Romance Asks

24. Is there any moment that happens between them that you know happens and just makes you melt? 

That epilogue opener is still fresh and screeching in my brain, so Astarion telling Mal that spending half a year with her is a counterweight to two centuries of pure misery is pretty huge. Makes me feel all 🥺🥲😍😭

I was also thinking about the description of his outfit in the epilogue and that thought took me somewhere. How they're both constantly traveling and there might not be a lot of time for finery. But! I figured it would be very sweet if one day she'd get him some spools of pretty gold thread so he could embroider those silvery elements on his clothes. They spend quite a lot of their off time (when they can't travel or between their trips) reading and playing card games and other uh less sophisticated activities, and Astarion is so much better with a needle than Mal, so it also gives him something to do!

They are not very "domestic cottagecore" together, but any sort of "more mundane" moments they have make me melt. The simple things, yes.

26. How important is the romance in your OC’s overall story? 

He's her first real partner and her first love, so it's a pretty big deal. And while Mal ends up tasting more than one kind of vintage eventually (as does Astarion), there's a reason why they're always drawn back to each other, even after spending years and years apart.

Sharing all that experience (lbh, the game takes your character through some really really wild stuff) forges a bond that's quite hard to sever, and her time with Astarion built some serious foundations for her as a person. Learning how to love, how to be vulnerable, how to let go, how to navigate the complicated feelings. But also a lot of practical things! Just seeing the world for the first time, him showing her things that make her gasp in awe! And, of course, exploring the world of pleasure and becoming more confidant in her own abilities as a partner and finding things she likes!

oc asks: not-so-nice edition

fear: What is your OC's greatest fear? What do they do when confronted with it? Are they open with their fear, or do they hide it away?

Her greatest fear is being tortured to death. Witnessing her mother's horrific murder (that lasted for days) is single-handedly the most traumatic event of Mal's life and all that fear and powerlessness is still like iron that's just sitting in the hollows of her bones, I don't think it will ever leave her. For Maleane, A'sherra was this untouchable force, someone you simply couldn't bring down, so to witness a woman like that being reduced to almost nothing paints a pretty good picture of the extent of the torture.

Mal deals with it the way she deals with all the other things that make her uncomfortable — by pretending it does not affect her. But, just like all the other things that bother her, it brings her fingertips to the buttons of her shirt, to the edges of her gloves, or any loose threads sticking out of her clothing. She can stomach quite a lot, but even Maleane has her limits and I do see her trying to remove herself from any situation that reminds her of her fear and the memory that birthed it.

She would definitely hide it. And, I think, she learnt how to shut parts of herself off to keep up the appearances, but just because you bottle something up, doesn't mean it's not going to come out. No wonder she had those "hold on, i need a minute" moments where she'd just run off deep into the forest and scream at the top of her lungs have violent magical outbursts. No one ever taught her how to deal with emotions in a healthy way, so that's what we're working with right now.

hate: What does your OC hate? Why? How do they act towards the object of their hatred?

As in what she hates, being a true hypocrite, she hates being manipulated. She hates someone trying to fool her the way she'd do herself. Mal also hates it when they judge her based on what she is and not who she is.