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#I'M ASCENDING I CAN'T
whatthefuxkkk · 2 years
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Me after watching King's Tide
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mystraguideme · 4 months
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Love how Larian really punishes the player for choosing Gale's Bad (Godhood) ending. Like, if you talk to Gale, things are great. But if you talk to Tara, read his letters and spells, it's so heart wrenching.
(Tara misses her oldest friend and is sorry of what he became, she says you should visit Morena because she would love to talk to someone who knew Gale before he changed, the Tressym spell calling Tara a pet, Elminster recalling how a young Gale cried after accidentally burning a rose bush because the flowers were so beautiful.)
His premature death ending is also heartbreaking. Of course the Romantic Wizard has such emotional plot lines....
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wetcatspellcaster · 1 month
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...so.
about that 'with a happy ending' part of 'angst with a happy ending'.
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i thought i'd be slick and make the dream guardian in my astarion playthrough my tav who romanced him, and accidentally hurt my own feelings...
bonus:
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unagidevi · 1 month
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THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR SUPPORT. I GENUINELY WAS SO SCARED WHEN I FIRST STARTED THAT NO ONE WOULD ENJOY OR LIKE MY ART, EVEN ON THIS JOURNEY OF LIKE TWO YEARS YOU GUYS HAVE BEEN SO HELPFUL AND SUPPORTIVE.
THANK YOU.
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thelikesoffinn · 3 months
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been thinking about it lately and Ascended Astarion = Dead Dove content and I'm not sure that's really understood, even by the writers. when I finally got around to the character I decided to ascend him with, I was SUPREMELY disappointed by the conversations options following it. it seemed like the dialogue choices were trying to push the narrative on my character that they made this choice w/o considering the consequences and they are bound to regret it. the closest I could get to answering his question of "why did u let me go thru w it?" was "I wanted u to be powerful".
but with that character? my accept Bhaal durge? that isn't the reasoning. at all. (related: "what do u want as a reward?" "ur body" was the closest answer my character could give. otherwise I'd've answered "murder :))")
for context, this run was born of a conversation w my friend discussing supposed content no one had seen bc "no one's that evil". we thought, what's more evil than killing literally every npc? I failed the conceit of the challenge immediately bc I can't handle senseless animal cruelty in my games. killing children? fine (u need a mod to do this in BG3, but I am thankfully plenty delighted to use mods), killing a neutral animal npc? no can do.
so I started this durge (they are the only character that can come close to "killing" Gale with that first interaction) run with the intention of killing everyone except Shadowheart (only a cleric of Shar can truly kill Aylin) and Astarion (bc I need to smooch him). (and there is a mod for playing an origin character as durge, which would have meant playing as Shadowheart, but I MUST smooch Astarion and I don't tend to do het or female romances, unless I'm forced to (*sighs dreamily* oh, Garrus Vakarian). I'm just not interested in that set of equipment in that way, so may as well just make a durge dude.) somehow something went wonky and Halsin ended up joining us and I was so perplexed I just allowed him to stay. (he's meant to attack if u destroy the grove but free him anyway, but instead he just showed up that night and went straight into his Moonrise spiel. is it bc the wolf Silver never aggro'd me and thus survived???) so I fixed the Shadow Curse all while killing every single humanoid and hostile animal in acts 1 & 2. including Thaniel, which makes Halsin's talks later in act 3 of getting news from Thaniel and the Grove hysterical. idk what I did but I sure as hell broke this poor man.
(on a related note, Halsin will give out to u when u accept Bhaal, but will still give u the "u have exceeding my expectations, also we should bang" in the same conversation. I DON'T KNOW WHAT I DID BUT IT'S DARKLY FUNNY.)
in the conversation when Astarion is expressing surprise that u let him go thru w it, my durge is just like, yes my motivation is that I like to kill ppl :))). it's not a sex thing for him (that is separate from the murder!), but he's still fine w the outcome. yes, Astarion looks down on him, but that's fine! he's allowed to be wrong about that, durge doesn't care. so long as Astarion lets him kill ppl he genuinely just does not give a shit.
(I actually had the idea that if Halsin were to ever rediscover his morals and tried to leave he'd ask Astarion to turn him so Halsin would not have a choice. as I said, this durge *does not fucking care*.)
this is probably the only character I will play that would let Astarion ascend bc I enjoy dead dove SOMETIMES, but not always or in large doses, but I get so few dialogue options that convey that in an rp sense! I don't think the writers/devs REALLY took that into consideration, sometimes. like, yeah, there are going to be ppl making fucked up choices but surely no one would go THIS far! for THIS reason! honey, u need to look up the Dead Dove tag on AO3, there are absolutely ppl making choices for those fucked up reasons.
