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The Morning After

A doodle for the soul...

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I've been working on this instead of sleep for 3 days,,,,,

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idk i think what is interesting about astarion to me is the fact that you have a guy who started out an asshole (normal type) and then spent two hundred years in a very carefully and specifically crafted (by the writers of the game) Become A Terrible Person Or Die nexus. like it wasn’t just a Torment Nexus, he wasn’t just in hell, i feel like this is very important not to forget, he was in hell but it was specifically a hell designed to, over time, kill the empathy of anyone trapped in it, kill their brain’s ability to prioritize other peoples’ survival, to numb one’s conscience.

and then he gets yanked directly out of that nexus and despite that the fact that he spent, again, two hundred years in a situation that was sort of a rock tumbler for the human soul, there’s still a pebble left in there. and it’s a pebble that can be grown if placed in the right environment and provided with a support network.

so i think it becomes interesting because it really does i think force you to start thinking about the limits of free will even on as basic a level as the human personality. i think the fact that he becomes such a different character based on player choice, that his end morality is so hugely dependent on player choice, is uhhh. a big part of what the devs were going for probably.

it makes a lot of people really uncomfortable to acknowledge some bad people would be good people if literally nothing changed except they had a good support network and different circumstances. especially because it means the opposite is also true. which is even more uncomfortable.

you know that part in the beginning of fellowship of the ring where gandalf is talking about how gollum is ultimately only like that because of the ring and gandalf thinks his story is sad? astarion is kinda like if they sexualized gollum.

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My new obsession: Illario Dellamorte, secret nerd

He’s under house arrest post-Veilguard, and he is bored out of his fucking mind. He has nothing to do but drink and needle Lucanis until Spite shows up. (He avoids Spite at all costs. He also avoids Rook because she once implied she had a poison that could render him permanently impotent. He’s pretty sure it’s bullshit, but he is not willing to risk it.)

One day he’s wandering the villa, feeling sorry for himself, and he passes Lucanis’s office, which he is not supposed to enter. The door is open, and describing the interior as chaos would be understating the mess. Piles of papers cover every surface, and even from the hallway, Illario can see that it’s not even organized chaos. One of his eyes starts twitching and his hands are just itching to organize it all, and he finally decides “Fuck it” and goes in.

He gets so into the task that he forgets to be alarmed when Rook shows up.

“What the hell are you doing?” she demands.

“What the hell am I doing?” Illario repeats. “What the hell is Lucanis doing? He’s got House accounts mixed in with the family holdings, contracts with reports…” He holds up a sheaf of papers and shakes them at her. “He signed a contract for one of our specialists at the normal master rate! Is he trying to make us all homeless?”

Instead of calling him a melodramatic ass and dragging him out by the ear, Rook realizes this could be the solution to all the headaches she and Lucanis have been struggling to deal with.

“Do you know what ‘contingent liability’ is?” she asks.

Illario scoffs. “Of course I do. I’m not an idiot.”

“Congratulations,” Rook announces. “You’re now Lucanis’s secretary.”

That gets his attention. “What.”

“You’re always bitching about how bored you are.” Rook grins at him. “You’re welcome.”

And she leaves him there to wrestle with his reaction. On the one hand, he can now continue with his task without risk of being saddled with a limp dick. On the other hand… Lucanis’s secretary?

But when they actually start working together, Lucanis is so genuinely grateful and impressed that Illario can’t even find the urge to snipe at him anymore. They start getting along better than they have in a long time. And Illario genuinely enjoys the work, though he keeps up appearances by complaining frequently.

Eventually he handles high-level contract negotiations personally because he’s better at it than even the professionals they employ. The nobles who hire them always think they’re getting a great deal… until the final invoice comes and they realize Illario has taken them to the cleaners. They start grumbling behind his back (not to his face—he’s still a Crow after all) and calling him “the Shark of House Dellamorte.”

When that gets back to Illario, he flashes a sharp-toothed grin. It may not sound quite as intimidating as “the Demon of Vyrantium,” but at least he didn’t need Viago to make up his nickname.

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Suddenly inundated with headcanons of Astarion's happy childhood on a fruit farm in Evereska, before his family moved to Baldur's Gate for trade. (I thought about his eye color for a long time. I have so many feelings. I like this sort of sparkly green for now 🥺)

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4. skill issue

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my favorite horror story is the idea that rook’s time in the regret prison felt longer to them, not shorter, than the weeks it actually lasted in the outside world. that fade time — like dream time — can be distorted in either direction; that weeks in the fade could feel like hours, yes, but they could also feel like months or years.

specifically, the particular kind of horror it would be for lucanis: to rescue rook from the blood-magic-induced torture prison their ally’s betrayal threw them into, to watch them grapple with the realization that somebody close to them is dead and a relationship they thought they could count on had been nothing more than a deception for a terrifyingly long time, to learn that they were there for so long that they thought no one was coming to get them, to catch how they avoid sleeping for as long as they possibly can because dreaming means going back to the fade and they can’t go back, to see the way they keep pushing it all down because there’s a god that still needs killing and they’ll be damned if they disappoint the mentor they lost by failing the last mission they were given…

and to know. to understand, more than anyone else possibly could, and to still have absolutely no idea what to say or do because he knows better than anyone that there is nothing to say or do about it. it just is. and he couldn’t save them from it any more than he could save himself.

