#ia rambles about...

[infiniteanalemma]

I know that Act 3 of BG3 could use a lot of fleshing out in so many areas and that this is such a minor thing, but it bugs me to an absolutely unreasonable degree that the Planar Ally summons don't have anything to say.

So, for those who have no idea what I'm talking about, the Planar Ally cleric spell lets you summon either a deva (angel, basically), cambion or djinni. The three of these are all sapient beings of fairly high intelligence, possibly higher than the one who summons them. For context, the deva has 17 Int as his lowest stat, with Wis 20 and Cha 20. I think the djinni has 15 Int. The cambion I'd have to check, but you get the point.

Unfortunately, they don't have any dialogue, not even basic voice barks. 😒 This is especially annoying to me because you get dialogue with Us, Shovel and can talk to a bunch of temporary companions like Glut or the random Harpers who help you in Moonrise. You get all sorts of ambient commentary from the Sentient Amulet ghost monk, and you can talk to him at will. He doesn't have a lot of dialogue, but still! Come on, man!

Do you mean to tell me that a literal angel from heaven, summoned to help you, has nothing to say about your situation? (And keep in mind that this is a cleric spell. If you're playing as a good-aligned cleric, this is very likely a servant of your god.) You're saying that a devil isn't looking at this situation like 👀 ? A djinni may shrug and be like "this isn't really my problem, I'm just along for the ride," but even they're still (chaotic good) sapient beings who you'd expect to have thoughts. Even if it's just about the audacity of this random bitch (gn) to summon them from whatever they were doing without even offering them anything for their trouble.

And that's not even getting into the potential drama. Like, can you imagine taking a literal angel into a brothel and then going upstairs to the devil's private room to discuss a deal? Or the incredibly catty response Raphael would have if Tav brings another cambion into the meeting, or perhaps more explosively, to his house to steal from him? You mean to tell me the annoying djinni at the circus wouldn't prompt a summoned djinni to say something?

Argh! The missed potential! *tearing out hair*

[infiniteanalemma]

I'm glad to see more Karlach meta, and I agree with a lot of your points. That said, I do feel a need to push back on two points specifically.

I think that despite everything, Karlach is still good. She may not be a "good little girl", but she IS a good person. I also don't think she's selfish--at least, not any more selfish than any other person out there.

This reply got away from me. (I turn everything into an essay, apparently.) I'll put it under a cut, but the crux of it is that making "bad" choices doesn't mean you're not a good person, either in DnD or irl. Also, wanting to survive and prioritizing your own self-preservation isn't selfish--it's merely human.

To the main point, you're absolutely right that Karlach isn't a squeaky clean, innocent "good girl". She's made bad decisions, trusted the wrong people, and still makes bad decisions even now, despite having good intentions. That doesn't mean she's not good, though. On the contrary, I'd say she IS good because she's trying to be better, and keeps trying even when she's failed.

It's not easy to be good. That's the point. To be good means making constant sacrifices, to constantly fight against one's baser impulses. Karlach is impulsive--she is controlled by her impulses, especially rage. Sometimes she fails to keep those impulses in check, but that failure doesn't speak to her moral character.

Even from a utilitarian, outcome-based perspective, her problem isn't her morals, but that she doesn't really stop to think about long-term consequences. She does whatever feels right in the moment, and sometimes that blows up in her face. That doesn't make her a bad person, just rash.

Working for Gortash is actually a good example of that: 'this guy treats me nicely, so he must be an okay person. Sure he's a weapons smuggler, but this is Baldur's Gate, and we do what we have to do to survive. It's not like we're hurting any innocents!'

Stat-wise, this checks out: her Intelligence is below average, explaining her lack of foresight, while her Wisdom is slightly above average but not super high. Wisdom is what governs those gut-impulses of intuition. So, she recognizes when a situation is unjust, but doesn't always know the best way to address it. As a natural result, her well-intentioned actions sometimes actually make things worse. Her intentions are almost always to help the innocent and/or punish the wicked, but intentions don't equal outcome.

You hold Wyll up as her foil, which she herself acknowledges him as being a "better" person than she is. However, the thing to keep in mind is that Wyll is a hero. He's not just a good person, but someone who goes above and beyond what anyone would expect as a reasonable self-sacrifice. The thing that generally makes saints saintly is that they've reached a point where they're willing to sacrifice themselves to a degree that the average person can't. Wyll always seems to do the right thing, no matter the personal cost.

