#bgficcing

[rackartyg]

society if i would just make myself write the pieces between

and

[thewritingalex]

i've run out of inspiration and it's so frustrating because i still want to write! but for the stuff i already have, i need a plot to continue, and i don't have any ideas for that, and if i want to write something new and pointless, i'd need inspiration to get going and i don't have it!

[dapperafrika]

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[rackartyg]

there are many points in bg3 where dialogue always uses gender-neutral terms of address, which is a clever way to save on having to record and code for three different lines for such an inconsequential thing, but every time it happens i'm like. slightly miffed still.

anyway sceleritas totally calls a she/her durge mistress and not master send tweet

[rackartyg]

you know what i love. for fucking once i have a reasonably detailed outline. i know what's going to happen. but starting a new scene is still so scary i've been stuck on scene #2 for weeks

[rackartyg]

She remembered—

“Do not bite the hand that feeds you, girl.”

Father’s voice-that-is-not-a-voice is so loud in her head. It plucks at some fundamental string inside her, calls on the moment of her creation and reminds her who once held the entirety of her existence in his hand. She owes him every joy and hatred, every pleasure and pain, her very body. She is simply an extension of him, that somehow yet thinks it is able to err. She can disobey him no more than a finger can disobey its hand.

Trembling, she throws herself to the floor, prostrate in front of the shrine and his likeness. She’s weeping, and it’s his right to strike her for it—she hopes he will, to make it stop. The force of it would throw her across the room. If she were lucky, she’d hit the wall, hard enough to make her head ring for hours on end. It’s happened before.

The tears taste like vomit in her throat, when all she craves is bile and blood. Isn’t it?

“I won’t, Father,” she says. “Thank you, Father.”

—and by the looks on everyone’s faces, they all remembered alongside her, her thoughts screaming out of her through the tadpole.

“Sorry,” she said. “I can’t control it right now, I … I should go. Sorry.”

And she fled.

Astarion found her on a rooftop, perched on the centre of the ridge, knees pulled up against her chest, where she wasn’t visible from the street. She hoped it was enough to shield even tadpole’d passers-by from her, though perhaps it wasn’t. Her mind buzzed—she had long since run out of coherent sequences of concrete events and instead, untethered feelings and sensations roiled inside her. It wouldn’t surprise her if they were spilling out.

The squirming velvet wetness of still-living viscera in her hands. The bubbling, rattling music of lungs drowning in their own blood. The bone-deep burn, one of the few things that trulyreached her,as her Lord Father had her flayed for her failures and she screamed.

Pain. Shame. Anger. A hideous, howling emptiness that yearned to spread and consume the whole world.

And the moments of perfect, glorious service, when she had pleased her Dread Father, when her works had honoured him and she had acted according to her purpose. The dissolution of her ego in the depths of her devotion.

She wanted it. Gods, she wanted it. She’d do anything to feel like that again. To feel and know nothing, but also somehow everything. Everything worth feeling, everything worth knowing. The world made so achingly simple.

As Astarion approached from behind, alerting her to his presence by scuffing his boots against the shingles, she sniffed and scrubbed the tears from her cheeks with her fist. They still tasted like vomit. But these days, the thought of cannibalism turned her stomach more than it whet her appetite.

“Hello, Astarion,” she said in a low voice, without turning around. His pale body towered in her peripheral vision.

“You’re not planning on flinging yourself off this roof, are you?” he said, leaning to theatrically look down at the ground.

She laughed, just a quiver on the exhale. “After storming off like that? I wouldn’t dare. Far too melodramatic.”

“Yes, it would be rather tasteless, wouldn’t it?”

Zanarai rested her chin atop her knees and stared at the sky above the city. Hovering just above the western horizon, the sun seemed to be almost melting into the earth as it descended. Every so often, a ribbon of birds danced across it.

Before, she had often pictured it red and dying, burning out over a featureless, ashen plain. Herself beneath it, atop a pile of bodies taller than a mountain, ready to plunge her dagger into her own heart. The final sacrifice. All the world destroyed by her hand, in her father’s name.

Astarion came to sit beside her.

Zanarai despised how much more steady she suddenly felt, with his presence at her shoulder. She didn’t deserve it and it was dangerous because if it continued, she might start to feel as if she did. That was the first step on the path to falling into the caustic pool of yellow bile she had instead of a soul. She knew so little, but she did know that. And oh, how tempting it was!

“It’s enough that I have to suffer through this,” she said bitterly. “You all have your own troubles.”

“Troubles you’ve very graciously assisted us with.”

She scoffed. “Don’t forget—I’m the reason you’re all in this mess to begin with. I’m the reason you have tadpoles in your skulls and will burst into mind-controlled tentacles if you’re ever separated from the Astral Prism.”

“Well, I can’t speak for the others,” Astarion said, leaning back on his hands to tilt his face up into the fading sunlight, “but personally—I’m rather grateful.”

