#and you have to know this going in and you need the actual meat and structure of the game to support that

[alpaca-clouds]

BG3 fans, we gotta talk CPTSD

Okay, I have spend about a week considering writing this blog, but I really gotta say, that it is something people really need to understand. See, I mostly see this issue with Astarion and his depiction in fandom. However, I would argue that it is a thing that affects literally all characters that play some sort of bigger in this entire game. Including many NPCs.

But let me start with Astarion. See, I wrote the blog two weeks ago about people being judgy on people, who do not want to have graveyard sex with him. Mostly people will argue how Astarion should be allowed to have his agency in that moment - while I argued that whoever the player is playing should have also agency in that scene. Including the agency to say "no" for whatever reason. I also included that my Tav absolutely denied Astarion, because he was not trusting that Astarion in the scene really was ready for it, for a variety of reasons. Which is very much a valid reason for someone not to want to sleep with someone else. (Literally every reason is a good reason for that, mind you.)

And obviously there came the comment, that went basically: "As someone who was raped I am very appalled by you saying that raped people cannot consent." Which is very much not what I said.

What I said was, that my Tav did not consent. Yes, he did not consent because he thought Astarion was not ready for it - but he is the one not consenting. It does not matter for this whether his assumption about Astarion is true or not. Tav does not feel comfortable in the scene, so Tav does not want sex right there.

However... If you consider the drow orgy scene, Tav is also very much right. If you do that scene after defeating Cazador, Astarion is enthusiastically consenting to that orgy, but he still ends up dissociating during the scene. (And in that scene, even if your character notices it, you cannot go "Stop!" Which I hate.)

Here is the thing. If you are in the BDSM scene, you might actually have encountered a scenario in real life where someone was enthusiastically consenting to something - only to them realize, that they were not into it at all. And people can withdraw their consent IRL at this point. Only that in this game, obviously you can't. So within the game choices I will just start out with "no" for this character.

Still, that is actually not what I mainly wanted to talk about. No.

What I wanted to talk about is the other thing. I absolutely know that for a variety of reasons a lot of SA survivors do identify with Astarion, and I do not want to take that from anyone. I think it is amazing that we got a character with whom we see this issue portrayed seriously. And let's face it. Especially in tumblr fandom circles, we will have a lot of SA survivors, because the userbase of this website is majority afab, and many are queer. And we know from statistics that queer afab people are even more likely than non-queer afab people to experience SA at some point in there life. So, yes, Astarion is going to be embraced by this community makes sense - even without his dashing looks.

But here we get to the actual meat of the issue: Astarion was not just raped. Astarion was abused in a variety of ways - some of them sexual - over the course of 200 years. He went not through a single traumatic event, but an ongoing trauma that, again, lasted for 200 years.

Or to put different: Astarion does not have PTSD. He has C-PTSD. Complex trauma. The kind of trauma that develops when the trauma lasts over a long, long time, without the survivor getting a chance to ever really properly ever relax. Something that was very true for Astarion's time under Cazador. He was under constant threat of rape, torture, and other forms of violence.

While CPTSD is a form of PTSD, it has some differing symptoms - and additional symptoms from plain old PTSD.

I found this graphic on this blog here, and found it fairly good in the depictions. (If you google CPTSD you will find several graphics like this.) It shows very well the additional symptoms, compared to normal trauma.

Generally speaking, CPTSD brings a lot stronger issues with self-worth, interpersonal problems, and emotional regulation. CPTSD folks are often prone to emotional outbursts (this graphic names anger, but technically it can be all other kinds of emotional outbursts - which is why at times CPTSD gets confused with BPD).

And Astarion is written like this. He shows very much all the symptoms of CPTSD. And let's be honest: That is an issue he will have to deal with for a long, long while.

But... As I said, the same is actually true for pretty much all the characters.

If you look at the companions, it is obvious.

Gale spent at least a year in constant fear of blowing up. While Mystra's abusiveness towards him within the relationship prior the orb is more fanon than canon (though the relationship was defnitely not an easy one), the "one year in constant fear of death" is very likely going to instill some form of CPTSD in him.

Karlach was a slave for 10 years, forced to fight in the hells. While she will also probably suffer from certain forms of PTSD more common in soldiers. Additionally I would argue that she also has some CPTSD from tiefling-racism. While she does not bring it up often... She does seem to have a thing there.

With Wyll it is a bit more complicated. Yes, for him I would see the kind of CPTSD I have - parental abuse related. Ulder was not openly abusive, but neither was my mother, and guess what fucked me most up in my childhood, despite experiencing some really bad violence elsewhere.

Shadowheart was abused by Viconia and midwashed and tortured and was forced to kill her fucking pet mouse. Bonus points that a lot of it happened during her childhood. She very much is gonna suffer the consequences.

