#i used to post it all the time but being in a Fandom and feeling insecure abt the kinda different way i see media made me so sad and angry

[bg3-stole-my-soul]

❤️Tall Fem! Tav x Astarion Headcanons❤️

So— Tall Fem!Tavs— we need more love and I am going to attempt to play with the idea because in fandom spaces I only ever see fem Tavs that are shorter than Astarion and it makes my tall self’s heart ache.

I also know in game it doesn’t matter if your Tav is taller than Astarion…. But like what if it did— 👀

I am going to keep this as racially, background, and class ambiguous as possible however it is very clear the short races like halflings, dwarves, and gnomes this is most certainly not applicable to. I love them, don’t get me wrong, but this is for us 🤌😌

So on that note physically this Tav is tall, muscular, and probably a lil physically intimidating— and like almost every character I write is of Chaotic Good alignment. Tav is a big, sweet, mischievous muscle mommy with big hands—

This is my first time doing a post like this so please be gracious. I did my best to keep this in character for Astarion, while also sweet and mostly focused on his POV.

Being taller than most of your companions wasn’t a bad thing exactly, just a thing. You had outgrown many of your peers ages ago and while it had embarrassed you for a long time, you eventually embraced it. The stares of others became empowering instead of making you try to shrink yourself in any way you could. However this did not save you from being nabbed by mind flayers and infected— damn. It also surprised you when an elf shorter than you managed to catch you by surprise and hold a knife to your throat.

I don’t think Astarion is the type to be insecure regarding his height, man’s petty enough to climb the counters to the top shelf if he damn well feels like it. However upon meeting a female Tav who’s taller than him, stronger than him, he is ever so slightly worried. It makes him want to spur his plan of manipulation for protection into action quickly. Only because he doesn’t want to run the risk of getting snapped like a toothpick—

On that note, watching you fight absolutely does something to this man. Being able to see your muscles all the way from his perch on the other side of the battlefield is certainly something he can appreciate. He can absolutely admit that you are fine af, especially covered in blood.

At first he would be annoyed if you did things like pat him on the head with your huge hands- after all he puts a lot of work into his hair that he can’t see— but comes to realize it’s your way of gentle support. And he supposes it’s better than other things… Eventually he grows to love you resting your big hands on his head or shoulders. And even further down the line holding your hand, his slender fingers tangled in yours.

When this man chooses to try and bite you in your sleep it is absolutely out of sheer desperation because he is terrified of those arms staking him. But when you accept what he is without any real complaint.. he is pleasantly surprised. He likes you’ve got a good heart in that big chest of yours.

When he gets downed in a fight and wakes up to find himself in your arms being carried back to camp OH BOY that might be the first moment he realizes he’s in trouble.

The next time is absolutely the morning after the tiefling party. He wakes up at the crack of dawn snuggled into your tiddies— and as the old meme states “World hard and cold, tiddy soft and warm”. If he weren’t so excited to bask in the sun he would have stayed there all morning. Post confession it is his favorite way to cuddle.

He believes your arms are the safest place to be, and he is probably right. Being held by you makes him feel like he is surrounded in warmth, and if he sleeps there he usually has less nightmares. Drinking your blood with your arms wrapped around him is genuinely sweet and euphoric for this man.

❤️⚜️❤️⚜️❤️⚜️❤️⚜️❤️⚜️❤️

~ ❤️18+ HEADCANONS BELOW❤️~

He also enjoys the two of you just snuggling and admiring one another’s appearances, it’s intimate, and it feels right. He loves being able to take his time tracing his hands everywhere on your larger body, finding the places that make you laugh and squirm for him.

He also doesn’t mind a little manhandling if it’s from you, because he knows despite your size you will happily let him move you where he wants or stop if he’s no longer comfortable.

Back at the tiefling party he let you top, and while he does enjoy that, he enjoys it just as much if not more when he does. He enjoys getting to look down at you, and see you come undone at his touch. Call it vanilla, but this man loves being able to watch your face during sex, being able to look into your eyes is a BIG thing for this man.

[tamlinweek]

To all the participants of Tamlin Week:

First of all, HI!! WE LOVE YOU!!! yall are so creative and dedicated, we are so proud of this corner of our fandom! As event mods, we feel like one of the most important things we can do during a fandom event is be supportive. Me (Reyna) and Lady Midnight will be doing what we can, by reblogging every post onto our personal blogs and added comments/kudos to all the fics.

Unfortunately, we cannot pause real life, not even during Tamlin Week. Both of us have had to work quite a bit this week. I especially have had NO TIME since I've been at sea most of the week, and am starting a long, strenuous field day tomorrow (I set my alarm for 4:30 AM tomorrow with hatred in my heart). This means that Lady Midnight has been handling every single submission to make sure it is reblogged to the Tamlin Week blog in a timely manner, with tags. Therefore, she also hasn't had much time to focus on actually enjoying the submissions.

All this to say, we appreciate you so much, even if that appreciation isn't being shown right now! We want to make sure we have time to really sit down and enjoy those fics and leave thoughtful comments, because you deserve them! We want time to really appreciate the beautiful art, moodboards, and poetry that you have spent the time making. That means that it'll probably take several weeks for us to go through every submission.

We have 2 requests at this point. One, please be patient with us, and know that your work brings us so much joy, and we will be able to share that with you soon. And two, please help us pick up the slack by supporting your fellow creators. Even a simple reblog with a heart emoji in the tags can mean everything to a creator, especially since we're all making content for an unpopular character. Leave replies, comments, send messages, write funny tags, etc, to make up for us mods not being able to right now.

You are all amazing, and let Tamlin Week continue!

