#fucking miserable bro

[administer-distractions]

.

[icantdothistodaybruh]

yea sooooo I may have or may have not watched and instantly rewatched all kuro musicals in existence in a spawn of one week and now have roughly 40 screenshots to redraw from

I think I might be insane or something

[clownprince]

i truly thought it couldn't get more insane than the last snyder interview segment i posted but he's proven me wrong once again. what the actual fuck

(source)

[brainworms-all-night-long]

Hey so you know how Tails at the very least got to witness glimpses of what having family/friends was like when he was hiding outside and about the village? Like he sort of got the idea that people usually hung out together and hugged and high-fived and played and he longed for that so so much? yea well Nine most likely didn't even have that because everyone in New Yoke was isolated and miserable by default and any group he probably seen formed within his radius was only heading to torment him. so many forms of affection would just be new to him, It's just *cries*

[jjkyaoi]

rewatching and i did not like s3 of tua in most aspects but i think they truly did something by making five genuinely just give up. like dude saw his one chance of getting a well deserved rest and gripped it with his teeth and then when shit went sideways he went actually fuck that this time it has Nothing to do with me. good luck with that though. not me though. peace and love . and it was the best possible thing they could've done with his character

[isa-ah]

We both were chosen by this destiny…

Why did it have to be us?

[sir-adamus]

from all accounts it seems like crwby are fairly optimistic so the fact that you're all being miserable doomsaying downers is disappointing but not surprising

[patsypsyop]

its mad funny when i get hate dms then get blocked by the person. how cowardly do you have to be to try to be a bitch then block someone

like 💀 fix your relationship with your parents no wonder they didnt want you, i wouldnt either

[iwasntcreativeenoughforaname]

Thinking about the ancestors and how we really know next to nothing about most of them. Like we have their professions and how they died but save for the lowbloods we don’t really know how any of them acted or interacted with others.

The case of this that interests me the most is actually Dualscar, because while I can imagine Latula as Redglare and (vaguely) Horuss as Darkleer, Dualscar just evades me.

Of course he was likely stuck up, and apparently one sided flushed for HIC. Blah blah blah typical highblood stuff. But he was also Cronus, and an Orphaner. I am so curious to get any relative glimpse into his head. Especially because I don’t see a lot of him in the fandom in a more serious/headcanon-ish light.

Like how does Cronus translate to a life on Alternia? Being a hunter of lusi is likely emotionally damaging during younger years, but we don’t even know if he was doing that his whole life like Eridan was because there were other adults on the planet. We know that he met his end because he couldn’t tell a joke, but was that really it or was it speculation because HIC wanted him dead or something? I doubt she’d just let him die otherwise, GHB or not. He was an orphaner, that’s an important job, even if he could be replaced.

I’m starving to know more about this troll-

Did he have previous connections with the grand highblood? The interactions between Gamzee and Eridan as well as Cronus and Kurloz kind of suggest this.

Was he just another violet or did he know Condy when the two of them were younger like Eridan and Feferi?

Did he have Cro’s need for attention? Was he as violent as Eridan? Did he like history? Did he have a secret interest in magic? Where did he get ahab’s crosshairs from? After all, he owned it first.

Did he ever feel like something in his life was missing? He was a hope player after all, did he have anything to believe in?

Did he ever have a moment, perhaps before he died, where he wondered if all of it was fair? After all, he played his cards and lost anyway. Trying to be the best highblood he could be only got him an early grave. So was it worth it at all?

As far as I can remember, Dualscar’s tales were documented by mindfang, who’s an unreliable narrator, so I take her reasonings and explanations with a grain of salt.

I just wonder what Dualscar’s story would be like if we got to see a little more.

