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#this didn't have to hit so hard
fangsandfeels · 8 months
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I've seen the "Non-ascended Astarion ending is bad for him because you have to persuade him to reject the ritual" opinion...
..implying that he never really wanted not to ascend, it's you the player who selfishly forces him to give up on his goal. To prove their point, they state that you can get a good ending out of all other companion's quests without using Persuasion at all, except for Astarion.
And boy did I want to talk about this...
(In fact, everything I wanted to say has already been told in this amazing meta post, but I still gotta ramble)
First of all, Astarion was going through an intense PTSD. The game gave him a debuff to show how badly going back to the place of his torment was affecting him. Larian couldn't make it more obvious that he wasn't thinking clearly.
Second, there is one thing all abusers have in common: they destroy their victim's feelings of self-worth to the point, the victim no longer wants or knows how to ask for help or have relationships outside their abusive circle.
Who would want you like this? Look at yourself, you think you're better than me? You're nothing. Who would want to waste their time on you? You think somebody else would treat you better?
Since entering the Cazador's palace, Astarion is reliving his worst moments. Initially, he takes it in stride, hiding his discomfort underneath performative and emotional expressiveness. He talks about how he spent time in the bedrooms where he never did any sleeping, about the kennels where he was tortured, about the barracks where he was sent to when he "deserved neither carrot nor stick". Bad memories, but he shares them with Tav because he trusts them with his scars already. They might as well know the rest.
But after descending into the dungeon, Astarion starts spiraling into self-loathing at a break-neck speed. He used to think that all Cazador victims he ever brought to him were long gone, drained, and discarded. A horrible, undeserved death, yet the thought of them not having to suffer for too long was a small consolation, one of the threads holding his sanity together.
But then it turns out that they weren't dead. They were turned. Locked away deep underground, alone with their new selves, with the hunger and isolation. They did suffer. All these years, they suffered, buried in this tomb - because of him. Cazador may have turned them, but it was Astarion who brought them to him. And they remembered it. They recognized him. The monster who stole them from their home. The monster who ruined their life. Monster. Just like Cazador.
So, as if his PTSD wasn't enough, this revelation was another blow to his grip on himself, his perception of himself. His confident facade was shattering - and in his head, he was starting to think that Tav's idea of him, of who he is, was shattering as well. He tried to warn them before. He said he couldn't be what they saw in him. Whatever person they believed him to be had never existed - and Tav was finally coming to realize that as they walked through the gallery of his sins, looking his victims in the eyes and hearing out what they had to say. Of course, Tav hated him now. They had to. How could they not?
So, at the end, he is scared. Terrified. He bit off more than he could chew by walking into the manor and thinking he had only six fellow spawns to deal with. He saw their lives as a small price to pay because Cazador made sure to erase any solidarity between them. He made them torture each other and compete with each other. He twisted the very meaning of family bonds to his perverted liking, and he knew that by doing so, he would make sure every single one of them would get a whiplash from anyone trying to mention family in a positive connotation. Astarion takes no issue with getting rid of his "brothers" and "sisters" because he is fully aware that had the roles been reversed, they would have sacrificed him without a second thought. And he was certain that Tav would change their mind once they learned more about his brethren.
But the spawns in the dungeon...All the faces he remembered. All the lovers he lured. They did nothing wrong. They never hurt him. They never tortured him. Their only mistake was to trust him.
The revelation horrifies him. His first response is to be shocked, overwhelmed with emotion - and then he has to remind himself that sacrifices must be made. He feigns indifference. He tries to cover his internal conflict with gallows humor. But his flippant mask keeps slipping as he lapses from indifference to anger, to guilt, to begging Tav not to hate him as his greatest crimes glare back at him and claw at him, shouting out threats and seething with hatred.
He can't bear the thought of dealing with all the people whose lives he helped to destroy. He can't do anything for them. Just killing Cazador won't undo what he did to them. He will never be anything but a monster in their eyes. And this is what he deserves to be. He will always be reminded of what he is.
He has no choice but to do the Ritual.
He has no idea what will happen to him after he is done - he isn't a planner. He has never been. But at this point, he doesn't see his soul as something worthy of preserving - and by association, he extends that to other spawns. He knows it all too well because he remembers how it felt. He dissociates, projecting everything he hated about himself onto Cazador's victims, trying to rationalize why he should live and why they must die while he actively avoids the truth.
