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Just before the amazing @dustybones drew this same scene for me, I commissioned the amazing @shirojikimattari to create the Shadow'zel DJ scene from my fic Give it Up For DJ Shadowheart (and check it out if you haven't already)

So I now have two amazing pieces of art for this great scene and I am over the moon! They both really brought it to life in such different ways and I am so happy with them!!!!!

THANK YOU SO MUCH SHIRO FOR TAKING MY COMMISSION (the lighting!!! the expressions!! i died!!) Follow both shiro and dusty if you haven't already - they add so much joy to the BG3 community!

As a lil treat, Shiro also drew some extra doodles of their favourite scenes for me (because they are a very good egg):

#ao3 capriclonus #give it up for dj shadowheart #shadowheart #lae'zel #bg3 shadowheart #bg3 lae'zel #bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #shadowzel #dj shadowheart #bg3 fanart #lae'zel x shadowheart #shadowheart x lae’zel #bg3 fanfiction #laeheart #baldurs gate 3 #my favs

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Summary:

Lae'zel had nothing left. She'd lost her girlfriend, her job, and her will to keep going all in six months. So when Wyll invites her to his club, Hell's Bells, in an attempt to cheer her up, Lae'zel expects nothing from it. She does it largely to indulge him.

It's there she meets Wyll's friend Shadowheart -- a disk jockey who plays at his club. She's rude, she's blunt, she's nihilistic, she's very forward. But most of all, she's infuriatingly beautiful. She is everything Lae'zel didn't know she wanted. She is terrifying.

Lae'zel keeps returning anyway.

OR

Modern AU - Shadowheart is a DJ, Lae'zel is a sad little puppy, and together they bring out the worst in each other. But also the best. And, in the end, the best of them wins. A tale of heartbreak, loss, recovery and, ultimately, connection.

Some reviews:

Artists Fanart beneath the cut-off:

Piece 1: DJ Booth Scene (chapter 3) by Shirojiki Mattari

Piece 2: DJ Booth Scene (chapter 3) by Dustybones

Piece 3: Shiro's favourite scenes (chapter 1 and chapter 2) by Shirojiki Mattari

#shadowzel #bg3 shadowheart #bg3 lae'zel #shadowheart #lae'zel #shadowheart/lae'zel #ao3 #DJ Shadowheart #new fic just dropped come give it a read #baldur's gate 3 #shadowheart x lae’zel #lae'zel x shadowheart #ao3 capriclonus #give it up for dj shadowheart #laeheart

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Officially making a start on Princess Shadowheart / Personal Guard Lae'zel! Got a rough plot in mind and just going to go crazy with it.

#but man i had so many ideas for witch!shadowheart I may end up writing that one anyway as well #we'll see how it goes #ao3 capriclonus

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OH MY GOD ITS FINALLY HERE AND I AM SO FUCKING EXCITED FOR YOU ALL TO READ IT

(be warned this is honestly the fluffiest, sweetest thing I've ever written and I killed myself OFF writing it)

PLEASE ENJOY!

#bg3 shadowheart #shadowheart #bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #ao3 capriclonus #baldurs gate 3 #shadowzel #shadowheart x lae’zel #lae'zel x shadowheart #laeheart #bg3 lae'zel #laezel #give it up for dj shadowheart

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besides the modern au I'm thinking medieval (ykwim.) au! princess shart and guard lae'zel and tav. commander karlach. queens dame aylin and isobel (love live the moon lesbians)......

Yooooo I love this!!!

QUEENS DAME AYLIN AND ISOBEL!!!

Man do I want to see useless guard Lae'zel pining like fuck over perfect little princess Shadowheart....and Shadowheart would be such a tease about it.

But...............on the other hand, I'm thinking—wait, wait hear me out—Karlach is their personal guard, Lae'zel is the knight commander and goes to hunt a bothersome witch for them AKA Shadowheart(!!!!!) and they fall in love.