(and I understand the whole "this confirms to Astarion about sex yadda yadda". even if that's not Tav/Durge motivation, that's how ASTARION would *interpret* it.)
(oh yes, and also, don't let Orin abduct Yenna. it doesn't matter whether u find out in camp or the sewers, Grub will not survive. I was devastated. if I'd known, I would have made sure Halsin was available for her, but she won't abduct a party member or someone ur romancing.)
long story short, I want to play a durge that even ascended Astarion finds unsettling. that's the dream.
Hello there, duck!
Your run sounds delightfully evil! I wish I could play one of those, haha, but I'm too soft hearted. My one evil run with my durge Salira was ended before even entering the grove because I felt horrible after getting rid of Gales hand! Seriously, I can barely take killing the squirrel as durge, and I always save Alfira because I feel horrendous otherwise!
(Fun fact, on all five runs I've done Yenna just vanished at some point and grubs was left standing in my camp, which was like...eh?)
And yes, Halsin is always somewhat of an issue, isn't he? He's just running around, causing mayhem in peoples games because he seems slightly bugged out, haha. I had one run, where he wouldn't go to the spot where we save Thaniel because he joined the fight against Marcus at Last Light and somehow got stuck, for some reason. Same run, none of his vocals would play, which was also very interesting. Everybody would make noise when they climbed or got hurt but Halsin was always silent and just there! And in another run the dude really straight up hated me - he was so mean and snappy, I swear to god he wanted my Durge dead - and then he suddenly went: "Hey you're super cool and strong and I just want to gently fuck you beneath the moonlight if you'll let me" and I was like: Say what.
Regarding the dead Dove: I've talked to people of Discord before, and some of them mentioned something similar a couple of times, but personally, I do think the writers actually knew what they were doing here!
Of course, I do agree that it relies heavily on the regret notion and that it somewhat shoehorns you into a certain narrative corner, I noticed that too when I was ascending him for research - I hated doing that, but all for the asks, haha - but I thought it was really fitting for what it is!
The bad ending, that is. I know we all somewhat forget that because of how people view him as a character, but ascension is the bad ending. Even on an evil run, where your character may have considered all options, it is very likely that Tav hasn't accounted for one very important part of being a true vampire.
The obsession.
It's still somewhat mild in the game, though definitely there, but it will only get stronger as time goes on, and it will probably get to the point that the only escape is death. Either his or Tav's. So, in the end, ascension will come with an armload of regret and the writers were making sure we know that.
And, on top of that, even if we let him ascend in a pursuit for power - or in in your durge's special case: murder :) - we still cast spawn Astarion aside because he doesn't fit our needs, thus making it very clear to him that who he is isn't enough and his behaviour is the price we now pay.
It's pretty much the same with all the other companions as well - justiciar Shadowheart and ascended Lae'zel, for example. However, it doesn't bother us as much, because we have different expectations towards ascended Astarion than, for example, dark justiciar Shadowheart. We don't expect a positive narrative here, a narrative where becoming shady-shar's loyal subject isn't an objectively dumb decision to make, so we don't mind the dead dove as much. It's exactly what we've been expecting - and Aylin even warned us how Shadowheart would change upon becoming a dark justiciar - so yepp. This went exactly how we thought it would and this is what we wanted.
Astarion, however, is a somewhat special case, because his bad ending is, by far, the one that gets the most romanticised. He's so heavily romanticised by so many, that the bad parts nearly start to fade, even with those who don't like the ascended ending. It becomes just 'the other ending', if you will.
And yet, it's still the bad ending.
Ascension is the bad ending for a character that we've somewhat given up on. That we misunderstood so deeply, mayhaps, that we traded his entire being for power and, quite frankly, beauty. We showed him that he isn't enough, we let the boy run and hide the only way he knew how and now we're faced with the consequences and yes, it's really dead dove but...what did we expect?
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12am-motivation · 1 year
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Kanata Appreciation Post
(Episode 1: Wizard Memory)
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clowndensation · 6 months
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x if anything about this feels like it doesn't fit, that's because you don't understand the profound effect charoum and gorty have had on each other.
