#Not really lore discussion

[rekas-bitches]

There's a group of people on Tumblr who seem to COMPLETELY dislike q!Tubbo. And like, you're allowed to dislike someone, but my god. Wow.

Anyway: It's fine to dislike a character. It's fine to be upset at them that their pain results in them hurting others. It's even fine to be annoyed at the way they lash out or react to situations.

But please, when criticizing it, keep in mind that nothing about the way q!tubbo acts is unrealistic to real life people.

It's not unrealistic to lash out if people you are very close to, whether familial or in a friend group, start dating or become otherwise much closer, and it changes the dynamic, leaving you to feel left out.

It's not unrealistic to struggle with saying the right thing in emotional moments, so resorting to trying to communicate that you're there for them in other ways. (Gifts, making a base as secure as possible, telling them they can always take what they need)

It's not unrealistic to be overwhelmed with your emotions and not know how to communicate.

And it's certainly not unrealistic to not know how to help a child process their emotions while you're still struggling with yours.

And keep in mind that disliking a character might be fine, but just generally saying you're a bad person for struggling does hurt people who struggle with the same things.

I know for a fact it wasn't pleasant for me to read someone pretty much saying that if you struggle to communicate how you're feeling, you should just stay out of social situations completely.

[proxentauri]

if i had a nickel for every time i played a remedy game that featured courtney hope’s character trying to get to a world-altering polyhedron in a universe where humans wear special harnesses to survive a world-ending threat, i’d have two nickels, which isn't a lot, but it's sure weird that it's happened twice

flipped version & process beneath the cut!

beth deserved so much better...please quantum break sequel where she's happy :) please remedy...the IP is worth it i promise I'LL fucking come back for her

[kwillow]

Mail time. Theo clearly isn't the best candidate to lecture people on "good manners" but that's not going to stop him.

Also using this as a header for more LORE RAMBLES: THEO EDITION, because again I have more interesting asks about Theo than I can answer with drawings -- so REAMS OF WORDS it is!

Questions and answers under the cut...

Well, Theo isn’t terribly fond of the guy. He’s never met him, of course, but from his research into Old Kingdom history, he thinks of Ambroys as a conceited, shallow, disloyal, cowardly liar – and he’s not exactly wrong, ha.

If they met in the past, when Ambroys was his cocky, younger self, I think Ambroys would take advantage of Theo’s poor social skills and unpopularity by bullying him for some cheap points with other people who would find amusement in that. Ambroys wouldn’t have much use for him otherwise. Theo would spend far more time seething about Ambroys and plans for his revenge on that POMPOUS POPINJAY than Ambroys would spend thinking about Theo at all.

If they met in modern times – well that’s something we’ll address eventually, but Theo and Ambroys would not get along much better. Present-day Ambroys does not like mages one bit. Also, he is quite used to being literally worshipped. A little hater like Theo would not be looked upon kindly.

Thank you!! Now you too are present in a lore dump!

Theo is indeed a fan of the performing arts, and art in general (though he is, predictably, very particular in his tastes). Opera and such was performed during Ambroys’ time, and much of it was likely lost during the apocalyptic era between the time of the Old Kingdoms and the modern day, but I imagine some scant examples of the genre (and traditional plays by the likes of Furry Shakespeare, because Shakespeare is one of those people who just exists in every universe no matter how bizarre) would still survive into the Theo’s time.

Theo’s hometown of Northcrest would be too small and rural to have a real theatre, so experiencing “proper” performances would be rare treats for him, when he followed his mother on business excursions to the rich districts of Ironfrost. I love that you picked up on the fact that he would want his own private box, haha. He wants to observe, not be observed!

You’re right that musicals would probably still be in their vaudeville and burlesque era, and Theo would find them to be distasteful, vulgar pap suited only for the soft, feeble minds of the unwashed masses, not a refined intellectual like himself. (Which is funny because I think a real-world modern-day Theo would like musicals because in some ways, he is a theater kid without the charisma or confidence to actually perform.) While his mother did not enjoy theatre to the same extent he did (her tastes were more in feats of choreographry and human/anthro excellence like ballet), they would bitch about the decline of society together if they saw a poster for one of those terrible, gaudy cabaret catastrophes. In general, Theo hates anything modern and likes anything old-fashioned, and that shifts according to the decade he lives in. An Amaranthine Theo would hate swing music, but a real-world modern-day Theo would like it. Embarrassing!

Also, he will memorize and quote his favorite soliloquies at people for the faintest of reasons. Don’t test him.

No, I don’t think Hyden has strong enough arms or a sturdy enough back to lift an entire person, even one as little as Theo. Hyden might be large but he’s not as powerful as his height and bulk make him look. I think even Theo is more physically adept than Hyden is (and that’s not saying much).

Also, while he would learn to tolerate it from someone like Hyden (in the same way your cat might begrudgingly tolerate you grabbing their little feet), Theo does not like being picked up by people. I can speak from experience than when you’re a short person, people love to pick you up randomly to establish dominance and it’s not a very dignified experience. Theo has a hard enough time being taken seriously even without being lugged about like a wheezing sack of flour.

Theo would be the first to inform you he is not the person to consult on romantic matters. At the same time, he would still give his advice: stop being a fatuous little fool and turn your efforts to matters of greater importance, like work or supporting your family or collecting every edition of your favorite encyclopedia or hitting your head against a wall. All would be better ways to spend your energy.

(I think you’re alluding to a person with a crush on him – God knows why such a person would exist in his universe – asking him for romantic advice, but I feel compelled to specify that the message he’d give a man seeking instructions on how to deal with a lady would be akin to “GET A JOB. STAY AWAY FROM HER”)

(Or maybe you mean someone Theo has a crush on? Well, the answer would be the same. Theo isn't duplicitous enough or proud enough to try to swindle someone towards viewing him as a romantic prospect. But he sure wouldn't suggest they get with someone else. NO ONE IS ALLOWED TO BE IN LOVE. STOP IT, HE SAYS.)

