirty comics, while making a dirty comic (laughs). Even when there would be the setup for some sort of fanservice scene, with something sexual happening to the girl, I would always interrupt it with a joke and turn it into something decidedly not fanservice.

47: On the other hand, something about the relationship between Saotome-san and Ryou in Don't Call Me a Goddess! feels like it connects to Miwa and Saeko. Are you particularly fond of that sort of relationship?

Tamifull: Honestly, that was... completely unintentional. I think, when it comes to protagonists, I do like a character who is quiet, but unexpectedly stubborn... When I think about my time in school, I had a lot of experiences where there would be another girl, and she'd have this sense of separation, like a bit of a boundary around herself, but when I approached her she'd turn out to actually be really interesting. And I'd have this feeling of "Everyone else doesn't even know how cool she is!? I need to let everyone know!". I think that feeling, almost like wanting to become a producer for girls like that, has led me to write my protagonists that way.

47: You really love girls.

Tamifull: I may have spent long years in fierce battle with them at school, but when I translate it to manga they become strangely appealing. Even when they're a pain, their being a pain is good in of itself (laughs). It's true that characters who aren't straightforward can make a story more interesting, but I also think that's just how people are--you can't sum anyone up in a few words. Don't you agree?

47: Your manga, including How Do We Relationship?, really don't tend to have characters that you can sum up as "the cool one" or "the tsundere" or anything like that.

Tamifull: That's right. I don't want them to be symbols.

47: And that's exactly why, in each case--Saeko and Miwa, Miwa and Tamaki, Saeko and Yuria--when they break up, it's so emotionally impactful. You can't just point at one of them and say, "It's her fault."

Tamifull: Right. In reality, lots of people break up all the time without either one really being at fault. It makes me really happy to hear that people read the story as just being how things ended up for them. It's so easy to assume that when a relationship falls apart, it's because someone's in the wrong. I worked very hard to make sure that Tamaki and Yuria would be charming enough characters for readers to like them, and to accept it when I made them break up with Miwa and Saeko. I always look at readers' reactions and think carefully about how to proceed.

47: How Do We Relationship? really feels like you want to closely examine real, "normal" relationships.

Tamifull: I think it's a pity for the socially accepted image of love to be something so narrow. When two women date, and after breaking up return to being friends, I think people have a tendency to look a little askance at them. But why is that? I always find myself thinking, "Are you okay with living like that?". With How Do We Relationship?, I wanted to create a world where Miwa and Saeko and everyone else's desires wouldn't be crushed by those around them.

47: Especially during the first 3 volumes, you often shine the spotlight on the other characters around Miwa and Saeko. Is that also a part of fleshing out that view of the world?

Tamifull: Something like that. I don't want the idea of someone who likes the same sex to be something fantastical. I want to show that sexual minorities are all around--even around you. I want heterosexual readers to also get into the story, and I was very conscious of that early on in the serialization. I think whether you're gay or straight, you can still understand this story. These characters are just like you. That's the message I've tried to send.

47: It would be really wonderful if we could become a society where everyone views each other with respect. What would that take, I wonder?

Tamifull: Delusions, maybe.

47: Delusions? (laughs).

Tamifull: Yes (laughs). This is just my own experience, but when I meet someone and feel off-put by them, I always thoroughly imagine their background. By the time I'm finished whatever anger I felt has faded, and I feel ready to treat them better--maybe even to become close with them. And if you write stories you can come up with great material this way, so it's two birds with one stone (laughs).

#tsukiatte agetemo ii kana #how do we relationship

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rainydaydream-gal18 · 5 months

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Rampart: Are you going to tell me to stay away from your girl? Crosshair: If I had to do that, she wouldn't be my girl. Rampart: Well, then I guess you've got nothing to worry about, do you, Crosshair? Crosshair: It must burn you up that a clone like me saved you from prison, huh? Gotta' be careful. I might not be there next time. Oh, and Rampart - stay away from my girl.

#no I'm not simping for Rampart...just thought this was an interesting scenario #rampart is a jerk #incorrect quote #bad batch incorrect quote #the bad batch #bad batch crosshair #crosshair x reader #bad batch crosshair x reader #bad batch crosshair reader insert #bad batch reader insert #bad batch x reader #x-men quote #x-men 2000 #bad batch

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miss-musings · 4 months

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When I say S3 Crosshair was speed-running Hunter’s Dad arc from S1-2, this is what I’m talking about:

They’re the only CF99 members Omega has a one-on-one conversation with in 1.01 "Aftermath"

Both help her escape danger at an evil cloning facility, thanks to unseen assistance from Nala Se (1.01 and 3.03)

Both make a choice to go back for her instead of securing their own freedom (1.01 and 3.04)

Both initially try to send her away, reasoning she'll be better off without them in her lives (1.02 and 1.15)

Both initially tell her to stay away from them for her own sake, but she persists and eventually wins them over (1.01 and 3.01)

Both are mistaken as her dad by other characters (2.13 and 3.04)

Due to Omega's influence/impact on their lives, both of them become open to trying new things. For Hunter, it's things like treasure-hunting and settling down on Pabu. (2.05 and 2.13) For Crosshair, it's things like bribing/hustling people instead of shooting them, and meditating for peace of mind. (3.04 and 3.08)

In S1, Hunter and Omega average one meaningful one-on-one conversation per episode. In S3, Crosshair and Omega average one meaningful one-on-one conversation per episode.

Parallel scenes of her copying their body language, facial expressions and personal quirks (1.01 and 3.06)

Parallel scenes of them checking on her physical and emotional well-being after she’s been in danger (1.09 and 3.07)

Parallel scenes of them watching helplessly as Omega is taken away by an Imperial ship (2.16 and 3.11)

Parallel scenes of Hemlock torturing them after they tried to protect Omega (2.14 and 3.15). FUN FACT: Hunter and Crosshair are the only two CF99 members Hemlock ever talks to.

Parallel scenes of Omega convincing them to let her endanger herself for the greater mission of finding Tantiss: “I need to do this, Hunter” (3.05) VS. “Focus on the bigger mission, Crosshair.” (3.11) In both cases, they are initially unwilling to go along with her plan bc they fear for her safety, but they both ultimately agree to support her brave and selfless decision.

Parallel scenes of Omega purposely endangering herself by attacking her captor, but she has complete confidence that Hunter and Crosshair will save her in 2.10 and 3.15, respectively.

Parallel scenes of Omega absolutely gagging them: “Why not? Isn’t that what soldiers do?” (1.12) VS. “I never gave up on you, did I?” (3.09) FUN FACT: Hunter and Crosshair are even sitting in the same seat on the Marauder in both scenes!!

(UPDATE:) As someone else pointed out here, parallel scenes/lines of them aiming their guns at someone threatening to take Omega away and saying, “Not happening.” (1.13 and 3.09)

Parallel lines like: “You’re wasting your time — they’ll never turn her over” VS. “Omega’s not going anywhere with you.” (2.14 and 2.16)

Hunter when he tries to send Omega with Cut and Suu: “You have to go, Omega. It’s for your own good.” VS. Crosshair when he tries to have her captured and sent off Kamino: “It’s for her own good, and yours.” (1.02 and 1.15)

Hunter when Cad Bane is after her: “Omega, get behind me.” (1.08) VS. Crosshair when CX-2 and Imperial troopers are after her: “Stick by my side and stay down.” (3.07)

Hunter telling the others to leave him on Daro and Omega protesting in 1.14 VS. Crosshair telling the others to leave while he fights CX-2 and Omega protesting in 3.07. (And, in both cases, she literally had to be pulled away by other “co-parent” in Echo and Hunter, respectively.)

Hunter made a “deal with the devil” in the Devaronian matriarch to try to find Omega in 3.02. Then Crosshair made a deal with a different type of devil in Rampart to find her in 3.12. (And they were both 1,000% done with their respective devils: “We heard your syndicate had the connections needed to find the Imperials’ base, and since we’ve upheld our end of the bargain, now it’s your turn.” VS “We got you off the planet, now tell us where Tantiss is.”)

The first time Hunter ever fully hugs Omega is in 3.04, after she escapes Tantiss the first time. (To clarify: she had hugged him a few times before, but he hadn't really hugged her back.) VS. The first time Crosshair ever hugs Omega is in 3.15 after she escapes Tantiss the second time.

