“In Venice, he’d looked out of his room at the Danieli, to see Armand staring from a window across the way.“
The hotel Daniel checks into early in his and Armand’s relationship, the Danieli, is fascinating.
The original structure was built in the 14th century by the wealthy Dandolo family, and then later in the 16th century was divided into three separate sections for different members of the family. It was turned into a hotel in 1822, and joined with two other grand buildings: Palazzo Casa Nuova (previously the site of the Venetian treasury) and the Palazzo Danieli Excelsior (a building erected in 1948 when a structure separating the Palazzo Dandolo and Palazzo delle Prigioni was torn down to make way for the expansion of the hotel).
It’s situated near the entrance of the grand canal, the same canal Marius and Armand lived on together, and overlooks the lagoon.
When you walk inside it looks like this:
The grand steps into the palace, which were once outdoors, are now inside, protected by a great 19th century glass ceiling.
The front desk is made of beautifully carved, renaissance style linenfold paneling, retaining the original design of the hotel from 1822.
Every common area in the hotel is pure luxury, filled with antique furniture and artwork. And the rooms themselves?
Decorated in a baroque-meets-victorian style, every single one is to die for.
Even the simpler rooms are beautifully attired.
In the book, however, it says that Daniel sees Armand in a window across the canal. I did some digging to figure out exactly which canal it would have been talking about and which rooms have that view (and thus exactly how much luxury Daniel would have been treating himself to)
The canal view rooms are some of the more expensive rooms. While not as ostentatious as the suites with their mural ceilings, they’re still listed just a tier below the suites. Through the balcony door there you can see the windows Armand might have been in. Across the canal is a more budget friendly hotel, the Venice Ca’Rosy.
The canal Daniel’s room overlooked is a lovely place all on its own. In this photo the Danieli is on the left, the Ca Rosy is on the right.
Current prices for rooms at the Danieli start at $700/night. Unfortunately the Danieli has changed ownership and will temporarily close in January, and undergo ‘extensive renovations’ over the next two years. What that means for the decor it’s hard to say.
I think it says something interesting about Daniel that he stayed here. When he had the money from his advance for Interview in his pocket he ate at the Copley (within another luxury hotel that he possibly was staying at) and then chose a hotel that’s amongst the priciest in Venice and paid for one of their finest rooms. It makes you question whether Armand introduced him to an expensive lifestyle or if he always had a taste for fine things, just sometimes when his life was falling apart he couldn’t afford them.
(There’s also the fun question of did Armand not speak to him in Venice because this is a building he has memories in but that’s a whole other meta post)
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i saw this post of eddie recently and it gave me so many (majorly self-indulgent) ideas which is why i couldn't stop myself with this and– nghhh rrrrr
eddie x plussize!fem!reader
warnings/tags: 18+ only! smut, oral (m receiving), plus size!reader and the issues that might come with growing up without male validation, established but relatively new relationship, softdom!eddie, unprotected piv (reader takes birth control but it's not mentioned), pet names (baby, sweetheart, darling), heavy dirty talk, eddie is down baaaad for reader, fluff at the end, inexperienced!reader if you squint, no mentions of y/n, no plot, just loads of filth basically oops don't look at me i got slightly carried away
Greedy and needy hands run down his torso, over the denim of his vest, they sneak underneath his worn out hellfire shirt, soft fingertips dancing over the heated skin of his waist, soft expanse of his belly, the back of an index slowly feeling its way south.
You don't know where your confidence is coming from, maybe it's transpiring into your own skin from the way your man's breath is a burning hot sensation on your neck, unmistakable consequence of your actions, the feeling of his heaving chest against your own.
A promise that he's right here because he wants to be. He really, really does.
His eyes are closed, brows furrowed and his lips are parted, making way for a symphony of sweet sounds he's about to make for your ears to hear, entirely focusing on you and you and you only, and whatever it is that you're about to do to him.
You, who's got his head spinning every time you're around. You, who's the only thing Eddie can think about ever since he worked up the courage to approach you at Steve Harrington's last party. You're the epitome of his wildest dreams, someone he still couldn't believe he deserved.
But god, you think, does he deserve you.
He lets out the sweetest moan-ish sigh when your index curls into the waistband of his boxers, both of your hearts blooming with anticipation, and your plush hip presses against the hardness that has started forming ever since you – totally on accident – brushed the back of your hand against his thigh as you had walked past him in the hallway of his uncle's trailer.
He's been half hard since then, eyeing your every move from the couch in the living room, darkened doe scanning over every curve and dip and valley and hill of your landscape as you were getting yourselves drinks.