However, even Wyll isn't perfect. He can be tricked, or fall victim to misunderstandings. He was all set to kill Karlach herself, after all, not out of malice but because he was trying to do the right thing without full understanding of the situation. Wyll sort of has the opposite problem of Karlach: his intelligence is a little above average, but his Wisdom isn't. (It's a 10, which is exactly average.) This means that Wyll isn't too bad at figuring out the consequences of his actions (assuming he has all the facts), but his intuition for when he's being tricked or that the situation isn't what it seems isn't the best.

Karlach's not a Wyll, and she's not a lawful good type. (I'd argue that Wyll really isn't lawful good either. I see him more as a neutral good--he's willing to go along with the rules if they'll help the situation, and if they won't, he's more than happy to bend or break them. He does have a strong, internal code of conduct, but he's willing to violate even his own morals "for the greater good.") Instead, I'd class Karlach as chaotic good -- she doesn't care what the rules say, and she doesn't have any strong internal code of conduct. She tries to do good when and where she can, in whatever way she thinks is best in the moment. Chaotic, but trying her best to do the right thing.

Even if you assume she was Gortash's kneecap-buster, having a shady past doesn't make you tainted forevermore. Redemption is never easy, but she's clearly trying to be better. Of course, trying to be better doesn't wipe the slate clean. It doesn't make a decade of being used as a weapon evaporate. She likes to fight. She's good at it. Thrown into extreme violence, she leaned into it and learned to take some enjoyment in a horrible and traumatic experience. She had to, if she wanted to survive. Maladaptive coping mechanisms don't go away just because they're no longer necessary, even when you want them to and especially not when they're something that literally kept you alive.

As to her being selfish, I think it's helpful to distinguish between selfishness and self-preservation. Everyone wants to survive. That's a basic, animal instinct. It's primal. It's not selfish to want to live, or to want to avoid suffering or being tortured. Selfishness is going beyond that. It's being willing to go along with others' suffering and loss merely for one's own comfort, because doing something is inconvenient.

It's important to remember that Karlach is a trauma survivor. No, she didn't help the tieflings in Elturel, but not because she was so selfish that she didn't care about what happened them. That's the tragedy of it. She wanted to help, but didn't think she could. Karlach's regret wasn't that she didn't help, but that she didn't even try because she thought there was nothing she could do. After all, if she couldn't even save herself, how was she supposed to help them?

That's learned helplessness, one of the many ways abusers keep their victims under control. When you convince someone their chains are unbreakable, they stop trying to escape. It's a trauma response, and it's only in retrospect that Karlach can even consider that maybe there were other options. And it's not like she was in a position to act freely. Zariel would have punished her, and the likelihood she'd have made a difference was pretty slim anyway. She was too visible, had too many eyes on her, and she's not exactly the most subtle person to try to help them stealthily.

Now she's free to try helping others without fear of immediate punishment, but that doesn't mean she suddenly knows how, or what the best thing to do is. The soul coins are a case in point. DnD lore says that souls bound in soul coins can be freed to go to whatever afterlife they deserve, but does Karlach know that? She seems to believe they're trapped until they're destroyed, based on her "better I use them to fight evil than to let a devil use them" dialogue. If those were the only two choices, then from her perspective, it'd be easy to see using a soul coin to be a kind of mercy kill. The soul in the coin is trapped in a state of agony. Can you really call it a kindness to leave them in that state?

She's not indifferent to their suffering. She'll freely admit that it's horrible to sacrifice them, but if that's something that's just going to unavoidably happen anyway? Better to end their suffering and give it a "good purpose" than to let them suffer, only to be inevitably sacrificed by a devil anyway for evil purposes.

Does this mean she doesn't occasionally choose "selfish" comfort over action? No! She's willing to bury her head in the sand for a moment's comfort. Can you blame her? I can't. After all she's suffered, I can understand wanting to deny painful truths and hold on to a moment's happiness. She's had precious little of that for the last decade. Of course she wants to make every scrap of it last. And I can also understand her asking herself who it hurts to ignore reality, convincing herself it's harmless. It isn't, of course. It hurts herself and those around her to pretend everything's fine when it isn't, but the immediate gratification of indulging feels better in the moment.

But that's human. We all do things like that. We all tell ourselves comforting lies to make ourselves feel better. When we do things wrong, we try to rationalize it and make it less bad, if only to ourselves.