[swiftispunk]

don't do it, han

look, all i want to say is that i have always tried my hardest to be a community member in this fandom. i never try to lean into my "popularity" or act like i'm better than anyone else. i engage with people from all corners of this fandom, i read fics from all corners of this fandom, i have friends in all corners of this fandom. i block people i've had issues with and i don't start drama.

and like. if i ever made a comment about being "tumblr famous," i probably did it in jest. because, boy howdy, being "tumblr famous" is hardly an accomplishment why tf would i brag about that vsfhjvdsbv

i do not think of the people who follow me or read my fics as "fans." i always tell you guys: we're friends here, all of us, even if i don't follow everyone back or respond to every single comment. i say "i love you" all the time because i fucking mean it, you know? i say "thank you for reading" any time someone compliments my work because there is a part of me that still cannot believe anyone would ever want to read the words i've written. my gratitude is real.

i just. the first thing listed on my pinned post is my name and a request that you all call me by my name. that has been there since i first started writing fic in this fandom. and the reason for that was because i never wanted to feel like an entity here, i just wanted to be a person, i just wanted to be part of something. i think maybe it's easier to be hurtful towards an entity, it's easier to steal from an entity, it's easier to act like an entity doesn't have feelings.

but i do have feelings - because i'm a person. i'm a person who likes writing. i'm a person who loves pedro pascal. i'm a person with a job outside of this space, a job which involves educating and informing people in my community about countless global injustices. meanwhile, here on tumblr, i think i've made my stance on certain issues pretty fucking clear, but hey, when you're an entity, it's easier for people to just straight up lie about you, i guess.

at the end of the day, every writer here is a person. and no matter how "big" you perceive us to be, we are not immune to hatred. cruelty doesn't stop affecting you just because your fics get notes. this feels like something you can't even talk about because i guess we just have to be grateful that people are engaging with our fics but like????? these eye balls are fucking scary. especially when there are people out there that are hellbent on consuming our fics in bad faith and nitpicking every single fucking thing we say or do.

honestly, that seems like a pretty miserable and exhausting existence to me. and i feel sorry for the people who have so little going for them in their real lives that this what they have to resort to just to feel something.

anyway, that's it i guess i'll shut up now <3

[bestworstcase]

seen a few posts on the subject lately that have me pondering the fandom theory that cinder will eventually, to some degree, lose control over the grimm arm. which mainly gets put forward as either:

it overtakes her completely, a la hound

salem uses it to kill her after she opens the choice vault and/or she defies salem and the arm attacks her

the arm acts of its on accord to do something cinder has chosen not to (e.g., attack a maiden)

with the arm in every variant becoming a straightforward reiteration of the shock collar from which cinder must be saved, or at best save herself (🔥). i think the difficulty in this reading is twofold.

first that removal of the grimm is thorny because it’s cinder’s arm, a part of her body, and so much of her character after beacon turns on the trauma of the violent dismemberment she suffered; i don’t think you can do ‘saving cinder from the grimm arm’ with any seriousness unless you engage with it as the act of a trapped animal gnawing off its own limb, so it has to be cinder cleaving herself from the arm in order to free herself from salem. any scenario wherein cinder is dismembered by someone else to save her does a disservice to the character and a scenario where cinder destroys a part of herself for another person’s sake reifies the view rhodes imposed on her that the only way for cinder to ‘be good’ is to allow others to hurt her.

and that’s… i think, the whole point of the grimm arm on a thematic level. this:

is the grimm arm, is what the grimm arm symbolizes. cinder strangles her owner while the madame frantically mashes the collar’s button to electrocute her; insofar as the grimm arm reiterates the shock collar, it’s the collar that can’t control her, but more importantly it represents is cinder being refigured in this moment as a monster.

which ties into:

the distress cinder feels watching tyrian maul this beowolf toward the end of v4; her particular focus on its arm comes from her self-identification with grimm, because the grimm are not and have never been the monsters in her story. as a child her predominant experience with the grimm was of being electrocuted and made to denigrate herself in punishment for failing to adequately clean crystalline statues of the monsters kept at bay by the bars of her gilded cage. she was ten at the oldest when she began to fantasize about killing her owner. so what did she see when she looked upon these statues?

there’s a reason salem fills the role of magical benefactor in the cinderella narrative, and it isn’t as simple as trading one evil stepmother for another; the grimm are the golden shoes, or the glass slippers if you prefer, which empower cinder to pursue her freedom. (i think it’s likelier than not that the arm was cinder’s idea, for this reason.)

so the narrative question underpinning the grimm arm is whether rhodes was correct in his condemnation; the arm is only a physical manifestation of the judgment laid against her that night and her transformation in his eyes from innocent child to monster.

that becomes untenable if the arm is parsed as merely an iteration of the collar and the mechanism of control which chains cinder to salem against her will. cinder has very clearly-articulated ideological reasons for being where she is, and her interest in the maidens is only a proxy for the power struggle she’s having with salem; she is bound to salem by her own conviction that the huntsmen uphold an unjust and unmerciful order.

separately from that there is also the question of motivation, and to a lesser extent the actual material nature of salem’s connection to, and hypothetical ability to take over, the arm. in order for cinder to lose control over her arm we must accept the presupposition that the grimm arm obeys cinder at all only because salem allows it, and therefore that salem may revoke cinder’s illusory control at any time she chooses. however:

one, i’m not sure that interpretation aligns with the struggle we see and what salem says in v4. “can you feel it? it can sense your trepidation. don’t fight it, girl. you must make it dread you.” <- implies a more complex relationship between cinder and the grimm than a simple matter of salem attaching it to her and ‘programming’ the grimm to obey; i could write a whole post picking apart this one line, but in the interest of brevity:

the grimm is responsive to how cinder feels about it, and her trepidation—her fear—is inhibiting the process.

cinder is in pain and visibly distressed, so salem’s question, can you feel it?, is not about the physical sensations; salem knows the grimm is sensing cinder’s trepidation, and cinder needs to be able to reach through the pain and grasp that too. it’s “can you feel what the grimm is feeling?”

her trepidation has become an obstacle because it’s driving cinder to fight an emotional or spiritual connection to the grimm, one that needs to open both ways.

