maverlok replied to your post “Artemis, out of curiosity, do you have your own stool you use to reach...”
And here I thought you just climbed Jarlaxle...
“Any proper climbing surface must be solid, reliable, not slick, and offer convenient handholds that are free of dangerous animals, outcroppings, and easily shattered facades. For these reasons, and many more, Jarlaxle does not qualify.”
“Besides,” the assassin thought to himself with a grimace, “He would enjoy that entirely too much.”
I'm trying to write a Jartemis fic that has references to Jarlaxle's relationship with Zak. Do we get any info on how they met/why they eventually fell out? (If so, how much are you willing to share??)
[[ I’ve read the ARC of Timeless. Ask me anything!
Yes, we are shown how they met, but they haven’t yet fallen out in Timeless. Presumably the flashbacks in the rest of the books in the as of yet unnamed trilogy will cover that. Then again, maybe they won’t, Bob does have a tendency to have unresolved questions hanging but I guess we’ll have to wait and see if he does this again.
As I’ve said in my original post, I’ll gladly share as much or as little as people want. :D However, while I’m happy to tell you all the details, keep in mind that this is just my recounting, and while I’ll try to do it as objectively as possible, there will be an inherent subjectivity that comes from me not actually copying and pasting the actual text itself, which I’m not allowed to do. It isn’t really feasible for me to tell you everything that happens, and a fair amount of stuff does happen that I think will affect how you view their relationship. It’s certainly affected my perspective on that matter, and in no small amount.
But, since you asked specifically about how they met, I’ll focus on that incident. Even with this focus though I’m leaving out a lot, so again, I’d really suggest that you review the source material for yourself if you care about being true to canon. Spoilers ahead!
Zaknafein belonged to an insignificant minor house, House Simfray, but he excelled so much at Melee-Magthere that the masters had to suppress him so that he wouldn’t embarrass the sons of the noble houses. Nonetheless, word of his fighting prowess spread, and rumors such as that even Uthegentel Del’Armgo would not wish to fight Zak circulated throughout Menzoberranzan.
Many had their sights set on Zak but Matron Malice was the first to act, and she secured a deal through House Xorlarrin. Malice gave up the secrets of a spell of her own devising (the alteration of the jade spider dweomer) and the identity of Briza’s sire (Uthegentel Del’Armgo) in exchange for House Xorlarrin providing her with the manpower assistance that she needed to get Zak.
Jarlaxle, with his fledging Bregan D’aerthe, was in turn recruited by House Xorlarrin to do the actual hands-on dirty work of capturing Zak. Another minor house, House Tr’arach, hired House Xorlarrin’s impressive wizard force to aid them in their war against House Simfray, and the Xorlarrins participated only to the letter of their agreement, in other words just enough to help assure mutual destruction of both warring houses while also securing their own objectives. Jarlaxle’s role in the chaos of the interhouse war was to capture Zak and pull him out of the fray while both sides slaughtered each other.
This turned out to be a very difficult task, because Jarlaxle only had himself and his second, Arathis Hune, for the job, and Zak was defeating House Tr’arach’s forces on his own. It was very difficult for Jarlaxle to get close to Zak, and when he did get within earshot, Zak wasn’t at all interested in talking, making Jarlaxle literally fight for his life. Jarlaxle doesn’t give up on talking, although his pleas continue to fall on deaf ears, finally, Jarlaxle manages to trap Zak in his portable hole. However, before Jarlaxle could close the hole, Zak lashed his whip out and caught Jarlaxle by the ankle, dragging him into the hole as well. In his desperate attempt to not get dragged in, Jarlaxle’s scrabbling pulled the hole loose and closed it behind himself, sealing the two of them in the pocket dimension.
While inside, Zak continues to try to kill Jarlaxle while Jarlaxle continues to try to talk him out of doing so. Zak isn’t interested in changing his course of action regardless of the information Jarlaxle tells him: he doesn’t care that his house is no more, that Jarlaxle is a houseless rogue, that Jarlaxle isn’t there to kill him and is in fact trying to deliver him to a life of luxury, or that Jarlaxle will take care of the fates of the other males of House Simfray. While that last thing was the only one that sparked a bit of interest from Zak, he didn’t give up his course. The constant shifting of the pocket plane delays Zak’s attempts to kill Jarlaxle, and even the promise that both of them will die of suffocation doesn’t deter Zak from his task. It’s only through Jarlaxle tricking Zak into trapping himself with Jarlaxle’s wand of viscid globs that Jarlaxle manages to escape and leave Zak secured in the portable hole. ]]
maverlok replied to your post: I'm trying to write a Jartemis fic that has...
Follow-up question because I’m greedy: how did these two beautiful idiots become friends?
[[ I’ve read the ARC of Timeless. Ask me anything!
