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powdermelonkeg · 4 months

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just saw ur gale/mystra analysis post. im new to the game and dnd lore and honestly… ur take on their relationship feels like the most natural/compelling one??? esp since its all too easy to simplify topics that have many facets and nuance….

thanks for sharing i love analysis and reading people’s takes on narratives : D

My pleasure! (Bee from the future here: congrats, you spawned another meta!)

I love complicated characters, WAY more than I like a clear cut-and-dry case. Flaws, to me, are what make a character compelling and lead to interesting stories about them with choices that can get them into situations. I'm both writing a fanfic and running a campaign where I'm playing as Gale, and in the interest of portraying him properly and in-character, I've gone into SUCH a deep dive into all the decisions and facts that make him him.

It helps to, y'know, also be in love with the fictional wizard, but I digress

The thing about Baldur's Gate 3 is that no character in there is perfect. I've seen a couple analyses about the theme of continuing cycles of abuse vs breaking out of them, but in my mind, in terms of the characters themselves, it goes like this:

The origin characters have just come out of the lowest situation of their lives (Lae'zel being the exception; being tadpoled is a gith's worst nightmare. You're seeing that lowest situation in real time).

Not the lowest point, mind. Gale's lowest was probably the day after he got the Orb. Wyll's was probably the day his father cast him out. Karlach's was the day she lost her heart. But the lowest, accepted normal for them is what they've just left.

They're then thrown out of their depth and forced to rely on you to live. That's #1 priority: living. We get the extremes of these characters before we get their nuances, because they're quite literally at their breaking points.

Then once we get to know them, we see their wants, their hopes, their fears, as they open up to us. Every companion's story is at their own pace, but they all have a moment where they ping-pong between despondency and desire. Sometimes that desire is what we know isn't good for them, like Shadowheart wanting to be a Dark Justiciar. Sometimes that despondency is only for a flicker, like Astarion's realization that he's condemned 7000 people to a half-life of tortured spawnhood for as long as he's been a vampire.

Romance lets us crack all that open more, because if you pursue a romantic partner, they see you as their closest confidant. They WANT to trust you, so they're more willing to explain how they see the world and what decisions they want to chase.

And then their endings. Those often get simplified as good/bad, continuing the cycle vs breaking away from it. But how is Duke Wyll on the same platform as Ascended Astarion? He's not evil, he's not even entirely unhappy. He might even have broken out of his abusive cycle with Mizora, if you played your cards right. And Ascended Astarion is overjoyed, even if he is remarkably more cold.

I think that the endings are less a dichotomy of "this is good for them" vs "this is bad for them," and more one of "bringing out their best traits" vs "bringing out their worst."

Wyll's worst trait is being willing to sacrifice his own wants for whatever people desire of him. His best is standing for what he believes in and ensuring people are safe. Duke Wyll leans into that necessity to turn the other cheek in the name of people who count on him, while the Blade of Avernus has seized that moral compass of his and forged it out of mithral.

Shadowheart's worst trait is blind obedience at the cost of her individuality, while her best is her desire to be kind to things that don't deserve to be hurt. Mother Superior Shadowheart's whole life is defined by Shar. Selûnite Shadowheart's life is defined by her hospitality, especially towards animals.

Karlach's worst trait is how willing she is to accept that things are (to quote her) fucked, letting despair override hope. Her best is her durability in the face of horror. Exploded Karlach would rather die than try to work out a solution in the Hells, because she's terrified of facing Zariel alone. Mindflayer Karlach has accepted her fate and decides to give up her heart and soul to go out a hero, losing who she is. Fury of Avernus Karlach is willing to keep fighting for a solution, and by the time the epilogue happens, she's got her sights set on one.

Astarion's worst trait is his desire for power over people. His best trait is using the tools he has to his advantage. Ascended Astarion has let his powerhungry nature and paranoia lead all of his decisions, with his sights set on dominating mankind. Spawn Astarion has embraced what he is, and carved out a life for himself where he can do as he pleases.

Lae'zel's worst trait is her blind fanaticism, while her best trait is her individual dedication, making her loyalty a marriage of the two. Ascended Lae'zel is a meal for the lich queen, turning a blind eye to all Vlaakith's tried to do to her and literally being consumed by her fervor. Champion of Orpheus Lae'zel has turned her loyalty into something productive for diplomacy. Faerûnian Lae'zel has seized her individuality by the throat and decided her own future.

And then Gale. Gale's worst traits are his hubris and, paradoxically, his low self worth. His best traits are his creativity and wonder for the world. God Gale is the embodiment of ambition, having burned away all but that in pursuit of perfection. Exploded Gale has let his remorse blot out all hope for a redemption in which he does not die, because he thinks he's earned it. Professor Gale leads his life by embracing the school of Illusion and letting his creativity thrive, teaching others to do the same. House Husband Gale has multiple creative projects he's working on, and Adventurer Gale is always finding new sights to see and wanting to share them with you.

There are arguments to be made on which ending the origins are happiest in, certainly, or which one benefits them the most, but each ending represents the extreme of a facet they possess.

So with all that, there's a sort of malleable method to figuring out the ins and outs of a character.

You take their endings—all of them, all variables they can have—and reverse-engineer the flaws and details they carry. Then you start to notice how those work into their approvals for minor things: Astarion approving of your taking of the Blood of Lathander, or Shadowheart approving of standing up for Arabella. Getting a list of approvals and disapprovals is helpful, but having those endings on hand tells you why they react like that to a majority of their decisions.

You take their romance-route explanations of how they act, and apply those to earlier decisions. Astarion's confession to manipulating you and Araj-prompted admittance to using himself as a tool brings to light how he reacts to your decisions, regardless of his actual opinions on them. Wyll's fairytale romance and love of poetic adages speaks to his idealistic nature, and why he takes a sometimes-blinded approach to decisions in which the "right" answer isn't always the smart one.

You take their beginning reactions to stress and use that to measure how future decisions impact them. Lae'zel locks down and gets snappy when she's scared, while Gale immediately turns to diplomacy. Shadowheart has gallows humor, while Wyll turns to quiet acceptance. If they break from these and seem even worse, you know the situation is more dire in their minds than having seven days to live.

And then you factor in all their fun facts and dialogue choices and backstories.

A wizard falls in love with a goddess and her magic, attempts to retrieve a piece of her power for her, is scorned for his attempt and is cursed to die.

Give that backstory to a Tav. Look at how it changes.

A chaotic good wizard fell in love with a goddess, thought retrieving a piece of power for her would be a showy bouquet of love, and was punished for not thinking things through.

A lawful evil wizard fell in love with a goddess's power, snatched the most precious thing she owned, tried to use it to barter his way through to the secrets she kept, and was given a swift retribution.

Same backstory. Same class, same act, same goddess. Wildly different connotations. Wildly different conclusions as to who is in the wrong.

If you take all there is to Gale, all that the game shows us makes up his character, and apply it to this backstory, you get what really happened:

A wizard, enamored with magic, fell in love with a goddess. His desires led him to want more than she was willing to give. In his well-buried fear of inadequacy, he concluded that the reason she wouldn't indulge his ambitions was because he just hadn't proven himself worthy enough. So he tried to prove himself, but he lacked the context for what he was proving himself with. And the goddess, seeing a weapon that had killed her predecessor, saw this ambitious wizard as losing his way and coming for her just like the weapon's creator had. She was angry, she withdrew his link to her, and he didn't know why. So he drew the conclusion that she took his powers to punish him, and let that encompass his fall from grace.

Was he wrong to reach for what was out there?

If you knew that the answers to everything you cared about were not only known, but kept by someone you loved—someone who adored you—what would you do to ask to see them? What if your curiosities were if there were other planets with life out there, or how dark matter worked, or whether or not we could one day travel in the stars? What if it was the potential cure to an illness that's little-understood, or the way to make a program you dreamt up, or the scope of the true limits of your artistic talents? Would your answer change?

Was she wrong to cut him off?

If you were once hurt, and the person you loved—the person who adored you—brought the thing that caused it to your door, believing you'd want it, how would you react to seeing it? What if that thing was someone you thought you'd broken contact with, like a friend or family member you'd been trying to avoid? Would your answer change?

That's the sort of scope that needs to be applied to this, on both sides. You have to take the perspectives of each party, and apply two analogies instead of one.

Gale saw the vastness of the universe, untold wonders, the solution to every question he could ever dream up, and saw Mystra as withholding this from him because she thought he just wasn't worthy enough. To claim Mystra knew his perspective does her a disservice.

Mystra saw a cruel weapon she thought long gone, in the hands of someone who could use it, brought right to her, and thought Gale was willingly following the path of Karsus. To claim Gale knew her perspective does him a disservice.

Should Gale have researched his prize more, so he knew just what he was obtaining? Should he have kept his hands off a cursed book that would devour him? Of course he should have.

Should he have given up on chasing his dreams?

Should Mystra have understood that Gale's pursuit of power was nothing like Karsus'? Should she have communicated when she was angry instead of giving the cold shoulder? Of course she should have.

Should she have given him the benefit of the doubt?

That's the root of their falling out. That's what leads to hurt being inflicted. Understandable, human reactions to the situations they perceive. Unhealthy, unwise choices made afterwards.

You work backwards from this to figure out their dynamic as Chosen and goddess. You work forward from this to understand more of where Gale and Mystra are during the events of Baldur's Gate 3. Gale reached too high, and understands this. His goddess hates him, and he regrets this. Mystra isolated Gale, and understands this. Her Chosen wants redemption, and she wants to make it happen.

Just like we took Gale's character into account, we also have to take Mystra's.

A goddess is faced with a problem. She uses someone who's desperate for approval to solve it, by telling him to kill himself.

An evil goddess is faced with a threat to her reign. She sees someone who's unfailingly loyal and hates himself, and elects to have him tear himself apart rather than do anything about it.

A good goddess is terrified of the future. She sees someone who tried to hurt her, who's going to die anyways, and tells him to use it to save the world.

Same story. Same act, same power, same pawn. Different character. Different perspective. Different outlook on whether or not this is the right thing to do.

Mystra has died, multiple times, to people trying to stake claim to her domain. Someone appears with the very thing that could do it again, right as she's regained her stability.

She does not see mortals the way mortals do. She is timeless. She is eternal. She has a duty to protect billions of people, and one person lost to protect that number is more than worth the sacrifice.

People like to bring up the Seven Sisters as proof of Mystra's cruelty. For those unaware, Mystra asked permission to, then possessed, a woman, used her to court a man (with dubious consent from the woman), and bore seven children, all of whom were capable of bearing Mystra's power as Chosen without dying. The woman she possessed was killed in the process (reduced to no more than a husk, then slain by her now-husband, hoping to end her suffering), and the husband was horrified by the whole story.

Mystra needed Chosen in order to restore herself in the event that she was killed again, to prevent magic as a whole from collapsing and wreaking havoc on the mortal realm, like it had in the few seconds Mystryl had been dead. Elminster, Khelben Blackstaff, and the Seven Sisters contributed to this. The more Chosen she has, the better; what happens if Elminster dies? She can't afford to have all her eggs in one basket.

Mystra has Volo (yeah, that Volo) as a Weave Anchor, imparted with a portion of her power to prevent the Weave from shredding itself to pieces in her absence. All Chosen of Mystra are Weave Anchors by nature. The creation of Weave Anchors was mandated by Ao, the Overgod, and Chosen are the best way to make sure those anchors aren't drained by ambitious people hoping for godlike power. Chosen can, and will, defend themselves, unlike static locations (which Mystra also has). The anchors are why the Weave wasn't completely obliterated during Mystra's last death, when the Spellplague rose up, because they stabilized the Weave around them.

Everything Mystra does is in the name of the big picture, to prevent a catastrophe like the fall of Netheril from happening again. Her restriction of magic, her numerous Chosen, her creation of Weave Anchors, her destruction of those who would claim her power, it's all in the name of the stability she's been charged with. Dornal Silverhand's grief and Elué Silverhand's death, while regrettable, were worth it to bring seven more anchors into existence to save all of the Material.

So someone appears with the Crown of Karsus, potentially powerful enough to try to kill the other gods in the name of the Dead Three. She can't risk being a target of them. She can't risk the destruction of magic again.

Gale is going to die. He lives in fear. He begs for forgiveness.

In Mystra's eyes, she's offering him the best outcome. She'll let him die in service to her, to save Faerûn, and she'll forgive him. He's going to die anyways, and if he does this, she'll give him everything (she thinks) he could ever want in her realm. She's asking him to do what (she thinks) is the right thing.

"She would consider what she considers to be forgiveness."

Notably, she leaves the decision in his hands. She doesn't have Elminster lead him to the Nether Brain. She doesn't activate him as soon as he's there. When he lives yet, she doesn't revoke the charm that keeps him stable. And when he declines, when he lets it go and starts pursuing Karsus' path, she doesn't smite him on the spot.

She is (she thinks) being incredibly patient. If Gale is going to try to be Karsus II, she's ready for him. If he decides to walk off and keep the Orb, he's dug his own grave in the Fugue Plane (those who don't have a god to claim them roam endlessly as husks and form a wall of bodies around the City of Judgement).

From her perspective, she's not being unreasonable. But from the perspective of a mortal, she absolutely is.

"Now, I have a question for thee: what is the worth of a single mortal's life?"

This is a question she cannot answer properly.

I think a lot of characterization is lost whenever someone paints one of them as being totally in the right. But I also think you have to be invested in them as characters to want to see that characterization. If you want to write about Mystra, you have to try to get into her head, analyze the decisions she made, figure out why she thinks she was right, and follow the pattern.

Gale's sacrifice is a very predictable thing for her to ask for.

#bg3 #gale dekarios #gale of waterdeep #mystra #long post #like really long post holy hells #did not expect this to go on for this long #swearing tw #< for karlach #oh yeah #astarion #karlach #wyll ravengard #shadowheart #lae'zel #ask bee

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thegoblinboy · 11 months

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Ok so like I’m exhausted- and I just really need to get this idea off my chest.

But a streamer au. Obviously modern, where Steve can’t hear anything because he accidentally dropped his hearing aids in the toilet. (Something real goofy and stupid) and he’s friends with popular streamer Dustin Henderson (who plays all sorts of games) not only is Steve friends with him but he’s friends with a few other streamers. Though they all want to include Steve in on their Minecraft server, because they know that when he has his hearing back he’ll be on there all the time talking to them. That and he also enjoys building things with Robin and just wander around the world. So they all get this server set up and start streaming. Some newer streamers join as well that Steve doesn’t know but the others know, and Steve has quickly become a fan favorite.

They are roleplaying a DnD campaign in Minecraft, when Steve’s character just pops out of no where doing the randomest things, at this point he even has lore. He’s a mute character who can only talk through messages. Everyone just loves Steve. He’s made numerous friends, and has helped build a lot of things. And no one in chat as ever seen or heard him. Though he is always in Eddie Munson’s streams constantly. Eddie is a older streamer, but wasn’t in on the fact that Steve can hear he just needs hearing aids. So when Steve explains he’s mostly deaf he just goes on about his day like normal. Though now typing book length messages to Steve. (Every streamer can see these messages, Eddie enjoys talking there so his chat can see what Steve’s saying and it’s easier to read off the same screen instead of having to constantly switch to discord) at this point Steve and Eddie are thick as thief’s.

Eddie’s the chaotic one and Steve is the tame one, and their videos together are hilarious. Though when Steve finally gets his hearing aids he’s excited to finally be able to talk to his new friend. He clicks in and joins the voice chat where you can only hear each other when you are actually close to each other in game. (Proximity) so when Eddie comes on and finds Steve he’s talking to his chat, not really caring about muting his mic because Steve can’t hear it. And he doesn’t stream.

And Steve his beaming and happy because he can finally hear Eddie’s voice. His hearing aids are a lot better then the last ones and he isn’t as muffled anymore. He stays silent, because he’s shy. And he tags along with Eddie. Who’s now changing his skin back and forth and talking to chat still. Steve hasn’t said anything. He’s waiting.

“Alright fine fine, I’ll ask Steve if he likes the maid out fit or the bunny suit.” Is heard right before aggressive typing begins.

Steve answers without thinking, and sounds really soft. “Maid Outfit.”

And his first words spoken to Eddie are maid outfit. And the timing is hilarious because he’s pretty sure Eddie has flat lined.

“Also, meant to ask why are our beds pushed together?” Steve asks.

Just I want a really cute au like this. And not weird.

Or instead of the maid outfit, chat is telling Eddie to give Steve his daily kiss. (It’s not he just moves forward and hits Steve’s Minecraft character) which has always confused steve until he hears. “Fine daily smooch for the Stevie boo” (Eddie has given him nicknames?) and just smacks Steve’s character making him loose a heart.

“Ow. That’s why you keep hitting me? For kisses? Eddie I gave you cake, we share a house together and you decided smacking my character upside the head was the equivalent to kissing? You could have just given me flowers dude!”

