#astarion: main

[spirestar]

"Karlach, dear, what—" Astarion blinks down at the paper she's handed him. Glances up at her again as if he's expecting her to magically change the image on it. "What am I meant to be looking at?"

The tiefling's sheepish grin is enough to tell him the answer even before she adds, "Sorry, mate..." Sorry, she says. Sorry! SORRY?????? He'd been joking—JOKING—about the mirror fiasco with the camp's resident inferno when the idea had even come up. Had she taken him that seriously? His red eyes lock back on the drawing in hand, the matching color of the poorly doodled ones on a strangely shaped head the only part of himself that he recognizes.

( Certainly she's been thoughtful. Karlach makes fun, but she's also considerate. Good at reading between the lines and knowing when not to cross them. And when she should. But. BUT. )

"IS THIS SUPPOSED TO BE ME..?"

@hauntedurge , inspired by this post LMFAO

[eastgaysian]

[kataraqui-archive]

Saw this post and I had to

[thefloatingstone]

Playing BG3

Me: Why does Astarion always disapprove when I do something to try and help out victims of slavery or when I do things specifically to uplift people who are victimised by groups and people more powerful than them? You'd think of ANYONE he'd be the guy most in favour of that sort of thing.

The little fairy that lives in my head and talks to me sometimes: It's because you are challenging his warped worldview that only the strong have power and without power you can only be a victim and you are stressing him out by showing him his perspective forged out of decades of abuse of every kind is incorrect and it's making him question if, maybe, how he was treated was unfair and avoidable.

[lav3nder-bees]

Nothing like doing your goth gfs makeup before getting your ass handed to you on the battle field

i.e I wanted to doodle something between finishing schoolwork and it kind of got away from me

[roughlytwentytwofrogs]

There is an issue in this community with misstagged fics on AO3, specifically in the FxF tags. I don't know if it's going to reach the actual people or not but I'm still going to put this here:

A lot of MxM and FxM are tagging FxF ships in the main relationship category despite the ship itself only being written in the background.

Which is a problem because when you go into your ship tag to find fics of your ship, a ridiculous amount of them are off topic. And while yes you can lower that amount significantly by filtering and tag exclusion, AO3 has a built in feature that is made to avoid this.

I am going to use the Shadowzel tag for that because it's the most popular FxF ship on there and it's also one of the most misstagged rn. As of right now, there is 607 fics in the Shadowzel tag without filter. If you restrict the search to only include FxF, you are down to 397 fics. That is more than a third gone!

And it gets rid of some shadowzel content as well, so it's either you filter that out or you have to scroll through a tag where 1 out of 3 fics are about Astarion, Gale, Halsin, etc instead of the ship you looked up.

If your fic, let's take for example a Tav x Astarion, has either consistent mention of Shadowheart x Lae'zel, the most popular wlw ship, or has them in the background as support characters, or even just mentions them as a funny little wink and you want to make sure your readers know they are in here, you do not use the relationship tag! You go down to the additional tags and add "Minor Lae'zel/Shadowheart (Baldur's Gate)".

Unless the pairing you are tagging is the main focus or have a significant role and spotlight on them, you should not use the relationship tag! It clogs the feed for no reason, AO3 is not a website where you have to advertise your posts to the most tags possible.

Adding a visual for clarity:

[swordmaid]

nothing in the world belongs to me, but my love, all mine.

[caleb-crow]

Here are some sticker designs I'm making to be sold at cons and they're all so AAUGH I promise I'll think of a Wyll and Gale one at some point sobs

[hyakunana]

A Wizard and a Rogue walk into the Archive

[astarions-wife]

So with the help of Twitter I discovered that if you kill one of the vampire spawn immediately before opening Cazador’s coffin to kill him, you get a wide variety of new dialogue.

Option 1, He’ll be Free, and that’s all that matters:

Option 2, He’ll be a hero: the most intense btw, considering he is a hero in the non romanced, spawn ending. Also this one does a slow pan from Cazador to Astarion which is???

