icanmakewords
A Living Breathing Human Being (?)
Love Quinn could step on me and I would thank her
2913 posts
Last active 60 minutes ago
Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.
Last Seen Blogs
pizzaislife000
Pizza won't break your heart
milfymephala
F.T.
onlinemarketer24
Untitled
there-is-more-being-les-blog
Being LESBIAN doesn't mean being DIFFERENT.
sl320
Untitled
Photo
I kissed her and forgot death.
- Jeanette Winterson, The Stone Gods
2K notes
·
View notes
Text
There's a reddit thread on the BG3 sub where the user u/InklingRain posted a spreadsheet they made with all the companion approvals. Super useful in general both for playing the game and for fic, so I thought I'd post it on tumblr and play around a little!
There's a top row with the average approval by companion, but I didn't find that very useful, so I changed it to the count of approvals (i.e. count of approvals & disapproval total, how often a companion had a reaction to something). We all know Astarion gives a lot of disapprovals here and there, but they're only -1 at a time, so no big deal, right?
No. Minsc has the least at only 45 reactions, Halsin at 95, Minthara at 145, and of the main companions, Gale is pretty average at 198, Lae'zel at 224, and Shadowheart, rather opinionated at 258...
but that's nothing compared to Astarion's 406. That's almost 150 more than the next person!!! That's more than Minthara and Shadowheart combined! Babygirl really woke up one day and decided to get in a snit over everything that happens 😂
(Longer post about count of positive and negative opinions, sum of approvals and disapprovals, and some major outliers below. Picture with values at the very end.)
But that's a bit disingenuous. If we look at the ratio of positive to negative opinions (not taking value into account), Astarion's pretty average at 30% (negative count over sum count, so let's call that negativity). This is similar to Gale (31%), Karlach (30%), and Lae'zel (32%). In theory, getting Astarion's approval or disapproval is just as easy as any of theirs, with a 20% bias towards positive approvals. Later companions are weighted heavily towards the lower end of the spectrum, with Jaheira at 13% negativity and Minsc at 9%. As you only get them very late, it's pretty clear that the game gives you a lot of opportunities to get their approvals and thus open up more of their quests and dialogue.
However. We have an outlier. Wyll Ravenguard, clocking in at an indecent 38% negativity! Which really just goes to show, while Astarion is the most opinionated, Wyll has the most disapprovals, making him the judgiest companion of all 🤣
However, this really wouldn't be a good post if we didn't look at the value of approvals. Karlach, for instance, has the strongest disapproval value of -100 (given if you sleep with her and then call it a mistake). Ouch. This is clearly at outlier and doesn't say much about Karlach's changeability of opinion in general. If we look at the sum of positive and negative opinions, this is a very heavy swing, making up 100 points of her total 191 disapproval points possible to her 281 approvals total. Another outlier is Minsc, who currently possesses a 43% disapproval percentage (a heavy -50 disapproval given if you sacrifice him to Sarevok. Jaheira, by contrast, apparently doesn't give a damn, or her value might simply not be included in the dateset.)
Removing outliers is really a matter of opinion here, so I'll only remove the most extreme swings, such as the above mentioned disapprovals.
The otherwise strongest swings are Astarion (-15 for telling him it was a mistake preventing him from drinking Araj's blood, or saying you only wanted to sleep with him, not deal with his trauma) and Wyll (+20 for siding with Karlach during his confrontation with her, which really shows he didn't really want to kill her and is very grateful you stopped him). Halsin gives +40 for reuniting Oliver with Thaniel, which...lifting the shadow curse is sort of his life's mission, and a bit of a unique case, so while it makes sense, I think it's such a unique event that can't be topped by anything else and will remove it. Jaheira give +20 for extending the Emperor's protection to Minsc, and, for funsies, Minthara's heaviest disapproval is -5 for donating to Lolth at the Stormshore Tabernacle. (lol)
I only chose to remove the aforementioned Karlach, Minsc, and Halsin values, as they're all very large swings and rather character-defining or personal to the individuals mentioned, so I don't think it says much about them in a more general day-to-day sense.
Now, using the sums of our negative and positive values, Gale is our most Negative Nancy, clocking in at 37%, which goes to show that while he's pretty average for the amount of things he cares about, when he disapproves, it's a strong one. Next up is Astarion at 35%, and Wyll at 34%. Lowest are Jaheira and Minsc at 7% and 4% respectively, which makes an intuitive sort of sense: Jaheira is old and just over being upset by the players poor choices, and Minsc is an insanely positive person overall. The next most positive companion is Halsin at 13%, which also matches with his vibe pretty well, followed by Minthara at 17%, Karlach at 24%, Lae'zel at 26%, and Shadowheart at 28%.
Tl;dr: Astarion has many, many opinions, but Wyll is the most judgemental (most disapprovals compared to approvals possible). However, when it comes to the strength of those disapprovals, Gale reigns supreme, followed by Astarion.
If don't break Karlach's heart, help Halsin achieve his life's ambition, or sacrifice Minsc, then they're pretty positive overall. Later companions are heavily weighted to approve of your actions, and Minthara is comparatively judgemental, but overall far more easy to gain approval than disapproval from.