Lips attached to his neck now, you're reveling in how reactive, vocal and pliant he's becoming under your touch as a desperate grunt escapes him at the feeling of you doing things.
"Shit, baby, need you so bad", he pants as you finally cup the evident excitement through the denim of his black jeans.
With a smile you look up from sucking a bruise into his the side of his neck, just to find his half-lidded dark brown eyes, incredibly lustful gaze set on you.
It flusters you to no end, having this effect on him. It's not something you're used to at all, it's a foreign concept, even strange if you're honest, but you're letting it happen. Accept it, slowly, because deep down, you really want to have that effect on him.
You're starved after all.
-----
Your pink lips finally close around his even pinker tip, the mix of your saliva and his precum running down your chin in tears.
All Eddie can see, can focus on, is you on your knees in front of him, with the sincerest intention to make him feel good. Yeah, he's been dreaming of this, of seeing you like this, of feeling you like this for a generous amount of time.
You've already taken your time transforming the skin over his hips into a field of gradients from light red to deep purple, and with every pop of your lips leaving him, he'd whimpered your name under his breath, eyes fluttered close, lips parted, his beautiful face pulled into an expression for the books.
You suck on the tip for a few moments, causing his hand to fly into your hair trying to keep you where he needs you most. One of yours is resting on his thigh, while the other comes up to cup his balls.
"Fuck, baby, s-so good", he murmurs as he quickly opens his eyes and his other hand comes down to cup yours over his heavy hang.
He wants to teach you, let you know, show you exactly how he likes it, since it's your first time sucking him off. It's endearing you think, and incredibly sweet. He wants you to learn him, and not in a demanding way, but more with a desperate and gentle undertone. Eddie's palm on the back of your hand is a welcome burning sensation to you, his kind understanding for your inexperience blooms between your two body parts, causing the same heat to rush all the way into your cheeks at his sweetness.
He wants to feel the wetness of your mouth around his length, taking him in as far as physics allow you, he wants to feel your throat constricting around him as he makes you swallow everything he has to offer.
You're lost for words, and not only because you're physically unable to form any sentence with how his cock is stuffing your eager mouth, but also because seeing him experience so much pleasure from doing this with you is something you'd never expected.
And suddenly, he grabs your chin and pulls you up to your feet.
"Gonna cum if you keep doing that, baby", he clarifies with a chuckle, pressing a sweet kiss to your lips as he cups your ass, "gonna let me take care of you too?"
Eddie's leaning down to look at you from under his bangs, hopeful doe eyes and this fucking dimpled smile making you melt to your core.
It sends a shiver through your system, hearing someone prioritize you, hearing someone care about you and your needs enough to go this far with you.
Your mouth cracks into a smile.
"Make me feel good, then."
-----
Eddie trails the softness of his plushy lips over your shoulder up up up, brushes a strand of hair away with his nose rubbing along the skin. He needs to make room, room because he knows that he is going to need to sink his teeth into the nape of your neck soon, the junction that's already bruised, marked in soft shades of red from earlier.
You hear the deep groan from behind you as you feel his tip softly touch your outer labia, carefully breaching its way between as he grabs his hard cock and slowly rubs down and then up again, catching your preciously hidden clit deliciously on its way, forcing a whimper out of your lungs.
You're burning for this man – it must be that you think, because you're indeed letting him feel you – hell, even see you like this, a vulnerable state you thought you would never let anyone see you in. Until Eddie came along, proving to you over and over again that he was worth letting your guard down. That he was going to be just what you needed. His gentlest, warmest, softest – for you.
The sound of him slowly pushing into your sopping warmth is so sinful, stretching you open on his pulsing cock and causing you to gasp at the feeling of getting filled.
Eddie himself is furrowing his brows, parting his lips and closing his eyes, his warm breath tickling down your neck from behind. The feeling of having your thick cunt wrapped around him entirely again is driving him mad to no end.
It only takes a few slow thrusts for a creamy ring to form at his base already, the schlicky sound and Eddie's low groans and your own moans the only thing your ears are able to take in.
"Oh god, babybabybaby, s-so fucking tight, mhhhhh", he babbles out under whimpers of his own, fingers gripping and digging into the supple flesh of your hips to pull you back onto his soaked cock repeatedly.
"Only for you Eddie", you manage to get out, shortly followed by more whimpers and louder squelching as he gently picks up speed. Your back arches as Eddie presses his plump rosy lips to your neck,
"Yeah baby? You're this wet– fuck, just– fuuuuck .. –just for me?"
"Mhh-hm", you hum in agreement over the slapping sounds of his hips against your ass before your jaw falls open and your back arches even further as Eddie wraps his arms around you just for one hand of his to find your tits, pinching and rolling one of your nipples between his ringed fingers, while the other wanders south to help you along.
