#Baldur’s boys in my head 25/8 | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

fan-tav-stic · 10 months ago

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For the Tav questions: 2, 8, 16, and 25 for Kairius? (And if you wanna do those same ones for Valexi I'd love to hear about him, too!)

Thank you again for asking Tav questions!!! I love talking about my boys sm!!!

Kairius

2. Describe their tent setup! What’s on the outside? The inside?

On the outside is pretty barebones. It’s decently small with a deep violet cloth. He’s got a small plush stool for sitting on to write his music and a rack that houses his sword

On the inside however!! He’s got STACKS of books that he’s picked up over the course of the game, papers crumpled and scattered everywhere from discarded song writing attempts, a small plank of wood behind his bedroll that houses a bunch of little carved figurines Halsin has made for him, his quill and ink, some home made horn oil + home made shampoo, and a small hand mirror + brush.

His bedroll is simple with a few luxurious pillows that he’s “borrowed”, one of which keeps his song journal safe.

8. After Act 3, what does their life look like? What are they talking about at the reunion party?

BUCKLE UP THIS ONE IS LONG!!! Also to preface this: I have NOT finished the game and have only done Astarion’s quest in ACT 3 but i no longer care if its canon compliant or not LMAO.

So he, Shadowheart, and Halsin get a little plot of land on the outskirts of Baldur’s Gate with a decent few acres of forest land beyond the house. They adopt Umi, Ide, and Yenna (+ Grub of course). He and Shadowheart get married a few years after (Halsin didn’t want to officially get married but he’s still very much on the same level in the polycule.) and then a few years after THAT they have Dahlia.

Dahlia is 1/2 tiefling, 1/4 elf, 1/4 human. She and the rest of his kids become his EVERYTHING. He used to do late night gigs but once she’s born he retires from that and focuses on his song writing since he can do that from home. He loves his kids with his entire fucking being.

Once she’s old enough Kairius teaches her the violin and lute, Shadowheart teaches her some basic healing and other cleric spells, and Halsin teaches her druidic magic. She ends up following in Halsin’s footsteps and becomes a druid. Her first wildshape is a bear cub to match her papa and Halsin calls her “Little Cub”. (I WILL die for Dahlia. I have never actually made a serious fan kid before and I love her sm.)

(I have not gotten to the reunion party so idk how to answer this yet lmao)

16. What do they do for fun, when not adventuring? What are their hobbies?

He’s a song writer and also knows how to dye hair. He’s actually the one who cut and dyed Shadowheart’s hair! (Though he DID fuck up her bangs a little). One of his many hidden talents is being able to bleach any kind of hair into a perfect blonde without frying it in the slightest.

25. What is something they would die on a hill over?

Honestly? I don’t know. Getting into a characters head to talk about their trauma and stuff is easy but getting into their head to get basic stuff like strong opinions makes my brain hurt lmao. It’s like every piece of information i have about them evaporates as soon as i try.

Valexi under the Read More!!!

Valexi

2. Describe their tent setup! What’s on the outside? The inside?

His tent is smaller with a orange-red cloth. It’s pretty barren on the outside, no real personality or trinkets.

On the inside is also pretty barren. He’s got his bedroll, the necronomicon from act 1, a few charcoal drawings hanging up on the inside walls, a box of charcoals and tools, and his daggers in arms reach of his bedroll. Under his pillow is his large leather bound sketchbook.

8. After Act 3, what does their life look like? What are they talking about at the reunion party?

I also haven’t finished the game with him so this is just spitballing or how i hope it goes.

He and Gale move in to Gale’s tower back in water deep. They are INCREDIBLY domestic and sappy. He’s a bit of a house husband, cleans and stuff while Gale is out teaching. They take turns cooking and on a couple nights a week they cook together like they did back in camp.

I don’t think they have kids, but if they did it would be until they were married for a WHILE.

Oh yeah, they get married obvs. I like to think Gale plans to have a big proposal and a ring but Valexi just kinda slips it into daily conversation by accident. Like they’re just talking and someone references something to do with marriage and Val goes “we should do that!” “What?” “Get married, of course. Would you want to marry me someday?” And breaks Gale for a while before he quickly agrees and that’s it, they’re engaged.

They are such fucking dorks.

(No reunion still sowwy lol)

16. What do they do for fun, when not adventuring? What are their hobbies?

He draws! It was originally for fun pre!game but during the game it becomes a coping mechanism for him. It still is a little but it becomes fun again after the game.

