Hey folx and welcome! This blog is currently dedicated primarily to Baldur's Gate 3 content, both reblogging other's work and posting my writing related to my OC, Miss Fortune, and Astarion. You can also find me on insta, same handle @missfortunetherogue - I mostly post bg3 memes and screenshots there.
About me
Primarily keeping myself out of this but I can share a little. While Miss Fortune isn't a self-insert character you can still call me Miss Fortune (or Rogue) if you wish.
✨ Non-binary (they/them pronouns), queer/demisexual
✨ Favorite bands: Sleep Token, Lord of the Lost, Motionless in White
✨ Other favorite video games (BG3 obvs takes top spot): Persona 5, Okami, Skyrim, Stardew Valley
✨ Other interests: making chainmail, veggie gardening, mythology and folklore (esp. Japanese folktales and yokai), gluten free baking
More favorites in this post
My writing
My main fic currently is The Embrace of Love and Death, which will have three parts (one for each act of the game). Following that, I have plans for a post-canon story (untitled) following Miss Fortune and Astarion - it'll be a spy/assassin's guild kind of story where the rogues get to keep being cute, sneaky, and stabby. I also have several short rests which are flash fiction stories showing in-between moments or backstory glimpses.
The Embrace of Love and Death (link goes to tag)
Part 1: Reluctance (complete)
Part 2: Rediscovery - (ongoing - 4 chapters published)
Part 3: Reclamation - TBD
Short rests (Miss Fortune POV unless otherwise stated):
All Tied Up and Nowhere to Go (Tumblr) (AO3)
Let Me Help You with That! (Tumblr) (AO3)
Unpacking the Poison - Astarion POV (Tumblr) (AO3)
Wake Up, Darling! Part 1 - Astarion POV (Tumblr) (AO3)
Wake Up, Darling! Part 2 - Astarion POV (Tumblr) (AO3)
Wake Up, Darling! Part 3 - Astarion POV (Tumblr) (AO3)
I was tagged by @unovafarm; thank you friend, I loved the VPs of you and Nienna 🖤🖤🖤I had a lot of fun with this prompt and I might have spent the entire day on it but you have no proof. (CW: alcohol)
I think I'd take Ellith for a drink, and although they'd enjoy it at first, they'd soon be tired of me drooling for them.
(I mean, who wouldn't???)
And even if I can hold my drink pretty well, I'd surely be drunk long before Ellith... and I'd be insufferable. El would be so done with my shit because I'd definitely be very embarrassing.
That said, Ellith would keep on drinking and eventually get as drunk as me... and that's when the real chaos would begin.
We'd be kicked out of the bar and end up drinking and being silly in a park or something.
I'd pass out before them because I don't have their constitution... But they'd soon follow me.
Astarion would find us before dawn and... wouldn't approve of the mess.
*Heavy sigh* Darlings... first and last time I let you have a drink together without any supervision."
Thank you everyone who keeps tagging me in wips since…June? It’s been a minute, I know. I’ve been keeping a running list when they pop up so that I can properly thank you, that now I have accumulated so many that I might as well say uno-reverses to you all! Thank you @gortashsrighthand @fireflyeyes @tociminna @cep-stories @rdekarios @scoldingdarjeeling @deianestormborn @defira85 @archduchessgortash @bladesingerlily @saylofwaterdeep @adrielmancy @riddlerosehearts @asorceresswrites @arlynx @tynithia (please know that if I’ve missed anyone it wasn’t intentional and that the uno-reverse applies to you as well!) 😘💜
The smut I keep threatening everyone with. Well, one of them. This is where I’m getting stuck because it’s not about the smut per se in the end, but I still want some smut and inconveniently I’m terrible at smut. (Also, clearly looking at how many time I can say smut in this paragraph. Smut.) I’m more into torturing them lately if I’m being honest haha. If anyone has any tips I’m all ears!
Anyway, a little bit more from a past WIP, though I’m pasting it all together so it reads better, but also because I did a little editing to the first piece again. I’m seriously thinking about this way too much for such a small piece of Ellie’s backstory. But I mean…look at them…they’re hot.
However, I’ve been considering giving them a little more of a backstory to show how they met and worked together. That’ll be farther down the road, though, if at all. A spin-off, if you will. I’m in process of working on so much of her act 2 and post-tadpole story at the moment. I don’t know…we’ll see.
A drink at the Elfsong.
That was how it started.
One decent job and a heavier purse than usual between them. Enough coin to justify a drink that turned into two, then three. Until the cheap whiskey stopped burning down her throat and the taste of it instead lingered on Rugan’s tongue.
After that came rough hands, bare skin, and a rented room upstairs that smelled like smoke and old wood.
By morning, they’d agree it wasn’t a thing. Just two people looking for a warm body and somewhere to sober up for the night. But afterward, all it took was another casual mention of a drink at the Elfsong and she would eventually find herself climbing the same narrow staircase, turning the knob that was never locked for her.
It was…convenient.
That was the word Ellie wrapped around nights spent lying beside him, both of them staring at the ceiling while their lungs still burned.
There were worse ways to spend a night. Worse people to end up beneath after too much whiskey and not enough sleep. Rugan never asked questions she didn’t want to answer. Never expected parts of her she had no intention of giving.
And in the dark, with enough drink and his hands hot on her skin, she could almost convince herself that having someone in pieces was easier than needing them whole.
What had once been a night every few months — Rugan slipping back into the city with another offhand offer for a drink — had quietly become something more frequent.
Worse still was the restlessness when too much time had passed. The way she’d eye the man running the stall across from her place, waiting to hear another amused complaint about the “bloke who keeps flirting with my customers.”
The realization sat poorly with her.
Still, it became difficult to care about blurred lines once Rugan’s hips were pressed against hers as soon as the door shut behind her, his mouth rough on her and his hands already fumbling impatiently at the knot of her belt like he’d thought about this very moment the entire journey back into the city.
“First time?”
He didn’t look up. Just answered with a crooked smirk and a grunt of concentration as he worked stubbornly at the knot she’d tied too tight on purpose.
“It’s not my fault you keep moving.”
She watched the faint creases gather at the corners of his eyes as he focused. Gods, he looked truly irritated by it now.