(Like all of the possibilities are endless)

#steddie #stranger things #eddie munson #steve x eddie #steve harrington #steveharrington #bxb #steveddie #eddie stranger things #steve and eddie #streamer au #hoh steve harrington

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captainofthetidesbreath · 4 months

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What classes do you think the mighty nein would play, were they to play dnd? Bonus round would they be good at dnd.

I had a post about this like back in 2020 or something that I cannot find, so I don't know if my opinions have changed since then. I don't have anyone down as DMing because I assume that even their forever DM has a preferred class.

Fjord - Cleric I don't think Fjord would like tanking that much because getting attacked makes him nervous, but he doesn't want to be a glass cannon either. I think that he would initially go for cleric because he simply wants to be useful and helpful, but he didn't necessarily realize how big of a job being the cleric is. He starts out as a just Cure Wounds dispenser, but quickly flourishes into a Holy Terror Wrath Of The Righteous Divine cleric. He loves doing that. His mechanics are solid and efficient and he's tactically astute, but he's a timid roleplayer who struggles to initiate scenes. He's solid if drawn into scenes and forgets to be self-conscious because he's got a better character sense than he thinks. Literally do not ask him what the overall plot of the campaign is because he cannot remember no matter how hard he tries; he remembers individual PC arcs though. I think he'd also like paladins, bards, and druids, and I do think he'd be willing to play some of the more involved fighters like the Knights subclasses and the cooler rangers.

Beau - Wizard She wants to be the person in the game who gets all the information, and that's usually a wizard. She wants to put her little hands all over all the lore, and also she loves having a spell list that's a billion miles long. She does not want you to know that she feels so smugly satisfied playing a character who can do the research and have the connections and know the information. She absolutely hates that this means she's made of tissue paper, so she tends toward Con wizard. Her mechanics and exploration work are really good, and she is stellar at engaging in the world in a way that's highly informed by her character class. She struggles with the roleplaying part of things a lot. She has a decent grasp of character, it's the actual RPing part that she has trouble with. If you can convince her to play a charisma caster, which she is afraid of doing, she'd also enjoy bard a lot. Also monks and artificers.

Caleb - Wizard This is self-explanatory. Caleb is a guy who plays a wizard or the full damage caster in every single game. This is who he is. He is great mechanically until you gotta discuss non-spell stuff. He did, in fact, read that portion of the rules, but it was never relevant to him, so he deleted it from his head. His spell choices and use are phenomenal though. He min-maxes but specifically for the weirdest, most niche element that is useful one time, but it is extremely clutch that one time it's relevant. He is also great at the storytelling portion, though his roleplaying can be a little dense or dry. If you can make him play something that's not a wizard, druid or bard. He will not play a healer druid or bard though.

Veth - Warlock She wants to make bad decisions in her games, and she loves that a warlock comes prepackaged with bad decisions. She has a solid grasp of her spellcasting mechanics, but also finds full casting intimidating. She loves the concept of being a wizard in theory but actually playing one stresses her out. She is a very loud and excitable player, which can be a lot of fun if, uh, loud. She fucking supports you and is into whatever it is you're doing, especially if it's so dumb to do. She is inventing the weirdest and most ambiguously intense patron relationship of all time. She also would enjoy paladins, rangers, artificers, and the fancier fighters (again, the Knights subclasses). She could be eased into cleric if a niche in the party is clear and her mechanical role is structured. She can totally handle full casting, including wizards, she just psyches / stresses herself out.

Jester - Bard I feel like people are going to be like "what about barbarian," but I think that Jester tried it once and the comparative lack of options made her really frustrated. She loves the idea of hitting things, but she hates it when 80% of her options is just hitting it. She is attracted to the charisma casters though, because she really likes the charisma skillset, and she really wants to cast a lot of spells. Out of the charisma caster options, she likes bards best because she loves being a little good at everything. She tends to be a little over-competitive about it and gets sulky when she doesn't feel useful enough. She is actually iffy on mechanical nitty-gritty, but her basics and groundwork is solid so it's fine, but she's a really great if melodramatic roleplayer and her social encounter work is great. She is deeply engaged in the narrative and is intensely invested in every NPC. Buys so fucking hard into the suspension of disbelief. She would like the fancier fighters and paladins better than a barbarian.

Molly - Bard He is playing the stereotype bard of everyone's nightmares. I will not further elaborate.

Caduceus - Ranger He does like to ask the plants and animals question in-game as well, and rangers let him do that and have a bit of magic too without being overwhelming as a class. He isn't super interested in doing complex characters; this is not being bad at D&D, to be clear, it's just a preference. He's your friend who is here to play a simple character because he just wants to hang out with you, which I think is always very sweet. That said, he is not very good mechanically. It's a lot of stuff to keep track of even with 5e being a little simpler. I think he would also like playing paladins or the straightforward fighters, or a cleric if he can decide what his niche is and stick to that specifically. He doesn't vibe with barbarians.

Yasha - Druid She is initially drawn to the class for the vibes (always a valid reason to be drawn to a class), but I think she enjoys having spellcasting options and options that aren't "hit it". She is a timid and awkward roleplayer who has a lot of trouble there, even though she has a lot of fun making up backstory and engaging with the lore and story. Her spellcasting is creative and experimental because she loves weird. She is one of the button pushers of the table and is giggling when she does it. (She and Veth are menaces, lmao, it's great.) I think she'd also enjoy bards, maybe clerics and warlocks, and the fancier fighters and rangers.

#RIP their nonexistent tankline #Critical Role things #long post for ts

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cakenpiewhyohmy · 7 months

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So I slept on it, and I really think Tav is Halsins fated one.

So not going into super specifics but in dnd lore, elves typically do sleep around l, go through multiple relationships etc UNTIL they find their fated mate.

Man’s there’s so much evidence (either intentionally or unintentionally) that Tav is. You could literally do absolutely nothing besides saving him, (sometimes not even that) and his grove and man’s is head over heels for you.

In all his dialogue while he’s waiting in camp he’s flirting with you almost every chance he gets and makes it clear that he wants you.

But if it’s just a fling or casual sex, why wait?

Well I think it’s because Tav is is soulmate essentially so he’s actually so in love with them that they consume his thoughts constantly. BUT he has a lot of guilt and Trauma that he’s burdened with and he feels like he can’t even think of being happy with them until he’s righted what he feels is his biggest failure. And after it’s defeated he even has a line where he says something like “I’m yours” before trying to correct himself and saying he’s yours in battle etc. (I could literally picture him blushing at his slip up)

We don’t really get anything till act three because with the shadow curse lifted he feels free to try and follow his heart (which is now with Tav) but is a little nervous to do so. Like hes been with tons of people before Tav is the first one that hes actually in love and feels connected to (soulmates) and hes trying to pace himself. Unfortunately the world is literally at stake so he doesn’t have the luxury of time

So what does he do? Blurt out a really bad confession and then gets so giddy he wildshapes.

Like that whole scene has him so out of breath you can practically see his excitement and nervs. (He even says he feared that it was too soon)

And about the whole poly thing, for one I do think he’s mildly traumatized, a free love hippy Druid , and someone who genuinely is poly and maybe a swinger lol.

However I also think he has no intentions of seeing anyone else. Like Tav is it for him. There’s multiple lines of dialogue suggesting so, he says “you are all I want” but encourages you to share your heart with others even though you already have his (man’s even calls you “my heart” I-) I think this could be interpreted a couple different ways and proly has multiple meanings.

But if we’re running with the soulmate idea then it’s because he’s both scared and traumatized by losing almost everyone he’s loved in his life, and also afraid of being rejected outright. Like he would rather have a part of you than none at all.

Because elves that do lose their fated ones typically don’t last long without them.

The only issue is the devs did him dirty with his ending….which again can be added for angst in this HC cause why not.

-he’s secretly hoping tav chases after him (my fav so far) he doesn’t feel like he is enough and he’s so ill suited for city life that he feels he would make Tav miserable and he would be miserable and that’s the last thing he wants. Especially since the big bad is over now. He feels like he doesn’t have much use to them anymore and fears being truly discarded.

- he feels a sense of obligation towards helping others and fear of screwing up the one genuine connection he has with his soulmate like (he feels) he has with all other things he has in his life. Losing thaniel, killing the turned Archdruid, failing his grobe etc. he fears it so much he’d rather run away than have that become a reality.

-and if they’re with someone else? Even more reason to leave. I feel like they treated him like a side piece when it came to his poly romance with Astarion or Shadowheart (especially since shadowheart and him didn’t really get along lol) and this coupled with his feelings of guilt and inadequacies? Yeah man’s said quit while ur ahead.

-the same way Astarion needs reassurance, I think Halsin does too. Reassurance that he IS enough for them, wether that’s in a poly relationship or in a solo one (I still think hes a swinger but I digress).

Man even has a line when asking him about himself where he says that people look at him and think that his feelings can’t be hurt.

Long story short, Halsin has been in love with Tav since they freed him, but Is Going Through It too and doesn’t know how to cope.

#halsin #bg3 #halsin romance #my sweet bear #hc

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exsanguidus · 8 months

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Controversial opinion; I think Ascended Astarion is the true Astarion. In DnD lore, vampirism amplifies a person's traits for whoever they are at the time they become a true vampire. A Paladin wanting to save people will end up ruling a city with an iron fist to keep people safe. A mage wanting to heal those they love will hurt everyone else to heal them. Astarion was on a journey with Tav - one from being controlled, owned, and tortured to being free, curious, and even powerful. Becoming a full vampire and ascending just amplified that. It forced a self-actualization, not a descent into villainy. I think Ascended Astarion is cannon Astarion. He will always be a vampire, and vampires in DnD are always the amplification of a true self. Without ascention, he is still malleable - but I don't think its what he wants. He wants to be powerful (protected by his own power too - his power being a means to self-preservation), he wants to be loved, seen, and free. Free of hunger, free to walk in the sun, free of Cazador. All these things are true regardless of the path you choose. But, they are all only attainable through ascension. When you ascend Astarion - he gets everything he wants and becomes who he truly is.

I'm going to start this with a disclaimer:

I work in the mental health field professionally and majored in Social & Behavioral Science, which is partly why I felt drawn to Astarion as a sort of case study. Characters rooted in trauma are interesting to me and I enjoy picking them apart to judge how real it feels. I utilize my educational and professional background to essentially guide how I write Astarion on this account.

That said, despite me being a professional in the field, all of what I have to say is my personal opinion and interpretation of Astarion's character based on how I interpret the material Larian gave us and the material that can be found in DND lore. Even in real life, things have variation and not all mental health struggles (getting over trauma is part of mental health) present the exact same way. There are theories that exist to try and explain some trends in mental health studies, psychology, and sociology, but again they're called theories for a reason.

Now, my response to this question will be under the cut and will include spoilers.

I know what lore in particular you're referencing, anon, because I've been going back to it a lot ever since I opened this account.

Astarion very much has an insecure attachment style born from his abuse at Cazador's hands. Specifically, an anxious-avoidant attachment type that leans more towards avoidant when he's first met and then begins to swing more towards anxious as he begins to get closer to Tav and the other companions.

Anxious-avoidant attachment types (also known as the “fearful or disorganized type”) bring together the worst of both worlds. Anxious-avoidants are not only afraid of intimacy and commitment, but they distrust and lash out emotionally at anyone who tries to get close to them. Anxious-avoidants often spend much of their time alone and miserable, or in abusive or dysfunctional relationships. Anxious-avoidants are low in confidence and less likely to express emotions, preferring to suppress them. However, they can have intense emotional outbursts when under stress. They also don’t tend to seek help when in need due to a distrust of others. This sucks because they are also incapable of sorting through their own issues. Anxious-avoidants really get the worst of both worlds. They avoid intimacy not because they prefer to be alone like avoidants. Rather, they avoid intimacy because they are so terrified of its potential to hurt them (Mark Manson, Attachment Styles and How They Affect Your Relationships).

Typically, most studies of Attachment Theory focus on the relationship of parents-children or romantic partners, but it can also be applied to any significant relationship someone has in their lifetime. Attachment styles thus are capable of changing based on new relationship experiences.

If you end up giving him the "good" ending where he denies the Ascension, it's implied in his final dialogue that he's actively working towards having a secure attachment type due to the influences of his fellow worm-afflicted associates - particularly Tav.

I think that it's important to also note that, even if Tav doesn't romantically connect with Astarion, he shows hints of desperately wanting someone to care for him, support him, and love him. He does want to know what sex would be like as something other than a tool, and especially what it would be like to actually want to have it just for the pure sake of enjoying having it.

You have to understand that Astarion doesn't even understand the concept of casual sex or friends with benefits. All those times he had to seduce people for Cazador was not casual sex or a friends with benefits situation. All of them were transactions with a means to an end. He got nothing out of seducing those victims besides the possibility of not incurring Cazador's wrath that night - but even then, there was still a possibility because Cazador was an abuser.

Abusers are incapable of providing genuine safety, but can manipulate their victims into believing an illusion of safety. Often times, they manipulate their victims into this by using phrases like "you made me do this by being disobedient", "it wouldn't come to this if you just did what you were told", and then weaponizing basic needs such as shelter, food, and social interaction. The bare minimum becomes something the victim is expected to be grateful for and viewed as a favor, which means anything beyond the bare minimum is expected to be viewed as a theatrical showing of care and love.

In game, Tav has the chance to hear Astarion tell the story of how Cazador turned him. He basically states that he got attacked by a mob due to a ruling he handed down when he was magistrate and then Cazador saved him and offered him immortality. It can be inferred that in his pre-vampiric days, Astarion had no idea that Cazador was abusive to his spawn.

This is likely because it seems that Cazador is careful about his public image. He doesn't allow his spawn to drink from humans, very likely not just as a means to further oppress them and dampen their potential power they could get from drinking people's blood, but also as a way to ensure there's not just a bunch of people out in the city being bitten and left alive to tell the story - or left dead on the street suspiciously.

He has his spawn seduce and lure people, particularly lower class people that would be harder for general society to realize is missing or just that he knows people who could actually challenge him wouldn't care for (you learn that reading some of the books and notes in Szarr Palace). The only exception to this is the kidnapping of Gur children, but even then it seems to fit his MO as it seems Gur are considered somewhat outcasts from the rest of Baldurian society due to their cultural differences.

It should also be noted that he himself doesn't do these seductions or kidnappings. He specifically chooses spawn to be his lackeys and that's likely so, if shit hits the fan and the spawn gets caught, he has deniability since he wasn't there. It's methodical and thought out to keep as many eyes away from him so he can still obtain what he wants and keep sailing under the radar.

Cazador is this methodical and purposeful as a result of his own trauma, which we learn about from the skull of his master in the dungeon of Szaar Palace. There's one interaction in particular with the skull in which Tav can learn that, at one point, Cazador attempted to rebel and usurp his master. Cazador failed and his master punished him via impalement. Not because Cazador had the audacity to try and usurp him, but because Cazador tried and failed. Cazador's master punished Cazador via torture because his master was disgusted by the fact that his spawn was too weak to succeed in such a plot.

Which brings me to my next point... it's not uncommon for victims of abuse to later become abusers. Hence the term Cycle of Abuse exists. Many abusers who were once victims often have the mentality of either "I'm not nearly as bad as my abuser was, they should be grateful I care enough to not be so bad" or "I survived and it made me tougher, they need to suck it up and let it help them build character" or both. They often fail to view their abuse as abuse and fail to recognize how their experience as abuse victims contributes into making them toxic and abusive to others.

There's many peer-reviewed scholarly articles you can find about the cycle of abuse, but one I particularly find useful is Editorial: Dissociation, and cycles of abuse across generations by David P.H. Jones. It talks specifically about parents and children, but I believe some of the general points made can be applied to Cazador and his spawn, as he crafts a very family-like setting that can be seen in the way that his spawn refer to one another as brothers and sisters.

This would thus make him the father figure, a role exponentially made important by the fact he denies his spawn education on things that could serve to give them ideas or the ability to leave him (for example, Astarion mentions that none of the spawn were permitted to learn about the language of the various symbols around the palace) and he consistently chooses his Golden Children (Favored Spawns) as a means of providing more false security. Do what he says, when he says, exactly how he says and don't complain then you will have benefits. You will be Favored, and to have his favor is the highest honor you could achieve.

Torture is clearly presented as Cazador's primary go-to for discipline. Research has also concluded that trauma has a way of affecting the brain and memories.

Trauma can prevent information (like words, images, sounds, etc.) from different parts of the brain from combining to make a semantic memory. The temporal lobe and inferior parietal cortex collect information from different brain areas to create semantic memory (The National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine).

Astarion mentions a few times in-game that he can barely remember his life before Cazador, if at all, and a huge part of that is likely because of all the trauma Cazador inflicted upon him that exacerbated the natural occurrence of memory loss from aging (if vampires experience natural memory loss from aging, that is). This is most likely true for all of Cazador's spawn.

