another day, another failed death save. @seldaryne - Tumblr Blog

pinned about.

oriixxc

my first mystery box commission

#queue

julidiot

Replaying Baldur's gate with my husband and company. Shadowheart and I have bonded over being the only other sane people in that game.

greylittlebird

Some fans think Ascended Astarion is free from the curse of vampirism because he can walk in the sun and see his reflection and he isn’t hungry for blood, but he has just replaced all that for a far more sinister and consuming hunger. Vampires crave power the way they crave blood, insatiably and beyond their control. They are a metaphor for abusers, trapped in their futile struggle to feel fulfilled by harming and dominating others. That is part of their curse, the darkest and most isolating part. If we read Cazador’s thoughts, we find that he doesn’t identify with this monster he has become and deep down wants to just die. He is consumed by the curse of vampirism, everything from torturing his spawn to the ascension ritual were part of this vampiric hunger for power that made Cazador what he became. If Astarion ascends, that is what he will become.

He may not act exactly like Cazador but he has embraced the belief that to be safe is to be powerful at the expense of empathy and care for others, and with that it is inevitable his hunger for power will grow more and more sadistic consuming every good and tender part of Astarion just like it did to Cazador. Cazador was once a young Spawn who reached out to a friend and was impaled for a decade straight because of it. From Cazador’s perspective, he was a “loving”, “paternal” Master compared to Vellioth but that’s just the distorted mindset of the abuser. Just like every abusive parent thinks they aren’t abusive because their parent was “worse” to them. Cazador was different from Vellioth and Ascended Astarion would be different from Cazador but they’re the same beast. There’s no denying that the nature of vampirism and Master/Spawn relationships are abusive and the only way to free yourself from that cycle is to reject the poisonous allure of vampiric power.

Spawn Astarion cannot see his reflection or walk in the sun, at least not yet, but he can live and he can heal. He knows it’s safe to be loving and kind, that there’s more to the world than an endless cycle of power and pain which was all he experienced for 200 years as a slave to Cazador’s sick, undead mind. Spawn Astarion has won something Cazador never could, and that’s his soul back. Cazador died a power-hungry husk who didn’t recognize himself from the boy he once was with everyone he claimed to “love” relieved he was dead - Spawn Astarion won’t suffer that fate. Ascended Astarion is what happens if trauma wins - he’s the desensitization to violence after centuries of torture and cruelty, he’s the false facade of confidence and superiority shielding a weak sense of self, he’s the belief that the only way to not be a victim is to be the abuser. Spawn Astarion is bittersweet but hopeful and free to be himself, he is not consumed by what trauma and vampirism wants him to be. He is free to heal and find out who he is. That will take time, but it’s finally possible.

ryttu3k

Yeah, absolutely. Astarion explicitly describes it as a "cycle of power and terror" and refusing the ritual means he was able to break that cycle. He still has the symptoms of being a vampire spawn, but he's managed to escape the 'power-is-all' mindset of true vampirism. Just, the whole conversation afterwards, bolding for emphasis:

"It feels ridiculous to still be thinking about Cazador. He's gone, I'm here - I won. But I still keep reliving everything that happened. Playing it over and over in my mind."

"In the ritual chamber, you were someone else. Someone unrecognisable."

"You’re not wrong. Cazador left his mark on me in more ways than one - for a moment, I wanted to be just like him. I came so close to losing everything back there. To losing myself. Back at the ritual, all I could see was the power on offer and the safety it promised. I was so blinded by it. Just as Cazador was. But you saw something in me - someone else I could be. Someone who could break through the cycle of power and terror that started centuries ago. You saved me back there. I may not have appreciated it at the time, but I do now. Thank you."

"You saved yourself, I just gave you a push."

"You did more than that. You believed in me - believed I was enough just the way I am. When I look at my future, anything and everything feels possible now. And I get to share it with you, as a partner. An equal. You saved me from myself and let me walk a new path where I can be free. Truly, honestly free. This is a gift, you know. Thank you - I won’t forget it."

Even unromanced, the scene is identical, it just omits the, 'as a partner, an equal' line. His genuine happiness, relief, and gratitude, Neil's incredible performance, it's just the emotional climax to his entire story. Then the epilogue, where he's genuinely content in himself - he's still a vampire spawn, he still needs blood, can't see his reflection, can't see sunlight, but he's free to be himself for the first time in centuries. In refusing the ritual, he gains himself.

How anyone can think Ascension is the right choice after that is beyond me, honestly.

stdismas

Wyll Ravengard in Baldur's Gate 3 (2023).

seldaryne

Ivory Sarcotesta

ch 1/2.

--

Astarion’s ribs are still tender with the memory of where she drove her knee into the side. The torque in her waist had been enough to knock him off his feet before he could register that he’d been detected. Just as vivid as the pain had been, her eyes bored into his from above. She’d laid him out flat on his back in one fluid motion, pinning him down and looking decidedly unimpressed.

Confessing the truth of his condition seemed to be the best chance he had at keeping her from ending his life then and there. He’d babbled through something passingly coherent, watching her turn the information over suspiciously in her mind. It probably only lasted a handful of seconds, but to Astarion, it might as well have been an eternity. He didn’t actually fear her enough not to try to sink his fangs into the pale flesh of her throat, but even he wasn’t so stupid that he couldn’t recognize his own losing hand in his current position.

And then she’d apparently decided that his explanation was sufficient—that he was a vampire, and apparently one worth trusting at that. He would call that foolish if she hadn’t twice proven her ability to gain the upper hand against him, even with the element of surprise on his side.

So she released him and withdrew to her bedroll, sitting cross-legged as she offered out a wrist.

He remembers letting out a little startled laugh at that, pushing off the ground. She stared at him like he was the one being strange, still holding her arm out towards him, vein-side-up.

“The boar was you, then?” She asks, breaking the silence. The question sounds less like something she needs confirmed, and more like a polite in for him.

“It certainly wasn’t the wizard,” he retorts. Something clicked for him almost as soon as the words left his mouth. “Did you… know?”

He didn’t much like the idea of that.