Crosshair telling Hunter in 3.05, "You let Omega be taken to Tantiss. She went through what she did because you failed" ... only for Crosshair to be in the EXACT same situation himself later in S3.

Also, let’s never forget about the moment in 3.07 when Crosshair went full Helicopter Parent™️, and Omega said, “You’re as bad as Hunter!” Like, even Omega thought Crosshair was turning into a dad! 😂

Also, after he fully reintegrates into the family at the end of 3.05, Crosshair basically becomes Hunter's "co-parent."

There are several scenes where they are paired together to talk about Omega's safety or something, while Wrecker is elsewhere. (And even when Wrecker is there, the shots tend to focus more on Hunter and Crosshair, like when they find Batcher barking on the beach in 3.09.)

Of course, this all culminates in the final confrontation with Hemlock on the bridge. I don't think Hunter or Crosshair could've navigated that situation alone, especially given their injuries and how high-stakes it was. They HAD to do it together, which has been their approach since 3.05: "Not alone. We'll do it together."

(UPDATE: I go over some of these points more in my CrossDad Episode Rankings post. Give it a read, if you haven’t already!)

#star wars #tbb crosshair #the bad batch #the bad batch crosshair #tbb omega #omega and crosshair #tbb season 3 #tbb spoilers #crosshair and omega #crosshair and hunter #hunter and crosshair #crossdad #the dad batch #clone trooper crosshair #crosshair tbb #omega tbb #sw tbb #crossfather

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felassan · 3 months

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Just poring over some of the new images. ◕‿◕ DA:TV spoilers under cut.

Another shot of Rivain Coast, which we can tell from the image but is also known from the file name. this environment was seen in the Thedas Calls teaser. the remains of the large sea creature are really cool and interesting to me from a biological perspective. like is it a creature we know, or something like the Cetus, or something as-yet-unseen by us? it makes me think of Ghilan'nain's beasts of the deep, and the Tevinter Nights map, which showed all manner of sea monsters in the seas around known Thedas. it also makes me think of this codex entry, which talks about whales, squid, giant worms, dragons hunting underwater in the sea, etc, as well as the DA:TV concept arts we've seen which involves sea monsters. what if we held hands and got married.. while standing under the flower-bedecked arch of the jaw of this giant skull..? 🥺 in Thedas Calls we could also see the remains of some beast on the Rivaini shore; I wonder if this is that same area of the shore but from a different angle/viewpoint.

the other focal point of this screenshot is the boat. the red things on the side look like shields, and they remind me of a stylized version of the Qunari symbol. red is also a color associated with Qunari, from things like the distinctive red-rope clothing. but the boat also really reminds me of Taash's design and color scheme. maybe it's associated with Taash, or it's a Lord of Fortune vessel more broadly? if you look at Taash, two, the aquatic blue-green is her main color, accented by bits of red, just like the boat. the pointy bits and triangular shapes of the boat remind me of her pointy armor with triangle details. idk, even the hoop (even though it's a totally normal thing to have on a boat) 'feels' familiar. like I could totally buy that this boat is associated with Taash's group or something. or maybe, shut up MJ, ignore the hoop, but the blue-green and red is notable still. but also maybe I'm just seeing things that aren't there hh :)

in this first screenshot I also simply spent a while looking at the sunlight through the palm fronds :') there are coconuts or something similar in some of the trees. I'm also curious about the ruins here (right hand corner) - remains of fortresses or watch-towers that were guarding the coast against invasion?

Another shot of Rivain Coast, which we can tell from the image but is also known from the file name. this environment was seen in the Thedas Calls teaser. again, in this image we can see part of the skeleton of some giant creature, and I wonder again if we're seeing this (or one of these, if there's more than one) from a different angle in this screenshot. we can see more of the sea-ruins in this one, and part of the wall has a crenellated top like it was a rampart and the other part looks cylindrical like it was a tower/watch-tower of some kind. nearby we can see a campfire on the go with a cooking pot heating over it, and is that maybe a hammock set up behind it? camping near a giant skeleton like that would be so metal.. and I wonder if it's simply environmental art/scenery, or maybe there are a few maps where as we explore them we establish lil camps as we go again as like in-map waypoints or something. and in the top right, we can see part of the mast and rigging of a different boat, I guess a shipwreck.

what do you think this other wooden structure from the top right is btw? part of another ship's mast/rigging?

this shot is taken from a place in the shade, like from the mouth of a cave or from under an overhang of the cliff, which reminds me a bit of the perspective from under an overhang here. we can see a tangle of driftwood bleached by the sun, elf warrior Rook (love the ragged cape/cloak), Bellara, and Taash, looking soo cool and nonchalant as she Casually Leans, Casually. Taash is so cool aaa! love her piratey boots and in this shot we can see that her dragonscale-looking armor extends to her legs also. (I hope Rook can have piercings and jewelry like Taash's, whether it's from inside CC or items gathered in the world._ the big coins are ornamentation, part of Taash's outfit, just like how Lords of Fortune who have survived a couple of years are allowed to display.

also in this image are big green pots. I wonder if we can smash them open, RPG-style, to find loot or potion restocks. wasn't there something like that in the gameplay video? ^^

another thing that gets my attention in this screenshot is these blue-green banner- or standard-looking things.

whom do you suppose these standards are associated with, like which group..? in this area the Lords of Fortune are active, and the Qunari also have a presence in part of Rivain. the material that they are made from remind me of the blue-green gem of Taash's 'horn' and the blue-green material on the boat from screenshot one. if the standards are Qunari, I wonder where the familiar Qunari symbol is? for the Lords of Fortune, we don't know much about them or the specifics of their aesthetic yet but I'd be looking for their octopus symbol or classic piratey stuff like skull and crossbones or something. so who? I also can't place the standard from or being associated with anywhere else either (but if I'm missing something pls lmk ^^). here is what it does remind me of though.

The spine-like spiky pole with the suggestion of paired centipede-like legs coming off of it; the dual-prongs at the shoulders, even the crossed-over aspect, and especially the curved shape at the top.

In Thedas Calls, as the camera pans over Rivain and over its Coast, the speaker at this point says "Glory to the Risen Gods. They've come to deliver this world". I remember us wondering about the connection between these gods and Rivain. maybe these signs/standards were erected by new cultists of Ghilan'nain, and this is part of their spread? Rivain is a country surrounded by a lot of sea, and it has strong nautical themes like the piracy. Ghilan'nain has sea associations of her own, like her creatures of the deep and her monster-form rising from the sea in that one concept art. and something has caused the Lords of Fortune to lose dominion in the area and something seems to be unsettling the dragons in the area. and the Chantry has less influence in Rivain, there's more variety in religion there. but also maybe I am just reading waaay too much into the coincidental shape of a sign LOL. Ghil Goggles. maybe it's nothing and they are just fancy anchors or other pieces from wrecked ships hhh.

as an aside, I love the skybox here in 'screenshot two'. :)

This image shows Arlathan Crater, per a filename. Elf Warrior Rook, Grey Warden again by the look of their (massive!) shield, Bellara (looking all curious/inquisitive) and Harding, looking out over this beautiful and fantastical viewpoint. These ruins look so grand, even in this state and with magic gone from the world. Imagine what Elvhenan looked at its height, before the world was un-made.

For this screenshot, I highlighted some things. ^^ -

The detail of roots in and partially in the ground in the bottom left; the mist effect; the thought put into the Celtic knotwork-looking detailing on the 'tower' in the foreground; in the background just beyond that could that be a waterfall? Makes sense, there's a lake below and mist everywhere. The familiar curved arches and similar shapes of ancient elvhen architecture; gold-capped towers shining so brightly in the sun; the shimmer and reflections on the water; rocks and chunks of ruins floating in the air the way things do when Fadey stuff is going on or the Veil is disrupted/thin; the detail of small trees growing on top of a tower, having seeded there (this happens irl too). Also in general the detailing of things like paint or etc having faded off walls, the exterior parts of stonework on stone walls having crumbled away in patches, chips in the gold.

There is also a statue of a bald ancient elf. I wonder whom of? They lack a distinctive Evanuris head-piece shape, but I'm sure there were depictions of Evanuris without those, or depictions of other notable elves or other powerful elves like their chosen.

The water makes me think of the concept art where the party are swimming underwater looking for treasure or something. Maybe swimming is a thing in this game? I would bet that over time and/or thanks to the recent reality-warping that has been occurring in Arlathan Forest, that some ancient elvhen ruins and artifacts have become submerged in water.