BOTH HAVE TOO MUCH POTENTIAL ANON AGAIN WHAT ARE YOU PEOPLE DOING TO ME

#ask box #ao3 capriclonus #shadowzel #fuck i want to start writing this right now but WHICH VERSION HELP ME #gale would be the court wizard of course #astarion.......the jester (lol im kidding he'd be the spy of course) #wyll would be captain of the guard

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CHAPTER TWO IS NOW LIVE! (a day early cause I'm excited and in a great mood)

#bg3 shadowheart #shadowheart #bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #shadowzel #ao3 #ao3 capriclonus #ao3 writer #baldurs gate 3 #dj shadowheart #baldur’s gate shadowheart #lae'zel x shadowheart #bg3 lae'zel #shadowheart x lae’zel #bg3 fanfiction #give it up for dj shadowheart

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Feeling very motivated to write more princess au tonight!!! Let's hope the words come to me 🤞

#ao3 capriclonus

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hiiiii! I just binged your DJ Shadowheart fic and I don’t fucking know how to use tumblr but that is the best fic I’ve read in a WHILE, literally was near tears reading it like it was just so fucking good. I stayed up too late reading it and my spouse woke up and caught me🤣… so I went to sleep at 1am and then woke back up at 6am to finish it. I’m planning my next reread already. And saw your posts on here about Princess/guard fic or witch Shadowheart fic with shae’zel and just wanted to say I cannot wait to consume those too and just—fuck I’m not gonna be able to stop thinking about your writing all day. So thank you!

(am I supposed to actually ask a question on these things? if so: how are you doing this fine Saturday?)

This is incredibly fucking sweet, thank you so much. I stayed up too many late nights writing it, too, ha! I'm glad your spouse managed to rip you away from it to get a decent night's sleep (but also equally glad that my story compelled you to stay up in the first place!!!)

It has been so damn exciting how many people have loved this work. It really was a massive passion project of mine and I put a lot of myself into it, and it's been really really rewarding seeing how it paid off. I am honestly so flattered you came to tumblr to tell me just how much you enjoyed it---I've just seen you've left a comment on the fic itself, too, and I'm beaming ear to ear right now!

The princess Shadowheart/personal guard Lae'zel fic will take a while, but I do hope people enjoy it! I'm not sure anything will top 'Give It Up For DJ Shadowheart' purely because I put so much soul into it, but I do just hope I can continue to make people smile.

YOU ARE SO WELCOME and THANK YOU so much for leaving me this ask, it has fuelled my little writing furnace and inspired me to write right now! Took a day off yesterday but you've made me very excited.

(And no you don't have to ask anything, but I am having a very good Saturday, thank you! I hope you are too <3)

#give it up for dj shadowheart #ao3 capriclonus #ask box #i love people leaving asks for me #you are so sweet thank you

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Long hard day. Long hard day. My job is very busy atm and I've had no time at all to write....with my regrets I need to tell you all this shadowzel princess/personal guard au will take a while, I'm going to be very busy for about a month I think. 🙃

#im very sorry guys #all i want to do it write but im working a lot of over time atm with my caseload as big as it is #ill get it done asap #thanks for being amazing and patient #need laezels “some days are ruff” mug #ao3 capriclonus

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About the chapter titles of Give It Up For DJ Shadowheart...

I know that "I burn, I pine, I perish" is from Shakespeare. What was the thinking behind using that phrase for your chapter title?

Yeah, so, I love Taming of the Shrew, and Lucentio says this when he sees Bianca for the first time, so taken by the feelings he has for her that he begins to neglect his studies and himself.

I suppose I picked it because Lae'zel is struck by that same intensity of feeling when she sees Shadowheart. She's so worried she will be hurt by her, so worried she'd become nothing for her, that in a way the titles are a reflection of those fears but, more than that, a subversion of them (and of Lucentio because Lae'zel is made better by Shadowheart, not worse). These girls do not sacrifice anything for each other—not like Lae'zel did for Tav, not like Shadowheart did for Shar—they embrace each other in their best and their worst, and ultimately they become better people for it.

It's also thematic. In chapter one "I Burn", Lae'zel is burning with feelings for Shadowheart she does not know how to control and is worried those "flames" (if you will) will quickly grow out of hand. In chapter two "I Pine" Lae'zel is realising she wants more, that she can't resist the pull of Shadowheart even as she wants to. And slowly she realises that maybe she has feelings for her beyond sex, a pining she cannot overcome. In chapter three, "I perish" Lae'zel overcomes parts of herself that held her back and, although those parts of her make up who she is, she has, in a much realer sense, come out of it a different person—her old self is no more. Or, at least, she's putting the work in to ensure it stays a shadow.