“Isn’t being good with your hands part of the job description?” she teased. “Maybe you should—“
The knot finally gave.
Rugan’s hand caught the belt before she could finish, hauling her sharply against him hard enough to pull a startled breath from her chest.
“Maybe,” he muttered low and against her mouth, voice rough with that same irritation despite the grin pulling at it, “you should stop talking.”
Then he kissed her before she could throw another smartass remark back at him.
The belt hit the floor somewhere beside them with a metallic clatter, forgotten almost immediately as his hands slid beneath her shirt instead. Rough palms. Calloused fingers firmly dragging heat across her ribs.
It was dangerous how easily her body remembered him. The weight of him on the mattress. The scrape of stubble against her throat. The imprint of his hands. Things she still remembered on nights when she was alone and…
”Forgot how soft y’felt,” he murmured close enough she felt the words, his voice dragging low enough through her that she hated the way her body reacted to it.
She laughed, but the sound caught thin and she knew he’d probably smugly hear through it. “Forgot how full of shit you are.”
His grin stretched against her throat first. His breath followed slower, and the way her body reacted — a jolt that sent her arching closer against him — was almost embarrassing.
“Missed you too.”
So, extra (no pressure) tags because I want to love on everyone since I don’t get to properly all the time: @wasteful-sam @bhaal-battle-beer-bard (& @judasiskariot jic), @babydinosaur930 @kt-catt @missfortunetherogue @carnivaley @heartsong94 @cursed-nyxan @thecampjuicebox @ele-millennial-weirdo @toomanyfamiliars @kcwriter-blog @lucretiouswept @purpleasters-inseptember @susann-noir @thepalelawyer @unovafarm (and if you’re reading this…YOU) 💜
I was tagged by @kt-catt @@rdekarios @lilhumanoid @litsenn @oursusanellen @thepalelawyer @tynithia @faeriiefire @lolthwoven @bladesingerlily for WIPs and last lines written. Thank you dears! 🫶
Parts Part one, two, three, four, five, six
He smirked—small, brief, the first warmth she had seen in him all evening, not the warmth he usually offered her but warmer than the careful distance he had maintained since she walked through the study door, as though she had managed to bridge some narrow fraction of the chasm she had created.
"I cannot claim to be entirely unfamiliar with the feeling," he added, and she understood what it cost him to admit it. "But what I fail to grasp—what I genuinely cannot reconcile—is why you would lie to me about it. Why would you not trust me enough to share this with me?"
Celeste sighed. "I love you. You are an Archmage. A Professor at the Blackstaff Academy. You take lunch with the Blackstaff herself and dinner with the social echelon of Waterdeep—"
"As do you."
"As your wife, yes. The woman beside you." She turned the glass slowly. "When we came to Waterdeep, I had nothing to my name but a heritage I didn't want. No past, no identity, no memories I could reliably trust. Not even a last name—you gave me yours."
For a brief moment, a smile crossed his face, and Celeste considered carefully how much truth he would be able to stomach, and how quickly.
"Do you remember," she asked, her voice dropping, watching the firelight catch in the rum's dark surface, "the first night I played the Yawning Portal?"
"I do."
"We had wandered a great deal in those weeks, you had shown me the city, your favorite spots, the restaurants, the bakeries and vendors you love—"
"I remember," Gale stated, harder than before, and she heard what lay beneath it: that it was a good memory, a fond one, and that revisiting it tonight was complicated.
"I noticed we were being followed. We were both slightly drunk, just enough for me to be entertaining when I performed, and you hadn't noticed. I was absolutely certain, but you were enjoying yourself so thoroughly that when I asked whether you had noticed anything—"
"I declined!" Gale sat forward abruptly, the memory surfacing with enough force to animate him despite himself. "We were on our way home, finding—" He took a breath and fought back a smirk with visible effort. "Indulging in alleyways. You asked if I had noticed something, and I declined."
Celeste managed a small smile, glad he was willing to go there with her, even now. "Yes. You declined. And I tried to let it go, and we had other things on our minds that night. But I could not shake the feeling. So when you left for the Academy the next morning, I followed, at a distance. It was just a feeling that something might be wrong."
"And you concluded I was incapable of handling it?" The warmth the memory had briefly restored evaporated instantly, replaced by sharp offense. "I was Mystra's Chosen, Celeste. I have—"
"I am aware, Gale," she said gently. "I did not think you would be attacked in broad daylight and be unable to defend yourself. I was concerned. This was a new city, and I did not yet know its patterns." She sighed. "I would have done it differently, with hindsight. But it was not distrust. It was—if I am being completely honest—also thrilling. I admit that freely. It was thrilling to follow a thread and see where it led."
Gale sighed with the resignation of a man defeated by a truth he recognized in himself. "Though I do not particularly enjoy admitting it... I am familiar with the feeling."
Celeste nodded, drank, then offered a small smile. His eyes softened, fractionally.
"And? Had I been followed?"
gentlest of tags for @cinder-rellish181 @missfortunetherogue @heartcrystal2000 @deianestormborn @defira85 @mesmerisingpurple @graysparrowao3 @fangedgrace @gloura @hollowharp @unovafarm @alliskit @goodgirlgonebard @elandra-beltharys
I'm working on a Wyllstarion fic for Fandom Trumps Hate (still! because my inspiration ebbs and flows and bops from idea to idea) and I liked this snippet. I can't share too much before I finish it, but I'm getting close to done and I think this brief scene is okay to post. (tbh I like the Wyll POV moments even more than the Astarion POV moments, but I'm saving them for when I post the full fic hehe)
Thank you to @optimisticgrey, @elceewunjo, @bladesingerlily, and @litsenn for recent WIP/Last Lines tags! I'll tag you all back, as well as @spillingteanotpermitted, @missfortunetherogue, and @wyllravengards 🖤
Context: Astarion's been captured by Balthazar, the necromancer working for Ketheric. Balthazar cast a special-super-secret-Absolutist version of Command Undead on him. The party, led by Wyll, couldn't save him right away. Astarion is feeling many things about that. None of them are good.
"How novel," says the necromancer. He leans in to peer into Astarion's face, his breath musty and cold. "I've not yet had a vampire in my service. It is said that your kind are the 'intelligent' undead, too clever for my magic to reach, but apparently you challenge that notion."