In the foreground is a chair with a tome on it. A book a Veil Jumper was using in their research, or found and was reading, and their resting/lookout point? ^^ we know that we will spot Veil Jumpers working away and researching in Arlathan. next to that is a golden object which I wonder, is it either 1) a telescope or spy-glass of sorts which a Veil Jumper has been using to study the ruins across the lake or 2) an ancient elvhen artifact that they've found (it is gold after all), and that maybe Bellara could use Tinker on it to use it. You can see a similar gold-orb type object in the distance in this shot of the team fighting in Arlathan (that one looks on/activated). between this object and all the floating rocks in this image, I'm reminded of the bit in the Game Informer cover story article that says to reach a certain place in Arlathan in the opening hours of the game, we must first remove the floating rock rings and how to do so, we must use Bellara's Tinker to interact with a nearby piece of ancient elven technology.

If these artifacts remove the floating rock rings.. maybe it's because they are reducing the 'Fadey'-ness of a place by.. reinforcing reality there. Which makes me think of the artifacts in Solas' quest in DA:I, Measuring the Veil. He said that when we activated them, they strengthen the Veil and help prevent additional Veil tears, and they were also gold looking things, and orby-looking too with their aura when active.

This image shows Arlathan Crater, per a filename. This time we have elf warrior Rook, Neve and Lucanis. This looks to be at a similar viewpoint located not far down from the one with the chair in the previous image; if you look across the water to the ruins, you can see the tower with the ancient elf statue with the two trees growing near its top, just from a slightly different perspective. I feel like the barrels, boxes, cart and planking is Veil Jumper stuff, like field provisions and equipment and stuff when they go on expeditions or something maybeukuh. ^^ another beautiful shot.

Lucanis is smoll. :)

This image shows Arlathan Forest, per a file name. Elf warrior Rook, Harding, and Lucanis (still smoll <3) explore ancient elvhen ruins. another beautiful shot. :D I love the big Totoro-style umbrella leaves and Harding looks so cute here. and I love purple as an 'iconic color' for Rook so much. we've seen this Grey Warden elf Rook in quite a few images now. I count at least 4 blades on Lucanis. On the stonework just behind Rook's head you can see more of the knotwork-esque pattern. also in the background here we can clearly see a door to this temple[?]-place. I really like how even the door is in this distinctive ancient elvhen shape, they really committed to recognizable distinct architecture and design styles for the different nations/cultures/asset-sets etc. ^^

The main point of interest in this screenshot of course is the pair of golden hands, an ancient elvhen artifact of some kind I assume. it brings to mind the artifact Bellara uses, which has been described as a "gauntlet" (something one wears on the hand/forearm). look at the diamond/triangle patterning on the inside of the wrist that we can see - like the triangles in the ancient elven tech/gear Veil Jumpers use. Maybe this artifact is designed not so much to look like 'hands' but specifically 'gauntlets'? it could just be the lighting, but the green glow around the hands look to me like this artifact's magic is active/that it has been activated. other gold pieces are magically[?] suspended in the air above it. I wonder if these pieces are actually moving, like they each spin on a slightly different axis/rotate? that's what the angling of them in this still looks like to me. Maybe they move when the artifact is active? also, up there is the triangle motif again, this time in a way that makes me squint. the biggest ones give that part the impression of a sun, with sunrays (also like the Veil BUBBLE shown in the Tevinter Nights map below). the curved lines give the impression of the 'concentric circles' motif which is sometimes used to represent the Veil. the paired triangles in one of the layers give the impression of the black-gold banding, and triangles like these seem to sometimes represent the Veil, Fade or magic.

(re-eyeing old bubble imagery now btw, since we know there are Veil Bubbles in DA:TV. like the giantest bubble, the whole-ass Veil itself, in the TN map, and the bubble around Solas in his 'me and my fursona cast the Veil' fresco. see also in these images - the triangles)

So I wonder if, when these 'hands' are activated, does it have some effect on the Veil? ^^

the other thing the hands remind me of is the Dead Hand landmark (see Trivia section) in DA:I. it's found in the Dales and contains an elven shrine. it's not far from Ghilan'nain's Grove, and it also has an interesting magic puzzle involving the lighting of torches and balls of light. detached stone hands in DA:I, detached gold hands in DA:TV, both 'holding' magic in them.

Lastly this image is included because it's actually a slightly different moment to the one here (ability wheel pointing at a different icon) ((I covered in the rest of the contents of this image in a previous post in this series)). where in the last one we could see Harding has a move called Shred, in this one we can see that Bellara has a move called Fade Bolts. it detonates, applies Shocked on hit and sunders the target. I wonder if these are bolts of Fade-energy in the shape of arrows that she fires, or arrows that she fires from her magical gauntlet-bow and because it's magic she never misses or they have extra effects on impact.

There were also two screenshots in this 'batch' which were stills from the gameplay video, which I won't include here: the one showing blood splatter, and one of Harding as she talks to Varric.

#dragon age: the veilguard #dragon age the veilguard spoilers #dragon age: dreadwolf #dragon age 4 #the dread wolf rises #da4 #dragon age #bioware #video games #long post #longpost #blood cw #dragon age: tevinter nights #solas #someone pls tell me they agree about the signs/standards from the Rivain Coast LOL

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sticks-and-souls · 5 months

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I love that star wars tells us time and time and time again that the only thing a person needs in order to make amends is the desire to. And if you want it enough to work for it, then there’s a place for you to bring good back into the world.

Emerie and Rampart in TBB finale both had opportunities to switch sides the only difference between them is that Emerie wanted it and Rampart didn’t. And the narrative treated them accordingly. And rather than treating Emerie like the evils she did were the only thing that would ever define her, Echo said “fine, if you want to help, then help” and those kids got out of there because of her.

#star wars has no time for your cancel culture #if you realize you’re wrong then make it right #you’re not a bad person unless you choose to keep being one #it’s probably one of my fave core tenets of sw #the bad batch #sw the bad batch #star wars meta #emerie karr #tbb emerie #tbb echo #tbb crosshair #redemption arcs #arc trooper echo #crosshair #agent kallus #alexandr kallus #the bad batch finale

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fantasyinallforms · 1 year

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Let's talk about this scene. It's one of the most popular, and the writers and actors knew exactly what they were doing when they filmed it. This is going to be a LONG, long post because I will be breaking down and analyzing looks as well as dialog. Don't worry, I will add in a cut! Let's start with the look on Bilbo's face. Specifically, I've slowed the GIF down so you can get a good look at his face.

Bilbo stated quite clearly to Gandalf the night before this that he was not afraid of Thorin, but he is not so naive as to think that he will stay in Thorin's good graces after this. Hitched breath, sluggish movement, rapid blinking, and a look of dread on his face. This is a funeral march for whatever future might have been brewing over the course of the journey.

Thorin, by comparison, is almost slow to comprehend. There is doubt about what he is hearing written all over his features. He shakes his head and says "you" like he expected to turn around and see someone else standing there using Bilbo's voice. What I really want to get at is the conversation right after. Because it's always struck me that Thorin and Bilbo are not having the same conversation with each other.

"I took it as my fourteenth share," followed immediately by "You would steal from me?"

Now, it's, of course, important to note that Thorin is at peak dragon sickness at the moment and not in his right mind. That said, Bilbo stealing something from him was truly the last thing he could have possibly imagined happening. He suspected his kin less than a day ago but never Bilbo. I've said this in a previous deep dive, but the way that the dragon sickness reconciled Thorin's love for Bilbo and the gold was to place them in the same category. You don't expect what is entirely yours to be capable of theft. We're going to skip ahead slightly in the next GIF.

Ok, so this is where we start to see the conversation diverge. Bilbo says, "Steal from you? No, no. I'm a burglar, but I like to think I'm an honest one." Clearly trying to articulate to Thorin and the entire company that he didn't do this as a betrayal or out of greed. Thorin's response is chilling and very telling.

In the first GIF, I have no subtitles because I want you to look at his face, not what he's saying. This is the laughter and smile of a madman who just had the last thread tethering him from true madness cut. He descends very quickly from here.

Now, "You have no claim over me" is a very strong statement. In his mind, the gold is his and bound to him in every way. Bilbo, after this, is desperate. His words are desperate, and his expression is desperate. But what's more heartbreaking is the look in Thorn's eyes. Like the real Thorin is trapped behind those pretty blues, helpless to do anything.

