#stupid fucking tumblr mobile

[yes-these-obsessions-are-healthy]

Yes, yes, and to add (!!) his emotional maturity regarding how he feels about other people, and how others make him feel, is stunted. If you’re romancing him, then in Act III when his siblings ambush him at camp there is a dialogue option you can pick (forget which one) that has him respond with this:

“Don’t look at me like that. With that sweet little, ‘disappointed I’m not getting cuddly Astarion’ pout. I can’t take it. I can’t be what you want to see in me.”

You’re together, he has chosen to be in a relationship with you, but he is setting forth on this journey hyperaware of how love now has tied his own arm behind his back—he now cares about how you feel about his decisions and how you see him—a huge problem for any self-reliant, self-loving (for there no room or opportunity for him to love while under Cazador’s thumb) individual who wishes nothing more than to do what they want. He has hardened himself against guilt because to allow himself to feel it would destroy him from the inside out, so he learned to center himself first and foremost for the purpose of survival.

But love means you must care about someone other than yourself. It means you must put in effort to maintain that bond, and that means being receptive to how the person on the other end feels about your behavior, and thus adjust or compromise as necessary.

In this scene, your disappointment makes him falter, for it hurts him to think that you are unhappy with him. He has done something you disapprove of, which means he has made a mistake, which means he has threatened the stability of the relationship, and he does not know by how much. Do you love him less for his behavior? Does you think less of him for it?

Often when people feel guilt, anger follows shortly behind. It is a reflex by the ego to reassure the Self that it is not lesser.

‘Don’t look at me like that. With that sweet little, ‘disappointed I’m not getting cuddly Astarion’ pout.’

(‘Stop it.’ Redirecting blame: the real problem here is the judgmental look you’re giving him, not his behavior which inspired it.)

‘I can’t take it.’

(Hastily establishing a boundary right then and there, building a wall between him and his partner so that the guilt-inducing response by his partner might cease. ‘I do not like that.’)

“I can’t be what you want to see in me.”

(Dodging the opportunity to learn from his mistake compounded with his declaration of forfeit of responsibilities by way of fatalism: ‘I did not fail. And if I did, I was never trying in the first place’ is held in conjunction with the dismissive ‘I was never going to live up to your impossible expectations, anyway. You believe me to be something that I’m not, and for that you should feel guilty for impressing a false image upon me. I am not the foolish one, you are.’)

Essentially, ‘screw you for making me feel this way’. His egoistic self-assurance and his sense of freedom feel threatened. In that moment he is quietly grappling with his desire to indulge in his antisocial tendencies, but now that you are together, he feels a sting when you disapprove where before there hadn’t been. In a way it feels like another form of compulsion, another leash for him to be dragged along by, hemming in his wants for the sake of satisfying someone else.

You have the means to dismantle and destroy him with this newfound love he feels for you, and certainly a large part of him is frightened, for he is a man that has gone centuries feeling powerless. The theme of your relationship with him (assuming you proceed with him Unascended) is that the ‘weakness’ that love inspires is also its strength. It is okay to possess weakness, because someone who loves you will be there to protect you. They will not exploit it but guard it, supplement it.

As a survivor of abuse/torture, I keep thinking about Astarion spending 200 years under Cazador. When you're being abused you live on a knife's edge of panic at how horrible it is, how frightened you are, and an empty regurgitation of your abuser's beliefs because abusers become omniscient*.

Time moves differently. Time moves really fast if there's some time limit placed on you by an abuser. Time moves unbelievably slowly when you're in the part of the cycle that is most violent, most dangerous. It's lightning quick when they're love bombing or pretending you're their golden child or feigning apology.

And because of this... you get the traumatic maturity of a person who knows how horrible, painful, & cruel things can be. The wisdom of knowing no one is immune to control or cruelty. But you don't age. You don't grow up. You don't evolve. You're being held in the liminal ooze of victimhood.

Feeling that, going through that, and it has been TWO HUNDRED YEARS... I can't imagine processing that level of loss.

In a lot of ways, leaving an abuser is experiencing the hormonal and psychological shifts of being a teenager but inside of like... a Darren Aronofsky montage. It's horrific in the best of circumstances. Trying to do that amidst another traumatizing, life threatening event? Trying to do that with that and you stumbled over a found family you can only aid as much as you can aid?

It may be the things I've personally stumbled into but between sexualization and woobification I don't know if anyone is really approaching Astarion with that lens.

*this is a huge thing for me, I've seen people question, "if Astarion was abused, why does he not want to do good or help people," and it reminds me how society is not only NOT trauma informed, it's often greatly misinformed by the perfect victim/self sacrificing victim/chosen one narrative. Your abuser's beliefs don't necessarily become your beliefs but after enough violence a part of your brain is being driven by them at all times. You're not thinking of what is good/right, you're thinking of what won't get you harmed. And sometimes in groups it's worse because you feel like if you do something wrong your abuser will not hurt only YOU but everyone around you

[bookwyrminspiration]

how about you earn me back my dashboard

[prismatoxic]

you seemed upset in a earlier post and while we dont know eachother, i still feel compelled to try and find a way to comfort you.

have random chilaios fluff i came up on the fly:

- laios bites chil alot, not always with the intent of being sexual, its weird at first but after getting more intimate with eachother he just doesn't give a shit (thinks its cute but wont say it out loud)

- The girls call laios "Dad" sometimes, mostly puckpatty

I cant think of anything else sorry bro😔✊️ - 🐿

thank you chipmunk anon... this means a lot to me ;_; you're very sweet

I love both of these... chilchuck's daughters accepting laios as their second dad is everything to me

[kawee-chan]

so like, i'm sure i'm not the only one, but how far can we even trust @staff to ACTUALLY respect us wanting to be opt out after the whole tumblr live circus? ON TOP of the extensive rap sheet on how they've treated users? TARGETED users at that?

genuine fucking question, cuz i'm fucking tired man.

[archervale]

Oh GOD tumblr what have you done now???

[pastelllemons]

what is this thing and why can’t i interact with it

[shesboundtobruise]

I am feeling some kinda way today, so if I get back on here tonight, I may be quiet or I may be manic, who tf knows. Just know that if it's the former, don't take it personally. I'm just trying to spare you my grump. PS don't read the tags if you're in a negative space yourself.

[beananium]

uh.

[wendell-or-something]

[willowfoxthefox]

Where have all my followed tags gone, what the fuck Tumblr, I don't care about music rn where did you put my fuckin blorbos

[sthxs]

Hey, not to be mean but I think you missed a space or something in your bio?

It reads as black weirdos DNI, and uh, it's not a good look to say the least.

i’m black you idiot

[feralbastet]

Seeing some mobile ad of a woman who is raggedy and covered in mud. She walks up to a dude, that’s some one else man, and kisses him. He gets mad and pushes her to the ground.

The ad is like “Do you help her?”

Absolutely not. She just sexually assaulted a dude minding his damn business, trying to enjoy his day.

Help her get a mental evaluation?

Help her to the nearest police station?

[roommania-203]

tag dump (the third squeakuel)

[akihikosanada]

studying for a major you like is great but at what cost

[imma-dragon53]

If tumblr send me to the fucking app store one more fucking time

[scavenger-toll]

you cant install addons on the mobile version of firefox ffs