Astarion itches to gut this creature like a fish. He could, too. He's been doing it for tendays now, sinking his blades and fangs into anyone who crosses him, and sometimes into people who don't. He's gotten quite good at it. Wyll said—
Well. It hardly matters now what Wyll said.
"Speak up, now," Balthazar says. "Tell me what brought you sneaking into my chambers, fanged little filcher."
Astarion's tongue burns under the command. His jaw works, forced to respond, but it's hardly the first time Astarion has been compelled. It's hardly the first time he has resisted.
"I fancied a tour of the tower," he says pleasantly. The command cools, satisfied that he's spoken. "Love what you've done with the room, by the way. All the blood there, and there, and there? Very tasteful. And this terrifying torture chamber is such a lovely touch."
"Spare me the blathering," Balthazar growls, "and speak the truth. We need not make this messy."
"I am speaking the truth," Astarion says. His mouth moves because it must, but this necromancer isn't his master. He isn't forcing Astarion to say words that are true—just to say words at all. Astarion can do that. Gods know he can talk. Cazador always said he-
(no. out, out, get out of my head)
"I truly do love this room." The words gush from him like blood from an artery. "I caught a wonderful glimpse of it whilst you were casting that spell to dominate me. When you had me drift across the room and into this dreadful closet, I saw everything so very clearly. The stinking corpses, the musty tomes, the tacky art and bones and whatnot... absolutely inspired. Ha, get it? Absolute-ly? You know, I-"
"Shut up!" Balthazar commands, and Astarion does.
His mouth slams shut so fast a fang catches on the inside of his lip. A lucky break, really. The blood that springs from it distracts him from the indignity of kneeling before this wretch.
Compelled to shut up and kneel, but with blood in his mouth and his clothes still on. It's almost luxurious compared to... other times.
She has Gale open a portal and punts Karlach back to Avernus with a Thunderwave spell. Then she presses a purse of gold into the hands of a passing adventuring company and instructs them to find a Gondian named Zanner Toobin: he is to build an infernal engine for a seven-foot tiefling, one capable of surviving on the Material Plane. (TT Adventure 1.)
Then she casts Sleep on Gale before he can ascend and takes him home to Evereska. There, she shows him the Uaul’Sêlu’Keryth—an ancient spell whose name means At War with the Weave.
Lily does not prevent Gale’s ascension because his ambition frightens her. She prevents it because she considers becoming a minor Diety beneath Ao’s order too small. It is not ambitious enough.
She persuades him to hunt down the Sceptre of the Sorcerer-King, reunite the Regalia of Karsus and wrest control of the Weave from Mystra. Not so that Gale may rule it alone, but so that together they might free magic from a divine order that has repeatedly failed both mortals and the Weave itself.
Possibility 2 ~
And yet …somehow Lily’s alternative ending is, theoretically, even worse.
If she fails to persuade Gale not to sacrifice himself—if he dies destroying the Netherbrain—she finds Astarion after the sun turns upon him and takes him away from Baldur’s Gate.
Together, they track down Lily’s sister, Luna.
Luna leads them to the Eldreth Veluuthra: the Victorious Blade of the People, an elven fellowship of terrorists and assassins devoted to eradicating humankind from Faerûn and reclaiming every land lost to the elves.
And Lily joins them.
With Gale alive, Lily’s answer to the failures of the world is to look upward. She and Gale declare war upon Mystra, challenge the divine governance of magic and attempt to build something greater in its place.
With Gale dead, her answer becomes considerably older—and considerably bloodier.
The Bladesinger sworn to defend elvenkind embraces her sister’s war. The first elven child born after the Siege of Evereska becomes precisely the weapon the Eldreth Veluuthra believe that siege proved necessary.
So, in Lily’s happier ending, she and Gale become two terrifying archmages conspiring to overthrow the goddess of magic.
In the bad ending, Gale dies a hero and accidentally leaves the continued existence of humankind resting upon Astarion’s famously reliable moral judgment.
Thanks for the tags @missfortunetherogue and @spillingteanotpermitted. Let’s see….how about tags for @kcwriter-blog @the-font-bandit @mogruith @themontess @alliskit @kt-catt and @cep-stories.
Faerûn’s fashion magazine for feral femmes, themmes, and mascs
Took some shots to beta @dramatiquechipmunk’s upcoming outfit mod, wanted to give my less-talked-about OC/ship, Tristyn and Lae’zel, a glamour moment. Don’t ask what I had to bribe them with to look this nice and put together 😉
Do we want to turn this into a tag game prompt? I’m away for the weekend so I don’t have access to my tag lists, but VERY optional and gentle tags below if the following prompt sparks joy for you:
Your OC is being featured in a high-fashion shoot in Faerûnian magazine Vogue Warrior, a publication that celebrates the realm’s hottest, most ferocious baddies. Give your OC a couture glow-up in whatever they feel fiercest in. VP not your thing? Inspo shots and descriptions more than welcome!
Her most ordinary fear is failing her family and her people. She has already watched one sister vanish into fanaticism and knows that even the finest swordsmanship and the greatest love cannot always save someone.
Her less ordinary fear is anything Shadowfell-ish: Shar, stolen memories, magical corruption, undeath—the whole catalogue of shadowed horrors. To Lily, they belong to the same ancient darkness she understood to have decimated Evereska, destroyed Myth Drannor and finally swallowed her sister.
What are three items you can find in their bedroom?
If we’re talking about any time after we meet her in Elient 1492:
Lachlinnë and her spellbook, both within easy reach of the bed, and a small journal stuffed with messages from Evereska, observations made while watching Gale’s more esoteric spellwork, a hand-drawn map of where she thinks they are, and something resembling a budget—composed by a woman whose understanding of Sword Coast coinage remains largely theoretical. The budget exists only at Gale’s insistence, after she let Astarion spend twelve hundred gold on new boots.
On a scale of 1–10, how high is their pain tolerance?
Nine. Bladesinging demands that discipline survive injury; the song cannot falter simply because the body has been cut. There is, however, a difference between enduring pain and recognizing when a wound is dangerous.
