#i would've rambled more but i truly need to sleep lol

[syneilesis]

Surprisingly, I made it! 🤓

So I imposed a rule to myself writing this ficlet, just to make sure I finish it on time: this ficlet has 6 parts, and in each part, I would have to write exactly 6 sentences. It's fun and challenging! I left out a lot of details, like allusions to Vlad's MC. If I didn't limit myself, I wouldn't finish this lol

Note: This ficlet is numbered and reverse chronological in order, with the last part occurring years into the future.

Glimpses of eternity

Ikemen Vampire | Vlad/Comte

5.

In the field of blood-red roses, Vlad stood in the middle, a silhouette against the setting sun.

"Vlad."

He turned, a forever-pure smile waiting on his lips. "Abel."

Le Comte closed his eyes, tried to smoothen the pinch of his brows.

"That name … it has been a long time."

4.

"Think about this again, Vlad."

"I already have, Comte, and my decision is still the same."

"Then I have to tell you that I won't abide by it."

"Ah – so that's it, then?"

A swallow, an exhale, shuttered. "Yes – that's it, then."

3.

In autumn, centuries later, they reunited amidst the dance of falling red leaves. Vlad's eyes were a shade redder, and pulled le Comte's gaze like the magnetic north.

"You are okay," le Comte breathed, and Vlad smiled.

"And you go by a title now."

"Yes."

They spent the whole night at an open cafe, talking and catching up, and Vlad's hand rested near the center of the table, inches away from le Comte's, warm and alive.

2.

He heard it from his parents, frantic whispers clinging to ornate walls, hushed with fear. Abel pressed up against the door, and his heart leapt off his body when Vlad's name left his parents' lips in distressful tones. He didn't think – his feet deciding on their own.

When he reached Vlad's home, it was a vacuum of deafening silence, only the lingering scent of blood from the melted snow remained. Abel searched and searched, but found no traces of the young boy with a pure smile.

Inside a giant closet: a strand of silver hair, buried under a pile of dust.

1.

Vlad's in the library again, stubby hands carefully gripping a hardbound book like it's a treasure. Today, it's an encyclopedia of Eastern flora.

"Ume," Vlad recited, the syllables foreign and round, like apricot. "Did you know that in the East they mean elegance and loyalty?"

He brought his bright red gaze to Abel, narrowed in mirth.

Abel's heart fluttered, like a loyal flower blossoming.

(

6.

When everything else has passed, they meet again – this time, at a museum somewhere in Asia.

"Abel," Vlad says, smiling as if he's elated to reunite with le Comte once again, as if they hadn't argued and separated and reunited and fought again, "it's good to see you."

Le Comte wants to say, After everything? but he hesitates, because in the end Vlad's smile has always been and will always be, forever, pure.

In the end, he says, "It's good to see you too, Vlad."

And Vlad glows so much that le Comte has to turn his head away, blinded from such radiance, always so pure, always so kind.

It has, after all, been that way for the last millennium, and it will continue to be so in the next.

)

[sorcerous-caress]

I saw some discussion in another ask about whether Durge becoming a god would remain the same person, and I felt like sharing some stuff I read which I found really interesting- about ascending to godhood and "mortal" partners specifically.

Becoming a god, you are aware of everything going on in your domain, you can always hear and process the prayers of your faithful. The lack of need to continue indulging in food, sleep, etc, make it hard to still appreciate those things like one once did. And by comparison to just your baseline existence, it's underwhelming in the first place- again, constant prayers, higher power, higher understanding. In the end the person described it like having a pet, essentially. You love your pets and your pets love you, undoubtedly, but there are a lot of things you cannot share with them, because they wouldn't understand it or be able to appreciate it like you do. Just the edge of a god's consciousness, knowledge, awareness, would probably be intensely underwhelming to a mortal. A god wouldn't truly be able to meaningfully explain their existence to a mortal, etc.

Also the thing of immortality itself and how it seems to affect people's perception pretty directly, like elven lifespans do. You can become pretty detached to the concept of time compared to mortals or others who have shorter lives. What's a few decades translating an ancient language, when you've got eternity to do whatever you like?

I feel like those differences would be a non-issue, or even enticing to some (i mean. i think some people would be okay with the "pet of a god" position.) but it's certainly not for everyone. And what if you, as a god, do an oopsie and forget to dote on your mortal lover for a few years, because they aren't in your plane, and you had to attend to your faithful, or other manners of godly business?

I've wanted to ramble on about this for ages, hopefully this is alright lol. It's been swimming around in my brain, I just find the psyche changes so interesting. Good food!!