Then, finally, after all of this, we have the full snap. The final break.

"Throw him from the ramparts."

This single line gives us probably the most heartbreaking look in the entire movie. To me, even more so than Thorin's death. This is the true "end" the final break. Bilbo's head was bent low. He was willing to take the vitriol the hate. He understood where it was coming from and was prepared for it. But those 5 words ended everything. Thorin is gone, and Bilbo knows that now.

We haven't seen true fear in Bilbo. Not once. The closest we got was when he was about to charge an orc but even that was not fear alone. There was determination and resolve that colored his expression.

That last hollow look in Bilbo's eyes is properly terrified yet if I had to name this GIF I wouldn't name it terror I would name it

Loss.

#bagginshield #the hobbit #bilbo baggins #thorin oakenshield #thilbo #bilbo x thorin #Deep Dive

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heyclickadee · 5 months

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So, here’s the thing. The finale is weird. Yes, I’m hurt by the fact that Tech didn’t come back and that a character that’s very near and dear to my heart was badly handled, and that will never sit right with me. But even apart from that, the finale fundamentally does not function as a piece of storytelling or as the end to this story. I’m glad that people are enjoying it, and I will never tell anyone not to. But I don’t think it works. (I get very negative about the TBB finale under the cut.)

It’s not just the Tech stuff or the CX-2 stuff (which may very well have been the same stuff) that got dropped. It’s *everything*. Every theme, Every narrative thread besides retrieving Omega, every character arc except marginally Omega’s, Echo’s (also marginal), and Emerie’s, which was the shortest and gets wrapped up by her deciding to help Echo rescue the kids. It all stops. It makes everything that came before seem cheap and pointless if you take it into account. And this is so, so frustrating for me, because the entire show was driving towards this incredibly rich payoff, it could have been immaculate, and then it whiffed the ball so bad in the last episode that it didn’t just miss, it managed to knock over the bleachers and set the entire court on fire.

Some examples:

1. This season had a really interesting exploration of Crosshair’s PTSD via his hand tremor and how it was something he can learn to manage, but not something that would ever fully go away. Aaaaand then his hand gets chopped off. One, that was stupid. I’ve seen some excellent posts (here’s one by @the-bi-space-ace) detailing why that was a terrible way to handle Crosshair’s lingering trauma, and others talking about how the idea there was that Crosshair needed to move on and it was severing his last ties with the empire. The former, I agree with; the latter, I don’t, because not only—not only!—does this episode stop dealing with Crosshair’s trauma, it doesn’t even deal with having cut off his hand! It just sort of occurs. No one reacts to it, no one says anything about it, there’s no follow up or commentary, nothing happens as a result—it’s an event which occurs with no results coming after it. It may as well be an animation error. You can say it was about Crosshair needing to let go and move on, but that’s something you have to project on to the text, not something that’s actually offered by it. It’s empty.

2. Crosshair again: We also have the lingering issue of Crosshair’s guilt and the fact that he never seems to get to a point where it’s resolved. There’s set up for a resolution. We have that, “Sure you have,” like about Crosshair from Rampart. We also have Crosshair saying he deserves whatever happens to him in Tantiss. And then…no pushback. No resolution. No moment of Crosshair realizing that he doesn’t need to carry that burden. Nothing that says he didn’t deserve what happened to him. He had all this character development this season, but he needed - last little push to forgive himself—and we never get any indication that he does. It, like his trauma, gets dropped like a rock.

3. Hey! More Crosshair! A good chunk of Crosshair’s arc this season was about learning that anyone can change, first, and that no one is beyond saving. Eeexcept that goes no where.

4. Which brings me to my next point: There is set up for the CXs to be saved. Even if we’re laboring under the conclusion that CX-2 was never intended to be Tech at any point in the writing process (I have. Doubts. Yes, I’m calling the creative team liars, here, but with the understanding that they have contracts that may require them to lie), we do have the set up where we learn the electrocyanide zappers can be removed, and with Rex offering forgiveness to CX-1. “Whatever they did to you, whatever you’ve done, you’re still one of us.” CX-Tech or no, Crosshair’s arc was tied up with the CX plot, and because he’s the one the CXs tend to react to—or, at least, understands what was done to them—the set up was there for him to help save and maybe rehab the CXs. At the least, there was an indication that they could be saved. Eeexcept nope! That gets dropped like a rock, too, and they’re not going to deal with it. Time for maximum carnage.

5. Hunter’s arc actually takes a step backwards. Sure, he gets a technically happy ending, but because the squad is basically in the same place they were in “Pabu” back in season two (down a member but successfully hiding from the Empire in a safe place), it negates Hunter’s development towards actually taking action—and actually hurts Echo’s arc, too.

There’s been this tension all through the show between just sitting things out on the one hand (Hunter’s way) and taking direct action despite the futility on the other (Echo’s way), but instead of finding some kind of middle ground or third road, it sort of comes back around to saying that, actually, Hunter was right, they should have just gone to Idaflor back in episode three and never left even though the Pabu invasion said that no, you can’t just hide, and even Hunter’s development was moving in the opposite direction. And this also means that Echo never reaches a point where he feels like he can walk away and that he doesn’t have to get himself killed doing this. Despite development otherwise they both end up back at that conversation in “Tipping Point” without any move in either direction or resolution of that tension.

6. Omega. Okay, Omega probably comes out the best after the finale, and, conceptually, I actually love the idea of Omega becoming a pilot even if the epilogue falls a little flat for me. But stuff with Omega still got dropped, including:

- The force stuff. We have two episodes dealing with m-count (after learning in episode three what Omega was created to do). We also have Ventress telling Omega that she doesn’t have a high m-count as far as she can see, Crosshair immediately calling Ventress out for lying, and then Ventress basically saying, “Yeah, no shit, but if she has force potential she’d have to leave you behind, and it doesn’t matter what your opinion on that is, so I’m not dealing with that.” Aaaand then,m. That. Goes nowhere. Despite a bit of set up for Omega connecting to the force as early as episode one, and some more set up in Tribe, and that whole subplot of her learning how to meditate, and so on.

Now, I don’t think that it was ever going to turn out that Omega did actually have a high m-count or that she had a particularly powerful natural connection to the force. I think she’s probably got a low or baseline m-count. What I do think, however, is that we were going to see Omega connect anyway as a refutation of Palpatine’s and Hemlock’s entire scheme. Their goal (based off of the ST) was to create extremely force sensitive clones as a way for Palpatine to jump bodies without having to waste time re-learning how to connect to the force. You know—dark side, quick and easy path, focus on eugenics and raw power, etc. Had Omega connected anyway because of her big heart and desire to protect, it would have not only paid off that set up, it would have also refuted Palpatine’s and Hemlock’s entire goal. It would have worked so well thematically and the set up was THERE.

- branching off of that, I think the Omega force stuff was probably tied to the Zillo beast. We also had a through-line of Omega being good with animals and taking the time to calm them instead of responding with violence. The first time we see this is in “Replacements,” where she realizes that the ordo moon dragon (also an electrophage—I don’t know what to call these things—like the zillo beast) is just scared and hungry. This is all conjectural, but it still fits with what was set up.

- Moving on from the force stuff, we also had a through-line that started way back in episode two of the series, but which was really emphasized this season, about Omega feeling like she’s the cause of the bad things that happen to the people she loves. This is why she gives herself up during the Pabu invasion in the first place. This is never resolved! We get Omega’s confidence boost when she realizes she has the force kids to take care of, but we never get a moment where Omega realizes that she has no reason to feel guilty. She’s the glue that holds the family together! But nope! Also dropped!

- But wait! There’s more! The first two season finales have Omega watching someone she loves fall away while she’s helpless to do anything to save them. That’s perfect set up to put Omega in the same situation, but be able to save them, because she’s finally come into her own. Instead we just end up with her needing to be rescued again.

- Omega has this big speech in Shadows of Tantiss about spending her life stuck in one place or another against her will, and how she refuses to be confined like that. I don’t think Omega would have been happy just staying on Pabu for the entire rest of her childhood and young adult life, even if I think she’d want to use it on a home base. But! Dropped!