Completing the ritual is no longer about being free. Or protecting himself and his lover. It's about running away. Even when Astarion has Cazador at his mercy, he still thinks of running away. Getting lost forever. So nobody could ever hurt him.
A part of him even realizes that it means running away from Tav too. But Tav can leave, he naively thinks, not knowing the full consequences of the ritual. Tav will leave to find someone else, someone better, and he will start everything anew, a king of his castle.
So, of course, Tav has to reach out to him through that thick haze of fear, anger, and self-hatred. Persuasion isn't about strongarming someone into doing what you want. It's not subjugation or emotional blackmail. It's reasoning with someone. And that is exactly what Tav does - reasons with Astarion after watching him mentally struggle, after seeing his genuine shock and fear, after understanding that he isn't fully on board with the idea.
It's true, vampire spawns tend to gravitate toward power, especially if nothing is pulling them back. A vampire spawn is a feared and scorned creature - it no longer matters whether they were an unwilling victim, forcefully taken and turned. They are seen not as an individual but as the extension of their master - and the only natural transition for them is to get on the top of the food chain. The only way to make a name and become treated as something more.
Astarion saw power as the mean to safety and freedom, first and foremost. Ironically, he never planned beyond securing these two priorities. He never saw himself after accomplishing his goals, and it's kinda amazing how people can make conclusions about his hedonism because he misses petty vanities, wants to drink blood from a goblet, and sleep on silken sheets. The man who was held and tortured in the kennels, fed rats, and had to stitch and fix his only set of clothes over and over to keep it presentable, the man who has never felt happy for most of his conscious non-life is called hedonistic for wanting nice things. For still wanting to take care of himself for once.
He wasn't harboring any grand plans, conquests, or schemes. Even his idea of taking control of the Absolute was abstract and shapeless because he didn't care about getting control over the most influential people as much as he was afraid of breaking whatever protected him from Cazador's domination. He never really knew what to do with power aside from keeping Cazador and the likes of him at bay.
The way Astarion behaves in a relationship also speaks tons of how controlling he really is...or how he isn't controlling at all. When his romance with Tav transforms into something real, and he enters a new territory, Astarion is empowered to make decisions and think about what he wants instead of pleasuring others. It's clear that he and Tav don't have sex after they come clear about their feelings. Tav respects his comfort and boundaries, gives him all the time he needs, and lets him take the lead. Whether they will have sex again or not is entirely up to Astarion. Whatever he decides, it won't change Tav's feelings for him. He doesn't have to do anything he doesn't want to do.
Astarion enjoys this new autonomy. He is playful, affectionate, outspoken...and afraid of messing everything up. If Tav mentions breaking up, Astarion thinks he is the problem. If there is another potential love interest showing they have eyes for Tav, Astarion encourages Tav to be with them because he believes they can give Tav everything he can't. When Tav says "I choose you," Astarion is taken aback, needing a moment to hide his genuine confusion at Tav actually wanting to be with him rather than Gale, Karlach, or Halsin.
For all his talks of control and dominating others, once Astarion finds himself with a lover who values his autonomy more than getting power at the cost of his dignity, who makes it safe for him to be honest, and who listens to him, he almost stops mentioning control. He merely lives in the moment, happy not to know, not to pretend, not to manipulate. Just to be.
What Astarion truly craves - not wants on a superficial level, not conditioned to want - is not to be a vampire lord. He wants the freedom to be anything. Anything he wants. Little does he know that true vampires rarely get to be anything they want, even if they gain the ability to walk in the sun -- we see it in his Ascended path as, instead of acting up on his supposed freedom to be anything, Astarion repeats Cazador's rules step by step. Just like Cazador did. Just like Verlioth did. He isn't anything he wants. He is the replica of his former master.
Astarion never had the luxury to explore who he wanted to be outside what Cazador made him. He only makes his first steps once he is free. We see glimpses of that deep-seated aspiration to be seen as a person. Treated like a person. Loved like a person. To be reflected in someone's eyes. He wants to know if there is someone beneath his usual mask, something his, not tainted by Cazador. Someone real. And at the same time, he dreads to know the answer. Because that part of him knows regret. Knows shame. Knows guilt. Confronting it posed the risk of realizing he didn't deserve love, kindness, or a future. What if real him truly doesn't amount to anything? What else for him to do?
