#about letting astarion ascend

[nyssasims]

i finished bg3

[syn0vial]

my gun-loving, car guy, "i'm the straightest man i know" brother who just finished baldur's gate 3 talking about astarion:

[bevirspnsblmnt]

when you just finished fkng on top of a grave, but you have feelings you gotta sort out (they're just nekkie, but since I dont know the state of tmblr cens0rship - and I had drawings flagged where people were fully dressed before) you get the white halo of doom - but you can see the full pages on my twitter!! I drew some nice butts so pls check them out :3c)

[a2zillustration]

I carried this thing for MONTHS with the EXPRESS PURPOSE of putting Raphael in it (knowing full well Larian wouldn't let me do that, mechanically) and I had one major miscalculation.

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[bananasfosterparent]

"If Ascended Astarion gets everything he wants and Tav is happy with him, then there are no consequences and he learns nothing!"

[vividdreamer]

i've lost all respect for larian studios

[pinacoladamatata]

she keeps casting feather fall but forgets it doesn't last forever and he keeps having to catch/revive her. they're both getting up to so much murder in baldur's gate 💕

[yuelaos-codex]

Wedding Ship Meme

link to template by @heyneon

tagging @bbrocklesnar @alexxmason @captmactavish @onehornedbeast @finding-comfort-in-rain @carlosoliveiraa @tao-tgsh @ghastlyrider @captastra and anyone who wants to ✨ no pressure ofc!

Decided to do both ending 2 (my canon) and ending 3 to show how different yet similar the routes are!

++ some rambles/explanations under the cut:

ASCENDANT ENDING

THE PRENUP

this is sending me bc i have this long ass timeline that leads to them signing a prenup:

- astarion ascends, then breaks up with selene bc she didn’t want to become his spawn

- selene comes with karlach and wyll to avernus, but she doesn’t last long (she’s a lover not a fighter 💀) karlach convinces her to go back to faerun. she tells her that she has been on autopilot ever since, and she has not had the time to process the breakup. the constant fighting in the hells was not helping

- hesitantly she goes back to waterdeep, where she learns that she is being summoned back to evereska. she journeys there and gets celebrated as the savior of baldur’s gate. she starts creating songs abt her adventures. somehow, she still felt as an outsider in her family despite getting acknowledgment. she goes back to waterdeep where she feels more at home

- she slowly builds her reputation. the reunion party also happens during this time.

- 3 years pass by. she goes back to baldur’s gate ever since the brain. not as a hero, but as a performer this time 🥳

- they see each other again ever since the party

- zariel arc begins(!) selene recruits astarion (and the gang!) to help defeat zariel. this is where they rebuild their relationship, whatever it was. they make house of hope their homebase

- before the final fight, astarion, desperate and pissed off that selene was not jumping on his advances, propositions (again 😩) to turn her. they get into this massive fight. selene tells him that the only way that they can make this work is to enter a (magical, hell-powered) contract, where he can’t compel her and in return she can’t leave or betray him. astarion, who was planning all along to turn selene into a vampire bride (where he actually can’t compel her) instead of a spawn, agrees to it since the contract was heavily in his favor. BOOM PRENUP. they both sign it. astarion turns her the very same night 💀 they’re basically married at this point

- they defeat zariel yay, slowly take over baldur’s gate while also getting a vacation home in waterdeep while also traveling the world yadda yadda. then they have a wedding despite already being married for years bc why not ✨

THE WEDDING

at this point selene is a very famous singer, and astarion close to becoming the shadow ruler of baldur’s gate. their wedding gets called the wedding of the century— think the royal wedding, imagine the masses crowding on the gates trying to see what’s going on inside 💀 they hold it during the daytime to squash all the rumors of them being vampires. their motif is white and gold, and is heavily influenced by elven culture. selene’s gown’s train is around 20 ft long. their cake is 3 minscs and 8 boos tall. the festivities lasted for DAYS. lots of hedonistic debauchery occurred ehehe