If you take the average of all these values and include the later companions to look at as a personality "baseline" of how judgy and how strong those disapprovals may be, then...the Act 1 companions are all dramatic af, which really should come to no ones' surprise, while Karlach is the most willing to give the benefit of the doubt imo.
1K notes
·
View notes
Text
this is Not how the love triangle route will go but a girl can dream
244 notes
·
View notes
Text
First tlt fanart, of course, had to be my fucked up evil wife in her moment of glory
—
2K notes
·
View notes
Text
So.
How'd y'all survive the Love Triangle?
Because my red-haired detective was absolutely TORN BETWEEN THESE TWO
933 notes
·
View notes
Text
ill keep writing about surviving because i don't know what else there is
14K notes
·
View notes
Text
me: if I become the evil overlord I will never harm my minions
[5 years later]
highly throwable imp: hoohoohee
me: hmm
167K notes
·
View notes
Text
Some of ya'll severely underestimate just how much Minthara loves Karlach. Out of all the companions, Karlach is the only one that Minthara has no negative opinions about. She doesn't have a mean or cruel thing to say about or to Karlach. Now, she's pretty kind to Shadow and Lae'zel, but she can still be an asshole to them from time to time. Most of Minthara's comments about Karlach is praise and approval.
If you do the Karlach origin and you have romanced her, she will urge Karlach to return to Avernus. If Karlach chooses not to, Minthara will cry. This is the only scene in the game where Minthara cries and shows that level of emotional vulnerability. Lol, she didn't even cry when she was being tortured in Moonrise and thought she was gonna die! She tries to persuade Karlach by basically saying, "I'm going to personally throw hands with Zariel regardless on whether or not you're with me, so you may as well come with me." That vengence paladin in her is really shining through. And Minthara is a paladin of her word. Even if Karlach does choose not to return and dies, and enraged and heartbroken Minthara will walk right into Hell and invent a new flame so hot not even Zariel can resist the heat.
If you do the Karlach origin in which you go to Avernus but do not romance Minthara, she will be excited to see Karlach at the reunion party alive and happy. She also says that once she reclaims her house, she has every intention of joining Karlach in Avernus and she does this completely unprompted! Karlach does not even ask and Minthara is just offering her an army once she has one, and she will provide it free of charge. Karlach can ask Minthara why she's doing all of this. Minthara kind of not so subtly admits that she's in love with Karlach, but, of course, won't use the words "love" and she dances around it.
Romanced or not, Minthara is willing to go head first into Avernus on Karlachs behalf to demolish Zariel. Do you have any idea how huge that is? Minthara has been nothing but power hungry the entire game and is constantly clawing to get more. But in this moment, she is putting all desire for power on furlough just for Karlach. She is going to wage a war against Zarial and all of Avernus for the life of just one person, a person who might still die in the end. If Karlach does not romance Minthara, she is still putting her own ambition and desire for power on hold to help Karlach in which she'd gain no benefit other than Karlach being alive.
You cannot convince me that Minthara isn't canonically in love with Karlach.
PS: even the VA for Minthara, Emma Gregory, ships these two. In almost every interview Emma Gregory has done, she specifically mentions the romance with Karlach and its impact for Minthara's overall character arc.
1K notes
·
View notes
Text
Hey everyone, please consider buying the 2024 itch.io Palestinian Relief Bundle- it's 373 games, game-making assets, tabletop roleplaying games, zines, and comics for a minimum of just 8 USD! They have a goal of 100,000 USD, and as of the time I'm writing this post, they have 8 more days to reach it.
Link will be in the reblog!
63K notes
·
View notes
Text
I love the characterization of Lae'zel as a deliberate, reasonable person who through no fault of her own is wrong about almost everything
3K notes
·
View notes
Text
girls night in the ancient tomb and we know fuck all
9K notes
·
View notes
Text
I’d like to take the time to link additional resources that I’ve found- to anyone going through this? Please know that you aren’t alone.
The NSVRC as Aria also linked above is a WONDERFUL resource with additional links to resources
1 800-656-4673 is the number for the National Sexual Assault Hotline
RAINN is an organization with extensive resources and a crisis hotline
I will update this as I find more. If there are any anyone knows of, or any concerns about the ones that have been shared please let me know immediately so that I may edit it. As of so far, these are all resources verified by my campus’s advisors
SAAM2024 - SA Awareness Month
TW: SA, discussions around rape and sexual violence
Listen, I’m going to talk about something it isn’t easy or fun to talk about. I’m going to try and get a point across, and hopefully have it amount to something legible, because I am already feeling my body physically reacting with symptoms of stress.
I want to talk about sexual assault.
Did you know that April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month? And has been, for the last 23 years? Because I sure didn’t! Which is wild, considering I am a survivor of six separate incidents of sexual assault, two of which were penetrative rape.
I looked up the SAAM2024 hashtag and found crickets. Because who the hell wants to talk about sexual violence and rape on a random Thursday, right?
The thing is, we need to be having these conversations.