“make it dread you” is an interesting choice of words, especially in conjunction with “don’t fight it,” because when the statements are paired they seem contradictory; how does one make something afraid by surrendering to it? but. dread can also mean reverence. and i think that might be the sense salem has in mind, because if it is necessary for cinder to open herself to an emotional or spiritual bond with this grimm, then salem is talking about synthesis and combination, and inciting ‘dread’ in the sense of regarding with great reverence, is a natural converse of ‘fighting’

if that’s so, ‘not fighting it’ isn’t an act of surrender but rather invitation; you must let it in so that it may know you as something greater than itself. you must transcend your fear and give it reason to revere you.

the “easy” answer, like always, is to presume that salem is making it difficult for cinder on purpose and weaving an elaborate lie to blame her for struggling, and like always the problem with that is it renders the text meaningless: the only way to ‘analyze’ salem under this lens is to disregard everything she says and make assumptions based on things other characters have said about her, which must be unquestioningly taken as fact. but the narrative keeps telling us, in increasingly unsubtle ways, not to do that.

so we cannot dismiss anything salem says as a complete falsehood without interrogating that possibility. if she is lying to cinder here, why? what purpose does it serve to give cinder false advice? if salem is deliberately withholding control over the arm from cinder, to what end is she hiding that? when she sends cinder off to haven in v5, her parting advice is “take care to protect [yourself and your gifts]; there is only so much i can do to aid you.” she does not seem to want cinder to feel dependent on her; how likely is it, really, that this is all a long and convoluted gambit to trick cinder into believing she’s free when in reality salem could turn her into a literal puppet at any time? if salem wants an obedient slave, and has the means to enforce her will through magical compulsion, why bother with the charade?

it is much simpler to interpret this as truthful instruction, which cinder likely doesn’t fully understand because salem does not explain it very well, setting up the continued struggle throughout the rest of v4 (because cinder doesn’t understand) and salem’s growing frustration (because this all seems quite straightforward to her).

and if it is truthful advice, then… control over the grimm arm isn’t something salem gave to cinder, but rather something she taught cinder how to achieve; thus, it’s unlikely to be something salem can just take away.

which, two, casts the incidents when cinder doesn’t have complete control over the arm into an interesting light. the first time occurs after winter cuts it off, and i think this one is somewhat ambiguous as to whether the arm grew back by itself or regrew in response to the shock, pain, and panic cinder felt when it was severed. if we take salem’s instruction in v4 to be truthful, the grimm arm is in tune with and responds to cinder’s emotions, and by v7 she has undoubtedly bonded with it, embraced it as her arm. it doesn’t seem like a leap to speculate that the arm grew back because cinder wanted it to.

the other two incidents, of course, are salem torturing her through the arm in 8.6 and cinder feeling salem reconstitute through the arm in 8.14; only one of these is clearly a deliberate action on salem’s part.

does cinder’s arm go haywire in 8.14 because salem is giving her a warning? i’m a little skeptical that cinder would react the way she does if that were the case, and far more skeptical that salem—as risk-averse as she is—would risk losing both relics and getting her fall maiden killed by tasering her mid-battle.

further:

salem knows cinder is alive after haven, despite everyone else presuming cinder dead, and refuses to explain how.

growing the arm back is extremely painful.

salem has a phenomenal tolerance for pain, to the point that even having her bones smashed into paste doesn’t faze her.

salem undeniably has some kind of connection to cinder’s arm; unless she managed to sneak her seer past dozens of huntsmen on high alert after killing lionheart, that connection is the only possible way she could have known that cinder survived.

when salem reconstitutes, she doesn’t appear to be in pain—but we know that grimm can and do feel pain (not just cinder’s arm, but there are many, many examples of ordinary grimm reacting to injury with obvious pain), and we know that nothing short of being set on fire can make salem flinch. so her stone-faced reconstitutions may or may not be painful; cinder’s agonized screaming while her arm regrows suggest that it is painful for salem too, and salem is just used to it.

if salem could feel that cinder was alive through the grimm arm—and if sensation can flow from salem to cinder through that connection, which it can—then it’s well within the realm of possibility that the link goes both ways such that cinder is aware of salem through it just as salem is aware of her.

which is to say, in 8.14 i think cinder may have experienced spillover of the pain salem felt when her body pulled itself back together.

and that leaves The Torture, the one clear-cut case of salem abusing whatever power she does have over the grimm arm to hurt cinder. as it pertains to the question of whether salem can revoke cinder’s control over the arm, there are two details worth noting:

one, it’s not clear whether the pain salem inflicts is accompanied by a loss of control; the arm thrashes and cinder grabs it by the wrist with her other hand to hold it down, but the writhing might be an involuntary reflex (pain!) and grabbing the arm an instinctive attempt to quell the pain. cinder’s arms spasm in similar ways during the flashbacks when she’s electrocuted. if salem does try to seize control over the arm, however, it doesn’t look like she succeeds: cinder presses the arm down and makes a fist, after which point there is no more thrashing.

so either the arm remains completely under cinder’s control and its writhing movements are an involuntary pain response, or salem tries to take control and fails. the former seems more in line with the—very delicate—balance salem has to achieve in this scene between punishment and capitulation.

