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Steamy training session 👀

My baby, my baby

I love a pathetically in love man 🥰😂

Really do love this scene because it had the opportunity to make Qimir/the stranger be real convincing here, as like a last push to the dark side thing.

But instead we have Qimir barely catching up to Osha as she confidently approaches his ship so she can drive it, and then, because Osha is showing no sign of slowing down he eventually has to call her name in a way that’s kind of too loud.

Then he stands and waits for her to turn around and acknowledge him, which she reluctantly does. Followed by a very unsubtle nudge “you should be trained.” Which is followed by an even more pathetic “would you ever consider?” HES SO NERVOUS.

Only for my girl to laugh at him and give him a flat fucking no. And he’s all like “last chance.” Like you are not fooling anyone Qimir. This is getting embarrassing.

the hand that drops his helm fists gently in her locs, holding her to him as she drags him closer by his cloak, closer, closer, never close enough

....

A rainy kiss for all you lovely people. I know we're having A Time right now but this fandom has been so invigorating to me as an artist and it's full of the coolest and most talented people and I'm happy to be part of it.

(sign the petition if you haven't already!)

my first, and perhaps only important post on Tumblr with bombs to drop:

why isn't Dammon a romanceable character

Due to the overwhelming amount of the kind of sounds I found in the game files, I present Halsinlovers with this fanedit~ over a minute of...his "battle" sounds. ;)

BG3 Companion Reactions to this revealing sweater/dress, Part 1

Lead on from my previous post HERE.

And yeah, this is totally NSFW so MINORS DNI.

Here's the sweater/dress (?) for reference:

First up is...

HALSIN

• This man will enjoy your bare, naked body (just as nature intended) over sexy lingerie covering it. Personal preference.

• That being said, he had a deep appreciation for clothing that....accenuates your assets.

• If he's not within touching distance:

When you come to him wearing this, his eyes first drink in your bare legs before travelling up to your covered body, tracing the soft curves of your body hidden under the fabric; salivating at what he knows is underneath. Despite the urge to stride across the room and take you into his arms, he takes this moment to lay back and drink in your figure. After all, he knows where this will lead to and 100% this man enjoys long, drawn-out foreplay. You'll be lucky if the item of clothing in questions makes it out in one piece.

• If he's within touching distance.

He's on his knees, sliding one hand gently up your leg, feeling his way up to your upper thigh, where it stays, gently squeezing. The other hand moves downwards from your breast, following the curve of your waist and settling on grasping your hip tightly; his face coming to rest between your breasts.

And then... you playfully twirl around, revealing your bare skin in the backless dress (if it can be called that).

With that, Halsin freezes. Eyes flashing gold, knuckles and jaw tight as he fights the overwhelming urge to bend you over and take you where you stand. Rough, and slow. Panting as he burys his face in your neck, leaving lovebites along your shoulders. Your cries of pleasure and the shock of being filled so quickly being soothed by the kisses he leaves along your neck and shoulders.

If the dress escapes being ripped off your body...he won't bother to remove it. Simply slipping it up your body to reveal your ass to the cold air, as he plunges into you.

If it doesn't ... Well. There will be no words of apology in the moment. But as you lay together afterward, he'll take the dress in his hands, checking it over to see if it can be fixed (no, it cannot). A sheepish smile, and a kiss along with a murmur of apology follows. You don't care. Worth. It.

Astarion + my favourite expressions from the character creator

From now on, I’m calling all of us Astarion Romancers …

Bendy Straws

Lae’Zel will fall for it the first time because she’s from the astral realm, but she will never get caught by it again. Karlach has “little shit” cinnamon roll energy. She hasn’t been gotten by that one since she was 12. Gale will literally forget the damn joke every time. You could get him 14 times in the same day if he’s too focused on something else.

I just want someone to read my fic blurb (stupidly long backstory for Tav and synopsis of the first 2 chapters) and tell me if they want me to write it or not. I love the idea, but it can just stay in my head if no one wants it.

It’s Astarion x Fem!Tav, non-ascended Astarion, hunting for sunlight affliction cures, angsty that ends in every sweet fluff & smut.

And I love this game more and more each time I open it 😂

A somewhat comprehensible list of people/creatures you can fuck in Baldur's Gate 3:

- a very limpwristed and sad vampire twink

- ebony dark'ness dementia raven way but she's a cleric

- wizard who eats your magic shoes and won't shut up about his ex

- the widest elf you've ever seen who is also a bear

- a good-boy warlock who gave himself a superhero name

- his patron who always is two seconds away from a nipslip

- the most menacing woman you've ever met who flirts by saying she wants to wrestle you and smell your "musk"

- huge red tiefling herbo who may or may not be literally on fire (so watch out)

- the mindflayer who can and will give you unsolicited advice via psychic connection about all the poor choices you wanna make

- a pair of drow twins who swear it's not gonna be weird that they're brother and sister

- a devil's personal incubus who took the form of the aforementioned devil because he doesn't wanna fuck anyone who doesn't look like himself

- another drow lady who thinks of nothing but murder all day every day

I had to use minor illusion and invisibility potions. It took me forever and 3 of the party were down by the end.

i’d just like to say that i got grym all the way down to 4 health without the forge slam and then i couldn’t get it overheated again so i googled how to do it and then used the forge slam. except it didn’t even one hit it so i had to do it again but it wasn’t overheated so it didn’t do anything 😭 i had to down astarion and shadowheart to get it overheated and in place and then i finally downed him oml.

