#LARIAN STOP

[alteredsilicone]

what do you mean they changed Gortash' letters that were slightly crazy campy and added so much character

what do you meannnnnnn

[saddleseatollie]

I've seen a lot of people point out that while Astarion's whole "thing" in act 1 is that he's this sexy sweet talking savant, he only has 10 charisma and actually isn't all that good at it.

He practices cheesy pickup lines within earshot of the person he's going to say them to, and every single time he flirts with tav it's extremely heavy-handed and almost cringeworthy. It's pretty obvious that he's trying to manipulate tav, even if the reason doesn't become clear until his act 2 confession.

But here's the thing: Astarion never actually needed to be all that good at flirting.

He says himself that the vast majority of his "targets" were drunks and brothel-goers. People who never actually saw him as anything other than an object for their pleasure. They were going to go home with him no matter what he said. A few pretty words and his physical beauty would do the rest.

But Tav is the first person to actually view him as a real person, which is why it becomes so glaringly obvious that he's not nearly as charming as he thinks he is. Astarion tells them at the tiefling party that "every part of their body screams temptation" and their response is that he's "sweet" and "silly". They're not buying it for second, because they don't need to be told pretty lies to like him. They like him because of who he really is as a person. They fall in love with him not because he's good in bed or has pretty eyes or a sexy body. They fall in love with him because he's sweet and secretly very kind. Because there is so much pain and sadness and fear in him, and he truly cannot see how amazing he really is. That his goodness never really went away, it just got hidden for a while.

[asharaks]

it is, i think, symptomatic of the way larian has built this brand: bg3 was always marketed as being mature (read: sexual), and that was one of the big draws for players - myself included! especially as media pulls more towards extremes, with mainstream video games starting to get increasingly graphically sexual, graphically violent, and the vogue for 'grey morality' becomes the norm, those boundaries get pushed, and it becomes more and more of a selling point.

larian obviously focused on this, along with the How Do You Do, Fellow Kids brand, the increased accessibility of game devs on twitter, and adopted it heavily into their marketing strategy, and are now pretty reliant on the horny gamer crowd for a lot of their audience, and more importantly, they're doing this on purpose.

which is how you end up in situations like this.

characters (white men) the players want to fuck get centred: they get updates, they get more content, they get favoured. halsin's gone from a side character in EA to a half-fledged romance option, to a full romance option: he shows up in the promotional material, is larian's poster boy for the sex scenes, he gets more content with every update.

now gortash gets more heavily implied situationship lines with the dark urge, because players are horny for him. nevermind that some people aren't playing that way, or that he was originally set up to be a lower-level antagonist; nevermind that if the durge's storyline needed expansion, it should've been with orin and sarevok and bhaal, or that it muddies the writing for the rest of gortash's arc + characterisation: people want to fuck him, so it gets put in the game. it's not even to do with karlach, whose quest so desperately needs expansion! it's specifically catering to the people who want their character to have a Relationship with the slaver, because they're either not interested in or not able to focus on strengthening the weak spots in the narrative: they're just doing things that will net the 'my favourite dating sim' people lmfao.

meanwhile, literal main character wyll gets his quest demoted to a subquest, doesn't get bugfixes, doesn't get a single unique romance greeting after 6 patches and months of requests. he's not a Horny character, so he doesn't get the focus: he's not a player favourite, so he gets nothing. it's just... so unbelievably, indisputably racist, and it's incredibly grim and disappointing to watch it happen in real-time.

[emahriel]

Queen

(source: x)

[mlavier]

shameless redraw of a Hark! A Vagrant Classic

[justabiteofspite]

When I say I laughed so hard I sent myself into a 3 minute coughing fit...

[stormlight-drafter]

I am BEGGING the BG3 fandom to acknowledge that the story is specifically set up so that the player always makes the “right” decision.

Trust The Emperor? He does exactly as he says, treats you as a friend, helps you kill The Netherbrain, and floats off into the sunset without ever once betraying you. Don’t trust The Emperor? He taunts you, says he always thought of you as a puppet, shows you how evil he is and fights against you in the final battle.