I say all this as a set up to truly answering you, anon, specifically where you say: "from being controlled, owned, and tortured to being free, curious, and even powerful. Becoming a full vampire and ascending just amplified that. It forced a self-actualization, not a descent into villainy."

I can argue that Astarion did not feel free up until after a decision to Ascend or not was made. And I argue that stance due to some dialogue he can have with Tav here he basically states that the power Ascension could guarantee that no one, even someone after Cazador is dead, could ever come in to oppress and hurt him again. Even with Cazador dead, he has such an intense fear of being enslaved and used that he turns to catastrophic thoughts as justification to why he needs to Ascend.

Catastrophic thinking is a cognitive distortion that occurs when people have a hard time weighing the likelihood of certain outcomes and believe that terrible or catastrophic outcomes—which are highly unlikely—become, in one’s mind, salient and extremely likely. (Tom Zaubler, MD, MPH).

Aside from the Gur, whom Astarion can manage to evade and even kill perfectly fine as just a spawn, we're not presented with any hints of another big bad in the vampire world that could possibly want Astarion. As such, there's not really any tangible threat, but rather a perceived threat that he believes is destined to darken his doorstep at any time.

His catastrophic thinking is a trauma response. His belief that he needs to be the most powerful being in the room as a way to be truly free is a trauma response. Cazador broke him down emotionally, mentally, physically, and sexually to make him believe that he was weak and trapped. Furthermore, that he remained trapped because he was too weak to do anything about it.

You see how this goes full circle into how Cazador's master punished Cazador for not being able to successfully usurp him? It places blame on the victim, allowing shame and helplessness to root that the abuser can manipulate. We know that Astarion definitely feels shame because he tells Tav that. For most of his dialogue until the boss fight, he's constantly bringing up that he did what Cazador wanted and acted obedient because he had no choice.

This is true, he had to act in self-preservation to survive and unfortunately that meant he had to be subservient. A few dialogue choices you can have your Tav pick can challenge Astarion and say he could have still tried, to which he'll rightfully tell Tav that Tav has no right to judge him for the choices he made to survive.

When Astarion encounters Sebastian in the dungeon, its made pretty obvious how much guilt and shame he truly feels. Furthermore, that for all Astarion's protesting and exclaiming that no one has the right to judge him, a part of him did believe that he didn't do enough to try and escape enslavement. A part of himself blamed himself and believed he allowed himself to be abused when, in reality, he was put in a horrible situation with very limited options. He did the best he could in the moment, with what information he had in those moments.

I also want to argue that who Astarion is when we meet him isn't his true self. It's who he had to become in order to survive Cazador. Astarion doesn't even know who his true self is because he didn't have the opportunity to explore his own likes and preferences. Cazador molded all of his spawn because he had a specific purpose for them.

Not only that, but since Cazador would have to more directly deal with these spawn since he used them as lackies, he also would have molded them to behave in ways to his preference so that he wouldn't find their presence unbearable and feel inclined to murder them out of annoyance. This is also where the Favored Spawn being separated and set on a pedestal comes into play. Those who could please him and play to his wants and needs had better benefits. If all of the spawn are acting in self-preservation, they would want to be favored and thus would want to adapt themselves to things Cazador liked and approved of.

This would mean learning to be cruel to those less fortunate and not doing anything as charity. This is the reason why Astarion approves of some questionable decisions Tav can make. Astarion learned his ideals and morality from Cazador because he had to so he could know how to please Cazador and stay in his master's good graces. After a while, even if you started off disagreeing, forcing yourself to act a certain way can become a habit that sticks with you. You convince yourself to enjoy it too so it's easier to swallow.

Astarion craves power because he knows that power is the quickest, easiest, and - what he believes - most effective way to prevent him from having to use that method ever again. It's logical to want power to solve that.

You said in your ask: "He wants to be powerful (protected by his own power too - his power being a means to self-preservation), he wants to be loved, seen, and free. Free of hunger, free to walk in the sun, free of Cazador. All these things are true regardless of the path you choose. But, they are all only attainable through ascension. When you ascend Astarion - he gets everything he wants and becomes who he truly is."

In the most literal of terms, yes, Ascension gives him all of those. However, since the basis of him believing he needs power to be free is rooted in fear, that's not actually really freedom. That is still his fear ruling over him.

There's a stark difference in what someone wants versus what they need. He wants power, to be seen, to be loved, and to be free. What he actually needs is security, stability, support, consistency, empathy, and autonomy. The things he wants is what he believes will solve the empty cups of what he needs, and he believes that because the only example he had on how to act to get what you want - until the events of the game - was Cazador. He literally had no other example of how to get your needs met except through selfishness, cruelty, force, manipulation, and abuse.

Again, I reiterate. The Astarion we first meet is not Astarion's true nature. Astarion's true nature was corrupted by his abuse from Cazador and the subsequent trauma that followed. If it had been his true nature, he would have happily been Cazador's subject because their true natures would have been in alignment.

It only becomes his true nature if he allows that trauma to define him and decides that he needs to embrace it rather than fight it. That is then what gets amplified because that fear that roots those wants becomes amplified.

Honestly, it's impossible to say what would be canon for Astarion because there's too many factors.

Studies have shown that having more supportive and positive influences, even if its later in life after leaving the abuser, tends to work in favor of the victim breaking the cycle of abuse. As such, I think that if you make a Tav who's core values are autonomy, consent, second chances, and redemption and somehow manage to get high enough approval that he'd even consider caring what they think; then its more likely that Astarion would reject Ascension due to observing how much softer, kinder, patient, and merciful Tav is.

But if its a Tav that has no interest in getting to know him beyond the surface or Tav doesn't exist at all, I honestly think he would end up going through with Ascension. Mostly because, to me, it seems like he didn't really bother to have more than surface level interactions with the other companions and the other companions really only ended up getting to know him better as a result to Tav managing to get past his masking. He does not lower his mask on his own accord, only after certain things are done and said by Tav.

Unfortunately, I just don't really think any of the other companions you can pick up in-game would really be able to provide support and determined consistency in the same way that players can make Tav. Hence I don't think he'd end up caring enough about any of them to ever start to think that perhaps freedom can be defined differently than the way he initially believes, and would view Ascension as the only right way to get his needs fulfilled.

#hc ; in one's blood #long post #bg3 spoilers #cw: trauma #cw: abuse #penned by grim ;#askbox ; blood oath

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nerdalmighty · 2 months

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hey! so, i just recently started playing baldur's gate 3 after seeing people put it all over my dash for months--and you're one of the people i've seen reblogging a lot of posts about it LOL. so if you don't mind me asking, i was wondering what kind of character do you/did you play as? and do you have any sort of backstory for your tav that you'd like to share?

Hoooooooooooooh my god thank you so much for asking. I have a friend who comes over to watch me play on Thursdays and I make a powerpoint every week to catch her up on what she missed - this week's powerpoint literally has slides about my Tav's background (more on those later). This is about to be long, I'm about to drop ALL my lore so buckle up! AND THANK YOU FOR PUTTING UP WITH MY BG3 BRAIN WORMS!!!!! I'm glad they convinced you to play 😈

So to begin, I've been in my first ever dnd campaign with a group of friends for a little over a year now. I didn't know much about Baldur's Gate except that it was a dnd video game and that you could romance people. Me, being a Big Fan of Romance And Fantasy was like "okay well I'm in" and my friend actually let me start a game at his house. Through that, I met Shadowheart, Gale, and Astarion.

Backing up a bit to my character; I decided I'd put my character from my irl dnd campaign into the game since I already knew her whole deal. I get pretty overwhelmed with making decisions, ESPECIALLY with big open world games like bg3, so knowing who/what I wanted to be really helped me out.

In the campaign I'm in with friends, it's pirate themed, and I play a half-elf bard named Birdie Harp who's secretly half-siren (murder mermaid). To make a long story very short, she was born in the arctic and escaped her murderous pod during a coming-of-age trial where she also lost her siren abilities (hypnotizing voice, breathing underwater, etc).

I've watched a ton of Dimension 20 which is an actual play show on Dropout.tv (an "actual play" is where you watch other people run a campaign of dnd - like Critical Role, which a lot of people have at least heard of - HIGHLY recommend Dimension 20, as I find it incredibly funny and easier to get into than CR because of the episode lengths), and I knew that I really liked the silliness and theatricality of the bard class. I also loved the bards from The Owl House which helped influence my decision as well.

To be honest, Birdie is my first ever dnd character, so she's basically a self insert but with a MUCH more traumatic backstory than me (this IS dnd after all). As for the half-elf aspect, it was more of an "I want to be half mermaid, what's similar to that?" as opposed to a love for half-elves or something.

BACK TO BALDUR'S GATE - knowing I wanted Birdie to be in the game, I felt a lot less overwhelmed to come up with something entirely new - I knew a lot about the bard class having played one so I wanted to CONTINUE playing one (and I've learned even more since playing bg3!).

When I finally got my own game (I no longer play at my friend's house, but in the comfort of my own home), I recreated Birdie and started on my journey in earnest. I'm VERY MUCH someone who likes to be in control and know what to expect, so I've had guides and walkthroughs to help me the whole time - SUE ME! When it came to first meeting Shadowheart, Gale, and Astarion back at my friend's house, Gale actually immediately stole my heart - a kind, witty wizard who likes books and cats? Literally say less. I went home from that session with my friend fully thinking I'd be a Gale girlie until I really looked into the other options and saw The Vampire.

Blah blah blah, he's hot and funny, but he can also be incredibly soft, which really won me over in the end. So I've been romancing That Guy.

Through Acts 1 and 2, I wasn't all too sure about this version of Birdie's background - sure she COULD still be that half-siren from the arctic, but the game kept suggesting she was FROM Baldur's Gate. I LOVED the inclusion of the harpies in Act 1 and thought maybe that was a viable entry point for her backstory, but so far, she was kind of just... me? She was making the choices I wanted to make (and a few that I knew Astarion would like lmao), but she wasn't really her own entity apart from me except for her name. She also felt vastly different from that character I'd created for my friends over a year ago. For instance, my irl Birdie currently has a crush on a Gale-type character, but this Birdie is ass deep in Astarion (hey, sorry I said "ass deep in Astarion"). The thing I love about Baldur's Gate 3 is how you can really come up with your own backstories, since the in-game one for your Tav is so vague. It's totally fine to ignore tiny details in the game and mold them to your own headcanons for your Tav, but I was so unsure of what I wanted for this Birdie that I kind of internalized that she was from Baldur's Gate.

HEADS UP! The following has some spoilers for Act 3 and some side quests, so STOP reading if that's something you'd care to avoid (the last 3 paragraphs of this post are SAFE from spoilers):

When Act 3 finally rolled around (which is where I am currently, I only have the one playthrough so far because I become INCREDIBLY attached to things), I stumbled across the Water Queen's House in Baldur's Gate. Ah ha! Now this felt promising.

A temple dedicated to the Vengeful Sea Goddess, Umberlee, and her loyal Wave Servants to serve her. It's ocean themed, it has mermaid undertones, and their goddess is basically evil. Seems like the perfect place to FINALLY insert this version of Birdie. I wasn't 100% sure until I completed the Iron Throne mission and was faced with either handing a (mostly) innocent man over to the Wave Servants, or fighting to defend him.

Here are a few of the slides from this week's powerpoint that I mentioned all the way back at the start, starting with SOME background on the Wave Servants:

Ass and Shart are what I affectionately call Astarion and Shadowheart (Also I got this beautiful "Birdie" art on Pinterest which originated from someone named Dantrelium on Reddit):

Apologies for the small text here, but there are some more details about THIS Birdie here, which I literally made up/figured out earlier this week:

Essentially, this Birdie was born at the Water Queen's House as Kittiwake Crest - Kittiwakes are common arctic birds, which I thought would be a nice little homage to the original character she was based off of. She was raised by the collective of Wave Servants there, the main one being Flood Tide Allandra Grey who seems to be head honcho at the Wave Mother's House (in this reality, she is).

Since Umberlee is such a vengeful goddess, I imagine she asked her Wave Servants to commit unspeakable acts in her name, mainly drownings, which THEY see as merciful, but I think Birdie always saw as horrifying. Who were they to decide the fates of others? I also think that the Wave Servants themselves were abusive during her upbringing to keep her in line (but much like how Nocturne was a light in the darkness for Shadowheart, I don't think EVERY Wave Servant was evil). GOTTA have a classic tragic backstory.

Upon researching Umberlee, I learned that most of her servants are clerics, so in my mind, that means Birdie was raised to eventually become one, with her official title eventually going to be "Seawind Kittiwake Crest." Is she still half-siren/mermaid though? Not entirely sure. This IS a magical world though, so I'd be inclined to say yes, probably.

But when we first meet the Wave Servants, they're singing beautifully for their drowned sister, Holli. I think Birdie REALLY loved music and singing with her sisters and secretly trained herself in bard magic when she should have been learning to be a cleric. It's also a classic trait of bards to hide their pain through humor, so I often imagine the type of stupid things Birdie gets up to to bring herself joy (my favorite headcanon being when you meet Skittle the Rat in Wyrm's Rock prison - he's a rat merchant who speaks exclusively in puns. I think Birdie and Gale would excitedly throw puns back and forth with Skittle while Astarion and Shadowheart begrudgingly (and affectionately) roll their eyes in the background).

Another thing I love about the game is how you can string together your own ideas of how companions react to things between big cut scenes. For example, in my head, in my game, Astarion has really become a Big Softy thanks to how fucking Stupid (affectionate) Birdie acts in life and has drawn him out of his shell, but also runs a tag team scam with her where she plays her lute to distract people while he loots an entire place. Gale is Birdie's partner in crime when it comes to tomfoolery and loves to joke and fool around with her (so long as it goes easy on his knees). And Shadowheart is basically a sister figure who flip flops between sassing with Astarion and joining in on the fun. THEY'RE JUST THE BEST, OKAY? OF COURSE I'M GONNA WALK AROUND WITH A BUNCH OF IDIOTS. I LOVE THEM.

Anyway, back to Birdie's backstory: she always hated the atrocities that were asked of her, and she was looking for a way out, but was too scared to take that step and leave since the Wave Mother's House is all she's ever known. One night, while stepping out to quietly dip her toes in the water, the Mindflayers captured her, and that's where we start Act One, all the way up on the Nautiloid. She changed her name to Birdie to distance herself from her previous life, fully took up the bard class, and the rest is history.

Back to that dilemma with handing over that (mostly) innocent guy or fighting the Wave Servants: with encouragement from the party, they convince Birdie to face her traumatic upbringing and fight the Wave Servants once and for all. At this point in Act 3, she's basically helped every single person with their problems except her own. Here's another slide featuring Ass and Birdie:

That's right folks, Birdie faced her past! But the bad news is we don't get to see Astarion in this (audio from The Adventurous Adventures of One Direction):

(Video description - Astarion from Baldur's Gate 3 wearing the Wave Mother's Armor with the following audio:

Guard 1: Whoa, check it out.

Guard 2: Hubba hubba hubba.

Gaurd 1: Nice. I love dudes in skirts.

END VIDEO.) I don't want to tell you how many times I recorded that until I felt like I got it right lol. Also yes, I DID do a scum save where I handed the guy over ONCE just so I could see Ass in this outfit, but Birdie did canonically save Redhammer in my actual save file.

And honestly, that's BASICALLY it for now! My most recent save was after that battle, so I need to figure out if Birdie's going to go back with her party to confront the rest of (or most of) the Wave Servants, or if this chapter of her life is closed.

In an ideal world I'd LOVE to make one of those artsy gif edits of my Tav like this and this, but PS5s make it hard to download clips without uploading them to YouTube first which I don't really want to do.