This is the game of bisexual panic and frustration, AND I LOVE IT

WHAT IS THIS CAPTION

he has that sadness in his eyes that you only see in eastern european gay porn

Thank You Mr, Jordan 😌

pcgamer

Baldur's Gate 3 has a voice actor dedicated to making sex sounds and he has a message for players: 'you little horny perverts ... you think

Alex Jordan has a very specific role in Baldur's Gate 3.

"And so I went into the studio," Jordan continued. "And it was very awkward, as I made sounds like 'mmm' and 'ahh'. And then I kissed my hand a whole lot."   

But he got the job done, and now he just hopes that everyone playing the game appreciates all the effort he put into helping make it happen—and keeps his very specific but vital role in the game in mind as they play.

"You think about that," he said. "You mull that over as you run around, you little horny perverts, with your little perverted roleplays, you randy bastards. You think of me."

See, this damn fic idea keeps circling in my head, so I’m putting it here because I need to do something with it until I have time to write the full thing.

It’s basically Tav and Astarion working through both of their sexual trauma, Tav’s pisspoor ability to ask for help, and Astarion’s tendencies to hid behind a mask of drama, wit, sass, and humor to cover his fears wrapped in a neat little adventure to get our sad vampire boy into the sun both physically and emotionally.

//TW//: Sexual Assault, Abuse, Slight Gore, Connon-Typical Violence. Both Astarion and Ginger (Tav) have sexually abusive and violent back stories that are relevant to their emotional connection and the plot. They are referenced multiple times. If you can’t handle that, this isn’t for you.

Relavant Context: Non-Ascended Astarion, romanced, almost had the 5-some with Halsin and the drow twins but backed out for Astarion’s sake despite him saying he was down, chose the “let’s find a way for you to see the sun again” ending, pretty much All companions got their best ending (read: emotionally healthiest ending I could get them) (still kinda want a better ending for Karlach, but what can you do 🤷🏽‍♀️, next fic and play through with the new patch, I guess). I saved the grove and got Halsin and Jahira, not Minthara. Friends with the Myconid Colony by completing all their missions and killing Glut.

Time: A little over a year after the end of the game. I think the game happens during early/mid summer (Astarion mentions that there’s a difference between a warm summer’s day and the full power of the fucking sun if you drop the Temple of Lathander on the party and you say you though the tadpole would protect him), so it’s the beginning of fall. The days are getting shorter, and it’s getting colder.

Where: Beginning in BG, a chapter in the Underdark, half a chapter on the road, but mostly takes place in a different, home brew city I made for my actual D&D game called Whitry.

Power level: Roughly equivalent to level 15 for D&D nerds. Astarion is full Arcane Trickster Rogue and Tav is full Hunter Ranger. I min-max enough in real life D&D, this particular BG3 play through was about the story.

Tav: Ginger; Urchin Tiefling Hunter Ranger (28 during the game, 29 during the fic). She’s primarily a ranged fighter but is still damn good up close, heavy on the foraging and taking anything not nailed down. A little neurotic, probably has ADHD, prefers animals to humanoids 90% of the time, is about long-term self-preservation first and foremost, and loves hugs and cuddles. (Voice 6, V C for those curious.)

*see below; Alt Text is available* (It is cannon that she’s the spitting image of her mother except she has her dad’s eye and hair color exactly. Her mom has black hair and gray eyes. Her dad is pale like Dammon and his horns are longer.) (It is also D&D cannon that tieflings have a lifespan of roughly 180 years on average, maturing at the same age as humans. So being 28/29 is a bit more equivalent to a 24 year old human.)

WARNING: LONG BACKSTORY THAT IS RELEVANT TO THE PLOT BUT IS STILL VERY LONG

Backstory: more or less an orphan because her parents were enslaved by Zariel in Elterel but sent her off to live in Baldur’s Gate when she was ~11 to escape. It was a good idea because she escaped Zariel, but she ended up poor and on the streets of the Outer City. She foraged and hunted in the wilderness to feed herself and learned herbalism to make home remedies because she couldn’t afford a doctor (Explains the in-game potion making skills that I abused to hell and back (literally had a stash of 65 health potions at one point) and why cure wounds, good berry, speak with animals, and hunters mark are her most used spells). She did nearly anything for a coin to survive…

//TW//: Mentions of Teen SA and AGAIN Slight Gore, Canon-typical violence

Early on in the winter before her 16th birthday (late spring - think early/mid May), she wasn’t making much money from foraging. Hunting and selling furs wasn’t keeping her afloat anymore, and she got desperate* enough to turn to sex work despite her age.