Lily has little experience of real combat. Training exercises in Evereska ended with healing in the Shining Springs, where Corellon’s blessing could regrow even a severed limb. On the road, she must learn that not every injury can wait until she returns home.
Do they go into fight or flight mode when under pressure?
Fight. Corellon is a god of war as surely as magic and art. Lily carries a sword of legend and believes it was placed in her hands to kill every enemy of elvenkind.
If she retreats, it is because twenty feet of distance provides a better angle for her next spell. Misty step is not flight. It is strategy.
Do they come from a big family/are they a family person?
The household Lily grew up in was small: her parents, her elder sister and Lily herself. This is less straightforward than it sounds; over his nine centuries, her father has had seven daughters in all. Her extended Evereskan lineage is old and tangled enough to require genealogical charts, ancestral records and the occasional journey to another plane to fully sort out.
She is intense in her attachments, as she is in all things. The notion of a “found family” does not come naturally to her; she has a profoundly elven understanding of community and intimacy and does not grant either casually. Once Lily has branded someone as her own, however, she is fiercely protective of them.
What animal represents them best?
Hmmmm. I’ve often used a white doe for young Lily—beautiful, watchful and still sheltered by Evereska’s misty vale. As she grows into her own, though, she becomes a fey stag: crowned, uncanny and born of an older magic than most mortals understand. It retains the doe’s grace, but no one could mistake it for something defenceless.
(Art by Komiti.)
What’s a smell they like/dislike?
Lily loves cool mountain air, mist rising over the vineyards and the peculiar ozone scent left behind by powerful spellwork. Old vellum is comforting; Gale after he has been working magic is better. She rather likes his musk too. 😉
She dislikes the acrid smell of alchemist’s fire, woodsmoke and burning coal. Rot, entropy and the lingering residue of necrotic magic are not merely unpleasant to her, but profoundly repellent.
Have they broken any bones?
Several. An ankle during her early training, her sword arm once and ribs often enough that she has stopped counting. Healing magic repairs the bone; it does not make the original breaking any less unpleasant.
How would a stranger likely describe them?
At first glance, she is unmistakably elven and very pretty: young, fair and slight. She is reserved, with the bearing of a noble and the balanced posture of someone formally trained as a duelist.
Any description offered after an actual conversation is more likely to be: “I don’t know what her deal is. I was just trying to make conversation, and then she pulled out this massive glowy sword.”
Are they a night owl or a morning bird?
Both. Neither. Luckily, Lily can slip into reverie whenever the need arises. Watching the stars and debating arcane theory with Gale in the deepest hours of the night is every bit as pleasurable as sitting on a hill beside Astarion, watching the sun break over the far horizon.
What’s a flavour they hate and a flavour they love?
She loves tart fruit, especially berries, and anything made with the dark, fragrant honey of the Greycloak Hills. She dislikes food drowned in heavy sauces: thick, meat-heavy stews, anything resembling gravy and flesh cooked until it has surrendered its last trace of flavour.
Do they have any hobbies?
She dances even when she is not bladesinging, collects elven lore, and studies the stars. She and Gale also argue arcane theory recreationally, although both would insist they are conducting serious scholarship right up until someone starts keeping score.
Art by @mosskiposski
Boom! Surprise birthday party! How do they react?
Actually surprising Lily is difficult. She is very nosey, so she heard the conspiratorial whispering through the door and noticed Gale maintaining an illusion over something cake-shaped hours ago.
She nevertheless performs astonishment beautifully because Gale has plainly rehearsed the reveal. She is delighted by the gathering, touched by the trouble everyone has taken and privately horrified by whatever Astarion has chosen as her gift.
Do they have neat or messy handwriting?
Her formal hand is exquisite: narrow and elegant - unmistakably Evereskan.
Her working notes begin neatly and deteriorate into cramped Elvish marginalia connected by arrows, corrections and increasingly impatient remarks addressed to the original author.
What are two emotions they feel the most?
Lily is as mercurial and self-righteous as any child of Corellon should be. The two currents running deepest, however, are profound sorrow and fierce devotion.
What kind of accent do they have?
Evereskan. Her Common carries the precise consonants and musical cadence of someone who first learned to shape thought in Elvish. Human listeners usually call it aristocratic; it becomes considerably more pronounced when she is angry, exhausted or speaking to another elf.
Who wants to chat about the blourbos ? @kt-catt @cep-stories @hollowharp @hollowharpwrites @wasted-sam @thecampjuicebox @lilhumanoid @kcwriter-blog @r3drozebud @mogruith @missfortunetherogue @themontess @starlightweave @optimisticgrey @dr4gonwriter @babydinosaur930 @sanguinescoven @tynithia
Reimagine your OC as a music artist! Recast them as a real musician - who would they be? Which era, which genre, which iconic album covers and messy tabloid moments? Or invent their music career from scratch - stage name, sound, aesthetic, lyrics, the works
Was tagged by @missfortunetherogue and @litsenn, who have made wonderful VP for this tag with their OCs. Gently tagging @lucretiouswept, @riddlerosehearts, @baelthi and @lilhumanoid.
Imrae as Vivaldi
Despite the tempation to make the stone sorcerer a rock star (hah), that's not really his type of music. Part of Imrae's lore is that he hears the "song of the Underdark", so a musician/composer who is most famous for transcribing natural aspects like the four seasons into pieces of music was a good fit for him.
Tag game post and shameless advertisement for my incredibly skilled, talented artist and friend, Nick @quinthebard - you're tagged, btw! 🌟
Tempest “Genie” Eugenia Valourheart
As many of you already know.
But what I haven’t shared... is that for the past 300 years, her family has adopted conventional Faerûnian names to better navigate the political world of Baldur’s Gate. Their Katashakan names and heritage are closely guarded secrets, known only within the family. They conceal their origins to protect both themselves and the wider world from the entity lying dormant in their bloodline - a curse inherited from the ancestor who bound himself to an evil purpose and became the instrument of a civilisation’s downfall.
Tempest no longer uses Eugenia, the name given to her at birth. As a Sorceress Adept of the War Wizards, she was required to choose a new name during her proving - one that reflects her combat abilities while obscuring her identity from enemy eyes. The Cormyrian Royal Mages deliberately recruit those without strong family ties, shaping them into instruments wholly devoted to the cause and loyal to the throne.
