#I love him and astarion

[baku-usagi]

God yeah all of this and then some.

The biggest issue with the Fandom I've seen so far is the desperate attempts to npc the characters forgetting that, everyone from the main cast, is a player character. They represent the people at your table, they aren't characters the dm made up, they ARE the other players. Each one is incredibly nuanced and interesting if you give them the chance to be. And I have seen nothing but a whole lot of "insert stereotype here"

Astarion is super ace coded, he has a lot go sexual trauma, he is actual the epitome of the abused becoming the abuser. He doesn't hate The abuse his master doled out, he hates that he isn't In a position to dole it out himself, and your interactions with him shape if he maintains that mentality or if he starts to heal.

I know it's a game and all that but so many people sacrafice allowing for a beautifully developed character coming into a redemption arch, in favor of allowing astarion to be everything he hates deep down because haha sexy!

Gales negatives dont come across as attractive. There isn't any booktok level weird kinks and power dynamics.

He's also like, a prodigy child who was groomed and manipulated, his pride is even mostly a front because while he knows he's smart deep down he truly fears he's not enough.

But you really do watch them get boiled down into sexy vampire man who will fuck me so I excuse his evils

And "oh he looks like a where's my hug kinda guy" at gale because hes a nerd and over intellectual and a little rude. (hes been a hermit to recover from his debilitating curse of bomb in chest idk)

Drives me crazy.

actually i'm crazy about this now. astarion and gale are perceived by the fandom in a lot of different ways solely because astarion has been clocked as "the sexy one" and gale has been clocked as "the incel" and it is sooo fucking annoying to read about half of the time.

like people are willing to stomach the idea of astarion being rude and willing to do bad things as a survival tactic, because those things don't stop them from degrading him to the descriptor "sexy" and nothing else. people talk about his addiction to blood positively because the way you sate it is by doing something perceived as intimate. so they believe sexy elf man is sexy and nothing else and then whine when he perpetuates the cycle of abuse and doesn't actually care about them.

and then meanwhile gale, who is arrogant and a little too ambitious for his own good (but still has the common decency of "hey bad thing bad"), is treated more poorly because how are you supposed to degrade him to being attractive/sexy and nothing else when his suffering is much more impersonal?? HIS addiction is now a haha funny crack joke because it's not "sexy". HIS relationship is "haha he fumbled a goddess" because he constantly talks about his ex. because he has issues. and mystra is, while not the person who put it there directly, the reason he's got a bomb in his chest

so you have this issue where people are sooo determined to mischaracterize people to the point where they make astarion the "hot twink" or whatever (COMPLETELY ignoring that's the entire point, he wants you to think that because that's what he's been forced to behave as for survival) and gale the "annoying incel man" because there's such a difference of what they can and can't sexualize about the two of them.

this isn't a real genuine issue or anything but it makes traversing this fandom SUPER annoying when people hate one of my favorite little dudes for something they mistakenly love astarion for. like i'm sorry astarion is not your flirty little meow meow he IS putting up an act he IS dissociating throughout half of his romance scenes i hope you know that. and also gale is traumatized and not the "nice guy complex" man for wanting to win back mystra's favor. hope that helps

[crocodiller]

a party of very mature adults

[gio-utti]

Redraw of THAT scene.

My favorite moment in the game for many reasons.

Im always so proud of him for it.

[barghest-land]

scared animal that you are

[mmothmanners]

Of course I gotta do Astarion next. And channel his best energy 'Chaotic Drama Queen'.

"I wAs RiGhT tHeRe!!!!"

[kawareo]

I love drawing him as not-sexy as possible

[theoldkyokodied]

The Allegiance of the Ascended Vampire and the New God of Magic

[fangswbenefits]

LMAO????

[golyadkin]

it's because i wouldn't let you kill the bounty hunter isn't it

[emahriel]

(source: x)

[lazylittledragon]

you know what fuck it we’re doing dadstarion

[ria-neearts]

"..you are free"

[egguv]

no reflection needed.

[myrkulitescourge]

the way that one line from the new epilogue in an astarion romance is going to HAUNT me

just. what a profoundly intense thing to confess to someone.

like, just these six months of newfound happiness with you exerts a force on his heart equal and in direct opposition to two centuries of endless torment, the gnawing hunger and exploitation. this flashbulb-bright fraction of his long life holds the same gravity to him as years upon years of darkness and suffering.

in all likelihood, he hasn’t even known his lover for as long as his worst memory lasted, that year sealed away to go mad from starvation and sensory deprivation, yet he still tells them this brief time has been so fundamentally and powerfully important that the weight of even that unimaginable hell is vanishingly small compared to this present he has now and the future ahead of them both.

how am i supposed to act normal about this.

[delzinrowe]

the best of Astarion | HAPPY BIRTHDAY KAP ♡

bonus:

[vole-mon-amour]

🦇Batstarion＆Halsin🌿 Who remembers that Astarion can't see his own face ...🥺🥺But it doesn't matter, Halsin will carve it!💖

by @/baiyameng on twitter.

permission to repost acquired. more from this artist.

(I'm so sorry for the censoring. I tried to post without it at least 5 times, but tumblr is being extremely weird and hides the art from the tag. it probably thinks Halsin has female representing nipples. 🙄 so here it is. male nipples that are too cool to be shown on tumblr.)