#ship: chaol & dorian

[acourtofquestions]

Sarah J. Maas really does a good job as a writer when it comes to guiding the reader into the opinion you want them to have for the best emotional investment in the story. … It’s never going to be 100% unanimous (often it’s fun in a way because everyone has their own interpretation, favorites, etc.) however I think her fandoms have more generally conclusive agreements & that’s a pretty impressive feat saying how often her characters & their relationships change; they are built, destroyed, & rebuilt again. The ability to twist the story (even starting with the Beauty and the Beast comparison within A Court of Thorns and Roses is impressive). And I say this as a fan who tends to be PRETTY loyal to my favorites, her books have been an exception.

Tamlin (the beast) is at first a VERY hesitation drawing character, by the time one finally starts to like him; it still feels off (& confusing because isn’t he “supposed to be” the main love interest? “Shouldn’t you” like the MAIN LOVE INTEREST?) then when you finally start to think you love him, your all in on the ship, it starts BREAKING YOUR HEART, until one page changes everything & you now LOATHE HIM FOREVER. 1 book, 7 chapters, & the reader goes through it WITH Feyre.

Rhysand (the beauty😂😊😘) goes from a “who is this tall dark “beautiful” stranger”, to holy**** he’s the one decapitating people😅 & now everyone is terrified of him (for & with Feyre), so the hatred officially starts, until it presses pause because it’s just straight up confusing (“what am I supposed to feel?”) and start getting confused by all the feelings for him; one second he’s annoying, then hilarious, then everyone is drawn to him, until you can’t tell if you like or hate (or love to hate) him. AND THEN SOMETHING IS DEF UP AND YOU NEED TO KNOW WHAT RIGHT NOW so you spend all this time guessing & waiting & brooding & pining—until you think you understand him & “even if it’s fucked up you love him” & then you REALLY do LOVE him and your just WAITING for Feyre to realize it too… And then EVERY shoe drops; you never knew anything, now you know EVERYTHING, & they are officially ENDGAME… until that gets too literal & now your crying CAUSE IT CANT END & thankfully it doesn’t! It just begins 80 times over for Fae Infinity (depending on how that whole death bet bargain goes😅).

Sam we fall for him (even knowing from DAY 1) how it ends; we fall for him because she did; and he did love her. Truly, steadily, from the beginning—to the end. They had something real, a beautiful promise (to be kept… & betrayed, not by them but by the very universe) born among sorrow but not out of it. Something good, built by them. We fall for the assassin, the boy, the best friend; the one that should’ve gotten to be the one or at least gotten more time… the first love, always love, & un-ended one because it’s ending came without a goodbye & before it even had a chance to begin…

Dorian the beautiful & forbidden prince — the good boy, to one day make a good king & a good man; the dreamer you fall for because he wants to make the world better & just might be a better benevolent ruler; ever-looking for his equal to rule by his side. The forbidden affair, yet always almost promised to be — the Daughter of Terrasen & the Son of Adarlan — enemies to friends to lovers (& friends again) burdened with glorious purpose & dark powerful pasts. The might have been; two sides, same coin… seen by all… seemed fit to be…

Chaol the opposites attract; magnets always in orbit always moving toward this; them. The love that brings life, back to-well-life. The guard & The Assassin; the killer & the protector; the prophesied end to evil rule, a woman scorned & hell-bent to burn the crown to the ground — the one who gave everything for an ideal, a good man, given to protect it at the cost of his very life & all he knew; the daughter of ruin & the fallen — the son of ruiners who destroyed to survive, yet survived nonetheless. A truly good man in a world of evil, a goodness that makes her believe again. A resilient sun, she blazes among deaths darkness, he watches her like Icarus. They are the goodness that came out of the ashes. Opposites yet the ones that understood (even to a fault). It was always meant to be… right?! — Their story. You see & fall for yet ANOTHER future, their “brood of children” & running away together. Until…

Rowan I have yet to meet him but from the little (trying to stay spoiler free) he is her match. Though I was strongly team Chaol… and Dorian… and Sam… I am sure I will fall once again…