*I don’t have have a problem with sex work. The issue is her age. She is aware that the people pursuing her are pedos and are likely very dangerous, hence calling the choice desperate.

It, unfortunately, paid well enough to help her rent a small shack of her own closer to the Upper City. The novelty of being a tiefling that looked fairly elven besides the obvious deviations (horns, tail, fangs, and ridges under her skin) brought a lot of interest from richer people. For the better part of the next year and a half, she financed her life this way - unhappily and disgusted with herself but otherwise comfortable.

That is until one of her richer clients, a knight named Ser Karreed Tange (human man, late 30s/early 40s, tan-ish, cropped blond hair, blue eyes - think the fake Paladin of Tyr hunting Karlach in Act 1 but older) became obsessed with her. It got to the point where he threatened her other clients to scare them off so he could schedule more of her time. He even got himself restationed to the keep nearest to her neighbor to see her more frequently. He was also a fan of more violent kinks that she did not enjoy, but couldn’t say no to as she needed the money (as was the case with many of her clients, but his were particularly demeaning and added greatly to her self-loathing about the whole experience).

When she rejected his offer to marry her (she’s still a few weeks shy of 17 at this point) and effectively keep her as a personal sex slave, he attacked her and r*ped her. Further, he cut her face to ‘ruin her beauty’ (that’s how she got the deep scar over her right eye; the smaller one on the left side of her chin she got from trying to fight back before the assault.).

She tried to report him to his captain, but none of them believed the kind knight they worked with would do such a thing, so nothing happened to him. She tried for the better part of a year to move on. She stopped seeing clients all together as many had stopped coming due to her injuries. She returned to hunting, moved back to her old place in the far east of BG, shaved her head, got her tattoo (the one that looks like smoke and goes around her left eye and wraps around the left side of her head and neck), and kept a low profile.

This worked until the next winter when Ser Tange was being dispatched east to Wakeen’s Rest. The staging ground for the march east was in her neighborhood, and he made himself known by sending a fucked up gift to her house. After having the panic attack from hell, she followed him from a bar and killed him, hiding his body in the woods she had been foraging in for half a decade, and she was never caught. She took everything on him she could sell or use including his heavy crossbow which became her favorite kind of weapon (The crossbow that banes people became her top weapon for most of the play through). A close friend, Rory (half elven trans man around her age, maybe a half year older, relevant later in the story) was her alibi and helped hide and eventually fence his armor and more conspicuous equipment.

She lived life as a bit of a vigilante for hire (hence her comfort with killing and looting people’s bodies) until the game starts, killing any known abusers in her community for a small fee. It took her a long time to be comfortable with sex again, but she is pansexual and most comfortable as closed polyamorous* or monogamous.

*closed poly meaning a defined group of people with no open dating outside of the defined group. (Halsin, for example, wouldn’t fit because he’s open to anyone that strikes his fancy; he’s open polyamorous.)

Their Dynamic: Ginger and Astarion haven’t really had sex since grave yard (The almost 5-some happened after that). Ginger has, beyond just being a morally sound person, an issue with feeling like she’s even potentially forcing someone to be intimate with her, so she doesn’t initiate with Astarion for his comfort. Astarion hasn’t really initiated anything because he has a hard time combining actual love and intimacy with sex. They are a very affectionate couple still, as both of them are heavily touch starved, especially in the context of non-sexual intimacy. They both want to have sex but are waiting for the other to say something about it because they don’t want to make the other uncomfortable. They are very openly in love with each other, but also mutually pining.

THE ACTUAL STORY EXPLANATION STARTS HERE:

This is my idea, please don’t take it. I want to share because I don’t have time to write it all right now, but I will on Ao3 eventually.

Basically, it’s been a year since the destruction of the Elder Brain, and Astarion and Ginger have made some progress on their mission but no permanent solutions. The best they have when the fic begins is a potion Ginger makes from the oil of a specific mushroom from the Underdark that grows from dead drow, duegar, and deep gnomes when the Myconids take over their bodies. Obviously not easy to get as those are sentient being. Thankfully due to the good relationship, they kindly gave them some spores to propagate a small patch. It’s still not enough to make sun walking an everyday occasion, though. The potion works for about 24 hours and needs to be applied to any part of his body that sees the sun, hair included, which he hates. It smells nice - woodsy pine and jasmine - but he doesn’t like feeling that greasy. The massages are great, though.