Lae'zel... Do I really need to say something about her upbringing among the Gith?

Then we have Halsin. We know fairly little about his background, given that he is very coy in talking about it. But his "three years as a drow slave" definitely make it likely that he has developed some form of CPTSD.

And then we have Jaheira and Minsc. For whom just the... Well, look folks, the adventuring lifestyle would logically also leave you with CPTSD of some sort.

Even if you play a Tav who entered the game after having a very untraumatic life... They will spent what has to be at least two months with a tadpole in their head threatening to kill them - while half of Baldur's Gate is trying to do the same. They'll have PTSD after this at the very least, if not CPTSD. (Even though, let's face it, chances are we all gave our Tavs more than enough background trauma to go along with it, right?)

And same goes for so many other characters. The tiefling refugees. Our main villains (especially Gortash and Orin). Cazador. The other vampire spawn (duh). The list goes on.

So, what am I trying to say here?

Well, for once I just want to make sure folks understand that CPTSD is a thing that exists and while being similar to normal PTSD differs in some points. Including the fact that people with CPTSD have a high likelihood to make very rash decisions driven by instable emotional states, that might be harmful to them on the long run.

And mind you. In real life most people with CPTSD have it because either they were bullied for a long time, or were in an abusive relationship of some sort. (Abusive parents, abusive partners, abusive friends/roommates.) But even in those heightened scenarios the game represents for the most part - the issues are gonna be still mainly the same.

[slutshamethesquirrels]

Your JJK Fav + Why I think You're Single

hi so i did a version of this on tiktok way back when but i feel like i didn't have as great of an understanding of these characters and their respective fans as i do now. please keep in mind that this is purely my OPINION!!!! (my correct opinion)(im kidding)

Gojo - This one's a little hard because there are subsections of Gojo stans. You have the bad bitches, the coolest of the cool Gojo meat riders and then you have (incoherent screeching). I'm gonna assume you are the former here.

Y'all really love the idea of a partner, not actually having one. I feel like y'all will have talking stages a plenty, but when it comes to the nitty gritty y'all are not riders. Not that you don't want to be, no no you'd love to find your person but at some point friends you gotta realize that your person is gonna come with an ick or two you might not like. Relationships are about compromise. Real people simply can't be hot, rich, talented, strong, and funny all at once!! You're getting three of those at best.

Geto - I feel a need to disclose here that I am a Geto girly. I feel like most of us are chill, if not a bit odd // willing to swing.

Babes,,,, and im gonna touch ur clit when I say this-- Real life relationships aren't supposed to have intense cycles of highs and lows. Thats,, thats the cycle of abuse friends. Genuine, healthy connections actually aren't supposed to make you feel like you wanna rip their chest open and crawl inside. I know, i know you can't get attached unless you feel insane about them- but we have to stop this.

Nanami - Again, I feel like Nanami girls have a wide umbrella, but generally I think Nanami stans are very nice people. Nanami, for the most part, is the safest healthiest choice.

Put down the fuckin calculators. I am contacting cafe astrology as we speak and having them ban your IP from accessing their domain anymore. No, put your wallet away, we are not PAYING a psychic to tell you your most recent crush is not your soulmate. Y'all are over-analyzers, over-thinkers, and have a list of requirements for a partner that is twelve miles long. Maybe just talk to people?? Hmm?? Make a connection??

Choso - Oh, Choso stans,,,, loves of my life. Y'all are cool. Like genuinely actually fucking cool. Kiss me.

Okay, so I actually need you guys to see red flags as what they are. No, he doesn't coincidentally have 13 insane exes that won't stay out of his DMs. He did something to all of them. No, its not cute and sweet that he has to call his mommy and tell her goodnight and goodmorning everyday with kissy noises. That man is 24. No, Dominoes pizza did not text him and ask if he was up at 2AM. ur too optimistic, baby. I love you. Get a grip.

Toji - I have knocked noggins with more Toji stans than I care to admit in this fandom, however the ones I do vibe with are SUPER cool. Again, I feel like Gojo/Toji stans have that same thing. Im gonna assume you're the cool variety.

I feel like a lot of your relationships start purely based on sexual/physical attraction, and then get explosive bc yall didn't actually like eachother, you just liked the way the other one looked. I can definitely see this leading to maybe not abusive, but definitely toxic situations. and the thing is i feel like toji stans actually would make a BOMB partner but yall will settle for shitty people because theyre hot and then end up locking yourself in the bathroom and going through their phone while they bang on the door and scream from the other side.

Sukuna - This is the one I have the least interaction with on the day to day. Y'all fascinate me. Just out here doing you. I feel like most Sukuna stans are actually probably some of the sanest of the bunch, they seem to just slide in, post their fan works and dip. I respect it.

You can't fix him. no, no, you can't. stop trying. he's already grown. you cannot raise him.