Nah you’re not greedy, I never said only one question per person or anything like that. xD There’s no limit to how many questions anyone can ask. ;P Here’s the short answer: because Jarlaxle wanted them to be friends. Long answer: spoilers ahead!
Actually, the long answer isn’t much different from the short one. After delivering him to House Do’Urden, Jarlaxle asked Zak to meet him regularly at the Oozing Myconid, a tavern in Braeryn (the “Stenchstreets”). Zak complied even though he didn’t particularly care for Jarlaxle, but he never failed to show up because his new life was very dull compared to his old one. With him at Matron Malice’s side, no other house dared challenge them, and as a result the only thing that offered him some diversion was sex with Malice, and that was only because Malice was extremely good at it. But Zak felt purposeless without the stimulation of combat and danger, and as a result was wasting away from an ever-growing feeling of purposelessness.
One day, after finding Zak again slumped at their usual table at the Oozing Myconid, Jarlaxle took him on a heist of Barrison Del’Armgo’s armory. Jarlaxle had paid handsomely beforehand to make sure that their “robbery” was successful, so even though they didn’t run into any opposition, the seemingly high risk involved and the new weapons that he’d acquired were enough to satisfy Zak, and make him eager for more.
After that, they met regularly to engage in bar shenanigans or to go on more misadventures. This was put to a sudden stop when Malice found out what was taking up so much of her new Weapons Master’s time, and forbade the two from meeting again, telling Jarlaxle that the next time that he’d see Zak would be when he was at death door by Zak’s hands, with Zak having been ordered by Malice to bring him there.
Some time passed and with the help of Matron Baenre, Jarlaxle got Zak released long enough from House Do’Urden to accompany him on a mission to Ched Nasad. Zak was very grateful for the reprieve from wasting away again in House Do’Urden.
The details sort of drop off after the Ched Nasad mission but Jarlaxle could call on Zak as necessary for future assistance that he needed for his Bregan D’aerthe operations, thanks to the invisible backing of Matron Baenre. ]]
[[ Thanks everyone for the likes, comments, and reblogs on my Valentine’s Day art! <3 Sorry in advance for the long response post! This was the best I could think of to not spam everyone’s dashes. >_> I super appreciate you guys taking the time to look at my art and comment. :D <3
P.S. does anyone know why Tumblr is labeling my image as a “panorama”? Is it a new format thingy, or is it because my preview image is so wide?
d-lishtastytheatre reblogged your panorama “[[ A little something for Valentine’s Day! ;D Thanks a bunch to…” and added:
YYYYEWEEAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!! me friend mAKE THAT GOOD ART
:DDDDDD Dude you have no idea how much you being around all of these years have helped me keep making Jartemis stuff. xD
maverlok replied to your panorama “[[ A little something for Valentine’s Day! ;D Thanks a bunch to…”
Holy shit, that came out fantastic???? What were you saying about not being able to color well? LIES
I’m still not where I want to be, but I think I did better here than I’ve ever done previously. I’m pretty pleased with how Jarlaxle came out overall, I wanted to make him appropriately black-skinned but there was a big risk losing him in the darkness. I think though that painting him with all the colors of the (Underdark) wind prevented that. xD I feel like I didn’t do as good of a job on Artemis, I worry that reads as too purple because of his shading, not to mention as pale-skinned instead of brown-skinned. :\ But the upside of all of this is that I think I’ve managed to conquer my hurdle of feeling like my stuff looks better if I don’t color them. :D
ladyzwei replied to your panorama “[[ A little something for Valentine’s Day! ;D Thanks a bunch to...”
Incredible. Absolutely incredible. This is stunning, beyond stunning. All the stunning. All of everything. Holy crap this is perfect. Thank you, your awesomeness for this blessing of divine art.
I definitely don’t deserve this much praise. xD But thank you nonetheless, I’m really glad that you like it. :D I hope to one day be able to make something to deserve this level of accolade.
flow-motion replied to your panorama “[[ A little something for Valentine’s Day! ;D Thanks a bunch to...”
Woah woah woah this is hot!! I love how artemis is holding his hand like he wants to stop jarlaxle from touching him waaah
I’m SO GLAD that you commented on that! :D While composing this piece, I wanted to show the interplay between the mental and physical top and bottom roles of these two in this intimate setting. Normally, the one receiving the “service” would be the physical top, and what’d often happen is that the top would grab onto the bottom’s head or some other body part to control his motions. However, Artemis isn’t doing that, because he’s not both the physical and the mental top. Even though Jarlaxle is technically acting the role of the physical bottom, he’s the mental top. Artemis wouldn’t be readily comfortable with being the physical bottom because of all of his insecurity and vulnerability issues, and that’s just fine with Jarlaxle, because they both know who has the reins in the situation. ;P But, Artemis wouldn’t be able to just lay back and take it, he can’t let Jarlaxle completely have his way because that’d destroy the illusion of his power too much, and so Jarlaxle’s wrist is a good point of resistance (as well as an anchor xD), but hardly detracts from Jarlaxle steering the wheel. ;)
scratchedagain replied to your panorama “[[ A little something for Valentine’s Day! ;D Thanks a bunch to...”