Yes, those are self-inflicted injuries. He’s had a compulsion to bite and scratch himself ever since he was a kid. Sometimes as a punishment, sometimes as a ritual to quell distressing thoughts, sometimes out of the need to replace distressing sensations and events that are out of his control with one that is in his control, no matter how painful.

He does not particularly value his body nor its integrity. However, he is aware the scars are alarming, and finds them somewhat embarrassing reminders of his flaws in self-regulation. He deals with both the sight of the scars and the urge to harm by wearing his gloves, which is something he started doing in his late teens – they cover the marks and help redirect him by replacing the sensation of flesh with fabric when he goes to bite down.

On your question about Theo’s body-image: no, he does not care for how he looks. He likes that his eyes are grey (like mother’s) and that his fur is monochrome (like mother’s), and if pressed he might say the eyebrows aren’t bad, except for the parts where he’s pulled the hair out of them, but that’s it. He hates that he’s not just short but dwarfish, he does not like his heavy-set build, he would not choose to be born a rat, he despises his face, his teeth repulse him, he at least can make peace with the fact that he can’t grow facial hair because he’d never want a mustache like his father’s but it’s still somewhat emasculating, and on and on and on with the insecurities. He definitely feels physically inferior to other males. Your average man is not only much, much taller than him (and the world is cruel to a short king), but stronger and more classically virile as well. But he makes the best of that by dismissing those physical qualities as consolation prizes afforded to males who are obviously inferior to him intellectually, morally, and spiritually. He doesn’t care for brutes, but he doesn’t highly value machismo anyway… He thinks of himself as a gentleman whose best qualities reside in his mind and actions. A man who is reedy and petite but smarter or more charismatic than him is much more threatening to his ego than the bulkiest bruiser. (However, he will still try to fight both for dominance, either physically or verbally, and probably lose.)

Theo is highly offended and disgusted by nudity, both other’s and his own. Even states of mild undress are distressing to him, hence why he looks away when buttoning Hyden’s shirt. He’s willing to stomach some discomfort when it comes to helping a loved one, but only if it’s strictly necessary. He would pointedly not look and scold someone, even someone he was more comfortable with, if they were “too underdressed,” and freak out if they came into his vicinity in the nude. I think it would take years of gradual desensitization to lessen his negative reactions to nudity. It’s not just him being fussy, it borders on a phobia.

(Haha this shows how long I sit on asks before I get around to answering them SORRY...!!!!)

I don’t talk about it a lot because while the character’s sexual orientations do inform their lives and development, romance and sex are not usually at the top of my priority list when it comes to my stories… but I’ve alluded and mentioned directly that Theo is “canonically” bisexual (always feels weird to say “canon” about my imaginary friends, ha). But he is in denial/in the closet about it. Of course, he wouldn’t be aware of the concept of “bisexuality”, nor would that exact label exist in his world, so it’s not like he would identify that way even if he wasn’t repressing hardcore.

He is revolted by sex and intimacy, but that’s more due to his psychological baggage, his perception of his parent’s relationship and his cultural mores than something necessarily inborn or inherent to him.

(Hyden is actually Also Straight, possibly even straighter than Ambroys if we’re measuring by “creator’s admittance that character may be bi-curious one day.” I have a track record.)

Only if it’s karmic in some way, involving a person or persons he’s already predisposed to hating. Granted, dying of one’s own stupidity would be a form of justice in his eyes, but there’s limitations to that. Hearing about, say, an incident like Nutty Putty cave would not be amusing even though he would argue it’s the cave explorer’s “own fault” for going in there because it was such a gruesome and prolonged end, far outweighing the punishment Theo would find fair for such hubris. Of course, if the same cave explorer bullied him in prep school, then yes, it would be hilarious.

I don’t have a character named Herbert, so I am assuming you mean Theo here, from context. :’D

I’d like to draw Theo practicing his fencing some day! It’s on The List along with, er, fifty other drawings, ha. There’s just so much I need to make and so little time…

But besides that, Theo is not a particularly sporty guy. He doesn’t tend to enjoy competitive sports, either participating or watching. Physically he’s just not suited to them, and his schoolboy days did not endear him to them.

He does enjoy taking walks and admiring picturesque landscapes. He also hunted with his mother. One of the duties of the Norths is (or was, before he started shirking all his duties to focus entirely on his madness quest) to eliminate monstrous predators lurking on the outskirts of their territory before they could terrorize the mundane locals. Mages can sense magic, and thus are more capable of tracking down and felling corrupt magical beasts than your average person. Also, sometimes one wants a pheasant for dinner on special occasions. So, he grew up learning to hunt, and he’s decent with a rifle. He doesn’t go out to do much anymore, though. His mother’s death and subsequent self-imposed isolation exacerbated his already present issues with social phobia and paranoia, so he doesn’t feel safe outside his house. Someone could see him out there, and Something could happen. (He isn’t sure what exactly, but surely nothing good.)

During the course of Amaranthine’s story he is, of course, forced to go outside again and travel, so he’ll rediscover his hobby of killing animals again. …Good for him. I suppose.

(This is in reference to the tags I put on my post of Theo's romance meme: #ok one piece of commentary: brain problems + highly repressed upbringing = where i put theo on the kinky slider. it had to be there #you should think less '50 shades' and more '50 year old guys waxing poetic about quicksand scenes in old adventure films' for that one #he's not a quicksand guy. but that's the vibe.)

Hahaha, I appreciate your curiosity, but I’m not sure if it’s a terrific idea to share Theo’s “quicksand” equivalents. Alas, I don’t want to encourage the perception that my characters exist to be romantic or sexual wish-fulfillment, instead of the dysfunctional little narrative fidget toys they are, by going too in-depth too often on their hypothetical sex lives. Also, I get my (un)fair share of fetish-mining asks, and if I mention certain kinks, the senders of those asks might think they can wheedle that kind of smut art from me, which… is not the case, even if I did like the things Theo is partial to. Frankly, I don’t have time to draw smut art when I have so many comics of my characters angsting at each other that I ought to be drawing instead!!!