THE SONGS

so i chose songs that had wedding vibes but also toxic when you listen to the lyrics. chemtrails over the county club is about choosing to live in your own safe and comfortable bubble despite the ongoing horrors outside (cue in my snow globe symbolism for them). there’s also this line where it says “it’s never too late, baby, so don’t give up” which makes me feel that there’s still hope in the relationship becoming healthy… eventually 🤡 (i mean, they actually have forever between them). you belong to me is very fitting bc astarion can let her roam the world freely, but ultimately she can’t leave him. (this also aligns with one of the voicelines a!astarion has if tav leaves with karlach to avernus as a spawn— he tells them that he allowed them to go with karlach bc he’s not some “controlling monster”. he could summon tav back beside him if he wanted to.)

SPAWN ENDING

THE WEDDING

as for the spawn ending, at first they want to hold it with just the two of them but then word gets around, and now everyone was excited for the wedding! they didn’t expect so many people would want to congratulate and celebrate with them. imagine 7k+ people wanting to attend 💀💀💀

they hold the wedding reception in the underdark, but made their vows privately under the night sky 🥹😭 MOON AND STAR MOTIF LFG 😭😭😭

THE SONGS

just a quick one: there’s this line in your universe that says “you can thank your stars all you want but, i’ll always be the lucky one” which i think perfectly sums up how he views tav/selene. bc who in their right mind would help a vampire— a monster, let alone give them their blood? only tav/selene. (which also aligns with his voiceline saying “other people don’t have a heart like that. you’re… you. no one is like that.”) ANYWAY ENOUGH RAMBLING THANKS FOR READING 😘

[clownwrites]

BG3 Fic but about Astarion languidly admiring his Tav get off from being beaten by Abdirak

[prismatic-starstuff]

okay was anyone going to tell me that ascended Astarion calls MC 'little love' and 'my treasure' in the smoothest most sultry voice I've ever heard or was I just supposed to get absolutely smacked around the head with that knowledge myself—

[y-rhywbeth2]

Talking about vampires reminded me of how much this dialogue amuses me:

Leon: "My head is spinning. I can't believe you did this. What's going to happen to us ...are you going to end us like you ended Cazador?" Player: "You're free to go." Leon: "We are... free? But where will we go? How will we feed?" Player: "Be a wolf among sheep. Travel from peaceful village to peaceful village." Leon: "You're right. That's good advice. Thank you."

Like if you tell Leon he can decide for himself what to do, he decides the Underdark sounds great. Astarion himself has the Underdark as his first thought, but the PC can just straight up give them advice on murdering people and he's like "oh shit, yeah, you're right."

Just being a bad influence on the vampires.

[repressed-n-depressed]

i have no one to talk to about astarion baldursgate3 so i just have to sit here and rotate him in my mind instead

the scene where he says he doesn't want to bite the drow woman and, if you don't force him, he later comes to you at camp ant thanks you for allowing him to have some basic goddamn bodily autonomy for the first time in 200 years,

and then, how he immediately turns on you and more or less denies *you* bodily autonomy after you allow him to become the vampire ascendant --

he becomes a man who would lock you in a box for a year if you tried to leave him. he's already forgotten how much it hurts.

im vibrating

[bhaalsdeepbat]

sometimes when people describe astarion as pathetic, they'll list all his more feminine characteristics rather than like

it's fucking pathetic of him to be mad if you save the gnomes, even if you understand why he disapproves it. It's still fucking pathetic. he's also extremely pathetic when he ascends and starts becoming more like Caz, but it's bc it's pathetic that the power goes to his head like that simply bc he would rather insulate himself with power than allow himself to face his past and overcome it.

not because he deserves nice things and finery.

[nebulousfishgills]

As much as I love playing embrace Dark Urge runs (discussion in therapy pending), there's something so narratively satisfying about how a Resist Durge playthrough can go once you get to the Bhaal Temple. Your character steps into the ring with Orin, it's intended to be a duel, but odds are you're getting eviscerated pretty quickly. You then switch to one of your other characters in your party and throw an attack, effectively breaking the duel and setting the whole temple upon you.