Help Astarion ascend, Gale become a god, and Shadowheart become a Dark Justiciar? They say thank you, this is what I always wanted, I’m very happy. Keep Astarion a spawn, Gale mortal, and make Shadowheart a Selunite? They say thank you, this is what I really wanted, I’m very happy.

The characters aren’t real people. They’re plot devices to ensure that the player always gets a satisfying conclusion to following the plot and side quests to their completion. I’m so tired of the same arguments over and over where people use evidence from Choice A to explain why Choice B is bad and invalid.

[niccoguedes]

BABY SAID...

ty!

Hello, thank you for the support on my BG3 fanart. 🔥❤️

Some of you asked for individual full shots of them, so I decided to make it. There's an interesting suggestion with Shadowheart and Karlarch I might do as well...

"Can I use it as wallpaper/screen cover?"

Sure. Just don't remove my signature or modify the drawing.🤘

"Can I print it on my own?"

If possible, please consider supporting me via INPRNT. If you can't, ofc, I won't hold you, go on, print it and later drop me a coffee at ko-fi, darling! You can also share some cents via paypal. Send pics as well of your achievement. For personal use only. 🔥

"Can I print it to sell, use commercially?"

No. Unless you pay me 100kUSD.

🇧🇷"Tem print?" Sim. Só me enviar comprovante de 50$ no pix: 51648094000140 e endereço de preferência para o e-mail: niccoguedes @ gmail.com . Envio no tamanho A4 com rastreio.

[irisevanz]

Larian trying to tell us no but all I’m hearing is that they were so down bad for one another they didn’t even bother with foreplay. Sick little freaks

[eliseliedl]

"Glad to be with you, I mean." Baldur's Gate 3 7 / ?

[loonyoz]

A homemade meme to express my feelings:

There is still a lot I love about the game but some stuff makes me really sad and disappointed

[sky-kiss]

Larian, I am begging you. Stop changing things. Stop editing your finished product.

Stop.

And more importantly: stop changing it without context, without alerting the people that bought your product. It's not early access anymore. Most of these changes are watering down the characters and their personalities. Please.

[wild-magic-oops]

some things are better without context

[lykantrooppi]

Jackdaw, the war cleric of Tiamat

[lelalyo]

Larian's really out here buffing Gortash's boss fight by adding dialogue to make Durge players hesitate fighting him at all.

[messiahzzz]

When I came across that "joke" from Tav to Quill and Z'rell's comment (plus Halsin), I had to take a minute to process what happened. Gale might be a bit silly and eccentric but he's the kindest, sweetest and most passionate character in that party. No wonder the poor man has deep insecurities to solve, so many people reduce him to an easy target! Ofc one of the side effects would be overconfidence and ambition as a defense mechanism. He's obv lonely; only Tara and Morena ever loved him for him.

his eccentric nature might be a part of it. he is loquacious, outgoing, and doesn’t see the point in hiding his enthusiasm. he is considered to be the weird one. naturally, wizards in general being seen as somewhat squishy and physically weak might also add to it.

personally, i really don’t like the implications of the (widely considered) autistic-coded character being the one who faces the most ridicule by far by other characters and fans (and larian) alike.

some might disagree with me on that, but i don’t find it funny by any means either. mostly it just makes me feel bad. “he deserves it. cocky, arrogant, hubris-ridden wizard needs to be taken down a peg” like he isn’t… y’know… already at his lowest. it also disregards the fact that much of his bravado is part of his carefully curated Great Wizard of Waterdeep™ persona that he has skillfully adopted to mask his general feeling of being defective. being fiercely proud of your skill and knowledge and being doubtful of having something truly worthwhile to offer are mindsets that can coexist. according to fandom, gale is either secret hubris incarnate that is only waiting to be unleashed upon the world or pure baby that can do no wrong. instead of a character that is just as flawed and traumatized as all the others, but no less deserving of genuine love.

to me, the constant ridicule just reads as further feeding into his deep-rooted insecurities and his belief that he (as gale, the person) isn’t someone who holds inherent worth. it really, really doesn’t sit well with me.