It's all so much, almost too much, and it's sending you straight towards your desired destination.
"S'good, feels s-so good baby, mhh yes", slips past your lips, one of your hands goes up to tangle itself in Eddie's mess of a curly mane, the other has already found his sticky palm that he eagerly buried between your thighs, repeating his own gesture of showing you.
"Yeah? Been dreaming of this pretty cunt for the whole week darling", Eddie paused as you let out another whimper at his admission, "god, you're so f-fucking hot", he mouthes at your shoulder, admiring how truly fucked out and needy you are for him.
Goosebumps spread over your arms, your legs, even your back at his words, his sultry praise laying bare on every inch of your sweaty skin.
He'd probably been fisting his hardness to the thought of your sopping heat every morning and every night of the last days in which you didn't have the chance of seeing each other, and the thought of him thinking of you, especially in this context, is more than enough to help bringing you closer.
His thrusts become sloppier, a sign he's nearing his own sticky-sweet release, amplified and sped up by the flow of his name coming over your lips.
"Mhh, wanna cum Eddie, please– oh fuck, please."
"Oh shit, yeah baby, yes – god yes, soak this cock for me like the good girl that you are."
He bites into your shoulder to hold back, he's so damn close but he wouldn't dare to come before you, his own desire and the determination to make you feel good making his fingers that are still rubbing your sensitive bud continue at the same exact speed all while his cock is being buried deep inside you over and over again, hitting every place you need him to touch.
And there you are, flashes of white appear beneath your eyelids as he continues to pound into your creamy hole, the grunts and groans escaping him enough to push you over the edge. You're surprised at yourself – though you had plenty of experience doing it solo – about your own capabilities of cumming this hard.
Your head falls back on Eddie's shoulder, you feel your pussy clench and flutter around him as he finally lets go with a grunt of your name surrounded by "fuck, baby"'s and soft whimpers, stuffing you full of his cum.
A laugh rumbles through his chest as you're both coming down, his hand on your clit finds your own, guiding it upwards and placing it on your belly along with his other arm that had been a great help in holding you steady against him just moments ago.
Wrapped up in him, you're fighting the familiar urge to leave his grasp and hide back underneath your clothes, which at the same time sounds absurd to you since you'd just let him rail you silly, it's real nonetheless.
Stirring you out of it, Eddie's hot tongue comes out to lick a broad stripe up the side of your neck, relishing in the taste of you, "now that was something else baby, holy shit", he then nuzzles against your cheek as he presses you closer into his body.
Still panting from your blissful high, you swallow and nod against his face, breath hot on your cheek.
The next thing he says melts you.
"You're so soft, I fucking love you, sweetheart", a warm hand comes up to your other cheek, turning your face towards his gently, the dark brown ocean in his eyes finding yours and you're mere milliseconds away from getting lost in it.
He bumps his nose against yours, a gesture so sickeningly sweet it makes your heart nearly burst, showing him with a wide smile and a soft "I love you too", before his lips land back on yours, and you welcome his tongue with pleasure.
You feel his thumb brush back and forth over the heated skin of your plush cheek, a low moan transpiring from his lungs into your own.
Without breaking away, Eddie draws his hips back just to slowly give you one more gentle thrust. Your fucked raw cunt clenches around him yet again, still sensitive, and you start to realise he's already hard again just from kissing you. And, maybe also, feeling your mixed cum drip down both of your thighs.
Eddie bottoms out once more, mumbling one more thing against your lips, as his grip on your cheek and belly tightens, not intending to let you go any time soon,
"the lonely days are over, sweetness."
-----
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Compromise. Im not going to actually WRITE meta but i AM going to lay out a list of things I'm thinking about broadly and thematically and would probably write meta about if i were properly caught up and informed, but is instead influenced much more by early campaign F.C.G:
**edit: no this is kind of meta again. sorry.
- F.C.G grappling with the questions of: being made. purpose. whether it matters if you find your own purpose if you were made with one in mind and you "choose" something else. Can you actually? Does it matter? Is your choice a choice at all?
- Wanting so badly to heal people and help people and the unique fear of waking up and seeing damage done by your own hands. To the same people you wanted so badly to help. You extend healing and you offer comfort or kind words but all the while, in your core is a tightness. In your core is a danger. How much good do you need to do to get the blood off your chassis? Can you, at all?
- Metal body. Metal hands. A little wheel. You were a turtle once and it felt so wondrous to breathe. You try out tongues or little wooden legs or whatnot but it always comes back to an inorganic metal body and empty insides no matter if youre filling them with liquids or secret goods to smuggle or pastries (faux warmth). Maybe everything like wooden legs dangling off a metal body. All for show.