So, he tells himself that he has no choice, and he expects Tav to affirm it -- not because he wants them to, but because he believes that Tav has seen enough to make the same conclusion. However, Tav objects, trying to be louder than all the inner demons hissing into his ears. Tav speaks to the Astarion, who asked them what they saw when they looked at him. The Astarion, who thanked them for standing by his side when he said "No" to Araj. The Astarion one who stood frozen in their hug before returning it tentatively. The Astarion who diligently, dedicatedly, caringly kept pulling himself together instead of letting himself unravel completely.
Tav reminds him that this Astarion, right here, right now, is worth fighting for. That he didn't survive all these years of torture, pain, humiliation, and dehumanization to give himself up now. He already has the power to avenge himself, avenge all Cazador's victims. He can end everything right here, right now - and this is the only power to free him. He has the power (and responsibility) of having a choice.
Tav empathizes with other spawns as victims not because they're more "innocent" than Astarion, but because associating with them doesn't brand Astarion as weak or broken. These spawns aren't horrible wretches, and neither is he. They don't deserve this, and neither did he.
The only one who deserves to die today is Cazador - the vampire, the monster, the pathetic piece of shit.
Astarion Ancunin deserves to live.
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montanabohemian · 9 months
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honestly, the people bitching about an objectively insane episode of wwdits are SO BORING. it's just a silly little comedy about some idiot vampires that live together and commit atrocities in new york. like what is so difficult to comprehend about that.
of course lazslo would create horrifying animal lab experiments that can talk that guillermo has to take care of.
of course nandor and colin are besties.
of course nadja makes 50 dunkin runs for a crazy lady.
it's just a weird show that is outrageous and funny and sometimes carries an emotional wallop. it's not fucking rocket science.
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rottmnt-residuum · 1 year
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part 7
remember not to ever talk to cops if you get arrested, everyone! envoke your rights and shut the fuck up! don’t make the same mistakes as moi (✿ -- ‿ -- )
⇇ | ⇽ | index | ⇾
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shepards-folly · 4 months
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shout out to the fellas who can’t help but assume everyone is mad at them if they even sound slightly upset (it’s me i’m the fellas)
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lightningidle · 1 month
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Fig's line "I don't think I'm an artist, I think I'm just a good friend" has not left my head at all. Just...
You're Fig Faeth and your horns came in over the summer and you pick up the bard class as a form of adolescent rock 'n' roll rebellion, and it works! It's exactly the outlet you need! You give a guy you just met drumsticks and you start a band and it's good enough that within a year and a half you're touring. You are, in every sense, good at being a bard.
And then, finally, your junior year, you start to take it seriously. Your art goes from an outlet and a form of rebellion to a practice. A discipline. (Can rebellion exist within a discipline?) Your classmates know what they want to do with their work. They all have a thesis statement. And yeah, there's cohesion in the music you make, but you've never had to think about why you make it. You've never sat down and dissected what it is about bass that speaks to you. You've never poured over your lyrics to pick at any deeper meaning. Why should you? You don't play music for a grand design, you do it to... huh, why do you do it?
(Your art is the one form of self-expression that feels as safe as Disguise Self does, because even if you're pouring your heart onto the page and then screaming it in front of thousands of people, it's not like you're really making yourself known. You can sing I'm lonely, I'm scared, I'm furious, and your fans will sing it right back, and there will still be the distance between performer and audience to keep your heart safe.)
Now you're being asked to look inward to explain the artistic choices you're making, and you can't help but recoil at that, because you'd rather do anything than look inward. Meanwhile, your classmates have no problem with it, so you start to wonder if you're a real artist at all. Can your art be authentic if it only exists to bolster a thesis statement? Has your art been unauthentic this whole time because you've never really thought about a thesis statement before? Is that what makes it art, and not just the next track on somebody's teen angst playlist?
You can't think about yourself— acknowledging your own existence makes you want to puke. So if your music is an extension of yourself, (and it is, even if it's just because the spotlight reveals only what you want it to,) you can't think about your music. You can't. You have to. Your grade depends on it.
