#angel schmangle

[stabknives]

Sell yourself lightly, daily and nightly

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she's tried burying his wings before. the. wings of her owlin fiance. that keep reattaching to her back. but they do not stay parted from her for long. a little gift from her necromancer. aren't you happy to always have a part of him with you? say thank you, girl. say it. say it.

she is thankful. she is so thankful for the way it hurts, every time, to pull them off. and bury them anew. the wounds never close. it hurts every time and she can do the burial rites a million times. but it won't matter. she can't even remember his name. her own fiance. it's been that long. and her necromancer took that memory, along with so many others. and just left the hurt. the pain lets you know you're alive. if you want the curse of life you have to deal with the pain, girl. #this isn't a lesson mother should have to keep teaching you!!!!!!!!!!!

[stabknives]

Welcome back vice ! Please tell us more about your bg3 tavs I am immensely interested

When asked to talk thn talk I will.

TW: rape culture, transphobia sort of??? betrayal manipulation forced sex work adjacent stuff and more! smiles. EDIT incest also

I have a bunch of weirdly specific Astarion HCs. This always happens when I'm insane about a character. His backstory with Angelique is pretty niche and esoteric but whatever. I wanted to do something kind of different.

So Angelique and Astarion are identical twins. She's transfem, and I think he had problems with that for weirdo reasons but I'm getting ahead of myself.

To me. I initially thought he was just straight up lying about being a magistrate but I think it's clear he's like. Someone who has always idealized the fairytale idea of being a hero and heroic people. His bitterness towards Wyll is especially poignant and interesting to me bc it's so pointed and personal and intermixed with attraction. Not specifically sexual attraction but romantic attraction… I go back and forth on whether or not Astarion is asexual. I quite like the idea, the idea he's always been ace but utilized sex to get his way but ended up traumatized when forced against his will to do as such to people he never would've targeted so aggressively or. Rapist. Rapistly. Bc Astarion raped those people. At least some of them, we can be sure about that. Plied them with alcohol and charms and spellwork. Because he had to, because Cazador demanded it of him and Astarion is above all afraid of dying in pain alone.

Anyway. I'm rambling. My point here is, he was a magistrate, but only after much suffering. See I think he comes from a. Shit fallen noble family whose name means basically nothing now and has less thn no money- parents dying and leaving him and his (at the time) brother in immense debt to loansharks and criminals of all sorts. Had to sell the house and all their clothes and fine things. He and Angelique grew up impoverished on the streets when not performing in a circus, and basically had to do anything to survive. Steal cheat lie. (Hence Angelique's urchin and Astarion's charlatan background! Teehee.) They lived in various old moldy gross buildings juuuust outside of the city. Always shifting around bc the guards chased them about. You know how it is when you're homeless right lads #relatable #mystorymytrauma #peoplewhohaveneverbeenunhouseddni

Anywho. Their relationship was… complicated. They could only rely on each other. They hated each other but trusted each other like no one else. Knew each other understood each other intimately each would never fail to make the other laugh and also heinously upset and angry. But. Also. Loved each other was envious of each other thought frequently about, killing each other. Angelique pretty frequently threatened to turn him over to the guards so they could chop his head off at the guillotine. And he swore he'd poison her if she ever tried to get rid of him like that.

Astarion was, ah. Well in canon he's both terrified of being alone and desperate to push the people he most desires and admires away, right. Because his whole thing is like. What he needs isn't what he thinks he wants- what gets his approval up is like evil bullshit needlessly cruel options right. But if you act like that to him, he gets so offended he could just die and pee himself and scream or whatever like he doesn't know what he wants is like. A fairytale partnership. You see this in how he's, again, pretty weird about Wyll. Like he jealously talks about how Wyll is the kind of person he used to daydream about marrying when Astarion gets jealous of PCs romance with him (jealous of both of em I'd wager) but also he… Is clearly bored + embittered by too much straightforward do-gooding? He's at his most amused and frustrated and delighted and also weird when PC is like. Negging him basically. What he responds well to is like leading in with some kindness but not too much because if he comes onto you in that one act 1 scene when he's like 'you clearly like me too' after you've indulged him a bunch and he thinks you want sex. If you say you'd rather kiss a leech he BARKS and HOWLS in laughter and says that maybe there's more to you thn he thought he really really likes that. Being denied. And being wanted for something besides sex. In combination. Even as much as it offends him hashtag my complex leech!!!

But yeah I'm not gonna go looking for any specific dialogue bc i hate larian i hate them i hate them so much I cant even keep the game straight in my mind bc those stupid brown nosing racists at larian keep changing dialogue and scenes and taking content out and swapping it around and scattering shit all over the place. So. A lot of this is just gonna have to be me going dude just trust me this was in the game at one point. If it isn't still now.