Inyazi
Her Katashakan name, meaning “lightning” and inspired by the Xhosa & Zulu languages: Unyazi. It is a common practice for the Valourhearts to give their scions names associated with the sky.
Inhliziyo Yonyazi
And, authentic to D&D tradition, Tempest also has a true name - one never meant to be spoken aloud: Inhliziyo Yonyazi, meaning “Heart of Lightning” (Zulu/South African origin). If that doesn’t have destiny written all over it, I don’t know what does.
"Roro" inyoni yezulu
The storm entity dormant within her heart is called Roro, an Easter egg referencing Ororo Munroe. Roro is one of the divine inyoni yezulu (Xhosa/Zulu origins: "bird of the sky"). The storm eagles: rulers of the skies, also known in shamanic tradition as Children of the Sky Mother.
Thank you for tagging me, @saylofwaterdeep & @ceremorph0sis!
I have collected tags and uno-reverses like a chunk of ferrous metal doth iron filings (mostly because I haven't been as active.)
Thank you very much @defira85, @litsenn, @woundedsoul12, @gortashsrighthand, @cinder-rellish181, @saylofwaterdeep, @elinorbard, & @optimisticgrey.
Hopefully, I haven't missed anyone, but if I did, I probably tagged you at the end anyway. 😅
I'm continuing the excerpt from Cheese Partaken At A Late Hour, Part 3, and picking up right after a certain canon event. During a moment of extreme transition, Mara has a vision of who she was when she would have referred to herself as “The Prophet of the End” unironically, and glimpses of the source of her dark powers.
TW: major character death (but we know how this goes with Durge), cannibalism, angst, violent murder, and suicidal thoughts/visions
[Reminder: in this universe, all companions are dead]
Mara's dark tendrils shot out in all directions, found every invoker, death's head and lowly initiate within the sacrificial amphitheatre and its adjacent rooms. They twisted into stilettos, pierced up under their jaws, lifted them off their feet, and flung their twitching corpses into the chasms below.
“Be not a fool and view their deaths as a sacrifice, unworthy creator. See them as they are: a declaration of war. You hide, puppeting the butler, because you are weak, just like your two dear, old friends that you expected me to kill for you. I will trace the trail of your blood in my veins. And when I find you, I will END you!”
It was undoubtedly reckless to call a god weak in his own house, but Mara was far, far too furious to act with any semblance of wisdom or foresight. Even so, for half a moment, the Lord of Murder hesitated. Whether he was shocked, incensed, disappointed, or truly threatened by the words of his most precious offspring was difficult to tell.
Nonetheless, his momentary silence was deafening.
Finally, he spoke through the reflection of Sceleritas in Orin's blood once more. “No, dear daughter, it is I who will end you. I shall make… another.”
Divine magic lifted her off her feet as she sputtered curses, fighting desperately to avoid unconsciousness. Slowly, excruciatingly, Bhaal pulled every drop of him from her and greedily drew it back into himself. For a second, Mara thought it might have been the worst pain she'd ever felt, but then she saw them.
All of them.
They stood around her in a circle, watching, accusing. Alfira's tears transformed to song and laughter, then to helpless whimpers of agony. Astarion's smirking swagger became a pleasant yet baffling surprise, then utter shock. Halsin's warm smile grew ever warmer, wilting into pity as the light left his eyes. Shadowheart's begrudging head tilt twisted into a glower of horror. Kar'niss's sharp-toothed wonder soured into bitter betrayal. Lae'zel's aloof lip-curl shifted to accord, solidarity, then disgust. Wyll's compassionate grin melted into a grimace of terror. Karlach's riotous laughter ended abruptly, her wail of grief all but shaking the heavens themselves. Minthara softened from menace into calm, then to rage and fruitless defiance.
At last, she saw Gale, his impossibly beautiful brown eyes wide, hopeful, and loving, but unlike the others, they did not change. Hope never left him. It persisted, even as blood splattered his face and soaked his beard. Gale's dauntless love made a fool of death. It crawled over her accursed, untouched skin and her now unchallenged mind. It hollowed her heart, its emptiness throbbing endlessly, a void that could do nought but wail his name.
Mara would never recover from him. Not in a thousand years. She didn't even want to. The agony was not sweet or kind. It was ragged and brutal, ripping her to pieces again and again, but the pain was all she had left. The only proof that he'd ever loved her, that she'd ever loved him. She clutched it close and refused to let go.
As darkness closed in on her vision, she gazed up into the glowing red eyes of Bhaal's huge symbol above. With her last, fading breath, she whispered, “Coward…”
She did not see the lights surge and fill the temple, nor feel the chamber floor quake beneath her, nor witness the butler's stolen features contort in rage and, implacably… sorrow.
Death should have been peaceful, an end she had craved since that horrible night, but it wasn't. Perhaps it was due to the manner in which Withers intervened, but her restoration was not instant this time. Maybe it was Bhaal's divine essence leaving her, or one too many resurrections, but she saw something.
A willowy form wafted toward her from within a darkness alive with thousands of colors. Stars, she realized. The cycle of nebulous birth to heat death repeated again and again, in an eyeblink, all across her vision.
The creature wore a robe that concealed their hands. A veil covered their face. White that was not white. A color that had no name, save a piece she suddenly knew was part of the creature's own: pale.
In her distant past, Mara saw herself, her hair twisted and tied back, her lips drawn in a wicked grin, her armor made of bones and skulls and tattered cloth, splashed with crimson and black blood, driving a glaive into the veiled face of the creature. Then she carved open their chest, cracked the ribcage and removed a tar-black heart that still fluttered ever so slightly in her hands. She sank her teeth, and the bite trembled on her tongue. Each and every mouthful quivered all the way down.
Once the heart was consumed, the creature sprang its secondary assault. Darkness dropped as a heavy blanket upon her, fit to soothe away her savagery, but its weight changed from comfort to horror, as terrible knowledge crept into the crevices of her gray matter. Voices came. Incoherent sounds that were almost words, but not quite.
The space between held a terror so old she could not be certain whether it had always been there, or if it was never truly hers to begin with.
