Scribbly doodling from recently as I've failed to muster more serious art but have managed to rally to noodle a bit about possible Reflection designs. Yrliet is also here, and not related to anything else. I just hoped she would make the other images smaller.
Alistair I am so sorry for leaving this in my inbox for five million years I spent a lot of time. Thinking about weapons. And what would be interesting to say about them. I am 90% sure that this is one I haven't posted on main before I hope that it is okay that it is gate related
Also I assume?? DUrge-y stuff is okay to read?? But in case I have put it under the readmore here is the alternate post kind of if it is not. It's about weapons if you squint
[prompt]
I know it’s a really popular headcanon for Bloodthirst to have originally belonged to the Dark Urge, but I like making up my own things sometimes and this is one of those times. Asperia’s favored weapons were a pair of shortswords (daggers? The distinction doesn’t really matter idk), Gula and Nausea. The twin blades were gifted to him when he finally cemented his place both as Bhaal’s Chosen and the leader of the cult around age 12, and they remain bound to him through the tattoos on his back that allow them to be summoned by reaching back as if they were sheathed at the shoulder. Although the whole tadpole head injury situation leads to them being forgotten for a time, they’re still there, always waiting to be called to their master’s bidding.
The two blades are identical in appearance- both curved, serrated things studded with ruby teardrops in an echo of the blood on the symbol of Bhaal- but they are distinct from one another in the enchantments they carry. Gula, the Blade of Eternal Hunger, leaves wounds that resist healing- even the smallest scratch will bleed without stopping, and no mundane medicine can close these wounds. Indeed, even magic must overcome the resistance of the blade to denial: weak spells and weak casters have no more ability to staunch the flow than an average person armed with nothing but bandages and prayer. On the other hand Nausea, the Blade of Perpetual Indulgence, clouds the mind and leaves the limbs clumsy and unreliable. Victims of Nausea’s cruel edge struggle to see the state they’re in as they fight for their lives, and struggle harder to force a body that seems to move of its own accord to allow them to make their stand or flee. Even a series of shallow wounds with the twin blades will leave victims dying an agonizing, prolonged death, helpless to save themselves.
Despite the lethal proficiency of their past, Kasander takes a long time to become as competent a combatant post-tadpole as they were before because so little of their bone-deep knowledge of Gula and Nausea translates to the rapier, their new weapon of choice. In many ways they’re hobbling themself by stubbornly clinging to the rapier instead of using something more like Gula and Nausea, if not the cruel twin blades themselves. To them, it shows their commitment to change- although it doesn’t mean the blades are never used.
Thanks for sending these in!! I haven't had time to sit down and write them out but they've been Stewing in my brain the whole time
[prompt list]
hc + 🤝 for a headcanon about a connection with one of the receiver's mutual
So many beautiful possibilities here but I gotta go with the iconoclasts <3 I think if you put them together Kasander would absolutely follow Vio around and bother him to teach them Aeldari signs and gestures. They want to know!! It’s interesting to them, just like the psychic communication is interesting to them. And they want to communicate with him and with the xenos they encounter.
I think in general they’d be the kind of person who was hard to shake- they see in him something of a mirror of their own situation. Their mutations have often led to them being treated with the suspicion of a xenos, and yet he’s lived the life of one despite a far more human appearance. And his life seems to have been a liberated one suddenly curtailed by being pulled into the Imperium, something they feel strong empathy for. There’s curiosity there, and kinship, but also a strong sense of protectiveness, perhaps.
hc + ⏳ for a time-themed headcanon
I did BOTH and somehow Ismene cheated her way into both. Just tends to happen talking about time around them…
40k
Asperia’s birth was foreseen centuries in the past by Ismene von Valancius, the bastard prophetess of the von Valancius family. Ismene’s machinations would ultimately lead to a major purge of the family for heresy which it barely survived, but it mattered not, for this too was foreseen. Asperia’s descent can be traced through Ismene’s half-brother, a psyker who was claimed by the Tithe and spent much of his life away from the family.