They have a lead on a witch that’s a friend of Gale’s. She rarely visits Waterdeep or Baldur’s Gate, but she’ll be in BG for a few days to visit her parents’ graves (personal reasons that will get mentioned later). Laurelle (Lore - ELLE) Jin (half siren/half half-elven (high elf) transmutation wizard and a touch of druid for reasons. She looks low key Jamaican mixed with Korean in the sketch I did of her, hence the name) is a potion maker and enchanter that used to be Tara’s hook up for items to feed Gale. Given how powerful she is and her half-century “friend”ship (read: situationship) with a hybrid werewolf-vampire, she seems like their best hope to finding a solution.

They meet Laurelle not long after she gets into town, and she immediately likes Ginger as a fellow potion maker (I have an adorable nerd-out over her vampire-grade SPF 9001 interaction that Astarion has to interrupt with a, “ahem, sorry to interrupt this deeply fascinating conversation, but we have a task to complete, my love” scene idea).

They inform her of the item they would like her to enchant, AND SHE CAN MAKE IT! (Into a nice ring, too!) But there are a few issues:

1. She needs moonstone, adamantine, and some of Ginger’s Underdark mushrooms to make the ring.

2. And the bigger issue, Astarion needs to be a full vampire, not a spawn, to use the item as the magic would overwhelm having the opposite effect - sunlight would incinerate him even faster, and he even would develop a sensitivity to moonlight - if he’s not strong enough. This obviously has its own subset of issues:

He needs Cazador’s blood to complete the transformation. His body has just been decaying in his abandoned Palace for a year+, so he’s all dried out. Also, it’s fucking Cazador’s palace.

The vampire transformation will corrupt his mind and make him more evil, paranoid, and power hungry (literally a D&D thing; the transformation changes the creature’s alignment). Laurelle mentions that Astarion would have already undergone some personality changes when he became a spawn, but that it wasn’t strong enough to totally override his actual personality yet. (Literally the only reason we could talk him down in the game is because the real person was still in there)

Post completing the transformation, he’s going to be hungry as all fuck, and will need to drain a full person, maybe two or three given how powerful Cazador was. A snack on Ginger to hold him over until he can hunt isn’t likely won’t cut it. He’ll be ravenous and probably won’t be able to stop once he starts. On top of it, animal blood won’t satisfy him enough despite filling his stomach.

The first issue is easily fixed with a day trip to the Underdark, so that’s not all that concerning.

The second and all it’s sub-issues are where the plot kicks in.

The first sub-issue is actually already solved, as Ginger had taken a potion bottle of Cazador’s blood the night after Astarion killed him. She had left him in their rooms at the inn to decompress in a hot herbal bath and secretly took Halsin, Gale, and Shadowheart back to the Palace and taken some with their help. This revelation earns her a look from Astarion that is clearly the beginning of him spiraling internally, but he stays uncharacteristically quiet as Ginger continues to strategize with Laurelle to circumvent the remaining issues.

There already exists an item that protects someone from mental corruption (read: alignment changes) during transformations like this. The Netherese magic that protected them from the tadpoles is basically it. Ginger questions if it would have protected Astarion during the Ascension. The answer is no, because the magic wasn’t focused on protecting him; it was encapsulating the tadpole (Laurelle is horrified when Ginger and Astarion explain the full details of both the Ascension pact and the tadpoles). However, Laurelle knows where to get the item, and it also lead into the solution she has for the last issue.

In her home town of Whitry, there is a shifty merchant who trades in stolen and fake artifacts. Many are made in his secret sweatshops where he forces the more monstrous races (orcs, bugbears, ogres etc.) to work for next to nothing is shitty conditions. One of the few real items he owns is on display in his home, and he’s having an end of summer gala - to which she has an open invite to - in a little less than 2 weeks. Laurelle suggests kidnapping him right after the gala and stealing the artifact then to cover their own tracks, since he’s otherwise rather reclusive when he’s not selling or posturing to the public pretending to be an adventurer.

As for the potential two extra bodies that Astarion will need, there are two criminals in Whitry that Laurelle’s “friend”, Daniel (human open hand Monk/thief Rogue Bounty Hunter werewolf/vampire hybrid; he’s Asian in appearance; bulky Seo Changbin or Bang Chan from Stray Kidz but just a little taller, has a deep as voice like Song Mingi from ATEEZ, face like Dori Sakurada) had been hunting down for a little while, and he wouldn’t mind a hand capturing and dealing with them.

One is luring people from bars, and they’re never seen again. The other serial r*pist and murderer with a thing for fem-presenting tieflings that’s recently started emerging in the last few weeks.

The mention of the first’s MO leaves a familiar, sour taste in Astarion’s mouth. The mention of the second, for reasons Astarion is unaware of (he knows about her sex work days, doesn’t know about her age at the time or the knight. He thinks she stopped because she got hurt hunting. She hates talking about it, and he doesn’t make her.), causes Ginger to internally freak the fuck out.