and two, when the pain starts, cinder flashes back to the helplessness she felt as a child, but by the end, emotionally, she is here:

so i think it’s a little ambiguous as to whether it was salem or cinder who made the pain stop. after all, salem’s tactic here comes down to rewarding cinder for being defiant so that cinder will stay—she’s begun to figure out that cinder is more interested in winning the power struggle than in the maidens per se—which means she now has a vested interest in making cinder less afraid.

torture may seem like a counterintuitive way to accomplish that, but it isn’t a warning or a threat, it’s a battle she knows cinder can win. cinder expects to be brutally punished; she’s horrified when she realizes emerald brought her back to salem. but then… the pain salem inflicts on her is no worse than what she’s survived before. she’s able to bear up under it and overcome it, make it end, just like she did when she killed the madame.

that’s the worst salem can do to her?

and then salem goes into “it’s all my fault. you’ve fought your whole life unwaveringly for what you want, and here i am holding you back, instead of lifting you up.” the point of this is not to get cinder under her thumb, but rather to make it appealing for cinder to stay by demonstrating that the consequences for losing a battle with salem are not too severe and that salem can and will concede should cinder outmatch her, and that outmatching salem is possible.

if this is what salem intends to do, then the most important question with regard to the possibility of cinder being overtaken by the grimm and enslaved is how much salem might have held back so as to let cinder ‘win.’ but i think this tactical approach in and of itself is a concession that cinder cannot be controlled, because salem is more or less openly inviting greater defiance: relinquishing control for the sake of giving cinder an incentive to stick around. it’s, “you deserve more than i’ve given you and you can get it from me if you fight for it.” so again, either salem values cinder’s free will above obedience, or she can’t take control over cinder’s grimm parts.

you don’t try to carefully thread the needle of permitting and rewarding open defiance when a subordinate threatens to defect unless you have no other choice, or else really, really care about that subordinate having free will!

(which does also have some interesting implications for the hound; the narrative frames him predominately through the heroic perspective and in scenes with salem he seems to be under her complete control, so he is—apparently—an enslaved, tormented victim of brutal experimentation. but we also know nothing about him or the circumstances that led to this experiment, and there is a sixth seat at salem’s table unaccounted for. no other character in this story is what exactly what they appear to be at first glance; is he?)

the point being that i have serious doubts as to whether salem even can turn the arm against cinder in the way that the fandom generally seems to expect, to varying degrees. hurt her with it, certainly. but reach through that connection and puppet the arm against cinder’s will? it isn’t like the seers—those act like extensions of salem herself, with limited autonomy outside of her direct command. cinder’s arm is part of her, and salem’s part in cinder mastering it seems to have been limited to telling cinder how to form her own bond with it.

there is also the question of why: to what end? if salem embedded some sort of hound-mode failsafe into the arm against the possibility of cinder defying her, why did she not trigger it when cinder disobeyed direct orders in v8? if the purpose of the grimm arm in salem’s plan is to enforce cinder’s hunt for the maidens—prevent her from showing mercy or turning away from them—then why did it behave when cinder attacked winter instead of fria? if salem wants cinder to be more ruthless, more violent, why does she keep trying to divert cinder toward less destructive means?

the one suggested inciting moment that hasn’t already happened in some capacity is opening the choice vault, and by that point either the sword will be in play or salem will still need the summer maiden to open shade’s vault. she has never been particular about how the vaults get opened before; if the crown can compel obedience a la the golden cap, that is the obvious method by which to force the destruction vault open, either by compelling the summer maiden to open it or compelling her to deliver herself to cinder. and if cinder is still willing to play ball—why would salem choose then to enslave her, after handling cinder’s disobedience in atlas the way she did? to what end?

the only thing salem needs the maidens for is to open the vaults. she has plenty of her own magic to be getting on with, an inexhaustible supply of grimm, and two-going-on-three relics at her disposal.

when cinder defies her, she capitulates. when hazel defies her, she drops all of her hostages and pretends to fight him instead of like, doing this to him—

—and we know this woman is a capable fighter: she matches ozma blow-for-blow during their duel, and that was before he gave up his magic. so she, to put it gently, doesn’t seem all that keen on retribution when one of her own turns against her, and she’s already demonstrated some willingness to just Let Cinder Leave, even against direct orders, with minimal punishment when cinder returned.

so i think a reversal is difficult to justify in terms of motivation, because salem is demonstrably willing to concede and seek compromise if cinder refuses to be controlled, and it’s working—not in the sense that cinder is loyal or obedient again, but she’s invested enough to stay and play the game, which is all that matters to salem. i’m not sure why that would change before the choice vault gets opened, and it’s hard to see how even the worst-case-scenario crown (i.e., outright mind control) would change the calculus that much given that salem could only get to it with cinder’s cooperation.

if i’m right that the 8.14 “she’s back!” moment was not a deliberate warning from salem but rather cinder feeling the pain salem felt upon reconstituting, i think it’s a lot more likely that we’ll see cinder take a stab at turning the connection against salem: if the awareness through the link goes both ways, and salem can use the link to hurt cinder, it stands to reason that cinder may also be able to use it to hurt salem. at the very least i think it would cross cinder’s mind to try.

because, as i said, if the grimm arm is a repetition of the collar, it’s the collar that couldn’t stop her from wrapping her fingers around the madame’s throat.

