The way that Mallathalra started off as being incredibly unscrupulous and ruthless, started sleeping with Lae'zel during Act 1, kept Lae'zel loyal to Vlaakith (because to someone who's lived under Lolth their whole life, there's no such thing as salvation, there's only appeasing your terrifying goddess queen and hoping that she'll ignore you -- the status quo will never change, so snuff the rebellion out early and MAYBE you can scrounge some freedom for yourself out of her sight), only to start turning around with Minthara (and, outside of her run, Kitrye). Starting to think that, maybe, a little defiance would be worth it, that it might work. Helping Shadowheart break free of Shar, freeing Minthara from Moonrise, an apostate who she should have dragged back to Menzoberranzan for a bounty, which is her literal job, but didn't. Couldn't. Releasing Shadowheart's parents and realizing, for the first time in her life, that it's possible for parents to actually selflessly love their children. Stopping the Ascension ritual because she felt a twinge of pity for the Spawn, even if it meant losing a tactical advantage and having to kill her former companion.

Only to have to stab Lae'zel in the back in the finale because, despite all her growth, she couldn't save Lae'zel from what she'd done to her, what she'd convinced her to be, and she couldn't let her go through with killing Orpheus.

tchk.

Please Larian...justice for Karlach.

I MISSED THIS ENTIRELY MY FIRST TIME AROUND....THIS IS SO DAMN PRECIOUS?!!

Concept: elf tav who is just under 300, all of her children died as adventurers or guards. Her husband and her became vastly different people in the wake of all the grief. They havent spoken in years, incapable of existing around each other before breaking down. The journey after the crash she keeps seeing shadows her kids in the various party members and as such she desperately wants to help them. Save them in ways she couldn't for her own children. A pillar of love and guidance because her children may be gone, but she will always be a mother.

Hey, I get I've been raving about Astarion a lot but, like, are there ACTUALLY people out here who hate Gale and are calling him an incel? Is this a thing? Thank God I apparently curate well bc holy fucking shit I would be having heart palpitations DAILY out of SHEER ANGER.

So, like, we're always going to make fun of our faves and whatnot bc lbr "bro, you were banging Mystra and fucked up that bad?" THOUGH TO BE FAIR, if you're a wizard it isn't that hard to bang Mystra. It's kind of her thing. P sure her banging Elminster as many times as she has is the main reason he's still kicking and out being the Faerûnian Gandalf that he is in-game. Mystra's bodycount aside (especially since that has ZERO bearing on ANYTHING least of all her portfolio and purpose), like, Gale is a very intelligent man. He is also what we would consider as an objectively good person. Save the kids, help the tieflings, be kind and compassionate to those the average "good" aligned folks would consider "worthy" and yeah. He is literally the Alistair Theirin of BG3 if you Fusion Danced him together with Awakening Anders.

That being said, he is also very deeply flawed in that he KNOWS he is brilliant and in that brilliance, knowing his own talent, he thinks he knows better than even his own goddess BUT-! But, but, but, he is mortal, is young enough and in an age to not be able to wrack up the accomplishments of, say, Elminster whom he clearly knows on a fairly personal level so, like anyone who knows they are capable of doing great things, he feels INFERIOR bc he hasn't, in his mind, PROVEN that he is as great as he knows he is. And that's the hubris of mortality.

Objectively, LOGICALLY, he knows that he's more than proven himself capable. Mystra wouldn't have started a relationship with him otherwise, and she never asked him to prove himself. It was his own desperation to prove that he was worthy of her and thinking he knew EVERYTHING that lead to his terrible situation. Is he very clinical and logical about it? Yes. Is he squirrelly about it in the beginning? Very much, yes. Hell, I would be. No one wants to be friends with a literal ticking time bomb and the man is VERY lonely. Hell, that's the name of the game baybee! Baldur's Gate 3: These Bitches Need a Hug; YES EVEN LAE'ZEL, I WILL FIGHT Y'ALL!

Back to Gale, your friendship with him is something he very much treasures and when he starts all his finger wiggling and magic talk he's like any nerd sharing the thing he is most passionate about. He is also the first to admit he fucked up. HOWEVER, that does not (imo) warrant him needing to sacrifice himself all for Mystra's forgiveness, and even Elminster isn't on board with that. And, like, when he talks about Mystra it's never in an accusatory manner towards her. He clearly still loves her, likely always will, but that never negates his love for the PC who chooses to romance him. He is also very much prone to falling into the same pitfall of hubris that got him before and very clearly needs guidance that, yes, Mystra clearly did neglect in giving him. But he never outright blames her, at least he's not in my playthroughs thus far even after having spoken with her in the temple. He's just a sad, lonely nerd and that does not automatically make him an incel; y'all just don't know how to read, listen, or understand nuance. Apparently.

tl;dr

Gale deserves as much love as Astarion but bc he isn't evil "babygirl" material that's "fixable" he's just called an incel when he can be a very genuine friend, but what are those nowadays I guess?