So, all this to say: Karlach is not some innocent ingenue. She's a morally complex person with some bite to her, but that doesn't stop her from being good. She's still a good person, even when she doesn't always get it right.

Karlach isn't a good girl

Listen, LISTEN. I love her, okay? Now that's out of the way. I see many people reducing her personality to the "big friendly labrador dog" thing. And while it's cute and all that, I disagree. Let me get into why I think Karlach isn't the goodie nice girl she puts a lot of effort to be. She has just returned to Faerun when we meet her in game, and she IS trying her bestest to start anew, to be the best version of herself now that she is free. But it doesn't mean she was always like that, or that her past has not changed her. I think it did - quite a lot, in fact.

Let's start with Gortash. She worked for this fucker. Granted, she might not have known he was such an evil bastard at the time, but she was his bodyguard. And by bodyguard, it is implied that she was his bully, his enforcer and debt collector - you know, the kind that breaks knees and kills people. When she meets an old friend in the city, that friend asks her if she is still in "the business of intimidation", and offers her to come see weapons. Even though Karlach, in her mind, might have been convincing herself that doing such a job was to help someone she respected, she still did it. And that is FINE. She was a young orphan, a tiefling in a place where tieflings are discriminated against harshly, poor and without much perspective. Of course a guy coming over offering her a well paid job that she excelled in would seem like winning a lottery. Still, she was a pretty shady violent person doing it. Now, the Hells. Avernus. She was sold to Zariel quite young still, and went through all sorts of torture and other perks enslavement gets you. For 10 years. She was scared shitless while there, especially in the beginning - she says so herself (to Halsin). All the carnage she inflicted was not (very) voluntary. She HAD to, or she would be the one getting killed. But she enjoyed it - or grew to. She likes violence, the adrenaline of it, the rush of excitement. The thrill of it, she says, is second only to sex.

Continuing on. Avernus, as well as the other layers of the Nine Hells, is not like the Material Plane. The place itself influences you. It means that being in Avernus for any time changes/corrupts/influences who you are. The longer you stay there, the deeper it gets. It did so to Zariel who was a literal angel. Avernus (and it's Archdevil's personality) insidiously get in your body and heart. It is just the way it goes, lore-wise, in DnD. If a fucking SOLAR wasn't immune to it, Karlach - young and lost - certainly wouldn't be either. Even more so because she was near Zariel all the time. I strongly believe Karlach was getting more and more exactly like Zariel - who herself is a fierce berserker warrior who charges head first into battle. Zariel is KNOWN to be this crazy strong, insane, fearless and (in her mind) righteous demon-smiting war machine. Sounds similar to a nice red tiefling we know, doesn't it? Now, did Zariel chose Karlach beause she was already like this, or did Karlach took after Zariel while she fought with her? Hard to tell. In any case, Karlach's 10 years in the Hells did change her. Needless to say, Avernus doesn't change you for the better. It doesn't mean that Karlach became "evil" - she is obviously far from it. But she is chaotic, violent and bloodthirsty. She is also selfish. There are several situations where this personality trait of her comes up.

It may sound kinda wild considering how she offers to help everyone and even sacrifice herself (since she's already dying anyway) - when we meet her. But that's the thing: she is being as selfless as she can now because she has been very selfish for a very long time (proof she has a conscience). Perhaps, she is terrified of what she was becoming and is trying to make amends, to revert whatever evil was growing in her.

She mentions herself that she did not help the tieflings of Elturel when their city was pulled down into Avernus. She did not get out of her way to help them. Instead, she thought that if "she was living that nightmare, they'd have to live it too". She would not put her neck on the line to help another - which, not so coincidentally, is typical behavior in the Hells (again, proof that Avernus was indeed getting to her). The Hag's Vicious Mockery targeted specifically at Karlach mentions how she is willing to "sell everyone's soul's if it means she can save hers". We do not know exactly what it refers to - soul coins, throwing others under the bus, ignoring people in need - but it reinforces the idea that Karlach was not the nicest person for at least 12+ years. Granted, the devils around her were much worse - but they are DEVILS in HELL. So.

Generally, in game we notice that her effort to survive and stay alive has pushed her selfishness to grow. But it still is selfishness. Another example is how she disapproves (together with Astarion), if you say to healer Nettie that you "swear to drink the Wyvern poison". She wouldn't drink it. She'd rather kill Nettie (that gets hostile).