It was, quite simply put, utter madness.
It gibbered and chittered and flashed nonsense across her eyes. It slithered over her skin, making her feel itchy and damp at the same time. A strange agony filled her, not from injury or illness, but from incompetence, the inability to cross the gnawing chasm between thought and action.
But Mara had learned patience by then.
The Chosen of a dead god must know patience.
The second the decision to wait had formed, the numbers arrived. A parade of slow equations came at first, complex and sharp, beautiful in their symmetry, then they were streaking snowflakes in a blizzard, each facet of the crystallized molecules a fractal within a fractal, split across dimensions and intersecting realities. Impossibly, she could see them all. A torrent of unfiltered truth ripped into her. It flung her from the edge of the universe to the center and back again, screaming.
Mara knew it was trying to break her, but one fashioned of godflesh does not break easily. In her murderous fantasies, she had conquered the cosmos a hundred thousand times in a hundred thousand different ways. A Lanceboard match against her was over before it had begun. She had never, ever lost. She was the inevitable end of all realities, and nothing this creature could do would ever change that.
Oh, how it tried, though.
It attempted to trap her inside a version of herself that had lost everything, a grieving, agonized, broken woman, abandoned even by Bhaal, wailing pathetically as she tried to end her own life, only to find herself alive once more, and every single wound opened anew. It desperately insisted that this dreadful end would be hers, but she would not be convinced.
A truth that could not be believed was powerless.
All of this Mara had endured passively enough, screaming when expected, as a means to study her opponent. What she had slain was only a fragment of a greater whole. What attacked her now was the brunt of its army. This thing that could never be one thing, only an immeasurable abstraction, an idea that upon taking a single shape was obliterated and reborn, still had an objective. Its purpose was to stop her, but to stop her from what?
As its assault continued, stretching the limits of her senses and her mind, Mara launched a counter. She met its madness with reason, twisting it in upon itself. Then, into its balanced, perfect equations, she introduced nonsense. Its emotional manipulation met a will without doubt, pride that did not fear failure, but saw it as no more than an alternative path to victory.
She heard it cursing faintly in a dialect of Abyssal so ancient it was almost math.
Of a sudden, it struck her with something that sent her reeling. Apparently, it had been studying her, too.
It overwhelmed her from head to toe, bones to skin, soul to body and back again.
Thank you @optimisticgrey and @kt-catt for the tags! I thought that since I'm leaving for vacation after work today, I would just combine these two things into one cuz I'm gonna be busy having FUN!!
Please enjoy some of my absolutely OBSESSED Ascended Astarion >:3
Serving Up: 496 words from the draft of Chapter 19 of my fanfiction Stealing Moonlight
Astarion swept from the sunroom with far less grace than before, the heels of his boots striking sharply against the marble floors as he tore through the adjoining corridor. The servants lingering there scattered almost immediately upon his approach, pressing themselves hurriedly against the walls while he stormed past them without so much as an acknowledging glance in their direction.
Every damned hallway was drenched with her scent.
Rosehip oils that clung stubbornly to the carved banisters beneath his fingertips. Lemongrass drifting through the stale palace air in maddening little waves that made it feel as though she lingered just beyond the next doorway. Just beyond the next staircase. Just beyond his reach.
Always almost.
Never there.
Only her scent lingering like a taunt.
His palace had become infested with her.
She coated every surface. Every corridor. Every stretch of marble beneath his feet. He could practically feel the phantom warmth of her skin still lingering against velvet curtains and silk sheets alike. Could almost hear the soft padding of her bare feet as it disappeared down distant hallways whenever he slowed long enough to listen for it.
And it was beginning to drive him mad.
Astarion descended another staircase with quick, vicious strides, shoving one of his spawn aside when the man failed to move from his path quickly enough. The poor thing stumbled sharply against the wall, clearly startled by his violence, but it was as if the Vampire Ascendant scarcely even noticed.
Where was she?
His senses stretched desperately through the palace around him, searching for the quick rhythm of her heartbeat amongst his still living staff. Every time he’d thought he caught it, it would vanish again beneath the weight of his servants and mortal guests drifting throughout the manor below.
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
Godsdamnit.
The frustration clawed steadily sharper through him with every passing second that she wasn’t in his grasp.
And then, all at once, a far uglier thought began to unfurl in his mind.
What if she was gone?
The thought struck him so suddenly that his steps faltered outright.
Gone?!
No.
Surely not. Not his Rhia. Not his darling little love.
But the more rooms he tore through without finding her, the more poisonous that possibility became.
What if she had finally come to her senses?
What if she had finally remembered exactly what kind of monster he was and slipped away when his attention had been occupied elsewhere? Vanished from his palace like water through open fingers while he sat wasting precious hours entertaining godsdamned nobles and shit-stinking merchants below?
He laughed, and the sound of it echoing off of the walls of the empty corridor was not a pleasant thing. It was short. Humorless. The kind of sarcastic laugh one released when they realized their plan had failed.
Of course she had left him. Of course she did.
The thought turned bitter almost instantly, his jaw locked so hard the ache of it radiated up through his skull.
|| Timeline: Alternate Universe || Word count: 1.100||
|| Relationships: Imrae x Astarion, Lledrith x Imrhys ||
Taglist: @missfortunetherogue
Eleven 100-word vignettes of Imrae and Astarion in an alternate timeline where Lledrith and Imrhys, Imrae's parents, are the leaders of the tadpoled adventurers.
Dividers by @sweetmelodygraphics
CONTENT WARNING: Mild mentions of Astarion's past
One night, a face appeared in Astarion's mirror.
Not his own, sadly, but one strikingly similar to the drow sorceress leading their group.
“Ilhar? Ilharn?” the young man asked.
“Um. Hello?” Astarion tried.
“I cannot see you. Straj.”
“He's a vampire, my treasure.” Lledrith walked up to him, husband in tow. “He has no reflection.”
“Shout it from the rooftops, will you?”
Her son beamed with relief. “Ilhar! Thank Ibrandul.”
“Some privacy, Astarion? Thank you.” Lledrith left no room for discussion.
Astarion caught little of that conversation, but heard the young drow's name.