His drawings are all related to the memories he can’t remember and can only grasp after nightmares or sometimes when the urges take over enough that he blacks out a little. They’re all done in charcoal and are VERY fucked up in nature. Like I’m talking gruesome bodies, distorted faces, etc.

He also learns to cook with Gale! Another coping mechanism turned passion. He found that the urges could be sated by driving his knife into meat and vegetables rather than people. Gale teaches him every recipe he can remember off the top of his head as well as in cookbooks they find while adventuring. The first ever dish he made was rabbit stew! Gale thought him the proper way to cut veggies and that’s how he found out that chopping up the rabbit helped clear his head.

After the game he keeps learning and actually gets REALLY good and Gale is so fucking proud of his husband.

25. What is something they would die on a hill over?

Again, brain is currently too small to answer this kind of question lol. Maybe I’ll edit this one day and put ‘em in once I figure it out <3

#bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #eldritchweave!#the dark urge x gale #bg3 dark urge #dark urge #baldur's gate 3 durge #durge x gale #bg3 durge #durge #bg3 tav #baldur's gate tav #Kairius #ursamajor!#ursineheartbeat!#tav x shadowheart #tav x halsin #corvigae #ask game

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nerianasims · 4 years ago

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Billboard #1s 1985

Under the cut.

Foreigner -- "I Want To Know What Love Is" -- February 2, 1985

One of the quintessential 80s power ballads. It's actually kind of interesting if you think about it enough. He's not in love yet, but he's gotten sick of not being in love, so he's asking someone he's in the pre-love stage with to show him. Though he's had "heartache and pain" before, and doesn't know if he can face it again. It's not consistent. I feel like it's a missed opportunity, but oh well. It's good enough for what it is.

Wham! -- "Careless Whisper" -- February 16, 1985

Oh my god I love the saxophone in this. The music throughout the song is so incredibly sexy. And this is the kind of song George Michael's voice was made for. He's totally capable of sounding both hot and in agony at the same time. I actually adore a whole lot of cheating songs -- mostly, though not exclusively, the tormented kind. Drama! Love! Sex! Angst! Gorgeous.

REO Speedwagon -- "Can't Fight This Feeling" -- March 9, 1985

<3. He keeps singing "r"s like a pirate, but he doesn't go as hard on the other consonants, so I'm good with it. Lyrically, this song sounds like it might be two songs mashed together. "What started out as friendship has grown stronger" or "my life has been such a whirlwind since I saw you." Well which is it? Except I've had that happen. I love this song.

Phil Collins -- "One More Night" -- March 30, 1985

This is a depressing heartbreak song without the saving grace of any of Phil Collins' neat drum stuff. Blah.

We Are the World -- April 13, 1985

Whoo boy. I was 8 when this came out. Obviously I loved it. All the kids loved it. Now, though... I'm sorry, but it's bad. Really bad. Many others have gone deeply into why it's bad. I feel acutely embarrassed listening to it, so I'm just running away from it as fast as possible. (Remember all those celebrities singing "Imagine" in their mansions in 2020? I blame this song for that.)

Madonna -- "Crazy For You" -- May 11, 1985

This is one of Madonna's most straightforward love songs. Maybe the most, period. This or "Cherish," and this is a better song. It's lovely. Like Olivia Newton-John, Madonna can act a song. (Unlike in most movies she's been in.) But what I'm thinking about now is learning in this article that her label wouldn't let Madonna release "Into the Groove" as a single. That song was huge. It was played on the radio all the time. If it had been released as a single, or maybe if Billboard had tracked songs then like it does today, it would have been a massive smash, definitely #1. "Into the Groove" is also the best song of her very early career. "Crazy for You" is good, but not nearly as special.

Simple Minds -- "Don't You Forget About Me" -- May 18, 1985

As I am "Gen X", I am supposed to deeply connect with The Breakfast Club. I was 8 years old when it came out. My life as a teenager was nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, like that movie. I didn't recognize any of the "types." I liked the movie when I saw it in college, mostly, but the whole sexual harassment turns into a relationship deal was not seen as cool any longer. The "jocks vs. nerds" thing also felt very dated. The school in the movie was bigger and richer than mine, but it's a fantasy.

Anyway, though I don't feel much about the movie, its breakout song was really good. It does speak to a real fear both in graduating high school and during young adult relationships. I haven't forgotten the people I knew in high school, as far as I know, but obviously they don't have the same importance to me any longer. I'm Facebook friends with a lot of them. And very much not with a couple who were the most important then, because we grew apart -- or blasted apart. One of the nicest girls I knew in high school thinks there's a war on Christmas. Another keeps trying to get me to join her MLM. One of my best friends became my first boyfriend, and I don't regret that, but it was also a semi-disaster. And others... we just have nothing to say to each other any longer.