Thank you SO MUCH for this ask, I had a blast writing it!! Sorry it's so long, I just love this game so much and LOVE talking about it. Please feel free to ask more questions OR chat with me about YOUR Tav! I'd love to hear all about them :)

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enam3l · 2 years

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rockstar eddie munson does halloween

I hit 100 followers which to me is crazy so to celebrate here is a special rockstar eddie halloween head-canons! thank you so much and i hope you have the best halloween

you can read all rockstar eddie munson stories and lore including Halloween pt 2 at #enamels rockstar eddie

Every year without fail, a Halloween party is held at Steve's house. It started in 87 and has been going strong ever since

You knew you were truly in love with Eddie once you spent your first Halloween together and saw how excited he was for it, how his eyes were lit up from at least 2 weeks before the 31st. You knew his friends and he was desperate to bring you to their big Halloween bash

The gang knew you and Eddie were endgame when he said he was bringing you to the Halloween party

Eddie was pretty sure he was in love with you but he knew you were his soulmate when you walked on him making extravagant decorations for the party and left just to come back with more supplies. You both spent the next 48 hours covered in PVA glue, glitter and fake spiderwebs

Eddie is pretty sure his heart stopped beating when you nervously asked him if you wanted to do a couples costume and suggested Aragorn and Arwen

You arrived together at Steve's the day before the party to set up the decorations you'd both crafted. Because he lived on his own and just in an apartment, Eddie never bothered to decorate his own place. Before he can stop himself as you're hanging a skeleton from the ceiling he blurts out 'I can't wait until we have our own home to decorate'

As Eddie panics and tries to work out how he can undo what he said, you look to him with a big grin and say 'We'll have one to decorate by next year.' The second you were home from Steve's you went looking for apartments, giddy you'd both finally admitted you wanted to live together

After getting married the pair of you decided it was time to move on from the apartment you got together and get a house in the hopes of starting a family. Eddie had of coursed argued getting a house meant you'd now have an attic to cram even more spooky paper mache creations

The perks of a house meant you could now decorate the outside and one of Eddie's proudest achievements was realising people were travelling just to see your home at Halloween. He'd sit by the front window, ecstatic as he watched people approach the house and seeing their reactions. He loved how children would look as if they'd stepped into a portal to another world. You loved seeing people appreciate how creative your husband was and how he was bringing years of his DnD universes to life

As the group got older and began to have children, Steve's parties continued. They now just started earlier for the kids who ran riot around a huge bonfire the men would put together. Once the kids were in bed, you all continued to party like you were teenagers again

And of course yours and Eddie's couples costumes continued even to the present day. Over the years you'd now been Edward Scissorhands and Kim, Gomez and Morticia and Jon Snow and Daenerys

Admittedly there were a few costumes you'd bought that never made it out the bedroom. Jessica Rabbit and Catwoman for example were banned by Eddie as he admitted he couldn't behave in public with you dressed like that

The worst part about Halloween was that Eddie returned to his most feral teenage boy self and attempted to live off a diet of candy. You wish you could say you've never had to replace your kids trick or treating sweets because your husband ate them all... but you had... multiple times

With your first baby you were around 4 months pregnant when Halloween came around. Eddie insisted on painting your small bump that had recently appeared as a pumpkin. And whenever he answered the door to trick or treaters he began to tear up at the children just thinking about how he'd have his own to take out this time next year

That year for Steve's you'd joked you could go as Alien and have a little alien ripping out your tshirt over your bump. Eddie did not find this funny. He refused to speak to you for several hours but continued to talk to the bump and apologise for its mother's behaviour

Before your first child (a little girl) was born, Eddie had already collected a variety of costumes for her. She was only 6 months old for her first Halloween but Eddie took her in her pram with Steve's nuggets so she could still have her first taste of trick or treating. That year the two of you brought back your Aragorn and Arwen costume but now gave your daughter and oversized ring so she could be a very cute Gollum

Once you had your second child you did the Addams Family. You as Morticia, Eddie as Gomez, your daughter as Wednesday and your new daughter as Pugsley. Dustin was a very willing Uncle Fester

Eddie's Halloween antics have become infamous today. Your kids mobbed online for requests of the decorations and yours and Eddie's couples costume each year

Oh, and he's still made you keep the Jessica Rabbit costume just incase

my requests are open as always! let me know what more rockstar eddie stuff you want or just anything else!

#enam3l x eddie #enam3ls rockstar eddie #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson #eddie munson headcanons #eddie munson fluff #eddie munson smut #rockstar eddie munson #rockstar!eddie munson #Eddie munson Halloween #halloween prompts

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wutheringmights · 1 month

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AUTHORS COMMENTARY FOR NEW CTB PLSSSSS😭😭😭

Thank you! I would be more than happy to explain myself.

My commentaries have, historically, been a pain in the butt to read on a formatting level. I have attempted to fix this by breaking up the commentary into labeled sections. Consequently, this led to me writing out way more than I normally would.

So, enjoy.

[The Past]

Pre-Festival & Festival Day

As I mentioned previously, I wrote a significant part of this past section for the last chapter-- all the way up until Link asks for Icarius’s name. I ended up cutting the chapter into two for space, which meant that there was a few weeks between writing the first and second half of the icarius stuff.

I really did not spend as much time with the latter half as I wanted to, and I think it suffers for it. I’ll elaborate on that in a second. Let’s try to stick to talking about the chapter in a somewhat chronological order.

I joked about this last weekend, but Jakucho is extremely funny for hearing Link speculate about Icarius and Nephus and deciding, “Yup. Not my problem. Have fun with that.” Of course, she thinks he’s obsessed with Nephus and not Icarius.

Gaze upon my weak attempt to confirm Ayane is trans. I think this might have been a bit of a clunky way to do it. I never know how to get characters to confirm their identities without it sounding too much like a script read. Hopefully, this was at least clear if not entirely blatant.

Holidays are such an important part of world building, and I think it is very silly when you are in a fun little fantasy world and they celebrate not-Christmas or the like. That being said, sometimes you are so exhausted of any ideas that you have to sit down and say “Fuck it. Off-brand Halloween.”

That being said, having a holiday to mourn the loss of the Sacred Realm feels fitting for the world, even if the inclusion of masks was a bit clunky.

I really do think an under-explored area of Zelda lore is that the goddess’s realm is just... gone. Corrupted. Where are the goddesses now that the Sacred Realm is the Dark World? Is there a holy crusade to restore the Dark World to the Sacred Realm? I think Nintendo could do a dark fantasy spin off about this. Or when I finally get around to running that Hyrule homebrew DND campaign I have been cajoling my friends into playing, I’ll make it a plot point.

Now that I am typing this, I am realizing that I really should have had a little moment where all the masks forces Link to remember the child. Fuck.

In my original vision, Icarius was going to be very polite and quiet while at Jakucho’s estate, only for his next scene to be him snarking at some guys during a bar fight. What a bait and switch that would have been.

When I was a kid, I genuinely thought that the keaton mask was supposed to be a Pikachu mask (in part because I had only seen it in my cousin’s copy of Super Smash Bros). Hence, the yellow fox vs yellow mouse banter.

Link’s House / Icarius Backstory

Writing Icarius and Link banter was surprisingly difficult. I have this whole vision in my head about these two being loving to verbally spar with each other. And for some reason, the dialogue was just not flowing the other day.

And by the other day, I mean that a part of my major revisions the day of posting was to fix this entire section. Did it work? Not really. But I got a D grade prose up to a B-, and that was going to have to do.

My biggest gripe is their conversation in Link’s house, where Icarius info-dumps his entire backstory. In my brain, this scene would have felt dark and moody while still being a little romantic. They definitely hit all the points I needed them to hit for the plot, but it just... it’s so stilted. It doesn’t feel like Icarius is unloading years-worth of grievances on someone who he can trust to listen, if only for a night. It feels like Icarius is reading from a script. Ugh.

There was going to be an in-story explanation from Icarius as to why his hair is bleached that never actually came up. For those curious, it’s that Nephus had the grand idea first to bleach his hair but was worried it wouldn’t look good. So he had Icarius dye his first. Sure enough, he thought it looked terrible and decided to not go through with his end. Icarius was going to be very annoyed by that and would bitch about how long it would take for him to grow it out again.

I originally was not going to give him the bleached hair to begin with, but after everyone made fun of Warriors for not recognizing him in the first place, I felt like I had to make a significant change to his appearance. It actually helped to get him to play the role I needed him to play in Link’s post-war problems.

Let’s rewind. In my original outline, Icarius was never here in Kakariko. This entire chapter would have instead been Link deciding on his own terms to get over his hang-up over being involved with men and going out to flirt with one. This would have been a random soldier who had been discharged and was just passing through town on his way home from the war. Link would have subconsciously been attracted to him because he resembled the engineer.

For example, he would have made some comment about liking how strong his hands were.

This soldier was truly going to be a random guy. At most, he would have mentioned rooming with a friend on-leave named Arlo (who appeared earlier in story as a soldier in the trenches). The whole point was that Link felt like he could connect with another person as long as he didn’t give them a chance to look too deeply into him.

But after the House of Nephus characters were all introduced, I realized I needed to find some way to elaborate on them. Switching out the random soldier for Icarius was the easiest move.

Does it work? Kinda? It definitely helps the obsession plotline, but the original point got lost among all of the Icarius backstory.

So, Icarius backstory. I feel terrible for everyone who was looking forward to Link being swept away in a beautiful, touching romance. I tried to warn you.

Icarius and his relationship with Nephis is fascinating to me, and I really feel like I only have time to scratch the surface. Icarius is very smart, but believes that Nephus is one the “good ones.” But he can see that Nephus is starting to lose respect for him, so he plays these tricks to remind him that he’s still needed. He knows its foolish but his entire like has encompassed Nephus and he’s scared to know what it would look like without him. It works for a while, but not long enough. The reader knows that it stops working because that smart mouth of his that always picks fights gets taken away.

And that’s not even addressing the greater society Icarius lives in or the way Philo’s addition changes things for him even more.

All that’s to say that even if Icarius is not the perfect romantic lead people were hoping for, I intended to suggest in-story that if either him or Link were in different circumstances, there could be something there.

I actually really like the idea of Warriors’s love interest being an agent of an enemy state who is mean to him in the exact way he thinks is hot. Instead of inventing Hylian soldier or Sheikah warrior OC’s to be Warriors’s love interest, can there be more of this? It doesn’t even need to be Icarius. I just think falling-in-love with-the-enemy-but-the-enemy-is-a-shithead-about-it is an extremely funny dynamic.

There is also nothing funnier than Icarius thinking he’s met a nice, normal guy only to realize mid-act that he Messed Up

Also I hope this contexts helps fill-in the blanks for some of Icarius’s actions in the present day, which is no doubt a lot of “oh crap, it’s that guy I screwed that one time” and “how dare you forget about the one time we screwed!”

Post-Icarius Timeskip

I really needed to spend a few days at least on that last bit about Link’s realization. It’s so pivotal for his character, and I really just shoved it in at the end there. I’m going to have to add a lot of flowery prose to the beginning of next chapter to make up for it.

That being said, it’s important to me that there really isn’t a specific trigger for him realizing what he’s done. He just finally feels comfortable and safe enough for his brain to start processing everything he did.

It was very important to me that Link decided to stop dwelling in his past by putting a bowl into his cabinet, only for that bowl to break when he realizes what he’s done. Symbolism and stuff.

[Present Day]

Ganondorf’s Arrival & Townhouse

I’m really happy that so many of you were excited for Ganondorf’s arrival last chapter. That scene was so cheesy that I was worried it would dampen the excitement of actually getting to see him.

Originally, Ganondorf and Lincoln were going to have their argument in a bedroom, but I moved it to the foyer for convenience sake. But in my mind, I never moved Lincoln’s starting place from hiding in Ganondorf’s room, hence why he started the scene at the top of the stairs and not a more logical spot (in the hallway).

The reason it was going to be in the bedroom was because I thought Lincoln had snuck past Ganondorf’s guards and housestaff. But they all know about Lincoln, so it made more sense for Lincoln to subtly enter through the back entrance. It’s a whole thing.

I think my favorite part of the Chain already being at Ganondorf’s house is that there’s an implied subplot that happened off-screen where they plus Lincoln had to go hunting for where they thought Ganondorf was staying.

When Spirit pretends to not know who Ganondorf is, there was going to be a joke where the boys are trying to explain everything and he’s like “oh, so we’re all being racist here.” I ended up cutting it because, well, they were being racist.

Speaking of which, the whole thing with the maid calling Warriors “my lady” is that Warriors was going to try to gently correct her (because he thinks she’s stupid), only to find out that she was just being passive aggressive

Some may remember that one of the hardest cuts I made to CTB was a reporter OC. You can definitely tell that I am massively regretting that cut right now. Imagine how could it would have been for Warriors to pressure this antagonist journalist who’s been reporting all his fuck-ups into helping him fix everything. That sub plot would have been so good.

I was going to have a few of the other heroes confront Warriors as to why he credited Zelda, reaching a similar conclusion that his narration provided. Ended up cutting it for space.

A lot of the black blood stuff that I came up with for this chapter really doesn’t hit with LU, but at this point, I really don’t care.

There’s something about how Spirit viewing monsters and humans the same resulting in him very easily killing people while also being the only one who would realize that black blooded monsters could have always been cured, had anyone thought about it before. I just enjoy the way this man thinks.

Also, Spirit really enjoying spicy food is such a stupid character quirk, and I am almost ashamed of how much effort I went to develop it. Originally, I wanted Wild to get so fed up with Spirit being unimpressed with his cooking that he would demand Spirit to cook one night, only to discover that he actually can’t cook and just overcompensates with a shit-ton of hot sauce.

Ganondorf’s speech about how to win a war is partly the result of me spending months ruminating about how the Triforce could be used to end a war ethically, and partly an exploration of how Ganondorf thinks

I wanted to do one last scene of everyone leaving, where Wind would confront Time about being an asshole to Ganondorf. I cut it for space, then convinced myself that I would have time to add it back in, only to then cut it for time. My apologies to the Wind fans who have gotten nothing as of late.

Hospital & Family Dinner

I said before that I wasn’t initially going to rescue Toto until the end, which means that I had no plan for how Toto would feel until now. I realized that Toto was just... done. He wanted no part in Warriors’s life any longer. Unlike Kat, who got a lovely send off, I think this will be the last we see of Toto: an unfinished, unresolved mess of emotions.

When I was first describing Lincoln’s casual fit, I remember thinking to myself that I was just describing a semi-retired aged rockstar. The image has not left my brain, and if I was willing to throw a few more anachronisms into the story, I would have 100% described Lincoln like that.

Fun fact: Orlanda’s family was going to come back in the form of her sibling being a prominent member of the rebellion. I didn’t do it because it was getting ridiculous how many relevant people were related to each other.

When I was first coming up with Linkle’s character, I had the idea that she had that shallow form of feminism where it’s a big win for women everywhere when, say, generic action heroine wears pants. So I had it in my mind that Linkle hates dresses on principle. So during the fever dream sequence, when Warriors dreamt that Linkle was fawning over a dress, it was to show that he didn’t really know her that well.

But I never really established this idea that well and no one knew this about Linkle, so into a dress she goes.

I told myself that I was going to scour the entire story to double check if I had ever described Lincoln laughing anywhere, but never got around to it. But the nice thing about unreliable narrators is that if I get something wrong, I can just blame Warriors (that is not really how unreliable narrators work)

I have a friend who “tee-hees” while she laughs, and it’s the cutest thing ever. I just think it would be fun if Lincoln also has an adorable little kitten laugh.

I had to look up how they build roads on dunes for this chapter.

I did write the full Lincoln and Ganondorf backstory in a post way back when, if anyone wants to review it. It would be nice to get to get all the small details into the main story, but it’s really not pertinent to any of the main action

I definitely talked about Niko before, but I can’t find the posts. To refresh: Niko is Spirit’s uncle, in that he’s a member of the Macaryll family but no one can remember who he’s actually related to. Spirit’s parents are dead, and he lived with a different uncle and aunt until his apprenticeship. Then he moved in with Niko since he lived near Alfonzo.

Warriors hating chocolate is a character quirk that’s not necessary to the story, but I just think is too funny to not go out of my way to include

The idea of Linkle and Lincoln dancing came from a completely different scene idea. I played around with doing a similar set-up while the Chain is on the road to the Zora’s Domain. The scene would start with Sky showing Lana how to do a Skyloftian dance, which would lead to everyone else showing off their moves. When Warriors admits that he doesn’t think he could dance anymore, Spirit would teach him a New Hyrulean dance that required only one hand.

That led to an idea of Warriors dancing with Linkle and Lincoln, then just Linkle and Lincoln dancing themselves.

The night was going to end with Warriors forgetting his scarf and, when he went back to get it, he would overhear Lincoln venting to Ganondorf about how the whole stepping up as the parent thing is going. This got cut because it’s more fascinating when you’re forced to infer that a character is thinking.

The Walk Back & Out Dancing

This scene of Warriors and Spirit walking back together and opening up is my real pride and joy this chapter, which unfortunately got massively overshadowed by everything else.

So I will now take time to gush.

Spirit’s photography... so I wanted to give this man a hobby because the man cannot just like trains. I know everyone headcanons it as his hyperfixation, but it’s also his job. He needs a richer life than just that one thing. Granted, I took the route of making him start as a trainspotter like the Spirit Tracks NPC Ferrus.

I just feel like I am so correct about Spirit liking photography. I want this to be my cultural impact. I know I said that already about Icarius, but I mean this more. Go forth and give that man a camera.

The official document Spirit was carrying around was his engineering license.

Also, I was 100% ready for everyone to flood me with questions about Spirit’s ex-boyfriend. After the ickywars ordeal, I figured that there was a significant chance y’all wouldn’t be normal about him. I was prepared. And you know what? I’ve heard zilch. So, let me info dump about this man now.

Spirit’s ex-boyfriend is named Jean. He is on the cusp of 30 (compared to Spirit’s 23/24). He’s a mechanic, which is a few steps below Royal Engineer. He lost his leg in a work accident when a piece of machinery fell on him. They met through work. Spirit goes through phases of being a serial dater before swearing off dating for a few months, but Jean is the first person to make it past an awkward first date and hit relationship status. Spirit thought that because he was older, he would be more understanding.

