#i've tried durge plays before but not while romancing astarion

[valsrandomstuff]

I did not expect to have so many feels on my chaotic evil dark urge play through. Astarion and I were murder buddies in Act 1 and I was making him worse, but in Act 2 he started making me better.

It started with the drow blood. I'd never pushed him to bite her to get a potion before and this was the run through where I was trying to do everything I'd missed. So I convinced him and it was awful, but I checked with him after and he seemed okay so I kept playing for a bit before taking a long rest.

Astarion confronted me and called me out for using my sway with him to push him into doing something he didn't want. I apologized but he broke up with me. Good for him for setting healthy boundaries. Lord knows the man needs some.

But my Tav really likes him so I reloaded and sided with him at the drow. I hadn't saved Isobel (you can save Isobel?! or healed the shadow area before so I went about doing that).

Sceleritas showed up at Moonrise Tower just as we were going to storm the place. It was broad daylight in front of all my companions and this little bastard had the gall to chastise me for not killing Isobel. And for all his words about how he serves me, he starts pulling rank about how my betters are annoyed.

Tav, as much as she loves murder, doesn't like being pushed around. So I told him to fuck off and then had the scene where he tries to make me kill Astarion. Which really pissed me off.

Now we're in Act 3, I've found out I'm Bhaalspawn, and Astarion’s telling me to fight the urge. I guess it’s easier to give someone else grace when you see them going through something similar, than it is to do the right thing yourself.

So yeah, I was gonna have him ascend cause I've never done that before either, but nope. We're gonna make each other better god damnit.

[teamdilf]

BG3 Tag Game!

Tagged by @busy-baker - thank you!

Favorite romance: It's a tie between my girl, Karlach, and Astarion. 💜

Favorite class to play: Sorcerer! I love playing super bubbly, charismatic sorcerers who absolutely fuck shit up on the battlefield if they aren't able to talk themselves out of a fight.

Favorite NPC: I'm picking away at fic about Sebastian heading out on the road with Shadowheart, so I think that makes him my favourite by default? I have this tendency to latch onto characters in games that have mere minutes of screen time, and then really expand on them in fanfiction and Sebastian is my BG3 guy! But I also love Dame Aylin!

Favorite song off the soundtrack: Raphael's Final Act because you gotta respect a guy who has the audacity to write his own villain theme song and sing it while he tries to kill you.

Tell us a little about your Tav: Petra is a draconic sorcerer who had been struggling to make a living as a stage performer before getting kidnapped and tadpoled just outside the city. She's extroverted, has a good read on people, deeply compassionate, but also prone to making rash decisions when it comes to protecting or avenging her loved ones.

Also, and this is very important: she dyes her hair purple and she is extremely proud of her hair.

Something you wish was in the game: Wyll's story feels unfinished and I'd have loved to see more interactions between him and his father. I just really love father-child stories and that is a story I'd like to expand upon one day if I can get the inspiration to write a longfic (or even a one-shot...) about them.

Do you create fanworks? I sure do! All my fics featuring Petra can be found in this series. I've also written a series of What We Do in the Shadows-inspired comedy works about Ascended Astarion and my Durge, Naomi.

Tagging @commander-krios, @sinelaborenihilsr2

[aeronbracken]

I've been playing dark urge for the second time, playing the trying to redeem themselves route, I'm romancing Karlach now, tried Astarion before. While I love the vampire boy, I highly recommend Karlach. There is a sweetness there that is just amazing, highly recommend it. As a Tav fighting against the urge that is.

I was thinking about romancing Minthara with my Durge -because I thought good aligned characters wouldnt tolerate them- but Karlach huh? Much to think about 😳

[stillsimpingforaymeric]

It's actually kind of important to me that Durge is a little gross, a little ugly, a little off-putting.

I don't think I have considerably more body issues (tm) than like, The Average Woman Living And Breathing On God's Green Earth, but I have been in recent years exceptionally tired of female characters being almost always without fail, flawless. The considerations made to an even slightly-less-than-hollywood-standard woman in a leading role are so minor, so insignificant, that it's become particularly exasperating.

A lot of the discourse focuses on body fat and while I am a supporter of body positivity, it's not the only thing I care about.

What about scars, what about deformities, what about skin conditions, what about flaws you can hide and still agonise over that others might see, that any lover will need to see, to accept, to love even.

I'm in love with the fact that Durge is a protagonist who's just a little off, even if you do go full redemption route. I like to imagine a myriad of scars, a nervous tic and a brutal, fresh looking autopsy scar that define Durge, no matter how conventionally attractive they look at first glance. I've tried to design my Durge in similar veins, a little off, a little wrong, a Tiefling-but-not-quite, some concessions made to the fact that Bhaal likely wanted her to blend in somewhere but an ugly life full of injury and trauma and a problematic diet, to put it mildly, contributing to a Durge that just isn't conventionally beautiful, that no one other than Astarion would immediately call beautiful.

I think what I enjoy about the Gale romance and Gale's dialogue specifically is that there is very little focus on visual aesthetics in his romance specific dialogue. His focus is on kindness, intelligence, actions, values. When he does fantasise, briefly, he makes specific mention of messy battle and a very flawed human condition that has nothing of the artifice involved in our daily lives of edition our own faces in photoshop until they become unrecognisable.

Falling in love with someone not because you took one look at them and decreed them hot enough to fuck, but the slow realization of affection and then, yes, finding beauty in the small things, in affectionate gestures or the sympathetic gaze from caring eyes.

I still love the Astarion romance, and it isn't shallow, not by the end of it, but it needs a solid 180 degree turn with a screeching halt somewhere in Act II before it hits that note. And he'll still call the protagonist beautiful every single time as standard dialogue. And there's a part of that repetition that annoys me for reasons that are probably linked to some deep seated issues, but it's nice to play a romance that doesn't make me feel like I made a mistake when I didn't design a conventionally attractive OC.