(Adding a cut because this ended up being longer than I thought)

But, I think it's a very satisfying way to play. Your party members have grown fond of your Durge, seeing them as a friend, a family member, even a lover. They've watched you and your pain over your Urge and what it makes you do or want to do. Maybe you've slipped up once or twice, but you've been trying so hard to be the hero they know you can be, that Faerûn needs. So, when it comes time to finally face your demons and you're getting so horribly hurt in the process, they can't help but rush to your defense. It'll put all of them in danger, but it doesn't matter because they want and need to help you, their ally and companion.

Bonus points if you select your character's romanced companion as the savior/duel interruptor to make it extra delicious. They've fallen in love with you, stayed with you when your Urge craved their blood the most, maybe by this point in the game you've helped put their demons down as well. They see you in pain, a final valiant effort to overcome your Urge against the power of Orin, a whole cult, a god of murder himself. They want to protect you, save you as you saved them.

I'm also fond of the extra beauty of Astarion being your Resist Durge romance since it puts the two of you in very similar situations. Fighting against the will of your masters, finally defeating your demons with your newfound companions' help and being offered the greatest power you could ever fathom... only to deny it, ignore power in favor of your party and your love.

This isn't even mentioning just how goddamn good the Withers resurrecting you cutscene is. This skeleton in your camp with unknown and unfathomable power (also apparently supposed to be Jergal himself if I've done my research properly?) is able to bring you back to life, free of your Urge. The line along the lines of "Bhaal could only destroy what of you that he knew, but because you've grown past your Urge and become your own person, he couldn't destroy that new growth" is just so weirdly powerful narratively. Tav may be a default character for you to create upon making a new save file, but Durge is the canon protagonist and I think that entire scene shows it the best. It's a beautiful secondary climax of the narrative (primary being battling the Netherbrain of course).

And, perhaps it's just an oversight on Larian's part or something that'd be a bit difficult to work into the cutscenes mechanically, but I think that it could only get more impactful if your companions could comfort each other during these moments. Everyone and their mother wishes you could hug Astarion after he kills Cazador, but also imagine your romanced companion cradling your body after Bhaal kills you. It seems just a little odd that they all (meaning your party) kinda just stand around staring at your corpse, especially with how close y'all have gotten.

Idk, I have a lot of thoughts about this section of the game in this particular type of playthrough and some of them are hard to articulate into words. It's just such a damn good narrative peak and can really make you feel things.

I've completed I think two resist Durge runs and just hit this point on my third and it really stuck out to me this time (then again my new antidepressants are kinda fucking with me so that might be playing a role). I left it as my last mission before dealing with the Netherbrain and I think it helped build the anticipation of that moment. Everyone else has been helped by you, and now it's your turn to come into your own. I really felt so connected to my character walking into the temple, feeling like everything has been building to this, that regardless of what happens our suffering will finally end. And you have your party there to help you in your time of greatest need as you've done for them.

There's a reason this game was Game of the Year, the narrative is just so powerful and the replay-ability is just insane. I've beaten this game ten times, heading for my eleventh and it truly just never gets old and never fails to make me feel so many things so strongly.

[morgandekarios]

giving astarion either the magic initiate: sorcerer feat or 1 level of storm sorcery and flavouring it as astarion slowly gaining a bit of naviidi's innate magic as he feeds off of his blood, and naviidi noticing astarion inheriting this very personal part of himself and teaching him how to harness it properly

[lipstickghoulie]

You don’t know how long you’ve had him like this but his cheeks are pink and flushed, you don’t think you’ve seen him shut his mouth in over an hour as it hangs slightly agape and his eyes are wet with desperation and unshed tears. Astarion blinks blearily at you but doesn’t dare move, overstimulated beyond description as his half-hard dick remains trapped within your cunt, cushioned and sodden with a mixture of both of your emissions.

“Please, no more,” he whimpers out, hands tightening on your hips as if seeking a lifeline as you purposefully clench around him. You can’t help the way that a cloying, saccharine smirk takes over your features at how you’ve debauched this so-called powerful vampire.

You say so innocently and sweetly, “But, my love, I thought you wanted to keep me naked and in your lap on your throne? Isn’t this what you asked for?”