- A coin in hand. Looking for a higher power. Thinking about choice. Deferring choices.
- You love your friends, so much. You love people being kind to each other. You love your boyfriend and their wonderful way of thinking. You love being alive. Even when you doubted you were at all. You love, truly and deeply.
- Ashton raging at F.C.G for being a martyr. For aching for a good enough reason to get himself hurt or killed or blown up. Ashton looking at F.C.G knowing they're all messed up inside and trying so hard to stop them from letting it destroy them.
- Ashton always worried about how they're always trying to find a big enough cause, a good enough reason.
And so with those things, I remembered about F.C.G:
- F.C.G looking at their friends all down. Ashton laid out unmoving.
- F.C.G with something awful in their core. Ready to spill out. The same something awful they were always worried about. They were always aware of.
- F.C.G always looking for that reason. For that bigger and better cause.
- F.C.G always feeling like they didn't understand purpose, like it was so. unattainable- finally, briefly, startlingly- sure. Finally free of doubt. Their friends down and something awful and destructive in their core and one last thing they can do to maybe make things worth it, and the ability to choose it. They were made for something. They chose what to do with it.
- F.C.G finding that reason. F.C.G making that call. F.C.G thinking it was worth it.
- I think because of him, they succeeded. They won. That is certain.
- I think. "Worth it". Is always a subjective thing.
- I think. A self sacrifice is never just one person giving everything up. A self sacrifice, unfortunately- is one person making a choice.
And everyone else caught, in the blast radius.
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You mentioned in a previous Astarion analysis post:
"But, I think, given his behavior, his casual flirtiness, his "You want to lose yourself in me," (another line I can squawk about endlessly in terms of character analysis)"
I am encouraging you to squawk. I think you've got a really good grasp of his character and I love your posts!
UPDATE***written during EA
@littlemisstrancy Sorry for the late reply! I fell down another rabbit hole of replaying haha.... Aww, thank you! I'm so glad, a good grade in Astarion is a Normal and Reasonable thing to want to achieve. But YES, I find his entire sex scene to be extremely interesting (going off of what Larian said that, paraphrased, nonsexual intimacy with some will mean more than sex with others, because of the nature of the relationship.)
What I find most interesting about Astarion's romance scenes is that the scene itself is remarkably much more syrupy than he, by nature, really is. We can point to, "darling," "my love," as evidence of his tendencies for the dramatics, yes, but given that these are petnames he'll throw out to a Tav he hates as much as a Tav he enjoys, the surface meaning and connotations of dramatic flirtations and even more dramatic pre-sex speeches.... shifts.
The way we filter these interactions shifts because we have to filter what is, at first glance, a typical romance scene, through the lens of the character giving the spiel. If Astarion associates dramatic seduction and slinky purring as simply the easiest way to get what he wants--or, perhaps, more than that, the expectation, the only way for this interaction to occur, because hollow dramatics/play-acting have been likely the only pseudo-""romance"" he's engaged in in the 200 years he's been with Cazador, that changes the meaning of everything, including the line: "You want to lose yourself in me." <- sure laddie, just keep objectifying and disconnecting yourself from the experience itself and repeat the habits of behavior that you've learned from 200 years of being someone else's toy and tool where you weren't even a willing participant in what was happening, merely a mandatory one. that'll be really great. no backfiring here whatsoever.
Okay, sorry, under the cut the rest of this goes because I went off on three different tangents to try and tie them all back together again. This is mostly my background reasoning for above. WHAT DOES THE REST HAVE TO DO WITH TAV. Honestly I'm not sure anymore I started talking and then I didn't stop talking.
It feels like so much of the overarching realities of their circumstances fall away for Tav, but it also haunts the entire interaction with Astarion. Shallow charm. Winning over people. A pretty face opening doors. I'd chalk it up to sexy-video-game-scene-writing if it were any other game, but the other romance scenes aren't nearly so grandstanding and are written I think intentionally to subvert that, so this is an Astarion Thing, and likely goes deeper than that first glance. As it stands, Astarion barely even knows who he is now that he's outside of Cazador's control. "Another thing that I've lost." -- His personhood has been nonexistent, and he's been a tool, and he's been, for lack of a better word, dehumanized to the fullest extent for an insurmountable amount of time. So of course the thing he learned best is that the easiest way to get what you want, or get what you need, is to be easily projected unto. He can't keep the facade up for very long, I don't think, but in that scene his "don't ask too many questions just look at how hot I am" mindset is fully on to me.
