[Astarion] is a cat. He's a black cat. There's a stray that comes into my house called Red... and he's quite feral. It took me three years before I could pick him up and hold him. He's totally cool with me now. Three fucking years. He gave me a lot of inspiration about Astarion.
- Neil Newbon, on developing Astarion's physicality and mannerisms
the way that one line from the new epilogue in an astarion romance is going to HAUNT me
just. what a profoundly intense thing to confess to someone.
like, just these six months of newfound happiness with you exerts a force on his heart equal and in direct opposition to two centuries of endless torment, the gnawing hunger and exploitation. this flashbulb-bright fraction of his long life holds the same gravity to him as years upon years of darkness and suffering.
in all likelihood, he hasn’t even known his lover for as long as his worst memory lasted, that year sealed away to go mad from starvation and sensory deprivation, yet he still tells them this brief time has been so fundamentally and powerfully important that the weight of even that unimaginable hell is vanishingly small compared to this present he has now and the future ahead of them both.