This is super hot and incredibly well done! And those rings! So pretty and holy crap, the details! Fantastic!
I loved doing the details, probably the most out of anything. xD I felt some remorse after doing them because I had to blur them (for the background) or they’d be too small to see normally (in the full image). I know it’s probably narcissistic of me to include the blown-up versions but at least some good came of it. >_>
baenre-jarlaxle reblogged your panorama “[[ A little something for Valentine’s Day! ;D Thanks a bunch to…” and added:
My my my someone saw into one of my dreams ~
((Such beautiful work!!! You’re an amazing artist, my friend! Gorgeous!!!)
Hello friend! I know that we haven’t interacted before this but I really appreciate that you like my work! <3 Thank you so much! :D Feel free to message me, I’ve been pretty out of the RP scene but I’m trying to shake off the cobwebs and get back into it. I’m sorry that the FR RP scene has been pretty dead, if you want to do something, let’s talk. ;D
jarlaxlebaenre reblogged your panorama “[[ A little something for Valentine’s Day! ;D Thanks a bunch to…” and added:
{ Beautiful work! I see the same sort of attention to detail in this as I do in your writing, as well as the exceptional portrayal of the relationship/chemistry between these two. :-D
Although, given the amount of warning you gave, I was really expecting something less tame. ;-P This is indeed NSFW but I thought it’d be a lot more explicit; genitalia is visible but it’s not even a full dick. Oh noes, the humanity of seeing a partial dick! Alas, we’re traumatized for life! However shall we recover from this deep and awful scar? ;-P }
Hey, some of us aren’t physically configured such that we have the option to see a full dick whenever we want, multiple times a day. I’M JUST BEING CONSIDERATE OF THOSE OF US, OK? :P
... although, I guess with the existence of the internet, my argument doesn’t really stand. >:| WELL I’M JUST BEING CONSIDERATE OF THOSE PEOPLE WHO DON’T HAVE THE INTERNET TO BE ABLE TO SEE FULL DICks whenever they want and thus they wouldn’t be able to see my pic either and... =_= oh, go eat a partial dick. ;P
neverwinterforgottenhero replied to your panorama “[[ A little something for Valentine’s Day! ;D Thanks a bunch to...”
Gosh so many details! Love the rings that's beautiful, the whole scene is quite erotic ;) That's awesome dear!
Thank you so much! :D Part of me died a little when I saw your message because I was all like, “Oh god I’ve polluted the eyes of Rith-mun who makes pure art of pretty elves with more pr0n again lightning strike me down nao.” xD ]]
I lost it at “Jarlaxle, no.” I’m on a Mass Effect kick, so I am so here for space opera!AU
I’ve been playing in a Star Wars tabletop campaign for the last couple years, so a bit more Star Wars has probably crept into the AU since I first posted it (mostly in the form of technology, less in Force powers or imperial politics). This game is also definitely helping keep the AU alive, since it means I get home from gaming and want to write about Crime In Space.
“Jarlaxle, no” may be the recurring theme of this AU, if there is a theme. (Jarlaxle absolutely has access to a cloning machine in this 'verse, and it causes just as many problems as you think it does.)
maverlok replied to your post:
THIS IS EVERYTHING I DIDN'T KNOW I NEEDED IN MY LIFE. So much excitement and wonderfully paced. I love love love the image of them mapping out their plans using utensils and whatnot at the diner, and their banter was spot-on. There are too many great lines for me to point out in this small box, but I am so here for this if you decide to continue this AU!
The mapping scene (in proto-form) was the first thing I wrote for this fic. I’m glad it was as much fun to read as it was to write.
This is the AU that never dies (the entire thing is indexed here) so I’m definitely continuing it. Now that the spaceship theft is finally done, I have two plotty arcs that I’m considering playing with next. One is what happened between Fire Point and Vaasa (it involves fleeing across the Calimshan desert, impromptu surgery in an mechanic’s shop, and Jarlaxle trying to solve his own immune system.) The other takes place after Grand Theft Starship and is the reason I seeded so much information about Vaasa in this fic. (The Capricious Undine is definitely going to come back. Three guesses who owns it.)
capslockasaurus replied to your post
man you write these guys so well, they are perfectly themselves even in space. i love this a ton and am gonna read it over again later many times, lol.
One of the glorious things about AUs like this is that they serve as a crucible for what aspects of the characters are immutable and which traits shift sideways to fit their new setting. I’m so glad to hear they shifted well!