[karniss-bg3]

Salute, Larian Studios

Heya folks! It’s been a while, I hope everyone is doing well. I’m breaking my hiatus to discuss the recent announcement made by Larian Studios on their steam development blog. I will add the link here for those who wish to read the blog in its entirety but be warned, there are patch seven spoilers within. I wish to focus on a particular section in the final three paragraphs of the document, which reads as follows:

“Being given the chance to develop a game set in the Dungeons & Dragons universe has been a dream come true for all of us. But as Swen recently confirmed, we won't be introducing any major new narrative content to the story of Baldur's Gate 3 or its origin characters and companions, nor will we be making expansions or Baldur’s Gate 4. As an independent studio since 1996, we value the freedom to follow our creativity wherever it leads. In this case, after six years in the Forgotten Realms and much discussion and rumination, we’ve decided to seize this opportunity to develop our own IPs. We’re currently working on two new projects and we couldn’t be more excited about what the future has in store. It’s still early days - we’ll tell you more about those later down the line. But know that even as our focus turns to these new games, the sensibilities that brought you Baldur’s Gate 3 are alive and well here at the Larian castle. We’re fueled by the very same fire in our bellies, one that drives us to create immersive experiences shaped by your choices, and we can’t wait for you to join us on this next adventure.”

I will admit, when I first read this I felt a tinge of disappointment. As someone who had a lot of hope in seeing some stories continued, Kar’niss especially, this feels like the once open door is now sealed shut permanently. To be entirely fair, I always looked at an expanded Kar’niss story with skeptical optimism; hope for the best but expect the worst. After all, Kar’niss was designed as a throw away plot device that had no real bearing on the over-all narrative. Most of what has been derived of the character is entirely fan driven and not based on anything confirmed by Larian as a whole. Furthermore, there were many fan favorites that had a larger base than our dear drider and chances are even if Larian did decide to do an expansion, Kar’niss still wouldn’t make the cut.

With that said, I respect Larian in their choice. To expand on other characters would cost a lot of money and time. To juggle that alongside making new games would be unrealistic, and I understand their point of view completely. We also don’t know what is going on behind the scenes which could’ve influenced their choices all the more. Over all this situation mirrors the old saying, “Don’t cry because it’s over, be happy that it happened.” I am happy, and grateful. Without Baldur’s Gate 3 this blog wouldn’t exist. All of the amazing interactions I’ve had over several months would’ve never occurred, nor would I have found the courage to publicly publish stories to the internet. While I don’t consider myself an awful writer, I never believed my work was good enough for those outside of my personal circle. To say that my confidence has blossomed over the last few months is an understatement, and I owe that to the fantastic support of those in the fandom as well as those close to me. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you.

With Larian closing up the BG3 shop after the next few patches the question becomes, what’s next? For me, I don’t know. Sadly I’ve been swamped lately and it’s not destined to slow down until the middle of May. By then I hope to have a sufficient breather so I can return to projects I’ve left on the back burner in the interim. The Kar’niss blog will remain in place along with all of the archived stories, theories, and miscellaneous posts that are present. I still have a few writing requests that have waited a lot longer than I anticipated, so forgive me for the delay. I may also make a new blog that is dedicated solely to writing and other fandoms of interest. When the time comes I’ll post it here and folks can follow it if they wish but I’ll understand if not. Regardless of what the future holds, I am very stoked with the experiences I’ve had within the Baldur’s Gate 3 fandom. I’m a painfully shy individual and I am not a spotlight seeker by any stretch of the imagination. This section of the internet allowed me to expand my horizons a bit proving that you can indeed teach an old writer new tricks.

I look forward to seeing what is in store for Larian Studios. So long as they stick to their passion for making good games and treating their customers like people instead of money cows to be milked, then I will support every game release that comes in the future. While I’m sad that the many questions I had about Kar’niss will go unanswered, at least the drider will live on through the stories, art and other creative works made by his fans. In that way he is eternal, as are all of the other characters we’ve grown to love over this journey.

I hope to return on a more regular basis soon. Until then drider army, take care of yourselves and thank you for your continued support.

[blazinghotfoggynights]

It is totally possible to be a Buddie endgamer AND still support Buck/Tommy. It's possible to never be shaken from your stance as Buck and Eddie being soulmates while supporting every relationship they have been in, regardless of how dysfunctional it was.

Here's my take:

I want to see both Buck and Eddie explore life and find their true paths independently of each other, Christopher, and the 118. They are more than just each other's best friend/coparent, Christopher's fathers, and firefighters/part of the 118 family.

Since we know there is a season 8, and I would guess a season 9+ if these ratings keep up, it would be awesome to watch a full season, or more, of character evolution. We could watch Buck dating both men and women openly, learning his value, and discovering what he wants for his future.

Buck, as Bobby pointed out, doesn't enter into relationships of his own accord. He stumbles and falls into them without a clue how he got there. One day, he wakes up and he's someone's boyfriend or living with someone and isn't sure how it happened. Buck simply goes wherever someone will accept him. He misconstrues that acceptance and tolerance as genuine romance, feelings, and love.

Abby was bored and lonely and horny. I could say a lot about that relationship. If the motivation strikes, I may post about how that relationship was toxic and manipulative on Abby's part. If there are any Abby fans, you need to know your girl was showing some tendencies that were red flags.

Ali? Buck was single. She showed interest. That's it.

Taylor? Great sex and she kept coming back to Buck. She was there for all the wrong reasons and had questionable morals, but she was there. That was enough for Buck.

Natalia, again, was simply in front of Buck. She was obviously only interested in Buck's death, not Buck as a person, but Buck didn't care. He tried to make it work anyway because Natalia gave him time and attention.

So, we have an established pattern of Buck dating whoever will give him the time of day when he needs it most.