Imyaraen.
The drow's face reappeared a fortnight later, and again, Astarion was driven from his sanctuary.
So he formed a plan. A nice, simple plan.
There was no seducing Lledrith, so obsessed with her husband Imrhys.
But he could learn all about them from their son, then manipulate them, if he played his cards right.
He could stay safe. He could gain his freedom.
The next time, he was ready. “Good evening, Imyaraen.”
“Astarion, right?” The drow smiled. “Please, call me Imrae. All my friends do.”
If he had any, Astarion finished the sentence.
Oh, this would be very easy.
“Your parents are fighting.”
Imrae's purple face paled. “What? About what?”
“Some drow woman leading the goblins. Minthara.”
“Baenre?”
Astarion shrugged, then realized his mistake. “Maybe?”
“My father's old foe.” Imrae sighed.
“Oh, shared history?” Astarion probed.
Imrae laughed, no, cackled. “Not like that!”
“Spoilsport.” Astarion couldn't help but smile. “Your father thinks killing her while infected is wrong.”
After pondering for a bit, Imrae suggested, “Tell him 'Desperate times call for desperate measures.'”
“Magnificent! I knew I could count on you.”
Imrae blushed at the praise.
Oh, how easy this would be.
“Good evening. Your parents are off, celebrating,” Astarion greeted, then laughed at Imrae's grimace.
The drow observed the dying festivities. “Did you enjoy yourself?”
“Hardly. Vinegar for wine and disenchanting company.”
“You poor thing.”
“I am!” Astarion agreed. “What's a beautiful gent got to do for some revelry?”
“Beautiful?” Imrae laughed. “I will take your word for it.”
Reimagine your OC as a music artist! Recast them as a real musician - who would they be? Which era, which genre, which iconic album covers and messy tabloid moments? Or invent their music career from scratch - stage name, sound, aesthetic, lyrics, the works
Thank you for the tags, @carnivaley @litsenn @optimisticgrey @chaushaus @elceewunjo! Loved seeing your rock/pop stars 💜
In turn, gentlest of tags for @cinder-rellish181 @spillingteanotpermitted @theya-art @lucretiouswept @unovafarm @careful-l-bite @andromedaancunin @alwaysmauria @et-augury @grandninjamasterren @gloura @zombrigit @bongbubbles and @thepalelawyer - if you've done it already, tag me? Would love to see.
Miss Fortune as an industrial goth vocalist/front-person
You may have expected me to go with an over-the-top pop diva given *gestures to all of Miss Fortune* their fabulousness. HOWEVER... drag culture has a vibrant element of lip syncing and impersonating female pop stars. I've even done a few shots of MF doing the same (will include below) and hope to do even more over time (I'll gladly take pop diva requests in the comments!).
Drop the persona and masks however, and Sasha performing as themselves would gravitate towards darker, more macabre themes. They'd be a vocalist and/or keyboardist in a goth industrial band just like Lord of the Lost, or perhaps The Birthday Massacre.
I went for LoTL here because they are a sex-positive, queer-positive band who are not afraid to play around with gender representation and, I think it's safe to assume, believe the adage that "all clothing is unisex if you're not a little bitch about it."
Miss Fortune would have so much fun in a band like this, wearing fabulous getups while singing about the sad, dark, tragic parts of life and also composing encouraging messages that there is beauty in the darkness, and that depression and tragedy don't have to define you.
They'd also use their platform to be as openly queer as possible and get queerer with every hate comment until they hit maximum queerness lol. They'd very openly sing love songs with he/him as the object of their desire and give zero fucks if someone didn't like it, pointing them to the 95% other musicians singing about cishet love.
Some lyrics because I can't help myself
From "La Bomba" - fun, high-energy, sex-positive
Run, baby, run!
We are dancing in the sun
And we make love like loaded guns
It's fulmicent
Rock, baby, rock!
Come with me I come with you, La Bomba!
Come for me I come for you, La Bomba!
Come on me I come on you, La Bomba!
La Bomba! Explosion! Kaboom!
From "Voodoo Doll" - themes of freedom/control
So go ahead, carve your candle
With the knife with the white handle
This is my life after all
I'm not your voodoo doll
Voodoo doll
I don't belong to anyone
I'm not a puppet with my strings in your hand
I don't belong to anyone
I won't obey your commands
From "I Hate People" (ft. Wednesday 13) - in your face advocacy
I hate people being told who they love is a sin
I hate people being oppressed with no freedom to think
I hate people feeling forced to collude in the spin
I hate people
We never ever have to pick a side (I hate people)
We never have to be somebody else (I hate people)
The one and only thing that's ever right
Whatever they tell be true to yourself
Miss Fortune's past impersonations
A few looks they've done in the past of other artists that, as a drag queen, they would have lip synched to:
Freddie Mercury from Queen
Caleb Shomo from Beartooth (specifically in the "Free" video)
Chappell Roan (with backup dancers Mauria by @alwaysmauria and Octavia by @dramatiquechipmunk)
Reimagine your OC as a music artist! Recast them as a real musician - who would they be? Which era, which genre, which iconic album covers and messy tabloid moments? Or invent their music career from scratch - stage name, sound, aesthetic, lyrics, the works
Bonus questions: What's their biggest hit about? What are they like on stage vs in interviews? Do they have a rival? What do the fans call themselves?
Thank you so much for the tag @litsenn, I got struck by inspiration with this one and might have overdone things a little and spent way too much time drawing for it ^^ (this is why I cannot keep up guys, every tag game I decide to answer takes me five days of work because I have no self control xD)
Natavriel as Aurora
Is there a singer that gives off fairy vibes as much as Aurora does? :3 I mean, she's not alone in that, but I associate a lot of her songs with Tav, their relationship with both Storm, Astarion, and their own self, she's the best fit for them.
I changed the colours and clothes slightly to fit Natavriel's vibe a bit more :3 And Tav gets their long hair becaue I say so.
Now for the actual songs....