I will stop to note that both of them have damn good poker faces, so Laurelle isn’t really aware of the two of them having internal breakdowns, but Ginger and Astarion know each other well enough to know when The Mask™️ slips on.

With a clear enough plan, Ginger and Astarion plan to set off to the Underdark right away, portal back to BG to resupply for the day-and-a-half trip south, set out, and then meet Laurelle in Whitry in a few days.

This is chapter 1.

During the trip to the Underdark, while in the Sêlunite Temple looking for the shard of the shattered moonstone, Astarion asks Ginger why she took the blood and why she never told him. His tone is accusatory.

Because she’s never been all that good at explaining herself (not really a skill you need when you raised yourself from the age of 11 and you’ve been pretty much alone for the last 2 decades), she says “I was scared that I would lose you, so I just wanted all options present.”

Astarion immediately imagines the worst even if he knows it’s irrational. He spirals thinking if she would use the blood to make him subservient to her so he couldn’t leave her. He tries to bury that idea, but the next idea springs to mind: does she think he’s weak? Was not as strong as the other companions? Did she not trust his ability to fight the Elder Brain? Another train of thought: does she pity him? Is that why she’s stayed? Does she feel sorry for making him cower from the sun? Has all her ‘love’ been a show to keep him on the line until she can “fix” him? Is he a project to her? Is that why she hasn’t slept with him in a year? He tells himself he would deserve that considering how he had pursued her under false pretenses initially, how he had only laid with her once out of true love in the graveyard. Had she done that out of pity as well?

“What is that supposed to mean?” he asks darkly, abandoning the search.

Ginger doesn’t get the question, “Exactly what I said. I didn’t want to lose you.” She didn’t understand that he meant for her to explain how she feared losing him. She didn’t realized he wasn’t making her same leaps in logic.

She didn’t say it was because she feared he would resent her for convincing him to give up that power and leave her. She didn’t say it was because she rightly feared than none of her companions were strong enough to fight the Elder Brain. She didn’t say she feared that his siblings would get power hungry first, get Cazador’s blood, and try to control him, so she drained him of enough blood for Astarion to complete the transformation, had Halsin incinerate the body, Shadowheart consecrate the ashes so he could never be resurrected, and had Gale magically hide them away forever so no one could find them to try. She didn’t say that she was going to bring it up during the exact conversation where he thanked her for not letting him ascend because she felt horrible for doing all of that and not telling him let alone getting his input. She didn’t say it when he took her to the grave yard to see his head stone. She didn’t say it because she’d finally been made love to for the first time and she was scared he would hate her for making all of those decisions for him.

Astarion starts ranting, questioning her down the whole spiral of his thoughts. He’s accusatory because he’s hurt and sacred himself.

Normally level-headed, Ginger feels backed into a corner. He’s honestly the first person she’s ever loved romantically. Beyond that, he’s also one of her first truly close friends, Karlach and Shadowheart being her closest friends outside of him (wine girlies for life). So instead of seeing his hurt, she gets defensive and angry as well, taking particular offense to being compared to Cazador when he asks about her cooking up a potion to make herself his master.

“Where the fuck did you get all of that from? When did I ever say anything remotely close to any of that?”

“What else is ‘all options present’ supposed mean then?” he snaps. He gets even angrier as she has not only not abandoned the moonstone search but has now also started collecting mushrooms growing on rotting burlap sacs to her alchemy pouch, instead of facing him.

“Gods above and below, damn it all! Will you stop being a pack rat that will do anything for a coin for five fucking seconds and look at me!” He snaps louder, fully yelling at her, voice a booming echo across the stone work.

The sudden command and unintentionally jab at her past pissed her off, and she wheeled on him, “First of all, fuck you-”

He’s in her face but hasn’t touched her. She hadn’t even hear him approach, damned rogue.

Something about the distant brasier light, barely embers, hits just wrong enough, and Ginger is back to that night. The anger turns to panic. The urge fight makes her body tense, coiling like a spring. She cool darkness of the temple suddenly feels oppressive. She can barely breathe. It takes every fiber of her being to recognize that Astarion isn’t Karreed and that she doesn’t need to lash out.

Astarion sees the change, literally watching her entire body go from the lithe, practiced grace of a skilled hunter to stone-still. Everything from the animated way she speaks with her hands to the casual sway of her tail - though it had been sharper when she was angry - comes to a dead halt. Her arms pull to her side. The only movement is the obvious urge to reach for her rapier that she’s fighting.

Unfortunately, he doesn’t know that she’s not actually afraid of him. He doesn’t know that the panic he sees in her eyes isn’t because she thinks he would actually hurt her. The spiral in his mind clouds him from seeing her try to reconcile her reality with something else.

