slmcreative
Sam's Art Corner
Sam "Shro," he/they, adult. Main @ boghermit.A blog for all my creative projects and doodles.
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the point of art is not to be great but to make it transparently obvious that there is something wrong with you
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Remade / updated
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Image sources 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
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On the prowl for skin and bone to tear
I'm a skeleton looking for meat to wear
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Some practice with The Bastard
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New challenge: draw your Durge and their LI like this
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❌️ and 🎭 for salem!!
In Anja's too-small-for-him clothes
In something he absolutely would not wear
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My Durge + the best TTRPG art ever made, from Changeling: The Dreaming
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dude those elves are hardcore goth! 🦇
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You can definitely trust him with your organs 😌
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Got a bit silly with it last night
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I could write pages about what BG3 means to me, and I probably will at some point. But let me share a "few" of my thoughts right now, largely unedited.
Under cut for being way too damn long. I will be talking about transgender representation, OCD, and abuse.
The transformative (pun intended) power of representation.
This is the first game where I've been able to play a transgender character, without mods, in any way that faintly resembles what I hope to some day look like. At no point in the game am I made to feel like a freak for my gender identity. Compare this to lesser RPGs like DAI where being trans is treated as an anomaly and the character you play as can be a total dick to a transgender character with no repercussions. Being transgender is entirely normalized in BG3. You are not a punchline. You are not an anomaly. You are a normal, respected, and valued part of the world.
In the grand scheme of life, this is a very small thing, to be respected and appreciated by fictional characters in a piece of media. But I can say without a shadow of a doubt that it made me hate my body less. I still have strong gender dysphoria, but I don't want to punch the mirror every time I see my own reflection anymore. I think "well, you don't look like you should, but that's just the way it is right now, and that's okay."
It also must be said that the BG3 fandom has also been a VERY large catalyst for this new confidence in my own body. It has brought me so much indescribable joy to see peoples' art of their transgender characters and to see trans identities and bodies celebrated to such an extent. I entered 2023 hating my body, and as 2023 draws to a close, I find myself more and more comfortable in it.
Resisting the Urge.
Disturbing intrusive thoughts are a hallmark symptom of OCD -a symptom that most people with OCD, including myself, are reluctant to talk about. For those unfamiliar with OCD, intrusive thoughts are unwanted thoughts, often violent, sexual, inappropriate, or otherwise viscerally upsetting in nature, that many people with OCD experience. Intrusive thoughts can turn into obsessions, and obsessions can fuel a person's desire to engage in compulsions in an attempt to regulate intrusive thoughts. Due to their disturbing nature, our intrusive thoughts can become a strong source of shame and self-hatred, and prompt us to believe that there is something morally wrong with us, when in fact we are just suffering the unfortunate symptoms of an unfortunate disorder.
The Dark Urge experiences thoughts and "Urges" like these throughout the entirety of the game. They can "fester" in the Urges, or they can resist them. They can also admit to the main companions that they are having these horribly violent thoughts.
And it is here, in the first few hours of my first playthrough, that I knew the writing of BG3 was going to be something incredibly special.
The companions do not berate the Dark Urge for having horrible thoughts. They do not react with disgust. Most of them will express sympathy, and reassure them that so long as their thoughts don't become actions, they're alright. This mirrors talking points in actual real life therapy for people with OCD. I was wholly expecting the companions to just totally shit on my character for having demented thoughts. There are other modern RPGs where companions will berate you for doing something as innocuous as stealing a pencil. In BG3, you can describe your thoughts of extreme and horrible violence, and your companions will encourage you not to hate yourself for it.
There's also the scene with Isobel, which I almost forgot to talk about. This is, in my opinion, one of the most powerful scenes in the game. It made me cry. You can tell Isobel that your Urges are demanding that you kill her. She tells you that you don't have the eyes of a killer, and if you resist your murderous Urge, you can apologize to her for your "spells of madness." She gently forgives you, but not before saying one of my favorite lines in the game.
Ultimately, the Dark Urge has much worse than OCD going on, but it was still very refreshing and meaningful to see such a sympathetic take on intrusive thoughts.
You are not your thoughts - you are your actions.
Trauma, catharsis, and healing.
Abuse is, in my opinion, one of the biggest themes of BG3. You can see it in the way Mystra regards Gale. You can see it with the Dark Urge and Bhaal. And most notably, you can see it with Astarion and Cazador. I didn't go into BG3 expecting to confront themes of abuse. It made me realize some very very unfortunate things. (Thank god, I've never been through anything as severe as, say, Astarion, but I have been in no small amount of toxic and emotionally abusive relationships.)
I recognized myself in Gale's blind desire to please a goddess who thinks he should kill himself, and I hated it. I recognized myself in the Dark Urge's desperation to please his god, only to have his heart stopped because "Bhaal will accept the world from him, and nothing less," and I hated it. I recognized myself in Astarion's prickly survivalist prey animal behavior, his lack of self worth, and his fear of trusting people, and I hated it. No one wants to be confronted with the fact, however true it is, that they're in pain. No one wants to be confronted by the fact that their painful experiences have warped them so much that they struggle to find themselves beneath the nest of thorns and barbed wire they've built.
And no one wants to confront the reality that they deserve better.
Thankfully, catharsis and healing are also major themes of BG3. You never really get the feeling that these characters will ever be completely "cured" of their pain. There are multiple scenes where characters openly weep, or talk about how empty they feel, even after they've started on the path to healing from their traumas. Which is unfortunately, true to life. Healing doesn't happen over night. But you are given the feeling that the characters are beginning to heal. BG3 tells you that healing is not out of reach. BG3 tells you that hope isn't an impossibility.
BG3 tells you in many many ways that you are not alone, sometimes verbatim, and that there is hope, and I think that is why it has resounded so strongly with so many people, including myself.
That's all the infodumping I have for now. Maybe one day I'll organize these thoughts into a more coherent article or maybe even a video.
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