[prying-pandora666]

The Gaang’s Favorite Foods

Aang is an ovo-lacto vegetarian. He still consumes milk and eggs, just nothing that requires killing an animal. Being more used to getting nutrients from a variety of plant foods including nuts and seeds, supported by nutrient rich bison milk and whatever eggs they eat in this world, Aang’s diet is surprisingly diverse and not as restrictive as it first seems. People have and still do eat this way. He loves egg tarts!

Sokka is a growing teen boy, used to a high-fat diet of primarily fish, mollusks, large ruminants, marine mammals (and their blubber), full fat milk, eggs, blood, etc, and only minorly supported by additional foods like seaweed, berries, tubers, perhaps the occasional imported flour or rice. He is going to need a LOT of animal meat and fat. Especially organs. The cookbook says he loves dried salmon collars.

Katara is also a growing teen girl, and considering what starts for girls around her age, she probably also has higher iron requirements. Heme-iron (from meat) is the most easily absorbed, and if it’s what her body is accustomed to, I imagine there’s going to be a lot of cravings there too. It’s possible she slowly converted to a vegetarian diet eventually, but there isn’t actually anything in canon to say that Katara and Aang didn’t just maintain different diets. The comics and cookbook say she likes soups and stews including sea prunes which are actually a type of mollusk.

Toph comes from a wealthy family. Although most of the Earth Kingdom relies primarily on staple grains (rice mainly, but also others), she likely had a decently diverse diet compared to others. Including plenty of meat (beef, chicken, duck, pork), a variety of vegetables, and even luxury items like refined sugar. According to the cookbook, she doesn’t like to eat her vegetables, which implies she had open access to meat for most of her life. She is fond of tea eggs.

Zuko comes from the wealthiest nation which is also in a tropical climate. He’d have access to a plethora of fruits the others had never even heard of! Tropical fruits, berries, coconut, and all the different dishes you can make with them. The nutrient-rich volcanic soil would also lend itself to farming, giving this country plenty of fresh vegetables and staple grains. However, culturally they seem to be a meat and seafood loving people, and spiciness is critical! Being a prince, Zuko would have even more access to all of the above than the common person. According to the cookbook, his favorite snack is sizzle-crisps which is basically fried and seasoned pork belly. He also sneaks Komodo-chicken to his uncle in prison.

BONUS:

Azula, like Zuko, is royalty in a nation blessed with great diversity of fruits, meat, seafood, and fresh veggies. We know she attended a harsh military academy which puts its students through rigorous survival training. Azula knows how to live off the land and likely can survive off of whatever petty things she can forage or catch. But being royalty, she is more accustomed to having whatever she desires prepared for her. She seems to have a bit of a sweet tooth, which can happen when you give a teen unfettered access to luxury goods like sugar. With her nation’s relatively advanced stage of industrialization, certain more processed foods and desserts are available to her. She is fond of cherries and in the comics she is a fiend for mochi!

[butmakeitgayblog]

I need a one shot of the first time Clarke is alone with Sal. Do they just stare at each other? Play? Does Lexa come home to find them passed out cuddle up with empty plates lol

A summary will have to suffice because I have,,, way to many wips 😂

But it would be an experience.

Truthfully it'd be Clarke being a bit nervous but also jazzed but also very like "Lexa. He is... a dog. I'm not sure if you remember, but I raised an entire child. A human being. I think I got this. You can go, we'll be ok."

So Lexa would go. Affectionately bumping heads with the moose once in a reminder to behave himself, and kissing her girl twice on the lips in 'thank you' for holding down the fort while she runs into school for a last minute department meeting. Reminders that he won't need to eat until she's home getting tossed over her shoulder while she snatches up her keys, along with running through a checklist of toy locations, treat options, and walk times that Clarke already damn well knows.

Her last lingering kiss would be met with an eye roll and a slap on the ass to actually get herself out the door.

Sal's heavy sigh in her immediate absence would be followed by a pathetically needy sounding whine, which has Clarke just looking down into his big droopy eyes and nodding.

Cuz she gets it.

"I know, bud... 'Cept I usually make that sound when she walks into a room."

It's not surprising that her comedy is lost on the audience.

Other than that, it would be fine. Sal would know Clarke well by then, and while she is not mom, she is still very much friend shaped. So it's all good by him.

The half empty pack of hot dogs bought not-at-all as a doggie bribing tactic that Clarke keeps hidden in the back of Lexa's lunch meat drawer helps with those feelings as well.

So they'd waste the few hours going back and forth between playing catch and wiggly butting running in the back garden and watching bits and pieces of trashy television. Just a chill time between doggie and dogsitter.

Of course when Lexa comes home to a completely silent house, her first thought is,,, what the fuck happened? Because Sal always meets her at the door. Every day. Without fail. Even when she picks him up from the neighbors.

