Gloriously Burdened

Tabata, Asta, Yuno, Noelle

You were so strong and resilient.

Thank you.

🖤 🍀 🐂

I get it, Thor is pissed at him for what he did on Earth, but then I remember, Thor did something similar on Jotunheim, and no one gave him shit for it except Odin, and that too was more of a quest for redemption through Mjiolnir than an actual punishment. Loki was not even given a proper trial, let alone any chance at redemption. No one asked him what the hell happened to him after he fell into the abyss.  Solitary confinement for the next 4k years. Nice.

Not even Frigga bothered to ask him what happened to him, and that is one problem I have with her. She visits Loki to remind him of his faults and of Odin’s ‘right’ decisions, but she doesn’t ask about Loki’s mental state. She doesn’t say that she is sorry for hiding the truth of his parentage, she doesn’t say it was wrong of Odin to teach him to hate the Jotuns as monsters, knowing that Loki was one. Nope. Not the kind of response I expected from a caring mother like her.

And I bet Odin just wanted to bury him in the depths of Asgard because he clearly didn’t serve the purpose he had been taken for. To Odin, Loki was a mistake, and what better way to deal with a mistake than to bury it forever. Loki has suffered mental and physical trauma at the hands of family and strangers alike, and yet, not one of them acknowledges it. Especially Odin. Like, nice one there dad-of-the-millennium, tell your adopted son he was meant to die, after he attempted suicide already. And if that isn’t enough to break him further, send him off to the dungeon to rot alone for the rest of his life so that he surely goes absolutely crazy before he dies. Awesome bit of parenting right there.

Why I like them

Why I don’t

Favorite episode (scene if movie)

Favorite season/movie

Favorite line

Favorite outfit

OTP

Brotp

Head Canon

Unpopular opinion

A wish

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen

5 words to best describe them

Characters who have to come to terms with a second chance at life they never asked for, my darlings.

And what I find interesting about it, is that this line perfectly encapsulates all his denial in this very moment.

He says it as if he wasn’t like them, as if he didn’t have decades of hatred inside of him. He can’t even begin to imagine how it feels? But, in truth, we know, by this point, that not only he can imagine, but that he feels exactly the same!

As I already explained here, he distances himself from the other spawns; as he did several times before.

He pretends they are not like him. He doesn't want to remember that he used to be just like them, and not so long ago: like his siblings, he wants to see them as if they were nothing, and he can't be as "pathetic" as them... right?"

It’s too hard for him to look at his past and to accept that he wasn’t so different from them. And it’s understandable.

There's another layer of shame here, and it's guilt. Because he was the tool who brought them here, whether he wanted it or not, he's involved in their damnation.

Wouldn't it be easier to make them disappear and pretend they never existed? So that he never has to look at his own shame again, shame of being like them, shame of being the one who doomed them.

Besides, Astarion also widens the gap between himself and the other spawns because he’s lured by the temptation of the ritual, and he knows they’ll be sacrificed if he ascends; so he’s desperate to find any excuse to justify their sacrifices, desperate to numb his guilt by pretending they are hopeless. As if saying: "We can't do anything for them, better make use of them through their destruction".

It’s easier to pretend they’re below him – nothing like him. To pretend there is nothing to expect from them, while he should be at the top. He needs to believe they have nothing in common to make their sacrifice easier to deal with.

But he’s a victim too. He used to be one of the “wretch’s servants” too for decades, and hatred fuels him too, just like it fuels them. As feral, as dangerous, as yearning for revenge.

And it blinds him: his fears, his guilt, his deep need to feel safe. The so called safety of the Ascension blinds him so much it keeps him from relating to the other spawns.

And yet, I tend to believe that, by belittling the other spawns, Astarion belittles himself (unconsciously or not); that’s why he thinks, in this very moment, that only the ritual can make him worthy, put him above them and rid him of his shame: let’s make them disappear so I don’t have to see them again, so I never have to witness my shame, so I never have to see those people who remind me of my own misery, of the slave I used to be.

He used to be one of those “scraps of misery”. But it’s too painful to acknowledge now, now that he’s finally free.