Another hint at her grey-ish personality is when she talks to/about Wyll after he is punished by Mizora for not having killed Karlach. She mentions that she would NOT have done the same in his place. That he was better than her. Again, she would not put her skin on the line like that. She would and has turned a blind eye to situations and persons if it meant it would guarantee her survival or avoid injury. (Mind you, I 100% belive she would do this sacrifice if she was in love with someone, though.)

She will ask to, and will use Soul Coins even though she knows it's morally a sus choice to do so. If you play as her she will repeat to herself "I won't use them, they are people's souls - and I am GOOD." like she is trying to convince herself. Because she would fucking use them to smash some big fuckers in a blink - and feel awesome while doing it. Even as her, she keeps insisting "But... maybe I can use them... JUST when I really need them." Additionally, when she talks to the bugbear merchant in Moonrise Towers and he offers her soul coins, she doesn't really feel guilty for the stories of the souls in them. She even says at some point "they are already doomed, so why not use them anyway", justifying that she will only kill evil bastards with them. In any case, the morality of her choice is debatable. It makes clear that Karlach is not "lawful good" by any stretch.

Let me reiterate that just because I am saying all this about Karlach, doesn't mean I dislike her. I think she is abso-fucking-lutely the best character in the game. But I hate to see her personality "flattened" to nice happy go lucky gal. I think she has a grey-tinged personality - she has good and bad aspects to herself; she has character flaws too.

But I also think that she is trying her damn hardest to be the best she can be right then. The opposite of what she's been. Maybe it is because she has so little time left, that she needs to be the absolute best version of herself while she can. Perhaps she is trying to be what she would have been if her parents did not die - because they seemed like great loving parents. And I think Karlach didn't turn into a broken evil maniac because of them, the way they raised her while they were alive. But she lost her mom at 6, her father around 13-15. After that, it was struggling on the streets, Gortash and Zariel - betrayal, violence, carnage, war and loneliness. It is too naive to think a person would not change after all this, that Karlach would not carry more scars than those she shows on her body. To her credit, she turned much MUCH better than anyone would have. She WILL kill with a grin on her face, seek violence, blood and even revel in it - she learned to relish it and now it's part of who she is. She is selfish, she will look out for herself and has no qualms about killing or throwing people she doesn't care for under the bus (if she sees justification for it). BUT she knows what evil is, and doesn't let shit happen to people who don't deserve it. She will side with those who suffer prejudice and fight against what she sees as injustice - but even she has a limit to how far she'd go.

If you raid the Emerald Grove, she will leave the party. To me, this screams of her trying to right her past wrongs. She left the Elturians to their fate once before, so she MUST save them now that she has another chance - and that it won't cost her her life. I love her being 1/3 brutal killing machine (and fucking LOVING it), 1/3 ptsd, fear and overcompensating trauma under a smile, and 1/3 just trying her best, really, and being lovely for it. Phew. That was a long rant. I guess I just wanted to organize my thoughts about it a bit :V

[zacksephreunion]

GUH i reblogged that one post and rambled about how zack's "biblical name" could/should be zacchaeus without even reading the wikipedia on him and

DAMMITTT 😭😭😭😭😭

[not-karl]

saying "oh to be born in the 60s"

knowing damn well i would be called 50 different racial slurs

now the 80s.. maybe not the 80s either

i would be fine with being born any year in the 2000s though, just not like 2008 to 10,

[walkman-cat]

my stress dreams are becoming more and more specific as time passes

[infiniteanalemma]

Oh ho ho! Good stuff here. 🤩 Let me add another interesting bit that I haven't seen anyone mention yet.

If you have Astarion in your party when you rescue Lae'zel from the trap, he approves if you tell her to say please.

There's a lot of things I think you can derive from that. This turned into a whole essay, so I'll put a read-more here for those who don't want to see it on their dash.

On the surface level, I think his approval here plays into his whole "don't help others because no one helped me" complex. His empathy is at a zero at this point: he finds it amusing when it happens to someone else, but less so when it happens to him. Par for the course at this point in the game.

Also of note that, even for a good Tav who means it more teasingly, telling Lae'zel to say please is a form of humiliation. She is haughty and demanding, so it serves as a reminder of who actually has the power here. Even when Tav releases her without her saying please, they have already asserted their power by (even temporarily) holding her freedom hostage to their whim. Astarion enjoys it when Tav is mean to others because it reinforces his belief that true power is measured by cruelty to others without punishment.

However--especially for a good-aligned Tav--you still give her what she wants. Yes, you've exerted your power, but you still "gave in" to her demands. To Astarion, this reveals something about Tav that he can use.