And Jean tried. He really did. But Spirit is massive defensive and always on the offensive, so every slight disagreement turned into an explosive argument. Jean decided that he could not deal with someone who could not have a rational conversation with him, so he dumped him after 6 months. This was fairly recent, about three months before Spirit returned to Warriors’s era.

Spirit was going to name drop Jean in his speech later, but I couldn’t figure out a way to make it clear who Jean was without it sounding awkward.

I really like Spirit and Warriors’s conversation about Icarius, if only because it shows where their communication fails. When Warriors insists that you have a duty to disobey bad orders, he is criticizing himself for falling into the military mindset. This sounds like a criticism to Spirit, who insists that people will do anything under orders because that is what he did.

After Warriors has spent nearly every chapter since his amputation bemoaning his disability, I really wanted there to be a moment where he realizes that just because his ability level is different, he doesn’t have to give up doing everything he loves. That’s just an important lesson for him to learn, even if it is a little inspiration-porn-y.

The Hot Mess

You might realize that there is a massive elephant in the room I am not going to discuss here. That is because this post is going into the main tag. No one has complained to me yet, but let’s not tempt anyone right now. Just like the Neck Thing, I’ll make a separate post later for anyone who wants it. Just remind me in a few days.

With that being said--

Them sharing a cigarette was another scene that was originally conceived as taking place during the trip to the Zora’s Domain. Spirit’s anecdote about failing to make friends would have served as an early hint about his loneliness and inability to make friends.

I also have never smoked a cigarette before, so I had to sit there on wikiHow reading up on how to smoke one without coughing.

The half in Spirit’s four and a half attempts at quitting is this time he decided to quit, only to relapse after three hours. It was too short to count as a full attempt.

Spirit’s speech hopefully reveals what exactly is Spirit’s problem, both how he sees it and how it really is. Unlike Warriors, he never found support and healing once the war ending. No one understood his experiences, and his coping mechanism of lashing out ward away anyone who could help him. Spirit just wants to feel better, but he doesn’t know how.

Like... his whole thing about starting his own garage-- he’s a child prodigy who is used to be good at the things he does. He ended up tarnishing his own reputation, so he threw himself back into work because working on trains and fulfilling his dream is supposed to make him happy. He’s successful, but he’s not satisfied.

I was also expecting people to have a ton of questions about why Alfonzo disowned Spirit. In short, Spirit was already on a thin line with his lashing out and shitty attitude. Alfonzo was willing to let that slide until he realized Spirit was breaking work regulations to go on more runs without taking the legally required amount of time to rest inbetween. Spirit was a legal liability. He fired Spirit, but made it very clear that he was doing him a favor by not reporting him and getting his Royal Engineering license suspended.

No one else in New Hyrule knows the real reason why Spirit was fired, so they all assumed it was his personality. So he has a bit of a reputation now for being hard to work with.

Another thing that was not 100% conveyed in Spirit’s speech was that even if he didn’t hurt Zelda, he could not be with her because he does not want to be Prince Consort. His experiences in Warriors’s Hyrule thoroughly scared him off from politics, though he would have refused anyway since he would never give up being an engineer.

Fundamentally, Spirit is an extremely lonely person who has felt abandoned by everyone in his life. He knows that his life is the way it is now because of his experiences with Warriors. His guiding principle is trying to find some way to fix himself so that he can get the life he was supposed to have, one where he is happy and loved.

I just... god, I love this character.

And then there’s Warriors, who feels like he not capable of change and that any opportunity he has to change has been denied to him. Fixing Spirit and Time’s relationship was supposed to be a part of his redemption. Making Spirit happy was supposed to mean he’s forgiven. He has no friends, not in the Chain or in Toto. No one needs him.

Warriors also just means so much to me. I adore this disaster of a human being.

Warriors’s Plan Out

Does Warriors’s plan make sense? I am assuming it does since no one expressed confusion, but nearly every comment thus far has exclusively been about the Hot Mess (understandable).

There was a reason I was peeved I had to cut every chance in earlier in the story to go back to Castle Town, and it’s because I’ve known that it was going to be an extremely important location.

Warriors choosing to forgo a glorious revolution in favor of maintaining (if not manipulating) the status quo is not a great philosophy for our protagonist to be spouting in 2024. In my defense: a) I came up with this story in 2021, which was a different real world landscape, and b) Warriors would never become this ideal hero.

It feels more true for Warriors to not really become the idealized hero. His best is not that great. But if he can’t help being the worst, he could at least use his methods for good.

I have mentioned before that I have low empathy. Lincoln’s speech about people naturally being better or worst at being good is a product of a lot of my musing about how I sometimes feel frustrated and resentful at how hard I find it to follow the social cues that would make me a “better person.” Wouldn’t I be a better person if I had an easier time recognize when someone is in trouble and needs my help. Instead, I have to depend on myself to remember the cues, and I am so prone to mistakes.

I want to be a kind person. I want to be the best person anyone has ever met, but it’s an uphill battle. I feel like I am always working against myself. But it’s still important that I make the choice every day to be kind to others.

Besides, I have been told that I am more kind and helpful than other people, if only because I don’t rely on my feelings when deciding to reach out to others. So it has its perks.

I’m not saying Warriors has low empathy. I have expressly written him as someone with empathy. But my philosophy that kindness and caring for others is an active choice just felt like it belongs here.

There is story-canon low empathy character that I wanted to reveal in story to help Warriors beat the accusations and get people to not armchair diagnose him. I am still holding out hope I will have time and space to explore this in story, but if I don’t--

Four is written to have low empathy. It’s a consequence of the Four Sword splitting up his emotions, making it extremely difficult to tap into more than one emotion at a time, much less his empathy towards others. He can feel how this change in himself and has some thoughts on the whole thing.

Is that the end of the chapter. Fuck yeah. I’ve been working on this since Monday, If you read all this... congrats! I hope it was worth it.

Also, I forgot to mention that this is the end of Act 5. My act system is a scam and not that important, but I figured I should let you all know.

#your bonus fact is that i misspelled ganondorf's name about twenty different ways while writing this chapter #the swiftness and volume of demands for a commentary was very funny #y'all really wanted me to explain myself #bonus bonus fun fact is that it took all my will power to not formally name the chapter the Hot Mess #but like the neck thing we will just have this informal title for the scene in question lol #me rambling #lu ctb #ask #linked universe #anonymous #ctb spoilers #ctb commentary #ctb lore #fallenleafofmaple #meanlesbean #shoot-i-messed-up #savimatteo2810

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dailyadventureprompts · 2 years

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I just discovered your blog and I love it a lot! You have such a rich understanding of dnd and a lot of creativity! I was wondering if you could do a monsters reimagined on illithids/mindflayers? They are so iconic and I love them, I think a good idea for them is to keep the weird hivemind and brain eating and psionics, but ditch the tadpole concept. I would also just like to know how they came to be as they are right now, like. How did we get here?? Thanks!!

Monsters Reimagined: Mindflayers

The illithid have been a popular ask for reimaginings but It's taken me a while to get around to them in part because unlike a lot of the other features on monsters reimagined, their lore/execution within the game doesn't rest on a specific problematic trope or inconsistent storytelling. Mindflayers as they stand IMO are one of d&d's great villains, and if anything suffer from being too successful to the point of overexposure.

It took the asker remarking on how much they liked mindflayers for me to give them the onceover they really deserved. Yes, they worked great as antagonists ( being irredeemable slavers who violate the minds and bodies of those they subjugate, working inevitably towards the most awful ends), but their villany was born out of the same shallow bioessentialism as “always evil” orcs,IE inherent to their character. I’m a firm believer in the idea that if something is capable of making decisions, it’s capable of deciding not to be a bastard, so If I was going to overhaul the illithid, I’d need to get to the roots of why the squid headed bastards were the way they were.

TLDR: What we know today as the mindflayers are in fact the remnants of a long dead world, with many of their most monstrous qualities being bioengineered attempts to stave off the inevitable and hold onto their power. The “Elder brains” which rule the illithid are tyrants, the ultimate class parasites, who indoctrinate and mentally dominate the other mindflayers into acting as tools of domination over the peoples they consider chattel. Is possible for an individual illithid to break free of this system, but doing so is difficult, as it requires them to not only break out of any magical compulsion, but to abandon the paradigms that have defined their existence.

Spoiler alert: we’re going to be talking about white supremacy in this one

I think someone described it pretty succinctly that alien invasion stories are something that industrial nations invented when they started imagining what would happen if a more advanced people came along and started doing to them what they’d be doing to everyone else in the world. Mindflayers (and a few other aberrations) fill that niche in oldschool d&d, with the low levels made up of the feudal heroes largely picking on “uninteligent” tribal brutes, only to hit level 7 or so where all of a sudden they’re fighting creatures who’s intelligence exceeds their own.

The weird thing is how in the alien invasion stories, the aliens always want to enslave humanity.. Despite imagining the technology required to cross the vastness of space, the authors were unable to conceive of a world outside of the hierarchies of exploitation, even in the case of benign colonization like “day the earth stood still” and “childhood’s end”.

I’ve talked before about how d&d has a lot of baked-in tropes that assumes colonialism and racial supremicy as a default, but today we’re going to look at things form the other angle. Namely: can we use the mindflayers to talk about systems of oppression and how they manipulate us into being complacent tools with colonialism and genocide.

First though, a detour on illithid biology/feeding, and how I’ve tried to make it make sense:

In addition to a mostly vestigal digestive system, mindflayers possess adaptations that allow them to turn psychic energy into health and wellbeing, with their feeding being something like running a magnet over a computer screen except that the screen is a brain. This can be done delicately so as to case no long term damage, but sometimes it’s faster to just shuck the brain out and be done with it.

On their homeworld, the illithid cultivated a form of “thinking fungus” that draws in stray thought energy from the astral sea, the stray equivalent of radio static. This fungus grows around many mindflayer settlements and is one of the dead giveaways that they’ve moved into the region.

The goal of every illithid is to prove themselves so at the end of their life (or sooner) they can join with the elderbrain, a grotesque amalgamation of all the most bastardly awful mindflayer’s brains that lives in a big tank in the center of their settlements ( or pilots their spelljammer ships) and mentally influences everything in a 5 mile radius. The elder brain creates a reinforcing social pressure: if you’re not doing everything you can to serve it, you’ll be culled, and if you don’t do your absolute best ( or if the elderbrain is just feeling cruel) your whole life will be for nothing. These brains are not a natural part of the illithid lifecycle, and are instead more equivalent to liches: influential mindflayers that learned that they could force others of their kind to tribute psionic energy through thier bonds, extending their life long beyond where their bodies can keep up. By ensuring that only those most useful join the gesthalt, the original ego ensures that no other personality is capable of overtaking their own.

Every so often in their life, mindflayers reproduce by regurgitating a load of parasitic tadpoles into the elderbrain pool where the weak ones get to be its snacks, and the strong ones get implanted into the skulls of promising candidates who’s brains are eaten as they’re transformed into new midnflayers. All of this is super squick, but what’s almost nonsensical is the fact that left to their own devices the tadpoles grow up into colossal, borderline feral worm monsters, meaning that in their natural state no one would be around to put the tadpoles in anyone’s heads. I rationalize this as the result of extensive biomancy augmentations that occured in the illithid’s development, a “cure” for the sterility imposed by their dying world and a handy means of population control/indoctrination for the elder brain, who’s able to etch the basics of its own personality onto each tadpole as it prepares to take a host.

And here we’ll bring the two ideas together, about how illithid can help represent white supremacy: Like all imperialist or autocratic systems, the society of the mindflayers is self reinforcing, creating a population of desperate individuals and using their desperation to turn them into a tool to benefit those at the system’s top. Every illithid is not only born with the elderbrain’s world view as the foundation of its mind, the society in which it is raised is set up so that the only metric of growth or success is being useful to the elder brain, with any deviancy from expectation ( incluging over ambition) are dealt with harshly to the point of execution.

An indivual illithid could break free, but that would require a depth of personal examination is frowned upon in mindflayer circles, as well as the acceptance that there is a way to live outside the elderbrain’s guidance without going hungry and devouring their own sapience like the pale and wretched creatures that outsiders call “illithid vampires”

Much like racism,misogyny, imperialism, capitalism and fascism, the society of mindflayers creates a desperate population that are convinced that the only way to be is to be in a particular way that ends up benefiting those at the very top. Breaking free takes a tremendous amount of bravery, and a willingness to alienate yourself from all you thought familiar and true in the process.

Art

#Illithid #villian #monsters reimagined #spelljammer #Slavers #heavy topics #scifi #dnd #dungeons and dragons #d&d #5e #dm advice #dm tip #dm tips #dm tools #writing advice #psionics

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alpaca-clouds · 3 months

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How to get DnD to make money

As you might have noticed through the ramblings on how Hasbro is not really making money from DnD, how the DnD Lore is not accessible, and also lacks modern stories, I am thinking a lot on how Hasbro is mismanaging the franchise. And make no mistake: No, DnD is right now not really making money. In the earning reports for Hasbro DnD is listed under "other franchises", because it makes so little money, that it does not even earn its own little listing with a detailed breakdown. In fact, I would not be surprised if in 2023 Hasbro made more DnD-related money through the bit they got from the license on BG3, than they got from everything else.

So, yeah. No. DnD isn't really making money. Which is ironic. Because it is by far the most recognisable TTRPG franchise, the TTRPG with the most players, and close to something like mainstream in recent years. At least among younger folks: When I ask them on the street, a lot of them will at least be able to name me some playable races and classes. Even if they never have played before. Just because it is just everywhere in pop culture.

And the thing is: I have a master's degree in economics. I do know a bit about economics and about marketing and to be honest... I have no fucking clue what Hasbro and WotC are doing there.

I get, that they are planning on getting most money through DnD Beyond, which I do not think is that bad of an idea, given that yes, digital media usually makes more money than physical media. (Due to you not having to pay for printing and what not.) But DnD has one giant problem: It is a great platform. I love the character creation thing in there. But... also for everything else Roll20 is better. Because everything that DnD Beyond offers for money, Roll20 offers for free.

So, let me get out my economics hat and go a bit about what WotC could do to make DnD Beyond more viable - and to just make a bit more money with the franchise.

Please keep in mind: I am doing this from my economics point of view. There are going to be some things in there, that I would personally hate (like Rainbow Capitalism). But economically speaking... I think that they could make more money for WotC. And that without the kind of totally shady business practices they are using right now.

Why am I writing this on tumblr? Well, because I do not know where else to share those thougths.

The Issues with DnD Beyond

Alright. I think there are three major problems with DnD Beyond right now:

It puts certain things behind paywalls that Roll20 offers me for free.

It has no fucking information on the world and reasons to engage with it.

All things considered, the amount of stuff you can actually buy is very little - and most of it is fairly expensive.

First things first: I actually think that the subscripe prices are absolutely fair. It is not really that expensive and having played in campaigns with a DM who had the subscription, I would absolutely say: Those $3-6 are kinda fair, because what there is, is actually nice and nice looking.

However... Roll 20 offers most of the same functions (like the ability to use maps and stuff) for free. And there is just nothing WotC can do about this. Hence... They kinda need to up their game. Yeah, sure, their platform looks and plays better, but... a lot of people won't care.

Bonus is that all this information on items, monsters and what not that Roll 20 has for free, DnD Beyond wants your money for. And that is just... Look, I don't get why. That information is just out there. I am not going to pay for it.

On the lack of lore I already wrote a whole own essay, so I will spare you here.

And then there is the fact that... Actually even for the content you can pay for, there is a suprisingly small amount of stuff with little variety. Which is not good if you want to get it to make money.

So, let me go over DnD Beyond - and how you can make money with it.

DnD Beyond - The Content that should be Free

Let me start with the stuff that whoever makes the decisions at WotC/Hasbro will not like to hear: The stuff that should mostly be free.

Here I will say it once again: DnD Beyond needs a free wiki!

Gives players some basic information on the world. That is information on:

The physical world (that is landscapes, cities, different realms/planes)

How the magic world

A timeline with the major events

Important characters in the world

The gods and their worship

And what you would want to do is then on each of the pages put a "If you are interested in this, you might wanna buy X" and sell them adventures, one shots, shortstories and the like (more on this a bit further down). Get people hooked on events, cities, locations, NPCs and then offer them stuff on that. For the love of god, do not just expect players to do their own legwork to decide on what module they might wanna buy.

Additionally to this, I would take a page out of how the German publisher for Shadowrun does their marketing there: Have a monthly in-universe "newsletter" styled as a part of an in-universe newspaper to just introduce some in-universe events, which at times could also be used as a jumping off point for one shots and the like. (Look folks, there is a reason why the German publisher for Shadowrun is beloved even in the English fandom. How much they give on worldbuilding is part of it.)