7. I still can’t get over the fact that the zillo beast is on screen for about two minutes and then just. Walks away. It’s a large beastie that’s been locked in confinement for a while and is probably hungry. And somehow it didn’t go straight to the reactors for some delicious energy smoothies. Like. It. Did. The. Last. Time. Someone. Let. It. Out. But no, that would have required it sticking around for something that was probably dropped sooooo ZILLO BEAST EXIT STAGE RIGHT I GUESS. (Edit: I have been reminded that Hemlock does say to turn off the generators once the zillo beast is out, so that at least makes sense. I still think the zillo beast should have stuck around to do something.)

8. You notice how there are a ton of commandos around Tantiss, even up through “Flash Strike?” And how they kind of largely cease to exist? And how Echo says that there are far more clones imprisoned in Tantiss than anyone thought? And then how they rescue, like, a dozen guys? Because we never find our way back to those cells Crosshair was held in during season two? And how Tarkin does mention not wanting to allow clone dissidence to turn into an uprising back in “The Summit?” Because I did. This show was never going to be about a clone rebellion, that wasn’t the point, buuut I do think the set up was there for an uprising at Tantiss itself. Begin the series with clones losing their agency en masse, end the series with some of the most subdued clones taking it back. Except nope, dropped, soooo we gotta pretend the commandos don’t exist and murder the hell out of poor Scorch.

9. SPEAKING OF. The batch does kill clones sometimes, that does happen, but they do at least usually make some kind of effort to be non-lethal even when they’re not using stun, and times when they do resort to lethal tactics are usually born out of extreme circumstances. Not here, though!! NO HESITATION MAXIMUM CARNAGE. For. Reasons I guess.

10. There’s one point IN THE FINALE where Echo mentions signaling for Rex. This never comes up again. Rex does not show up. In fact, despite being called, “The Cavalry Has Arrived,” the cavalry does not in fact arrive. There is no cavalry. Yes, I know it’s a reference to Wrecker’s first line. But I’m sorry if you call an episode that YOU HAD BETTER HAVE A CAVALRY SHOW UP. Especially when you have a one about calling them in! But that also!! Got dropped like a rock!!

11. One positive: the moment Crosshair and Hunter leaning on each other to make that shot was nice.

12. Sorry, but Hemlock’s death was deeply unsatisfying. Let’s do something more than just shoot him multiple times, okay?

13. Rampart’s death, on the other hand, was incredibly satisfying. That said, the conversation about project necromancer? I’m dying. It’s actually hilarious, because it basically goes like:

“Tell me about project necromancer.”

“Wow! How interesting!”

I’m.

Are you serious?

I’m going to become the Joker.

Yes, I know we know what project necromancer is because of a different show. That’s not the point, the POINT. Is that any pay off for project necromancer in this show got dropped. And that’s deeply frustrating from a narrative perspective.

14. Speaking of, we never find out anything more regarding that partially successful m-count transfer from episode three.

15. We also never do anything with those medical records!

16. And Omega has a whole crossbow she never actually shoots despite the fact that her role on the team was as a sharpshooter after Crosshair left, and despite her getting advice from Crosshair on how to be a sniper. The literal chekov’s gun never goes off. I’m going to go eat gravel.

17. AZI, likewise, got toted around for three seasons for no reason. Probably could have helped with the medical records. Given that he was a Kaminoan medical droid. Oh, and that Omega was Nala Se’s medical assistant. So. Hmm.

18. You can cut everything in the season past episode five and skip straight to the epilogue and end up in the same place. This is not because the other episodes are filler. Far from it! The other episodes are great and deliver some amazing set up. But, because the finale does nothing with that set up, it doesn’t go anywhere.

19. And you know what else? From a narrative perspective, there’s no reason for Hunter, Wrecker, and Crosshair to be in these episodes at all. They don’t accomplish anything and make everyone else’s job harder. Omega was doing fine, she would have gotten out with the kids with just Echo and Emerie, and Tarkin was coming to cut off Hemlock’s funding and shut everything down once Hemlock lost control of the facility anyway. I can only suppose that the whole reason they were in this episode ended up getting dropped, too.

20. CX-2. Listen, the answer we get about CX-2 isn’t that he’s not Tech. It’s, “Maybe, maybe not—you don’t get to know.” Because. He’s the only CX whose mask never comes off. After a season and a half worth of buildup of unmasking CXs and people pressing them to learn their names. It’s not a no, it’s a non-answer, which is far less satisfying.

And finally:

21: CX-Tech. I’ve seen some people speculating that there was a planned CX-Tech reveal that got scrapped at the last minute—dropped, along with the other points I’ve already laid out. And, honestly? I have to agree. Despite what the creative team says, because even their denials kind of come out weird (like the Kiners saying that the large brass chord in “Battle of the Snipers” was just a nice sounding brass chord and not a reference to “Plan 99.” They also basically say that the sacrifice theme from “Plan 99” is Tech’s leitmotif. Which. Is all over “Battle of the Snipers.” That theme. Not Crosshair’s. In a scene. Where he’s supposed to be fighting a shadow of himself who Totally Isn’t Tech but we put Tech’s leitmotif here and layered it in Techno music but nooo that was never supposed to be him. Nope. I mean, come on. I’m not stupid).This post is already long enough, so here are some posts by @apocalyp-tech-a pointing out the reasons why I think this was the case, and one by @eriexplosion pointing out why CX-2 as Crosshair’s shadow and only that doesn’t quite work. I don’t need to go over the trail that was laid out again. Up to the finale this was a character that had more screen time—and far more solo screen time—than Echo. Some people will not stop yelling that there was no evidence, and. No. I’m sorry, there was. I can’t agree.

And some people might say, well, okay, the show misdirected you guys and pulled off a twist by having CX-2 be no one, and well, I can’t agree with that either. Twists only function if the twist is more satisfying than the conclusion to which the story seems to be leading. And I’m sorry, you can’t tell me that a season and a half of CX building and three seasons (because I can find set up all the way back in episode one of the show) for Tech survival culminating in what amounts to a boss fight is more satisfying than getting to see Omega have her big brother back. You can’t.

The reason I bring this up last is because, yes, I think CX-Tech was a plot dropped at the last minute, but because I also think that it’s the dropped plot that ripped everything else apart. CX-Tech was an incredibly efficient way to tie up most of the lingering plot threads and dropped character development.

-Crosshair’s guilt? Okay, he faces down the end result of his decision to stay with the empire and possibly something he knew about (Tech would be in this situation because of Crosshair, and were given hints that Crosshair knew) and is finally able to forgive himself because they’re able to save him.

- Hunter’s decision to finally take action and be proactive rather than reactive is validated, because it’s the thing that finally gets him his entire family back.

- Echo saves someone the same way he was saved, and maybe he realizes that it is enough and that he doesn’t have to be a soldier forever.

- Wrecker’s efforts to keep the family together and keep Hunter sane finally pay off.

- Omega is able to protect the people she charges about and finally, finally has all of her brothers.

- Thematically, it rounds off each member of the batch (Omega included) traumatically losing and then taking back their agency in a way that correlates directly to who and how they are as people.

- It also rounds out the OG batchers each being haunted by a failure that has to do with the thing that makes them special.

- You get pushback against “Clone Force 99 died with Tech! We’re not that squad anymore!” because no, it didn’t, and they’re more than a squad, they’re a family.

- It comes around and closes the wound opened in Aftermath and ripped back open by Return to Kamino: they go in for Omega and lose someone, but here, they go in for Omega and get someone back.

- Would allow Tech to close off his lingering threads and finish his character development BECAUSE THOSE REMAINED UNFINISHED.

- Completely subverts the “bury your disabled” trope by making sure we know the character whose disability was explored the most’s life is more important than his death. Seems like an important thing to do in a show that is kind of about disability. Just saying.

- Makes the lack of closure and little mentions of Tech make sense from a storytelling POV because the necessarily catharsis would come from his return.

- And it would actually add some triumph to the ending. Yes, this little family survived. They outlived the war. They’re together, despite every effort to rip them apart. They made it, despite the dark times, despite the Empire, despite what they were made to do and be. They defied all of that. That would have been so, so satisfying.

As is, without Tech, without that CX-Tech reveal, we sort of end up in this weird place where all the themes are half-baked. They are more than soldiers…except Tech, who had to fall out of the story as a soldier (despite us getting the clearest glimpse of what his life outside of soldiering could have been). They get to live how they want…except Tech. They don’t leave their own behind, except Tech that one time. They should value their own lives a little…except Tech. They’re more than a squad, they’re a family…except Tech, the only one besides Omega to say that’s what they are, doesn’t get to see it, and they don’t get to have him around. We begin the series with a broken family and end it with a family broken differently. That’s not dynamic.