At this point, Astarion is watching closely to try to suss out what sort of people he's dealing with and what their "weaknesses" are. By DnD rules, vampire spawn target the weakest of a group first. (I have a lot of thoughts about what it says that he chose Tav to try feeding from, but I'll save that for a different time.) He tests everyone in the group to see their reactions. Flirting is the most obvious way, but you know he's watching your responses to other people just as closely. How you treat others, what motivates you, what you do when you are in a position of power over another.

Telling Lae'zel to say please shows Astarion a way that Tav can be manipulated. If they're good-aligned, he sees it as Tav having weak boundaries that can be pushed by playing along, flattery, or pressure. For a more evil or selfish Tav, it's a sadistic enjoyment of humiliation. Dangerous to play with, but something he already knows well.

By the party, he's read Tav as receptive to his flirting. In other words, they wanted him, so he had some power over them to give them something they wanted. Instead, Tav flips the script -- it's Astarion who wants something from them, and they are in the position to offer or deny. (This also happens to be the truth, even if what he wants isn't what he claims to want.) Tav has unwittingly called his bluff, so now he has to either play along or try to minimize his interest.

Obviously he doesn't enjoy someone having power over him, especially an "evil" Tav. Even from a good Tav, he still perceives it as a power-play, but by this point he realizes a good Tav is "inept" at using power. (In quotes, of course, because he can't really grasp the idea of true altruism yet. For him at this point in the game, he's still firmly in the power=cruelty mindset, so a good Tav is just really bad at bending others to their will effectively.)

For a good Tav, this is another opening to exploit--a more pleasant surprise. For an evil one, it meant they caught him in his own snare.

"Say please" Astarion's reaction - Goblin party vs Tiefling party (well done vs good boy)

Here we go, I need to analyze the party proposal from Astarion. So, if you do not get Astarion to proposition before the party he will do so at the party (if you have high enough approval). But the way he does it is OH SO different, and I think it might gives some clues on him and in general how he regards Tav/Dark Urge (which I will call Tav from now on).

Look, I played as female one and male the other, I don't think that gender is the reason for any difference here.

First of all, how to get to the party:

Goblin party: it is the evil choice. Not only you kill refugees, but you also ally yourself with the Absolute (which is the thing you are trying to hide from and attacked you). Your companions will react like this is the evil choice (Gale will threaten to leave, Wyll and Karlach leave, Lae'zel cares little, Shadowheart pretends not to care but she drinks herself into a stupor, and Astarion well, I will talk about it in this post)

The tiefling party: It is the good choice. Even the atmosphere of the party is better, there is music, dancing etc. You defeat the goblins, you save the day.

So, to start, to make sure I take everything in consideration, these were my approval scores with Astarion: 41 (identified by the game as High) at the goblin party (evil choice) vs 38 (medium) at the tiefling party (good choice).

OKAY HERE WE GO. So at the party, the scene will be different. I will post screenshots too, but if you want to see these two scenes back to back: first is the "evil one", and the second one is the "good one":

I will focus on three things:

The "say please" moment + "what"

the fact that you can tell him good boy in the good run, but not in the evil one (and how he reacts)

The general way Astarion acts

"SAY PLEASE" -> good boy vs well done

So in the above video you can check "say please" for evil choice at 2:01, and for good choice at 0:22.

So in the evil version we flirt and then when we refuse to go to bed with him (everything is so much more direct), we can ask "Say please". His reaction is a short, almost annoyed "What." The intonation sounds so flat, indignant.

In the good version, his flirting is much more subtle (as in, Tav is not completely on the same page), his "What?" definitely has a not of surprise and is much softer. I cannot tell if it is a good surprise or a bad one, but the general sense of it is more sensual?

The note from the devs is that he never had to be in this position (asking someone please for sex) so he is surprised. Interestingly, this note does not exist for the goblin party, only for the tiefling one.

Just look at his face:

He does seem more collected in the second one, maybe like he is keeping his flirty mask more secure on himself. There is definitely a smile, but with him it is hard to get if it is his mask, or him being positively surprised. BUT what we can say is that the mask slip in the first version, and he is much more annoyed.