There is something genius in that

[aho-dapa]

colors and metals for my TOG OT3

Dorian: red and silver 

Chaol: blue and gold

Aedion: green and rose gold

[lucien-calore]

chaol "you're losing me" westfall + dorian "hits different" havilliard = chaorian "all of the girls you loved before" westvilliard

[aesthetic-solar-space]

Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas (reread)

415 pages, published August 2, 2012 - 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 Even upon rereading this book I was always excited and intrigued at what would happen next - and that's normally not me on a reread. Overall it went over the expectations I had going in for a second time - now on to Crown Of Midnight...this one I know is gonna hurt. Wyrd help me, please.

[itamiika]

hot take: Throne of Glass up until the end of the fourth book would be much better if Dorian loved Chaol and Chaol only realized he loves him too after Celeana/Aelin left and then he’s desperate to get his mindcontrolled boyfriend back.

[archeronduarte]

Dorian Havilliard and Chaol Westfall.

Dorian and Chaol. Chaol and Dorian.

[alphinias]

I was a diehard bellyconrad at 13 and i have not seen the show but. 100% I won’t change my mind lol. I never do with ships.

I am now curious, what else have you shipped? I want to know how far we coincide/not

Same. I am one stubborn bitch and clearly my taste hasn’t changed.

Some other ships I ship: Stydia, Jiara (obviously), Bellarke, Delena (ride or die baby), Zade, CaptainSwan, I did actually ship both Steroline and Klaroline, Jacey, Kanej (there is no real alternative here but it is the superior sab ship), chenford, Rivusa > samusa from their 53 seconds of screen time alone.

[mneiaifics]

Throne of Glass: Biding Time, Chapter 1

Originally Posted October 17, 2019 on AO3

Summary:

At first, there was peace--the day was saved, the evil defeated, the bright future shining ahead of them--but peace could not last in a world so broken. And Dorian is sent back decades earlier, to just before his world of glass starts to shatter, to fix what is already long lost. Post Kingdom of Ash Time Travel AU

Ships: Erawan | Duke Perrington/Dorian Havilliard, Kaltain Rompier/Dorian Havilliard, Aedion Ashryver/Dorian Havilliard, King of Adarlan & Dorian Havilliard, Chaol & Dorian Havilliard.

Warnings: Dark, Character Bashing, PTSD, Cannibalism, Character Death, Possession, Manipulation, Canon-Typical Violence, Canon-Typical Bigotry

XX

Dorian awakens to the familiar, horrible chiming of the clocktower's bells. He lies in bed, heart racing, trying to convince himself it's just some bad dream.

For the bed is one he recognizes, one that hasn't existed in years. The same with the room around him. The same, he knows, if he looks out the window towards the clocktower he can feel, pushing sluggishly against his magic. And the glass palace that is surely there, as well.

Fix this, Hollin had said, staring at him with horrifying black eyes that Dorian knew weren't from possession. You ruined it all, so you'll be the one to fix this.

His brother had killed himself, then, adding his blood to their mother's, activating the last of the wyrdmarks he'd carved. There had been no time to stop it, no time for Dorian to use his magic to prevent...whatever it was.

And now he was here. In a younger body. In an earlier time period.

Guards rushed into the room and he flinched, barely refraining from reaching out with invisible hands to push them back out. These, he reminded himself, were not the possessed guards that eventually filled the buildings and grounds. These were Chaol's men.

"My prince! We heard a shout!"

Dorian blinked at them, before taking a deep breath, shaking his head. "It was nothing, just a bad dream."

That explanation didn't seem to satisfy them, but they left. And he, seeing the rays of sunlight beginning to reach through the horizon, slid out of the bed.

He spent long moments running his hands over the clothing in his wardrobe, styles he no longer wore, fashions that had not been seen in years. After choosing what he thought was a neutral enough outfit, he hurried out, heading straight towards the library.

First, he'd find all of the books on wyrdmarks he could and bring them back to his rooms, hide them among his collection so they were unnoticeable. Then he had a sword to collect.

