#etoilewritesmeta

[etoilehistoire]

Headcanon: vampires don't need to breathe, except to speak. Their bodies don't require oxygen, and they won't die without it.

However. They want to breathe.

Remember how Astarion said vampires can't die of starvation, but they can starve? Just endless hunger that never kills you? Yeah. Like that. The lungs scream for air, the panic sets in, that urgent need for oxygen, except... you don't actually need it. You'll survive without it. You can even function without it, if you could calm that wild instinctive panic racing through your body. It's just going to hurt. And keep hurting. With no end in sight, no relief even from death or unconsciousness.

...hey, apropos of nothing, remember how Astarion had to dig his way out of his grave? Remember that year he spent in the tomb? Yeah.

Yeah.

[etoilehistoire]

Thinking about how mammals, including humans (and presumably elves and whatnot) are endothermic. We make our own heat, via the processes that keep us alive, and move that heat through our bodies via blood pumped by a beating heart. Blankets and other insulators work, not because they're inherently warm, hut because they trap our own warmth and don't let it dissipate.

Thinking about how vampires, as - essentially - walking corpses, are exothermic. They don't have any internal processes that create heat, they don't have a beating heart to distribute it. Blankets and clothing might feel nice against the skin, but they don't keep them warm because there's no heat to trap. Any warmth has to come from something outside themselves - drinking living blood (and oh, that adds yet another layer of nastiness to the idea of Cazador giving his spawn already-dead animals to drink), or a source of warmth like a fire. But unlike real-life exothermic animals, because they're animated by magic and not biology a lack of warmth won’t kill them or make them sluggish. They don't need warmth to survive. So a vampire could conceivably just be cold, with no respite, for years or decades or centuries. It wouldn’t feel good, it might even hurt, but in a survival situation the comfort of warmth is a frivolous luxury that can be done without.

Thinking about Astarion finally being able to rediscover that luxury, to indulge in it.

First, of course: sunlight. Imagine him basking in the light and heat like a lizard, like a snake on a desert rock, drinking it into his skin until he's warm to the touch. (The Floridian in me almost said 'like a gator on a log' but I doubt he'd like that comparison!)

And then: blood. Whether taken in the heat of battle or offered in the night, imagine him finally experiencing the feeling, the novelty, of warmth spreading through his body from the inside.

Cuddling! Feeling the heat of another body flush against his, curling up into it. A thick blanket over them, catching and keeping his lover's warmth and wrapping him in it, waking up on a chilly morning to find himself unaccustomedly warm and comfortable for the first time in 200 years.

Hot baths. You cannot tell me this man does not pay extra for a bath at every inn, and then spend far too long in the tub. He claims it's because of vanity and that's not UNtrue, but also just. Hot water covering every inch of him, ah gods, it's bliss.

I truly believe we'll find this man a way to walk in the sun again after the game ends but until we do, my god can we get him a sauna? Find a natural hot spring? Something? Let him be warm, dammit!

(I'm working on a new fic that features some cuddling, and the idea of warmth came up and then my brain started working overtime on the concept)

[etoilehistoire]

One of my WIPs features Xia's POV instead of Astarion’s, and it occurred to me that it's the first time I've done that. And I think I'm sleeping on the humor potential. Especially given that, at least through Act 1, their vibe is basically:

Astarion: Ugh, it's like beating my head against a brick wall, I'm getting NOWHERE with her. I've utterly failed to seduce or even charm her, I don't think she even LIKES me, and I'm pretty sure she's onto my games. Look at her over there glaring at me. Probably thinking righteous paladin thoughts about smiting me.

Meanwhile Xia, complete with resting bitch face and intense eyes: oh no. oh no i am down bad for this man. i would let him drink me dry just to put a smile on his face. fuck my life.

[etoilehistoire]

I am TICKLED AND DELIGHTED by what a good battle couple Astarion and Xia make. Like, I didn't think a rogue and a paladin would be the perfect team-up, but they ARE???! In the House of Hope we were the ones carving Raphael up like a Christmas turkey while the spellcasters were just trying to keep each other alive, lol.

It helps, I know, that I am soft for this man and therefore give him all the very best equipment. Still tho, the 1-2 punch of Smite + Sneak Attack is delightful.

[etoilehistoire]

Sooooo I finally got a copy of the game (because @erinlynnjeffreys is a saint among men) and IMMEDIATELY AFTER got the DeathFlu so I've had no energy to do anything BUT play for an entire week, lol.

So without further ado, meet my paladin!Tav, Xia!

For background I was torn between Urchin and Performer (both would apply, backstory-wise), but ultimately went with Performer because I wanted the Performance skill, goddammit.

I'd already decided she was Not From Around Here, and then discovered that Toril does in fact have a knock-off China called Shou Lung, so that's where she's from (specifically the city of Karatin.) She had a seedy and unhappy childhood, hit rock bottom, found a mentor and became a follower of The Way (fantasy Daoism, woohoo), trained in the skills that would lead her to becoming a paladin, and ended up on the Sword Coast via a series of misadventures just in time to get picked up by illithids.

What is funny to me is that I came up with a history for her, but the game never ASKS where you're from and instead gives you all these dialogue options that assume you're native to Baldur's Gate. Most of those I ignore, because they don't make sense for her, but sometimes? My girl who had been here for a grand total of a week before being scooped up, lying through her teeth to the guard at the gate like "What do you MEAN I can't come in?? This is my HOME i LIVE HERE" is so funny to me. I firmly believe the paladin oath forgives lies if they're funny enough.

(Her romance with Astarion is going slow and isn't hitting all the usual points you see people talk about, but the fact that it IS going and that I have his approval at high-verging-on-very-high still feels like a victory to me, especially given that she IS a paladin and DOES always choose the Good course of action.)

(...She does not, however, always or even often choose the paladin-specific dialogue. Because yes of course she believes in honor and righteousness, but like. Who talks like that?? She firmly believes that, despite what many paladins seem to feel, you will not in fact fall from grace if you talk like a human fucking being.)