So, Breakfast Club: I don't connect with at all. "Don't You Forget About Me": Speaks to something very real and timeless.

Wham! -- "Everything She Wants" -- May 25, 1985

What a dick. Songs in which the narrator is a colossal jerk are perfectly fine, of course, but this one gets under my skin. He's whining about his wife getting pregnant when she's dissatisfied with their life and that they're broke. As if it's something she chose to do to him. She's stuck creating a whole other person with her blood and flesh, and he thinks it's all and entirely about him. I really hate it.

Tears for Fears -- "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" -- June 8, 1985

I can't hear this song without thinking of this Baldur's Gate fan trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jdd06d2nids. Speaking of which, I am incredibly excited for Baldur's Gate 3. I've been reading the early access reviews on Steam, and anything anyone is saying that's negative is stuff I don't gaf about (except bugs), whereas the positive stuff, I care about deeply. I hope it's got some of the feeling of that trailer. Um, right, Tears for Fears.

Honestly, though, it works best as a Baldur's Gate theme song. I don't think everybody actually wants to rule the world. It sounds good though. And pretty different from other stuff around it. But I like Lorde's cover better, and not just because it fits so wonderfully with all sorts of fantasy stories.

I usually play a paladin or paladin-type the first time in fantasy RPGs, but I'm thinking bard this time.

Bryan Adams -- "Heaven" -- June 22, 1985

He's been with this woman since they were young, and while they've broken up and gone through rough patches, now they're together forever and they're "in heaven." Bryan Adams knew exactly how to write a song that would become a hit. I used to not mind it at all, but it also means nothing to me. The chorus is catchy as hell though. So catchy that I ended up waking up with it in my head and it would not leave for hours and hours, so now I resent this song.

Phil Collins -- "Sussudio" -- July 6, 1985

I refuse to believe anyone ever told Phil Collins he was too young. He was born middle-aged. Anyway, the narrator isn't supposed to be him, so it's fine, but it's still kinda funny. He's got a crush on someone who doesn't even know his name, but "she's all I need all of my life." Um. The music is repetitive, the drums aren't as interesting as Phil Collins at his best, and I don't like the lyrics. I don't hate it, but I don't like it either.

Duran Duran -- "View to a Kill" -- July 13, 1985

I'm not sure I've ever heard this song before. It's about as good a song as the Bond movie they wrote it for was as a movie. In other words, it's bad. I'm not even sure there's a melody. Just a mess. "Ordinary World" would have made a far better Bond theme, but of course that was the 90s, when Duran Duran decided to try to make sense both lyrically and musically.

Paul Young -- "Every Time You Go Away" -- July 27, 1985

I like the high keyboard notes in this. They're sort of haunting. The rest of the song is musically pretty good, too. Lyrically though, it's only passable. This woman keeps leaving him every time "the leading man" shows up, so I guess he's the backup. Why does he keep waiting for her anyway? There's no hint in the song. I'm kind of embarrassed for him.

Tears for Fears -- "Shout" -- August 3, 1985

I think "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" is a better song than this one when done by Lorde. But I think "Shout" is a better song than Tears for Fears' original iteration of "Everybody Wants to Rule the World." The chorus seems clear enough. But the verses are not. "They gave you life/ And in return you gave them hell" makes sense in isolation, but then there's a bunch of stuff that doesn't go with it. Like "I'd really love to break your heart" -- wtf? But the music is really good.

Huey Lewis and the News -- "The Power of Love" -- August 24, 1985

This was the big song for Back to the Future, and it meshed beautifully with the movie, but it doesn't need that association to be a great song. "Don't need money, don't take fame/ Don't need no credit card to ride this train/ It's strong and it's sudden, it can be cruel sometimes/ But it might just save your life." Yep. It's sort of Motown, sort of rock, and I love it. (Also: "Stronger and harder than a bad girl's dream." Heh.)

John Parr -- "St. Elmo's Fire" -- August 24, 1985

Of all the John Hughes movies I have not seen and do not plan to see, St. Elmo's Fire sure is one of them. The song is about a disabled man who inspired people by rolling himself cross-country in his wheelchair for charity, which has absolutely nothing to do with the movie. I'm disabled, and I just... okay look, what he did was admirable. But we shouldn't have to be inspirations to be counted as worthwhile, and I've been told I should die because I can't produce for capitalism, so you know. I've got some personal issues with this and I'm gonna move along.