[stupidrant]

i think the most we will get is PC release (if that) this year but that means we gotta deal with those trolls bc changing angrb0da’s skin color is such a big deal to these mfs and i still dont understand that sweet baby inc shit bcuz all the information im seeing is just bundled bullshit LMFAOOO i feel like her actual character gets overshadowed by the made up problems and no one actually talks abt HER as a character or even analyses her fr (outside of here ofc) lol sms abt to make a banger with her and atreus istg

[chaifighter]

Currently using the PJO audiobooks to revisit the series and jesus fucking christ whoever decided that Luke Castellan should be voiced like Bill and Ted should be shot

[iero]

Got to tell my mom what I've wanted to tell her for years because I've noticed it: The fact that she barely acknowledges ANY of her kids birthdays anymore and now she's mad at me, but fuck, did that feel good.

[sporesgalaxy]

ok so you know how in my elaborate dp rewrite with silence alexander, that is constantly teetering on the edge of being its own thing, I wanted to add witches? <- hasnt talked about this in months. well good news I just solved witches

[undermounts]

your reflection can't offer a word (to the bliss of not knowing yourself)

Summary: a character study of pre-game Astarion.

Content warnings: blood and injury, implied torture, implied dubcon, slavery, referenced self-mutilation

Read it on AO3

Preview:

But Astarion excelled. Excelled at ensnaring his target. Excelled at leading them home. Excelled at using his wit, his charm, his body to trick innocents–criminalsdrunkardsfoolpeople–to follow him home. 

We must strive for perfection in all things. Cazador’s favorite saying. 

He is the best of them. The vampire spawn, that is. The pied piper, leading his flock on their death march.

Astarion no longer thinks about what that says about him. What kind of monster he has become.

-

The wounds are already beginning to heal.

Astarion aches. Bruised skin and tender muscles, Godey had gotten him good. 

There was no rhyme or reason to this session. Tonight has been relatively mundane. No summonings from Cazador and no sign of his siblings except a brief glimpse of Petras slinking through the halls, which gave Astarion reason to hope—foolish!—that his master was preoccupied for the evening. Astarion could hardly begin to understand Godey’s reasons for doing anything, but today he would venture to guess it was simple boredom that caused his handler to seek him out.

There was no such thing as a light beating from Godey. But there are bad ones and there are much worse ones. Nothing sharp tonight, no bones broken, no silencing, no geas invoked. By now, Astarion knows how to bear it, and so he did, retreating into a remote spot in the back of his mind, dark and quiet, and leagues away from the rot and terror of Godey’s kennels. He did not cry out.

Godey was pleased.

Now, Astarion lays in the cool, stale dark of the bedchambers he shares with his six brothers and sisters, all gone elsewhere for now. Face pressed against his starched pillow, he runs his tongue across his teeth, the acrid taste of rat blood still foul in his mouth. Beneath the dull throb of his handler’s efforts, Astarion’s body is tense with hunger. Every muscle and sinew feels as if it has been drawn taut toward the center of him, like he could collapse inwards and pack his body so tightly, there can be no room for the hunger that has taken root in his bones.

One rat. That was all he bothered to hunt tonight, down by the kennels. It takes three to make him almost forget the hunger but he hadn’t the energy nor the patience to hunt for long. Moments like these, of quiet solitude, are few and far between when one lives with six other spawn. Astarion is determined to relish it, drifting in the dark in this state of nonexistence, not quite asleep, but held just beneath the surface. Weighed down by exhaustion, buoyed by pain.

The soft scuffle of shoes over marble brings Astarion to wakefulness, although he doesn’t yet move. He holds himself still, breath held in his lungs as he listens carefully. Someone moves in the hallway just beyond the door to the spawns’ chambers. A sibling, Dalyria perhaps? But—no. Whoever it is pauses outside the door and Astarion gets the sense that they are listening in as well. Looking for him.

Godey, Astarion thinks. The damned skeleton returns for another round, unsatisfied by his charge’s tame behavior, bored by a listless evening.

No, no, no, but he had been so good.

But when the door opens and the dim light of the hallway sconces licks into the dormitory, Astarion sees that it is not his taskmaster, his scalpel, his Godey. 

Cazador.

“Master.” The word claws its way out of his throat before he knows he’s said it, so fast is his submission that he isn’t sure whether it is an action born of instinct or Cazador pulled the yoke. He supposes it doesn’t matter.