And then--he paused, eyes going up towards his father's rooms--and then he had to decide what he would do about the Valg. About his father and Erawan.

After seeing Yrene do it, Dorian knew he could burn out the prince within his father, but Erawan...he wasn't so sure. Not when the Valg king still had two of the keys in his possession. And if he took out the prince in his father without taking care of Erawan, it would give too much warning.

Already there were experiments being done. Already there were forces being gathered.

He'd dropped the books off in his room, the ones he could find, and was on his way towards the room that would be Aelin's in another life when a page caught up to him. "My prince," the boy murmured, bowing, and motioning towards the glass castle. "Your father is...concerned by your absence."

Dorian mentally cursed as he followed the boy back towards the castle and the council meeting he'd overlooked. As king he'd set his own schedule and would not have forgotten such a thing, but as prince he was still at the mercy of his father's often abrupt planning.

Or, abrupt-seeming. He had no way of knowing how many of these were scheduled to distract them all of them from what the Valg were doing.

Duke Perrington was there, just the sight of him, even as innocuously human-seeming as he was, set Dorian on edge. He had to clamp down on the untrained magic stirring in this body, on the expression of distaste he wanted to make.

"So kind of you to join us," his father ground out in reprimand as Dorian took his seat.

It was only halfway through the meeting, as they began to wind through a report on wine exports, that Dorian realized what meeting this was. Of course Hollin would send him to this exact moment.

When his father announced his 'need' for a Champion, Dorian felt a sinking in his stomach. He glanced up, accidentally catching Perrington's gaze, and for a moment he swore he could see the gold lurking behind the black.

XX

Original Author's Notes:

I just love time travel fics lol I feel like I should specify (if the summary didn't do so) that this is Dorian attempting a fix-it not for what happens in the books, but for the dark future that comes after all of the dust settles. Because the world is REALLY fucked up by that point and it's hard to imagine all they needed to do was kill two Valg and suddenly everything is going to be puppies and sunshine. Anyway, also you should heed that this is DARK. Dorian already has a pretty massive amount of PTSD and shit to deal with at the end of the series and he's coming off of a bunch more awful stuff happening, so he's gonna be a little OOC. The actual events, the details and stuff, of his past (post canon until he gets sent back) will come out as the story progresses. And anyone who knows my ASOIAF fics and my obsession with Starks having Other blood can already guess that this is going to do a lot of delving into Dorian (and Hollin) having Valg blood and what that means for them. This will update infrequently and just a warning but I'm not sure I'll finish because this isn't really my fandom.

[aphpolandisgreat]

I spoiled a book to my friend.

Kill me please.

[sunxxblessed]

Shipping tag dump 4

[clockwork-fayz]

In honor of me finally reading Kingdom of Ash, here’s what I think the core group of characters sexuality meters are:

Aelin: 60% attracted to masculine men, 30% to herself, and 10% to women that act like herself

Rowan: 100% straight (sadly, but like he had a whole cadre of beautiful men and never once thought about it? SMH) but also 100% approves of everyone’s sexualities. You could say you are attracted to large ships and he’d be like okay, good for you!

Dorian: 40% attractive to any person with a pulse, 60% attracted to people that can kill him

Manon: 90% attracted to herself, 10% to Dorian but like reluctantly

Chaol: 90% straight, 10% Dorian

Yrene: 95% straight, 5% Aelin

Aedion: 100% poly

Lysandra: 50% to Aedion and 50% to Wesley but never had felt anything towards anyone besides that

Lorcan: 100% Elide (anything he felt for Maeve was actually the feeling of desperation disguised as attraction)

Elide: 100% the most toxic ass people (She says she can change them and she’s right actually)

[acourtofquestions]

Sam Cortland was Celaena Sardothien’s soulmate, first love, & forever love.

Dorian Havilliard was Lillian Gordaina’s love, future, friend, & meant to be.

Chaol Westfall was Elentiya’s forever, missing piece, heart & home.

