#i will love him for an eternity i fear

[daddy-long-legssss]

Alex being ridiculously cute at Outside Lands Festival - August 13, 2011 [x]

[deadlyspikelover]

the miserable Snake again.. love is in the air? WRONG!!!!! ABYSSAL SERPENT

[roychewtoy]

[heavenlyascent]

me everyday: sephiroth is such a complex nuance interesting character because he was doomed from the start and couldn't have a normal childhood even if someone saved him because it was literally the embodiment and cumulation of capitalistic and there was no hope for him and yet the moments we are spared of him being human show a man who was capable of friendship, of love, of hope, of change and the tragedy is that he severed the ability to change the second he swore off being a human being--fulfilling that doomed birthright

also me: all I want in life is for Aerith and Tifa is repeatedly drive this man into the earth until not even a single dumb black feather remains

[borgialucrezia]

actually my roman empire is juan borgia's greatest fear being that his family would dislike and abandon him then they ironically ended up doing exactly what he had dreaded the most and it's his family not just hating him but also metaphorically dancing on his grave without even a hint of sentimentality

[ave-immaculata]

(pointing in the mirror) she lives in constant anxiety because she cannot meaningfully distinguish between love of God and fear of Hell/loss of Heaven!!!! HA!!!!!!

[some-pers0n]

Computer! Google search: "How to write character going on murder spree after thousands upon thousands of words of build-up without it sounding like a generic Creepypasta from the 2000s with descriptions of finding peace in finally having some semblance of control over their life and whatnot"

[braceletofteeth]

Jongwoo and Moonjo as Persephone and Hades: a Greek Gods AU

Hades was the ruler of the Dead

but he coveted Life

Life was the most powerful

and the most lovely

for they had yet to learn

about their own cruelty

Life pleaded with him:

“If I stay by your side,

I will become something else.”

Hades laughed,

more enamored than ever

Life was afraid

but too curious to part

Life gave so much,

they wanted to know what would happen

if they took it all away

if they destroyed what others took for granted

And Hades saw into the future then

one day, undoubtedly, he too would be

at the other end of Life's mercy

challenged

tormented

and grateful

[arolesbianism]

Doodle of my boy

[swordmaid]

anyway I really do like the idea that his darling spawn shri’iia who’s whole job is to adore him forever and an eternity becomes his very undoing bc he fails to account what that would mean to her. like baby girl you just validated each and every one of her flaws and ugly side just like she validated yours. now you’re stuck with that 🫶🥰🤭

[beheadable]

Photo of me + photo of Z.sasz we look soooooo good together shit. Hmmm…. <3 giggles. I like him a lot <3

[whenthegoldrays]

🩷

[blueish-bird]

sometimes I think about how in Chainsaw Man humans will stay dead and devils will cycle between hell and earth for all eternity

[hobermallowed]

okay so I’m looking into VC characters and I hope I’m just reading too much into it but they better not give the David Talbot body swap situation to Daniel in the show

[oh-katsuki]

Bruh that's how me and my friends text too

it's so funny i literally irk myself sometimes doing it

[bhaalsdeepbat]

just to add:

Using Poe rather than any other Dark Romantic writer that was his contemporary to pull a quote from was such a good choice. Of his sotries, "The Tell-Tale Heart" was the perfect one for Astarion, but Poe very specifically believed stories should be written in a circular manner - like a snake biting its tail - which fits so perfectly with all the little ways Astarion's story and romance references itself.

Direct quote from my source:

Poe believed in “fashioning a tale like a kind of ouroboros, with its tail in its mouth, beginning with the final effect and working backwards to that the story’s beginning is a natural derivation of its conclusion.”

It's the setting up of the Romantic Astarion in act 1, finding out he's not as fine as he keeps insisting as the narrative swings into Dark Romantic territory, the paranoia starts to really come out (relating back to tell-tale heart), and then he is literally given a choice: continue the cycle or break free. The cycle of abuse is literally a circle here. He can take up Cazador's place in the ritual and step into his role entirely, reentering the ouroboros I mentioned earlier.

The "Thank you" when he first bites the player being referenced later when they see past his paranoia and how unreliable of a narrator he is about his own feelings and seeing that he doesn't want power. He wants safety in a world that he believes isn't capable of kindness or good.

I love how Astarion quotes The Tell-Tale Heart every once in a while. It's a rarer line, and initially I thought it was out of place (Neil is very well versed in theater, so I assumed it was a riff from him), but since reading an analysis of the work I think it was pretty purposeful.

The piece is all about fear and paranoia, things we know Astarion is plagued by despite how he might act. Similarly, the narrator of the story also tries to convince the reader that they are not as troubled as they seem. In the end, the narrator is consumed by the beating of the heart of the old man he killed and dismembered, the sound growing louder and louder until in a fit of rage he reveals the body to the police to absolve himself from the persistent beating.

Except the police never heard the heart beat, because it wasn't the old man's heart at all. The narrator was consumed by the sound of his own heart beating more and more rapidly in his chest from fear. He was the owner of the thing that forced him to reveal his true nature, he is the owner of the tell-tale heart.

And what happens with Astarion after you romance him? He realizes over time that, while he tried to deny his feelings and was initially only interested in manipulating you for his own means, he actually has grown to care for you. You have done something to his heart that hasn't happened in centuries, you have made it feel as if it has started beating again.

Therefore, his tell-tale heart leads him to admit his transgressions, which were committed out of fear and paranoia for his safety.

So the line is actually very, very apt. His confession during Act 2 is his own version of "Villains! Dissemble no more! I admit the deed! Tear up the planks! Here, here! It is the beating of his hideous heart!" Except, of course, it is his own heart that he is unearthing for us (and it's not so hideous, after all).