AITA-style summary of the Shadow & Bone by the fantastic Leigh Bardugo (contains spoilers)

 A while back, I posted an AITA-style summary of the Shadow & Bone by the fantastic Leigh Bardugo on the Grishaverse Reddit community which has been like a second family to me with their great support. The wonderful reaction my post received encouraged me to create AITA (Am I The A*hole) style summaries of my favorite fantasy books. [By that, I mean that I would be choosing a villain from the book and summarize it from that villain's point of view in the style of the AITA SubReddit.] Below is my original attempt at Shadow & Bone, which contains major spoilers for the book. If you haven't already read it, please do before you check this one out. [It would also be funnier if you know the story.]

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AITA for putting a collar on my crush to control her powers?

I (M, ancient but looking young and supper hot) have been looking for my crush (16 F) for most of my eternal life. A few months ago, I finally found and brought her to my palace so she can train to use her powers. Weeks passed without her learning anything. And she was pretty upset at the fact that she basically sucked at controlling her powers, so I promised to hunt down a mythical stag and gift her his antlers so that she can become the most powerful person after me. And we would change the world together.

It turned out she also got a huge crush on me. In fact, she told me herself that she is constantly trying to impress me. So, the gentleman that I am, I kissed her. And though my right-hand man chose that very moment to interrupt us, I could tell she was thrilled to be kissed by me, as anyone would be. I tried playing it cool and ignored her until the winter fete. Then I sent her a beautiful coat in black, my color (I’ve got the copyright, and no one else is allowed to wear black). And she looked really hot wearing black, by the way. [For the sake of this post, please ignore the fact that she is only 16 while I am super old.]

That night at the winter fete, she dazzled everyone with her grand performance demonstration. Afterward, as we were standing together on the stage, she brought up the kiss. I couldn’t have that discussion with her on the stage in front of everyone, so I brought her to a dark, quiet room, as you do, and began kissing her. Long story short, despite how much she obviously wanted it, we got interrupted again. It seems that people in this palace have nothing better to do than keep me from getting laid. I should come up with better ways to keep everyone at the palace occupied.

Then the day after the fete, I finally decided to take a leap of fate and profess my love to my crush. But she was nowhere to be found. At first, I thought the savage Fjerdan or the sneaky Shu Han kidnapped her. But it turned out my own wicked mother betrayed me, scaring my crush away with some bizarre accusations about me. I get back-stabbed by my own mother. Can you believe that?

Anyway, I couldn't tell the King I’d lost the most important girl in the whole world. So, I had to track her down myself. It turns out my crush had met with this tracker (16M) she knew from childhood and both were trying to hunt that stag to get all his power for themselves. Honestly, I don’t know what she sees in him. She has been writing love letters to this Otkazat'sya boy the entire time she was at my palace, and she did not get a single reply. I know. I made sure of it. *coughs*

I felt my blood boil when I found my crush with that tracker trying to hunt my stag for themselves. I stopped them of course. This was supposed to be my gift to her. And I’d be damned if I let any tracker come between me and my crush. I killed the stag and had one of my soldiers make a pretty necklace out of his antlers to put around my crush’s neck. It looks great on her. Believe me.

I don’t understand why my crush doesn’t seem to like me anymore. I went through all that effort to give her that collar so that we can live happily ever after as I control her power to make us the most feared power couple on the planet. But now that she finally got the collar, she suddenly decided she didn’t want it after all. Go figure! I mean, I may have tried to feed her tracker to some monsters, but I mean, can you really blame me for trying to eliminate competition? I call that love. Yeah.

Then everything suddenly escalated. My crush tried to kill me! I’m not joking. After all that I have done for her, she attacked me and left me and my soldiers to die. And of course, she took the necklace with her.

Naturally, I am not gonna just sit on my backside and do nothing. I’m gonna find her, even if I have to go to the other side of the ocean (True Sea).

Now, AITA for putting a collar on my crush to control her powers in order for our country to finally win against our enemies?

Answer in the comments if you think AITA (or not) for this.