All sees is more evidence that Cazador’s blood was going to be used to control him somehow. Only now he doesn’t think it’s because she was potentially evil and vindictive like Cazador. He thinks it’s because she scared of being hurt by him. That he’d hurt her, maybe not even on purpose, or maybe he’d lose his mind and become power hungry like Cazador again, and she’d have to kill him. That’s how she thinks she’d lose him. She loves him so much she’d rather control him than kill him. She probably wouldn’t even use the potion to control him unless she absolutely had to. It’d probably only be after she exhausted every other avenue. She knows how much he values his freedom. She wouldn’t unless there was no other option.

He softens immediately, “My love, my angel…” he reaches out to embrace her, not knowing how to apologize for giving her the idea that he would harm her.

Ginger, still steeped in panic with anger simmering just underneath it, is too consumed by her inner turmoil to notice the change in demeanor and flinches away. The tiniest voices of reason in her mind and heart chastise her immediately for it, screaming at her that he’d never, but she not of present enough mind to say more than, “Please don’t touch me, Astarion.”

Astarion’s world goes cold, bone achingly cold. He had spent a year alone in a crypt, and this was colder. Never once since they had decided to pursue something real together had they denied each other affection.

Further, Astarion couldn’t remember the last time Ginger had used his name plainly. He couldn’t remember the last time he used hers. If either had, it was followed up with some sort of pet name. Their favorites had been the more ironic ones. She called him her star despite his sunlight affliction, and he called her his angle despite her infernal heritage.

Now, he is being hit with the loss of both at once, and he’s sure he’d rather take the full blast of a cone of cold head on than feel like this.

All he can do is acquises, “Alright…”

She won’t even look him in the eye. She’s gone almost totally internal; all the walls he thought had broken down in his presence reveal themselves to be fully in tact. After few moments like this, the hard determined exterior that he had encountered for most of his first days with her had returned.

In a forced, quiet tone, she speaks, “Let’s just finish getting what we came for,” then turns away, returning to her gathering.

Ginger spends the rest of the chapter quiet and specifically not ‘being a pack rat’ despite Astarion clearly seeing her eyes clock chasm creepers and timmask spores she’d recently learned to weaponize into laughing bombs. If he didn’t know he lacked the harvesting skills she had, he’d have made an attempt, but blowing them up doesn’t feel like a great idea, so he sticks with collecting the chasm creepers, sneaking them into her pouch.

When they run through the forge to find some spare adamantine, she only speaks once to warn him a grate she stopped on didn’t feel stable anymore. And during the boat ride back to the Myconids, she only occasionally mumbles to herself as she organizes their packs while he steers.

Astarion spent the remaining trip dumbfounded by her. He scared her, he thought, and yet she was still loving to him. He’d made a half-assed comment about something and her behavior changed immediately, though he didn’t really care about her pack rat tendencies, and he hopes his stealthy gathering on her behalf corrected that misconception. He actually finds them rather endearing and useful (plenty of his gear was financed by them). She still organized his pack for him just the way he liked, adding more of the potions and tinctures she made with impressive speed - especially on a boat - as she went. Hells, she’s still actively pursuing the materials for his daylight ring.

All of it makes him feel particularly undeserving of her, and little does he know, she feels the exact same way about him.

They take the ascent to the surface through the entrance the hide out in Wakeen’s Rest. Killing the traders and leaving the cavern in tact had been useful after all. Gale’s portals (my way of explaining the waypoints) were fun and all, but Ginger likes walking. It gives her time to think. It is unfortunately mid afternoon when they resurface, so they camp out in the storage house above the hide out until dark.

That’s Chapter 2.

They spend the next 7-10 chapters painstaking slowly resolving this misunderstanding, getting better at communication, and completing their mission with a satisfying second and third dose of revenge on a former abuser. Also, they make new friends, find a nice place to settle down, and find jobs that don’t require them to risk their lives 24/7 (but there is an adventure to be had sometimes). I also intend to leave an ambiguous thread open for them to find a way to pursue a form of non-vampiric immortality for Ginger on the side with Laurelle’s help. Also, potential for Dhampire Babies!?

Tentative name: For Her Star

The sequel about finding immortality for her being: For His Angel

low key very obsessed with sex-adverse Astarion. like he's The Thirst Companion. The fucking Only Fangs joke. All the smut fan content. And then it does a total 180 and he's like "actually my sexual identity was weaponized against me and i was forced to use it to lead hundreds of people to their deaths". It's just such a compelling and interesting twist on his character. I love it.

Fuck: Wyll, he seems like the sweetest dorky jock there ever was (I’m romancing him next play through)

Marry: Astarion, (Non-ascended plz) baby boy needs love and affection to make up for 200 years of lacking friendship let alone real romance. We can do both.

Kill: Gale, he gives me nice guy energy. Smile at him wrong and he assumes you’re in love with him (I know it got patched but my first play through threw me). Ascended Astarion is the runner up.

