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kradeelavwas traveling home (ahhh, home!) today from the holidays and thinking about the slash ships i wanna stick in the zihark doujin and each flavor those ships would take. :3c i generally draw ships for the chemistry and body language - how that reflects both in sex, kink (or not), and/or outside of the bedroom, so I gotta figure out what makes them "tick" power dynamic wise even if they're perfectly vanilla.
despite me being more of a het/femslash shipper in general, for a few reason i don't really ship zihark other than slash (tho i could be convinced of literally any crackship if somebody gives a good enough reason). biggest one is i genuinely don't see him as interested in women at least for the first ~15 years after his beloved died. (imo the fact RD didn't give any compelling evidence/chemistry to zihark/ilyana as a romantic ship despite that being his closest dynamic with a lady across both games with game data carried over is what I'm basing the former bit on. lifelong friends? absolutely. ditto with lethe and jill.but imma be honest with ya i don't see the spark there.)
SLASH ships, howeverrrrrr, have potential. like:
these two I see as mostly a PoR-centric ship with the two of them drifting apart slightly as Muarim was consumed with Tormod's gang and Zihark headed north afterwards, which adds some interesting realism factor as how relationships can burn brightly for a while and then simmer; not quite calling Muarim a rebound because that's a little mean lmaoe, but. errr. in spirit... yeah.
it's probably the most wholesome rebound imo because, hear me out, i see muarim as bit of a service top personality where he likes pleasing folks but he also has this fascinating energy of like ... being in control? he wants all of his marbles and charges in a row and then to dissapear with a job well done.
and so i see them getting close as their PoR supports show 'em, but then beyond that, zihark gets drunk one night (listen there's a fabulous piece of fanart that is exactly this and i still love), there is chemistry like whoa, muarim kisses him (knowing his history and accurately guessing the pining that's going on), and zihark is suddenly cracked with feelings all the way through that he's run away from the last five years and has no fucking idea how to deal with them (other than, of course, get his brains fucked out by muarim who knows what he's doing.)
he'd reciprocate later, of course - but the mixture of like 'similar' to his old ghosts what with the laguz but also 'not the same' and also him having a growing affection for Muarim-as-muarim is like a feelings tempest in a teakettle that i'm over here sipping like the finest blends. :3c i also really like the fact that muarim gets an adult relationship that's not tormod because he's also got some fascinating parts to his new worldview to navigate as far as post-fuckery with the begnion senators/slavers. in a sense it's a very healing dynamic for both of them while still being surprisingly fucky and i wanna poke at that ~
gonna be honest, most of my thots here springs fromqueenlua 's glorious fic 'lust like remembrance' so i'm just gonna send everyone over there instead :3
but! what i think i'm gonna enjoy about the art is the sense of two sparring with each other in the sense they're both prickly/private in their own ways (touched on a little bit with the writeup on stefan below). likewise also the sense of just by "experiencing" the friction/frission around each other, they highlight parts of their id that they'd much rather really, really not want to consider. or acknowledge.
cuz i think the biggest thing here is they're so in denial about feelings that they're both up their assholes LOL; shinon about jealousy, zihark about loneliness - and then there's the interplay about that with -- not who's the top, per se, because ironically they both don't play like that or would care for simplistic roles -- but who leads while they're both trying not to feel anything but lust, who follows, who's too much in the past and needs to be yanked to the moment just to feel again - etc. good ass messy shit.
i 100% admit this ship is less for plausible chemistry reasons and more 'i wanna see two beautiful bishies bang' LOL. on top of that tho, stefan, i feel like is a kinky fucker who likes to see interesting people fall apart. he's got a real obvious way of like, observing people that garners his interest and then kinda inserting himself into their life whether or not they want him to (ike when he gives you the occult scroll, soren in my favorite support of his).
i also feel like stefan's probably the only one that figures out zihark's a moderate painslut (headcanon of mine fwahahah) but also is the only one that clashes with his sense of privacy in a real fascinating way. like man, zihark's paranoid. this is one of those things that comes up in every conversation of his in a subtle way from ike having a hard time prying any kind of vague reason why he joined (por), sothe not even realizing he was from daein in RD when they see each other for the first time again (and sothe's observant and probably has a keen ear for accents), and I could easily pull up at least three other textual bits of evidence.
so stefan being a bit of a boundary pusher and maybe accurately guessing what makes zihark tick clashing with him suddenly finding that he does not like this stranger with a sudden interest is fuuuuun. :3c i see these two even more explosive than zihark n' shinon (who are more just.. both annoyed, drunk bitches who want to get off and flip each other the bird before walking away). you'd see more of zihark's edge (and it does exist) here almost to the point where i'd say this even goes dubcon with stefan bullying zihark into a reaction except imo stefan's a powerbottom who absolutely gets off on folks trying to wreck him and him just. like. laughing because he's already impossibly broken, what more can they do?