#'vinnie why is gortash's icon a pink crown that says 'princess' on it?'#how about we stop talking for a little while.#key points: i don't think you can want to become archduke of bg and NOT crave attention. he wants to be the specialest guy in the universe#however his desire for attention is an ego thing.#charoum wants attention because he am feel uncomfortable when things are not about him?#similarly gorty is definitely MORE cautious than charoum. but you can't be TOO cautious and also want to take over the world.#recklessness is required to accomplish big things.#charoum is overconfident and believes he can be reckless and survive so he's further on the scale than gorty#similarly taking over the world is not something a typically exhausted person undertakes. that requires energy.#kinky/vanilla TBH i don't think gorty particularly cares. he needs to be mentally engaged. everything else depends on the other person#that said i don't think he'd be mentally engaged with a person who's ideal sex life is missionary sex with the lights off. so.#also jealousy: neither of them is ACTUALLY that jealous because they have egos the size of the sun and are certain they hold an important#place in each other's lives#charoum randomly decides to get jealous when he's bored and in the mood to be annoying#gorty almost full stop doesn't get jealous at all. although he will get possessive at times and force that onto charoum#which i'm lumping into the jealousy stat#ascended astarion i GENUINELY don't think has what it takes to worship anybody.#however there's a hole in the triumvirate that needs filling. and by god if ascended astarion doesn't know how to fill a hole-#charoum
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dribs-and-drabbles · 1 year
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EXCUSE ME?!
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gamerkitten · 6 months
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Just had someone on Reddit, regarding their idea that an Ascended Astarion loves Tav so much and would never hurt them like Cazador, reply to my inquiry of what would happen should Tav not want to do something Astarion wants with "Well my Tav is smart enough to get out and reverse their vampirism."
Like...the delusion.
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that hilarious moment that spotify sends you an email recommending concerts based on your tastes...and it's the literal two concerts you've already bought tickets to for this year as your attempt to expand your social sphere...anyway the internet knows everything about you and the surveillance state is definitely one of the greatest horrors of the modern age. fuck every tech ceo & eat the rich!
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eldrichthingy · 6 months
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SJHSJJAOJSKWOSKSSOSJS THE ENDING WITH ASCENDED ASTARION????????? I can't breathe I love him I adore his evil laughter at the end I adore him calling Tav his love I adore it- AND THE MOST POWERFUL COUPLE IN THE WORLD??? he said it????????? I fucking love them. And the way he talks about them having bloody future together- gods, I wish I could kiss him in the end but It'd completely destroy me
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zaynes-left-chesticle · 2 months
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Anyone else just feel exhausted from playing the hell out of this game over the last week, gnawing and clawing their way through battles trying to get wish jars and upgrade mems, and gain diamonds to buy wishes only pull the same damn cards you've already pulled 80000 times?
I've given up on pulling all 3 whisper cards. All. I want. Is Zayne's card.... And currency I can actually use lol.
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wetcatspellcaster · 2 months
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Did you see Neil Newbon’s take that Ascended Astarion is the real him free to act on cruelty and violence and the spawn is the one with the mask? Yeesh.
Ooooooh, THAT'S the disk horse that's happening right now!! I knew something was happening (I felt a tremor in the waters) but I had no clue what it was lmao, I don't follow cast stuff.
I will try to respond to this in good faith, but I'm not very good at fandom discourse and so I'm afraid it may not be the answer you want.
I can see why that reading might make people angry, but I dont have strong feelings about it. Obviously, it's not my take on Ascension, but from the beginning I've been very upfront that my take is serving the genre I'm writing in and the ship dynamics I find hot. My Tav is lawful good to an unhealthy extreme, and that was how she was conceived in her Early Access bullying phase. And meanwhile, I wanted to be in a Gothic horror where he's obsessed (morality chains will do that to you) and they beat the shit out of each other. I have to make the Ascendent a monster, for that to work, and for people not to feel guilty every time they enjoy watching him getting stepped on lmao.
But I do feel like there is a morality policing around Astarion's ending that I don't want to partake in. This might seem dumb for me to say, given that my Tav is a veritavle walking moral policeman, but that is bc I fucking love Villain/Heroine ships, so I am literally right there, at the Devil's Sacrament with everyone else.
While I like the good ending and prefer it for many reasons, I would agree with a reading of Newbon's words that it could be read as a mask. This might be bc I mask with the best of them, am doing it right now even as I write and edit this ask 20 times. There's masking as an outright lie, and then there's masking as 'gotta get through day to day life as a functional adult without everyone suddenly deciding they hate me'... I personally think its nice that spawn!Astarion cares about other people, and cares about being a functional member of society at all! It shows he's no longer a lonely outcast.
I could also go deeper (the autism really shining through in this reply) and say it's a mask, in the sense that this has been deemed the 'polite' and morally correct ending, that is acceptable to others and enables the player to feel good about themselves. Which is often a way we derive pleasure from media, and not wrong in and of itself! Making Astarion good makes players feel good - that's not wrong, but if we're comparing endings, we have to acknowledge it. An Ascended Ending doesn't really cater to that impulse... unless the player really likes to be dommed (more power to them).