The thing is that his circumstances with Tav here are entirely different than the ones he's been in before, but just because the circumstances are different doesn't mean that the behavior will be different, or that habits formed out of severe distress/torture in his own words will be so easily let go of. My ULTIMATE POINT is that charm and flirtations are things Astarion clearly separates from himself and his actual beliefs, and he treats what we conceive as "charming" behavior fairly flippantly--once again, that "my love," means... not... a lot. we just met 2 weeks ago, pal. And I don't think he's interested in using it like that anymore, because he's not making a super great effort to be perceived as likeable. It comes out mostly in scenes where flirting and charisma are expected of the interaction and then they're pushed to their most exaggerated format, when he isn't actually typically like that in other conversations. Dramatic and foppish, yes, and enjoys ridiculousness in several formats, yes, but not nearly so egregiously saccharine, at all.
If he is starting to give a fuck about Tav, or even the group, that's something else to grapple with, and it's still at this point I think partly wrapped up in the idea that Tav makes for a "good ally." His scenes where he says: "we're more alike than I thought" "You're stronger than I gave you credit for," feel more genuine and honest to me in some ways than his sex scene speech. His fondness for Tav and his idea that strength/power/security can be found by sticking close to Tav can be true at the same time, in an interesting dance between his growing connection to them and his general ideas on people, power, and control.
So secondary: is Astarion a manipulator who's using this sex scene to control Tav emotionally and that's what he's got going on here? Eh... maybe yes and no? He wouldn't ask Tav if he wasn't interested--as seen by how he'll shut you down if he can't stand your guts. If he's using sex for that, it's up in the air, open to interpretation, depends on your HC, I can see both interpretations and I'm not going to claim one is more true than the other, since there's evidence for both "manipulating" and "not manipulating" and to me, the truth falls somewhere in the middle. I'm sure the thought has probably crossed his mind, but I don't actually think he's good enough at charm to follow through on that, which I will now elaborate on in INTRICATE detail....
Astarion isn't actually concerned about being likeable, or wanted within the group--or, rather, he may be concerned about it (because there's both safety and danger in a group setting), but he also isn't concerned about it enough to not advocate entirely for self-preservation and selfishness at generally every turn. He also isn't concerned about winning over the group enough to abdicate his firmest belief: that the tadpole is an advantage they should use, and a power he intends to keep.
And, if you relent to the group, he calls you spineless in the face of everyone else. So he's not afraid to insult you, Tav, either, certainly not to preserve some loose semblance image of ""charming,"" which he's already really bad at maintaining in general, because his brand of everything can just as easily piss people off as compel. Bad taste central.
Hell, his intro scene displays this best: He lures you in with a silly little lie that makes him sound weaker than he is ("You can kill it, can't you? Like you killed the others!") and then he strikes when your back is turned. Shallow charm is an accessible tool, he doesn't have the patience for long-lasting plots or extended slinky charm. Or if he does, and he's been manipulating all of us, he's not doing a great job, since half the party is making faces at him the whole time. Buuut....
During the mirror conversation, if you tell him vanity is a weakness:
(Text - Astarion: It's an indulgence, I'll grant you, but a weakness? A well-presented face can open a lot of doors.)
There is an awareness of beauty and charm that Astarion references often. He isn't really afraid to objectify himself for his own means, or being perceived as weaker than he is (except in certain circumstances). He knows these things are quite relevant, socially. Beautiful people are treated better. Beautiful people typically can get away with more. Actually I could probably approach this from a Class and Wealth related lens too, because his history as a magistrate probably also influences this mindset a lot, but that is. a THIRD separate essay.
He seeks to be strong enough to beat Cazador, at least partly through the same means that Cazador himself uses. The tadpoles give us absolute authority, in the end, and Astarion has zero qualms inflicting onto others what was inflicted onto him when we use them. But prior to the tadpole, what tools did Astarion have at his disposal? Very few, and most of them revolved around empty charm, quick-thinking, and trying to predict unpredictable moods and then enduring whatever came of those moods. That hollow charm falls under these kinds of tools, which gave him very short-term influence over at least the people he would lure back to Cazador. Likely the only form of control or power he had within all of that, and where he himself was without control as his entire being was under someone else's thumb. And those habits will likely persist for awhile, until he relearns who and what he wants to do and be outside of Cazador's purview. Which could mean anything, this is not to make him sound softer than he is or sweeter than he is. His vainglorious bitch syndrome is 4D chess of truth and not truth, empty cloying, vicious lashing out, and 10 degrees of identity issues wrapped up in all of that, so it's difficult to pin down just one thing as Real or Not Real, and I don't think even he knows what's Real and Not Real right now.
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