Now I want to write a fic like this for my Tav because she’s also not one for excessively flaunting her relationship around strangers (she lied during it to say what he wanted to hear, not the actual truth). The party is one thing. She trusts them. Anyone else? Not really. I want Astarion to agonize like the rest of us did over the choices.

I didn't do Zethino's Love Test because it just didn't feel like something my Tav would do. She isn't the one to talk about her relationship with strangers and didn't think Astarion would be comfortable with participating in something like that. She is the kind of a person who would go to the circus to investigate a clown's murder, not to watch a clown perform (and be all boring, constantly reminding how it's not safe to have fun when there is literally a homicidal shapeshifter on the loose).

But it got me thinking that it would've been funny if Astarion decided to do the Test because he thought it to be some kind of an innocent or stupid quiz (y'know one of those silly entertainment things for couples, what's the harm?), something to experience with his favorite person, maybe have a laugh about it together after they're done. So, he drags Tav into it and then mentally goes "OH SHI-" when he realizes that the Test actually requires him to tell the nymph all about Tav's fears, deepest heart desires, and all the private things they entrusted him with.

Is sit bad that I’m desperately trying to focus on my studies and finding a job, but all I want to do is get this fic of Astarion (romanced from the beginning, post killing Cazador, non-ascendant) and Tav (Ginger: Tiefling Ranger) finding a cure for his sun affliction that’s deeply romantic, very bloody, triggering/emotionally painful for both Astarion and Tav (she has the urchin background and boy do I want to use it), but gets really fluffy & smutty, and they make more friends (A siren Druid/Wizard and her kind-of-boyfriend the hybrid werewolf-vampire)?

Astarion IS a deeply selfish person BECAUSE no one helped him.

Yes, he wanted someone to rescue him, but no one ever did. The mindflayers didn’t rescue him; that was AT BEST him being like a stolen farm animal, meant to be consumed one way or another. Him escaping the nautiloid crash was a goddamn fluke. After nearly 200 years of literally having his free will overpowered, never seeing the sun, being forced to eat rats and bugs, being forced into being a sex slave, and being forced into being an accessory to what had to be hundreds if not thousands of murders, of course he’s not going risk the freedom he JUST GAINED (as fragile and limited as it is) to save a bunch of people he doesn’t know nor care about.

He has all of his own issues. Being someone else’s savior isn’t a priority for him. He’s not going to be Mr. Let’s Save Everyone while waiting for the ticking time bomb in his head into making him into a different but equally mindless monster.

Also, a fact about vampirism in D&D, which BG3 is based on: The vampiric transformation, even to a spawn, changes the person’s moral alignment to Lawful Evil. Obviously, alignment is a finicky thing when your dealing with 3 dimensional characters with actual depth, but basically, Astarion’s transformation fundamentally leaves him predisposed to enjoying murder and cruelty (mostly to cope with the needing to consume blood to live part). Additionally, according to Neil Newbon (Astarion’s VA and partial character developer), Astarion was already a rather harsh magistrate. He literally gets killed by the Gur because they didn’t like a particularly harsh sentence he passed down when Cazador finds him dying in the streets. So we’re dealing with a person who was already rather comfortable with handing out death as a punishment becoming forcibly more comfortable with ending people’s lives through both magical and tortured means.

To encapsulate his character: Purely for self-preservation. Anything that doesn’t preserve him (tangentially through the party or directly) he will dislike. He likes playing politics and lying. He enjoys power and it tempts him because he’s fearful of being taken over again.

The arc he goes on can either feed into his fears, paranoia (enchanted by his vampiric transformation), and bloodlust, or Tav and the party can provide him with a safe place to begin unpacking his trauma and growing to be better than it (romance or not). [I do not like calling him broken and in need of fixing, because literally all of us are broken, and he’s (in the context of Tav to him, even though he IS a ball of well-sculpted pixels) not an object like a broken cup to be fixed. He’s just traumatized and in deep need of therapy, and probably a really good nap.]

So no, he’s never going to like mindless heroics, but you can definitely play a good play through and have him like you if you play politics a little and ask for coin for services. Also, letting him eat people you’re already planning on killing makes things a lot easier.

You have obviously missed the main point of Astarion's plot. Like the man legit had 200 years of slavery and tortoure....

no no, you missed my point.

I will absolutely be the first to advocate this man feeling the sun on his skin for the first time in centuries. And being finally free from his tormentor and getting revenge.

Of learning that he CAN trust other people. And actually grow into something more than a sexual beast that allures people to slaughter.

I am all for that. Give me a bloody, hard earned, revenge plot with some sweeter experiences in-between for the poor guy. Let Astarion enjoy something outside of sex and blood for once.

What I don't like, is his absolute cruelty to other people. During my playthrough, I helped people out of cages and aided the normal folk. I gave money to npcs and offered aid in battles.