Zanarai glanced at him. His expression was blisteringly peaceful, despite his flippant tone. She had to look away again.

After a moment, in a low voice, she said, “I am happy it’s worked out for you.” Him, and only him, out of thousands of people. A part of her thought it was worth it. “That’s not what I mean.”

“Darling, based on what was in that … mental blast of yours,” he said, “you seem to be under the impression that you’re somehow the epitome of evil. I’m trying to supply you with some of the myriad reasons that’s not the case.”

“I know that,” she snapped. She didn’t, but he’d never understand—never agree—and for that, she loved and hated him in equal measure. “I’m just not … there emotionally, yet. I’m working on it.”

“Then you won’t mind if I sit with you while you do, will you?”

When she’d been trying to kill him, like the mad dog she was at heart, he’d spoken kindly to that rabid, snarling beast, looked past it for a moment and told her, You’ve got this. And I’ve got you.

Zanarai swallowed, and permitted him to stay.

“It would be so easy,” she said, because some of it, the heart of it, he did understand, “to just say, it wasn’t me that did those things, it was … that other person. In a sense, it’s true. The Dark Urge is something else, but the line between it and me was a lot more fluid before the nautiloid, I think. I didn’t care about making a distinction.”

Without realising, she’d been scratching at her knee through her trousers in tight little swipes. She balled her hand into a fist, claws digging into her palm. All over her body, her skin crawled and itched and tingled.

“But that’s the thing—that’s the real difference.” She swallowed. “Whether I care or not. The Chosen of Bhaal, the High Primistress of Baldur’s Gate, that was still me. It was … me in my full context, I suppose. When I’m all of me, I’m a monster. So … it’s a good thing I got parts cut out. Hah.”

She sniffed and angrily wiped her eyes with the side of her hand.

“No one can control what their past self did,” she continued. “What’s done is done, even if you regret it now. But I don’t even always know why past me made the choices she did, because I can’t remember. Sometimes, she feels so alien I might as well have been possessed. Like something else wore my skin and used my name, before it was mine. And sometimes, I understand so intimately I have no idea what to do about it.”

Instead of angels in the marble, waiting to be freed, everywhere she looked she saw only beautiful corpses. How absolutely splendid most people would look, with their breaths stilled and parts cut away just so, dolled up in their own gore. How satisfying it would be to take them apart, examine and admire each piece. How true and right it would be to strip away the pretensions of life and lay them bare in death.

It wasn’t the wild and reckless abandon of the Dark Urge that told her that. It was her own, sober mind and heart. How many people had she killed and mutilated with a measured hand and exacting eye? Was that worse?

Her first murder had been her foster family, and nothing had ever lived up to it. Even still, she couldn’t summon up a flicker of dismay. Nevermind remorse. At the fact it hadn’t been her choice, certainly, but not at having done it. A small part of her even wished she’d been conscious for the act itself, and railed at Bhaal for taking that away from her. As if the whole sorry affair wasn’t thanks to him.

Or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe she would’ve been like this even without his influence. Maybe, even if they found a way to tear Bhaal’s fetid blood out of her, she’d still be like this. Maybe she’d never be able to look at the people she loved without feeling sick with longing for violence.

Was that terrifying? Or exhilarating?

“What matters is that you’re making the right choices now,” Astarion said. “And, considering the merry little band of heroes you’ve gathered around yourself, it seems you are. Not that I’m an expert, but if it matters to you—and it does, clearly—then … trust their judgement, if not your own.”

And she did, didn’t she? Karlach and Wyll were her friends. Jaheira had been her bitter enemy once, but didn’t seem to be holding it against her. And Dame Aylin hadn’t smitten her to unholy cinders—yet, anyway.

“Present company excluded, of course,” she said warmly. If she looked at him, she wouldn’t be able to prevent picturing how she’d kill him.

“Obviously,” he agreed. “Though you ought to trust my judgement, too, darling.”

“About clothing and interior decorating? With my life.”

“About you,” he said. “We will find a way to free you. I’m sure of it.”

What was there to free her from, except this mortal coil? She wanted to laugh, and she wanted to cry, and she wanted to throw up. She wanted, just a little, to die.

She settled for closing her eyes and sighing. The mild breeze danced over the rooftops, forced to split around her unmoving body. Below, footsteps and chatter—laughter, sometimes—echoed between the buildings.

Contemptible. Hateful. She longed for screams and then silence. But it was an idle, wistful thing. The rest of her would never allow it. The familiar headache gnawed at her temples, as if her skull housed a horde of starving, restless vermin. But she couldn’t let them out, and there was no cat to set on them. All she could do was close the door and pray they ate only her.

Astarion’s clothes rustled with movement once, twice. Then, so very lightly, his fingertips brushed the back of her hand—and he took it in his.

