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Day 13 | Guardian

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An alternate take on a certain mindflayer for very end spoiler reasons under the cut! Kinda... a whole AU novel under the cut here.

So I'm playing a coop game as Astarion origin and made his Guardian look like my solo tav, Aldiirn, because why not? But then when we got to the first couple of dreams I had really unexpected feels about it all

Like urhrgrhrh all the Guardian's talk of being there to protect Astarion, saving him, feels just like Aldiirn's choice to become partial illithid to protect him, his freedom, his happiness.

The way it talks about having gone through this before, and the fact that the Astral Plane is timey-wimey got me wondering like... what if this is some time loop. What if Aldiirn had a bad ending and came back to guide the party and fix what went wrong? What if it's all some fucked up Madoka Magica timeloop where in each iteration, he becomes more and more comfortable with luring his friends towards what he swore to protect them from?

Say the original party had no guardian, they just got freaking lucky with being in proximity to the Astral Prism, gaining a passive immunity to the voice of the Absolute, and miraculously surviving the nautiloid crash. They all journey together, fight alongside each other, fall in love, and then the fateful day comes and they fail. All become transformed and in thrall to the netherbrain, except Aldiirn who had the prism on his person.

Aldiirn escapes into the prism, discovers that because time is different on the Astral Plane, he can effectively time travel to the past. He remains confined to the prism but he can reach out to his old friends, guide them, help them where they all stumbled before, see his love alive and happy again... and fail again.

Aldiirn promised they would never have to become mindflayers. But each attempt at this doomed journey wears at him. Maybe he was more open at first, even sharing memories of the first adventure, gaining genuine trust. But then he withdraws. Appears as a stranger, but guardian still. It aches to see Astarion fall in love with another, but for him to be happy is what matters most.

Then it becomes easier to convince everyone that they must evolve. Use the tadpole. Aldiirn's been perfecting its mindflayer abilities all this time, embracing it even. If its friends had even a fraction of this power, they could defeat the netherbrain. It only needed to convince them to embrace their potential. It's for the sake of their survival. It will be their choice, and it will be the right choice.

The current journey goes on, Aldiirn succeeds in convincing Astarion to give up some of his bodily autonomy to become a partial mindflayer. It stings, it's a violation of its old vow, but it must be done. Survival comes before happiness now. The party is more ready than ever to defeat the netherbrain, with old and new allies and a whole array of powerful abilities at their hands. Maybe Astarion would even join Aldiirn as a full mindflayer, despite his romance with Lae'zel. If he can be convinced, become comfortable with it, recognise all there is to gain, he could still be happy.

And all this while the real answer sits in front of Aldiirn: Orpheus, the sleeping prince who ensures its and its friends' autonomy of mind. They've caught onto the prince a few times, but always kept him chained. They must. Losing the prince would mean losing the ability to go back and try again. An intolerable risk.

I don't know how our coop run is going to go because I want to leave the decision to my friend, but if we choose to free Orpheus, Emperor!Aldiirn's abrupt turncoat would just be from those feelings of ultimate rejection. Giving up everything and going through this hellish loop over and over for the sake of its love and friends only for them to defy it.

I will 100% tho have Astarion fuck the Emperor in this coop run.

and a view of what's under the tentacles! I wanted to mash up Emperor's look while following the shapes and flow of Aldiirn's equipment such as the Potent Robes and Woe. The back crest/collar thing could use work but my thought was mimicking his hairstyle. Also I just, wanted a mindflayer form that looked GOOD instead of that oogly little one you can turn into. Give me the full tentacles, c'mon.

Also going to have to come up with a bard-version title in place of Emperor. Conductor or Maestro, maybe?

One thing that throws me off a bit about Aldiirn as Guardian tho is how much deeper the voice is. I'm pretty sure I gave him the lightest masc voice as a tav haha. But man seeing him move and speak more instead of being a silent muppet is like aaaaa my boy growed up. even if he turned maybe evil.

Side note, I had this idea before knowing Orpheus's brains would have to be eaten so uh. SHRUG.

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dead among the living, living among the dead

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Self indulgent garrus x shep sketch

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"Marshal of the Pact Trahearne"

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finally, a worthy opponent!

~

Yes I love suddenly making fighting screens out of fandoms that have nothing to do with the fighting genre. Lawful evil against chaotic, let's go!

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Happy Birthday! 🎉

Have a cake 🍰

OH MY GOSH

this is genuinely the greatest thing I could have possibly woken up to, thank you so much 🥹🥹🥹 oh I'm going to be staring at this all day. She's perfect, they both are but waughhhh I love this so much, thank you thank you thank you

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The Mouth of Mordremoth

This Elder Dragon from GUILD WARS 2 still intrigues me to this day. The fact that it used to be corporeal, before 'growing into' the Heart of Maguuma itself, present within the vines and only physically manifest as the Mouth, makes me wonder what it really used to look like before all that.

Art Prints | RedBubble Shop

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.•｡ﾟ MEMORY 彡 INTIMACY  ﾟ｡•.

Day #6 and #7 of @theemperorweek !!!

THIS TOOK ME SO LONG 💀 sorry I'm this late I bit more than i could chew. First time doing a proper comic like this.

Some silly stuff from the process below ▾▾▾

idk when ill be able to do another comic like this. gotta find a way to do em but not accidentally make it as detailed as this 😭

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can't sleep, messy drawing upon ye

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emperor sketch post

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More Xenomorphs, ink on paper

Tip jar

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hungy

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this alien shit get serious

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Sins of the Father

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.•｡ﾟ POWER 彡 TRUST  ﾟ｡•.

Day #1 of @theemperorweek !!!

I let out a gay yelp every time I hear Empy say "thank you" after you give it the netherstones soooo I had to 🥺💖

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Took a long time to complete my first run, so it's only right to celebrate it by doing an equally long piece of the companions 🫶