-Tressym Anon

Good food indeed

Side note: does that mean elves are the most spoiled pets ever with their owner gods forming an entire pantheon just for their precious little pointy eared guys? While humans are akin to a stray racoons dumpster-diving and scrounging for scrabs because no god would ever take them? Is that what Corellon doesn't want his precious pets to associate with humanity and their rabies?

Anyway someone should call animal control on Lolth. There's probably a huge poster on the gods' meeting room door reminding everyone to not feed the wild racoons outside their homes and don't even attempt to domesticate them, Mystra looks the other each time she passes by it.

But yeah, this is a very well written explanation of what it would've felt like to be a god. No wonder Durge is going to change beyond compression, even ascended Astarion would just seem like an exotic pet to him, like how some people keep tarantulas.

But one thing tho, I think their views on mortals are even lesser that of a pet.

If Mystra, a good leaning neutral god wanted her favourite pet to kill himself just for her forgiveness, it's wild to think what the evil aligned gods would require of you.

Maybe ants? Dolls? I mean you also don't fuck your pets so it is confusing a bit. Gods both can be attracted to us but also act as if we're more worthless than dust.

Some gods gamble with mortal souls, others keep mortal friends and walks in their mortal form a lot. It's like a 2D person being asked to imagine the third dimension, something that looks very simple and makes sense to us could be utter nonsense and impossible to even comprehend to them.

Dolls might be the best description honestly, sentient dolls. I'd imagine playing town management games to be the closest experience to being a god, years can pass like seconds to you but you also can slow down time to experience it minute by minute.

You see the people that you guide and order around and you acknowledge them as people but they all seem so small from high above, their efforts so meaningless in the grand scheme of things.

But you can get down on their level, maybe even have a small chat to them one to one, flirt a bit or sleep around. Then vanish back up when another task needs to be done as they get reduced to another number in your count of followers.

And here I was debating writing a god Gale au with a reader who ends up going back to him after ascending Astarion and regreting it, thinking a god surely is more responsible and respectful of them than a legit vampire lord.

It is funny to think that Gale has the potential to become the most toxic out of all of them, I mean we have all saw Bhaal's punishment for Durge if they fail to become his slayer, what he would reduce his favourite child to.

The line between good and evil must be very blurry when you're sitting up high. Or maybe mortality straight up just doesn't exist, it's action and reaction instead.

[jeniffercheck]

This is a brainrot question but I just realized you wrote my favorite hill house fic about theo and olivia and i was wondering if you think there are similarities btwn how olivia handled the situation with the bullies and with theo's really tough time and how moms karolina and shiv would?

oh my god now we are TALKING. firstly that's one of the fics most near and dear to me and any time i find out someone has read it i get so so happy so thank u :') <3333 if u haven't read my theo & olivia fic this might be a little confusing but under the cut for a long ramble about this topic lol

interestingly there are definitely some similarities!! it's funny that there are, because my characterization of olivia in that fic is based on the concept of olivia + the forever house, which is very much an idealized version of olivia, and when i think of shivlina as parents they are entirely NOT idealized. at the same time, olivia & theo's relationship is strained in that fic, and would've been regardless of how perfect i could've made olivia, and that is due to the center of it being a worried mother who can't figure out how to help her child no matter how hard she tries or how much she wants to, which leads to bad choices and arguments and a lot of resentment on both ends, and i actually do see a lot of that in shivlina!

idk if you have seen some of the posts about talia (oc shivlina child) and karolina, but i guess thinking about it now, that relationship plays out pretty similarly to theo & olivia where talia is acting out and generally not being very kind or forthcoming to karolina, and karolina simply just doesn't know/understand why she can't just be let in (which would majorly solve part of the problem, as we see in the hill house fic!!!), and it does become this spiral of overcompensation (olivia grasping on to any bonding moment she can with theo, no matter how short-lived), of thinking maybe she needs to discipline more, (theo being more afraid to get in trouble than she cares about her own well-being), of thinking maybe she's too overbearing and if she steps away it'll be better (olivia letting theo stay out late, sleeping outside of her bedroom instead of trying to talk to her point blank), etc.

so side note: olivia and theo to me are more of a sign of the times; theo was afraid of the fallout of coming out, and olivia was afraid of pushing her before she was ready, because back then it would've been a much bigger deal, but it was still something she was just unprepared to handle, like she didn't know what to do or how to help & i see shivlina as those kinds of parents where they do love their kids and they do want to help but they just don't understand the source of the problem (and in shivlina's case, THEY are the problem = generational cycles), and because of that they also don't know how to fix it and they would certainly get desperate and they would make bad choices like i said earlier, but i think the heart of it, and why i love olivia crain so so much, is that they would love their children and truly want to do right by them, but it's hard!!! bc gay angsty teenagers are hard to deal with!!!!!!!! but they would figure it out too those fucking girlfails<3333