And as much as whatever directors responsible will hate this: Yeah, fuck, make all the species and classes accessible for everyone. (With one caviat - but I will go into that later as well.) Because what you want is players to use DnD Beyond over Roll20.

This also means: Items and monster stats should be accessible over DnD Beyond without buying three different books. Because they are accessible on Roll20 and even outside of that... Look, it is not that hard to find. And given that it is fairly clear that they want DnD Beyond to be the main source of income in terms of DnD, they need to get people hooked on DnD Beyond over Roll20.

The Stuff that should come with Subscriptions

Alright, so let's talk about what I would put into the subscription model. I will not go what I would put under each tear. Because honestly, I have no clue.

For once, yes, I have complicated feelings on the map tool. Because the DnD Beyond tool is a lot better than the tool that Roll20 offers and as they are still working on it, I have no doubt that it will get even better in the future. So, yeah, it is... complicated. I get why it is behind the subscription, I do. But I am not entirely certain whether it is the right decision - for a reason I will get to shortly.

So, what I would put behind the Subscription - even though I would also offer everything of this in a short for one-time payment. Monthly content. (And yes, I am using the content word here, forgive me Patrick H. Williams.) That could be:

Little One-Shot adventures

Short stories and short comics

Maps

Like, technically they already have those "monthly perks", but... You know, right now it is mostly pretty pictures and other aesthetic. Give the people just a bit more stuff that would actually get them to play a more and interact with the world more.

Bonus points is, that in short stories, one shots and concepts you can easily test out ideas. (Like, heck, make a lot of more different genres within the setting. You can tell a crime mystery, a slice of life story, all sorts of stuff.)

Right now they are publishing some free one shots from time to time. Just do a bit more with that. It is a roleplaying game. Give people more reasons to interact with the world.

Because again, here is the thing: The world is the stuff you can actually sell. The simple game mechanics are not. For once game mechanics cannot be licensed, but also... Again, I know were to find it all for free!

In this I would also put something that is a bit more controversial: Use this to digitally distribute some of the older stuff from older editions. I know that Hasbro is like 100% against it. But here is the thing: They keep saying: "Oh yeah, not all of that is canon anymore." But they also do not bother to give us an idea what is canon and what not. So, great moment to clear this up, don't you think?

And given that I doubt that 20 years old books are the big sellers, they could just easily give away the e-books in the subscription as a little bonus.

How to actually fill up the Marketplace - Original Stuff

Alright, let's face another thing: All the lore books and adventures together in the DnD Beyond Marketplace together add up to a total worth of about $1200. Which, sure, if you are a fan wanting to buy it all, is a lot. But from a company perspective actually is not that much. Because here is the thing: Actually the production of those books is fairly expensive. Even if you only market them digitally.

Like, I do think that they would do better and go with the prices that Catalyst does with Shadowrun of $20-25, rather than the $29, but knowing how much financial overhead is there for those books, I can understand where the price comes from. Again, I am talking from an economic decision.

So, I say... Fill it up.

For example: Right now there is one set of maps sold in the market place. Which is a 20 maps strong collection. But it is literally the only maps-thing sold in that section of the market place. And maps are the one thing that literally every group will use in some place.

Which brings me back to why I think the use of the Map Tool should be free: Because then you can actually sell more maps. Sell single maps. Sell small collections of maps. Go with a low price of $1-2 per map, maybe $4-5 for the bigger or fancier maps. $10 for a collection of five maps.

Bonus: You can use those maps to also throw in fun little lore things.

And just... you know. Make a map for a temple each of each of the gods. Make some premade dungeon maps. Maps of certain canonical locations. City maps. You name it. Compared to other sorts of illustrations, maps can actually be fairly cheap.

Additionally: Just throw in little dungeon crawls as one shots. Depending on the amount of content in there, put in $3-8 per one dungeon crawl. Theme it nicely.

I love DMing DnD. I do. But I am frank with you: I hate designing dungeons. So, if I could buy a premade dungeon for $4, I would go: "Shut up and take my money!" Heck, I would probably also use it as a writing ressource and all of that.

In generally you can also sell some one shots here. Like, a one shot or two shot is actually not that expensive to produce. Which is why so many are given away for free. Sell them for again $3-8 depending on how much content there is.

Which brings me to short stories and comics.

I know what some might say: "But didn't that already kinda fail with League of Legends, like you spoke about last week?" Which, yeah. It did. But... I am also going to assume that in general the playerbase of DnD is way more interested in the lore, than the LoL crowd is interested in their respective lore. Because one game is all about storytelling, while the other is all about the gameplay.

And again: Short stories and one shot comics could be a good way to get people hooked onto the lore, which again might get them to invest into stuff like the adventures set in the world. And you can use them to try out ideas for what ends up to be fairly little in comparison to bigger stuff. Also, you can get more diverse writers and artist to do stuff for you, which looks good and might actually interest the wide diverse audience of your game.

How to actually fill up the Marketplace - Licensed stuff

Okay, let me talk about the no-brainer where by the love of all the gods I cannot figure out why the fuck WotC is not doing this. It is boggling my mind. I do not understand.

You remember the fucking drama with the OGL last year and how it bit them in the fucking ass? Yeah. Here is the thing, they did it the entire wrong way around. And honestly, I am not even sure whether now they can pull the intelligent version of this off, even though it is so fucking obvious. I mean, again. I do not understand. It is so stupid. If you know anything about the fucking internet.

Allow big content creators to sell supplementary material over your webshop and then take a cut from that. They do some of that with Critical Role, where they do sell some adventures from that franchise in their webshop. And from one other group too, I think.

But like... There are so many Actual Play groups and even other content creators (the entire Fool's Gold Campaign comes to mind with their millions of views on Youtube), that even have like their own self-produced lore books, adventures, one shots and other content.

And then there are of course just people who create additional rules, that currently can partly be shared over the homebrew system on DnD Beyond - but not be monetized, which sucks for the creators and for DnD Beyond.

I... I just do not get it. Rather than going: "Oh, you used DnD for this, now we change the OGL, so you'll have to give us money!", which went over as well as expected, they could have gone: "Hey, content creators. Great opportunity! You created additional moduls/adventures for DnD? Now you can officially sell it in our webshop at the page we want everyone to use! Of course we are gonna use a small cut for the hosting, marketing and moderation. But in return, you have access to a much wider audience!"

Like, it is so simple it is plain stupid that they didn't do that. I cannot fathom why they have never done this. I just cannot. I am sorry.

It would allow them to get a cut of the stuff they kinda want a cut from - while doing it in a way that is a lot more pro-community building.

And that is without mentioning that the entire OGL disaster has now several big Actual Play groups go and play with different systems. I heard that people are blaming Matt Mercer for it and like... No, this is entirely WotC's fault.

Speaking of Actual Plays

Okay, this leads me to the thingie where I also do not understand why they do not do it. Because they could license the living hell out of this. Do a fucking official Actual Play. Not on DnD Beyond, of course. Just... Somewhere. I do not really care where. Youtube, I guess.

While they host some one shots on their official twitch, so far they did not a big campaign thing officially as far as I am aware. And the concept is fairly simple: Follow the Critical Role formular. Get some voice actors on there. Bonus if you get a more diverse group than they have on Critical Role, that I also call "Critical Whiteness". (Note please: I do not actually like Critical Role for that reason among others. It is way too white for my taste. However, I cannot argue with success.)

And most importantly: Set that campaign in the official world, and do create and understanding with the DM that there is actually some meta-story progression with the lore. Again: The world is what they can license, so LICENSE THE FUCK OUT OF THAT!!!

With that you would also have some more characters that can work as access points into the world and the lore. You also can sell those campaigns, you can sell short stories and books, you can sell merchandise for this. Because as soon as that is the official group, yeah... You are the producers, you can get to make the money of it.

This is also something that falls under: "Why the hell are they not doing this?"

I mean, again, I am not the biggest fan of Critical Role, but technically WotC could also go: "Hey, do you wanna cooperate on the next campaign?" And jump off from that.

Or have the voice actors from BG3 cameo as their characters from that game. Folks would EAT THAT UP.

Some other assorted things

One, or two more things that I actually think they could do a bit more with... well, events and community stuff. And by using social media better, because... Look, the way WotC is kinda marketing the stuff is so 2000s in many regards. Like, use new media. Heck, use fucking TikTok. Which also might I note: They so desperately want to reach Gen Alpha. And I am honest with you, I have no fucking idea how to reach Gen Alpha. I don't. But a gut feelings tells me that TikTok might be a start.

See, I am following other franchises as well, and one thing that some do well is just got throw out some event related stuff. Make some pride month stuff. Sure, I hate Rainbow Capitalism, but sadly it works. And again, I am writing this under the idea of: "How to turn DnD Profitable."

Bring out some stuff to some other events. Like a Christmas thingie or something along those lines. Again, be it short stories, be it one shots, be it an Actual Play one shot on the Actual Play podcast THEY DESPERATELY SHOULD DO.

Also... They cannot learn the wrong lessons from BG3. Just because this one game they licensed out was lightning in a bottle, they cannot go and be: "Let's just rely on CRPGs to make us money." Because that can backfire really quickly.

#dungeons & dragons #dnd #d&d #dnd beyond #wizards of the coast #hasbro #critical role #legend of vox machina #baldur's gate 3 #baldurs gate 3 #bg3 #economy #dnd:hat #honor among thieves #how to make money #actual play #ttrpg

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emblazons · 1 year

Note

what are your favorite byler headcanons?

—I never get asked this question, so thanks for being the first lmao. (I did write my “S5 hopes” before, but these are different I think?) Anyway. Hmmm.

While they both love Tolkien, Mike likes the Lord of the Rings trilogy books more, but Will enjoys the Hobbit best. Mike loves the depth of the lore and complexity of how Tolkien describes things in the original trilogy because they help him when he’s coming up with campaigns, but Will enjoys the straightforward (and a little sweeter) narrative of The Hobbit more—and also has a preference for it because the version he had as a kid was more image-heavy, and he’s an artist. :)

Speaking of Tolkien—Mike absolutely has a one-ring he keeps around his neck like Frodo. (It may even be what he chooses as an engagement ring way, way down the line, but Will is so outdone he decides to just buy it to wear it around his neck instead lol).

When it comes to getting work done, Mike is a think-out-loud type—as in, will talk to himself out loud and not even realize he’s doing it when alone, or with someone he’s comfortable getting into his head around. Will doesn’t say anything about it, because he thinks it’s hilarious—but Mike eventually learns about his own tendency when Will knows about a surprise he had planned before he can even do it…because he was thinking out loud. (He gets up in arms about how Will should have told him, but the more time passes, the funnier the tendency becomes to them).

Mike was hype as hell for the release of Jurassic Park in 1993. Will was also hype, but. Not nearly as excited about it as Mike was. When the Peter Jackson’s LOTR adaptation was announced, they were both over the moon (though Will was a bit scared. He is very picky about his movies, and adaptations even more so).

The two of them would settle in San Francisco, and would definitely be the ones who run a “teach DnD / campaign night” in conjunction with a comic book store in their neighborhood, in an attempt to keep the younger generations’ love for it alive—the same way as the bookstore owner who introduced them to the book. this is maybe based on an actual comicbook store with a dnd night in the SF Castro that I found a few years ago. The world may never know. They are thrilled in 2016 when a new Netflix show (😉) and Critical Role revives people’s love for it when they’re much, much older.

The first time the topic of “going to pride” comes up in the mid-90’s (long before it was the socially accepted event it is today), Will is mildly terrified—and so is Mike, but his “brave paladin” side absolutely talks himself up enough to get Will to join him solely out of a need to prove he can. They end up having a great time, and Mike, who has never really delved into queer history, ends up on a whole tangent of learning about it for an entire month afterward. Will finds it v endearing.

Mike sucks at poker because he cannot keep a single thing off his face. He is, however, really good at playing “the house” in card games, so that’s the role he takes on (comes from years of leading campaigns. He’s a bit of a showman that way).

Will cannot stand cold even after he’s disconnected from Vecna/the UD, and misses California—which is why they move back. When “global warming” talk starts becoming more common, his favorite dad joke to make is “if I think it’s getting hot, it must be,” but no one but the party & family know why it’s funny.

Earlier into their relationship, Will becomes a bit troubled by the fact that Mike is the only person he ever dated. It causes tension in their relationship for a little while, though Will eventually realizes he doesn't want to be with anyone else, so it doesn't matter. (Much later, Mike admits that he thought Will’s concerns were unfounded, considering the only person he ever dated outside of Will happened when he was 13 & probably shouldn’t have even been his girlfriend in the first place, given the fact that she was 3 seconds out of a lab…& he doesn’t even like women anyway).

Mike knows Will is healing more from “the events of the show” when Will starts making dark-humor jokes about being possessed and/or being lost in the upside down—though it takes him a lot to get used to it, given how scared he spent years being about losing Will. Eventually he gets on board and laughs—which Will appreciates, because it helps him to see Mike get less uncomfortable and feel safer about keeping Will safe after all that happened.

There are ten I could think of off top?? LMAO someone ask @magentamee what my other headcanons are I’m sure she’s heard them all by now 😂

Thanks so much for this ask!

#this was fun! thank you! genuinely haha #like. I do in fact have headcanons as an ‘analyst’ type? sometimes I forget haha #demonerds #byler #mike wheeler core #will byers core #the me tag #asks #st headcanons

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ipsen · 9 months

Text

tokyo ghoul dnd club: the first few days (aka, chapter 1 as a campaign)

brainrot in the discord server has evolved into a tumblr post. working with 5e dnd since that's the ruleset i know (sorry 3.5e)

Context

kaneki and hide are first years (the former likes the storytelling aspect, the latter is a supportive friend)

eto is a senior and the dm

rize also shows up for an interest in the "you can be whatever you want!" part. kaneki gets the Instant Crush

Character Creation

they have pre-gen'd characters to try out the game, and eto sets up a oneshot similar to the tg pilot for them to play. it becomes apparent rize antagonizes both eto and the other players. kaneki doesn't see it, but eto and hide start Scheming to kick her out

the game is fun, though! they start making proper characters at level 1. eto expands on the world of the oneshot, creating the baseline for the TG universe.

kaneki mentions wanting to emulate a gregor samsa-type character and eto works with him on it. eto offers the artificial half-ghoul angle and kaneki gets SO excited about it

hide doesn't want to be too involved in the campaign bc he wants to try out other clubs, so he works with eto to keep his character in situations where he'd be ready to jump in at any point. she gives him additional ccg lore to work with.

rize does not consult with eto after the "man-eating monsters" part of the lore hits her brain. makes her own character.

hide stole a peek at her character sheet and told eto. they set up a trap to kill rize's character

Campaign

hide brings pizza, which becomes a longstanding tradition at the club

after helping kaneki get more into character, hide leaves to try out whichever club had his interest that day, leaving kaneki with eto and rize

the date stuff plays out as normal, with rize being eerily cooperative.

rize: i lead kaneki to a dark alleyway, and i ATTACK HIM kaneki: w-what eto: like, with a knife? rize: no, with my KAGUNE! *reveals her level 3 ghoul character sheet in this level 1 campaign (she got bored reading the features beyond level 4 so she didn't go further)* eto, grinning: oh yeah ok roll attack kaneki: WHAT

fortunately, kaneki built a high intelligence/dexterity character, so rize misses the first attack. eto points out various ways for him to run to goad him into fleeing and he doesnt ask questions. rize's confused given how the disengage action works, but she likes the cat and mouse aspect of this part.

kaneki gets really uncomfortable and steals a glance at eto when rize's having too much fun describing how she's going to tear his character apart. eto just winks at him

eto: rize. rize: what eto: roll a dexterity saving throw with disadvantage rize: why eto: do it

rize fails, and is crushed by steel beams. eto gives a very vivid description of how the beams tear through her ghoul body, which is stuck in a cycle of regenerating and breaking apart anew under the weight. it's an agonizing experience (kaneki listens with bated breath. eto could be a writer, he thinks)

rize: what about kaneki?! he's right next to me, and if he fails he gets instantly killed.

kaneki, in a rare display of luck, succeeds. (eto inwardly sighs with relief). rize rage quits and doesn't come back.

the session ends smoothly with kaneki as an artificial half-ghoul like he wanted. he also loses his Instant Crush on rize after that

hide later gives eto a high five for a job well done

---

would love others' thoughts on this. your blorbo at the table or even as a dm (eto prefers the dm seat, but the player perspective is something she can't deny is valuable)

share share share!