Dire Straits -- "Money for Nothing" -- September 21, 1985

This is not Dire Straits' best song, but it's an awfully fun one. I watched the video tons when I was a kid. (That sound is Tipper Gore falling to the floor in a dead faint.) The music is great rock. And the lyrics are very true-to-life. You can either sanitize people or present them as they are honestly, and I know which I prefer.

Ready for the World -- "Oh Sheila" -- October 12, 1985

The band's from Michigan. The English accent at the beginning of the song is fake. That's a good preview for the song, which sounds like a 3rd-rate Prince knockoff at best. Blech.

a-ha -- "Take On Me" -- October 19, 1985

The video totally ripped off one of my aunts. Somehow or other, they saw into the little comic she drew for me about someone going into a land of drawings to rescue someone else in a romantic adventure, years before 1985. Anyway, this song is great musically, massively synthesizer heavy without sounding artificial. Though I can only understand maybe a third of the lyrics as he sings them. I've always understood "It's no better to be safe than sorry" though. Yep, at least when it comes to romance, which is what they're singing about here.

Whitney Houston -- "Saving All My Love for You" -- October 26, 1985

It's not better to be safe than sorry, but that doesn't mean it's good to be an absolute idiot in matters of romance either. Nor is it good to be a colossal jerk. That's what the narrator is here -- the "you" she's singing to is married. And he won't leave his wife and children, though he used to say he would. The lyrics seem to say that's she's accepted the situation, but the way Houston sings it, I think the narrator's trying to get him to leave his wife -- and children -- for her still. This makes sense, as it puts some kind of passion and sense of story into the song, which without Houston's singing would not be there. The narrator certainly never acknowledges that what she's doing is wrong in the slightest iota. This song could be done in a way that works. But it's a completely sincere ballad. So, no. I despise the narrator, I despise the man she's singing to more, and the whole thing leaves me feeling gross.

Stevie Wonder -- "Part Time Lover" -- November 2, 1985

No one's thinking anyone's gonna leave anyone in this one. It's about cheating, and the thrill of it, but then at the end, he's found out his wife's cheating on him too. "I guess that two can play the game/ Of part-time lovers." This kind of funk groove is one way you make a song like this. It makes the whole thing sexy and fun, and the lyrics also work even beyond that ending, because they acknowledge it's wrong.

Jon Hammer -- "Miami Vice Theme" -- November 9, 1985

My parents didn't watch Miami Vice. And then I never felt like watching it in re-runs when I got older. I don't recognize this song. It's an energetic instrumental, but there's so much going on, I keep trying to figure out if there's a main musical idea anywhere. Nope. Just lots and lots of synth. Headache-inducing.

Starship -- "We Built This City" -- November 16, 1985

Blech. This song sounds both unfinished and overproduced somehow. The chorus seems designed to be catchy with absolute ruthlessness by people who didn't really care, and no one involved even seems to want to bother to fake it.

Phil Collins & Marilyn Martin -- "Separate Lives" -- November 30, 1985

This is supposed to be heart-wrenchingly sad. Well, it does tank my dopamine, but that's not what a good sad song does. A good sad song makes you feel better. This one makes me need to turn on something high-energy after about 30 seconds, before I sink into bleakness. It's aggressively boring.

Mr. Mister -- "Broken Wings" -- December 7, 1985

This was one of the first songs I recorded from the radio. On my pink tape deck/radio that was a sort of a mini boom box. I've always had my own tape player since I can remember, but that was a definite upgrade from the Sesame Street one. I was 9 then, so getting more seriously into music and developing my own taste intentionally, rather than simply absorbing what was happening around me.

Anyway, the song. It's about a relationship in trouble, and he wants to stay with her. To me it sounds like she has been so seriously hurt (and not by him), that she can't trust anyone, and he's laying himself on the line for her. That has spoken to me deeply ever since I first heard the song as a child. Moving on to the music: While the lyrics are repetitive, the music is not, which is what makes the song so good. It's a beautiful song.

Lionel Richie -- "Say You, Say Me" -- December 21, 1985

I look forward to Lionel Richie no longer being on the charts. This song was on the soundtrack of some movie I've never heard of. I wish I'd never heard of the song. Totally artificial glop.

BEST OF 1985: "Don't You Forget About Me" by Simple Minds WORST OF 1985: "We Built This City" by Starship

#billboard number ones

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