He DISLIKED THAT!!! I am near red with him because I am actually trying to help people.

But if it was him in a cage, which he had been at some point, praying for someone to help him, (which is something he says to Tav) he'd obviously want someone like Tav to unlock the cage and let him out, no?

He'd want someone to help him, if there was ever a time the opportunity came up. Astarion would want freedom!

But heaven forbid, someone else wants the same thing and actually gets the opportunity to be saved from cruelty.

That's not result of him being tortured. That's just him being an asshole.

Immediately got me. I didn’t even have a chance.

I will not be charmed by this vampire twink

I will NOT be charmed by this vampire twink!

I will NOT be charmed by this vampire twink!!

I WILL NOT-

FUCK

Pls pls pls write astarion fic where instead of him trying to bite tav in the first night its actually her trying to bite him and they both find out the other one is a vampire! Some innuendo maybe and flirting hihi

bite bite fall in love lol

Warnings: blood wine

taglist: @ghostinvenus

"When you said you wanted to know me more," Completely unphased, "I didn't expect this close, dear." One might say he is enjoying him. Maybe he is? You are unsure and frankly not focused on how the smile on his face is clearly mocking you. The hunger demands you feed, driving you to seek out blood.

That sanguine hunger then drew you to his tent this night, the moon high with dazzling stars littering across the sky.

And in this fancy tent, a dagger is once more at your throat cutting enough to draw a thin line of blood.

"Please, Astarion, kill me." The look of disbelief is clear on his face, "I don't want to hurt you." He sees you, the beast enslaved to the hunger: a vampire.

"Oh, do be so dramatic!" He sits back while still towering and saddling your lap, "You wanted a nimble, correct?"

You nod, your claws embedded into the cloth of his bedroll, your eyes closed as your body screams to latch onto his neck to rip it open!

"Allow me then to grant us a solution, hm?" The sound of the bottle opening then the sweet, sweet smell of blood follows. "Ah ah, you get this once you tell me who your master is."

You don't realize you moved to sit up until sharp metal touches your chest. "Master?" Trying to speak but your jaw hurts terribly to do so.

"Yes, the one who turned you." There's an impatience in his tone. "Your sire."

You tell him the exact name and location you think your sire is from.

"Go on, don't spill it." A reward for being forthcoming. Moving off of you as you cung down the drink without at least savoring it. His eyes take in this feral spawn in his tent.

The blood wine is drunk from desperately and after it is all gone, your lips are red with blood, and you crave more.

"No, no," Grabbing you quickly as he saw your eyes turn completely red and your mouth salivating with a stronger. "Control yourself."

You twist and claw but are still too weak to put up a real fight, he holds you against him as you both growl then plead or threaten him to feed, to kill the others.

When morning comes and exhaust finally claims you, he is there sitting beside you, "Astarion?" Why are you in his tent? Why do you taste blood on your lips? "Oh, Gods above, did I hurt you?" When you try to move, you feel sluggish, and you clench your stomach.

"No, you didn't hurt me. You did however try to bite me without permission. Which is very rude, darling." You look ready to cry, "Seriously? Do you feel bad?"

"Of course! You trusted me in this camp and I tried to bite you!" The hunger lurks, and you stand when he stands. "Astarion?"

The laughter is horrible and worse are his words, "Just my luck! A caring vampire. Wow, now that's a treat." He glanced away as he said that last part. The silence hints at something more, the evidence in your mouth as you realize you drank the blood of an animal rather than a person.

A difference you know by force by your master.

You stare with concern then speak, "Are you… Vampire too?"

"A spawn," Disgust in his voice, "So drinking my blood won't free you." The way his lips frown and eyebrows knitted together.

"Free me?"

"You know: drink a vampire lord's blood and then you are free. In theory."

When more confusion is written on your face, as you ask more questions; it becomes clear to Astarion how new you are. A freshly gifted vampire with no guidance…

"Nothing?"

"I only was told I am immortal and to behave."

Sheltered, a sheltered vampire who wasn't taught at least how to control their hunger.

One that is quite a beast than himself, fascinating, and one he can see having an advantage to have on his side.

"Let's help each other, hm? You clearly need to feed soon and I can hunt." His tone expresses a false worry, "I feed us and you keep the others from staking us." Else Wyll– despite being a friend to you, Astarion doesn't trust him. A monster hunter who just so happened to deal with only the infernal is still a monster hunter.

“You protect me and I protect you.” He nods at those words, “Okay.” Trusting him, after all, he spared your life.

downtime hoodie

i’m not sure if this is a really boring post but i basically live in oversized hoodies and sweaters so i figured i want my sims to be just as comfortable! the hoodie comes in 10 swatches: 6 plain, 2 with ‘cat/dog lover’ in simlish and 2 with funky patterns. custom thumbnail, correct lods, etc. follow my TOU please and enjoy!

download (2.2mb)