#people online: omg he is the dumbest guy ever

[dopepoisonivyoncrack]

Got quite bugged by the lack of a more nuanced take on Astarion intelligence. This ended up quite long so I'm putting it under line

Won't get medical into the "less wrinkled brain" narrative comment, which can be offensive, I've seen some complain about it, I don’t have the medical expertise and it's not necessary because, while maybe not an excuse, it was used figuratively. Astarion is not the smartest person in the room but also not the dumbest, which makes sense and I'll get to that in a moment. I've seen the jokes though, and there is a big difference between being less wrinkled and having the brain as smooth as a chicken breast. I have not laughed.

About the stats, I think it reflects his current state but not the limits of his intellectual capacities. If anyone more knowledgeable in dnd inner workings can correct me in this, feel free to do so.

What I can say is that intelligence is the ability to solve complex problems, to learn and adapt and make better decisions, and there is nothing to suggest Astarion doesn't possess this ability, quite the contrary, he learns and adapts relatively fast when allowed to do so. The brain is like a muscle that needs to be trained, and unfortunately, he couldn't do that much in the last 200 years. Trauma also messes with the brain and many of its abilities. It can physically change the brain and the mechanisms used for learning and survival [x]. Not to dig into details as it's beside the point here but "trauma significantly impacts our ability to learn, to form memories, to regulate emotions, it can affect our ability to be calm, to learn, to think, to reflect and to respond flexibly and in a planned way" [x]. It should be no surprise that Astarion has difficulties in doing a number of these, if not all.

Before jumping at me like I'm trying to use the trauma in defense of his intelligence, I am not saying he was some brilliant mind before. He was probably a bit above average, with a privileged access to higher education. We can't know anything for sure because we were never given anything on the magistrate elf (not to assess intelligence anyway), but whatever his starting point was, it got affected under Cazador. We only have the current Astarion and some observations during our game travels.

So, while I don't think he was ever the brightest, he is far from being dumb. The lower intelligence stats in the game make perfect sense for someone like him, as he is now. He was killed as a young adult, he was controlled body and mind for 2 centuries, stuck following orders, and in survival mode. He didn't get, and wasn't allowed to think for himself, to grow, to learn, to develop his skills to their potential! Including thinking skills! Moreover, he was told and made to feel incapable, worthless. Cazador likes to remind that quite often. Of course he isn't adept at thinking things through, making complex plans, figure out things that would be more obvious to others, and so on... like when it comes to relationship experience, because he didn't had to think or do anything more complex than seduce someone for a night and carry them to Cazador, for a very very long time. The routine and ingrained mindset, the "chains" so strong, he kept doing them out of inertia for a while even after the tadpole-gained-freedom. It took him a while to even realize he can just stop doing it now, like slowly waking up and regaining senses, and control over his body. It's great writing there, sensitive, thoughtful, realistic writing. It would be quite weird if he knew any better, and that would have to reflect into higher stats. And I would like to point out that he learns and adjusts himself from now on with increasing pace, going hand in hand with recovery. (Going into how this affects Ascended Astarion who, I argue, rejects recovery, would be interesting but maybe another time).

On the other hand, the skills that helped him do what Cazador asked for, are very very honed. I still remember his lines, not being able to even put a name on another type of relationship "You are not a victim, not a target, not another night it's better to forget. But then...what in the world could you be?" (Might be paraphrasing a bit but the point stands). It's not for lack of intelligence that he fails to do that, and it's not for lack of intelligence that he fails to do many other things.

Basically, I am saying is that he was never the smartest, but he is not dumb, he was made a bit dumber/ kept for a long time, by trauma and circumstance, from getting smarter, kept from reaching whatever his potential was, and that if allowed to regain his freedom and recover, he still has the ability to reach whatever his potential is. Things we can witness him doing, gradually. And that his stats or the comments on his intelligence in the game reflect his current situation and not his limits.

[bizlybebo]

HOORAYY ok ^__^

-William used to run the lamest poetry blog. He got into online discourse DAILY in the Hamilton fandom.

-Ashe runs one of those blogs that are so random but people always love for no real reason. She just kinda posts shit like ":p" every once in a while and people spam reblog it like crazy.

-Vyncent has accidentally doxxed the prime defenders like 6 times now.

-On an unrelated note, William has doxxed at least 3 people.

-Dakota is the most popular Prime Defender who's actually semi-involved with social media. He posts random photos of whatever hero shit he's getting into with absolute gibberish captions but occasionally just randomly cyberbullies Mark. He keeps getting in trouble for almost doxxing Mark and Ashe because of how vehemently he hates the guy.

-(Also Mark's page has like. 2 posts. One is of him holding a fish, and the other one is of his wedding photos he hasn't brought himself to take down yet.)

-Dakota is following only 1 person on pitter (pd version of twitter): Miss G.

-Paparazzi HATE Ashe and William, because William always looks so fuckin scary on camera or turns them invisible/intangible, and Ashe always makes the dumbest faces that ruins the seriousness of any article people try to post

-Vyncent is Not Allowed on any websites that include microtransactions because of his credit card history.

-Also PD have a little discord server they threw together. It mostly consists of William and Dakota getting into arguments and spamming stupid photos of each other

okok and then the 2nd kind. i only have one off the top of my head but it's so funny to me. me and cayden came up with it a while ago ^__^

-William LOVES my chemical romance. However, he's only ever heard the black parade, and he literally thinks the band's name is The Black Parade. He's also really pretentious about it for no reason. Ashe puts mcr on one day and he's like "omg I love the black parade!!!" and Ashe responds "Yeah i know ^__^ it's a pretty good album" and William just stares at her for a really long time like "album?"

Into your inbox I go once more

Do you have any headcanons about the Prime Defenders’ relationship with media in general?

Not forced to answer at all :D

OOH YEAH OF COURSE !! however. could you elaborate please because i think this question is going over my head entirely jdkhgew. do you mean media as in stuff like their favorite movies/bands/etc. or like how they interact with the world/public eye/social media? im sorry idk why this question is missing my brain entirely </3