So there’s no really punch to the ending. It’s sort of…well, okay, we tortured a family for three seasons I guess. Relieved that the survivors are doing okay, but that’s kind of it.

22. The finale in general is just sort of a bunch of events which happen, but which don’t lead into one other. It’s weird. It’s not that too much happens, it’s that almost nothing happens. Nothing of substance, in a way. The finale is, in a word, the only true filler episode in the entire show.

TL;DR: I think a lot of stuff got dropped from the finale. I don’t know why. I suspect that it might have to do with the strikes—basically, the script was done, most everything was recorded and boarded, and then when the finale was in production they got sudden drastic budget cuts (this was during a time when the studios were disappearing entire completed shows and movies as tax write-offs), had to gut what they had planned, and couldn’t bring the writers or even showrunners in to smooth over what was gutted or to even pick what got taken out. They wouldn’t have gotten to choose or compress things. They were on strike (because the studios wouldn’t negotiate), and whoever did choose ended up just ripping out the stuff that would actually take any time or budget to deal with (so, basically everything I laid out), killing it (literally), and using the remains of what they already had recorded. And who knows how they had to fill in gaps.

But I don’t know for sure. Maybe it was that. Maybe it was a last minute decision to take certain plot points and put them in a different show. Maybe it was executive mandate. Maybe the creative team just sucked the whole time (that’s one I have a hard time buying—we have four other shows and most of this one that tell me that they’re better at their jobs than this). Maybe everyone said screw it, who even cares anymore at the same time.

Maybe nothing happened. Who knows? I strongly suspect something bad did happen behind the scenes that was out of the creative team’s hands—I really do, because that’s the only way I can make sense of this—but until we can get someone talking without six layers of PR and NDAs, we won’t know for sure. All I know is that The Bad Batch is an amazing show with 46 episodes that range from “fine-but-clunky” to “IMMACULATE,” with more leaning towards immaculate than not, and some incredible set up, and one episode so nonsensically bad it makes me want to eat drywall.

It’s just that the one terrible episode comes right at the end.

I love The Bad Batch. I love every single episode and all the things that were set up, but…eh, I think I’ll be ignoring the finale until further notice.

#the bad batch #in which I eviscerate the last episode of my favorite show #this is very negative!#you have been warned!#I did not like the finale!#AT ALL #I will continue to love the show #but that episode is getting memory holed #it’s BAD #in an otherwise remarkably solid and well written show

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dhampling · 6 months

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ivory tower 18+ ASCENDED!ASTARION X AFAB!READER, 4.6K

Something deeply sordid, raw; ungodsly. There’ll be no Lathandrian blessing for your young, no gentle welcome into some family fayre on the outskirts of the city; but you want this.

woah boy! my first ascended astarion piece, so please be kind! dal is back babey! woooo! thank you to @bhaalism and @lipstickghoulie for dealing with me while writing this i love you both endlessly. wc: 4.6k cw: afab reader, female language used. breeding, mind-control, p in v, ascended astarion, public fingering, private banging, great times all round, as always if there are errors no there aren't, creampies, yippee

Baldur’s Gate doesn’t sleep. Not really.

She sometimes slows just enough to find some purchase amongst the muddle, though - tiptoes lazy through highsun in soft linens, the burgeoning swell of soap suds and sunny rosemary through wide open wooden shutters. Lingering - sweat-soaking worn leathers, the sore of the flex in the arch of your foot splayed over cobble. As if to grasp at the memory, your fingers stretch out from your side and on to the dark oak of the armrest, in a moment of sheer jubilance. Summer. The sun. Wide bright mornings. Hopeful and hot as a bated breath.

The city ambles onward this evening, no different despite the inclement weather and the din of an early darkness. Half-lidded through dark streets as rain smatters the roofs with wet, glistening something dozy under the tall oil street lamps and swirls of ever-present heavy fog. Gurgling whilst each drain fills with water and swallows deep into the sewers.

Scatters the hay, bears the slip; sings a slow drunken stutter of thunder-wind whiling at the windows into the small hours. There’s a comfort to be found in it.

The harbour bell will go on to toll for every sail weary ship coming in from the fog; the crescent caress of the Gate’s waiting arms lit low with oily dots of amber. That even this late into the night the bands of trawlers on the dock work crates and barrels into cargo holds with worn hands and ruddy cheeks. The gulls and their scattering squawks. The flapping of their fat feathered wings up into the clouds.

From where you sit in the Ivory Tower you can hardly see anything at all. Fog obscures the streets to a point, other than the light patches under the oil lanterns out on the ramparts. The window runs dripping wet with condensation. Pools under the pane.

A hideaway of sorts within the manor. Newly reclaimed by Astarion in some deal with the quivering council in order to keep him sweet. Not that he has any armies of undead in his retainer to command as yet, but they don’t need to know that. There’s time. You’re still blessedly mortal and able.

Astarion.

He should be skulking the halls somewhere below with that unnerving silent step he’s taken to using. Your cheeks grow warm, the blanket over your shoulders pulled closer into your chest as you allow your mind to run wild; the scald of bliss to your brain like that of some ironmonger’s poker, split straight to the core.

Your love. Your lover.

Amongst his many newfound desires and passions seemingly includes the impetus to redesign a centuries-old palace from scratch, and while you doubt he has the want nor willpower to take the project anywhere near to completion you’re more than happy to indulge him during this burst of creativity. A designer’s eye. Lavish yet not ostentatious, he tells you. Your own private wing of the palace, and one you’ll share together. He has no need for his own private chambers. You’re the only one he wants to be beside. You understand that at its essence, it isn’t even necessarily a want to design for creativity’s sake, it’s important to you both to have every memory of the residence’s former owner gone. Every threadbare tread of carpet, every scuff on the wall; every painting being demounted by workers downstairs and shipped to the auction house first thing in the morning. You can hear them if you still enough, heart still beating in your chest and the low chunter of layman gossip.

The version of him you knew before his ascension was so very scared. Beautiful, but wavering. You loved him of course; and you always will - it was that version of him, the one lost in the wilderness that you fell for, and gods; you fell hard - frenetic and whiny, fleeting as light snow never to settle on the forest floor. Wild-eyed.

But this Astarion - the real Astarion, as far as he is concerned - has you completely and utterly enraptured each day you wake together, the same as ever, from the second your eyes open. Wrapped in those Daerlunian-import plush linens atop your gargantuan newly-installed four poster bed. Face of marble with those cattish dark lashes and eyes of carnelian crush. Enchants every room he walks into, as he always has.

You don’t know he’s with you until a hand ghosts your shoulder, sinewy; with those deft pale fingers deep encroaching on your collarbone in his grasp.

“I didn’t hear you, lover.”

“But I heard you.’

He circles round the velvet armchair, resplendent in his home finery. Not a crease to be seen. Voice soft, yet laced with a bristling concern.

‘Why do you insist on sitting up here?”

You err for a brief moment.

“I can hear the rain on the roof, here. See some bustle when the fog clears. The city goes on.” You shake your head with a smile as he crouches beside you, nestling his head in the crook of your arm.

“But it’s cold. Dark. Come down - I can light the fire in our sitting room if you like?”

“We have so many centuries yet to see together! What sense is there in not observing the world as it is now? Keeping record of the city as we saved it?”

His head lifts and his eyes meet yours, some churlish quirk of a brow in the low light.

“An archivist, now? Is that to be your profession alongside me? Whilst you raise our young?”

“If I wish it to be, yes.”

He laughs, a gentle low hum.

“Then an archivist you’ll be - the most renowned in all the lands. We’ll make it so.’ He stands once more and takes your hands from your lap, bringing them clasped to his lips in a soft, lingering kiss.

‘I’ll begin planning on your archives - I presume you’ll want a library? Or something similar in your wing, maybe even an office. Who knows?”

Astarion looks to the room around you, the shapes covered with old canvas and the rickety floorboards underfoot. Cobwebs in the corner. There’s no grimace nor displeasure. He simply surveys as cool as still water. Objective.

“I’ll have some of the merchants relay their contacts come morning too. If you insist on expanding your territory up here then it must befit you.”

“Befit me?” You grin now. His hold on your hands remains secure.

“If you want me to say it, then I suppose I will. As many times as it takes to get it through that heavy skull of yours.’

His smile reaches his eyes as he circles back behind your chair, fingers splayed over your shoulders once more in a deep round kneading pattern.