What was I saying. Okay. So. Astarion wasn't at the time. But would be later in their story ofc. In love with Angelique. "Ewww" yeah yeah incest bad we decry we decry but I find it so fascinating conceptually for a lot of reasons. Firstly the line about Cazador making all the spawn act like family with each other and to him. Like okay the fauxcest abuse went crazy style there I see. And another part of it is. Okay so I go back and forth on whether or not Astarion is asexual or just traumatized or both but lately I've settled on. It's both. He's traumatized by sex and attraction, but never really felt it personally, although he was previously a sex positive ace. And is. Depending on how his story shakes out, either a sex negative/repulsed ace or in recovery. Anywho I really lost my marbles laughing at the idea. Of a guy being in love with his sibling but he can't tell because he's not sexually attracted to her at all and not self reflective enough for it to click in his mind that one might be true while the other is not.

Angilram (who I will refer to as a he/him for a bit bc that's the pronoun set she was using at the time. She didn't know entirely she was a trans lady yet she just dabbled in what 'he' thought was crossdressing) was the older twin. By seconds Astarion would hastily insist at all times except when he wanted to be taken care of like if he had a chipped nail or a busted ass lip you know he was SCREAMINGGGG for healing from his big bard brother.

Ohhhhh Angel is a bard you say how wonderful. Um! Not really. Angilram hated hated hated performing hates attention of that sort. Played the lute entirely for himself and his brother… at least until Astarion kept pushing for Angilram to perform for coins at the circus. 'I do my knife throwing. You should sell yourself too. It's only fair.' And fair is fair is fair… Astarion would frequently push his elder sibling into doing shit Angel wasn't comfortable with like. 24/7 basically. Perform get us coin steal that bread while I distract the adult shopkeep woman with underage flirtation… when Astarion catches Angilram trying on some female clothes after they stole a laundry basket with mixed fineries inside. He gets the brilliant idea to have Angilram dress as a woman to go on paid dates with guys. 'Never sex', 'just making a bunch of old men feel important'. This um spoiled crossdressing for Angel. For a long time. Bc the dates were never a comfortable affair, but. Once a guy DID press for more. Attempted to rape Angilram and became infuriated when he learned Angilram had a penis. Was 'pretending' to be a woman.

Astarion did rescue his brother. Shot the guy in the head with an arrow. But. Yes. Angilram was pretty shaken. And Astarion was no comfort given that he was all sat up in the trees sneering at nobody bc he couldn't figure out why he got mad every time Angilram was on a date LMAOOOOO #i sort of whore my brother out and piss myself off?????

Angilram sees it as his job to take care of Astarion as the older twin. "By seconds?" Angilram has Ye Old Undiagnosed Fantasy OCD. Those seconds are thousands of years to him. Anyway he. He hates Astarion so much but can't help but smile whenever Astarion laughs or cracks a joke. Wants to believe Astarion, when Astarion says 'just one more con job and then we'll be set for life' or whatever.

That said. For as much as Angilram loves Astarion. Wants Astarion to become a better person. And wants to protect and provide for Astarion. Angilram also, um. Prays every night that Astarion dies. Whoopsie! Yeah. This is pretty objectively awful. For Angilram to do. To someone who relies on him! Um. Yeahhhh they're only kids and then teens so. I can't blame Astarion for being kind of shitty and awful. And his life only gets worse. But yk. Angilram isn't a perfect person. He's constantly lying to himself after all. And other people.

That said. When Angilram and Astarion are around 17ish, they have a pretty big fight. Angel- who hates that nickname btw. That's something basically only Astarion calls him. Anyway Angel is like I don't want to do cons anymore my heart can't take it. And Astarion is like well you're hardly a man at all always prancing around putting on makeup and wearing dresses. Stop being ridiculous being a weird circus fruit suits you ect. And Angilram is EXPLOSIVELY ANGRY at that YOU ARE SO SELFISH AND YOU ALWAYS DRAGGGGG ME DOWN TO YOUR LEVEL. BUT I'M SICK OF SLEEPING IN THE MUD WITH DOGS AND I REFUSE TO BE BITTEN TO DEATH BY YOUR FLEAS ASTARION. You will not be the death of me. 🖕 God be with you because I will not.

So Astarion. Steals something very important on purpose. From the flaming fists. And blames Angilram. Who is promptly arrested and thrown in jail. And sentenced to 30 ears. Not Astarion's intention to get his brother nearly executed he thought he could talk them out of this if he could get Angilram to apologize first. But Angilram did not apologize and Astarion isn't as smooth a talker as he thinks he is. So. 30 years for Angilram. And no. Astarion does not admit to being the one who stole the crest. The crest being temporarily displayed by the fists in the city. The crest of lathander. This will be important later. Anyway he refuses to take responsibility for his actions.

