#the parents were. not coping with their grief well. and amity came bounding up to them to ask where teo was so they could play

[cannibalisticskittles]

amity, during an astarion romance, is eventually going to reach a point where they're being more genuine (or, well, he's being more genuine; amity has been pretty genuine this whole time) and he makes a complimentary remark abt her offhandedly and she's like "haha yeah. you remember you don't have to do that anymore right"

"do... what?" he asks

"you know," she says, "pretend i'm..." she waves a hand in the air, vaguely gesturing to herself. "...nice to look at. you don't have to do that anymore. it's okay."

and no matter what he says, he's. not going to convince her otherwise. not tonight. not tomorrow. not for a long time.

the most she can concede the point is to say that it's kind of him to say so. but she still doesn't think it's true, even a bit

amity's childhood fucked up her self-image BAD. children can be cruel. the patriar are, as a rule, quite cruel and callous. and patriar children?? woof. awful. and she is the tiefling bastard child of a new money noble -- one who got that money through merchant work, how gauche. so she was subsequently on the receiving end of... a substantial amount of unkindness. general distrust, at best, from those who weren't outwardly cruel, but quite a bit of outright cruelty

sorcerers, of course, do not learn their spells the traditional way, but more through desire. and amity learned the disguise self spell early, born out of an intense and desperate desire to Be Literally Anyone Else.

she has learned at this point in time that she has qualities that others may appreciate -- which was a hard-fought battle in and of itself, and is still a relatively recent revelation for her. but those qualities are still tied to what she does. her capacity to be kind, her ability to be helpful.

but her appearance? hahahahaha fuck no