Anyway, complaining over. But I do know what Theo’s “interests” are, and don’t worry, they are suitably cringe. I find amusement in giving embarrassing proclivities to all my favorite characters, even if it will never come up in their stories. It keeps them humble.

The Theo befriending scenarios are becoming more elaborate…!

Magic can’t really do that in Amaranthine (it’s more limited than a lot of people think)! But even if you could, I think Theo might realize something was off eventually. Granted, he is blind to a lot of manipulation when he trusts someone, and for his own stupid reasons he trusts Hyden, so that alone would provide cover for some time. Being nice to him in Hyden’s guise might even fulfill some boyhood dreams of his, so that helps too. Still, I don’t think anyone but Hyden could manage to act like Hyden forever.

Theo abhors liars, manipulators, and traitors (I know, this is very funny considering I just talked about how Theo likes Hyden – again, Theo is not a great judge of character). While he would be mortified at his own gullibility, it’s not like he’d spare you any judgment for being the one to take advantage of his hospitality in the first place.

So, in attempting to befriend him, you would have 1) caused harm to someone he has charged himself with protecting by kidnapping Hyden, 2) committed the sin of deceiving him and 3) wounded his ego by exposing a huge vulnerability in his psychological armor. These are not crimes he is likely to excuse. Among Theo’s many faults are his capacity for spite and appetite for disproportionate vengeance. In other words, he would want to hurt you very, very badly.

Anyway, in summation, this is not a great way to try and win Theo’s affection. If befriending something hostile is what you’re after, I’d recommend purchasing a pet cobra or something, it would be more rewarding and less difficult to manage.

Ooh, this is another one of those “it depends” sort of questions… an Amaranthine Theo is completely unsuited for parenthood because he is just totally off his rocker and devoted to an impossible, nature-impugning, corruptive madness quest, so there’s not really much space left in his brain for any of the tasks involved in parenting.

Also, how well and in what way he would approach parenting would depend on if he has a partner and who they are, if the kid is biological (and therefore an extension of the North line) or adopted (and therefore might be spared some of those expectations), and what the kid or kids are like.

But, I’ll try to speak generally. He does put an importance on family so he would not be neglectful. In fact, I think he’d tend towards being smothering, way too over-protective. He would have high expectations for their academic career (despite flopping in his own) and would be upset if his children didn’t share his interest in intellectual pursuits. He lacks a lot of knowledge about life, and so he wouldn’t be able to pass that on to his children, despite desiring that they be self-sufficient and capable. He would try and keep them from being romantically involved until they could marry, which he wouldn’t think would be difficult considering how he himself is, but I think he would be disappointed and frustrated by the fact that most people (and therefore probably his kids) aren’t so averse to macking on other teenagers in their school days. His tendency towards being neurotic and temperamental would be an issue, and I think even if he tried to control his explosive tendencies around his children, they’d still pick up on it and be afraid of his moods. I think, with his immature development, he would have a lot of difficulty not descending to a teenager’s level of petty sniping if his teenage child did what teenagers do and started challenging him.

So… this is not painting a rosy picture. Don’t get me wrong, he’d try his best, and he would aim to be a good, supportive, and loving parent, but the man has issues. He wouldn’t be perfect. He might not even be good. He is Theo, after all.

Speaking of parenthood, let's get into some...

Family Matters

NO, they did not like each other. Their passive-aggression is as genuine as it is petty. They were the most divorced people to still technically be married.

Love was never in the cards for these two. The marriage was purely strategic, and all parties were aware of that. Leonard would have liked to have his wife love him, if only because it would be much more pleasant and convenient for him, but it wasn’t a requirement. He could seek love elsewhere if need be. He was always an opportunistic fellow that way.

Jo never held fondness for Leonard, either before or after their engagement. The marriage was at the behest of her father, and Jo had always put her duties to her family line above whatever selfish wants she might have had. She was willing to tolerate Leonard, which is about the best you could expect from her. However, he tried her patience too often to maintain even that level of camaraderie.

Leonard liked how Jo looked, and he liked the idea he had of her personality. Because Jo was deferential to her father, he assumed she would be similarly deferential to him. Hahaha. Not so. After her father passed, she inherited the Barony and thus, in her mind, the right to dictate the use of her family’s assets, the alliances she would forge with her noble connections, and the future of her estate. All her plans conflicted sharply with Leonard’s ideas of what he was going to do with the North’s influence, and he thought himself the keeper of their assets by patriarchal right. They clashed often and they both were too proud, power-hungry, and conniving to reconcile.

Leonard stayed because giving up the marriage would be giving up his avenue to social power. If he wanted to appear like he held the reins to potential allies and business connections, he had to stay in the manor, stay in Northcrest, and keep that ring on his finger. But he did take a very “I just live here” attitude to his home life. Jo stayed because her family’s long-held values maintained that it was her duty to do so, and to falter in her duties would be a permanent black stain on her good name. Also, it proved her superiority to the clearly weak-willed, dissolute Leonard, and that was an ego boost she wouldn’t pass up.

AHAHAH. THEO PEGGED FOR INBRED.

Yes, well, as you intuited, the Norths are one of those inbred noble families, like those you mentioned.

They’re a mage bloodline, and in the old days, mage nobility was a separate form of titled aristocracy from mundane nobility. Legitimate heirs had to have magical ability. If a mundane Viscount produced a mundane child, that was the end of the line of inheritance. Hence, noble mages in the Old Kingdoms only married other mages, to try to ensure their offspring could inherit their titles. While not all practiced inbreeding, it was a practice some families employed to try to “enhance” the magical ability and purity of their line, or just keep their wealth and power within their family (the Hyden family is another infamous example).

However, most magical lineages were wiped out during the fall of the Old Kingdoms, and those that survived were scattered to remote areas of the continent. Very few mages still exist, and the North family is one of the only lineages to survive “intact” to the modern day. They cling to their family’s history and their magical bloodline as their source of power and would never risk a union with a mundane. Like many other old traditions best left in the past, the Norths clung to the old ways, marrying within their line, inbreeding like an endangered species (which I suppose you could argue they were).

