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Assimilated moon elves born in human cultures and the clash between elven instincts and the impact of human civilisation (and the moon elven ideal that elven culture and values can survive by influencing human culture into an understanding, which... isn't necessarily all that realistic) and the effect on elven mental health and morals is a fun topic that sometimes gets lightly touched on though:

They dreamed of running free in the forest, far from the stinks and the crowding and the everpresent shoving for space, shoving to make sales, shoving to keep a few coins, and shoving to find some time and space for solitude. The best nights were those of soft sea-mists and skies full of glittering stars, when the city seemed to turn quiet and folk took to the rooftops to look up, and tell tales in hushed voices, and dream... These four wanted to make their dreams real. Or rather, a dream: of a new elf land, somewhere, where they could dwell. A place to call their own, a place to be proud of, a place that could stand tall when all of these humans spoke of elves as "a dying people" who were "too soft and weak to hold any place, and so flee and flee again, until they've now almost run out of places to run and hide in." Oh, there were elves who forged successful lives in Waterdeep, such as the notorious Serpent, Elaith -- but who wanted that? To become more ruthless and grasping than humans, just to win a place among them? - Source

Easily overstimulated, intuitive connection to nature/magic, slower grasp of the passage of time, emotional dysregulation, a need for emotional intimacy and connection that's a bit alien... they do mix a little badly with human cities, in their subconscious.

Of course, then Some Elves decided they're fine with being worse, actually... Elaith's thing is that he shamed himself so badly he basically initially rejected elvendom on the basis of having failed as an elf/being unworthy anyway, so he's a wobbly example. Other young elves are noted to be going through a phase on the same grounds. Elves acting like humans always tend to be on the grounds that they're pushing back at elven culture.

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I still like to believe that Astarion has the elven empathy/affinity for nature - in a shattered way reflective of his own elven spirit, at least ('I sense nature as if she were my mother,' as Irenicus put it) - he likes and recognises the plants and songbirds and all as living beings just fine, thank you, he just wants them placed tidily in a garden where he isn't being swarmed by bugs and getting mud in his socks. Elves are of ancient civilisations who cultivate, darling. Does he look like a sy'tel'quess barbarian to you??

(At least he missed out on the strain of elf-specific vampirism where plants wither under your touch and the seperation from nature drives you into constant grief-fuelled homicidal rage?)

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I wonder how often kissing Astarion ends with getting nipped? Blood-rich area, sharp teeth, the extension of the fangs tends to be instinctual rather than intentional (from what I remember from reading Vampire of the Mists)...

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'Sleeping there was an elven toddler, perhaps the most beautiful child he had ever seen. Tousled silvery curls clustered about her face, and a tiny golden thumb nestled in her mouth. The points of her little elven ears were still soft, folding over slightly at the tips.' - Elfsong

Today's not-so pointy eared trivia: Baby elves have (slightly) floppy ears.

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Touched by light

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Hot Take

Honestly I think if Astarion were in a relationship with a good aligned Tav he'd hate Halsin.

I don't think it's lost on Astarion that he's short tempered and selfish. And the person he cares the most for is entirely different. But they care for him and seem to overlook the worst parts of him, even if he doesn't want to save orphans or whatever.

But then here's Halsin, who despite his own trauma, is still a good person. He's kind and genial and he's out here trying to do the right thing.

And to top it all off, he wants to have sex with Tav. Sex, the one thing Astarion should be good at, the one thing he should be able to provide to Tav. He's not a good or nice person, he's a pile of burdens, in his own mind, but he should be able to give them sex. But he can't.

And now Halsin, who is the kind of person Astarion isn't, is trying to give his partner the only thing Astarion sees himself as being good at. What does he have left to give to Tav? How can Astarion hope to keep them in his life?

Fair or not, I think he'd hate him for it.

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the thing about astarion is that i do think that he is COMICALLY his own worst enemy but i also recognize that the reason for that is that he hit a sharp genre shift at 100000 mph. one second you're the hot and kinda tragic but expendable minion of a d&d boss and the next you're the romancable companion in the party. this little man was built to have his lore discovered in a notebook while looting his corpse after you've killed cazador and all the sudden everyone's like hey astarion. do you want to sit by the fire and tell us about yourself :) we all like you and want you happy :) and he's like what the fuuuuck. what the fuuuuuuuuuuuckkkkkk????

however i do still find him funny about it, sorry man

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ghguauuughuh i'm sorry i have to do this, especially while i have a gofundme post circulating but i am waiting on multiple payouts from multiple sources but they're all not going to be hitting until early july and i was not able to cover my car payment this month, i really hope this is the last time i'm ever this deep in the negatives as i have started working my job again as much as my disability will allow, but right now i need to ask for urgent help before the fees make things worse. i'm working on moving banks to a more lenient system as well, this stuff just takes time. i will delete this as soon as i'm clear

thank you for the shares and anything helps

paypal

venmo: @radioaky

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While Astarion seems pretty comitted to staying on the 'impulsive wanderlust inattentive ADHD' part of innate elven psychology that moon elves always gravitate back to, I wonder if he ever hits the hyperfixation phase of elven psychology:

Other elves take a branch that leads to the obsessive pursuit of perfection in art, music, philosophy, or magic. Such elves will often live apart from others, crafting musical instruments, writing plays, composing music, designing buildings, sculpting, and painting. Great Silver elf artists, Gold elf priests, and Green elf druids live most of their lives in such a state. Usually they talk of little else besides their work, which can often make them difficult to communicate with. Sometimes it seems they have created their own language in regard to their work. When they do seek companionship it is most often with those who share the skills they are attempting to perfect. They can spend endless hours discussing the most minute details of their process of creation. (You have been forewarned.) - Elves of Evermeet

Considering that elves don't reach that stage until a century or few into life, he probably didn't find his fixation pre-vampirism. I have no idea what it would be. Poetry? Embroidery and textile hobbies? Those fancy knife tricks he likes to do occasionally? Knives in general? Silver elves are more generalist than golds are, so it's probably all three. I wonder what it takes to send him off on a rant about it.

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I wonder if Astarion ever gets sulky about elven culture's standards for what undead are acceptable and which are not (the difference being that the acceptable are powered by positive energy (life energy), non-predatory, bound to a life of self-sacrificial duty, and created by the divine will of the Seldarine).

Baelnorn liches, spirit guardians, and one of Cormanthor's ancient libraries where the ghost archvists occasionally possessed library goers and escaped from the library to steal their lives and go enjoy the pleasures of life again are fine, but oh no, drinking people's blood and damaging their souls 'a little' and behing inherently driven to destruction, death and control and other things blasphemous to elves is too far...! They're ok, while he gets smote by Sehanine's clerics on sight.

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I made a little drawing for chapter 9 of @saucy-scribbler s It’s Time To Try Living Again

There’s more to come soon x

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Behind every bisexual man is a bisexual woman pegging that thang asunder

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FSBE 38 - Nowhere to Hide

The rogue faces himself.

On AO3.

You could stay.

Those words ring in Astarion’s ears. Rattle around and dash themselves against the inside of his skull, tearing apart everything within.

You could stay. If you wanted to.

It was the tone of her voice. The way she buried her face immediately after saying it so she didn’t have to see the answer no doubt written on his face.

Tentative hope. And defeat in the same measure.

He doesn’t need rest as much as she does. Wouldn’t even if his body had been a living thing that required such maintenance. She wakes alone each morning.

He watches her sleep a moment longer before pushing up and untangling himself from her. Eases over her sleeping form until one bare foot finds the floor. He stands over her a moment, just looking. Then turns to find the wash rag and his clothes.

The candles he puts out and stores away (all of them into his pack, finders keepers). Considers a tunic that needs mending, but knows better than to leave his mind unfocused and rampaging as he does quiet work. Instead, he pulls out the Necromancy of Thay.

And seats himself on the floor with the bed to his back, angled so he can keep both her and the door in his peripherals.

He told himself in the wilds, seated first in his tent and later in hers, that it was simple good sense. It wouldn’t do for all his hard work to go to waste should a boar or some other Underdark beast wander into camp and eat her face. And once they reached this rotten wasteland, someone had to make sure a shadow didn’t slip in to steal her flesh.

It’s all very practical. Something she might suggest, had she known of it.

But he doesn’t have that excuse here, tucked safely away at an inn that smells of dust and thin, desiccated decay that’s all shadow-curse and none of the heavy, metallic rankness of a vampire den.

It rather smells like linens and her.

Yet, for the third time, he sits near her as he cracks open a book he still hasn’t quite figured out how to read.

One that she gave him. Despite literally everyone’s protests. A potential source of great power and she handed it over when she was annoyed with him, even.

He glances to her sleeping form, her back turned. Focuses on trying to find a way to slip through the spirits protecting the book.

He’s had sex with a thousand people or more in his dreadful existence. But he’s never slept with a one of them. He used to long for that, in the earliest days. Before he learned it was better not to. Before he learned how to turn off thinking and get on his back and possibly earn a rat, this time. With only a few maggots if he performed well enough.

She moves. Shuffles around on her belly until she faces him. One of her hands slips off the edge in the process. He looks at it for a moment. Remembers her touch—on his cock, yes, but on his cheeks. How delicately she traced his features. How gently she held him as she leaned down for a kiss.

He swallows. Reaches up to take her hand in his.

She sighs.

A small sound. Insignificant, really. There’s no reason for his throat to tighten like this.

It sounds of comfort. Imagine that. Him, Astarion, bringing anyone comfort. Not ecstasy, not bliss, not damnation. But that tiny sigh.

She trusts him, for some godsforsaken reason. He studies her slackened face. The dark lashes against her cheeks, the slight part of her lips and yes, the thin string of drool escaping the corner of her mouth. The book lies forgotten on his lap as he imagines lifting his other hand to trace the shape of her brows, run the tip of a finger along her lashes just to watch the lids flutter.

Lovers do that. Proper lovers. He’s read that. Heard the songs. Whispered such things to a flustered mark. She would blink herself awake, he thinks. Frown a moment until she finds him, and them smile dreamily as she rose to kiss him (nevermind the drool).