Enter Tommy. Buck is feeling left out. He's probably slipping into loneliness and spiraling because he feels the most important person in his life for the last six years is being taken away from him. (That's Eddie, for those in the back.)

Tommy shows up, sees Buck is spiraling, and kisses him. (Tommy fans, canon has established that Tommy has bad guy capabilities. Stop trying to gaslight the fans who are saying he may not be the good guy his sudden fandom claims he is. He isn't and Hen and Chimney forgiving him doesn't change that. People who are capable of consciously being a-holes are just a-holes. Mmkay?) He doesn't just hit on Buck. He physically initiates contact, giving Buck no doubt the man is open to other men. He showed Buck attention in a moment of crisis and he's a safe option after Buck openly admitted he was jealous and trying to get attention.

Buck stumbles into the next relationship. (Again, I could examine that situation, but if I do, it will be in a separate post.)

The show could give us Eddie admitting he let the expectations and influences of third parties control his destiny and he has no idea who Edmundo Diaz really is outside of what was expected of him, what he was taught, and what he did out of a sense of duty instead of doing what he wanted to.

He was with Shannon because she was pregnant and the right thing to do, per their parents and his faith, was marry her. I think he loves her for giving him his son, but nothing he has ever said or done indicates he was in love with her. I think he thinks he was. I think he wanted to be.

He was with Ana because Christopher needed a mother, per what he was told and taught, and she had an impressive resume and knew Christopher.

He is with Marisol because she fits the perfect mold of what his parents would like and she gets along with Christopher.

Should we talk about Eddie's relationships timing up perfectly with when Buck enters a relationship? No?

That man has never once in six seasons made a believable statement about genuine attraction to or sexual enjoyment with women. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have straight male friends who are in their 20s or 30s, you know you will be subjected to more details about their sexual history than you ever wanted to know. (Many of my close friends historically have been straight men. Conversations with them have been interesting and eye-opening. Sometimes traumatic, too, but I knew what I signed up for when I became their friend.)

Eddie canonically is in his early 30s and has been on the screen since his late 20s, but went without sex for years, never seemed to miss it, and now he's suddenly "pent up"? That is not the whole story and there is more going on there.

I'd love to see Eddie figure out he isn't into Marisol and hasn't been into anyone genuinely, except maybe Shannon. There could easily be a demisexuality arc for Eddie. Keep in mind, the term demisexuality was coined less than 20 years ago and is still not widely known. Eddie could spend a season, or more, working through the feelings he's ignored or been unable to put into words, dealing with overbearing parents, and how his faith has quietly, and unbeknownst to him, guided his choices. He could spend a long time wondering why he never feels an instant connection with anyone, except Buck and Tommy. (You seeing a pattern here?) This season has openly pointed out Eddie is in therapy.

The road to Buddie can be filled with satisfying detours, aka other relationships, leading to the realizations that open their eyes to each other. We don't have to negate the Buck and Eddie's experiences with others to support Buddie.

The part of me that wants instant gratification would love to see Eddie and Buck dancing at Madney's wedding and figuring out they are what they have been looking for all along. Cut to them in a room going at it.

But, the part of me that loves a great story, and doesn't mind waiting if the writing is great, is fine with a slow burn that gives us deep storylines and episodes that grip you from beginning to end. Let's say we have the rest of season 7, season 8, and maybe a season 9. There would be so much possible material.

Buck could go through a relationship with Tommy, a breakup, confusion, dating again, multiple amazing conversations with LGBTQ characters like Hen, Karen. This would also allow for giving other characters more depth, backstory, and more time on-screen. (This would be an amazing time to bring back Rockmond Dunbar as Michael and have him and Buck discuss figuring your sexuality out later in life!)

Eddie could spend that time working through his Catholic guilt and separating his actual needs and desires from what he was taught to need and desire. He could realize he makes excuses to stay with the women he dates then finds an excuse to escape when being with those women gives him anxiety. He could begin questioning if he is gay, bi, pan, or what. Then he could ask himself why he never really gets to know the women he dates. Who has he been close to? What was different? What gives him a feeling of safety and security and home? He needs to figure himself out.

So, yes, I do believe Buck/Tommy is acceptable and I support it, just not as endgame. I think, if written well, it could be integral to a great growth plot that takes us through Eddie and Buck diverging on their paths to self-discovery only to converge later on, a little more scarred but more in tune with themselves, to see their future in each other.

[tsams-confessions]

Me and some of my mutuals both here and on twitter, and probably more artists who draw canon celestial family fanart, have been threatened with this same message by that group of that ship: "Let's see how yall feel being scared of posting your art like you made our artists scared of posting theirs" This is a copy and paste from my DMs on twitter, and this is just one of the many hateful things they sent to me. Mind you, we have never dabbled into that ship until we were accused of spreading hate by posting our celestial family fanarts in the appropriate tags. We didn't even do so much as to dip our toes in that ship, yet how is it fair that we got harassed too? Made to be afraid of sharing our fanarts? And nobody else besides us consoled one another while the harassers got sympathy because "they were just having fun shipping." Guess what? We too were just having fun drawing fanarts of the wholesome, funny, angsty celestial family and stayed in our little corner. Now that we are saying that it's unfair that we were harassed for doing nothing wrong, we are being told to just drop it? Why didn't anyone tell those harassers to drop it? Tell me how that is fair. They were the ones causing harm but we are told to shut up and get over the harm they've caused to us? Yes, I'm aware that I sound mentally damaged in this confession because I am. You want to know how it feels to finally be confident and safe sharing your art and interest out there, only to one day come home, open your socials, and see all the malicious things people DMed you and sent to your askbox, targeting both you as a person and nitpicking everything they could about your art, all for the sake of "taking revenge" on you when you haven't even done anything wrong? When you're not even one of the people who hate their ship? It was mentally damaging and I had to silently go on a hiatus. Now watch as people insult me for this and call me dramatic for getting hurt from the harassment I got. I wish I could engage with my interest without getting harassed or be told to "toughen up". Why don't you instead tell people to stop harassing others? Especially those who are already mentally fragile and just want to have a good time in a fandom because they deserve to have fun as much as those who aren't mentally fragile.