‘There’s nothing you won’t have if you want for it. Nothing too good for you to covet, my solace; Saviour to the whole Sword Coast and every plain mite within its bounds.’

There’s a small pause as he bows to kiss the top of your head.

‘And I thank the stars every day that I can provide for you. That you saw the potential in me and lifted me higher, to such profane glory amongst the swill of common man. That my gold, my influence, and terror, and each lift of my blade is at your command and yours alone. That you stayed at my side.”

He doesn’t like to mention the gods, hence the stars. Pointedly brings the grimace back into play, occasionally even furrows with the slightest twinge of anger brewing at his brow. The gods had no role to play in your shared victories. No divine intervention saved him from two hundred years of torment, from certain death after the crash of the nautiloid along that sun-soaked span of rocky beach;-

You did. You with your strange inclination toward the weak man he once was. The shell he lived in like a hermit crab on the shore, nothing more.

On bright days, you thank him for giving you time.

Time to live, time to breathe with full lungs. Time to allow you to burn your eyes in the beating sun with a silver pot of fresh coffee and whatever ridiculous spew the papers hold between the pages today.

You know as you sit in comfortable silence that your time dwindles, and that your turning is inevitable. Your eternal wedded bliss is to be alongside him and will be as vivid in nature as all the colours of the astral plane, if he’s to be believed - and there’s no reason not to see his word as gospel. You can see each moment as crystalline as sea glass on sand. Forever with the man you love more than you’ve ever felt inclined to love anything. The bridal ceremony is but a drop in the vast ocean of your lives together.

He thanks you too. Often alongside you with eyes closed in some dozy recline, forearm hanging lazily whilst he takes the sun on his skin like a blessing. A loose linen shirt akin to the one he wore back at camp at the start of your journey together, strings wide open, a blaze of blinding flesh at the corner of your eye each time he shifts.

The veranda on a clear day. Astarion has assured you he’ll never take this from you. He’ll never take anything that you don’t willingly give him with a clear heart - and why would you give him your ability to bask in the sun, like a street cat in days-warm dust? What purpose does that serve either of you, beyond making you a less useful weapon in his prized arsenal?

At one point, all you wanted was to talk to him - and it rings true even now. The want to be the bearer of all his tales. To learn about him, to be close to him; to hear him tear the world apart with that dulcet snarl, walking alongside each other on the barren dirt trails out in the wilderness. Hop-skipping to keep up with his quiet gait. Giving him back as good as you got. The glimmer of his hair in the sunlight, the way he’d sometimes just stop.

Close his eyes. Feel the heat. The gentle burn of highsun on tender flesh. A soft inhale.

That morning out in the clearing after your first night together. Arms outstretched in a welcome to the light. It had taken a few minutes for it to click as you’d silently watched on, why his sun salutation was so fond. So open.

It’s to be a long engagement with regard to your transformation whilst the manor undergoes renovations. Reason after reason as to why now isn’t the ideal time to commit you to eternity. You know why he wants to keep a hold on your precious mortality for the time being, of course; and that keeps you from the forever embrace of his Dark Kiss. It never changes.

You’ll allow him to sire your children. You want him to. Crave it. Him.

Your very own lineage together, he whispers; frenzied by your ear as his fingers crawl the bare span of your thigh. He can breed you full like fate intended and you’ll have something - besides him - that’ll also last forever. Something of your own surpassing the death of all of your contemporaries. The Vampire Ascendant and The Saviour of Baldur’s Gate, flesh-on-flesh, skin smacking skin; his debauched groans and lewd whimpers as he buries himself inside you, your cooing breaths;-

You’ll wed normally too, for the interested eyes of the city. Some dull ceremony with the elites adorning all tables as gilded pieces might some decorative chess board, deceptive vows. Legally it makes things easier should anything befall either of you but the hassle almost makes the whole thing undesirable - gods, especially because he already treats you as some smitten newlywed might. Adores you. Follows you around the manor, stalking; like some wolf cub after its mother. Carries you to bed each evening and ploughs you senseless, until spit gathers in the corners of your wet, wanting mouth and you can’t see straight through grey-blear eyes.

He likes the idea of you taking his name by law. Melds with your own like it were meant to be, from the starter threads of whatever cosmic tapestry pulled you together, the marriage of your first name to his last, interwoven by a scholar’s hand in gold-shining delicate point.

Ancunín. The House of.

Tapestries. Large, spanning the halls. The Sarsantyr's over in Waterdeep - they’ll be able to create what you’re picturing.

A familiar gaze meets yours. It’s then that you realise you aren’t alone in your mind once more

“If you want tapestries, you only have to ask.”

“In fairness - you didn’t give me a chance to.”

He hums, tilting his head a little in the sun’s glare.

“I’ll send for them. The Sarsantyr's, yes? Have them pack up all their little-’

He pulls a face and lifts his hands in some kind of puzzled shake.

‘Sewing bits? Textiles? I’ll send carriages. They can come and stay in the lower rooms. Create the masterpiece you envision.” Astarion sniggers a little at the thought of putting them in the old dormitory while you remain lost in thought.

“Okay. Check them through first though, yes?

The real event - the wedding - will give you total ecstasy beyond your wildest preconception, you know this. Unfettered and euphoric. Books and books on the topic stacked clumsily beside your bed, reds and greens; the turning of a vampire bride in leather bound prose. You know what to expect in florid detail. You know to trust your lover, that the rabid creature you’ll become is only a temporary mental state precursing an eternity alongside him.

And yet, you wonder about the children. They’ll be here by then. However many he decides is enough, naturally; assumedly under the care of some hired help whilst you engage in your thoroughly bastardised pastiche of a wedding ceremony. You laugh now. He’s still in your head, mulling over your thoughts as soon as you can think them.

Will you miss them? Will they be your last thought before you pass away; Astarion unable to complete this ritual alone as he was unable to before? Will your death lead to his, leaving your dhampir offspring to ravage Baldur’s Gate unsupported by the windfall of knowing parents? There’s still no hesitation, though. You will bear his young. You want to. The consequences either way are vast and long-lasting, and you’d rather be at his side than facing his ire-

“Love, what are these thoughts? What on earth is going on in that very pretty head of yours today?” His voice is a low drawl, pitying yet laced with affection. He sits straight in his chair whilst a hand lazily searches for yours atop the sun-warmed table; beyond the scope of the ramparts wall the low meander of city life continues on.

“Mulling things over.”

“You don’t need to do that, pet. Come now.’ He beckons you onto his lap and wraps his arms around your middle, hand searching for the soft pillow of your chest as your ass backs up to his abdomen.

‘You want me to make it better?”

You nod gently, the sun catching your eye in a particularly bright beam and making you squint.

“Please.”

“Poor thing. It’s okay.” As he coos; one hand finds the curve of soft flesh at your chest, holding the weight of your breast firmly as he starts lightly thumbing at the nipple through your nightshirt.

“There, now. Good girl.” Your head falls back onto his shoulder, a deep sigh as he lulls you into a new state of calm astride him. Birds sing overhead whilst you nuzzle his neck.

“I will miss this warm flesh of yours, you know. Terribly so.’ His other hand moves to your nightskirt, gently hitching the material bit-by-bit up your thighs until you sit exposed to the air. Nobody can see you from here - the faceless crowd little but colourful dots below; Astarion giving a small tense laugh as he feels your pulse quicken against him.

He toys with your skirt, edging ever nearer your exposed cunt; and your eyes flutter closed.

‘But the greater purpose… I just can’t let it go. Us. Our lives together. I sincerely doubt you want to wither away to age; to lose your extraordinary beauty-’

A gentle groan as he feels your warmth.

‘Do you, my most precious flower?”

“Of- Of course I don’t. I want to be with you, as we are; forever.”

“Then we’re going to need to make a concerted start on the only thing setting us back, are we not?” His fingers gently tap on the crux of your pubic bone, threateningly close to your clit. You feel the familiar seep of your slit leaking onto the bunched skirt fabric and you think of honey. Some kind of sweet glaze.

“Yes.”

As you sink further into him his fingers move down just a little to meet your clit; and in response to your delighted sighs he very lightly begins to stroke either side of the engorged flesh. There’s no urgency to his movement nor his demeanour; just a treacle-thick teasing grin as he turns his head to kiss your blazing cheek.

“Good.”