I also noticed that the way he is animated to say PLEASE IS DIFFERENT. Top row: evil choice vs bottom row good choice

The first pic of both rows is his face immediately after the roll, when he starts to say please, one is definitely... not super happy about it, the other seems surprised. But the ending result is similar... still, the evil choice one has him in a much more seductive movement, that thing he does where he lowers his head and looks up so his eyes are half lidded? He does that a lot in act 1 seduction, where he is trying to sell you the fantasy.

The note from the dev was "through gritted teeth" so I do not think he is happy in any of the two choices.

Now, in reply to his please, you also have different options, which for me are the most interesting one:

(also in general the good version has more close ups to the characters faces for some reason)

In the evil one you can tell him "Well done! I will see you tonight" and in the good one you can tell him "Good boy! Let's get together tonight".

I THINK this is the focal point of why that "please" scene is so different. In the evil playthrough he saw you killing innocents, having little to no empathy, siding with, well, basically the villains. Your "say please" is more likely to come from a position of needing power over him than a fun flirting line. You literally slaughtered children, and now you are telling him to "Say please". He also could be surprised because he thought he was more of an equal to you? And the "well done" sounds very military-like. Yes, you did, just like I told you to, now get on with it.

In the good playthrough, instead, you have saved innocents, he even calls himself a hero and he is surprised to be on the hero side. Up till now, you have mostly done a very good deed out of the kindness of your heart. Asking him to "say please" would be cruel unless it is... kinky? FLIRTING? I think because of who Tav is the choice to ask him has to end up in the playful seduction category instead of the "I want you to grovel" category. His reaction is maybe surprised because that is unexpected, to hear you ask that after you have been so kind, but it is still firmly in the realm of sexy times. You don't tell him "well done", you tell him "GOOD BOY". That is definitely in the realm of sexy times much much more, and kinda gives a different sense to the scene.

Just look at the difference between these two faces!! It is the same line, but in one case he is a bit closed off, in the other his face is so much more open. I can almost read... hope?? Because you are a good person?

General attitude

The thing is, it could also just mean that he is THAT good. I still think the "what" is a slip of his mask, but in general the way he acts could be just tailored for who you want and who you are. So of course, if you are good and kind you would probably be manipulated more easily by puppy easy and open looks, so the second option would work better on that Tav.

Or simply, he is already changing?? He is seeing that there is a different way to live and not being killed.

In general, the way he flirts with Tav is also quite different:

In one case (first one, evil) he is more direct. He is not beating around the bush, he asks you what happens next and you can literally tell him "well, I will sleep with you".

In the good version, he is much more elaborate, and even your choice to ask him to sleep together is much less direct ("quality time").

In general, I think what DorianDarkstar @doriandarkstar (twitter account) (WHO HAS SO MANY GOOD INSIGHTS ON ASTARION and is often subjected to my endless posts) said in reply to me mentioning the scene makes the most sense:

Also, I just wanted to add the two Tav faces:

No idea if this is just a difference of drow vs tiefling, but my drow (evil choices) is much more annoyed and confrontational!

[gnomebud]

readings from high school/college that changed me in some way:

the haunting of hill house by shirley jackson

ficciones by jorge luis borges

othello (and subsequently american moor by keith hamilton cobb)

cyrano de bergerac by edmond rostand

the girl-thing who went out for sushi by pat cadigan

the woman warrior by maxine hong kingston

fun home by alison bechdel

readings from high school that did absolutely jack shit even after having to do them AGAIN in college:

dubliners by james joyce

[optiwashere]

this is your local fanfic writer in her natural morning habitat:

Wrapped in a blanket, listening to the new Sulphur Aeon, and writing silly modern AUs nobody asked for while trying to figure out how much additional smut she should write today before she has to go be an adult and clean and make her living space somewhat presentable. Disgusting.

Notes on my current projects under the break...

Chapter [spoiler] of the AU is ~6k but not necessarily finished. I may go back to add more smut, or add more build up, or add more aftermath. I like the ending it currently has, but we'll see.

Chapter [spoiler+1] of the AU is still way, way early in the drafting stage, but the fic as a whole is edging towards "comfortable to start posting" in terms of buffer chapters! This is so that I can write the AU while ALSO writing one-shots whenever I feel like it. I have an important thematic thread to weave in here, so this one will likely take a bit longer to get through.

On the modern AU front, and a sillier note, I have the first "Metal Shadowheart, but She's Secretly a Big Softie who Listens to Softly Sung Singer-Songwriter Music" playlist pretty much finalized. If I decide to keep doing these, the genres will evolve to reflect the AU. It's a stupid idea, but I love stupid ideas.

