#larkstarion

(I'm screaming, crying, screeching and climbing walls)

Thank you so much for the tags, @rubyeyebabybat @hellethil @vividiana @alliskit @toomanyfamiliars and anyone else who tagged me and i missed the notification for it(┬┬﹏┬┬)

Here is something that will be part of my upcoming longfic that will be published after CIBG is finished- another Larkstarion story, this time set during the events of the game!

Putting it under the cut because. MDNI

My vision for this was for it to be a sort of "cover" image for Can I Be Good? and Marina took my idea and made it into something so, so much more perfect than I ever could have imagined.

Thank you so much🖤

HELLO EVERYNYAN!!!

I'm alive, and I'm slowly but surely hacking away at chapter 16 of CIBG!!! Numerous friends tagged me on wip and snippet posts in the past few months and I'm sorry that I haven't been able to share much, but I finally have more to share, and I'm very excited for this chapter, so I hope you enjoy!! Thank you to the lovely people who have tagged me recently, @strixamans @njuta @alliskit @rubyeyebabybat and @roguishcat ! Thank you to everyone who has not given up on me🖤 AND OF COURSE, HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!🖤🖤🖤

When Jaheira told him Minthara was a difficult person, Astarion hadn't exactly known what she meant. It is with an incredible degree of irritation that he realizes now that Minthara is a difficult person because she is, in fact, quite similar to him in the way she operates her business. He will have to thank Jaheira for this one later. "Are you sure, then, that there isn't anything else you can tell me about her?" Minthara asks him as they stand side by side under the rain, right outside the abandoned warehouse a forty-five minute drive north of the city. It's dark, and Astarion isn't happy about the state of his hair. "Just like I told you the other six times you asked," he says through a forced smile, gritting his teeth, "Yes, I'm sure." "Hmph." Astarion wonders if the drow ever smiles. Or feels any emotion other than annoyance. "This is where they congregate," she says, lowering her voice as they start walking toward the building. There doesn't seem to be any lights on inside, but he also knows that Araj and her minions would not need any. They're hiding, after all. "The chemist is preparing something. A potion." "I could have told you that without any of this," Astarion whispers. Minthara stops in her tracks abruptly to shoot him a furious look, almost making him run into her. "I've been familiar with the inability of jaluk to listen for a long time, but you seem to go above and beyond in that regard, lordling," she spits. Great. He's paying to be insulted in Undercommon, now. Before he can retort, the sound of different voices coming from the entrance to the warehouse freeze both of them in place. Minthara, as difficult as she can be, is also quick, and crouches under one of the windows on their lefthand side, gesturing for Astarion to do the same. He hides next to her, ears perked up. As Minthara told him on their way here, there are a lot more questionable things going on in there than Araj extorting a few lowly vampire spawns for her own sick fantasies. If she is right, then— That vile wretch is building an army. The voices start quieting down. "Do you know what kind of potion she's preparing, then?" "She has your lover's blood, does she not?" Minthara asks back. The word lover rings in his mind— not… unpleasant. New. He's had lovers, more than he can count. But Lark… Just that morning, when she asked him to not bury things— and burying things has been all Astarion has ever known— what exactly was he about to tell her?

Thank you SO much for the tags, @njuta and @loserscardigan ! This was a lot of fun to sit down and think through. I'm sending lots of love to you both🖤

The fic

Can I Be Good?

Rating

Explicit

Pairing

Astarion x F!OC

Completion status

Ongoing. I have 2 or 3 chapters left until this fic will be complete!

Plot Summary

Mysterious owner of the most popular nightclub of Baldur's Gate needs an assistant to help him organize a winter masquerade no one will ever be able to forget.

Astarion Ancunín is the most powerful vampire to have ever existed. Lark Promise awakens in him what he sought to get rid of: his hunger.

They could bring each other ruin, but maybe, just maybe- they could save each other.

The ✨viibees✨

Very romantic, very passionate, quite magical- and sexy!

Short snippet

From chapter 13 of Can I Be Good?:

“All I mean to say is— I think we’re all hungry for something.” He narrows his eyes at her, cat-like. “I’m not trying to be poetic. I just… I think in all of us, there is a hole that we try to fill, as long as we live. I think you’re hungry for more than just blood.”

“What am I hungry for, then, according to your astute observations?”

She smiles wide. “I don’t know. But I think your hunger and mine might be more similar than you think.” After a pause, she goes on, “Would you like to find out together?”

“Are you asking me out?”

“Would you like me to?”

What other media inspired this fic?

Honestly, anything that glorifies nightclubs lol. And music. A LOT of music. Here's a playlist of every single song that made this fic happen.

What character trait did you amplify or minimise to make your version of a character work for your story?

I love writing Astarion, all versions of him; but I'd be lying if the version of Ascended Astarion I write is the one we see in the game. I guess my aim in this fic is to write an Astarion that is very much the combination of his two possible endings. I wouldn't say I'm necessarily amplifying or minimizing any one of his specific traits- just exploring what he might have been like if he went through with the Ascension ritual but came to regret it later.

How did your understanding of the characters change while writing this?

Writing Astarion has definitely made me fall deeper in love with him, lol. I always say that writing him and Lark is extremely precious to me; as if in the moments that I'm writing them, they're real; and I get to spend time with them.

Writing Lark, on the other hand, has been a healing journey for me- for those of you that don't know, Lark is largely a self insert. Writing about her traumas, her experiences and her desires have been very helpful to me as not just a writer but as a person.

What’s one thing you put in—trope, character beat, scene—that was just extra shamelessly self-indulgent?

Lines that I take from the game and place in my fic are definitely self-indulgent. I would say though that even just writing Lark was a self-indulgent choice for me. I wanted a story that would make me happy.

What’s the structural choice you made on purpose—POV, timeline, chaptering—that most shaped the story?

Definitely timeline and POV. Modern AU's are some of my favorites, and even before I had any ideas about what this fic would be, I knew I wanted it to be a modern AU. As for the POV- it alternates between Lark and Astarion, and that wasn't originally what I was going to do with this fic, but I really wanted to write Astarion's POV and I think it has worked quite well.

What was the biggest risk you took with this fic?

I think writing this version of Astarion has been a risk. I haven't had any awful feedback or anything but it's always my fear that I tick people off by writing him the way I write him.

Thank you so much for the tags, @irondeficienttav, @vividiana, @xxnashiraxx and @loserscardigan 🖤 Music is such a huge motivator to me with my writing and prompts like this are RIGHT up my alley!

I might get yappy so putting stuff below the cut.