For many many years they don't speak. Angel ends up rescued from jail by a priest of lathander that offers to rehabilitate her. Bc yk the crest that was stolen. It was a lathander relic. So she studies to become a cleric- but um is really bad at it. It becomes more and more clear tht while she's got the spark, she's an excellent healer and she's got determination to follow rules and true faith in Lathander… she just doesn't have what it takes to be a cleric.

'He' bursts into tears on the steps of the temple and actually ends up comforted by an owlin teacher's aid not much older thn him. Blah blah blah I'm not gonna get into all that but those two eventually fall in love (important for laterrrr) and Angilram (now going by Angelique and experimenting with their gender at the encouragement of their druid/cleric owlin partner who genuinely just wants Angel to be happy + constantly fucks with their own gender and general shape constantly lol) gets a letter.

It isn't the first time Astarion has sent Angelique letters, although it's very infrequent. Usually just mindless bragging and cruel barbs, but this one is kind of different. There's an undercurrent of you know. Something genuine, there. It's an invitation to see Astarion get sworn in as a magistrate, which has Angelique like. (???????) Like it confuses her but also makes perfect sense. Because like okay.

My interpretation of Astarion is pretty different thn most I realize. I see him as someone in his youth that was extremely lonely and probably has like a mild early onset of histrionic personality disorder… and he's kind of a nerd. Huge reader, writes a lot. Dabbles in poetry but is mostly an egotistical journaller who thinks all of his idle thoughts are worth millions of dollars when written down #ME!

Anyway he is above all like. Fake he's a liar a liar and only that is true, right, he's reading so much about these dashing heros and charming rogues and he wants to be that. He wants to be that so bad. So he basically practices to become it. He is not naturally charming by any means because he is insanely paranoid and his self esteem is kind of crazy dookie dogshit. I think he's truly always been dazzled by the idea of becoming a hero he finds such moral strength incredibly intoxicating and attractive and he also wants to be so grossly noble. So like as soon as he's gathered enough stolen jewelry and made enough money on quick schemes on the streets he pays his way into an exceedingly fancy Ye Olde Law School and hits the books with his 14 int and does okay enough he graduates and gets a job in the city. And he kind of wants to show off to his elder brother who swore he would never be anything but trouble, yeah. #HeyLookBrotherIMadeIt!

But also. He did want to get his brother out of jail. He just doesn't want to be the one to apologize for putting him there.

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i do feel like shriveled pim thinking about gale and angelique like. again it wasn't romantic at all but i do not think every extremely important relationship between characters has to be lmaoooo and she. will be haunted forever by the way she killed him. bc she fully blamed herself of course.

she was so so angry when he attempted to force her to become a mindflayer. he really did truly and genuinely think he was helping, that this would solve her pain, that she was the perfect candidate to take on the change when they freed the gith prince and its half the reason he even agreed when he absolutely favored a deal with the emperor. but he wanted angelique's pain to stop, and like, he can hate astarion's pasty ass all he wants but they do have similar issues when it comes to these things right they both think This Is The Only Way. Only way brainpoisoning.

So Astarion cringefail boyflops trying to lock her down as a vampire when he ascends and just eats shit and gale goes HEH... obviously Angelique would never agree to an eternity of undeath. She has suffered long enough, the yoke of undeath. She deserves life. She deserves ☝️ to be turned into a beautiful mindflayer. Her fantastic mind preserved and enhanced by the change.

And Angelique is like YOU. YOU TOO. YOU, GALE. YOU OUT OF EVERYONE?!? I EXPECTED THIS FROM ASTARION. He has NEVER respected my choices. I expected this from Shadowheart, she has never respected ME. BUT YOU. We were the best of friends. And he's like ?!?! Were....? And she's like WE AREN'T NOW!!!! I refuse I refuse to be changed AGAIN. I am constantly subjected to the sickening CRUNCHING AGONY OF BODILY CHANGE. CONSTANT. I REFUSE!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAA.

So he's tearing himself to shreds as they move towards the brain and he grasps Angelique near the brain once they move to confront it and he's like I think I have to do this on my own I have to detonate the orb I. I am sorry, Angelique. And Angelique is like so totally clocked out by this point listening to the dark lord make his evil ass vampire plans and Shadowheart madly mumbling about needing to spread the gospel of Shar in the Gate once this is all over and Angelique is just like yes. Yes, I suppose you must make your own choices, Gale. Everyone must. Goodbye.

