#*eris

so truly i think he sees them to their death. he would feel wholly responsible for them. he loved them and so he was meant to find a way to keep them alive and he failed in doing so. he is not a male who can let things go, even if it's out of his control. he failed. to fight the nature of the world. as if such a thing is meant to be fought. very vampire whose mortal lover refuses to be turned. bonus points if their memory begins to fail in their old age and they keep asking and asking and asking if he's found a way yet, they want to live, they want to be with him, they love him so much, he'll find a way, won't he? he always finds a way. eris nods. yes, he says. he'll find a way. they die while he's still seeking a way.

bonus bonus points if his search is what domino effect leads the king of hybern to realize the potential of the cauldron :•)

ohhh one of my favorite headcanons to originate from my first ever completely scrapped venture into writing for acotar was that autumn has no real equivalent to a club or a public dance hall or anything like rita's—fully inspired by lucien's reaction to velaris: there are children laughing in the streets. i just feel like beyond the forest house and the immediately surrounding towns ... autumn is struggling to survive as a product of beron's rule. beron is affluent, yes; the vanserras want for nothing. because he takes everything. feudalism ratcheted up to an untenable degree, especially post-utm. all gets ceded to the high court. there is so little time for pleasure pursuits among the lesser fae—even the high fae without titles to their name.

which is all to say that their equivalent in autumn would be a tavern or, way more loosely, a rite. and based on how lucien (who is an emissary and has ostensibly been to many courts) reacts, it does seem like velaris is unique in its operations and amenities and freedoms. at the very least, it's unique in a post-utm prythian. in eiteio i do have eris glamour himself and venture into a tavern upon noticing azriel snooping around ceres. based on his persona and the ease with which he employs it, i wanted it to be apparent that he does the regularly—that ren is a face is wears when he wants to keep a pulse on the feelings of the commonfolk and doesn't trust anyone else to do it. he doesn't really do that for fun though.

oh ho ho

eris – ass man ass man ass man. said it b4 i'll say it again—eris enjoys anal with females because it is inherently uncomfortable and exclusively pleasurable for him which makes him horny bc it shows their willingness to endure discomfort to please him. notably though if a female is willing to do that, he's willing to play a little dirty dj to make her feel good during. and if you were wondering . yes beron feels the same way. yes this is directly informed by beron

emile – also an ass man! also informed by beron! but he does not care at all to ease the discomfort when he indulges in anal sex. relishes in it guiltlessly in fact. somehow both thinks favorably upon a female who endures it from him and less of her at the same time. look how eager she is to please me but also females are beneath me

carmine – this one was confounding as all get out. i like . honestly don't think he cares very much either way? he cares that a female makes him feel wanted->seen->an approximation of loved. as long as she doesn't have any visible unsightliness he's down, and even then ... i mean this is Thee brother who'd absolutely fuck a human or a lesser fae no hesitation just for the adoration they'd look at him with ykwim. maybe maybe maybe i'll loosely say tit man just cuz i think we could get to a mommy kink with him

silas – just got the most divine strike from god that he's a tit man. yeah he'll linger on cleavage. even get a little bit distractable if it's a non-political situation. they're the first thing he goes for on a female. notably he of all the brothers is the one to have this preference be a make or break deal for him. if she ain't got yitties he ain't sprung. all the other brothers it's just like casual preference

marius – for purely horny threesome reasons i'm making marius an ass man pre-silas' death—but because silas likes a gal w tiddies so much, marius keeps an eye out for them foremost. silas goes straight for the tiddies while marius is palming her ass and grabbing her thighs and then kneeling to tongue between them while silas uhhhhhhh cancel twit

ronan – ass man specifically because he's looking for the development and definition of the glute and hamstring muscles and if it's there he's going boioioioioing ! baby want a muscle mommy so bad but autumn fae aesthetic standards keep him from achieving his dream :(

[cracks knuckles] depends on what eris we’re dealing with methinks. eris the performer—eris the cool suave unruffled shiteating autumn heir, he knows how to drape a female across him like an accessory. languid and loose in his lap. knows where to touch and how much pressure to apply. grazing fingers up the thigh and down the waist, condescending doting nuzzles against the throat, crooning in the ear. he has all of the control and none of it is real so it’s as easy as breathing. not quite cuddling but an approximation of it to signal surety and status to others.

eris after casual sex … nawt happening!

eris as feelings are developing—it’s happening against someone’s will i’ll tell u what. i don’t think he really initiates non-sexual physical intimacy in this way, so the onus would be on the object of his attentions to demand it of him. i’m picturing stiff. i’m picturing resistant. i’m picturing what the fuck is going on no one has ever touched me so tenderly before what is The Point. eventually if they can keep him there he relaxes. more likely i think he makes some excuse to leave. alt: partner is asleep/drunk/otherwise mentally altered and he indulges in a bit of physicality. picks them up to take them to bed and keeps them pressed against him longer than is necessary. maybe lingers beside them a while. if he’s also drunk/on drugs, the likelihood increases exponentially. everything is easier when he doesn’t have to contend with how he’s being perceived.