The descendants of this line, created by the cursed sorceress’s meddling, would ultimately become a voidship clan in the lower decks of a great imperial cruiser and become known for distinct patterns of mutation and a strong propensity for sorcery. Asperia is the last of this clan- while the awakening of their extraordinary psychic powers was a violent and destructive event, the ultimate demise of the house came at the hands of enforcers who exterminated the remainder soon after for their genetic impurities and sorcery. But in the midst of this Asperia, the strongest child the line had seen since Ismene von Valancius, was taken away on a Black Ship, never to know the fate of those left behind.
Gate
It’s in my “the canon timeline of FR is fucking stupid” heart that Asperia wasn’t “born”/imbued with life in the divine flesh until Bhaal’s revival, so that for me is 27 years before the start of the game. Don’t ask me about any canon events in FR right now that didn’t happen in a gate game. I’m scared. I’m not parsing that right now. Maybe I’ll fix my shit later but not now. Asperia’s birth is one of many divine signs that the Lord of Murder hath returned to the world after so many decades of death and dormancy. And of course, the day of Asperia’s birth is also the day of Ismene’s death: publicly assassinated by the last of her accursed kin.
The Bhaal cult, only barely slithering by in the palest shadow of existence, has no capacity to care for their infant overlord. Within hours of the birth Bhaal’s emissary Scleritas has spirited them away and gifted them to a humble family in the Lower City, where Asperia will be raised for about the next five years before being reclaimed by a much more stable cult.
hc + 🚶♂️ for a habit-themed headcanon
Gate time. Kasander’s stance with rapier is fucking awful. Their lethality with the weapon comes from a lot of compensation via divine instinct and ability, and all of that comes out to being “better than average but not exactly extraordinary.” The reason for this, of course, is that rapier wasn’t a weapon Asperia was ever given much training with. It’s a pretty weapon, an honorable dueling weapon. It’s not the tool of an assassin or someone who engages in combat far beyond the scope of a duel. What Kasander’s body remembers is how to use edged blades and small piercing daggers, and how they stand tends to reflect how they would have once held Gula or Nausea, Asperia’s shortswords. Wyll spent a lot of time trying to help them learn to use rapier properly, and his coaching is to thank for pretty much all of their improvement. Shields they had to learn entirely from the ground up. Again, thank Wyll for the help.
Late as hell because I got carried away but HAPPY TRANSGENDER DAY OF EASTER GAMERS. From me and a selection of character which is Eclectic To Say The Least, as I got lost in the silly sauce after originally intending to do just Balthazar and Tristian and then Needing to maximize the number of bunnies I was drawing.
Thank you very much to @mountainashfae for letting me borrow Vio in the center left, @camelliagwerm for Veszeth in the center (sorry they wound up tucked in the back I forgot about ears when planniiiiing), and my friend who is not on social media for Lerziak over on the right. And apologies as always to Owlcat Games for stealing Tristian for my nonsense. Hope everyone has been having a good week so far <3
3 and 4 from the ask list? or any that'd you'd be excited to answer?
Thank you Alistair!!! I have done my best but this has made me remember I am. Highly incoherent trying to explain why music sticks to things in my brain. I hope. Something gets through here.
[prompt list]
This went under a cut because I, writing this late at night, also got out of control wordy. Not my best stringing thoughts together
3) What song describes your OC?
I have many ungodly OC playlists but because this is dealer's choice I need to show you the song that has been RUINING MY LIFE over Kasander for the past week and a half, the week and a half it has been out there, sorry
(if the spotify thing turns out fucked up sorry I'm not fixing it I do Not understand that website)
At the very least, paladin DUrge is clear cut here I think. Kasander has this bright spark of hope to them, this optimism about the world and joy in existing in it, that's constantly at war with the reality that they actually exist in- the skin they live in, the person they are.
You can see it. It is clear.
The song just conveys a whole arc (which is of course for the character of Don Quixote, amnesiac vampire, in the game it's actually from) that for me really really maps onto Kasander's over the course of BG3. Especially recovering the understanding of their actual reality, because Kasander starts the game certain from what little information they have that they are a paladin and must be a Hero and a Good Person and it does break them a little to know that they were the furthest thing from that and parts of them still cling to that existence. But there's also that movement towards acceptance, assimilating the harsh truth and still maintaining a sense of identity. And this repeated line near the end stands out to me as well.