And she will always be haunted by the fact she didn't try to stop him when she had been trying so hard for so long! To stop him! Only to give up at the last hurdle!!!! And he ofc dies thinking she would always hate him for the betrayal, for how he held her arms, and tried to push her forward, because he just wanted. Her pain to stop, and he knew she'd resist, because she hates mindflaters like she hated tieflings like she hates vampires because if theres one thing you can count on Angelique for it's to hold a grudge and he really. Wanted to help her.

But it wasn't just him the rest of them were also trying to fuckin' get Angelique to be the one to change #she's the one that's already dead! I can't even strictly yk. Fault them for that. But again the dark lord was right there. We need the dark lord on our side rn.

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so angelique. how it works is like this: she's attached to a body. it's not entirely her body. she stays attached to it until it rots away (agonizing process she feels every time) and has to possess a new one. she can only enter a body when it's on the verge of death. not a healthy body, and not a corpse. it's a small window of time she has and if she fucks the timing it assblasts her with (throws dart at board) 20 points of psychic damage and 10 points of force damage as she's ejected form the body. rotating from body to body is a hassle and has her identity in shambles by this point. she tries to salvage what flesh she can from her original body yk rips off her old parts to connect to the new but it's painful and wet and hateful.

also fantastic news i took a look at the monster manual and found an enemy monster that actually fits this idea of mine a bit! suits the angelique plot more. i assume she still thinks she's a wight but in truth she's a revenant

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I do think if Angelique is afab… well it lends itself to the constant way Vykrum gaslights and belittles her bipolarism. Women ARE rather TEMPERAMENTAL and prone to fits, aren't they? You're lucky Vykrum keeps that emotional head so empty. Angeliques job as Vykrum's right hand was basically to. Keep things organized. Given that Angelique is a… wight-ghoul-banshee-reborn thing. She's much more. Capable of higher thought then most zombies, even if much of that was stifled and shut off by the cocktail of spells on her. It made her an excellent lead for the other corpses Vykrum kept for experimentation. Vykrum's ongoing experiment to undo the concept of life and birth true death into the world. Angelique was meant to gather the best parts… limbs or otherwise. Organs. Such things. Sew up any empty spaces afterwards. Amongst other things.

Vykrum would take Angelique apart when they were done with her. Loan her out on occasion. Her head or her torso. Lots of people found uses for her. Usually she wasn't made conscious for it. Only the aftermath.

[stabknives]

to keep us safe. for good, he says. when have they ever been safe with each other. when have they not hurt each other. she wonders. it had been so good, up until they got down in that basement. she really thought she was talking him out of it. but then he had to say please. he couldn't ask anyone else. of course it had to be her. and he must've known what she was giving up to agree to help him. and he still asked it of her, because he wants them safe that badly. he wants to keep her safe (to keep himself safe with her) badly enough he'll take everything else away from her. when her oath breaks she's not surprised. just as she's not surprised she couldn't change him, deep down. but it still hurts.

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astarion is floored when angelique says no fuck araj. mostly bc up until this point shes made it no secret she thinks astarion is a mindless slut and a bloodthirsty idiot whose less thn savory skills should be used for the group regardless of how he feels about it. but nobody else was willing to help her steal the idol. so she paid him back with the necromancy of thay. and then he was like well i dont want to be in your debt. here. take the blood of lathander. you like lathander dont you. which deeply deeply touched angelique like i dont think he realized quite how much getting that stupid mace touched her heart. so he's... caught off guard when angelique steps in front of gale and vykrum who try to push astarion to get the potion from araj. and says no. he doesn't want to.

gale and astarion just dont like each other in general. probably because gale is a wizard and cazador is also, presumably, a wizard. gale and astarion are also the most ambitious characters in the party and i think that puts astarion off... gale doesn't really. ok gale weirdly gets a rep as someone who doesnt respect consent which is mean. bc its really only with astarion whom he doesn't care much for... idk. he wants astarion to use all the means at his disposal for the party but i dont think gale gets all of astarion's hangups. doesn't make gale a rapist he's just kind of sheltered.

anyway. angelique says no. we are not doing that. we dont need this stupid drows idiot potion. lets move on. and much like astarion doesnt understand why getting the blood of lathander was so important to angelique shes blindsided when he confesses how important turning araj down was. she tries to wave it off nervously joke that she could just steal the potion later. she knows the knock spell. she could find araj's room in moonrise and steal the potion. but now astarion is like YES. LETS! so they embark on another heist. and. steal the wrong potion. and argue about who gets to drink it. both of them insisting the other should get to have it (angel saying she's strong enough and that astarion needs the boost. astarion saying he wants to do something for her for once.) they end up splitting it and i must stress to you. it's not the potion of vigour. they both drink some random bullshit and get violently ill.