An Asheera/Shadowheart adventure-y, "wow you look hot after fighting" "no u" battlewives, explicit as all hell fic is at like 8k because I had to put in some emotional hurt/comfort at the end after all the violence and gratuitous amounts of oral sex. It might get even longer because I want more build, more sex, more fighting, and more aftermath. This thing could hit 10k, I really don't know with how it's turning out lmao. Needs an editing pass and whatever the fuck expansions I make to it.

The sequel to Burning Hands is written but I think it needs some tweaking before I post it. Roughly 3k in length. Maybe Karlach will finally get what she wanted? This could use some light expansion, and I know it needs line editing + more well-watered prose. Once that's fleshed out, it'll be ready to post (next week?)

Another Minthara/Lae'zel in the vein of "Minthara doms Lae'zel into the fucking dirt" is in the ideation phase. I have the general A to B to C planned out, but no writing is there yet. Won't be done for some time, sadly.

Nocturne/Shadowheart in the extreme early works. Like, basically it's just me trying to figure out how I want to write Nocturne in smut. Do I even make it graphic? This one won't be out for a while, for sure.

Word count progress for the week: 17, 663

Haven't been able to do much reading. I still need to finish Blood Bride by @raedmagdon and I'm always on my quest to sort Shadowheart/Female Character fics by no-comments and read all of those.

[infiniteanalemma]

Ok, I'm playing BG3 (like half of tumblr, it seems), and I have something to admit ...

At first, I was looking at all these Raphael stans with amused bafflement. "This clown, really?" I said to myself, shaking my head. "Y'all are something. Sorry, tumblr. Can't relate."

I'm in Act Three, and ... I get it now, damn it, entirely against my will. 🤡

[infiniteanalemma]

Somehow I have managed NOT to talk about Dragon Age on here yet, which is a sin and a crime and must be rectified immediately. However, since I am a (generally) merciful person, I will stick it under a read more so no one has to scroll past the ensuing word avalanche.

edited: TIL that the read-more doesn't work for hiding the whole post in the reblog comments, apparently? That's not cool, tumblr. Change of plans. I'll link my thoughts, then. *harrumph*

would y’all do me a favor? reblog this and tell me why your favorite dragon age companion is your favorite. this is a free pass to be annoying and rambly I wanna read some positivity

[dkniade]

タルタリヤ：「俺が欲しいのは勝利ではなく、磨くこと。」

公式の英語翻訳は「It is not victory that I seek, but improvement.」と言うことだ。

「勝利」と「鍾離」が同じ「しょうり」の読み方を持っているのか…？へぇ…それ以外も、面白い見方だね…尾形回帰さんの「セツナドライブ」の作詞もこう言う見方をしますね。

「駆け抜けてゆけ　無我夢中でいい

格好なんて気にしないで

ただ衝動に身体委ね」

つまり

「Cut through all that’s in your way; just lose yourself in the moment

And don’t worry about how you look

Just let impulse take over and guide your body」

[ruby-myth-dreamer]

Just woke up fron a very strange and uncomfortable dream but looks like no college orientation today !! Lets read more momu !!! Yay !!!!

[mess-ines]

Os meus amigos às vezes esquecem-se que tivemos experiências de escola muito diferentes 😬

[zaby-i-krowy]

Gotta love when "showing task marked complete" matters more than completing the task the way it's supposed to be done

[infiniteanalemma]

This is fascinating stuff, and I definitely agree that the city is in for a complete shit-storm once everything comes out. Gortash had no problem bankrupting everyone -- if his plan had succeeded, well, there wouldn't have been any point in currency anyway. Throwing away the city's resources like it was going out of style would only ever have helped him, once he got far enough along. Ulder and/or Wyll will have a hell of a time bringing that situation under control.

As for Astarion and magistrates, my thought is that it's a relatively minor, mostly administrative job. Think things like suing for minor property damage or a contract dispute between members of the lower class -- not a high-powered judge or anyone with major political connections. It'd probably be more like a proving ground for who to promote to a position like that, though. Of course, if he could force people to pay fines, that would explain how he could've angered the Gur; he'd be some poncy noble unfairly targeting them while turning a blind eye to others doing the same stuff but having better connections.