You're Fig Faeth, and you keep multiclassing because you'd rather be a good friend than a great artist. If introspection is what great art demands, then fuck it. You must not be a bard at all.
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moongothic · 5 months
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You know, I would love it if we could see Mihawk just. Get slightly fucked up by someone, have his sword stolen and watch him figure out how to fight with some random ass sword instead
I just think. It'd be neat.
Like we kinda know how The World's Greatest Swordsman fights with his itty bitty knife, we know what kind of damage he can do with his iconic Yoru
I just think it'd be fun to see him fight with a regular katana and try to get his stolen sword back or summin' IDK
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sneeb-canons · 7 months
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Soul has a cabin where he keeps things from past loops in. A few things of note are:
-A tape recorder with an early version of ‘We’re Gonna Win’
-Mind’s first pair of prosthetics
-Heart’s first blindfold
-Pictures from various concords where they’re all happy
-Recordings of Mind reading or singing
-Recordings of Heart doodling and writing lyrics
He keeps these with him because he just wants to only be in concord and to rewind back to when heart and mind weren’t blind and mute respectively. He knows he didn’t cause either, but he just needs them back to ‘normal’ so bad it physically hurts him. When he goes to his cabin, he always comes out crying because {God, why can’t things be better? Why did all this shit happen to us? What did we do to deserve this?}
And also, going hand in hand with this, during concord, Soul records EVERYTHING. He is so scared that this loop is the last loop they’re like this, and next loop they’re going to rip each other to shreds. He just can’t let any moment go to waste.
Headcanon #127
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distortingbones · 2 years
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can't stop thinking about you could've raised a better girl like. god that's it isn't it. that's what it is to be someone who doesn't realize they may be trans until adulthood, but who has always felt a connection to the "other" gender. 45 years old telling their proverbial mother, you could've raised a girl if only i had understood myself sooner. you could've raised a girl if only i'd had the words for what i felt. you could've raised a girl if only i wasn't forced into maleness from birth. you could've raised a girl if only you'd seen me and listened to me and been the mother that i needed you to be. and i think i would have been better as a girl, and i wonder if maybe i wouldn't have been a disappointment to you if i'd been raised as your daughter instead of your son. and yes, i could have been a better son, but only if i were somebody else. maybe i should have tried harder to be a better son to you but maybe you could have been a better mother to me. maybe i would be a better girl now if you had raised me that way.
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bruce on a magazine for @broke-bruce-wayne
"bnbnbn vfgtr45ed73" - earl the cat
plain version under the cut:
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majorpatheticcas · 7 months
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AAAAAAHHH- SHOULD I MAKE THIS AS MY PROFILE??
Gosh it's been a while since I last took a drawing seriously hel..
Btw. (They're matching sweaters!!)
Balsam, aka Bal is from the one and only:
!@caycanteven !
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[ID: a digital drawing of Luz and Hunter from the owl house dressed as Erika and Annalise from Barbie: Princess and the Pauper, respectively. The two are clasping hands, looking at each other happily and singing "yes I am a witch like you!". A blue butterfly flies behind hunter, while a pink one flies behind Luz. The background is light purple. End ID] @toh-described
Had this idea all week and finally sat down and did it while watching Princess and the Pauper lmao. Did u guys know it's on netflix now???? Hello?????
Also, bonus: how'd they'd really react getting to sing a duet
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[ID: the same image as before, except Hunter had a tired, grumpy expression and Luz has a mischievous one. End ID]
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astro-b-o-y-d · 4 months
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How pissed do you think Shermie was when he found out about what really happened with Stan and Ford???