A Soul With No King
I like this one because this is the closest I've ever gotten to think to myself "oh that's a good fit for Tav's voice", it's in Aurora's lower register especially towards the middle of the song, and I just like the vibe. Sometimes when listening to it I pretend she's talking about an archfey rather than about the devil and that makes it more Tav coded :3 Tav would definitely sing about archfeys lol
The Essence
[Verse 1]
In another life
Home feels like home
I've mourned you now
Longer than I've known you
As the trees
Cry their leaves
Vulnerable
Just like me
[Chorus]
Maybe, maybe it will be alright
We all hurt sometimes, and
Maybe, maybe it will be alright
We are running through the waves of time
And the truth can lie in the arms of a fight
And I try, and I try
But it hurts so much
To be in touch
So I'd rather not
This one hurts a bit in the context of losing Storm. And Tav withdrawing into emotional numbness as depression comes and they can't cope. They know it will get better, that does not mean the hurt is easier to bear, and for a moment they cannot help but retreat away from it all, the world, themself, the pain, everything that they love.
Also that "In another life, Home feels like home", is exactly what the recent happy AU one shot is about so double hurt points hahaha. This song could have been written by Tav, about Storm. That one and The Weight of Missing, both.
The Conflict of the Mind
This is Storm and Tav's song :3 I've already spoken a bit about it here so I won't repeat myself this post is already long ^^ But this could also have been written and sung by Tav, no doubt there.
I also have one that I associate more with their relationship with Astarion but I don't have much to say about the lyrics it's more vibes based haha
Giving In to the Love
[Verse 1]
I'm losing my connection
I'm tired of the rules and your corrections
I want to live my life, be all of its pages
And underline that I am not an angel
[Pre-Chorus]
'Cause if I'm not pure, I guess that I'm too much
I never know how to keep in, keep in touch
[Chorus]
If I'll be somebody, I'll never let my skin decide it for me
I never had the world, so why change for it?
I never had the world, so why change for it?
[Post-Chorus]
Giving in to the love
Giving in to the love
Last one, because I love that this can relate to Tav being somewhat (alright, very) unconventional in many ways. They love many people very deeply and one could say even passionately, and yet they very rarely fall in love the way most people mean that. They've been considered too much so many times in their life, it take counscious effort to not retreat and still give in to the love that they have for people, still choose to love even thought it might be misinterpreted. And that line about "I am not an angel" is also very Tav, because despite being good aligned and most of the time unhealthily selfless, they are very amused when people put them in the "hero" category the way both Wyll and Astarion did at first glance. Because that's definitely not it. Their sense of morality has been too impacted by the Feywild to be considered an angel 🤭 (cue to them being completely unphased by murder and cannibalism. side eye to Storm.)
Let's just say Aurora often sings about struggle, grief, finding oneself through that in spite of all through the connections with other people and the world as a whole, and she also sings about beauty and the joy of life despite the struggle. All of that is very fitting for someone like Natavriel.
Gently tagging @missfortunetherogue, @riddlerosehearts, and @scoldingdarjeeling if you want :3 If you've done it already tell me <3
Anybody else who wants to do this, feel free to take this as an open tag <3
I had no intentions of really ever exploring astrology for my characters, but I had a random thought earlier today since I gave Ellie an actual approximation of her birthdate and was curious.
Also had no intentions of making this a tag until I got to the end of this post (tagging everyone I can think of off the top of my head below), but now I’m super curious about everyone’s OC’s:
If you’ve given your OC a birthdate (or even an approximation), look up their astrology and tell me how alike or different they are from their sign. If you haven’t given them a birthdate, tell me what zodiac sign you think they’d be and why! And heck, if you feel like it, throw in some fanfic, VP, or art.
Eleint is (from what I understand; correct me if I’m wrong) for all intents and purposes September. And if she was found Late Eleint, that would put her birthday approximately three weeks-ish prior in Eleint.
Which essentially makes Ellie a Virgo. And Ellie very much gives Virgo vibes. I searched up some characteristics for funsies and if it’s not her to a T (taken from a google search so virgos tell me if these are wrong):
Calculating and assessing events and people around them.
Their talent for analysis makes them very detail oriented (which I haven’t done much with yet, but is how I pictured her.)
Perfectly happy to be alone.
Can find or create order in the chaos.
Honest
Discerning to a fault, but great advice givers
Perfectionists (didn’t personally give her this trait, but I could see her easily being one).
Can have a generous nature - which, I give her on her tadpole journey that she helps others (especially the tieflings) and she’s not even sure why she’s concerned so I find this one funny.
Can become hyper-critical of themselves (looking at you, Act 2 Ellie)
When in a supportive team, they can be great at helping their colleagues better themselves and deal with difficult tasks (see: tadfools)
AND OMG I JUST GOT TO THE LOVE/RELATIONSHIP SECTION:
Virgos can be extremely picky, meaning that they can take their time to find the “right one”.
Quite happy to remain single until they find the “right one”, which means that when they do finally fall in love, they are loyal and devoted.
Can seem reserved or withdrawn when it comes to expressing their feelings.
Instead of flowery words, they tend to show their love by showering their loved ones with their loyalty.
BUT WAIT!!!!
“Those born under the Virgo zodiac sign make for great parents and often tend to parent other children around their family as well.”
Please just mop me up…I’m in tears 😭
Very super gently tagging everyone (sorry! I’m curious!): @optimisticgrey @dr4gonwriter @bladesingerlily @kcwriter-blog @baelthi @babydinosaur930 @starlightweave @asorceresswrites @whiskeyskin @astarioffsimpmain @arlynx @arcanearcherayz @toomanyfamiliars @tynithia @riddlerosehearts @purplemilk27 @artsywarden @rdekarios @cursed-nyxan @missfortunetherogue @bhaal-battle-beer-bard @judasiskariot @archduchessgortash @scoldingdarjeeling @fangedgrace @cuffmeinblack @ele-millennial-weirdo @aerin67 @purpleasters-inseptember @defira85 @gortashsrighthand @carnivaley @fireflyeyes @saylofwaterdeep @lucretiouswept @emmyandthetieflings @dykestelmane @mellybaggins @thecampjuicebox @faeriiefire @wasteful-sam @adrielmancy @dr-demi-bee @deianestormborn @susann-noir @cep-stories @tociminna (how I managed that many I’ll never know - if you see this you’re tagged as well!)
The Embrace of Love and Death @missfortunetherogue - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