Of course, as the North’s numbers declined, the marriages shifted from pairing distant relatives to being cousin-cousin pairs. That level of consanguinity isn’t great for your offspring’s health or fertility, as it turns out, and further diminished their numbers (and options) until it came time for Jocosa to make their dying lineage limp along for another generation. By the time she was of age, there were no branches on the family tree left to harvest a husband from. Thus, the Norths needed to go further afield of the stagnant gene pool they’d been festering in.

Because of that, Theo is arguably a bit less inbred than previous generations of his family. The damage was already done, though. The fruits of the North’s unfortunate marriage practices have garnered them a deserved reputation for weak bodies, sick minds and dying young, and so far, Theo is two-for-three. We’ll see if he gets the triple.

Related to the above: if you haven’t realized already, the Norths are fucking freaks. Especially in the modern day of Amaranthine, caring about matching species in a marriage is seen as hyper-traditionalist, bizarre and absurdly impractical. But, well, the Norths are all those things. Jocosa’s parents were a stoat-stoat pair, their parents were stoat-stoat, and so on up the family tree, with maybe some rare exceptions where you might find a few polecats or minks scattered about in amongst the other long pointy-faced carnivores. Jocosa’s parents really would have preferred to have another mustelid marriage rather than wed their daughter to a rat.

But, that was a preference, and magical ability was a necessity. When Jocosa needed to marry, there were no other magical stoats, weasels, or even an otter for them to choose from.

That’s when an opportunistic young rat caught wind that there was a beautiful noble girl in need of a husband, just when he needed a rise in social station. Leonard was reasonably wealthy, and more importantly charming, quick-witted, and not afraid of lying his ass off to close a deal. He befriended Jocosa’s father and was able to delicately pick his way around or find loopholes in the Norths’ strict rules for marriage. Importantly for the Norths, Leonard had magical ability, albeit extremely weakly. You might say he was a sparkler while Jocosa was a flamethrower (in this analogy, in his prime, Hyden was an atomic bomb). Not ideal, but Leonard had enough magic to count as a mage for heir-producing purposes. Ultimately, Jocosa’s parents saw Leonard as the best option in a bad situation, rat or no. Preferable to dying out altogether, at least.

...

AND ON THAT, UH, HAPPY NOTE: thanks for reading and thank you all as always for sending questions about my little guy and being interested in him, even with all his slimy, weird, unpleasant foibles and flaws!

[roukabi]

I feel like when it comes to the Dusthide debate, a lot of people seem to misinterpret the main point of Ancients as both a game element and a product.

A big part of Flight Rising is dress-up. While users can argue on what the sole draw of FR is (dragons themselves, breeding, the Dominance system, etc), it's generally agreed that the dress-up aspect is one with a lot of care and resources put into it, and is therefore very important to site gameplay. Dress-up keeps getting updated with new apparel, and if there is to be a new dragon breed, it needs every piece of apparel re-drawn on it. This takes time. A lot of time. Gaps between dragons (now known as Moderns) stretch for years at a time.

Ancients were initially created as a way to fill in these time gaps between Moderns, and the easiest way to do that was to release dragons without apparel. However, this is a game that puts a lot of emphasis on dragon dress-up. Imagine if Obelisks were released without any coded apparel. You'd just have a naked dragon missing a huge element of the game, and for most players, there's no fun in that.

This is where the second point of Ancients comes in: because the appeal of clothing is gone, there has to be some kind of compromise. So... if Ancients can't wear apparel, then they are no longer restrained by the requirements for apparel (1 head/4 legs/2 wings)...

which means that they can break the modern mold freely! You can have a dragon with no legs, or six. Or with two heads, or no head. And now that you don't have to worry about apparel clipping, the tertiary genes can go wild! There is room for customization that apparel can't fulfill - you could give it extra wings, or a jellyfish head, or giant tree horns, or you could give it nothing at all as tertiary genes are optional, and it wouldn't matter because there's no apparel to be drawn around it!

Ancients are supposed to be a trade-off. There's no selling point to a dragon without clothing on the Dragons With Clothing Game, but there is a selling point to a dragon with, say, 13 legs, no wings and no tail. It doesn't wear apparel, because it physically can't, and it makes use of this function in creative ways. The inability to wear apparel is justified by the Ancient's unique proportions.

And this is where the criticisms for Dusthides and other 'basic' Ancients stems from: if your Ancient dragon is just the 1 head/4 legs/2 wings setup, then is it really an Ancient or a Modern you can't dress up? You could have the wildest, gaudiest, 15-limb tertiary gene on a Dusthide and it wouldn't matter, because tertiaries are optional and aren't a permanent part of the dragon that would inhibit the usage of apparel.

If a dragon doesn't have a justifiable reason to not wear apparel, then there's no reason for it being an Ancient.

No amount of linebreaking tertiaries will be able to hide the fact that some dragons seem to be created only for the first, initial purpose: just to tide people over until a better, 'real' dragon is created.

And that's just disappointing.

[mothsakura]

UI............................. i need UI................. watcher dlc better have UI lore.................................. i want UI lore................... video cult, if you're hearing this, tell us more about UI.......... please....................................begging.......................................... UI :( :( :(................................................................................................ i need-

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Thank you for answering my Origins Dragon!Marinette and Turtle!Adrien question! Please don’t worry about disagreeing with the idea; I asked for YOUR opinion and analysis on why it would OR wouldn’t work, and that’s what I got. 😌 It also made me consider meta and in-show stuff that I hadn’t before, which is cool. You mentioned wanting all of the Kwamis to be part of some sort of set of two or more, and I’d love to hear what those sets are in your head going down the full Chinese Miracle Box list and why you’d pair them together with consideration towards both the Kwami themselves and their Powers.

(Post this ask is referring to)

Oh good, I'm glad that you found it useful and not discouraging!

