Okay but since vampirism is apparently curable in dnd 5e, a concept: astarion who can now see his reflection whenever he wants, but he's so used to not having one that every time he unthinkingly walks past a reflective surface it startles the fuck out of him. He's forgotten his own face: it takes a moment to register that that's him. Which is fine and understandable but doesn't make it any less funny for his lover whenever he suddenly lunges sideways and does the Get Out Of My Personal Space hiss at his own reflection because Something Moved Unexpectedly in the corner of his eye
BG3. Wyllstarion + Tadpolycule. Fanart for "this night is for them" by @captainraptures which is Wyll/Astarion centric with a lovely tadpolycule dynamic.
Pairing: Polyam!Camp (is there a proper name for this?). Tadpolycule. Everyone's dating everybody else. Because I said so.
Summary: A bunch of headcanons/thoughts on bathing at camp, because I care about the mundane stuff going on when these guys aren't fighting all day long.
A/N: Tav/Reader is gender neutral and is left racially ambiguous, but has curly hair, because as a curly girlTM I am biased and thought this would be really cute.
-Bathing is usually a solitary affair, that is until you get more comfortable with the others. Wyll and you are the ones that - completely innocently, by the way - start bathing together. Wyll can obviously take care of himself, but it's just nice to know he has someone at camp who understands how much work and care curly hair needs
-You two end up bonding over hair care. Whenever you meet a merchant, you two keep an eye out for oils and soaps that the other could need
-Wash day becomes a fun activity more than a chore - you and Wyll help each other detangle your hair, and in Wyll's case, after a bit of practice, you help him braid his hair. He can do it by himself, but especially now that he has these horns, it just goes by much faster when he has you to help
-Astarion initially teases you about sneaking off to 'bathe' with Wyll. It's not until he realizes that you two are essentially having a spa day in the wild that he goes all "oh thank heavens finally someone who understands" and practically demands to join you
-Astarion's a curly girl too, and one with fancy tastes to boot. He loves exchanging hair care tips with you and wash day becomes a way for him to understand that nudity and physical closeness does not immediately mean sex
-Shadowheart eventually joins you because, Lady of Sorrows, long hair like hers is a hassle. Having people who will happily help rinse out her hair and scratch her scalp while they're at it is a blessing
-Astarion will sometimes braid Shadowheart's hair for her. He likes coming up with elaborate updos, and she ends up looking like an elven princess every single time
-Shadowheart also brings wine to wash day. It becomes a wonderful bonding-bitching session every time wash day rolls around
-Karlach joins because you one day realized that when she's submerged in cool waters and separated from your skin through a cloth or sponge, you can actually (somewhat) touch her. It's her chance to get some form of physical touch in, so she's taking whatever she can get
-She also has a lot of fun splashing Astarion when he gets too mouthy with all of you
-Lae'zel is the opposite of Karlach. Why would she waste her time splashing about like children when she could simply rinse herself off quickly and be done with it?
-But getting crusted blood and guts out of her hair sucks, and she usually rips through it with a comb. You and Wyll at least have the patience to be gentle
-She pretends to hate every second of it, but secretly loves it. Please, someone get Lae'zel a proper spa day, she deserves to relax!
-Gale strikes me as the type of man (that I unfortunately see far too often) that actually has proper wavy hair or even curls, but just has no idea what to do with them and as such simply brushes them out
-Astarion and you sit Gale down one wash day and do a proper curl routine on him. It's glorious, his hair has never looked healthier and some waves and a few stray curls do end up coming in
-The two of you make him swear to never brush his hair out like that again. He's far too handsome to ever go back to brushing out his waves every day
-Gale does know his way around beard care! And with beard care comes some knowledge of skin care
-(I'm totally not using the VA's DnD one shot to make Gale out to be a skincare person)
-On the rare occasion the group has time to relax, Gale and Astarion are in charge of the skin care. Facemasks for all, and yes, even you Lae'zel, stop scowling
-Wyll usually doesn't grow his beard out too long, but with a bit of Gale's coaxing (and super-soft hands when massaging his face), he can be convinced to wear a beard. Sometimes. He's not quite sure if he likes that look on himself, but Gale, as well as Lae'zel, are very big fans
-Once Halsin comes joins camp, he doesn't need a lot of convincing to join them. After all, this is the best way to bond, bare, amongst nature
-Shadowheart, Astarion and you always end up playfighting on who gets to help Halsin with his lovely hair, who gets to help him scrub...