There’s something borderline celestial about the gentle way he touches you, coaxing more of your slick from you with every gentle jerk. He deftly motions ‘come hither’ with a soaking middle finger dipping lightly at your hole then brings your arousal up to wetten your clit once more.

“You want this, don’t you?” A finger slips down to your cunt, this time slipping and nestling deep inside as you feel yourself writhe on him. One arm scrambles around the back of his neck to support yourself while he begins to curl at your spongy spot, and the anchor of your arousal shifts free.

“I’ve been rifling through that glorious mind of yours these past few days and I see you now. You want comfort. To comfort. To seek shelter in those warm lights on the horizon, to know you aren’t alone in the late hours.”

You nod furiously, wincing, desperate to feel him deeper. Thicker. You need more, your fox-eyed paramour giving only the barest minimum he can do to watch you squirm.

“You, with my babe in arm;- oh the image alone does things to you, doesn’t it?”

It’s as if he’s creating the visions in your head as he speaks them, bringing them to the forefront of your mind in hushed coos and silent gasps. As if by magic, the only thing on your mind is a primal need for him to fuck you full. Nothing else, no mind for coffee nor completed manor renovations.

You will be round. You will brim with life before he turns you, and you’ll take to his seed the minute he offers it to you. You’ll accommodate him like no other across Toril could hope to. You wonder if he has the power to decide how many, as he adds another finger to your unbridled torment. If he could choose to speed the process up with a celebration of twins, triplets. An heir and two spares. Maybe he’d wait instead until the first was born, just to ensure the viability of his bloodline. A test.

He’s doing this; you become starkly aware as he withdraws his fingers, spiderwebs of glistening drool clinging to your inner thigh as he brings them between his lips and suckles. He’s giving you these ideas of grandeur because he can. Because you are his. Because you wouldn’t want to belong to anyone else, to be tied to any other notion of whatever a fulfilling life is, if it weren’t one shared wholly by him. With him.

“Let me take you inside, sweet one. Let’s take care of you properly, shall we? Curb this fever, hm?”

Please, you think. Please take this burning hole in my womb and make it full with you. Extinguish the flame with your unholy spend and give me children. Give me oud and orchids and a life of warmth, however long we both may live.

“Use your words, my love. Tell me you want this.”

“I want this. Please.”

On the bed you now lie, the room cool and dark; balcony doors open wide with light-billowing curtains. Sweat consumes you as your thoughts run wild, the smell of your arousal, clammy hands and deep breaths in the low light. Astarion approaches like something from a dream, shirtless now; smirk plastered cheek-to-cheek as he leans over your trembling form with confidence - your lust-addled fingers reaching for his steady form like a ship to harbour.

“You want to feel it, little dove? Feel how you set me alight?”

He pries your wrist from him with gentle urgency, taking your hand under his and skating both downwards; down the plane of his tight torso, slowing to a stop just above his pelvis.

“Tell me - do you want to feel it?”

A small smirk plays at the corner of your lips, but he doesn’t seem to notice - watching the way your hand twitches under his.

“Hm?”

His groan is guttural. Thick. He doesn’t even try to mask it, eyes wide as his hand shifts yours just a little further down and over the blistering burn of his heavy cock through loose linen trousers. A hazy sigh as he moans a small whimper at your touch.

“Please, Astarion. I beg you.”

It’s like his fingers are enchanted, the way they reduce you to this sodden mess. Unable to think unless guided delicately by his superior whim.

“I need to bury myself inside you fully for this to take. I need your full attention, submission; your devotion to our lives together. Do I make myself clear?”

He’s giving you one final chance to withdraw. Your head clears for one sweet moment and you can do little else but stare at his bulge with heavy lids and your mouth agape.

“Crystal. I ache for you. Please, give this to me.”

You lift to meet him in a soft kiss, jaw slackened and cunt ablaze. Nothing else matters, no complications, nor possibilities of horribly mangled spawn from your womb as a result of your copulation. This scalding stupor that sends you insane won’t go away until he quenches it with his seed.

Your response has satisfied him, if the way he stands sharpish and unties his trouser laces is anything to go by. The glassy head of his cock stands purple at his stomach, leaking wild at the slit and red-hot as your hand reaches blindly for him in your hunger.

He gently taps you away and back down onto the sheets.

“Magic?” You hear yourself mumble, still amazed at how surely swollen he must feel with how sore he looks. Has to be.

“Just me.”

There’s a tenderness in his eyes as he crawls back over you, legs instinctively parting and lifting at the knee to accommodate him. Something that compels him to hold your face in the hand that isn’t supporting his weight and just look at you, fondly; for what feels like an age.

Then he shifts once more to angle himself, decidedly spending no more time on preparation. The heat of his cock against your slit is unlike anything you’ve ever known, dizzying yet pleasurable; hard and yet still yielding, and as he thrusts a shallow dip into your core you swear you see angels overhead. Yes, you’re ready. You’ve never been more ready for anything than you are for the sheer ecstasy you know he’s about to give you, and he’s going to give you it in droves. Seismic tremors as he shifts a little and you adjust to him once again.

He nods. He hears you.

Then, he snaps once more; and he’s lost.

Each glub of his cock meeting your spill as he ruts into you; the way you feel it running downward in long dribbles, with each and every mindless hump of his hips eking more honey from your cunt in spades.

You hear the sounds of your shared carnal pleasure and it makes you clench around him in some kind of self-perpetuating cycle. Groans and whimpers and moans and hisses and the frequent egregious slaps to your thighs whilst he chases his high.

He’s perfect like this. Halo of curls above you, voice silken as he calls you every pet name under the sun, his, always. Your legs ache already from being wound so tightly, interlocked around him, and you think of the prespill inside you already. How each fangy showman’s smile means he’s twitching at your cervix and leaking molten gold inside you with every thrust.

It’s not until he nuzzles down to your neck that you remember to offer it, potentially for the last time on this mortal coil.

“Are you asking?”

“Well, you didn’t offer.”

The immediate pang is one of violent nausea, subsiding quickly into a wooze coating the bottom of your stomach in black tar as he fucks upward. Unease. There’s something in his spit, you assume. Something that makes the gaping wounds a little more bearable, a little less raw as he kitten-licks the flesh between swallows. Ice courses your veins with adrenaline as it always does.

Astarion chokes down his first sip with an eager cough. The burgeoning panic wracking your limbs turns into a numbed haze as your lover feasts, big neat gulps whilst he clutches at your ribcage with fingers splayed deep and cock buried to the hilt, like a man starved. His hair tickles at your jaw, the smell of something herbal. Slightly lemony.

He splutters that he’s close and you feel yourself nearing your peak too.

There’s a profane desecration in what he’s doing, painting your walls in an attempt to get you pregnant. Something deeply sordid, raw; ungodsly. There’ll be no Lathandrian blessing for your young, no gentle welcome into some family fayre on the outskirts of the city. No villages to raise them, no cards nor flowers from friends or family; but you want this.

You want him to taint you in his particular shade of crimson, visibly; so the realms know who made The Saviour of Baldur’s Gate come to heel. The man who compelled her through sheer love alone and to whom she gave everything. The indomitable force for whom you’ll die, only to resurrect forever as his.

Visions of your turning don’t scare you - all lightning and thunder, the cries of your dhamplings in some nursery down the towering halls of your palatial wing; and yet you’ll be safe in his caress. He wouldn’t let a single thing happen to you. He won’t.

And as he cums; he calls your name.

Some rhythmic prayer over and over again; and with each kick of his cock he loses some of his bedroom charm and hurtles back to earth, humbly enraptured. More candid. His weary muscles tighten as yours threaten your own release around him.

“Cum for me, now. Milk me.” in a heavy whisper whilst he strokes the soft flesh of your cheek; and you do. You cum harder than you can remember ever before. Each wave of sheer pleasure some blackout tidal wave as you writhe, staccato in his arms.

If you die during the ceremony, you’ll die happy. Should the younglings bite their way through your womb, it won’t matter.

You’re loved. He loves you, in soft kisses and gentle arms carried all the way to the waiting washtub. In the way he sponges your aching shoulders and brings a washcloth to your dazed face.

Baldur’s Gate doesn’t sleep, not really.

But tonight it will, in the patient, visceral bliss of calm before a summer storm.

#my writing #astarion #astarion x reader #astarion ancunin #baldurs gate astarion #ascended astarion #ascended astarion x reader #astarion x female reader #astarion baldurs gate #astarion bg3 #bg3

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