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now that i’ve played so much veilguard, i’m trying to decide which of the other dragon age games to play first…

if i could start playing da2 right now i would in a HEARTBEAT, i’ve watched my mutuals obsess over anders and fenris for years and despite trying to avoid spoilers at all costs i’ve still managed to develop an emotional attachment to fenris already, but i have a macbook so inquisition is the only one i have access to until i move in with my boyfriend and we hopefully take their pc to our apartment.

i started playing inquisition a little while ago but i’ve had trouble really getting into the story so far, eventually i will play it all the way through (to smooch dorian, if nothing else) but i feel like i might have a better time with it if i have the context of what came before it. i get the sense that veilguard relies a lot less on previous games than the others do, so maybe thats why it’s not quite clicking for me yet…

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do you think Lucanis convinced himself Illario was only trying to help?

like, he has a contract on Calivan, a mage we find in the Ossuary. it would be reasonable to assume that when you, a Venatori blood mage, hear there’s a hit out on you approved by the Murder Royalty and they put their very best guy on it who made a (badass) name for himself by killing not only mages, but your Venatori blood mage colleagues specifically

and That Guy is on your ass now, just maybe you’d hightail that bitch ass into the most secure location you can possibly manage

like a super secret underground prison

now, I personally am not considering that sorry little cut scene of an unnamed mage Crow rowing you out on a three man boat (was it just a gondola??) into the middle of the fucking ocean and then making a whirlpool, [cut to black], you’re in the Ossuary. alive. dry. past the wards holding out the water. no passcode on that back door or anything.

actually, I’m just making myself mad again

ANYWAY—Lucanis probably knew Calivan went to ground, it seemed like he was on the right track sailing around the ocean, but even if he had intel the Ossuary existed AND an exact location, how do you fucking get INTO that bitch, realistically?

but then he does!!

yeah, so obviously someone sold him out, someone who knew what ship to give the Venatori, but maybe also someone who knew he needed a way in? hmmm?

and maybe they did also get coin or artifacts or build trust with the Venatori by selling him out. sure! a double-double cross sounds like exactly the sort of scheming manipulative shit Crows would respect and reward, and maybe Illario someone was moving chess pieces on the board and Lucanis going down put another piece in a better position and it was all according to plan and his “death” meant something!!

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dude who says words like "quintessential" and "pernicious" x dude who says "yo what the fuck"

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Yaknow, part of me thinks that Lucanis would be terrified of continuing his family's lineage. There's been so much blood and sweat and trauma in his life, and of course Caterina wants nothing more than to have little Dellamorte great grandchildren running around.

Can you imagine the pressure he must feel? Being how he is now? What he is now? I'm guessing that, before the Ossuary, he thought it'd be a business thing, getting married. Something sort of... decided for him with his input.

But here he is, First Talon and in love with his saviour. The world's saviour. He can hear his grandmother now. Good genes. Better reputation. Caterina looks between them and taps her foot and Lucanis knows she's not so subtly telling him to get a move on already, she's not getting any younger.

But he's still so scared. He's scared of failing. Of complications. Of losing Rook in the process--

But then one lazy morning he has Rook in his arms, and they tell him between slow, sweet kisses, in no uncertain terms "I want to have your kids"

I think that would awaken something in him

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One more horrifying angle I've just thought of concerning the regret prison and rookanis is Lucanis convincing himself Rook must be dead because the guilt of them being alone/in pain/lost/hurt and him not being there is too much to take

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do it for viago

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lucanis who has never felt the warmth of another body while asleep

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Aleister: Illario, do you draw? Or paint?

Illario: Only a simple sketch here and there, I’m afraid. I am many things, caro, but I confess I cannot count “painter” among them.

Aleister: Really?

Illario: Hand to my heart. No one is hanging my work in a gallery, I assure you.

Aleister: Interesting.

Illario: Is it?

Aleister: I’d like to see those sketches sometime. You have an artist’s hand.

Illario: Perhaps I’ll show you someday, if you’re lucky.

[later that day]

Davrin: “An artist’s hand,” huh?

Aleister: Yes.

Davrin: You got that from the body of a person he killed?

Aleister: Yes.

Davrin: I was going to ask how, but I don’t think I want to know the answer.

Aleister: The tool of my trade is a blade: the scalpel. I know a skilled hand when I see it.

Davrin: Right. Okay. That wasn’t too bad.

Aleister: His work is delicate. Clean. Fluid. As if the body itself is a canvas and one need only know how to draw the paint out from— You’re making a face.

Davrin: I take it back.

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I get so annoyed with posts that ignore that Bellara is also out there feeding these people. Like Lucanis shows up and discovers that BELLARA is the only one who understands what food is. Stop lumping her in with Fried Fish and Burned Coffee Gallus and Culinary Abominations Harding. Show this woman some respect! She was holding the line.

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has this been done yet