[rackartyg]

the opposite of the gay fanfic pronoun problem: the straight fanfic name problem

[rackartyg]

why is writing so fucking agonising. pulling out sentences like pulling out teeth. like unravelling tangled yarn. it's okay that it isn't perfect sit still just let me rip it out i know it hurts it's better it's out and ugly than staying in stop squirming!

[rackartyg]

tagged by @fay-run to post a wip excerpt! tagging @gorgongorgeous in turn mwah

cw for bhaalcest

[rackartyg]

me while writing: no but this "suddenly" really needs to be there, i swear

me while editing: delete, delete, delete, delete

[rackartyg]

A hundred different psalms, a thousand different tributes. Her life's work. Hatred and disgust and pride and love, so consuming it liberated her from her breath and senses and very mind. Because in the face of true filial devotion, none of those things were needed. This was love. This was grace. This was holiness. A wretched thing like her would find it nowhere else. So why did it taste so bitter?

or, the Dark Urge gets more disowned than anyone’s ever been in the history of Faerûn

[rackartyg]

first kith

[rackartyg]

The front of his chin pressed against the heel of her hand, her fingers curling up against the soft underside of his jaw. He was looming over her, sitting on top of her, and yet there was something vulnerable to this. He was bent over her in something that looked much like supplication, his unguarded expression unhidden, betraying the depth of his pleasure and distraction. He was enraptured. In theory, and if it weren’t for the tadpole, she could so easily reach out and cast daylight at her fingertips, boil the skin off his— or, the dark urge has a bad night, and copes by having astarion bite her over and over

got over myself and posted it

[rackartyg]

i DID IT i made it through the difficult scene

now onto the next scene which is also difficult but for entirely different reasons

[rackartyg]

When they stumbled out of the Szarr palace, it was long past midnight. Zanarai’s clothes were bloody and torn, but Jaheira and some potions had seen to that she wasn’t actively bleeding anymore. Her whole body buzzed—or, rather, didn’t—with the hollow, sapping ache of having expended all of her magical reserves.

She made note of it, but barely cared. All she cared about was Astarion.

As Cazador’s twice-dead body had crumpled to the floor, Astarion had gone with it to his knees, and wailed. It had been a horrid thing to look at, but a relief, too. Two centuries of grief, buried as best he’d been able in rage and terror, finally got to surface.

To be able to grieve, it must be over. And it was. After so long, it was.

He was still covered in blood. Cazador’s, mostly, but his own, too. It was drying in tacky patches in his curls, so silvery fine in the starlight out here; across his face, his trousers, his hands. Karlach had torn a piece from the heavy drapes upstairs for him to wrap around his bare torso, but underneath that, too, there was blood.

It suited him.

They reached the streets, and Astarion walked as if in a dream. He always held his chin high, eyes darting this way and that, but now, he stared down at the cobblestones, lost in thought. A hand at his breastbone held the improvised cloak closed. Zanarai stayed a half step behind and to his side; though it almost felt like it, this was not her hurt, not her victory, not her changed life. He had this, and she had him.

But once they reached the Elfsong, his uncharacteristic silence had started to unnerve her, and she decided he’d spent quite enough time in his own mind. As Jaheira and Karlach climbed the stairs, Zanarai brushed the tips of her fingers against Astarion’s elbow to hold him back.

Claret eyes flicked to hers. A maelstrom of emotions was rising in them.

“Can I give you a hug?” she asked softly.

His lips trembled. “I … suppose. Yes. Yes, I’d like that.”

She embraced him, leaning her forehead against his upper chest and slinging her arms around the small of his back, well below his scars. For a moment, he seemed bird-boned in her grasp; then his arms wrapped around her shoulders with strength just shy of bruising. His face tipped into her hair and underneath her forehead, his chest rose and fell in a deep breath.

“I’m very proud of you,” Zanarai said and squeezed him a little. “What do you want to do now?”

The whole of him, not just his lips, was trembling. Not enough to see, but enough to feel. “I—Gods.” He took another, tremulous breath. “I need a bath. And so do you, darling. You reek of those horrid mutts.”

She snorted. Despite his words, he made no move to let go, so she coiled her tail around his calf; loose enough that he could still slip out on his own, tight enough that she was now reliant on him to keep her balance. “You did slit one’s throat right on top of me.”

“Yes, that was my mistake. Next time, I’ll let it bite your head off. Much less mess.”

“My gallant protector,” she sighed. “It was a beautiful kill, though.”

It had been brutish, nasty, and graceless. Brackish blood had filled her mouth and nose and eyes, the werewolf giving a gurgling, canine scream as it staggered to the side, before Astarion’s offhand dagger returned on the downstroke and severed its windpipe. She’d spat out the blood and crawled over to deliver a shocking grasp, stopping its heart in what she knew was an excruciating squeeze of muscle.

As she’d said. Beautiful.

[rackartyg]

i have all these PIECES why can't i assemble them into a fic!!!