definitely the most unhealthy but they're pretty so yolo
[rolls around] god i love being so mean to my favorites ahaha
despite me being more of a het/femslash shipper in general, for a few reason i don't really ship zihark other than slash (tho i could be convinced of literally any crackship if somebody gives a good enough reason). biggest one is i genuinely don't see him as interested in women at least for the first ~15 years after his beloved died. (imo the fact RD didn't give any compelling evidence/chemistry to zihark/ilyana as a romantic ship despite that being his closest dynamic with a lady across both games with game data carried over is what I'm basing the former bit on. lifelong friends? absolutely. ditto with lethe and jill.
SLASH ships, howeverrrrrr, have potential. like:
these two I see as mostly a PoR-centric ship with the two of them drifting apart slightly as Muarim was consumed with Tormod's gang and Zihark headed north afterwards, which adds some interesting realism factor as how relationships can burn brightly for a while and then simmer; not quite calling Muarim a rebound because that's a little mean lmaoe, but. errr. in spirit... yeah.
it's probably the most wholesome rebound imo because, hear me out, i see muarim as bit of a service top personality where he likes pleasing folks but he also has this fascinating energy of like ... being in control? he wants all of his marbles and charges in a row and then to dissapear with a job well done.
and so i see them getting close as their PoR supports show 'em, but then beyond that, zihark gets drunk one night (listen there's a fabulous piece of fanart that is exactly this and i still love), there is chemistry like whoa, muarim kisses him (knowing his history and accurately guessing the pining that's going on), and zihark is suddenly cracked with feelings all the way through that he's run away from the last five years and has no fucking idea how to deal with them (other than, of course, get his brains fucked out by muarim who knows what he's doing.)
he'd reciprocate later, of course - but the mixture of like 'similar' to his old ghosts what with the laguz but also 'not the same' and also him having a growing affection for Muarim-as-muarim is like a feelings tempest in a teakettle that i'm over here sipping like the finest blends. :3c i also really like the fact that muarim gets an adult relationship that's not tormod because he's also got some fascinating parts to his new worldview to navigate as far as post-fuckery with the begnion senators/slavers. in a sense it's a very healing dynamic for both of them while still being surprisingly fucky and i wanna poke at that ~
gonna be honest, most of my thots here springs from
queenlua 's glorious fic 'lust like remembrance' so i'm just gonna send everyone over there instead :3but! what i think i'm gonna enjoy about the art is the sense of two sparring with each other in the sense they're both prickly/private in their own ways (touched on a little bit with the writeup on stefan below). likewise also the sense of just by "experiencing" the friction/frission around each other, they highlight parts of their id that they'd much rather really, really not want to consider. or acknowledge.
cuz i think the biggest thing here is they're so in denial about feelings that they're both up their assholes LOL; shinon about jealousy, zihark about loneliness - and then there's the interplay about that with -- not who's the top, per se, because ironically they both don't play like that or would care for simplistic roles -- but who leads while they're both trying not to feel anything but lust, who follows, who's too much in the past and needs to be yanked to the moment just to feel again - etc. good ass messy shit.
i 100% admit this ship is less for plausible chemistry reasons and more 'i wanna see two beautiful bishies bang' LOL. on top of that tho, stefan, i feel like is a kinky fucker who likes to see interesting people fall apart. he's got a real obvious way of like, observing people that garners his interest and then kinda inserting himself into their life whether or not they want him to (ike when he gives you the occult scroll, soren in my favorite support of his).
i also feel like stefan's probably the only one that figures out zihark's a moderate painslut (headcanon of mine fwahahah) but also is the only one that clashes with his sense of privacy in a real fascinating way. like man, zihark's paranoid. this is one of those things that comes up in every conversation of his in a subtle way from ike having a hard time prying any kind of vague reason why he joined (por), sothe not even realizing he was from daein in RD when they see each other for the first time again (and sothe's observant and probably has a keen ear for accents), and I could easily pull up at least three other textual bits of evidence.
so stefan being a bit of a boundary pusher and maybe accurately guessing what makes zihark tick clashing with him suddenly finding that he does not like this stranger with a sudden interest is fuuuuun. :3c i see these two even more explosive than zihark n' shinon (who are more just.. both annoyed, drunk bitches who want to get off and flip each other the bird before walking away). you'd see more of zihark's edge (and it does exist) here almost to the point where i'd say this even goes dubcon with stefan bullying zihark into a reaction except imo stefan's a powerbottom who absolutely gets off on folks trying to wreck him and him just. like. laughing because he's already impossibly broken, what more can they do?
definitely the most unhealthy but they're pretty so yolo
[rolls around] god i love being so mean to my favorites ahaha