To me the real character breakthrough they have post-amnesia isn't really that they become a Good Person, it's that for the first time in their life they become able to see themself in their entirety, with all their conflicting desires and experiences. There are parts of them they don't understand and which frighten them, and also some of those initially incomprehensible parts have given them the ability to move forward in a life of hardship. Asperia could never accept those paradoxes, was too afraid of them to begin to untangle them. And that's why Asperia could never see herself completely- it was too terrifying to imagine that a part of him was "Kasander" and held so many forbidden desires and urges. To see themself and embrace themself- the parts of them that are Kasander, that are Asperia, that are neither- that's the self-actualization baby!!!!!! Or the beginning, at least. This is such a waving my hands wildly Understand My Vision but like. Understand my vision. If you do not know Kasander that's okay the song is perfect it all makes sense here just listen to the song it will all be clear
(kas quixote to back my words)
4) What song describes your OC and their partner/love interest?
Okay back to Kingmaker. Although Sarenrae it's hard to actually narrow this down because 1) the playlist is Long and 2) in 2020 it seemed like a great idea to organize it chronologically and that makes it Weird to pick out any one thing as the Definitive Song. Genius move, past me.
Anyway this might be an Insane Pick vibes wise out of everything but it's a good one for pulling lyrics without having to endlessly contextualize in timeline
yes I know it's seven minutes long.
*points* understand my vision. you know. it's like. you know.
But more importantly, this chorus
Like there's really a big like. Core of it to me. That they aren't really alike in a lot of ways, but that they kind of come to see each other and for each to understand the precarious position the other stands in. The unbalanced sense of self, the pull of so many obligations, so many masks. And I guess to me there's something very precious about having someone who releases you from the obligation to have the right desires, even if you don't share them.
I guess a lot of that also comes to my read on Tristian, which I know not everyone shares- I see Tristian as strongly driven by a need to align sense of ideal self with actual self. As we meet them, Tristian is a failed angel in the most literal sense, having lost their supernatural status entirely. But like... before that, Tristian still had a sense of needing to be someone/being owed recognition as something that they were not. The desire for recognition as an exceptional person and as a hero and as something above their station- it's both striving higher than they stood and also sinking beneath what they're meant to be, because that hubris has an impurity to it. Being an angel, being an angel in a particular way, feeling like they exist in the world wrong, and then having that snatched away again and being confronted with the starkest ways they fail to exist as an "angel" in any way.... I'm compelled by the way humanity clings to Tristian. Human ambitions, human follies, human failures, human desperations for safety and glory and acknowledgement. The release from the need to pretend at humanity or to exist as a perfect angel. That's what I mean.
I feel like I do so much Balthazar posting that the opposite is probably pretty obvious, but like- and this is some story arc thing- also in reverse, the understanding that Balthazar is not, never has been, and does not desire to be an angel, something that many people have refused to see in him. That he clings desperately to what is petty and mortal and flawed in himself and makes a shield out of his ugliest pieces, and also that the need to define himself against his heritage has slowly carved away at what he feels he can be, whether he realizes it or not. He has a brightness that's his own, a vivacity that peeks through the layers of performance and sometimes makes them real. And there's not any reason to change to nurture that. It's always there, it's always been there. It just goes unseen.
Anyway this stuff about hidden pieces and the public eye vs. the private self, this is what I mean with it. The not changing. Not becoming someone else. That it's enough to see and accept and see again. Thumbs up
I was going to put a more fun and tonally appropriate song at the end as the extra thing but actually I saw this out of the corner of my eye and needed to be Deeply Unserious instead
This is. Not representative of the playlist I think. Good god
I have One Thing Only and that is angels. A demigod can be like an angel, maybe. The mood of this wound up almost the polar opposite of my original idea.
I like the line art better than either color version, so it's under the crop.
The sketch went through about a dozen changes to both expressions and face positions, and in the end I'm still not really satisfied even if I like how Asperia came out.
