#sswcbh

“Of course… Thaniel is trapped in the Shadowfell, but thanks to your efforts, and with Silvanus’ guidance, I know almost exactly where he will be. Now I must go there – alone.” “What?” Astarion had stiffened, thinking of their journey to the realm not so long ago for Shadowheart. Greyed and faded and dark, chains of shadow filling the sky, fierce, cool wind biting at their cheeks. “I thought you’d at least drag the cleric in with you. He’s travel-sized! But now – you’ve decided to kill yourself?” ~ (Or, Halsin has his final grandstand with Shar, and Astarion is simply along for the ride.)

6.6k words. Enemies to friends to lovers. Slow burn. Feelings realization. Canon-typical violence. Angst with a very happy ending. Temporary character death lol. Whump. Confessions.

[Installment 9 in my Bloodbear saga and probably my favorite one so far. (: Each chapter is its own separate character study for the dear and awful vampire, but it definitely holds more weight altogether.

pt. 1

series page]

"Remember, I’m your friend, here…” Astarion muttered, leaning in to begin picking the neck chain’s mechanism. Astarion’s throat ran dry. His breathing was shaky. He miserably hoped the bear didn’t notice. The clasp came undone in Astarion's hands, the chain then falling to the floor with a clank. An orange burst of light appeared before them, bringing a sense of relief to the party. This was him then. Halsin. A silhouette of a large man appeared in the light, truly confirming it, and as the light faded, Astarion let out a surprised scream as the massive elf suddenly dived forward and tackled him. ~ (Or, Halsin and Astarion reunite, after curious and bitter circumstances a century ago. Give or take.)

4.7k words. Enemies to friends to lovers. Slow burn. Mild canon divergence. Alternate first meetings. Angsty. The one where I write so many words of them trying to kill each other and then chilling out.

[Installment 3 in my Bloodbear saga (: Each chapter is its own separate character study for the dear and awful vampire, but it definitely holds more weight altogether.

pt. 1

series page]

kinda back on my bullshit and have brain rot for him and my fic today...

idk it's just so interesting to play as a gnome in the game. i think the struggles and bigotry towards small folk/gnomes specifically in the game is overshadowed by the highlighted tieflings and drow, which is totally fair, but also then when you're rolling around as this murderous little gnome and people are freely threatening you and the party thinks it's lowkey funny... creates an insane vibe lmao. like hooking up with astarion specifically as a gnome lowkey an act of masochism until act 3. (not that callix helps his "beastly gnome" stereotyping at all.) and then having callix as durge as well fixes so many plot holes if you play as a small race tbh because literally at every turn gnomes are being enslaved by the absolutists and its like.. what in Garl Glittergold's name let this fool just be tadpoled instead of put to work... and then the trio of Ketheric, Gortash and Orin is even more insane because the most efficient out of all of them is a pint-sized murder machine.

Halsin caught his wrist as it descended, holding it tightly. “Fucker! I hate you!” “Astarion, please-” The druid’s tone sounded more weary than desperate, and to add to Astarion’s confusion, his free arm only pulled Astarion closer. The spawn howled and kicked at him, but Halsin kept an arm hooked around his waist, despite Astarion beginning to scratch up parts of his broad chest with his nails. Desperate to cause the druid any form of harm. Astarion felt something press into his back and his body seized suddenly then, feeling as though a cool wave had flowed over him, and he went lax. Halsin freed his wrist to grab at his mask and rip it off, tossing it across the room. Astarion collapsed momentarily against the wood elf, regaining his bearings. His face was soaked, his head ached in the way only the tadpole caused, and his body was still trembling, but he was in it again. - (Or, the one where Astarion temporarily succumbs to Ethel.)

5.1k words. Enemies to friends to lovers. Whump. Angst w/ a satisfying ending. Hurt/comfort. Warning: Major Cazador Szarr mention ew.