#Hayley Speaks#It might not hit as hard if you headcanon him as the baby in the flashback#But if you don't and you headcanon him as older than them it's like#Okay so he comes home to find out one of his younger brothers got kicked out#And the other moved all the way to the other side of the country#And then the news about Stan being dead comes up#So I fully imagine that while Stan never outright told him about what happened; he knows damn well that he's not Ford#Even after all the time they spent apart; that is so CLEARLY Stanley Pines who is suddenly going by Stanford#Maybe Stan hides his hands around Shermie to continue the con but Shermie knows#Which means something probably happened to Ford and Stan doesn't want anyone to know#So he keeps the secret and doesn't let on that he knows#He could always confront Stan about it but also like#The last time he really saw Stan was long before he got kicked out of the house#He does NOT want to scare off what is potentially the only brother he has left#He's always felt like the third wheel when it came to them; both because of the twin thing and the 'being the oldest' thing#Combined with the whole 'Pines men don't talk about their feelings' thing; he thinks it's best to just let Stan keep pretending to be Ford#And silently mourn the loss of the brother that the rest of the family doesn't realize is even gone#But THEN the grandkids are like 'Yeah Grunkle Stan's twin brother is back now!' and he's PISSED OFF#He kept Stan's secret for THIRTY YEARS and the bastard didn't even have the gall to let him know that Ford was back face to face#Neither of the bastards had the gall to do it?!#They just took off on a fishing boat together in search of adventure??#He's so mad at them but also...that is so painfully in character for them. At least from the memories he has of them as young kids.#But also.......he's their brother#They couldn't have told him ANYTHING???
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lambjock · 3 months
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been back on a little hope kick ( replayed it with friends for my partner's birthday! ) and god the realization of the parenting book being for dennis specifically. the pointed use of 'him/him' pronouns ??? the added text on his band poster, about 'who was the subject of the discipline?' ... like it's no wonder he was so jaded and aggressive!
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runawaymun · 20 days
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#sorry let me rant real quick in the tags#cw personal#once again hitting an insurance pothole bc the psych says she accepts my OHP plan HOWEVER the therapy group she is contacted with says#THEY don't#they only accept the insurance if it's through my employer but NOT through the government??????????????#so there's still some kind of payment???#anyway I want to scream why is this so complicated#like will she take my insurance or not who's right here#anyway called her back directly and went to voicemail so now I've done all I can for now#why the hell is this so hard man#the person on the phone didn't know really how to explain#once again no one knows what they're talking about#like can y'all not communicate and figure this out?#AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH#i need to get an ADHD eval before my next PCP appointment in june so that they will continue giving me my meds#and the psychiatry through the hospital has a limited number of visits that insurance will cover#*contracted#not retyping all of that#and once again the only reason this is so stressful is because the psychiatry group at the hospital fumbled the communication ball last tim#and the psychiatrist I was with never put the ADHD on the chart#and now somehow it's MY responsibility to fix that>#UGH#like I am grateful to have some kind of coverage but holy shit is the US healthcare system in shambles#the bureaucracy is INSANE#i had to just sit down and put my head in my hands for a second#and then go 'right okay nothing i can do about that rn moving on'#uGH#literally said 'what the FUCK' out loud a couple times#like not on the phone after I hung up obvs
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poorly-drawn-mdzs · 10 months
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you absolutely already know this, but i adore your work. i think it's hard to avoid the pressure of being surrounded by people we might consider "true artists," but the fact is that, frankly, everyone who makes art is an artist.
before this year, i hadn't drawn a complete piece in nearly three years. the line work i did produce felt abysmal and i was tempted to give up. then, i saw your comic and i thought, "wow, that's really cute, and it looks like a fun style to emulate."
i drew you, pondering me, eating grass. and it WAS fun. i forgot how fun it could be. i can draw lesbian horses, or pony!WWX throwing a chicken, or me eating grass. i can even make shitty memes! and all of it, no matter how good or how bad, is fun again.
you bring a lot of fun to people here. that's something equally as important as people who cultivate fancy line work or expert level digital painting. i'm sure that's something you know, but i hope it never hurts to hear it.
happy first season, friend! i can't wait to see the rest.
As a chronic perfectionist, it's been a long journey for me to accept that 'done is better than nothing' and that the worst critical voice is my own. Sure there's people who've gone to professional art schools, and those with a more than a decade of experience on me, but honestly? Would I tell a child their sonic drawing isn't art? Just because they have no 'experience' or 'technique'? Absolutely not. So I'm no longer saying my efforts should not count as art.
At the end of the day, art is what we choose to make it. We have the power to create whatever we want. And we are going to use it to have fun! We never lost the love and fun for creation we all had as children, we just told ourselves it wasn't enough. But it really is B*)
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adhd-merlin · 6 months
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sorry but I was rewatching some bits of The Hollow Queen and the transition from daegal's tragic death in merlin's arms to arthur sitting at the table and telling his wife "I still can't believe how lucky I was! :)" while merlin limps in the background is kind of funny
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