(Also for real its just one of my favourite Shakespeare lines and I can't even really tell you why....and thank you for asking this question it was very interesting to think about and sorry if I came off at all pretentious)

#ao3 capriclonus #ask box #give it up for dj shadowheart

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So obsessed with your fic and ty for giving your Tumblr 😋 PLS PLS GIVE ME TIPS ON WRITING THE CHARACTERS!!! I LOVE THE WAY YOU DO IT!! I am struggling rn with my story 😔😔 I aspire to be like you 😿

First off, WOW, someone coming to me for writing advice? That is an insane honour and a privilege! Honestly, I don't even know what to say, I don't consider myself an amazing writer (mostly I just consider myself one of the many pieces of trash worshipping at Shadowheart's feet) so its just fucking amazing that you want my input! Secondly, I'm sorry to hear you're struggling with writing! It can be so so difficult. I think we're all guilty of forcing ourselves to write sometimes when we can't--so make sure you take time to do other things that aren't reading/writing to clear your headspace (and also simply changing the colour of the word document helps a lot! Also the font).

In terms of writing characters, a lot of what I do is very subconscious so you'll have to excuse my somewhat word jumble here as I try to think about and vocalise what it is that I do--

1. Get to know your characters. Recognise they aren't static beings, but change. For example, using Shadowheart as a reference, I think we can agree she has three basic states of being in the game: first, what's she’s like as an acolyte of Shar; second, what she's like as an ex-acolyte/selunite; and third, what she's like as a Dark Justiciar. Ie. in the beginning Shadowheart is blunt, defensive, scared and anxious. Still, she's also committed to her cause which has been off-roaded by needing to find a cure (and she has private doubts about that cause because of the trauma she's been through finding the artefact). But as a selunite, she's much more open and honest with her doubts and her feelings AND she's not afraid to have a bit more of a joke--you can sense a weight has been lifted from her, even as the initial decision crushes her. Also, think about how they speak, the words they use, and how they vocalise. Shadowheart speaks differently at each iteration--as an acolyte, she speaks relatively informally (for Shadowheart) when she's speaking to you, but when she's talking about Lady Shar, she alters her language and speaks more formally, more weighty. Compare this to Dark Justiciar: she's very formal all the time now, because she's moved from an acolyte to a representative of Shar, which needs to be taken seriously.

2. Empathise with them. What does the current stage of their journey feel like? If it were you, how would you feel and how does that differ to how they might feel? Read into the things they say in-game: their psychology comes as much as from what they don't say as it does what they do say.

3. Contextualise them within your fic: now you know what stage of their journey are they at, think about how that is affected by the environment/context you've put them in. For example, in my fic Give it Up for DJ Shadowheart, Shadowheart never moved past the stage of being an acolyte of Lady Shar but, more than that, she was never given the choice to do so-- Shar abandoned her when she was no longer useful so she was never given the object of choice. How does that affect her character, and how does it affect it in a modern context? For me, I decided not being given that choice would likely make Shadowheart feel stuck in place and, given her in-game bias to move to Selunite when offered choice, it makes sense to me that she would slowly become the selunite version of herself over time so long as she had positive influences in her life that promoted finding joy and purpose in other places, and promoted healing. Thinking about Lae’zel, I’ve framed her in the aftermath of her abandoning Vlaakith (getting fired from her job and losing her girlfriend is my equivalency to this) but instead of having another cause (Orpheus/a new job/her girlfriend) she has nothing and feels she has nowhere to go. And in my opinion, that would simply be too much for her to cope with, as someone who is driven by purpose and structure. Therefore she falls into a deep depression.

4. Have fun with it!!! Fanfiction is ultimately about self-indulgence and you should be focusing on what makes you happy to write more than anything. The characters don’t need to be perfect. In BG3 they are all so unique and as long as you are having fun whilst you’re writing them—if you’re making yourself smile, turning yourself on, whatever it is you want to get from your fic—then you are doing an AMAZING JOB!

Honestly I feel I’ve mostly talked a load of guff here, it was a lot harder to think about how I characterise people than I thought, but I hope I’ve helped in some way, even if just by explaining my thought processes behind my own characterisations. I hope it makes sense anyway!

And for what its worth, I’m sure you’re doing a lot better than you think you are and I wish you all the best in your fanfiction endeavours! Remember that, as much as I celebrate kudos/bookmark/hits milestones—and I do—they are very arbitrary numbers and if you’re happy with your fic, if you get pleasure out of reading/writing it, that’s really all that matters. I’m not ashamed to say I reread my fics all the time because I wrote them for me! And of course, to think that I’ve written something just for my own enjoyment that other people have enjoyed too is really wonderful! But I always keep in mind that at the end of it all, my fiction is for me!