Rowan Whitethorn is Aelin Ashryver Galathynius’s one, true mate, always, kismet, & stars aligned.

The idea that each of her lives & names had a different soulmate, a different purpose, a different character arc (& “what if”) each separated by name is one of my new favorite’s… especially in a world of fandom multiverses — & the actual real world where people change, we outgrow places, our dreams morph, tragedy occurs… just because somethings different doesn’t mean it meant less or more… it just is the way of an arc.

In that thinking of Celaena/Aelin/etc. like this is one I am loving so much I had to share; though I am still on my “first read” and haven’t technically even met Rowan yet “avoiding spoilers” & all that; still thanks to the anon reddit I found (lol, all credit to whomever you are)!

P.S. this is NOT meant to turn characters & their arcs into nothing more than a “love interest” equivalent

[shadowqueenjude]

SJM characters whose hate makes no sense

Lorcan Salvaterre: aight ik he's a cold-ass warrior but that Maeve thing is not as big a deal as it's made out to be ok. Y'all forget that Aelin was stupid hiding her plans from experienced war generals and that Lorcan never pretended to be loyal to Aelin. And he never intended for Aelin to go through that torture. Plus Maeve would've found them anyway! A little slower, yeah, but still. Nesta Archeron: ok, come on man. She said some mean words, get over it already pls. there are so many characters who did way worse and get no hate for it. Eris Vanserra: ok he called mor a slut. so what? he's playing a role, plus that bitch be spreading heinous lies about him. and he has shown more respect for mor by bailing her out of their marriage and saving her from her father keir, than the entire inner circle who subjected her to her abuser without even telling her. he's not sexist, he's a mama's boy! besides rhysand objectified feyre's breasts in front of a high lord so. Chaol Westfall: Aight bruh tf did he do? It's one thing knowing someone is an assassin and another thing seeing someone actually murder people. He had nothing to do with Nehemia's death, so don't even with that. Celaena was the one who tried to kill him after claiming to love him. What did you expect Chaol to be all sunshine and rainbows with her? Pls be fr. Besides he's Fleetfoot's number one protector so. Additionally, if you haven't read Tower of Dawn, you have zero content. Friendly reminder if you hate Chaol, Dorian AND Aelin don't like you. Nor do Yrene or Nesryn. Gwyneth Berdara: It's mainly Elriels who keep making up evil Gwyn theories and...stop. Just stop. I don't even gaf if you ship them, but don't drag Gwyn into this, ok? She's so precious and she's a r*pe SURVIVOR. LEAVE. HER. ALONE. And if you say she's lying about that and it's part of her evil plan, I will become the monster under your bed. Lucien Vanserra: If you call Lucien a pushover or an abuser, I will actually become violent. Stop blaming male abuse victims. Just stop it. It's ridiculous. Lucien did fight for her and got abused. Go back and read. He's a r*pe survivor too, because he took on the duties his High Lord wouldn't for the sake of his court. Also, if you're dragging him through the dirt because you're an Elriel shipper, the door is that way --> Bombastic side eye to haters of these characters. ESPECIALLY my favorite sassy redheads (Gwyn and Lucien). Maybe y'all are just salty all these characters have last names while half of your favs still don't.

[acourtofthought]

Chaol and Nehemia offering Aelin their weapons is one of the most heartwarming moments of the first book.

Azriel offering Elain his knife (which he has offered no one else in half a millennia, and which also became the cover photo of ACOWAR alongside an image of roses…) is similarly heartwarming.

So what exactly is the point of your post?

I also find it hilarious that you included a screenshot of this quote - the moment between Chaol and Aelin;

“Far inside of her, she found a golden chain that bound them together.”

That sounds like mate language, no? Similar to the “thread” between Elain and Lucien?

And yet Chaol and Aelin weren’t endgame. 🤷‍♀️

You forgot the part where Az only offered Elain TT because the female he canonically loved begged him with tears in her eyes to sit out of battle. You and I both know had he not agreed to doing what Mor asked he would have never given Elain TT.