Of course, the onus isn’t on survivors to start the conversation �� who would ask someone who is horrifically traumatised to open those scars again and talk about their trauma? I couldn’t even say the word “rape” for years.
[note: I have chosen not to censor the word rape here as a part of my own recovery process. Its just a word. I refuse to let it incite terror. Its just a word. ]
So who, then? If we could all talk about sex and sexual assault —if these were topics of conversation that weren’t so taboo to discuss— we could begin to take steps to make things safer for ourselves and for others.
So here I am, talking.
I feel it is important to destigmatise sex as this hush hush topic; it’s important to be able to discuss safe sex, consent, to differentiate what is just “bad sex” from what is assault. People are often quick to brush off encounters that give them the ick as just “bad sex”.
I was no different.
At sixteen, I didn’t have the terminology to describe what happened to me as rape. In a culture that glamorises illicit affairs and drunken hook-ups at parties, I didn’t have the comprehension to realise that what happened to me was not some sexy, drunken, desirable thing.
[trigger warning for more context around the first of my rapes]
I had been at a party, celebrating the wrap of my high school’s theatre production. I had been drinking underage and was extremely drunk*.
(*which in no way excuses what happened to me — it is important to take steps to dismantle rape culture and victim-blaming.)
There was a classmate I had been on a few dates with, and though we had been handsy during makeout sessions a few times, we had never discussed having sex. He offered to pick me up from the party, to give me a place to stay for the night. He had not been in attendance at the party, and was completely sober. By the time he drove us both home, I was already intermittently blacking out.
I have only a few memories of that night. One, crystal clear even to this day — a concerned classmate, grabbing my arm as I was heading out of the venue. The look of alarm on his face as he asked if I had a safe means of transport home. I lied to him. I have no idea why. I told him my mother was waiting in the vehicle that had just pulled up, and he let me go.
The next memory that I have is of his bedroom ceiling. A vague, blurred outline of his unclothed body over mine, as he was raping me.
Yes, we had been at that tentative, early stage of a potential relationship. Yes, I had taken him up on the offer to go to sleep at his house.
But, in the state I was in, there is no possible way I could have consented to sex.
I knew something was wrong, afterwards. I knew I spent the next night curled in a ball, sobbing in the shower for a reason. I knew there was a reason I froze up when a friend side-eyed me at school the following Monday, and said “you had sex with him, didn’t you?”.
What I didn’t understand was that the reason was because I had been raped.
Because I didn’t have the vocabulary to describe my experience as such.
Because people don’t like to talk about sexual assault.
But we need to talk about sexual assault.
Conversations about sex can and should be removed from the concept of arousal. You can and should talk about sex without it being labelled as horny, or flirty, or suggestive — because it is just another topic to learn about.
Sex is an intricately nuanced thing that can mean so many different things to so many different people. There are elements of shame and embarrassment around sexual encounters sometimes; young and naive as I was, I was ready to take my crawling feelings of shame, self-blame, disgust, and put them down to “it was just bad sex”.
It wasn’t until long after the horror of my second, more violent rape, that I was able to pinpoint some of the trauma responses as being the same as that first time. There were patterns there, feelings that, had I been in a position of knowing more about safe sex and consent, I would have recognised sooner for what they were.
Its all well and good to go “hey! Don’t rape people!” and pat yourself on the back for your activism.
But the thing is, that kind of does sweet fuck all to actually help people who are at risk of experiencing sexual violence. What we really need is to take actionable steps toward improving people’s sexual safety and practises around consent and safe sex.
So what does that look like?
We talk about sex and consent without stigma.
We believe survivors and do not victim-blame
We practice respecting other people’s bodily autonomy in everyday scenarios, before it ever reaches a sexual context — if someone doesn’t want to hug you, respect their autonomy! If someone tells you to stop tickling them, even though they are laughing, hey, guess what? Respect their autonomy!
We remember what consent looks like, and take steps to inform others — consent is always clear, continuous, coercion-free, and conscious.
We make it second nature to take basic steps toward safety — never leave a drink unattended at a party! Stick to a buddy system to ensure people get home safe! Not because you suspect something will happen, it's just a default behaviour!
Be that classmate that tries to stop a drunk person walking out into the night alone.
The more we do these kinds of things, the less mystical and nebulous this whole “safe sex and healthy consent” thing becomes, and the safer we all are for it.
I’m gonna cut myself off here for my own wellbeing, as this has been extremely taxing, but let me provide a few links that I think are relevant. I hope this might be in some way helpful, and encourages others to continue the conversation offline. (or online, even -- reblogs are totally fine, and please feel free to add other stories or links if you have resources to share)
Be safe, and to any SA survivors who happen to be reading this, please know that you will always be yours, and what happened to you was not your fault. 💖
What is Consent (VeryWellMind)
History of Sexual Assault Awareness Month (NSVRC)
Sexual Violence Prevention: Beginning the Dialogue (NSVRC)
How to Support a Survivor (CRCC)
Finding Help If You’ve Been Sexually Abused (Crisis Text Line)
75 notes
·
View notes