Baldur's Gate 3 Ending Spoilers Ahead :)

Okay why The Fuck can't we have a romance ending with the Emperor. Why THE FUCK NOT. WHY. THIS IS UNFAIR. LARIAN YOU ALLOWED ME TO FUCK THE GUY, YOU ALLOWED ME TO TRUST HIM AND BE THERE FOR HIM AND TURN INTO A MINDFLAYER MYSELF, AND THEN I CAN'T HAVE A ROMANCE ENDING? THE FUCK???

Something long hurt healed a bit inside me when bugged Gale whom I never flirted with confessed to me, got rejected, and not only took it gracefully but also affirmed I had his friendship if I want it in the morning. Good job earning my loyalty FOR LIFE dude I will now literally fight and kill a god for you.

i saw a horrible post so i must rage

I am literally fucking losing it like if you really are (sorry) that fucking stupid and didn't pay any motherfucking attention to the motherfucking information this motherfucking game gives you about what githyanki ascension is and think lae'zel's ascension ending is only fucking questionable and there is literally no fucking cure for your brainrot bc your listening and reading comprehension is dead. lae'zel became lich food, she's dead. she's gone. it's not just ominous, it's bad. she's fucking dead. WITHERS COULDN'T FIND HER.

like for the love of god you can like a negative character development ending, i.e the "bad" ending without trying to twist it like its secretly a good ending.

you are so disingenuous in how much you need g*d!Gale or ascended!ast**rion to be a morally good choice for you to make that you'll treat the extinguishing of lae'zel's life as only ~questionable or try to justify sh*rheart as well its not so bad when it's like did you have your eyes open at all during this character's storyline. genuinely. why would it be bad for a character who has a divine shock collar that gives her unbearable pain every time she committed wrongthink by being herself (and yet she still keeps committing wrongthink for a few decades bc that's just who she is), to then shackle herself to the one who gave her the divine shock collar, esp when one of the major steps towards that is made when she's completely uninformed and just thinks she wants to do that and isn't really aware that the goddess she's about to kill the gay aasimar for had her kidnapped as a child and have regularly had her brutalise her parents and wipe her memory since then for like over 30 years. you can enjoy evilheart but that doesn't really stop it from being the worse ending in terms of how happy she is.

Like, imagine calling it "the endings where characters get what they want" and then saying its bad writing if they're all bad. all that means is that you fundamentally misunderstood the text bc that is an extremely shallow read lol bc none of these people are experiencing the level of contentment they do in their (and i know this is a very scary word but its okay i promise) good endings.

coming out of my baldurs gate 3 delirium (aka i am working a night shift and can't physically play it. at work.) to say that horikoshi. horikoshi when i GET YOU. you are NOT leaving izuku with no quirk and no arms. i am in your walls

Finnick is so funny to me because he has been 3 different guys. He was my first Tav that I gave up on late act 2, he was my most recent Bard Tav, and now he is my kelemvor paladin durge. Free him from this cycle of rebirth.

Sidenote should I actually post abt my OCs. I've had their notes app plot summaries sitting there waiting for me to get around to posting about them for like. Months

Sister was watching me play BG3. Called me "An Organized Loot Goblin". I... I cannot refute that statement. Not when my traveler's chest (Left) looks like this:

The 73 items is the food I stick outside my packs just to avoid having it clutter and weigh me down while traveling. The 117 is the other inventory to the right. Note the fact that it has even more containers in them. Note that under the 117 container, there's a page worth of empty containers. I had quite the haul...

The 92 container is my 'Need to Sell' container, and I keep forgetting to bring it with me when I go selling shit.

Also, my squirrel-brain functions on the mentality of "If it's not nailed down, and the entire camp has just died because they took offense to my face, it's now mine to do with as I please"... Which means A lot of this shit came from a second pass of the Goblin Camp and the Ruined Village place near it.

god i hope it's possible to get Karalch her first upgrade in act 2 too, not just the second, because apparently when i reloaded the last time (because I was an idiot), I completely forgot to redo that bit before dammon would have left (because I'm an idiot)

and i was wondering why I had two pieces of infernal iron in act 1...

Post from the drafts. Height chart for my bee gee three ocs and the companions in my headcanons.

okokok. these are my headcanon heights for the companions, feat. Rhidian, Iska and Silver...I also chose silhouettes that are closest to what I picture their body types to be. Of course, the site's selection is limited but...good enough.

Bonus: just the polycule next to each other...

I think if they actually got to know each other, Lae'zel and Zephyr would get along really well, because they're similar in a lot of ways. (For example, they both understand the importance of both martial training and academic study).

But because of the ways they are different, namely Zephyr's view of all life as valuable vs. Lae'zel putting one's worth on their strength (at least towards the beginning), they never actually connect and end up having an ambivalent relationship with each other

dak-wai and astarion's dynamic is like. platonic yaoi. to me. everyone kind of regards dak-wai as stiff and hard to read but astarion is like no i know what's going on i see and respect that you're really a sicko (somehow both correct and incorrect). while astarion loudly presents himself as i'm a foppish dandy i'm a hedonist vampire i'm a cunt and dak-wai is like. that's definitely not your whole deal. idk what your deal is or how i feel about it but i know it's not that. they both understand and don't understand each other but, perhaps more relevantly, are very good at beating people to death together