He swallows again. He should go find something, anything to kill. This is thirst, surely.

He looks away.

It’s all a fantasy. That’s all any of this can ever be. He’s using her. Has been from the start. And should she ever realize that, she’ll cast him out. The others will turn on him and he’ll be lucky if none of them—the Blade comes to mind—doesn’t stake him through the back.

He can’t bear to think of her face. The sly spark or morbid fascination as she tells him of some horror or another being replaced by coldness. That soft gaze—unsure but cautiously accepting—when he held her after their latest debacle tonight. She wasn’t even angry at him laughing at her. Not drastically, anyway.

She’s generous like that. Foolishly forgiving. Gods below, she let a vampire spawn feed on her, in the middle of the night after he tried to take her blood in secrecy without so much as asking. Despite him confessing what he is. Despite his own actions.

Because she’s an idiot.

An idiot who killed a man for him when she most certainly didn’t want to. An idiot who guided him through the Underdark—literally by the hand at times—until he regained his sight. Who laughs at his jokes. Who has seen him peeled open and pathetic, has seen him bloodied after feasting upon their enemies. She admonishes him when he’s cruel, as he knows he can be. And it, inexplicably, makes him feel…well, not guilt, perhaps. But its second cousin. Twice-removed.

No one has any right to do that. No one in this shit-heap of a world could ever want him for anything but sex, which she initially refused.

No one but her. If anyone, anyone at all could possibly find it in themselves to, to…

Gods.

He releases her hand so he can claw at his own hair.

This is impossible. Dangerous. Deadly. It can only end in one way, and the moment he gives voice to the truth it will all be over. Another pitiful delusion poor, weak Astarion dreamed up to escape looking at what he is: nothing. A slave. A whore. Stupid and useless.

But not to her. For some reason he cannot fathom, not to her.

She would hate him. For all her misplaced kindness, she’ll hate him for this. She let him into places she’s never let anyone, and he doesn’t just mean her body. He saw parts of her when their tadpoles collided. She fears vulnerability (like the sensible woman she otherwise is). She knows what a weakness that is in a way others often fail to grasp.

Yet she let him walk right in. More than that, she made up a space within herself for him, to make him comfortable even as she wants more.

You can stay.

She deserves more. He’s a parasite. Wretched. A lodestone around her neck. A manipulator and seducer.

A liar.

He curls over his lap.

How could this happen? The master knew Astarion was stupid, but not even he could imagine the boy could be so pathetic, be this incredibly idiotic.

Eleanor shifts, searching him out. Even as she wanders through mortal dreams, she searches for him.

What does he do? What can he do?

There’s nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. That’s the problem with giving a damn, isn’t it? One gets trapped by it. He’s dug this grave all by himself and laid himself down into it and dragged the lid right over to seal himself in a prison of his own making. With no orders. On no one’s command. All by himself. A slave with a master by a different name. Damned by his own idiocy for the second time.

The hag was right, all those tenday ago. He seeks the leash, doesn’t he?

Her hand still hangs beside him.

There can be no future in this. Even he isn’t foolish enough to believe that.

Yet what is this strange woman if not a walking miracle? Something that shouldn’t exist. Something that shouldn’t have survived, and he’s not just talking about being abducted by mindflayers and ripped from her own realm. If anyone could find a way to thread this needle…

He takes her hand again. Lets his chin fall to his chest as he grimaces to no one in a near-silent room.

Damn him. Damn him.

***

Sounds of life pick up below some time later. Astarion blinks the blurriness from his eyes and lifts his head. He’s been staring at the ceiling for…some time. Forgot to blink for a good part of it. Twists to find Eleanor turned away again, her arm curled awkwardly and her hand now cool in his grasp. Her breathing has shallowed. She’ll wake soon.

He finally releases her. Uncrosses his aching legs and climbs—just a touch stiffly, as a corpse usually would—to his feet. The hunger twists nastily. They need to find an enemy or three and soon. But for now, he can ignore that as he’s accustomed. Pack his things and slip on his boots softer than a whisper.

He pauses with his hand on the door. Turns back to stare. Watch her rib cage expand as she breathes. As he’s done almost every night since the first sleep in the Underdark. Then he cracks open the door and slips away.

Leaving her to wake alone, none the wiser.

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The goblin camp is the best place to play an elf (dark or surface). Drow because you get to revel im your people's terrifying reputation, as is the entire point of playing a drow (aside from themes of cult indoctrination and etc): Darthiiri because you get the opposite reaction.

Goblins accuse you of thinking you're above them, and Tav/Durge/Astarion, with the full confidence of the Tel'Quess, go: 'Yes.'

Then Minthara takes one look at you and goes 'You make me sick.' I love her.

Because the true elven cultural roleplaying experience is getting into fights - literal or no - with everyone who isn't an elf or is the wrong kind of elf. (With some exceptions who are being politer in their cultural elfy snootiness).

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I’m sick but sketching pookie makes me feel better

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WIP Wednesday strikes again

This time, my snippet is in convenient image form.

Feel free to consider this your no-pressure tag to participate!

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“There were times I would've been thrilled if everyone who put their hands on me burst into flames.”