Unfortunately anon, I can't sit here with my most popular fic being an Ascended!Astarion fic, and pretend that there isn't a bunch of fascination or interest surrounding the Ascended version of his character. People clearly want to explore the implications of his evil ending and indulge in the excess of it, but feel bad doing so. People don't ascend him in-game, but they go to my fic and other people's fic because they want to have some space to enjoy the implications - in the sexiness, in the timeline where Astarion has revenge, in a timeline where he is obsessed with Tav etc. I mean, just look at me, I can't sit through the Ascended scene, but I'm here writing a fic about it!!
The fact that it seems to happen more in fic than in playthroughs tells me, if I was to get super deep in a tumblr ask, that people feel guilt about it. Some kind of mask is being employed, by someone, somewhere, in that mix. So I'm not about to add to any of that kind of policing. It would be pretty disingenuous of me to get my most feedback from an Ascendent fic I am writing, and then judge people for liking Ascendency narratives...
So while I don't have much interest in pretending the evil ending isn't the evil ending, that doesn't sound to me (second hand, through you, with my brain seeing 7 or 8 different implications) to be what Newbon is saying. He's just saying that the Ascendent is the less palatable Astarion to other people and that spawn!Astarion still has some kind of mask or a politeness filter on. Which... yeah. Kinda. In my world, I like that Astarion decides its worthwhile to restrain himself, because he has things to care about potentially ruining. But that's still in many ways employing restraint. People don't just stop masking, they learn to care about what others think in a healthy way. They have friendships, relationships, other ties to the world, that make them want to be something other than a cruel or violent or evil version of themselves. I think that's nice, and far less lonely but um... yeah. I can see Newbon's point, even if I don't want to like, live or die by it.
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rimmi1357 · 7 months
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Corrupted Gale or Me not liking his evil route in the game
Just saw this amazing Gale piece
And it gots me thinking, that I kinda do not like the 'evil' route for Gale. Let's start with I LOVE GALE! MY LOVE FOR GALE WILL TRANSEND TIME AND KICK MYSTRA RIGHT IN HER MAGIC.
Yes, art and evil Gale. I want not apowerhungry Gale but a magic comsumer Gale with a potential to go into fullblown corruption. Like a vampire but with magic, like a barbarian rage. If you consume a magic item you can power yourself.
The draw to it that the more you consume the more he chages. How with itilid larvae. I bet there is a monster in dnd that consumes magic and to which Gale can turn into.
And after getting the crown, he wouldn't become a God but a God-like powerful being that survives by sucking all the magic out of things. Next i'll go into shipping territory, don't mind me...he he ^^''
Astarion will let Gale indulge himself in magic when Gale will let Astarion indule himself in Gale's blood... if we change the orb we can like change that his blood is corrupted >.>
You know that in Astarion's story he does the ritual to became a true vampire? Gale uses that to enhance his own powers and with Astarion making vampire spawns, Corrupted Gale changes them slightly so they could walk under the sun but they need to consume magic now and we get A POWERFUL BBEG GAY COUPLE WITH AN ARMY OF VAMPIRE AND MAGIC VAMPIRE SPAWNS. And it's like for the campaign where in region all magic became very sparse and magic users suddenly began loosing their powers because something somewhere consumes it. With the experementation on vamp spaws Gale and Astarion create a more happy vampire spawns that can go out on the sun. But some spawns will stay as normal vampires because it's good to have different guards for the happy bbeg powercouple uwu
PS: I'M NOT SAYING THAT GAYS ARE EVIL! I'M GAY(PAN) AND I VIBE WITH THE IDEA OF POWERFUL GAYS RUNNING THE WORLD AND MAKING IT GREAT FOR THEMSELVES AND THEIR KIDS!!!
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acearohippo · 3 months
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Ok, now that we have the original soundtrack version of Without You
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and the version on the Immortal Fire album
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Can someone who's blessed in musical editing make a smooth combined version so we can have a 4-5 minute version now? 😩😩 like DAMN why wasn't snowight's verse on the original song TOO?? Could've had a whole 5 minutes of this BOP. An actual, full produced song. 😫😫😫
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DISLYTE. PLEASE. JUST COMBINE THE TWO SONGS AND RELEASE IT FULL. why do they do this? Give us 3-9 different versions of the same song 😭❓❓❓‼️
EDIT: So, if YouTube is to be trusted, it's snowight on both versions, but his flow and timbre (and lyrics!) are WAY different between the two. The newest upload sounds casually arrogant/confident antihero theme while the may release version sounds like your generic zero to hero motivating song.
Which, again, would make a FANTASTIC SINGULAR SONG FOR MATEO. DAMNIT DISLYTE. THE DUALITY.
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