#what can i say i just really like eto being a nice girl #tg high school au #tg dnd club #eto yoshimura #ken kaneki #rize kamishiro #hideyoshi nagachika

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riddlerosehearts · 2 months

Note

Okay now EYE must ask you - how are you liking BG3??? How far are you?? Tell me about your Tav!!!! (Please and thank you <3)

hi!! 💖 i only started the game a few days ago and it was an impulse decision i made after having previously told a friend of mine that i definitely wanted to play it but that it'd probably take me a while to get around to it (and, because i thought i wouldn't play anytime soon i hadn't really been trying to avoid spoilers). but, i have the PC version and while it generally runs just fine, my computer is kind of slow and the game is so big that it took hours to download and install. so i kind of went ahead and started to come up with a whole character idea during that time LOL. sorry if my explanations of things get a bit too rambly/disorganized. i'm actually not very far in the game at all yet, i've been spending a ton of time doing stuff in the druids grove and i'm supposed to go find halsin but i haven't even gotten karlach in my party yet! i've recruited all the main companions except for her but i am excited to meet her. gonna put the rest of this under a cut for length.

my only background with DND is that i listened to the first campaign of the adventure zone and i've watched the legends of vox machina show. i also have a friend who's super into her own DND campaign and another friend who's told me a lot about dimension 20, specifically fantasy high--and i've considered trying it out for her but haven't gotten around to it yet! i think she actually told me the same thing about the episode lengths making it easier to get into than critical role, because i had tried critical role and it was just so long that i couldn't stick with it. but, yeah, i've also looked at the forgotten realms wiki a bit but i've never actually played DND. i have played skyrim and final fantasy 14 and some other similar RPGs with customizable blank-slate protagonists, and in those types of games i always have to make OCs to roleplay as--usually i'll think up a basic idea to start with and then flesh the character out as i get into the game. they're never really self-inserts but i do often project onto them a little.

so, in games like these my first character is usually an elf that specializes in elemental/destructive magic. idk why, that's just what i've always liked. in ff14 i started out as a black mage without knowing it was the hardest class to play LMAO. soooo i went into this planning to create a high elf sorcerer, but as i started writing out ideas and thinking about what to do, i ended up creating a half-high elf bard. they're transmasc/nonbinary and in my head they use he/they pronouns, but i picked the nb option in the character creator and that causes npcs to actually use they/them in dialogue which i think is so cool. i love that the character creator is so inclusive in regards to gender.

anyway, i named them elenion, which is something i took from the lord of the rings universe because i'm a huge nerd. in LOTR it's an elvish word that basically means "of the stars". here's a couple screenshots i took when i first started. let's just ignore the fact that this hairstyle clips into elf ears (and also that the face preset is from a mod i downloaded).

i didn't really give him a tragic backstory or even the most interesting story haha--i'm wanting to do something bigger and angstier with another character on a second playthrough when i'm more familiar with the lore and world of the game. and i'll probably also end up changing or expanding on some things about this character later, but for now i just kind of made a normal guy with normal problems. i had this idea that his father, a human who attracted the attention of a beautiful elf woman, was also a bard and was a very successful musician in his youth. so elenion has always shared his father's passion and dreamed of being like him, being able to effortlessly tell incredible tales and inspire crowds of people through song, but no matter how much he studies and practices he never feels good enough. if he seems confident it's usually just because he's gotten really good at faking it. he's also pretty reserved and often avoids having to talk about himself by asking a lot of questions. see, i kind of wanted to specifically find a way to not roleplay the usual sort of loud, flirty, goofy bard, lol. not that i dislike those kinds of characters or anything though!

however, bards are meant to be super charismatic, witty, and persuasive and of course the game strongly encourages that with the dialogue options and skill bonuses you get. so my way of explaining this is to have elenion be a bit like raine from the owl house, in that they may be shy, but they're very firm in their ideals and are no pushover when it comes to protecting themself or their allies. they're clever and have a snarky side to them, and they're genuinely friendly and caring in a way that gives them a sense of quiet charisma. which reminds me that one of the spells i gave them at the start was sleep, and it's made me imagine that when they were a kid they tried calming a crying baby by playing a lullaby on their lute and accidentally ended up casting their first spell.

oh, and, i also wasn't really sure at first where in the world i wanted elenion to come from but i decided on something pretty quickly after getting multiple of those dialogue options suggesting that the protagonist is baldurian! i pictured them growing up in a somewhat small town with their family but moving to baldur's gate as an adult, hoping that if they left the comfort of their home and started to journey out into the world a little they'd eventually find their spark and become the bard they wanted to be. unfortunately they've had little luck so far because even after all this time they can't see that maybe their whole fixation on trying to be just like their father and achieve the exact same kind of success that he had is holding them back. the fact that their father died the year after they moved away hasn't helped either. and now, in the middle of traveling to a historical site that they'd wanted to see in person and use as inspiration for a song, they've been abducted by mindflayers and are struggling with the massive upheaval that this has brought into their relatively mundane life.

so. yeah. my tav for this first playthrough may not be the most unique or exciting character but i like him! i like figuring out what kind of choices he'll make and thinking up new ideas for what he likes and how he sees the world. also, i find it funny how in your reply to my ask you said you thought you'd be into gale but then you fell for astarion--because i thought that i'd be all over the edgy, brooding, snarky vampire man, but it turns out gale is so charming and funny that i'm probably going to romance him first. i'm also pretty intrigued by shadowheart and wyll but i'm so early in the game that i can't even say who i think my overall favorite companion will be because they all seem so interesting!! even karlach despite the fact that i haven't actually met her yet, i've seen a bunch of cool gifsets of her and my brother told me he's been romancing her on his playthrough. i really need to go find her soon.

i'm sure you can tell from everything i wrote here that i am definitely enjoying the game LOL. i can already tell that there's just so many different things to do and see, that i will both need and want to do a lot of different playthroughs and that it's going to be something that sticks with me. nothing wrong with using guides and walkthroughs btw! i do it too because i'm worried about missing too many things and have the world's worst sense of direction even with a minimap. honestly i probably need to look up some guides for certain mechanics that i don't feel like i've really figured out yet. there's a sarcophagus trap in the ruins early in the game that got me SO stuck and got my whole party wiped and then i looked up a video and found out you could turn off the whole trap system by pushing a switch... i felt so stupid askjdfgf.

anyway, i think this got to be way too long of a reply so i will stop here! but if you ever wanna tell me more about your tav or anything definitely feel free to and i hope you're having an awesome day!

#asks #nerdalmighty #i hope all of this actually makes some kind of sense lol #i'm really not a great writer but i just think coming up with OCs with fleshed out personalities #and trying to get into their heads makes games like this more fun #and also ty for the ask!! 💖#baldur's gate 3

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theimaginatrix27 · 3 months

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My Personal Approach to Fantasy AUs

I have received a number of comments on my Deep Space 9 Fairy Tale AU, Seven for a Secret, to the effect of "I love how you've kept everyone so in-character!"

I also recently sent a friend part of the first chapter of a prequel fic in the same setting, and they said they're not usually interested in AUs of this nature, because too often, they've seen characters written in ways that make them less recognisably themselves. But they did like my writing.

So I'm going to try and explain my process in a way that hopefully makes sense to everyone reading it. I'm absolutely not making this post to gatekeep fanfic, or to tell someone how to write their story, I'm just explaining what I do when writing a Fantasy AU within a fandom context.

For clarity, this post is about AUs where the characters were born into a high/epic/secondary world fantasy setting (I have heard all these terms before). It is not about charas being isekaied into fantasy settings for crossover purposes (that genre encompasses portal fantasy, doesn't have to involve the charas dying), though tbh I love those, too. Excellent fun. But the characters in those cases are still the canon ones, just being put in a situation. I actually plan on writing a series of DND campaign fics with the casts of my three favourite classic Trek series that are basically this premise, but that's not what I want to talk about today.

In a lot of cases, when someone has written a fantasy AU, the characters are changed so much that you could, theoretically, file off the serial numbers, switch out canon references and turn it into an original novel. This is also not strictly a bad thing—I've done it myself, and although that story never got finished, it paved the way for those that followed, so it's helpful in the creative process to recognise when you have enough material for an original spin on something.

However, for me especially, it is more fun to see and recognise the fandom characters, and then watch them navigate a story that is both unique and would not be the same without them.

Presenting Exhibit A: The Princess and the Dragon, a fanfiction for Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters, written by my dear friend, @kohakuhime

This was one of the first fics of this nature that I came across in my wanderings through the blighted wastelands of FFN—Kohaku's fics were very much an oasis in the desert, so refreshing and vibrant were they, but this was her big fantasy baby, centred around a ship we both loved, and rich with lore and magic and mystery. It was also peppered with canon references, and all the characters were kept breathtakingly in-character—I won't get into spoiler territory, but let's just say I could hear the voice-actors saying so many of these lines, they were so good! My bar for this type of AU was set pretty high in large part because of this fic.

To be quite fair, Kohaku has said she could probably file off the serial numbers of TPATD, change some of the components of the magic system and release it as an original novel, as the concept itself (again, avoiding spoilers by going into details out of respect for this friend and her excellent story) is a fun twist on a particular trope. But although there are many original elements, it still feels like a Yu-Gi-Oh! fic, because of all the grounding points woven throughout, and how familiar the characters are.

This fic was not the only story I found that helped shape my approach back in 2012—there were a couple other fics in the Dragon Ball Z archive on FFN that also contributed, but they were both written a long time ago and I'm not sure they'd hold up nearly so well today. One of them was a fairy tale retelling (well, a Disney film retelling, but it was really good from my perspective as a fic newbie!), and this plus some other—shall we say, less interesting adaptations in the Yu-Gi-Oh fandom inspired me to write the fic now known as Wild Swans of Domino, which I'm not linking here because I am in the process of editing it up to my current standards. Seven for a Secret is, in its way, a spiritual successor to WSoD, though I do intend to finish the latter (and the sequels I developed over the years). WSoD was my practice ground for developing the approach I wrote this post to explain, and it kinda shows in the current version, because I started out simple, and then my brain started generating lore and places for more canon references to go and the story got away from me. That—happens to me a lot.

My approach with this type of AU comes down to one major point: If I am writing a fairy tale adaptation (it's usually a fairy tale adaptation that starts this for me), or some other fantasy story in an alternate universe which these characters are, for the purposes of the fic, native to, then both they and the setting must have some familiar aspects tying them back to the source material. The characters, especially, must still feel like themselves, or you may lose readers' interest, because "Benjamin Sisko wouldn't do that!" or "Seto Kaiba wouldn't react that way in this situation! Stop making him quote the movie's dialogue, it sounds so contrived it is painful to read!"

... Ahem, moving on from bad memories of bad fics.

WSoD and Secret are both based on a fairy tale I already have an original story idea for (several, actually), so I don't need or want either of them to be unique enough to divorce them from their fandom origins. Therefore, while developing them, I have done/am doing my utmost to weave in as many threads from canon as possible within the boundaries of the setting, and have also done my best to preserve the characters' personalities. And according to those aforementioned comments, I'm doing pretty well!

To be absolutely fair, in both cases, the fandoms in question are either another form of Fantasy or as close to Fantasy as a Sci-fi setting can get (Sisko's an honest to the Prophets Chosen one, for goodness sake!). But I do believe you can do this with any character, from any setting, if you put enough thought into it.

And maybe that's part of why I don't see it around as much, because some (often younger but not always) fic authors can have a concept float into their head or sent to them by another fan, and bang out a fic in a week that hits all the points they wanted it to without too much brainstorming behind it. Whereas I, a perfectionist and possesser of an increasingly plot-tribble-infested brain, can't make a single plot decision without pondering it for several days, and fret over little logistical details until I'm purple in the face (probably. I don't have eyeballs and thence can't look in a mirror). But I still think it's doable for any character.

To do this well, you must consider what fundamentally makes this character who they are. What traits would you absolutely have to keep (aside from physical appearance in most cases) to ensure this character was familiar to the reader who clicked on the fandom tag and subsequently your fic. If you ran across Sherlock Holmes in, say, the Pokémon world, how would you know he was Sherlock Holmes? Why, he'd be solving mysteries, and doing so by analysing all sorts of details, noticing things others failed to, putting pieces together that formed a solution others wouldn't have even considered, because the majority of those puzzle pieces were overlooked! And he'd probably be skulling shuckle juice when he didn't have a mystery to solve. And obviously he'd be autistic.

Are you imagining it? I hope you are. Now imagine a character, or several, from one of your fandoms, that you love. Imagine what you love best about them, what makes them who they are, from your perspective. Now imagine a setting that's different from their source material—there are any number of AUs you could pick. Now, think carefully about how you would write them in this setting, while focusing on changing as little about them as possible.

In Secret, Ben and Julian are both princes (this is revealed in Chapter 1, I don't mind telling you). The Dax symbiont is a Fae being magically bound to Jadzia, who is a mage. Their personalities are still familiar to the reader. Miles O'Brien has barely changed at all, because he doesn't need to.

And there's the single golden rule: When writing an AU like this, only change as much or as little as you absolutely need to for your story to work. You can, of course, have fun with how you change things—just check out Innate Conditions and its companion fics by @tokidokifish for a DS9 example (Cardassians are shapeshifting dragons! How cool is that?)

I hope all this makes sense. And again, this is not an attempt to dictate how you, personally, write your stories. I do hope you at least give it a little thought, though, if you haven't already. Most importantly, have fun!

#Fanfiction #Fantasy AUs #Seven for a Secret #Family Defiant #Because it's most relevant to that AU

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ljesak · 3 months

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bg3's third arc is rlly bad. what's worse is that it reminds me of witcher 3's novigrad so much that i wish i could take my party there. the companions are the heart and the best part of the game and i wish i could take them out of this crap that arc 3 is

it's bloated, our emotional investment in the villains is non-existent, side quests are shallow except for the woman who wants to resurrect her husband resolution (although that's a character carried from arc one so not sure if it counts)

im not big into dnd lore in general but the first two arcs kept you curious abt the world. arc 3 is ticking a big checklist before the Big Bad and it's over. I've heard they recently patched the ending to have a larger epilogue so that might make me feel better abt the game, we'll see

rn im struggling to finish it bc we either get only a whiff of smth interesting or complex and/or it's buried under a bunch of Nothing you need to shuffle through

i love the companions sm i wanna take them to a better game (at least if/until they fix the third arc)

#rambles #bg3 #bg3 spoilers

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boxwinebaddie · 7 months

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What are Stan and Kyle’s favorite seasons?

*cracks knuckles, unsheathes my gigantic pink, hello kitty enchiridion of manically compiled style knowledge ( aka fanfiction lore galore ) and pets my beautiful fluffy cat whilst swirling my $12 rose box wine around in a $2 dollar thrift store mug, peering eeriely*

ah! a lovely visitor at my lodging! i've been expecting you! or so the fates foretold and the tarot has tattled~ and perhaps my frilly, bell-sleeved robes reveal me, but i am called many things: pretty, witty...a man-hating, soothsaying sorceress and tawdry disgrace to my bitter bloodline, but you, my moon blossom, may call me armarius nina -- better known as your stylibrarian.

now, sit a spell, young scholar! ( though, you're charming enough without my ancient enchantments ) and let your heavy heart enlighten with the sage wisdom i impart on you whilist you rest your bones and gear up for your next great adventure!

but speaking of bones: you may find some in the closet. a few experiments i'm running on what pathetic, spineless, excuses for 'men' and crass chauvinistic pigs i find lollying about.

dear elora does find misogynists so very delicious these days. :)

now, my friends, as we return to the realm of reality, where i do not live, i am sure it's abundantly clear by my skyrim-esqe, taverny, dnd introduction, that i am very deranged, verbose and dedicated to my (witch-bitch-craft), which is pulverizing the south park canon so violently that they resemble the worthless men in my dungeon.

however, in doing so, i do put a lot of time and effort into dissecting the stan and kyle's across my ninaverse and thus, have far too much to say and am far too impassioned/excited about your question! <3

( nobody, of course, should be forced to read all this, but if you find my musings about the boys amusing, you might want to gander. )

and in the land of logic, where i also do not live, i know that...all my ncu style sons are just...stan and kyle at the end of the day. but to me at least, stan the man with the plan, kyle pile, jersey and raven are not the same people at all! they exist in different compartments in my brain and are greatly similar, but exist in radically different timelines.

...but perhaps i am simply gaslighting myself into believing all my many madman ramblings...but! live, laugh, love delusion, babey! ;)

and without further ado, down below, my ncu style season ninalysis.

now, something that i find terribly thrilling about the dynamic of the pep!style boys is that they are perfect opposites who attract. and as such, each their favorite seasons is the other's least favorite season, which if you've read my awful, monstrosity, abomination mess of a fanfiction, this fits right in with their moon-sun metaphor and motif.

starting with pep!stan, his favorite season is undoubtedly summer, not to be confused with #stanseason, which i will elaborate on later. speaking of summer, i think actually even mentioned it canonically at the beginning of chapter seven that summer is stan's fave season.

and stanley randall william marsh just...IS summer.

he's the crisp sound of cracking an ice cold beer on a scorching trip to stark's pond, swimming like a river nymph, watching a superhero movie surrounded by all his friends, gorging on hot, buttered popcorn, laughing so hard at the stupidest things that it sends a rocket of his extra large blue raspberry icee shooting out his nose, spiked, of course, with vodka, so it burns like fuck and is so funny.

he's holding your hand at the county fair on the highest part of the ferris wheel when you get scared, winning the strength test, gifting you a comically large stuffed bear you cherish forever, and feeds you pieces of funnel cake like you're the most precious thing in the world.

he's just...singing siren songs at the summer camp bonfire, collecting seashells for little girls, guarding baby turtles from being eaten by birds and guiding them safely into the water with a tearful goodbye.

the summer sky is clear and cerulean like his big, pretty eyes. sun's, guns out. and when it's hot outside, stan is out doing hot boy things.

be it hiking, biking, soccer, football, basketball, baseball, swimming, skateboarding, stanley marsh never gets sunburned, tans beautifully, gets sunkissed by mother nature, her favorite and basking in the glow of the summer sun is the closest thing he feels to happiness.

but, as we learned in our science rechap in the pep nine kyle denial, what comes up must come down. and with the intensity of stan's emotions, comes an equal instability, so what is summer sky high must meet a brutal, bitter ground zero winter. without mercy.

and when that flip flop drops...that means that IT has begun.

it being...

