I forgot to report that a few days ago Shen Jiu decided to confess to Ascended Astarion and the dickhead sent the god of mercury poisoning to turn him down instead of even showing up
Astarion getting the vampire equivalent of cuteness aggression towards Tav/Durge and doing that thing cats do where they just sort of put their teeth on you and bite, not enough to actually break skin, but just like. A little nip. It's something the two of them get used to very quickly and honestly they sort of forget how alarming it looks from the outside. The first time they're sitting around the campfire and Astarion just fucking. Leans over and straight up looks like he just bites Tav/Durge's shoulder Gayle damn near falls off the log he's sitting on.
Did I mention I have art for them? I’m travelling and literally all I have rn is pencil and paper so have some goofy ass colorless sketches I did in like 45 mins
Fish fic has been so hard for me to write (big climactic chapter, so much pressure 😭😭😭) so I decided to take a little break from it and try to find my Astarion POV voice again with the next project:
That idea where Gale was cursed to be a little porcelain doll. This sketch:
A snippet from the first draft belowwww
It was rare that Astarion pilfered anything he could not use. He didn't exactly have the best options for storage, nor could he afford to weigh down his satchel with too many indulgences, but this particular find... spoke to him.
Not dropped into the bag but instead tucked beneath his shirt, Astarion removed his peculiar new...
Well, perhaps at one point it was intended to be a toy, though he could hardly imagine anyone who would enjoy such a grotesque thing.
The doll was smooth, delicate porcelain in his hands, its sculpted features smoothed to a satin finish. Its joints were a bit stiff, unsurprisingly, as he found it at the bottom of a drawer and was likely filled with dust and debris. Cracks marred its chest and face, radiating from a small hole punched through its clavicle, and the snapped end of its forearm was crudely tied to its torso with a length of scratchy twine.
It wore no clothes, but the peculiar level of detail to its body made that fact uncomfortable to Astarion. Painted to include the faint blush around its nipples, wisps of body hair, and even a pair of twin scars beneath its pecs, Astarion held it in such a way that covered its more private areas.
He may have had no dignity left, but it comforted him to protect that of another.
Strangest, though, was its face.
Oh, it had handsome features. A strong jaw, a tidy beard, and dark, expressive brows. And its warm brown hair was sculpted into a fetching half-bun and detailed with streaks of dignified silver, but...
Its expression was nothing short of grotesque.
The work of someone who was clearly disturbed, the doll's face was screwed up into a look of absolute despair. Its face crumpled, lips curled into a steep frown, forehead creased, and streaks of shining glaze trailed down from its scrunched eyes.
It was grief, it was resignation, it was a face Astarion had seen countless times in the blood-stained chambers of the palace he'd been imprisoned in for years upon years upon years—
Naturally, Astarion had to take it.
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Astarion really said, "Ew it's so weird and gross I MUST have it." Love him.
Actually, my therapist has told me this is a healthy way of processing things. Because you can get the trauma out of your head And you can write the ending you wish it had. The trusted person rescue, the catharsis of getting to kill the one who hurt you.
It's good for your brain. It's healthier than bottling it up. Fiction is where we go for emotional release. That can be true with trauma too.
Adding @dear-massacre's tags because they are so true:
#this is why it's important to remember that fictional characters are fake #they have no agency. they're made up #it hurts no one to make any character go through the horrors #it is healthy and cathartic
pixelskylines
yousharknotpass
areudirty
kaledo-art
ellievsbear
vaporwave
germansingergirl
annaxmalina
stormborns
