惨

The series is comprised of three separate works exploring the dark desires of our favourite bloodsucker Ascended Astarion. It starts with The Doll Collector, a fantastic title in and of itself with no small amount of sinister foreshadowing. 

In this story there is a constant and ominous theme of dehumanisation as well as an exploration of Astarion’s relationship with death. The author details Ascended Astarion’s recently devised methods of collecting his new vampire spawn cohort, as well as the addiction he develops in controlling their lifeless bodies. (Reminder: mind the tags!)

Astarion is obsessively controlling, and takes great delight in stripping any sort of independence or autonomy from his spawn that they may have once enjoyed in their former lives. It is a dark work, and there is no healing to be found here. This is an excellently constructed examination of Ascended Astarion’s dark mind and how he fulfills his most toxic needs as his spawn become his latest possessions to play with at his leisure.

The Unbearable Pressure, the author's second work in the series, is no different to its predecessor in its exploration of Ascended Astarion's growing darkness and cruelty. This work focuses more on on his relationship with his most disobedient spawn, Blaze, and his efforts to break her and ensure her obedience. 

The theme of dehumanisation and dollification gets more pronounced the further we read. Astarion wants to control every single part of his spawn. And even despite the obvious sadism of his actions, Astarion genuinely believes he is doing his spawn and kindly, and grapples to understand why his spawn are not more grateful for his 'assistance' and what he considered his dedicated 'care'. The author has expressed Astarion's delusion of benevolence well, as our narrator is wonderfully unreliable.

Haunted By Your Touch, Aching For Your Love is our third and final work in the series, and quite possibly my favourite of the three! (I would call it a crowd pleaser, but that requires that the crowd in question likes breaking characters down and making them suffer oh so deliciously.)

The cycle of abuse and the affection for one’s captor can be difficult to write in fiction. There is a common mistake of stepping back from the actions and becoming more clinical in order to convey why the cycle is happening and why it continues, and, in so doing, create a disconnect between the readers and the characters. This work sees that tripping point coming from miles away and does cartwheels over it. 

We are deep in Astarion’s mind and psyche in this work as his delusions and twisted perspective have completely erased any distinction between reality and his wicked desires. It is left to the keen eye of the reader to pick up on the subtle hints and evidence of his delusions, which are expertly described by the author via the reactions are the other characters that suffer Astarion's whims and mistreatment.

The Loving Master, as a whole, is a wonderful exploration into dark themes and abusive relationships. Astarion’s character is portrayed consistently through the entire series using beautiful metaphors that I could hear Astarion himself repeating in his own voice. And beyond our lead antagonist, the author's original characters are well-written and developed, becoming well-established personalities in their own right. Each one has their own clear motivations and responds to Astarion differently, adding to the depth of the overall narrative with every line. These stories are also structurally sound, as you can look forward to a healthy mix of short and long paragraphs and sentence structures that makes the story easy to read and easy to enjoy.

Mind the tags on AO3, as The Loving Master does not shy away from NSFW elements and very heavy themes. 

Enjoy your dove, but be aware. It is very, very dead.

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We have included a snippet of The Doll Collector below for your enjoyment, as well as the author's tags as they are currently listed on AO3 for this particular work.

The Doll Collector

"One more bite, is all it would take."

And now his beautifully pliant Lydia laid underneath him, fully submitted to his one desire: for her to become his. Her jet black hair framed her round, delicate face. Through her long, black eyelashes, her dark purple eyes stared up at him, wide and vulnerable. The indigo moonlight skin that bruised wonderfully under the force of his fingers was soft and warm to the touch.

"Be gentle," her quiet voice trembled.

There was nothing gentle about forging an undead monster out of an innocent, precious soul—his perfectly obedient, beautiful little monster, yet a monster nonetheless—but he could pretend, for just a moment.

He brought her wrist up to his mouth, laying a feather light kiss on top of the flesh, eating the garnish before digging into the main course. He cradled it in his hands before sinking his teeth in. Her quick yelp from the sudden pain sent a raging, hot inferno through his abdomen, encouraged by the red delicacy on his tastebuds.

Eventually he forced himself to pull away, letting the bloodied, shaking hand fall from his grasp. He leaned forward, placing his hands on either side of her head, trapping his prey.

"You have given me everything...thank you." His words came out breathy and in between sighs of pleasure. The taste of her blood lingered on his lips, but it wasn't enough. He needed every last drop. While the ritual had rid him of the hunger caused by his supernatural curse, it had been replaced with a new hunger: to take, to take, and to take, from everyone around him. He wanted it all.

Chapter 1

Halsin was hurting.

Kiaran wasn’t sure why- wasn’t sure what had happened. And he wasn’t sure how, or even if he could help. But the past few weeks, it had become glaringly clear that something was wrong. The elf loved to talk, and yet he had been so quiet, even when surrounded by the commune’s orphans. Even at night, when telling them their bedtime stories, he opted to read from a book instead of telling one of his own tales. And his voice was so distant while doing so, too, like he was going through the motions of reading while his mind was elsewhere.

If it was just that, Kiaran might have thought Halsin simply had a lot on his mind in this transitional time in their lives. They hadn’t been at their commune for too long, after all, and surely Halsin was thinking of many heavy things as they reclaimed the land that had spent the past century covered in shadow. But Halsin was distant from Kiaran, just as he was with the others: deliberately so. Kiaran could tell it was deliberate, for Halsin pulled away almost half the time Kiaran reached for him now. Even at night, in his meditations, Halsin would jolt when touched and then proceed to find somewhere else to rest, with a mumbled apology and a promise to find him later.

No, something else was clearly the matter, and Kiaran didn’t know what, nor did he know how to ask Halsin. True to form, his kind and supportive partner was all but unable to ask for help, no matter how much he needed it, and that went doubly so when those troubles were of the emotional sort. Halsin had admitted once to having gone for so long without confidantes thanks to the Shadow Curse that he was still adjusting to the idea it was possible for someone to care about his troubles.

Kiaran kept wracking his mind for an event that might have triggered such a reaction, but nothing came to him. Their lives had been blessedly quiet since arriving at the commune; their greatest worries were in blending the multiple cultures their members came from, in maintaining their food stores properly, and other such mundane issues. No longer were they balancing the world’s fate on their shoulders, or fighting to break a Shadow Curse, or doing anything that resembled the other traumas Halsin had fought against in his long life.

Unless…

Kiaran frowned suddenly. Could that be it? Maybe Halsin was so used to living one crisis after another that he was unprepared for true peace. Maybe his mind was still experiencing the tumult, even removed from the situation. After all, it wasn’t like the last century had been conducive to healing, and the idyllic calm would give his mind plenty of time to wander to those deep wounds that had never healed, only half-scabbed over.

Kiaran watched Halsin, currently in bear form, curl in on himself in the corner of their hand-built treehouse. It was only a theory, but it was the best lead he had, really. If it turned out to be something else, Kiaran might never figure out what it was unless Halsin volunteered the information himself, and that seemed highly unlikely, if Halsin hadn’t said anything already.

There was no way to find out but by talking to him, Kiaran supposed. He sighed and wandered over to Halsin’s spot, sitting next to the wildshaped cave bear and petting his fur. “Hello, love. Can we talk?” he asked softly. “I… won’t beat around the bush here, sweetheart. I’m worried about you. Very worried.”