Talking about how to pair the Kwamis is a little tricky because of an issue that I've discussed before. That issue being that the "Chinese" miracle box seems to be about as Chinese as fortune cookies. That makes me uncomfortable because - as far as I'm aware - the Chinese zodiac is a major part of Chinese beliefs and traditions. As such, I personally feel like the box should reflect those beliefs and traditions, but I also don't know those beliefs and traditions, so I can't tell you how I'd effectively group the zodiac Kwamis in order to honor their cultural origins. I can't even be sure if my criticism is valid or just me being overly cautious!

In an ideal world where I had money to invest in this sort of thing, I'd hire a cultural consultant to work with me to design a Chinese miracle box that feels Chinese (or to tell me that I'm overthinking this and to just do whatever I want). Assuming that I'm not overreacting, this would probably mean redesigning a lot of the powers and looks so that they honor Chinese lore and not Western lore.

For example, one thing that I know for sure is that black cats are not unlucky in China. They're actually symbols of good luck (all cats are), so a Chinese box would not have the implied good luck/bad luck thing that we get with Ladybug and Chat Noir. My limited research has also raised some doubts about ladybugs being a go-to symbol of good luck or creation in China, but I'm a lot less confident about that one being a bad choice as the association may exist. I couldn't find anything definitive one way or the other. This leads me to think that, if the association exists, then it's probably a bit obscure, meaning that a Chinese box would probably go with a different animal if we were trying to be culturally accurate to what a Chinese-inspired box would really look like.

I can say with reasonable certainty that Creation is associated with the masculine yang and Destruction is associated with the feminine yin, so Tikki should possibly feel masculine to feminine Plagg. At the very least, their spots in the miracle box should probably be reversed with Plagg in the black and Tikki in the white since yin is black and yang is white?

[Image Description: center of the original miracle box showing that ladybug earrings are placed in the black part of the yin yang symbol while the black cat ring is in the white]

I also known that white rabbits being associated with time, watches, and umbrellas comes from Alice in Wonderland and not China. Are you starting to see why I'm doubting the cultural accuracy of the miracle box?

The alternate way to approach this is to remove the possible issue of Chinese culture being treated as "mystical" or nothing more than ornamentation by making the Chinese miracle box into the miracle box of no specified culture. Since that's kind of what the box already is in terms of deeper meanings and cultural ties, I think we can go that route for this discussion since we have taken a moment to acknowledge the potential issues with the box's existing design and why that's leading me to take this route as - to me - this seems to be the only way to stick to canon's lore while avoiding potential further insults to Chinese culture.

If we went to my ideal extremes with this approach, we'd actually massively cut down the number of miraculous in the box because I think that there are way too many miraculous! Who needs nineteen "unique" powers to arm and fight one villain? This is extra true since there's no real theme to the miraculous beyond the initial setup of Creation/Destruction + five random powers followed by the addition twelve more random powers with no clear ties to any culture or theme other than the look of the Kwamis that grant the powers.

But that's getting real extreme, so for this ask, we won't go there. Instead, I'll talk about some general ideas for grouping the powers that we already have and some ideas for how you could fix the randomness of our current powers to make them feel like they make sense.

To start, I love the fact that our two main heroes are supposed to be a pair power wise. That's a lovely way to approach your lore and is why I think that they should have grouped the other miraculous, too. Why are Creation and Destruction the only set? Why aren't the others in any sort of group? Why do these miraculous have the powers they do? What ties them to this box and not another box?

There are a few ways to approach pairing the other miraculous. You can come at it from a theme perspective such as the fact that both the snake and the rabbit are all about time. You can also look for opposites such as the turtle being all about defense and the dragon being more about offense. You can even go more broad and say that a given group of miraculous is all aspects of one type of power such as the peacock, the goat, and the ladybug all feeling like aspects of creation. There's really no clear way to go about this because the current powers are so freaking random!

When I approach this stuff, I don't just come up with powers. I come up with the lore and let that help guide the powers or I shape the lore around the powers I want to use until both things make sense. For example, it makes sense that Creation would have some magical being guiding it. It also makes sense that Creation would either create Destruction for balance or that they both popped into existence together so that there was always a balance. Once you have that, you say, "Okay, what other Forces would these two want in order to help guide the universe? What can't they do or what do they do consistently enough that they might want to hand it off?"

Going from there, you start to come up with ideas like maybe they wanted Time to have a physical embodiment so that they could get some guidance on the long term effects of the things that they were making, so that's Fluff coming online. But Time is a lot and they liked their balance, so maybe Sass was brought online too in order to balance Fluff with Fluff being focused on what was and what could be while Sass is focused on what is, thereby giving Fluff someone to ground her. Or maybe you even add in a third Kwami to be some sort of historian who remembers the past while Fluff is the future and Sass is the now.

Another thought path is that most things are not pure Creation or pure Destruction. You must destroy to create. When you make bread, yeast consumes sugar to create air bubbles. Creation and Destruction working together. So maybe Tikki and Plagg wanted to make "children" who could do what they couldn't do solo and that's how we got the peacock?

No matter how you go about this, I really don't think that there's a great way to explain/group all nineteen miraculous, especially if you add in the eagle and Fei's wacky prodigious with it's animal abilities. It's just too random! But I do think that there's a lot of potential in strong subsets of the ones we get in canon, especially if you're allowed to edit the powers or the Forces a bit to make them fit their supposed Force or granted power better. I've talked before about how I'd mess with Lucky Charm to remove the odd Luck association and focus on Creation and that's what I'd do with most of the miraculous because, right now, most of them don't make much sense.

For example, Ziggy - the goat - is supposed to be the Kwami of Passion and that somehow gives the power to create anything you want? I know creatives are passionate, but that still doesn't fit in my mind. It would make more sense for this to be an inspiration power like the pig or for the Force to change to Creation and Ziggy is just a lesser ladybug for some reason? And Stompp - the Ox - is Determination, but I'd actually label his shield power as an aspect of Protection, making him in some sort of pairing with the turtle. Self defense verses defense of others?

