qwainte - Tumblr blog

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losing my mind at this

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TIL r/watchpeopledie has come back and rebranded AGAIN

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Thomas Jefferson experiences dysphoria

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I take back everything bad I've said about Astarion stans. You guys are the funniest people on earth

Spawn Astarion fans want everything Ascended Astarion has SOOOO badly it’s actually funny. Bat form? That belongs to Ascended Astarion. His jewel-encrusted epilogue outfit? That costs 7007 souls, darling. Sure, Tav/Durge can find a way for him to walk in the sun eventually, but spawn Astarion is wearing painted leather, stuck a spawn until a full vampire voluntarily lets him feed from them (lmao), stuck trying to convince himself he’s better off that way. He can’t shapeshift. He doesn’t have political sway or great wealth. He’s even still shooting blanks. But hey, he’s docile now. THAT’s the man the ~spawn girlies~ chose, and they should learn to live with that and leave the trappings of the Ascendant to those willing to pay the price.

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"Spawn Astarion is shooting blanks!!"

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"Wyll's entrance is too corny!!! Wyll's entrance makes me cringe!!!" You are playing DnD: The Video Game.

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drake listened to the diss track :(

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After hearing who the twist villain of Velma season 2 is, my little theory that the most Scooby-Doo content the writers ever watched were the 2000s live action movies and a synopsis of Mystery Incorporated seems even more credible.

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to answer why he sleeps instead of trances when elves can also sleep: i don’t think it’s super consistent with game lore since the potion of angelic slumber says “ One of the few ways for elves to experience sleep. Other methods include taking narcotics and being hit very hard with a chair.” so i took it to mean they can’t choose sleep

This confuses me even more because a big defining feature of elves and other fey-related creatures is that they cannot be put to sleep via magical means. I need to find out everything about Larian's FR lore.

I know I'm probably looking too deep into a game mechanic that was just added to give your companions an opportunity to refresh their spell slots and abilities without long resting, but I like overthinking.

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Reblobbing bc I hope more ppl will see her and ask me questions about her 😭

Say hello to my baby Mina. She's a Calishite noble born and raised in Baldur's Gate who ran away from home to become a pirate when she was 17. She was on her way back to Baldur's Gate to attend her father's funeral when she abducted by the nautiloid and infected. She has 3 older brothers and an estranged mother

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Hear me out… Damnon and Karlach in this pose

frfr they’re too cute together 😭😭❤️

[qwainte]

OK I think I understand some of why some people in the fandom choose to make Mystra some kind of a terrible, grooming abuser to Gale. It's because every one of the companions has like a specific person you can point to and say, that is the abuser. That right there is the person who has caused the companion grievous harm. Gale and Mystra are a little more complex than that.

Shadowheart and Lae'zel technically have a whole cult/culture backing up the abuse, but you can still pretty directly point to Viconia and Shar for Shadowheart, and ultimately Vlaakith for Lae'zel as well as just... every Githyanki she ever met, except for Kith'rak Voss.

Wyll has Mizora, Karlach had Zariel and Gortash, Astarion has Cazador, all very obvious and self explanatory in the game. They were innocent, kidnapped, coerced, sold, played like a damn fiddle. But Gale?

Gale has Mystra, a goddess he loves, who also loves him, and the things they did to each other were both fucked up, and a lot of the fault totally lies with Gale! The other companions all had external forces affecting them. Gale's was mostly internal. He refused to believe he was good enough. "As inconceivable as it seems to me now, I shared a bed with a goddess and I still wasn't satisfied." A literal goddess, the one he favored, the one he was in love with, who favored and loved him back, consistently told him he was perfect as he was and he straight up did not believe her. He placed himself on a higher and higher pedestal he could never reach the top of because if he wasn't constantly climbing to some nebulous goal of perfection, then could he be good enough for Mystra?

Y'know, instead of just believing the woman he was in love with. And I get it! Insecurities suck! Especially when you've been the gifted child your entire life, perfectly talented at something that all the adults in your life go nuts over. But also, it is extremely arrogant to assume you know better than your literal goddess and be like "yo, there's a missing piece of the Weave and I can go get it" like... Mystra is the Weave, she would have known and probably sent someone on a quest if it were actually Her Weave and not Karsus' Weave.

Gale is INCREDIBLY hubristic and he keeps falling for that trap. He's overconfident. Hell, even after his year in isolation where he comes out humbled, a small group of people believing in him for a short amount of time gets him to go "omg, crown of karsus = godhood, I can totally do that and tell the gods they SUCK and overthrow Ao's rules!"

Like, babyboy, no.

Of course, Mystra is not without some fault. After Gale's initial... Folly-up, she just ignores him for a year. Damn, girl, what the hell! Well. You see. The Netherese orb is a fragment of the magic that Karsus used to try to ascend and steal her throne with. The magic that she realized was going to kill everything if she didn't sacrifice herself. For a moment, all magic ceased to exist, including Mystryl herself, and Karsus died. Then Mystra came into being. Gale tells you a short version of this story himself! So it kind of makes sense that Mystra would see this shard of magic and just... kinda have a trauma reaction! And to gods, time flows differently. It wouldn't shock me to learn she didn't realize it had been a year by the time Gale left his Tower due to mind flayer shenanigans. Naturally, she does not want to discuss the thing she's so terrified of, and just tries to have it destroyed without her having to touch it—the plan to have Gale blow himself up on the Absolute itself, and she would save his soul. And even after he disobeys her instruction, she still allows the orb to feed on the true Weave! She still lets him live without fear of blowing up randomly, even though it greatly distresses her to let this magic that killed her once feed on her own life force.

Then he reaches the city, and reads The Annals of Karsus, and realizes she's going to have to explain, despite not wanting to. And she summons him. Tells him exactly what's in his chest. Asks him to turn over the Crown and she will destroy the orb and face her own trauma, because Gale... doesn't want to die. She understands that. And she still loves him and his big beautiful brain despite how stupid he's been, and she wants to have him as her Chosen again.

Things will never be the same, of course. They both fucked up. Gave each other a bad time. But in the end, they forgive each other and move past it. Not as a couple, because things broke too much for that. But they can have a healthy relationship as Goddess and Chosen once more.

And that is what sets Gale and his trauma apart from the companions. He doesn't have a direct abuser or live in a horrific abusive society. He almost killed the goddess of all magic a second time and she had an understandably harsh reaction to that, even if it was still too harsh. I just don't believe it's only Mystra who fucked up here. Not by a long shot. Much of it lies squarely with Gale.

And, as for the grooming allegations [as far as people trying to say it is canon], literally just no. She's a True Neutral goddess. Gale literally tells you that you are not his first mortal lover, he had a few before he ever fell into Mystra's bed, and you're just the first since the breakup about a year ago. The game doesn't shy away from sex and sexual abuse in the least. Why on Earth would this be something hidden behind several layers of nonexistent subtext? It's definitely fun for AU's, but by Ahghairon's lost nose, no, it's not canon!

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Tag yourself I'm "MeDiA litErAcY!"