Option 3, He’ll be Mine. And I’ll be his: INSANE romanced dialogue. Hit my heart.

Option 4, Hells, just kill him already!: Doesn’t have much to offer. Astarion Just says “fine” kind of annoyed, and kills him.

Y’all I’m going wild. This has undone me. I have so many thoughts.

[mairalynn416]

I am such a whore for gale of water deep.

I want to fuck that man on mystra's alter in baldurs gate.

I want to insist that he talk about the book he's reading as I give him head and stop every time he stops talking.

I want to lick down the length of his chest, leave hickeys where everyone can see.

[spirestar]

There are many times that Astarion thinks he may have no feelings at all. That they could all be yet another illusion of choice, his mind a malleable thing, built to be manipulated rather than be allowed to choose anything. If he were wired this way then maybe the decades upon decades of enforced obedience might not hang over him like a hangman's axe — His rage so unbridled that he must laugh to keep it at bay. Would Cazador want him to feel that way? To make being dragged home hurt more? To remind him that he's nothing more than a tool to be pointed towards its work, an object that foolishly believes it has any more purpose than what it was made for? The sun on his skin is sometimes his only lifeline in this. Cazador would never let him have it. Giving to take away is one thing, but even giving a toy a breath of freedom like this wouldn't even be something the bastard would consider. A walk out at night, maybe; One followed by weeks locked up without more than cockroaches to feed on because he dared to believe he had earned time to himself. Never the sunlight. Never clear air and people who look at him as if he might be useful for more than what he's done for as long as he can remember—

He has plenty of time to question it. After all, elves don't truly sleep and too many lifetimes of never resting at all have left him bereft of most meditation skills. Astarion listens to cicadas. He counts their many scratching notes as if their legs are tiny violins serenading him teasingly. There's always something to look at, too: Karlach's blazing heart crackling louder than the camp's dwindling fire, Wyll's tossing and turning as he slowly but surely grows accustomed to his devilish form, Lae'zel's almost-comically tense posture as if she is a stone knight cast on a coffin, sword covering the length of her body. At times he wonders, with a kind of undeniable glee, that they never wake to stare at him in horror. For a not-quite-vampire, it only gets better than that when one is allowed in a building.

Tonight is different though. Astarion is awake once again, of course, but the difference is in his companions. All are asleep, save one — the cleric he's still not quite sorry he jumped at the coast that proves herself more and more useful as the days pass by. He has to think of people that way. Else he'll stop being able to question how he feels and be forced to come to terms with it all.

She's looming. And Astarion should know, he's an expert loomer. Propping his chin up slightly on his makeshift pillow, he takes in her odd position at the center of camp. Eyes far away and face flat. Usually he'd leave things be. People are wont to do as they will whether he says anything or not. But how can he — How can he possibly do that when he can't control what she might do next? If she's only contemplating whether to wake someone up and venture out, that's one thing. Maybe she wants to go kill a few extra bandits just to feel their blood on her skin. Astarion would understand! Instinct is a funny thing. After living in a state of alert most of one's life, it refuses to quiet down for any anomaly.

"Briar," he hisses softly, shaking his head with irritation (mostly at himself, also because she's made him think too hard). "Dear, what are you doing? You're not a statue, you're a half-elf."

@hauntedurge

[eff-plays]

Is this your remorseful and selfless and uncorruptible meow meow.

[spearofnight]

I am normal about Baldur's Gate 3

Editing in Minthara, feel free to request anyone, I am more than happy to make them 🫶

[thaddwen]

"I hope you like a kiss with teeth, druid..."

[fuckitwebhaal]

“ace Astarion headcanons minimize the reality of sexual trauma🥺” they really do not do that. he is a video game character. and asexuality is just as complex an identity as any other queer identity. methinks people are just punching down. I promise asexual Astarion is not the prevalent interpretation LMFAO