In short, the canon lore is a disaster that needs major work to feel solid which leads to lots of paths for fixing the mess. In my opinion, the best way to go about fixing it is to take the element that worked best - the Creation/Destruction pairing - and expand that out to make strong, logical lore for the other Kwamis and their associated powers. Lore that probably won't be rooted in any one culture because no culture seems to be a solid match for the lore that canon is using, which is only concerning because of the current obvious associations with China and that's not even touching on the whole Tibetan monks + Chinese culture issue. Go check out the post I linked at the start for my thoughts on that which basically sum up to, "I am not even remotely qualified to talk about this one, but it seems like a terrible idea."

(Once again, reminder that I'm not Chinese or otherwise deeply informed on Chinese culture. I'm just a person who tries her best to respect other cultures and the miracle box sets off a lot of warning bells for me. Those warning bells could always be a false positive, so you shouldn't take my thoughts as some sort of final say on this topic. Please feel free to look into this on your own and form your own opinions.

If you are Chinese or otherwise educated in these topics, then please feel free to reblog this or send an ask giving me some additional context as I really do love learning about this stuff, but it's near impossible to research! I spent a good hour talking to a local librarian trying to find books or articles in our library that talked about the Chinese zodiac from an academic perspective and we found nothing. I've got a few interlibrary loan requests out to academic libraries in our library network though and I'll follow up on this if those books end up having information that adds to the discussion.)

[saprocor]

Stardew headcanon time

Going insane because I had an idea and I need to yell about it or I will actually fucking explode-

Sebastian has a fairly popular blog where he starts to describe all the weird supernatural shit in Stardew Valley after it starts and your weird self:

- The weird environmental things that start happening after your arrival (ie. Green rain)

- Supernatural activity increasing 10 fold.

- How you gain special powers after eating food

- How you're super weird and do shit like running around at 2 am from the mines back to your farm, passing out, then somehow being able to go right back to it instantly even after being exhausted or severely injured

- How you hatch strange creatures on your farm (void chickens, slimes, etc.)

- How you can just chuck random shit into a sewing machine, and it comes out as clothing (he hears about this from Emily and is like. This is going on the fucking blog)

- He also talks about how you're low-key terrifying at times- trudging home with a sword in one hand in the rain with blood and ghost matter dripping from it after a long day at the mines.

Sebastian speaks of his exasperation online about how everyone just let's you get away with being a weird as fuck cryptid basically. He connects the dots that all this weird shit started happening when your weird seld showed up in the valley later down the line because people start flocking to hear about it.

The farmer becomes somewhat internet famous and essentially gets a creepypasta-esque reputation online. People want to know the farmer lore. Sebastian doesn't name his town in his blog posts ever because he wants anonymity, and he especially wouldn't mention you because you lowkey kinda scare him after he connects the dots all together though.

Like what the fuck are you? He refuses to believe you're even human. You got knocked out to the point on almost dying in the skull caverns; he watches you walk out of the infirmary almost dead, pull out an entire cake and inhale it in a couple of seconds, then look a-ok and run right back to the mines. He's not gonna mess with that.

He would be kinda lost without you being an odd little creature, though, so although you know he has locked onto you about all this shit you let him continue to obsess about it out of kindness because you know he's bored out of his brains without you doing your thing.

You just say mildly cryptic, vague things at times when he mentions something to keep him entertained.

[missycolorful]

I know there's often complaints about the c!Syndicate and how they didn't really do a whole lot, that their existence almost felt pointless because they didn't do anything. Not even regarding how Techno's condition and then his passing severely affected this storyline, I think these complaints sorta misses the point of what the Syndicate became and why people like this group so much.

Like, yes c!Techno initially created it in the aftermath of Doomsday, a way to ensure no governments were being formed or used to hurt or corrupt others. He gathered others who shared the same beliefs. They had even gone to Snowchester to ensure that nothing suspicious was going on. And before his passing, cc!Technoblade had wanted to work on that plot involving Cyberknife, to give the Syndicate story a bit more meat. Which would've been great, yes.

But then you look, and you have all these moments of them just... they're just bonding; if not as a group, at least in sections: the streams of Technoblade and Phil connecting with Ranboo, Techno and Ranboo becoming mentor and mentee, Technoblade's birthday party. And then you hear how the Syndicate really mattered to these characters: how Niki was beginning to heal around those who made her voice feel heard, Ghostboo saying that Phil and Techno did care for and love Ranboo, Technoblade outright stating he had friends now thanks to the Syndicate.

And then there's the last Syndicate stream, which I think also sums this up well. There's no Syndicate meeting, no talks of taking down any governments. It was Philza and Niki making a cake. It was Philza panicking over hearing voices, and Niki being a physical presence for him when he seemed to be lacking one at the time. It was Kristin finding the members of the Syndicate and taking them someplace safe. The Syndicate made it to the End, alive and not necessarily okay now, but someday.

And it's just... yes, I would've loved to see more concrete stories of the Syndicate combating corrupted governments and tyrants. But just because they didn't serve their initial purpose as much as we anticipated, does not mean that this group coming together was pointless. If anything their story is a solid example of fighting against a constant narrative in the server; the cycle of power and revenge.

Cause I think about Las Nevadas. People who banded together who, for the most part, did not make deep connections or find comradery. Or even if they did, things fell apart (only Foolish really stayed with Quackity by the end of the Las Nevadas lore). All because Quackity lost himself in his quest for, well, power and revenge. Las Nevadas could've been more than Quackity's need for control and power, but it was never able to reach that point.

Then you look at the Syndicate. Where from the start of the Syndicate's creation, Techno made sure everyone in the Syndicate was equal, that no one was in control of another. Where they never sought violence, wanting to only resort to drastic actions if they believed a location was a threat to others. Where they celebrated Technoblade's birthday and took pictures and had cake and were just friends. I just think there's something a bit profound, intentional or otherwise, in how the Syndicate may have tragically been underutilized, but the group wasn't just an anarchist group. It was a group of people hurt by a nation coming together and not actively seeking any goal toward gaining power or control over others. Yes, they wanted to fight against power. But they also wanted to just... be.