But he will acknowledge all this later on.

The words he says if he doesn’t ascend but if you kill the others spawns are relevant:

If you call the spawns "monsters", he makes it clear you could have said the same about him, and by doing that, he breaks down the wall he built between him and the other spawns: They are alike, there's no great difference between them.

He was just like them, their traumas and violence grow in the same gruesome cradle, and yet, he is not a "monster". Once free, he learned another way, made the best decisions for himself and others, and if he could do it, they could have done the same.

At first glance, Astarion looks immaculate. That’s part of the trick.

Too beautiful, really the kind of beauty people make excuses for, just to be close to it. He’s charming in a way that lands softly at first, like velvet over glass. His beauty is deliberate   the soft curve of his mouth, the glimmer in his eyes, the laugh that never quite reaches them.  His voice, smooth and cutting. His laugh, elegant and a touch too precise   like it was rehearsed. Like he knows what you want to hear and gives it to you before you even speak.

But if you watch long enough, things start to slip.

His hair is too white. Not silvery or aged, but clean, like bone stripped bare in the desert. It never moves in the wind quite right   too soft, too neat, like it's mimicking how hair should behave. It never gets tangled. It never lies flat for long. It moves like it has thoughts of its own when wind touches it.  When he runs a hand through it, it falls back into place like water returning to stillness. Tav once brushed a strand from his brow and thought for a breath it didn’t feel like hair at all.

His stillness is the first thing that feels wrong. Not the poised stillness of a nobleman or trained killer   but something older, something that doesn’t need to move unless it chooses to. When others are tired or hungry or overwhelmed, he stands perfectly composed  and that stillness is unnerving. He doesn’t fidget. Never scratches an itch.  Doesn’t tap his fingers or shift his weight. Never adjusts the fall of his cloak unless someone’s looking. He stands too still, like something holding its breath. And there’s the way he moves   fluid, yes, graceful, yes   but sometimes too quiet. You don’t hear him unless he wants to be heard. You think he left the room, and then he’s suddenly behind you, eyes curious, mouth smiling just a second too late. His footsteps make no sound unless he's pretending they do.

He is beautiful in the way a statue might be marble-pale and impossibly still. His skin is porcelain, yes, but not in the romantic way. Porcelain like a mask. Smooth, but too smooth. Pores are nearly invisible. No freckle, no mole, no scar. Light sits strangely on it, almost like it’s being repelled. His skin doesn’t glow so much as it reflects the world like porcelain under candlelight, never quite warming. He’s always the same  eternal. Preserved. His eyes red, yes  they do not glow, not really. But they catch. Sometimes they glint in the dark with a glimmer that isn't natural light a sharp flicker, like a cat’s. He doesn’t just look at people   he studies them, like a predator choosing the softest place to bite. But where a beast’s eyes are wild, his are watching. Calculating. He never blinks too much. Never too little. Just enough. Too precise. Like he’s mimicking humanity. Like he’s remembering how people behave, and doing it by muscle memory, not instinct. When he laughs, it’s too smooth. No vocal scratch, no hiccup, no breath. Just sound. And when he stops laughing, it’s instant. Like someone cut a string.

When he’s hungry, everything sharpens.

His smile slows. His head tilts. His eyes track movement with eerie precision. His pupils narrow like a cat's. The red in his eyes sharpens to crimson. His mouth parts   not wide, but just enough for you to see the tips of his fangs, longer than you remembered, sharper. His nails   manicured and clean   lengthen at the edges. And his hands those lovely, elegant hands they twitch at his sides. They look like they’d tear through silk or skin without effort.

It’s in the little things the way his shadow moves slightly out of sync with his body when the torchlight flickers, the way animals stare too long or go silent when he passes.

And yet, people are drawn to him. Like moths to flame. He doesn’t just act charming he feeds off the effect it has. The admiration. The attention. The closeness. He likes to be seen. He likes being beautiful.

But the truth is: beauty is bait.

And the predator underneath is always watching.

But Tav… Tav sees it all.

And doesn’t flinch.

And that, more than anything, makes him pause. Because predators know when something isn’t afraid.