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR AMAZING ENGAGEMENT BTW YOU ARE SO SWEET AND I WISH YOU ALL THE BEST!! Come back anytime, I love to chat!!! <3 <3

#wow this was long sorry #ao3 capriclonus #give it up for dj shadowheart #bg3 fanfiction #bg3 shadowheart

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have you read that one fic about lae'zel calling shart a good girl once and then shart going insane over it? i feel like that's your kind of thing honestly

Have I read it? Me, the person who has praise kink in all four of my BG3 fics?

Of course I've read it!

It was very good (and yes definitely my kinda thing lol). Lots of GunpowderCarousels' stuff is good, personally I like: Without a Trace, Quiet Moments, Trapped in One of 'Those' Rooms, Two Words, and The Courgette (a funny one).

See the thing with me is that I firmly believe that all of the BG3 companions have a praise kink - all of them are desperate for validation and I will personally hand-feed it to them.

I think the funnier thing is that everyone who reads my work is like "wow this writer has a praise kink; she definitely likes to be called a good girl!" To the point some have asked me. And I can firmly say you are wrong: I love to call people a good girl; the way people just fall apart at the words is top-notch. It's very fun to write and makes for good eatin'. And I love to make sure my BG3 babies are given the validation they crave and deserve.

#wyll is a good boy #gale is a good boy #astarion is a good boy #lae'zel is a good girl #shadowheart is a good girl #karlach is a good girl #or whatever gender you prefer for them of course #ao3 capriclonus #ask box

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*rings bell* sinner time

Just Enough to Hurt: Oathbreaker Au new chapter .... and some kind of loving sex?

#just enough to hurt #ao3 capriclonus #if youre just here for shadowzel likely give this one a miss eh #the link is being weird but it leads to the chapter so who cares

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Time to bang my head against a wall and hope words fall out of it 😂

#no idea why this is so difficult lately #difficult difficult lemon difficult #ao3 capriclonus #ps. i wont actually hit my head against a wall #i wanted to have the princess au finished in a month and ive written.........one and half of the 13 scenes i have planned #ITS ALL PLANNED AND PLOTTED DAMMIT #and now its been a month and i am nowhere near done

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do you have any plans to write more modern AUs (for both Durge/shart or shartzel)? i had a thought about streamer!BG3 companions and now i can't stop thinking about it lol.

HELLO so I'm very sorry I realise this has been sat in my ask box for a couple days, I have been crazy busy!

I honestly haven't thought much about more modern aus or further fics, inspiration tends to just strike me and I tend to let it and roll with it and become consumed by it lol.

...................but a streamer fic or a youtuber fic? hold the phone. interesting idea. as YouTubers,

shadowheart could be one of those make up artists that offers life advice whilst shes doing it, with her own little cult following.......

lae'zel and karlach could be the idiots that do increasingly ridiculous pranks and stunts that just spur each other on........

astartion could be an asmr channel with elaborate costumes........

gale could be an academia channel explaining complicated concepts in philosophy or science in simple essays like contrapoints.........

wyll? wyll is a harder one to pin.......i think he'd be a gaming channel playing horror games and never getting scared by them.

AND THEY ARE ALL FRIENDS OFF CAMERA AND DO COLLABS WOTH EACH OTHER AND MAYBE THEY'D ALL COME TOGETHER AND STREAM ON TWITCH AND PLAY STUPID GAMES AND IT COULD BE GLORIOUS and what have you done to me anon what have you DONE

#ao3 capriclonus #ask box #oh god i have another idea brewing and I CANT DO THIS GUYS I NEED TIME TO EAT AND LIVE #OR THEY COULD ALL BE ASMR CHANNELS I CAN SO SEE THE DIFFERENT VIBES NOW #OR THEY COULD ALL BE MAKE UP CHANNELS OMG IMAGINE HOW MUCH WYLL WOULD SLAY WITH A MAKE UP CHANNEL AND GALE OH MY GOD GALE AND SHADOWHEART A #it just took me an HOUR to respond to all the amazing comments on my fic and i am truly touched guys the BG3 community is beautiful and ily

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your tav/shadowheart oathbreaker au... ITS AMAZING!!! YOUR BRAIN SO WRINKLY!!! THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR HARD WORK!!!!!

Me brain wet and bumpy ooga booga

But seriously, thank you! I only half know where I'm going with it and that is really exciting? Like I may surprise myself despite having a plot and ending in mind.

#ao3 capriclonus #dj shadowheart #bg3 dark justiciar shadowheart #dark justiciar shadowheart #just enough to hurt #oathbreaker