Just something I think about when of the few who managed to survive the Dream SMP, the ones who managed to escape with their lives were the ones who formed this anarchist group, a group that people say didn't do much, and... yeah, they're right, but isn't that a good thing?

[schneiderenjoyer]

This part has provided and honestly confirmed an insight that's been implied occasionally, but never openly stated as much as this moment.

Arcanists are less durable.

It's mentioned a handful of times how it's important for combat between arcanists to be quick and efficient. While they can be physically strong even beyond human standards, their limits are far shorter in comparison. They're far more prone to taking physical and mental damage quicker with their quick healing/recovery to make up for it, but not change just how fragile they are.

This is very insightful too as to why arcanists would be more inclined to fight using arcanum instead of physically as much as possible. Their arcanum gives them an upper hand where their physical stamina is lacking.

[mohntilyet]

not to mention the entire antaam fleet like 😭 that was the PERFECT moment to show off what the lords could do!!! The antaam fucked over rivain, theyve been a thorn in the whole nations side for a long time now, they would not pass up a chance for payback via full scale naval warfare so that the veilguard can do what they need to!! Sure dreadnoughts are dangerous but at this point they probably have tricks up their sleeve, thats one of the few things they have!

also wouldn't it be personal because does solas not try to blow up kont-aar because he's trying to 5d chess tevinter and the qunari into destroying each other. like. i know technically this would not be incredible widespread news because the attack was stopped, but i don't think the wonderful citizens of kont-aar would have missed the tsunami that nearly hit them and the shockwave that actually hit them. rumors go around. and i assume irian/vadis tell varric. who i think would tell isabela. who would tell the group she leads. who would care because ofc, they LIVE IN RIVAIN, and now know that solas and his followers thinks they can trade rivaini lives* to further his plans.

*while i also think there's probably a divide between kont-aar and the rest of the nation, it's one that the rivaini love to jump across and back over. an interesting comparison to be made here with most of rivain having similar sentiments towards dairsmuid and the chantry. like this is the country specifically mentioned to have a lot of citizens who follow the qun/are non-andrastian + it being MUCH more multicultural and accepting than other nations. any attack on rivain, even if it's a qunari settlement, would fan a lot of flames that solas cannot put out so the idea of trying to him taking multiple steps back because he didn't realise how intensely the qun/rivaini/lords would react is very fun for me. it would have been soo interesting for rivain to be a hub for efforts against solas because of how it's not influenced by andrastianism, how he (or his agents) specifically fucked them over, and (maddeningly for solas) also part of this resistance has spirits who willingly guide them against him. this could have even been a plot device where the door goes both ways and solas finds out rook's plans because he manages to eavesdrop through a seer or something.

and on the spirits. all the stuff where the mourn watch regularly communicates with spirits could have been done with rivain as well, and with different takes on being 'friendly' with spirits. iirc there's a spirit in the hall of valor which is so interesting but it's literally just there for flavour text. THERE'S A SPIRIT IN THE HALL OF VALOR THAT DOES NOTHING BESIDES LIKE. SAY HI. ??? bioware i would have liked to see more spirits and seers and the matriarchal pantheists you have talked about please. and also the idea of the peaceful qunari settlement being pushed to protect the country they are part of and what that means for them as qunari vs. rivaini. taash's storyline could have contributed to this . so A LOT less about choosing a side, more about how kont-aar has developed, changed, how rivain has influenced it and what it means to be qunari. not the qunari agents and fighters that we have seen, but their 'civillian' way of life in kont-aar.

complete waste not seeing any of established lore reflected in the lords of fortune or rivain because i stupidly actually thought we were going to see some kind of settlement and be introduced to a very different cultural norms.. in my beautiful mind i like to think taash is a little taken aback by how badly mages/elves/etc are treated. like they understood it was different outside of rivain (they would have been young when the dairsmuid circle annulment happened right? so they don't 'remember' it themself, they likely heard others talking about it when they're old enough to understand) but until they actually saw what was happening first hand, they had a weird dissonance about it. but what we got was a deserted beach, ties to another faction (wardens are fine!! they are great !!!! the fourth blight is interesting!!!! yet they are not the faction with a lack of info about them!!!!!) and also the hall of valor that exists as flavor text with nothing meaningful behind it besides a pub used in a few cutscenes and a minigame.

[psychomusic]

so. I've been reading some posts on the jedi order tag AND i won't talk about my opinion on "are jedi good or bad discourse" BUT i wanna point out some lore to everyone who's complaining about the jedi taking kids into their order: (in the EU) it wasn't always like this.

if you take swtor era (more than 3000 years before the prequels) there were many jedi who joined at an older age. like, for example there was a guy who broke his engagement to become one. most jedi remember their families because they were old enough when they decided to go.

THEN in darth bane's book trilogy (circa 1000 yesrs before the prequels) there is a passage where two sith lords are talking about taking bane, already an adult, to study at korriban. one doubted him because he was too old, ans the other told him he sounded like a jedi, and that ONE DAY jedi will have to accept only kids into their ranks if they really want to find "pure" people that can learn their lessons quicker.

one day!! so it wasn't always like that!! the ongoing wars with the sith, who corrupted and killed many of them, had pressured them into taking always younger people into their ranks.

also, consider a thing that this video explains super well: training to become a jedi is not like exercising, because there is a transformative lesson at the end of the training that changes everything. you can't just do as much as you can, but not finish.

the transformative lesson, as the video explains, is that through the force, everything is the same - from rocks and ships to life and death. at the end of the training you have to understand this fundamental truth.

yoda says "you have to unlearn what you have learned". during times where they were constantly killed off or corrupted by the dark side (and if you haven't learned this lesson you are more susceptible to this corrupting), younger people were taken in to actually finish their training (a training that was ultimately about being a good person AND that you could leave at any point if you weren't sold on that, too)

