#I will be doing some Ember/Astarion stuff eventually

[catsharky]

Does Ember actually love Astarion or is he just a best friend? I was just curious! Haha

Oh, the answer is a big both! They're best friends, partners, soul mates, each other's Person. If they were shelter cats they'd be pair bonded and have to be adopted together. Whether they are or aren't romantically involved doesn't matter, they're each other's ride or die regardless.

But to be more specific, Astarion is Ember's 'canon' relationship, with Rolan being something of an AU that I just happened to end up doing a comic about first.

I'm not someone who likes to make multiple OCs to pair up with different characters, cause not only do I get too attached to one, I just overall find it a lot more fun to take a single character like Ember and play around with what would happen if she were to end up with someone different. See what changes or stays the same depending on the partner she ends up with.

But no matter what, she and Astarion end up a duo to at least some degree, even if it's just as partners in crime.

[catsharky]

(Spoilers for Astarion's romance in Act 2)

I would have liked to do something for terrible comic day, but a stubborn migraine put the kibosh on that, so instead have something vaguely in the spirit of it. I tend to prefer to only post clean, finished work and this is decidedly not that.

This is an unfinished comic I started back in October that I unfortunately stalled out on while it was still in the roughs/planning stage. I was a little disappointed that during the post-Araj conversation you have with Astarion, you only got to choose one question to ask before the conversation moved on, and I wanted to try and combine a few of them into a single back and forth (I also originally just wanted to set up a joke and then it grew legs and ran off in a totally different direction😭)

No idea if I'll ever end up finishing this! I'd like to, it's just a question of whether I'll actually get around to it. Only time will tell.

If anyone's interested, I've also included an alternate, scrapped version of page 9 under the cut and some Ember Lore/rambling about what I was going for with this comic that probably doesn't come across properly thanks to where it cuts off

After finishing this page, it ended up just not feeling quite right. Not only did it put too much of the focus on Ember too early (I wanted to keep the spotlight on Astarion's feelings for a while longer) but her reaction came across too vulnerable, and was reading as her being upset to find out that Astarion hadn't been invested in the relationship when they slept together. I wanted the reader to be able to initially make that assumption because that's how Astarion is taking her reaction, but it leaned a little too heavy in that direction.

Ember was aware from the start that Astarion wasn't interested in a romantic relationship. She's been having one-night stands for over a decade, she knows what it looks like when someone's not looking for long-term. Her mistake was believing that he was trying to string her along without realizing she knew what he was up to. So she's not upset that he was using her, she's upset that there's a chance she hurt him by allowing it to continue despite knowing something was off.

Eventually I'll do some proper stuff about Ember's early days with the party, and her life in general before the events of the game!! Just gotta finish all the other stuff I have ongoing first 🙃