Dread fills Astarion as the vampire lord steps into the room, his shadows seeping across the carpet. Astarion longs for the moment just before the door cracked open, when the world still held other possibilities for who might have been on the other side. He thinks, albeit foolishly, that he should have wished harder for Godey.

How wretched he has become that he should prefer one monster over the other. How pathetic. He despises himself for it. 

“My boy,” Cazador croons, tutting to himself as Astarion pushes himself up from the sheets on trembling arms. Flakes of dried, dark blood are scattered across the blankets from the split wounds Godey gave him, still healing and tight across his skin. “Let’s get you cleaned up. You’re going out tonight.”

Nausea rolls through Astarion, causing bile and the putrid blood of the last rat he ingested to rise to the back of his throat. Not again. So soon.

Cazador’s… cravings are regular. Predictable. Every ten days, a new body must be brought in. A new victim to be lured. 

There are seven of them, seven spawns. In the beginning, the task–burden, punishment, curse–was split almost evenly among them. But Astarion excelled. Excelled at ensnaring his target. Excelled at leading them home. Excelled at using his wit, his charm, his body to trick innocents–criminalsdrunkardsfoolpeople–to follow him home. 

We must strive for perfection in all things. Cazador’s favorite saying. 

He is the best of them. The vampire spawn, that is. The pied piper, leading his flock on their death march.

Astarion no longer thinks about what that says about him. What kind of monster he has become.

And to what end?

He does it all to save his own life. He does it all to avoid a worse punishment than the one that will come nonetheless. He does it all because he must, because even when he refuses–when was the last time?– there will always be that bond, the leash and the hand that yanks it, that forces his body to obey.

The last victim came in only three days ago. Astarion brought the man in himself.

Astarion remembers what he looked like–he remembers all of them. But when Astarion thinks about the man now, as Cazador ushers him up out of the hard and threadbare bed to the hallway, he doesn’t think about the autumnal colors of his hair, the freckles along his stomach, the calluses of an archer's hands. Astarion thinks of the way he lingered alone in the tavern, worn traveling cloak peaking out his satchel. The accent that was not Baldurian–Rustic, he’d thought at the time, How endearing–and the particular type of stitching in his clothes that was most common in the eastern reaches of the continent, the Dalelands. He wasn’t from Baldur’s Gate. And that made him easy to miss. 

Astarion disappears deep into the far recesses of his mind as Cazador leads him to the washroom and bids him to undress, to climb into the tub of soapy water. The water this time is warm and pleasant, scented with flowers. Violets.  It makes Astarion’s stomach roil. 

His master is always sweetest when he is at his worst.

The punishments tonight, Astarion suspects, will be particularly harrowing.

“You are a marvel, my boy,” Cazador croons, lathering soap along Astarion’s back, the water turning pink with old blood. His, Astarion thinks. And probably a rat’s. ���A beauty. So much potential.”

No matter how deep Astarion retreats into his head, it is never quite far enough to escape the feeling of Cazador’s hands on his skin. A possessive touch. One that seeks and claims and owns. Dried blood and old skin slough off into the suds, but Astarion never quite feels clean.

Cazador lathers soap through hair that glistens like starlight, his touch gentle and doting but for the subtle scrape of claw-like nails across his scalp. A reminder that in this household, pain and punishment are always just a hair’s breadth away. All the while, Cazador hums quietly, a sonata that was popular last spring. They had gone to see it together, the master and all of his spawn—like some sort of family—seated in the shadows of Cazador’s personal box.

Astarion feels the skin above his right ear split open and does not flinch.

-

Later, Astarion keeps his eyes on his bare knees, pale and knobby, as Cazador tilts his head back, garnet eyes scrutinizing every minute detail of a visage Astarion no longer remembers. Astarion’s jaw is held between thumb and forefinger with a pressure that is just shy of pain but could shatter bone in an instant. An ornate comb sifts through his hair, the fine metal teeth just barely grazing his scalp as Cazador styles his hair to perfection. A man sharpening his favorite weapon.

