Crystal

doing my part to spread the shadowzel agenda.

[dorindameddler]

Looking through Minthara’s epilogue dialogue with the various origin characters is hilarious because with lae’zel, karlach, and shadowheart she’s really nice and supportive and curious to hear how they’ve been doing. Meanwhile she is doing psychological warfare on the men

[p-inkbrush]

Lae'zel is so. She's so. Ugh

She's demanding, self-assured, unhesitating. She's my partner in arms, my guardian, my right hand. She insults me constantly except when I least expect it; then she tells me my scent has driven her out of her mind and she has to have me.

She tells Wyll she hardly believes in love at all. And then wakes me up in the middle of the night as begs me to fight her, to prove that I'm worthy of keeping her!!*

She's devoted to her queen above all else, above reason. She allows you to make her choices for you, even if those choices defy Vlaakith. I tell her the truth that she doesn't want to hear and she approves, and considers it earnestly.

Romanceable character of all time. I'm obsessed with her

[5aph0]

The way Lae'zel twists her body so she's looking right at Shadowheart at the Underdark camp is so special to me.

[wavebiders]

I think what really bothers me about fanon!Astarion isn't just the woobification. That happens to every problematic white boy. It's annoying, but not news. It's that almost every trait that the fandom assigns him is something that is already explored through a different character in this very game

You want a character that's too focused on the task at hand to want to stop and help innocents? That's Lae'zel! Astarion is cool with dicking around, but Lae'zel spends most act 1 actively in a panic about the tadpole and pushes you to just find a cure already

You want a trauma survivor that is mostly self-serving but can't help but care about people in a similar situation? Well, Astarion disaproves of you helping slaves, but Shadowheart really wants you to look out for kids! Even when she gets tortured for it!

You want someone who is prone to sympathizing with the monstrous? Despite being a monster hunter, it's Wyll that has that covered! Astarion doesn't even like you sympathizing with a recently orphaned goblin kid

You want a proper courtship with a prince charming? That's literally Wyll's romance!

You want a character that tries very hard to be bad, but deep down enjoys doing the right thing, and starts to accept that over the course of the game? Shadowheart again! A massive part of her story is just that

You want the angst of a character still having been a minor when entering their abusive situation? That's the case for literally everybody except for him and maybe Karach! He was an adult with a job

None of this is meant to be an attack on Astarion as a character, but pushing all those traits on him does the game a massive disservice. All these character's storylines exist in conversation with each other, they all benefit from the existence of the others. To instead pretend all those things apply to one character, is just

Well, it's incredibly boring

[wavebiders]

I gotta add these tags because 1. you are so right and 2. I actually hadn't seen the "not pressuring you into sex" argument before💀

That one's especially rich considering he is the only companion that gives disaproval for refusing to sleep with

[nightmaskart]

Shadowheart and Lae'zel

[tackypies]

you have to understand. shadowheart/lae'zel isn't just enemies to lovers it's abt seeing someone who you think you can never empathize with or WANT to empathize with, only to learn they're just like you - and you hate them for it initially. you don't want to see the ugliest parts of your devotion, the one thing that kept you alive through a harrowing life, because if you acknowledged the ugliness and horrors of what you've allowed into you, you'd break. you need to reject the person who's like you, because you cannot accept the "you" reflected back. only when the very system you've dedicated yourself to demands your soul - demands you to break when you've trusted said system to protect you from falling apart all your life - do you begin to understand that the woman you've been fighting against isn't your enemy. it's someone who understands intimately the pain you've been through, the personhood you've had been forced to sacrifice. you are bound now bc of trauma - you are bound now bc who else can understand you, a purposeless being at the cusp of a frightening new horizon?

also the hatesex they have would be out of this fucking world lbr

[diffidentalice]

it really was a remarkable writing choice that these two are so fundamentally different in personality, and yet they are each going through almost the exact same arc.

perhaps my favorite scene is when lae'zel goes on a rant after being outraged by Shar's treatment of shadowheart, and she rages against these injustices with a sincerity and vehemence that is so deeply felt, and yet what elevates this scene above all is that everything she says about shadowheart applies in the exact same way to herself, and she just. can't. see it.

god I love them both so much

[tackypies]

you have to understand. shadowheart/lae'zel isn't just enemies to lovers it's abt seeing someone who you think you can never empathize with or WANT to empathize with, only to learn they're just like you - and you hate them for it initially. you don't want to see the ugliest parts of your devotion, the one thing that kept you alive through a harrowing life, because if you acknowledged the ugliness and horrors of what you've allowed into you, you'd break. you need to reject the person who's like you, because you cannot accept the "you" reflected back. only when the very system you've dedicated yourself to demands your soul - demands you to break when you've trusted said system to protect you from falling apart all your life - do you begin to understand that the woman you've been fighting against isn't your enemy. it's someone who understands intimately the pain you've been through, the personhood you've had been forced to sacrifice. you are bound now bc of trauma - you are bound now bc who else can understand you, a purposeless being at the cusp of a frightening new horizon?

also the hatesex they have would be out of this fucking world lbr

[monolithings]

it's seeing yourself reflected back in the body of a person who you have never considered to be a person before. it's disorienting. you hate her out of habit, because it's all you've ever known—and because you have never liked yourself all that much. it's so easy to hate her, because she hates you too, with a fervor that surpasses reason. you can justify your hatred to yourself by claiming that she hated you first.

but then. you go with her to Creche K'liir and you watch the way others of her faith treat her and you are forced to kneel before her god, and you see the process that has produced the woman who travels with you. you fight alongside her through the bloody gauntlet of her dark goddess, and you have a moment where you realize that her faith, her conviction, are exactly what yours have been. and when the foundations of your very being are shaken, when everything you have ever known is rendered a falsehood, she understands because the same thing is happening to her.

you still hate her. it's easier. it's familiar, comfortable. but you would never allow anyone else who hates her to live.

[5aph0]

They're the kinda couple that match their outfits together.

[mybloodystarlight]

Shadowheart and Lae’zel | Tana French, “In the Woods”

[5aph0]

I just think they're really neat.

[5aph0]

She's not jealous, she's competitive or so she'd like to think.

[5aph0]

Lae'zel finding out that cuddling isn't so bad after all.

[5aph0]

My love, my Shadowheart.

[5aph0]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

“Each strand of hair untwisted and released from its braid clears my mind of doubts. Each strand of hair twisted back into a braid steels my thoughts."

Lae'zel wouldn't have guessed broken bones and self-doubt would lead to mutual satisfaction, but stranger things have happened.

[5aph0]

Avatar Lae'zel gets a unique dialogue option when admitting to checking out Shadowhearts ass. Lae'zel studying that ass, intently. Writing little notes in her war logs about all the times it's distracted her in battle and the mortal peril was still worth it. 💀

[5aph0]

"My blade is keen as ever, but it was you who showed me that a proper victory doesn't always require a razor sharp edge. Sometimes a sincere plea is more persuasive than a dagger against the neck." -Lae'zel

The amount of material in the games writing to work Shadowzel into is astounding. There are so many references to those two in their dialogue.

[5aph0]

Let women be blunt.

The updated dismiss dialogue for Lae'zel doesn't do her justice. It's completely out of character, especially when still in Act 1. It would work if it was post romanced Act 2 or high approval non-romanced Act 3. Some times things should be left how they are.

Let women be blunt, especially when the woman in question understands the urgency of the tadpole situation in a way none of the others do.