I don't remember Chaol being in love with any other female during the scene where he offered his sword, do you? Or Chaol in the very next book going on to look at someone other than Celaena with heat and yearning? No, Chaol was loyal to her before they were together and during the time they were together.

You also forgot the part where Az never offered to give Elain any help though she was concerned about not knowing how to use TT versus Chaol who helped train Celaena. Chaol who laid on the ground next to Celaena during her Duel.

The scene with Celaena and Chaol was heartwarming, much more so than the scene with Elain and Az because of everything mentioned above. Chaol and Celaena were by far the superior ship to E/riel. In literally every way.

But you're right. Chaol and Aelin weren't endgame because she had a mate who was always going to be her destiny. My point was that Sarah has two series featuring two similar scenes where a possible male love interest offers a weapon to a female but that doesn't actually mean anything in terms of endgame. Sarah J Maas is a millionaire because of the Fated Mates stories she writes. It just doesn't hit quite as hard to become a rejected mates author so people claiming the TT scene means Az is Elain's forever? I'm going with no.

Despite Aelin initially wanting Dorian in book 1, despite her later calling Chaol her home and him thinking how 4 years (and not just one taste and that would be it like Az wanted with Elain) might not be enough, these men were not her endgame.

Again, my point is that it doesn't matter how special you think the moments for your ship are, mates are always going to fulfill something for these females that no other male love interest can.

The ACOTAR book had a wolf on the cover but it didn't hint at endgame for Feyre, what's your point?

And no, "chain" is not like mate language considering each Archeron's CONFIRMED bond is described as a thread and we know the golden chain connecting Celaena to Chaol was not a mating bond. You're doing my work for me.

Golden chain is pretty romantic though, maybe a nod to how they might have been right for one another in a different life where there was no such things as fae mating bonds. Much more romantic than "he hadn't gotten that far with his planning, certainly not beyond the fantasies he pleasured himself to".

You all get so fixated on your multiple books of buildup while forgetting that Sarah J Maas will take many beautiful moments between two characters and throw them out the window in favor of who she wants to be endgame.

Dorian and Chaol had way more moments with Celaena than Az has had with Elain but in the end, they didn't matter.

Like SJM said, it's not about "want" but is about who the FMC needs to be with in order to have the most growth.

"There is a darkness to the Dread Trove that Elain should not be exposed to".

[lunainfortuna]

Soo, I was talking to a friend of mine about how I've never shipped Chaol and Celaena because I always saw that Chaol didn't love Celaena - who she was entirely (pointed out later by Dorian). He loved just a small part of her that he pretended it was her. And the same goes for Celaena - she didn't love Chaol, but a version of him that she created. Ps: at that point of the story.

And that kinda reminded us of elriel because Azriel doesn't love Elain. He only likes what's convenient about her and she probably (99% sure) feels the same about him. That again is the reason I've never shipped them as well.

[highladyofterrasen7]

How the sjm couples react to their ship names

Feysand- Rhys starts signing documents with feysand. Feyre finds it adorable

Nessian- cassian calls her nessian. Nesta gets pissed, they argue, they fuck

Gwynriel- az starts blushing and runs away. Gwyn runs after him

Elucien- both run away. (They like it)

Rowaelin- aelin loves it, starts cackling. rowan is annoyed (nothing new)

Manorian- dorian also calls her it, manon is afraid bc of commitment issues, and tries to run away but abraxos stops her

Lysaedion- Lysandra laughs with aelin. Aedion gets annoyed and broods with rowan

Elorcan- Lorcan loves how elides name is first and elide sits there smug before joining the others and laughing

Chaorene- chaol wants to name his child it. Yrene says no.

Quinlar- hunt is in the asteri dungeons??? He can’t react. Soz

Srsly tho- they brood bc it’s their last names and they’re vain (try to combine umbra mortis and starborn)

Ruhnlidia- Lidia gets annoyed bc it’s uninventive. Ruhn likes it

Ariflynn- (shush) Ariadne disappears (again) bc why would she have a ship name with him??? Flynn adores it