.

[brotoman-exe]

So seeing as the trailer is finally out and one of my more frequently revisited posts is about this movie let's talk the trailer. Now these are off the cuff barely put together ramblings with like an hour to think on it so don't take this as a final verdict or my hardest stance ever.

The Good

- It looks generally alright. There is some clear signs someone was flipping through the art book for the War For Cybertron games when designing a lot of this stuff. As well I'm interested to see how the 'surface' is seeming to be overgrown with plant life and the like.

- Alpha Trion and some sort of grave, of the other 13?, shows up and seems like they are going with the G1 style of him making Optimus and Elita into their present selves, just adding Megatron and Bumblebee there.

- Elita One even getting to be a major player is pretty neat. Really a rise to prominence from a time when I think people didn't even know female characters existed before Arcee.

- Also Quintessons seeming to be an oppressive class enslaving the Cybertronians is another good G1 call back.

- Also having both Orion and M-16 start as workers is nice since it means you can't accuse Optimus of not knowing just how bad the system was when he opposes Megatron going full Peace Through Tyranny.

The Bad

- The dialogue, like you know it, I know it, and everyone else knows it. Now to start not saying Transformers can't be goofy or funny, '80s film everyone has a dance party to Weird Al and fandom loves the hell out of that movie. But that felt more organic to G1s general sillier side versus this where it feels the writers looked up a bunch of posts satirizing later stage MCU diaologue and thought "yes let's do that".

- Bumblebee being there, since seems he is just being shoved in as comic relief and cause marketers love Bumblebee versus a fourth main character being needed for this story.

The Fear

This is more speculation on from what the trailer presents could be bad about the film but I can't say 100% from the trailer.

- Elita One being in the movie being reduced to other three main characters are going to spend parts of the movie having the hots for her or the plot being configured into any kind of terrible love shape. (I will barely accept a love triangle with Orion and M-16 if those two are also onto each other. Transformers made enough strides in LGBT rep to not back slide into the worst of Het writing now.)

- Bonus negative points if Elita One getting hurt or dying is used as the final straw for Optimus and Megatron's relationship breaking apart.

- The reveal of the names Optimus Prime, Megatron, and Elita One not being allowed to be good moments and instead get ruined by shitty jokes (Like how the RWBY/Justice League film had to constantly make jokes about Superman being called Superman. I get it writers are so above silly naming schemes like that in the 2020s now, but just shut up)

- Speaking or other things that are atrocious I'm worried this movie is going to pull a Devil May Cry reboot and just have Megatron swerve into "I wanna be Big Dick Dictator of the Galaxy" two seconds after they beat the Quintessons like how Fedora!Vergil went "I'm actually evil and we should now in some vague way rule the world Dante" right after the 'Kingpin From Marvel but turned into a giant made of buildings' boss fight. So no time will be given to the deteriorating state of Orptimus' and Megatron's relationship before hand. That or they sequel bait the downfall and we have to cross our fingers it was good enough to get a sequel.

- The Quintessons will have their menace damaged by bad pot shot jokes/references to the original animated movie.

- We spend all movie with MCU quips Bumblebee but Starscream never shows up.

The Hope

But that is all nerves and speculation as so far I've just seen a single trailer. So what about positive possibilities.

- The major one is the trailer is just cut by brainless add executives and a lot of the worst quips are either not in the movie or there is way more good dialogue and the stuff in the trailer was all of it.

- They actually do give some other members of the Decepticons appearances and completing backstories of their own.

- Optimus and Megatron are in unambiguous romantic love before the big break up.

- They do some really interesting stuff with the lore based on some of that cool environmental design. Perhaps a more interesting version of Megatronus for Megatron to be inspired by?

- Lastly this film just needs to clear the low bar set by most of the Bay Films to not be bad at this point. And I highly doubt this movie can do anything to hit the "Your Racist Uncle" level of some Revenge of the Fallen scenes or "Mmm I sure do love high school girls" level of the first one and especially Age of Extinction scenes.

[the-headmate-hotel]

Something I hate about this fandom is how they portray asexuality, people say "I don't ship Alastor because he's asexual!", "He's asexual, they wouldn't date!" Or "Fandom can't handle asexuality.".

You don't like the ships with Alastor? Good for you.

You don't feel comfortable shipping an asexual character? Completely valid.

You feel the need to mention the fact that Alastor is asexual every time you dislike a ship? Stop.

Being asexual does not mean you can't date, asexuals can date, aros can date, aroaces can have QPRs!

Even if you're a completely, 100%, sex-repulsed asexual, you can still have romantic feelings.

If you're a completely, 100%, not into romance aromantic, you can still be with someone for company, (Agreed upon.) sexual reasons, or anything else.

If you're a completely, 100%, not wanting a romantic/sexual relationship with anyone aroace, you can have a queer-platonic-relationship.

It's a spectrum, a very wide, and very complicated spectrum, that not everyone will understand. And it's completely understandable if you don't understand it completely, but that doesn't mean you should use the fact that someone is asexual to harass people about ships.

Now, before I end this off, everyone is different, everyone experiences a-spec differently, myself included, and I'm in a very happy, loving relationship, but not every person on the a-spec will want a relationship. (SO DON'T GO HARASSING PEOPLE TO GET INTO RELATIONSHIPS.)