Except that day, he is nowhere to be seen.

But she keeps her cool because she trusts Clarke and there's no way something catastrophic happened in 3 hours. If there had been, Clarke absolutely would've called her. She knows this.

Which is why she's genuinely only curious as she wanders through the eerily silent house in search of her two favorite faces. Living room, empty. Hallways deserted. Kitchen, quiet as a mouse.

It's only when she loops back around from checking the backyard with the full intention of heading back out front to see if maybe they'd gone on a late afternoon walk, that she notices the display in her bedroom.

Specifically, a crashed out saint bernard taking up 3/4ths if her bed with a snoozing blonde squeezed cuddled in right behind him.

As in, if Clarke tried to roll over onto her back she'd 100% end up on the floor.

And just... What is Lexa even supposed to do with that. How is she supposed to handle that sight? How can she resist when her quiet call of, "Sal. Are you making moves on my girl, young man?" only earns her a lifted furry head and a snort of dismissal before it flops back down on her pillow.

The answer is obviously to toe her shoes off and hang her blazer on the handle, just to ease herself onto the roughly postage stamp sized bit of bed left available. The answer is obviously to gently brush the chaos of hair back from Clarke's face and press whisper soft kisses to her shoulder. To her neck. To the perfectly shaped shell of her ear, before nuzzling into the sleep warmed mess of blonde and drifting off as well.

[luck-of-the-drawings]

YEAH SURE! WHAT COULD PUNCHING A WALL POSSIBLY DO TO YOUR ROTTING LITTLE ARM, ZOMBIE BOY? HUH? HUHH????

[icewindandboringhorror]

More misc. daily life pictures and such

[here-there-were-dragons]

i have to wonder what super hardcore militant vegans think should be done about obligate carnivore animals, because in all my painfully-rapidly-approaching-30-years i've literally never actually seen anyone give a clear consistent much less halfway feasible answer on that

[rxttenfish]

my most unpopular ttrpg opinion is easily: no, "universal" games cannot run horror and stop trying to run horror in games not designed to be horror

like, dnd by far is the biggest offender here, but i keep seeing it pop up again and again and im sick of it. i still have no clue why the ogoa ttrpg is in the cypher system or why the mystery flesh pit ttrpg also made this exact same choice.

there are systems made to run horror in. and you cannot just pick up and immediately transfer that horror to another system because so many of the mechanics are things which are fundamental in all other genres but literally fly in the face of horror or creating good horror. there are so many fundamental mechanics in ttrpgs of other genres that will immediately destroy any and all tension you are trying to build in a horror game. please, just stop torturing yourself like this. stop torturing the game like this. just pick up some indie ttrpgs already designed with horror in mind, for fucks sake.

[mantisgodsdomain]

On the rare occasions when we talk about the spectre of veganism you can probably physically tell the amount of psychic damage that we take from seeing people throw out any part of a carcass.

[gippyworm]

Okay but fr I am so sick of trying to pick between two detriments when it comes to milk. I love cow's milk but I also know the extensive ecological cost between land use, methane, carbon dioxide and water. By god, the water... (I did an assessment that included researching and calculating all this). Phew.

Not a fan of almond really except for flavoured milk treats, and that also uses water extensively so I'm not too interested in it.

I love oat milk, its much better ecologically, but. The packaging x__x Tetra Paks cannot be recycled in Australia (there is a single recycling plant I think and its in another state). So while the crop footprint is generally smaller than cow milk, the packaging is causing another Massive Issue. Landfill is one of the primary contributors to methane accumulation in the atmosphere (alongside livestock) so it really feels like such a lose-lose situation OTL Especially when you consider that for every bottle of cow milk, you go through two oat milk paks because they come in 1L instead of 2L.

At least cow milk bottles get recycled. I just hope that with increasing use of alternative milks maybe more recycling plants will open up for this type of packaging? Because they can be recycled but you need special machinery. Similarly with blister packs (the pharmaceutical companies should be paying for that one 100%).

And I like being able to store heaps of oat milk in the cupboard and not have to worry about it spoiling because it lasts ages! Its cheaper and easier. I do also like UHT cow milk also.

Better sustainability practices are achievable but it seems so impossible when you have no money to set yourself up for less plastic, and things touted as "better alternatives" still have massive impacts.

It shouldn't be this damn hard to cut plastic out of my life >:(

[woodruff]

:(

[medicinemane]

My stomach sounds like some manner of beast right now, just kind of "mhhhrmmhhbbhh"ing, like some sort of creature snuffling and grumbling

[hellfireeddiemunson]

i have bad melted soup brain today and i hate it

[boygirlctommy]

ok i have like. the very rough outline for this animatic.

[playingonedchess]

steaktake more like misteak

[hauntingblue]

Weird that helaena didn't foresee this btw she has predicted nearly every tragedy that happens to the greens