[Installment 4 in my Bloodbear saga and one of my favorites (: Each chapter is its own separate character study for the dear and awful vampire, but it definitely holds more weight altogether.

pt. 1

series page]

making Callix memes because i'm slowly plotting act three of We Can Be Heroes where he gets his lil supporting arch and i also have been thinking about writing some about his pre-canon adventures with The Three Idiots but especially Gortash (once i am free from academic prison ofc)

In which I've written 40k words of Astarion character analysis fanfiction and I'm definitely still normal.

Astarion used to be blue, but ever since that night two centuries ago, he was reborn red. And he had spent at least the past century thinking that red was irreplaceable. It was – red, it was in his blood and the little blood Cazador would let him wring from rats, corroded and stained. His very life force. He was Cazador’s, his spawn, his jewel, his ruby. There was no cure for red. Not until you became the successful means to an end. He had been sure of it. Being red wasn’t good. It made everyone who wasn’t red, and that felt like most everyone, stare at you like you put off a certain aura… like they knew you were a monster that could only act off of instinct and emotion. And it was so frustrating, because parts of Astarion were blue still, knew what was better, but they were nothing in comparison to the suffocation of red. The emotions, and especially anger, fear, came on so strong. It was hard not to act on them, to test out what the boundaries of pure action were. Astarion knew the color and impulse all too well.

I expand way more on the idea of people as colors within my writing than Autobiography of Red does, where Geryon is the only one who is red. This further pushes Geryon's feelings of being separated from humanity in his narrative, but there's a lot of inherent evil and fucked up things within Faerun so I felt expanding on colors and specifically shades/hues was a better way to communicate this for Astarion.

Geryon's red is tied very instinctually to emotion though, and so representing red as a chaotic force of emotion in my fic didn't feel like too far a step. I took a lot of inspiration from Magic: the Gathering's color pie lol. While you never get an exact description of what's wrong with Geryon, you get a lot of the symptoms, reminiscent of some sort of innate childhood mental illness, on top of the obvious trauma present in his story.

Back to Astarion, though. I've just never not been able to code him with CPTSD, I think that's obvious, but I also know that poor bastard has a personality disorder skffkjdf. The game always hammers in he has no sense of self outside of his looks, which he can't even be sure of because he can't see himself. Astarion has to work his confidence and self-image off of memories of his body and face from two centuries ago, and from his master's word. Cazador has assigned him to this seduction role (or, I feel its at least implied that Astarion was ultimately forced into it because he was seen as the Szarr runt, he was pretty and easy to push around, and I'm also pretty sure Petras has a line about getting to eat dogs now and then?) and Astarion fulfills it because it's all he can do. All he feels good for. His actions aren't his own for two hundred years, and in a morbid way of coping with constant sexual trauma, he functions off of "Well, at least I'm pretty," but even that assumption comes from Cazador's rule.

Astarion had decided he was mostly pure red, splashes of black and blue coming in, bright and visible. The remnants of his past and an even deeper level of Cazador’s corruption, bruising his psyche.

Carson is again sparing with other color imagery as to fully emphasize Geryon feeling like this big red monster, but I love this little excerpt on fearful anger.

Black/shadow is already a strong force and theme within the game so it was easy to work with, acknowledging it as a sort of staining evil. Astrion has his later lines about how he never stopped viewing himself as Cazador's slave, and I think showing that corruption is obviously important. He's hurt but can still heal (as opposed to an ascended Astarion... who I have little if any hope for sdfkjdskf).

Cazador had spent the last two centuries branding it into his skin and mind, breaking his psyche to the point Astarion was worried there’d always be little cracks that remained. That he’d always be Cazador’s wilted poppy, ashamed and folding in on himself, his neck miserably drooped aside for the taking. 

Cazador is Astarion's Herakles, and I think that metaphor works even better considering that whole little side lore with Vellioth in the ruins. Herakles kills Geryon because he must, Geryon is a way for Herakles to ultimately reach a life free of consequence, but it's not like Herakles is innately malicious in the act. He is hardened after already facing so many labors and the trauma that was forced on him by Hera that induced his journey in the first place.