A heartwood vanity stands before master and spawn, the spotless mirror reflecting the decadent expanse of Cazador’s bedchamber, seemingly uninhabited save for that gilded comb, slicing through empty air. Astarion has never asked why the Szarrs keep mirrors—and in such sparkling condition!—when they are useless to all inhabitants of the manor, barring the deluded mortals that serve by their own will, salivating at the false promise of immortality. He supposes that part of it may be to keep up appearances for any guests of the Szarr family that come to call, or even the myriad of victims Astarion and the other spawn bring home. 

All it takes is one good look at a mirror, though, for Cazador’s prey to realize something is wrong. To question why they appear alone in those candlelit reflections, without their lover. It had happened once, not long after Astarion had been turned, before he had transmuted himself into this thing. A thing that knows how to draw attention, how to beckon, how to please, and how to detach.

He’d been careless, too far gone into that space at the back of his mind that he carved for himself. He forgot about the mirror on the wall in the entry hall. Hadn’t noticed when she looked directly into its surface to see herself, hair tousled, clothes askew, and undoubtedly alone. He remembers how she tensed, oh, how she had screamed.

He had not had the senses, the wherewithal, to end it then and there, before true horror could descend—a mercy kill. Cazador was there in an instant, as if he’d been waiting just down the hall, testing him. Godey dragged him out of the room, just before the bloodshed began. Those raw screams, a prelude to the punishment that came for him later.

Astarion regards the empty vanity mirror before him as Cazador fashions his hair just so. The other reason, Astarion thinks, why the Szarrs keep mirrors around is for their own game of self-deception. Keep the mirrors up, just like they should be in any other home, but always in the periphery, and one could almost forget what kind of monster they have become. It’s a shallow lie, one that stings every time it falls apart, but Astarion appreciates it nonetheless. This flawed facsimile of normalcy that has become his life.

Astarion tries not to shudder when Cazador places the comb down on the vanity table in front of him. He knows how cruel the edges of that comb can feel, how his flesh tears and splits beneath the teeth, how much pressure to apply. 

Another punishment, another evening. Astarion doesn’t remember what he had done to deserve that one; perhaps he’d been a touch sullen, or maybe his hair had not sat quite right—ah yes, that was it. 

Cazador’s fury was inconsolable, unwilling to be placated. He decided to send another spawn out that night, while Astarion whittled away at his own body with that comb, bound by his master’s geas.

The stains on the heartwood never came out.

-

When the grooming and dressing is done—glossy maroon silk, detailed with gold embroidery he did himself, one of the finest tunics he owns—Cazador accompanies him to the grand doors that lead from the Szarr estate to the rest of Baldur’s Gate. An unusual breach in their routine; Cazador always sends him off from his chambers, sometimes with specific instructions of what sort of prey he craves. 

But now, Cazador opens the door, allowing Astarion to slip out into the balmy night. But before Astarion can venture off toward the warrens of the city, he feels his master’s hand on his shoulder and turns, suppressing the urge to shudder when cool dry fingers alight against his cheek.

“Be quick about it, my boy,” Cazador croons, his manner almost fatherly. For once, Astarion cannot detect the malice, the next blow before it lands. “When you return, I have something special planned, for just you and I. Tonight is a night for poetry. Do you agree?” 

Astarion’s master sighs, tilting his face up and breathing in the night air. The stars twinkle overhead, dim in the wake of the city lights. Fleetingly, Astarion thinks of distant places, destinations he has never seen nor heard of, where the firelight is sparse and the world is quiet. How the stars might shine in a night as dark as pitch… 

Cazador turns his gaze back to Astarion, red eyes gleaming like beacons. Cazador smiles and fear blooms in Astarion’s gut, cold and leaden.

“I want you to help me write it.”

[mochiwrites]

the morning started good and then got an essay grade back and everything immediately just TANKED ugh

[planet4546b]

guys who love complicated character dynamics and set up complicated character dynamics when they have to write complicated character dynamics being absurdly complicated: hey who the hell did this this sucks