i literally just inked!!! kirsi who really isn't very manipulative and honestly disdains such underhanded tactics but who has that deep sense of duty that draws her to do whatever it is she needs to in order to best steward her people. that same sense of duty that has her accepting her betrothal to carmine in canon verse. she thinks long about it. she already knows so much about the vanserras, about eris. she learns how best to ingratiate herself based on what he likes—a submissive female, of course, and a virgin; a female who will not challenge him in any way, not intellectually, not politically, not socially; a female who will do as he says how he says when he says it. that is what eris vanserra is said to prefer.

so the next banquet they attend together, that is what she is. demure. palatable. submissive. she lowers her eyes. she smiles soft. she laughs when she ought. yes, lord vanserra. of course, lord vanserra. if you think it so, lord vanserra. like eris has never seen her before. like eris doesn't know how much she hates him and his family. (males never pay kirsi any mind; why would she think he knew her?) he's amused! not mad. why would he be mad? this is what he wants, after all. she isn't wrong. it's what his father would want. it's what his father taught him to want. so it doesn't bother him. it doesn't annoy him. it doesn't enrage him, her feigned servility. he's amused.

kirsi is just so obviously out of her depth with it all. eris pushes her as far as he can for his own amusement, but she doesn't act without dignity even though it's such a thin artifice, and she doesn't ever break. she takes him in stride. she's SO wary of him, too. all he wants is for her to get her father to move his forces up closer to the summer border with winter so eris can have excuse to rearrange his own troops and get more males loyal to his father away from him without his father being suspicious. but oh my god she literally fucking won't. she feigns this submission, but beneath it, she's one of the most stubborn females he's ever met.

which he should hate. but he doesn't. it makes her interesting. it makes her fun to play against. it makes him HORNY. the next game he initiates is one surrounding her virginity. whether she will give it to him. because he 1) doesn't think she's a virgin 2) doesn't think she'll have sex with him besides. but kirsi's been clocking eris, too. kirsi's been monitoring the way he operates and with whom. she thinks: what is my virginity for the preservation of my people? and my god being this close to him feels like an entire bottle of wine is in her belly. his flame is like no other. it muddles her, dizzies her, blurs her and melts her. so hard to think about anything but his pretty face and his hand on her thigh and she wants him but she's so dizzy—

after meditating on this i'm casting my die that eris is 1) pro restraining others but 2) staunchly anti being restrained by male partners if he has any say in it and 3) only pro light restraints with female partners if he feels he's indulging them. this is because first and foremost he is a control freak who cannot cede any of it, especially in fraught situations like Having Sex With Males which threatens just so many of the mental schemas beron instilled in him. it's also because he's a little bit sexist and with a female it just feels like play whereas with a male it feels like giving something up to them. plus being restrained conjures up uncomfortable memories being disciplined by his father and if he gets panicky about those at any point then that would mean there's something wrong with the way he's being treated. which of course there isn't.

unfortunately my capacity to visualize anything is completely nerfed :( just got The Void going on when i close my eyes so a lot of my physical headcanons are purely vibes based.

i picture eris not as fashion-forward but as someone who very much informs fashion trends just by virtue of being royalty. (same with loa, carmine, adonia, etc.) sleek, simple lines. anywhere from jewel tones to those earthen, woodsy hues, depending on how he needs to impress himself to those around him. jewel tones around autumn nobility who value wealth and woodsier tones—browns and plums and ochres and greens—amongst commonfolk + visiting faeries who need the reminder of his connection to the land. if he's treating with faeries of another court, he'll dress in autumn fashion but in approximations of that court's colors—deep blues in winter, that pewter he wore to the hewn city, golds in day, etc. i like him in ~faerie wool~ and ~faerie muslin~ with the occasional silk, fur, and velvet trims.

as fashion trends shift, he remains somewhere in the middle of beron's adherence to the traditional dress of early autumn and the looser, freer fabrics of the new faeries on the block. autumn as a whole i think is a little gaudier with their wealth, which means lots of gold jewelry with big sparkling gems to display it—but i don't think eris likes a lot of embellishment or patterning, which makes his infrequent use of it all the more profound. his day-to-day consists of embroidered trim on his tunics, some gemmy cuff links, and comparatively understated jewelry on his ears / rings on his fingers. he's very much the tempering force—a litmus test for whether a fashion is worthwhile. if a male fashion trend is spurred by carmine and lord eris picks it up, it's being reproduced for every lord across autumn, then trickling down into the commonfolk. if lord eris doesn't pick it up, it's getting snuffed out expeditiously. it's a great day for clothiers in autumn when any vanserra wears their work, but no better than lord eris.