#*vassa

yes >:•) i wish we had more canon to work with for vassa but there is something so beautiful to be said for a blank slate. genia/vassa would be super interesting because whereas usually genia seeks to cut herself above other females who have similar trauma to hers in an effort to outpace the severity and pain of what happened to her, having another female whose autonomy has been horrifically violated but in a different way than her own would be a very comforting thing in the boe scenario. same would go for vassa. it would be a very #likecallstolike scenario. what’s cool too is vassa having ~magic~ even if it’s a curse negates a lot of genia’s human prejudice (weaker, more frail, etc.) — and vassa has much more interpersonal death god hatred than political/theoretical fae hatred in her.

vassa would have to initiate, and i don’t think she’d have any qualms doing so. something about being forced to be a firebird against your will really makes everything else a non-issue—sexuality, rejection, insecurity, etc. i imagine her mortal wound results in her having a very life is fleeting; you have to do what you want and pursue what you want while you’re able because one day, when you least expect it, you won’t be able. pleasure-seeking vassa… grasping after freedom wherever she can rip it back from the world vassa… suicidally reckless vassa… oh man. okay. FOCUS UP. so vassa has no qualms at all coming onto iphigenia. iphigenia is a bi icon. she just doesn’t know it until vassa comes onto her. (a little bit of general autumn comphet, a little bit of her foremost exposure to f/f being in the context of enticing a male in the forest house and fulfilling his fantasies.) and iphigenia is feeling much the same as vassa in this scenario. pleasure-seeking. reckless. a lot of her pursuits are quasi-self harm.

but then ! genia finds there is none of the pretense with a female that there is with a male. then she finds that there is none of the pretense with this specific female that there is with a male. with vassa, she stays in her body. there is no performance to enact. there is only the pleasure, giving, receiving—never ceding, taking. everything can be on their own terms. bonus: no penetration if she doesn’t want it, so she doesn’t have those reminders of beron while with vassa that she would with a male. everything is new. everything, too, is a reclamation. through each other, they find healing and support and refuge. even genia’s wariness of other females is addressed through vassa. of course … vassa is cursed. she withholds her emotions because she doesn’t have time for them. (not because she’s so, so afraid of dying enslaved to koschei. not because having someone love her might mean they try to save her. might mean they fail.) she isn’t really successful in doing so with iphigenia but. she still tries. and that still hurts.

including tamlin in the boe+genia polycule is making my brain BUZZ wow it shifts all the dynamics so significantly. i'm going to say that the most likely scenario for this polycule is a renascence-esque tamgenia eventually merging with the boe due to both tamlin and jurian/vassa trying to rebuild their respective realms and coming to the conclusion that an alliance with each other is their best bet at success. there would just be . so,,,, so many concurrent dynamics at play.

we have: tamcien ex-homoerotic situationship wherein lucien resents tamlin for his treatment of him AND for subsequently getting his shit together for someone else and not for lucien even though lucien tried so hard to help him; iphcien dummyyy exacerbating each other's beron wounds + extreme mutual jealousy over tamlin; iphigenia just generally being very jealous/insecure when it comes to tamlin with the others + resenting vassa for any attention she gets + the Whore Complex to come of so many partners; jurian and his Faerie Complexes; vassa and her overly blunt affect and life-is-short impulsivity; lucien and his unfulfilled bond with elain; Other Such Things.

i'd say tamgenia has the most established relationship in the mix. jurian and vassa have a lot of unspoken feelings between them—they could (and probably do) get to a more stable partnership between them but not with the curse actively in the way. lucien my beloved angel is a little bit of the odd man out between them all, but this is almost entirely because everyone involved knows about his mating bond; if it weren't for his mating bond, they'd be gobbling him UP. elain sort of comes to haunt the narrative of the group because they're all very aware of her presence and in a way she becomes their ghostly sixth just with how everyone considers her feelings about things.

i'm picturing The Merging happening before tamlin and iphigenia have the chance to like actually verbalize their feelings, which means they're acting functionally like a high lord and his lady, they're very obviously in love to anyone onlooking, probably to the point where folks are blushing just to see them interact—but they've never had the conversation and so they're Not Together. introduce boe: jurian and vassa immediately are down to fuck tamlin and genia, which jurian shows by being an asshole and vassa is very forward about—lucien also wants to fuck tamlin and genia but he needs to beat the shit out of tamlin at least one time first. once that happens and they achieve quasi normalcy ... bets? OFF

lucien is one thousand million percent fucking tamlin. right? right??? so so so much history and tension and resentment and love and fury that needs to be worked out. what better way do both of them know than sex? plus lucien fs wants to show iphigenia up. so they fuck first. iphigenia, naturally, crashes out. so hard. i'd say it's relatively similar to the jurian/genia one shot i wrote except genia is like actively seeking jurian out to fuck, which means he has no opportunity to slow her down and reciprocate. gal on a mission. i think probably she doesn't come at all. it's literally a spite fuck and he knows it but fuck if he's going to let a faerie use him again so he uhhh comes back that night and makes her come until she sees god....? instructions unclear. but vassa overhears and pleasure-seeking + pain of not being a normal girl with a normal life who can just normally ask jurian to be with her because she's cursed = jurian/genia/vassa threesome. lucien is also actively fucking jurian and vassa.

i think probably this is how things go down for a hot minute. genia feels rejected by tamlin; tamlin feels rejected by genia; vassa feels rejected by jurian; jurian feels rejected by vassa; lucien feels rejected by their communal dead wife elain—and all of them handle it by fucking or not fucking each other respectively. eventually, lucien, who is a good and honorable male, begins to feel guilty for how he's inserted himself between tamlin and iphigenia, especially now that vassa and jurian care for iphigenia too. he learns more about her—who she is as a person, how much tamlin cares about her, what beron did to her—and he feels bad. what's new! probably projects some of his own feelings not being able to be with his mate onto being the one to put a wedge between them. he maneuvers tamgenia into a situation where they reconcile and have sex and he's left out just like old times with feylin but tamlin, who cares about lucien, and iphigenia, who cares about tamlin who cares about lucien, say fuck that actually and pull him to bed with them

this is probably an ideal time in the tamgenia + boe polycule. tamlin and iphigenia have finally dtr, which affords iphigenia a good measure of security and assurance—which further means she isn't as jealous over lucien or vassa. iphigenia won't fuck anyone else without tamlin in the mix, but lucien and iphigenia squash the beef and get wily autumn court horny by playing off each other. smirking rake + batted-lash flirt and everyone else is fucking COOKED. there's no ddlg jurgenia because iphigenia feels protected and taken care of and secure with tamlin, so they never bond quite as deeply as they could. their sex is mostly fucknasty comfort when vassa is with koschei, and like i said it always involves tamlin. def becomes a pavlov situation where whenever jurian sees tamlin he gets doubly horny knowing iphigenia's going to be in the mix. vassa fucks all of them freely EXCEPT a tamlin/genia/vassa threesome because genia would accctually crash out the moment tamlin paid any attention to vassa and not her. all other combos are fair game.