@infiniteanalemma  that post is so long and I didn't want to make it longer even with a readmore LMAO however it is VERY interesting that if u Google magister baldurs gate, ONLY astarion comes up. This, plus the fact that there aren't really supposed to be many cemeteries in the city means that the game took a few creative liberties with astarion lmao. (I have yet to look at the map of baldurs gate from bg1 and 2, I'm still on part one of watching a lets play of it rip)

But in general it also puts into perspective wyll and ulder---ulder became grand Duke only 7 years ago, 3 years after parliament was formed. All dukes positions are supposedly elected and he was elected based off of the general good will and like, ppl thinking he would help the lower city, according to the lorebooks and he failed to meet expectations bc he had to make certain deals with the patriars that made him hypocritical, in the way wyll thinks many politicians are hypocritical

(In general tho I like to think that ulder does TRY to be good. The system is just so broken. I think he and florrick are team lower city tho along with the twelve representatives from the lower city and I go back and forth on whether gortash also was or wasn't, tho it would make more sense if he was as he is also from poverty and not a patriar and it would add texture to both gortash and ulder if he was sometimes on their side, sometimes not.)

Gortash was a councilor who worked up the ranks, while ulder said at least ten years ago that he was a sycophant---as a slave himself with criminal connections (nine fingers has a jounral entry that mentions him even), he would've been able to rise up the ranks the old-fashioned baldurian way with wealth and crime. Plus u know he was sleeping with noble women

In general guild connections and connections between noble families are SUPER important and u never want to lose face. Also important to note that some patriar families aren't that popular or rich and there is a lack of funds for some of them

Which is even more interesting bc the steel watch is made if adamatium and infernal engines, and adamatium golems can take up to 100k gold to make

So right now baldurs gate could potentially have wasted like. Lit3ral millions of the patriars gold on these steel watch and the foundry,which no one knows is made with slave labor except the gondonians

(Which will have devastating effects when it is revealed as the gondonians are a huge part of the baldurs gate infrastructure, there's a whole two famous  establishments in the city, the hall of the wonders and the high house of wonders, where trade workers can learn their crafts and make incredible inventions and sell them and help baldurs gate with it, like its a huge thing, some people come to baldurs gate JUST for that, and gortash decided to make gondonians slaves like yikes)

Two dukes are dead, no grand Duke, 20 patriars dead, we don't know how many of them were members of parliament, we don't know if they were ever ex proxies, we don't know how involved they were with the guild or if they were on "the side of the lower city" we don't know what happened to the ACTUAL watch, but now they can't use the steel watch, and the vanthampur plan to make the flaming fist look weak and bad worked because they're ALL ON GORTASHS SIDE. Now everyone knows the flaming fist are idiots. And there's thousands of flaming fist inside and outside the city.

There's also amn--- they hate baldurs gate and want them to be emerged from the council of lords, which gortash would have been added to, and which wyll would be added to, like his Father. The council of lords are extremely extremely powerful and everyone but especially amn is already like "WHY IS BALDURS GATE REPRESENTED AND NOT US? THEYRE PIRATE BASTARDS" etc, and this would only add more fuel to that fire

Not entirely sure what happens in the sewers bc its optional, but there's still the guild, and rebuilding, and all the crime thatd usually happening, the class tensions, etc

But before gortash reveals his evil hand, i genuinely think people liked him and thought he was saving him too just like he wanted, upper city AND lower city since baldurs mouth even likes him and in general they can be pretty anti-establishment

The flaming fist guy i randomly talked to was even like "I guess ill pour a drink out for him. I guess." When gortash was killed

The most well known politicians are known because they lead during times of great crisis and all that

But gortash severely fucked the patriars over, and especially like. How much coin the city has, and has for rebuilding

Gortash wouldn't have needed it if everything went the way he planned. But wyll/ulder will now that great googly moogly its all gone to shit lmao

(Or u know durgetash for the war crimes aus)

On the plus side, pretty good time to be a criminal. And a lot of folks in baldurs gate are criminals

Next game should be all about nine fingers nine and wyll and avernus tbh. If there is a next game LOL. And im not just saying that bc im. A wyll roleplay blog LMAO

[candycoatedrox]

doing research for this paper has been FASCINATING bc of how many websites/studies/articles/etc i've seen that SPECIFICALLY use the acronym LGBTQI+. like there's a bunch that use LGBT, LGBT+, LGBTQ, LGBTQ+ etc but i haven't seen a single LGBTQIA+ and i've seen several that use LGBTQI+. i've never seen LGBTQI without the A in my LIFE. like if y'all are trying to be soooo inclusive shut up and include aro/ace people. why do you refuse to acknowledge our existence