So, with all that said, I hope this post is coherent, I have a hard time writing down my thoughts when I'm upset.

[diazfox]

(A tentative guess about your BuckTommy vs Buddie post)

I guess a big part of it is because it's canon ? It's canon and it seems to work, and it seems to be make Buck calm and fluffy and happy in a healthy way, which is what a lot (all ?) of us want. So we can get behind that, for now.

Your "why not a similar support behind his exes / fetishizing MM relationship" question is valid and i think the difference is because it's the first time someone Buck dates seems to really fit with him without having something that we can pre-shot is going to be a problem, and the first time he goes into a relationship (getting myself ahead of things there) without it being to heal something in him ? And as I've read other people point out, Tommy's not silo-ed out, he has a backstory with the Begins episodes, he is friends with some of the 118, so it makes him less of a plot device than Buck's female exes.

And about the second part, the fetishizing part, i think sadly it's just a real thing that happens here, on tumblr and in fandom spaces : men are seen enjoying being together and fandom smooches them together together. One could even argue that it's the same for Buddie, wanting them to be together together when canon just factually says they are BFFs. I don't think anyone is erasing anything, but all that is canon about Buddie is that they are BFFs (a lot can be read as more that friends but ultimately it's with shipping goggles on, only - i'm not a very optimistic person, though).

I guess some of us think that if they didn't make Buddie happen for this long, then it may be because it is meant to stay on the fandom shipping side ? And we're given this incredible chance to have a canon lgbt character with an unusual story of self-discovery that doesn't happen a lot in tv shows so we're just enthusiastic to go with the flow ?

And if it turns out that the writers have the guts to get Eddie his own self-discovery journey, and if that later leads to Buddie happening somehow, then I think all BuckTommy shippers will be glad that it finally happened, and that it is canon, and is finally the Truth.

damn, thanks for your insight! i do see how things being canon and properly canon (like Tommy having a "backstory") can cause shifts in perspectives looking into the future.

i 100% understand why some might think buddie is a form of fetishization too. ngl i've seen strong arguments like "why can't 2 male characters share a strong emotional bond platonically? why does it have to lead to romance?" i guess my main reason for bringing up fetishization with respect to bucktommy is the fact that they are quite lacking in the "strong emotional bond" department. so it feels pretty much like "2 hot guys kissing and touching each other hell yeah" to me.

but i realise i'm overlooking the fact that this is bi buck's first relationship, though. i forgot to consider the fact that majority of this support for tommy comes from the fact that this is the first love interest of buck's to whom he can give all of himself and get twice as much with all the freedom in the world AS A BI MAN. thank u for putting me on to the fact that i've been misinterpreting this enthusiasm to some degree.

thats not to say that just bc something is canon or just a headcanon everything is set in stone. writers and actors themselves have made it very clear time and time again that audience reactions and engagement matters when it comes to plot development. in your own line of thought, right until 7x 03 they didn't make bi Buck happen for so long. so would u say it was meant to stay merely on the fandom shipping side? i just think the possibilities are endless, and maybe we as a fandom can try to have a bit more resilience to see through fan-originated storylines instead of a "i'll just go with whatever is canon bc it's easier" ethic.

[sylvies-kablooie]

i do unironically think the best artists of our generation are posting to get 20 notes and 3 reblogs btw. that fanfic with like 45 kudos is some of the best stuff ever written. those OCs you carry around have some of the richest backstories and worldbuilding someone has ever seen. please do not think that reaching only a few people when you post means your art isn't worth celebrating.

[reggiestein]

i always get nervous posting my art bc i feel like i draw him Different than how other ppl do but i guess that is a good thing kinda. peace and love. god bless🙏

[squuote]

man not to be that guy but like. if I gotta see or hear someone say the fandom is bad one more time I might just kill someone. and then kill someone again. just make an analysis post or idk do something fun and fucking shut uuup ohmy god

[puthyflapps]

Swifties prove everyday that they’re the dumbest people on the internet and that’s really saying something cuz I’ve dealt directly with blarkes

[balsa-margarita]

A PSA for new Azula fans

If you're seeing this, you're either following me or someone I'm mutuals with. You might be following me because of ATLA fandom stuff, and particularly because of Azula, and you might be new to Tumblr - and if you are, I want to warn you about something. (If you aren't following me for ATLA fandom reasons, just... skip this post unless you want to read about the drama I'm trying to warn people about.)

You will likely encounter some people who insist - repeatedly - on coming onto your posts and being annoying (especially if you post in the main Azula tag.) Sokkastyles, Avatar-Fandom-Police, etc, all of us who've been around a while have run into them and their complete unwillingness to leave well enough alone. It might make you want to leave the platform or the fandom, and personally I think that's their goal, because these people are proven assholes.

There is a simple solution to this!

Tumblr has a block button. When these people decide to play at being door-to-door proselytizers or try shaming you for disagreeing with their opinion, block 'em! They will never bother you again. They will likely think that they "won" somehow because you left, but this is not the case. Assholes always tell themselves that... ever heard of Ben Shapiro? These people have the same attitude in a lot of ways.

This kind of stuff has been happening a lot recently, because while those of us who have been around for a while have blocked annoyances like the people mentioned above, new people (possibly like you) have not. So a lot of drama has been sparked over the past two days because an unsuspecting person posted something these piranha cosplayers didn't like in the Azula tag and got jumped on. This can be very scary at times, because as I mentioned these people simply don't stop replying to your replies and trying to drag you into the mud with them.

So - if this happens to you, block! It really is that simple, and it will make your life a lot easier.

[growingwithem]