#stanseason. :/

now, sometimes during september its still little tepid and shiny and stan's favorite holiday ( that little goth bitch ) is halloween, so october is alright ( barring his birthday ) because even if it's a little gloomy outside, it fits the spooky season vibe that is literally his whole 'thing'.

but the second halloween is over...when the thirty first of october becomes the first of november...something in him just...snaps.

the switch goes off and gets stuck there. basically, he has really gnarly seasonal depression and that plays really, really poorly with his bipolar disorder and depression. like, i swear when the blue of the sky goes grey, stan's eyes dull with it. everything is so bleak, all the plants he loves so much wither and die, animals go into hiding, everything is either grey or white or pitch black at night and so miserable to him.

especially during winter break and weekends, he just holes up in his room and his childhood bed basically becomes his deathbed as he succumbs to what are some of his scariest depression episodes. him and wendy actually break up the most in the winter months because when the sun is gone, stan just goes...cold. full stop communication.

but also he can't help it. he's undiagnosed, so he's unmedicated besides his adderall ( which is a part of 13/14 ) so he just gets catatonic, can't move, can't eat, can't do anything, just cries and curls up in a ball and sleeps entire weeks away like that. my baby :(

on a deeper and way more fucked up level than even THAT though, more than weather, it's what happens during #stanseason because stan is extremely triggered and traumatized by the holiday season.

for starters, his birthday is just...he tries to avoid it every single year or is too drunk to remember it in order to get through it because the best thing about his bday to him is that hes a year closer to death :(

the actual holidays are so much worse though because of...sigh...Randy Marsh. he is a fucking monster during the holidays.

he ruins and terrorizes everyone every year it's so fucking awful. thanksgivings are shitty as fuck for him because he's just like sitting there and eating the side dishes, trying to just exist and randy is calling him a sissy and little girl and a fucking f*g for not eating meat.

christmas actually used to be stans favorite time of year!!! believe or not!!! like he liked xmas more than halloween because of the pretty lights and everyone being so happy and being able to get people gifts

:') sharon used to take little stan all over the neighborhood with their lights out with him on her shoulders, then eventually, when stan got too old for that and kyle came around, stan used to drag him by the hand, babbling and bright eyed. he also used to sing kyle christmas songs and it gaslit kyle into liking them because is just stan's voice so so nice and pretty and ugh...STAN FUCKING LOVED CHRISTMAS!!!

i also think it was around christmas that randy got drunk backed out of the driveway...and killed sparky, so stans in mourning during the winter time and visits sparkys grave by starks pond...i'm so :'(

FUCK YOU RANDY!!!! FUCK YOU SO MUCH!!! MEET ME IN THE PIT BITCH!!! YOU WONT YOU WONT!!!!

like i think what really put the nail in the coffin was one year when stan was in middle school ( he was happy during elementary school and was...getting wary of holidays/randy in middle school ) randy got drunk, really angry and violent for some reason...and on christmas morning, stan, shelley and sharon came down to carnage.

like all the presents just smashed up, toys in pieces, beautiful jewelry destroyed, the christmas tree they decorated absolutely desecrated, half of the presents in the fireplace it was sooooo horrible. and randy was just passed out drinking spiked eggnog on their living room floor, sleeping fucking peacefully. >:(

so stan...hates christmas now. stan who is a christmas angel. stan who loves cheer, happiness, whimsy and spirit. like gets mad when he hears christmas songs, is irritable all month long. :( STAN WHO LOVES MINT!!!! MY PEPPERMINT BABY! he can't even enjoy all the nice peppermint flavored stuff he loves because is so traumatized by xmas and the holiday season.

but to segway into the next part of my deranged season analysis of the ncu boys, i wanna loop back to stan's scary seasonal depression because those episodes often become serious stan alcohol benders.

it's cold outside and he's cold inside, but he doesn't know how to get warm so in his fucked up, untherapised sad boy brain he is like okay, well, alcohol makes me feel warm and makes me feel good, so if i drink itll just fix everything and i'll feel better again. so he's just getting violently drunk all winter long to microdose feeling good, to microdose warmth, TO MICRODOSE KYLE BROFLOVSKI.

ergo:

stan's favorite season is summer because it makes him feel the way that kyle makes him feel. stan likes summer because kyle is the sun.

micdrop. sjdlkdjads

so pep!kyle is like stan's little spot of sunlight in an otherwise wretched winter, which is actually very cute and funny because kyle's favorite season is winter. :)

he's just my little ice prince, steely solitaire, wicked, wintry, slow burn tsundere ( sorry ), glacier boy, who actually under the cold boy exterior is really just a romance literature enjoying, secret soft boy.

but, outwardly at least, and as we established throughout peppermint, but most specifically in chapter three, kyle broflovski is a Hater. of so many things, but save for house parties, crying babies, small spaces and rave music, kyle truly hates the ever-loving, or hating, rather, fuck out of the summertime.

he hates when it's hot and sticky ( ew ), sweating himself or seeing anyone sweat openly repulses him ( unless stan marsh is at the gym and kyle is spotting him -- he loves his job so much ), he hates the smell of sunscreen which he has to slather all over himself not to sunburn, which he still does anyway, so he spends all summer with his skin basically in red, angry, tender welts,

he gets really self conscious ( fuck the list ) going out in swim trunks, or even just shorts/sleeveless shirts ( he is really only comfortable in shorts around the house or playing basketball, other than that, cartman made a weird comment about his legs and he never recovered from that :((( -- you're so beautiful baby ) and really, that all chocks up to kyle having serious summer seasonal depression.

kyle hates summer but...kyle loves stanley marsh. so kyle endures summer specifically for stan and this does...have several benefits.

see, while stan is constantly on the move and hard to catch during the summer, flying from one outside boy activity to the next, kyle has spent his entire life running after his super best friend and does have an advantage in catching him. he does, however, need to catch his breath constantly.

which! thankfully, stan always has kyle's inhaler at the ready but if kyle hits his inhaler and stan hits him with the beautiful laugh, one dimple, hair ruffle combo...he does need to hit his inhaler again. it's a vicious cycle...but its very worth it for kyle.

mainly b/c he gets to watch stan do all his summer stuff.

specific iconic stan marsh hot boy summer activities/antics include:

that month stan was mowing lawns shirtless to save up for a new game console and kyle crashed into multiple trees on his bike, that time his mom asked him to patch something up on the roof instead of rancid and stan spent like a whole week in the rolled up teeshirt, fuckboy snap back sexc handyman tool shed cosplay and almost fell off the roof several times waving excitedly at kyle who...was shamelessly oogling from his window...smh.

stan playing shirts vs skins soccer, stan gang vs. craig gang, but kyle was taking summer courses at the community college, and when he was done he came back to stan shouting his name, running across the field like he was in some coming of age romcom movie to hug kyle golden and glistening with outside boy athlete sweat, ( kyle made one sweat exception...he also almost died when that happened help ), stan got ice cream far too often and accidentally ate it in a way that god really did not intend and kept kyle up for many nights...

the things that stanley marsh did to kyle broflovski before he realized that he was in love with him...need to be punished by a court of law.

most notably, when they were cits at tardicaca last summer, kyle really said fuck them kids and almost lost several of them multiple times watching stan life guard behind his sunglasses...JAIL, BABY!

but of course, when summer is over, stan falls ill during fall and shuts down in winter kyle freaks out and rightfully so! ( like stan almost died of alcohol poisoning last year and even before that, has been sad and bad enough to warrant deep concern. ) and kyles sheilas son, so he does make stan keep his window open and his blinds up just so he can check on him and bring him stuff, come over, read, etc.

my personal taylor swift headstannon is that pep!stan and kyle do the notebook thing in you belong with me where they exchange notes through their windows ( kyle has definitely held up that really pathetic ‘i love you’ one while stan was in the bathroom...crying )

— it usually happens if one of them is grounded, if they're snowed in, if stan is trying to annoy kyle and get him to stop studying, or kyle is trying to nag stan into studying lmao...my sons who are in luv.

but yeah, stan's window is open for ( rip, suicide watch ) which means kyle's window is also open, so stan just gets to watch him do really cute winter boy things…

…like read his romance novel when no one is looking, dance awkwardly and adorably around his room to line without a hook ( kyle is very ricky montgomery coded to me like...mr. loverman HELLO!!! ), organize all his things, drink his stanley marsh peppermint hot cocoa in his stanley marsh stolen hoodie, or watch the snowflakes with wonderment, drawing things on the frosted glass.

and for a boy who was supposedly not in love with his super best friend...stan did spend a lot of time and got a lot of serotonin watching kyle through his window like his favorite tv show. smh.

b/c ky hates the sun. but really likes snow. it is just a very interesting scientific, natural and beautiful process to him. he gets really cold but that is okay, because he has anemic boy privileges and stan bundles him up in his varsity jacket and so many flannels and scarves its so funny, he's so worried about him. idk kyle gets really excited when it starts snowing, its so cute, stan is like aw kp!!!! :') <333

( stan always picks his little tea or latte up for him and kyle burns his mouth because he has no patience and burns his mouth every time so stan always orders him a kid temperature one....so cuuuute. )

basically the best way i can sum up how stan and kyle are during december is that kyle is this december by ricky montgomery and stan is december by neck deep, and is either the electric guitar or the acoustic version depending which bipolar episode he's in.

but yes, closing thoughts....pep stan is a summer sun, winter moon and kyle is a winter sun and a summer moon. he...lp. ta....da?

okay...phew.

go take a break if you've read this part. we have reached the halfway point folks. the end is in sight...but first...rm style seasons. ;) <3

starting with jersey....he is autumn, to which you might argue ( as kyle often does ), but nina! rm!jersey kyle is so much more cold, callous and brutal than pep!kyle, wouldn't he be winter instead?

but ah, dear scholar, you forgot that rm!kyle...is our Y/N.

as such, he loves september when school comes back around ( he does not know what to do when he's not being a student, i'm scared for him ), he delights very much in pumpkin spice flavored things, sits in grounded on his days off with his laptop doing his homework, hair put up, drowning in his gigantic cable knit sweater, or reading the news paper after his mock trials with his blazer hanging off the back of the chair, plaid slacks on, reading glasses on, sipping a london fog, having a cinnamon scone, enjoying the grey and misty weather.

for those reasons, jersey!kyle likes autumn, of course, but if you want the god honest truth...the reason kyle loves autumn...is because....

...stanley marsh was ( is ) autumn.

ravenstan just smells of cinnamon and spiced apple cider, chai tea, warm handmade blankets, firewood and whiskey. so during fall, everything just smells, tastes and feels like stanley marsh...which is the best thing in the world...and the worst fucking thing in the world.

because stan's was born in the fall...and died in the fall. :(

every autumn is honestly traumatizing for kyle, it's very bittersweet, even down to stan talking walks with him in the forest and having used to tell kyle that autumn looked like him because the leaves turn the color of his hair...but now kyle takes lonely walks in the city and can feel that emptiness next to him where stan should be. :'((

it's a harm and a comfort, honestly. he used to like aggressively hoard fall scented things when he was having really bad I See Stan episodes, but dr. margolis ( kyles therapist ) told him that that kind of obsessive behavior is unhealthy and he should avoid dwelling too much on stan during fall aka not order a bunch of cinnamon flavored stuff to soothe the sadness of his passing...but its...he slips a lot.

and when he falls in fall, he really falls HARD because he'll be making a coffee fine one second and then a man with blue eyes orders a chai tea latte and kyles hand is shaking so bad that he burns his arm on the machine and...i'm so sad. there's a little thing he does on stan's birthday every year, its kind of like a birthday tradition they used to do. i can't talk about it yet, but it will come up. its autumnal. :')

and onto the final part of this behemoth of an ask message, oh my god. stan, stan. ravenstan, who is so, so, so, soooo spring.

i know you guys don't know that much about him other than kyle's surface level reactions of him and psychosis around him being stan, but he is really like a persephone boy really that is a hades boy now.

he really is just like magical forest creature. all the flowers bloom and he just lights up. raven like...loves plants. he is my little witchy herbology botany boy king i love him so much. he could lay down in the grass for hoooours and could write so many songs about it. aaa!!!

kyle is disgusted by spring because his pollen allergy is so bad, but in the same way that winter kyle showed up for summer stan to watch him do hot boy outside boy summer things, autumn kyle shows up for spring stan doing soft sprite disney prince nature boy stuff <3

being up at the farm as far as randy goes was awful, but its really pretty during the spring and him and kyle used to just go out into the pastures, all the little meadows and divits, sit by the pond ( yes stan is that filthy nasty boy who chases all the bugs and frogs and gets covered and dirt and mud and everything smh...brother nature )

even before sheila hyperfixated on plying kyle with lavender to help him calm down from his panic attacks after stans 'death' because that's what the internet and all the specialists did -- stan used to make him cute little flower crowns and stuff and weave lavender into his hair and make him bracelets out of blades of grass and stuff...which i think he still has dreams about to this day.

...and i honestly think its hard for kyle to sit out in nature because it reminds him so aggressively of stan...the trauma omg. free my man!

also i'd say ravenstan like pep!stan would have been running around doing outside boy sports too during his month but...unfortunately the south park boys in elem/middle, specifically eric cartman was gatekeeping all of those sports...in a way that deeply disgusts me.

like okay, i feel like where pep!stan's thing was mostly football, ravenstan's thing is HOCKEY and wanted to join the hockey team or play hockey with all the south park boys and eric cartman was like

"you can't join sh*n because you're a g*rl!!!!”

....to which he proceeded to like aNNIHILATE and DECIMATE every single boy at hockey...like in a way that for a pacifist icon was so brutal and Iconic that multiple boys went home bruised and crying.

also he totally winked at kyle in his gigantic wayne gretski jersey with his big, charasmatic lopsided grin w/ his chipped front tooth and kyle was immediately in luv.

stan marsh when he was still stan marsh and 11...was such a literal fucking legend i love him. he really has so much true grit n tenacity.

small final note one hockey and ice sports though, kyle never played hockey with the boys because cartman was extremely cruel to him.

he also did not take to hockey but he is....really good at ice skating. nosm as a concept is so cute to me ( i think pep!kyle also learned to ice skate after the stark's pond incident ) but jersey kyle is secretly a really, really talented beautiful, graceful ice skater and stan was just fuckin bodying people in hockey and two languages. <3

and that's all? i think? my word.

EDIT: WAIT I FORGOT THAT ITS ALSO RAVENS FAVORITE SEASON BECAUSE KYLES BIRTHDAY IS IN SPRING ALSO! GAY!!!

tldr: pep!stan summer, pep!kyle winter, rm!jersey fall, ravestan spring

i hope this provided you with the kind of electric energy that i felt while writing it, i am currently levitating oh my god. if you're wondering why my updates are slow, it's because i waste my time writing ask memes the size of two updates for basic questions.

-uncle nina, ceo of style season

#okay...this is my masterpiece #but please do not read this if you don't want to its really long #and probably spelled very bad #but this feels extremely accurate to me #like idk if im being crazy but theyre all different seasons and people and it all makes so much sense in my crazy brain #also rip talking abt pepstyle...i fucking love my sweet soft boys i am...gonna try and write 12 again i miss them #also i feel like im talking too much abt rm but its taking me so long to write these chapters that like #i swear to god by chapter 7 ill have accidentally spoiled the whole fic to you guys i cant keep secrets #im just not sly like that and impaitent #BUT I HOPE THIS HELPS LMAO AND I HOPE IT FEELS ACCURATE TO YOU IT FEELS SCARY ACCURATE TO ME #LIKE IF I WAS GONNA FRAME AN ASK MEME IT WOULD BE THIS ONE RIGHT HERE #ALSO IM SORRY BUT IM RIGHT ARGUE W UR MOMMA OR THE WALL BUT NOT ME BABY!!!! IM RIGHT ABOUT THIS #now i gotta take a brain and hand break because that was...alot omg...*stan vc* wowza

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