Cazador wants power, some part of him is probably truly convinced he's easier on his spawn than Vellioth was to him (a lot of insults to Astarion are about his feelings and "whining", Cazador feels vindicated in his trauma and is far gone), and sacrificing Astarion is simply a part of that journey. There is no world where their destinies do not intertwine. Geryon will always be pierced by Herakles, and Astarion wouldn't be the Astarion we know without being pierced by Cazador (and without his ultimate decision to finally separate himself from him, or to become him.) Astarion, understandably, will never not feel some sort of shame or agony over this moment, from natural emotions and I'm sure years of Cazador victim-blaming him. He consented to Cazador's help that night after all, didn't he? (And we simply won't acknowledge the coercion.)

Astarion’s attempts to prolong the inevitable were shattered by thick layers of stone suddenly slamming in front of his face, muffling sound and casting him into a void. He could hardly hear Cazador’s foul laugh as he departed. Astarion waited all night for Cazador to return. And then all of the next day, and the next one after that. Days became weeks. Weeks became months. Astarion started to agree that dying would have been easier. More peaceful. He had pondered hundreds of ways to attempt to kill himself while stuck in this abyss, the voices that had started developing only giving further inspiration, but it was impossible. He was sure.  All he could do was wait. Beat and claw at the stone around him. Curse. Repeat. Sometimes he'd wonder. If he'd ever get out of here. If Cazador would remember after forgetting. If this would be his forever. The voices began to recite to him again. Just how long eternity can be.

I think this is the greatest and most obvious similarity between these two, within Carson's retelling. Geryon feels somehow trapped and doomed by the narrative from his early childhood, and receives some blunt confirmation of it when he faces early sexual abuse. This affects his entire life, his early relationships. Geryon can't be older than ten in this excerpt, but knows the pain of isolation because of his trauma and for feeling different.

Astarion was plucked up by Cazador right out of law school. While for us it's not all that young, for elves he was fiercely immature, basically just starting to come into himself at his first big-boy job. Astarion was likely raised with a lot of privilege that also made him a bit more naive, his book smarts not meeting street smarts, which has him meet his end. In his undeath, that basically flips, Astarion plays his manipulation games and indulges in petty crime and seduction, unable to dedicate himself to studies. He reads and he's witty, but can you imagine the Astarion we know as a judge? It's giving Divorce Court. It's giving Judge Judy. (Honestly maybe that's what got him whacked in the first place.)

Astarion is already constrained to what Cazador lets him be as a slave. He's less than a person, and his own body is one of his greatest trauma sources.

All of this, to be punished so supremely when making an act of slight self-preservation. Astarion wanting to maintain some of his principles and let someone go. It becomes his greatest regret, his worst and most defining punishment. It's how Cazador breaks him.

I restructure some of the circumstances within my fic, as to better tie in the main romance, but it still functions as a punished act of self-preservation for Astarion. I'm also sure most people are familiar with the pain that solitary confinement can bring, but if not, it's genuinely inhumane and dehumanizing. Lack of stimulation is extremely damaging to the psyche, I wrote in Astarion breaking into psychotic episodes while enclosed, but even in game, he speaks about going catatonic. I'm sure minorly from exhaustion after fighting, but also from the isolation. His mind likely just drifted and dissociated beyond belief, and I can't imagine it. This is my favorite piece of Astarion's story we are given, it really is just so pivotal and heartbreaking, to be punished for having freewill in the most objectifying circumstances.

In summary to Astarion Ancunin I just sorta feel like this I guess...

ddfsdfdk but yeah just emo about my poor boy feeling so weird and disconnected yet so drowned in his own emotions you know...

Astarion was being driven mad. This place was an abyss, and he needed colors again, he couldn’t allow his mind to drift to Raphael’s explanation and his admiration of Aylin’s fury, how she spoke ferociously of her plans to kill Ketheric. He didn’t want to fully lose himself in the plots brewing in his subconscious, not only murdering the bastard who had taken everything from him but being able to have everything he wanted again, at the price of his “siblings.” All of that, combined with the inky void of Reithwin, the way it twisted Cazador’s image vaguely into all of his thoughts, had driven Astarion into his current, delirious color theory. (Or: Astarion hasn't been allowed to explore his emotions in two hundred years, and his least favorite druid and cleric force him through some pivotal realizations while in Reithwin.)