-Wash day is overall a fun occasion, sometimes horny, sometimes not, but regardless, you all enjoy it enough to have it be a routine, one that will be sorely missed once this adventure is over
Bonus thoughts:
-Jaheira reluctantly (but eventually quite happily) joining in on wash day. Her hairstyle looks so tedious, give her a helping hand!
-Bath days for Scratch and the Owlbear Cub. Chaos ensues.
(catstarion is based heavily on pangur of @pangur-and-grim fame. i dont know if this counts as pangur fanart)
[Image description: a painting of the origin characters of Baldur's Gate 3 as cats. The first image is the full picture and the second image is a close-up. Gale is a brown tabby-and-white cat, curled up and resting with his front legs stretched out in front of him. Shadowheart is a black and silver tabby cat, kneading biscuits on Gale's flank. Lae'zel is a bengal cat, leaning over Gale and staring at Shadowheart. Wyll is a black cat with significant rusting on his chest, back, and tail, lying neatly in a loaf-like position between Gale and Astarion. Astarion is an albino oriental shorthair curled around Wyll and resting his chin and front paw on Gale's rear. Karlach is a big red tabby who is leaning with her front paws on Astarion. End ID]
First tumblr post ever, just to share this bg3 headcanon with no one in particular.
I read a lot of fanfics that characterize Astarion as being unwilling to talk about his past or get too close to the other companions, but when you play the game he’s the character with the most to say about himself and his trauma. He overshares, even.
I think Astarion has no idea how to be normal around people. He’ll tell you all about his trauma like it’s nothing because he’s used to that trauma being shared among everyone he knows. His true vulnerabilities are much harder to put into words anyway.
Astarion hasn’t ever been alone, as far as he can remember. He wasn’t Cazador’s first spawn, so even in the earliest days of his life (as he knows it), there was always someone there who shared his circumstances. He spent 200 years living in a dormitory with six other spawn who were also being tortured. They didn’t all like each other, but that didn’t matter.
Their continued association wasn’t dependent on any kind of social contract. They didn’t need to be nice, they could even be openly cruel, but they weren’t always openly hostile, either. That would be exhausting, and some degree of cooperation is required for six people to share a single bath, after all. They might backstab or torture each other, but after a particularly brutal day they could still take their rest in a dogpile of bodies, just for the comfort of gravity. Moments of kindness or cooperation aren’t more or less meaningful than moments of cruelty. They’re all just raw and naked around each other all the time.
Concepts like forgiveness were irrelevant. No one had the option of storming off or walking away. Nothing they did or said to each other would change the fact that they were the only people they knew—the only people who would ever be around long enough to feel real.
So when Astarion finds himself bound by circumstance to another group of people… that feels normal. What isn’t normal is the way they all hold themselves apart from each other. He needs to be careful about offending them, which is new to him. They’re all so precious, treating every transgression against their sensibilities like a wound. There’s a score being kept. Conflicts require resolutions because hurt feelings create permanent injuries to the relationship if left to fester. Needing to be near the prism means one person might not have the option of walking away, but the group has the option of leaving someone behind.
Until now, the only creatures in Astarion’s world who required such careful handling were either predators (Cazador and whoever he delegated authority to) or prey (the hapless victims being lured back to the palace every night). That makes being touched unexpectedly feel like a threat. These people feel like littermates and enemies and victims all at the same time and it’s confusing.
Astarion is too sharp with his companions, too callous, but he’s also open with them in a way that cultivates closeness. He’s used to being crowded in among other beings so closely that the edges overlap. He’s never had privacy, he’s never had anything that belongs to only him, so it makes him seem too familiar with the others (even if he hisses at anyone who gets too close). He flirts and fights and overshares with them and eventually it helps them all get closer.
This flows into another bit of headcanon that I have—namely the tadpoles and how it puts them all in each other’s heads all the time. There are no private conversations, there are no private moments (except for Gale, whose mind is a fortress). A psychic conversation might require conscious effort but raw emotions flow between them unbidden. Anxiety, anger, desire—they share it all.
How lonely it must be, then, when the tadpoles dissolve and they are left alone with their thoughts again. The silence must be devastating.
Edit: I was still thinking about this so I made a meme about it