(remember that for the sith failure = death. like. that was the alternative for force sensitive kids. it's not like sith had any moral problem with taking kids away without consent. sith don't have moral problems: they believe that them being stronger in the force means they can do whatever they want as long as their strong enough to go and do it. there are MANY passages in many different star wars stories, even in different mediums, that say this out loud)

AND (this is more of a critical thought than just stating the lore) the fact that they started doing it out of necessity doesn't mean it's 100% good BUT you know. the whole set up of the prequels is that we're starting off the story in a period of crisis and decadence all around. most of the systems of the times were about to fall. OF COURSE they had problems. if they didn't, we wouldn't have the story to begin with.

that doesn't automatically mean jedi = bad and sith are better, tho. you wouldn't take the last, chaotic and decadent period to jugde something, would you? it's like deciding that the athenian democracy sucked because people at the times of Demosthenes failed at recognizing the new schemes in which the world was evolving into, and still believed that their city would be important as it had been in the previous century. They just didn't fucking expect the Macedons would conquer half the world known and more, and have the subsequent political power. Still, their experiences in the 5th century with democracy were very good, even better than ours on many fronts, if you contextualize a little. the jedi had flaws, and most importantly, they didn't fucking know the future and everything that ever happened, ever, so they made mistakes. that doesn't automatically make the system ill, or bad, or not-working. systems can have setbacks when the world changes. (just like athenian democracy had one when they lost the empire that was funding the democracy. they even had a tyranny for a while and then fixed the problems. that doesn't diminish retrospectively their democracy)

[royalarchivist]

If you guys could show Baghera some love, that would be great! She, Etoiles, and Felps have all been receiving a lot of harassment in their chats lately, but Baghera in particular has been really affected by it.

Please show her your support and tell her how much she's appreciated!

[skitskatdacat63]

Prince Jenson of Somerset

+ process & lore

Yayyyyy omg finally have drawn portraits of the four main characters!!!! I'll show the process of Jenson's first and then them all four together. Though it's a shame the Seb/Fernando ones are older, I think it's hopefully obvious how much I've improved since November?

Look at him in all his handsome, princely glory 🥹 It's funny, I'm always happy with the second sketch and initial lineart, and then I start coloring it and I absolutely hate it, and it takes a significant amount of time into the painting for me to like it again. And then I reach a certain point and I'm in love with it again. Ugh though I gotta say, I love drawing the curls, it's just so 18th century, but at the same point, man I always will love my original lineart for the hair the best ah. Also yes I absolutely had to give him a big ass hat with feathers, he really is that kinda guy to me. I originally drew a bicorne and then realized that those don't really exist until basically almost a century later oops, so tricorne it is!!

Okay now omg look at them all together 🥹

Haha wow I have improved a lot! Just like the Seb/Fernando ones, Mark and Jense's were meant to be put together. I think there's a lot of inherent characterization in their poses that highlight the difference between them. Mark is looking up, very wistful, looking up to greater people, greater things. Jenson's head is tilted down, almost looking at the viewer, he is very satisfied with his role and revels in it, he's here to slay!

Okay, yes, lore, characterization, sorry that it is so far down on the post!!

Jense would probably be the fan favorite if this AU was an actual book or show or something. He's the guy you randomly find while browsing Wikipedia and you're like, woah this guy is so cool??? Unlike Sebmarknando, he doesn't really have the same level of angst, he's kinda just chilling. He's a bit harder to write a lore post about, because he's basically that character who is always magically around the corner, ready to witness some crazy thing and just breeze past it.

He is less linked to Seb than people like Mark and Fernando, because he's basically just his personal minister of transportation(read: horse fucker), so he avoids a lot of the relationship complications and drama, but that isn't to say he's completely uninvolved. He really likes Seb, and loves to hang around with him and serve him, but he's not as beholden to him. He's who everyone goes to air their grievances or to get away from the others, and he's very happy with this role. He's generally willing to play any side in an argument, but does tend to have a pretty big soft spot for Seb overall(Seb also gives him cuteness aggression, and he wants to bite him. Especially when Seb puffs himself up and acts super bratty when he gets offended at not being seen as a proper ruler.)

He's royalty from other kingdom, but pledged his loyalty to Seb's kingdom when he was quite young and has served him(his father first) ever since. He started off somewhat low in the military, rose to a pretty high rank, was a renowed war hero, and then ended up retiring pretty early to tend to Seb's horses. That's an oversimplification, but yeah. He liked the military life, was very good at it, but decided he had done enough, and wanted to be involved in more direct service, albeit more laid back. As I mentioned in Mark's post, Mark *really* doesn't understand his choice to do this, because if Mark had been in Jense's position, he can't ever imagine being able to let all that go and living the quiet life.

He is the palace whore, everyone has been with him honestly. It'll be like, some man walks into his bedroom, only to see Jenson in bed with his wife, but instead of being angry, he's like "wow you couldn't even wait for me??" He's just very carefree, and happy to just slut around and tend to Seb's horses.

I think he definitely still advises Seb, and would go to battle if truly need be, but generally seems to be living in a different world than the weird psychosexual homoerotic political drama that the others seem to be living in. But as I said, it's not like he doesn't contribute to it! He loves to goad Fernando, and constantly plays devil's advocate in "debates" between Fernando and Seb. He's also obviously the one that keep "accidentally" locking them in rooms and forgetting where the key is.

Sorry if this isn't very explanatory, I hope it gives a general idea to the type of character he is???? As always, let me know if you have any questions! I kinda struggled on what to write here because I'm finishing this at almost 8 am 😭 so I'm not sure if it's great or not. But basically you need to know: horse fucker who is generally breezy and carefree but also can be a bit of a menace to society every once in a while.

[soaps-mohawk]

Is there anything else that the reader can do on the base aside from training and reading and her sessions with the doctor 🥺🥺 or are we not exploring that

Yeah absolutely. The reader probably has lots of hobbies, I just don't really get into them for the sake of ambiguity and allowing people to imagine the reader having whatever hobbies they want. I just throw reading in as my own little nod to my hobbies (plus it gives her a point of connection with Simon). You can imagine the reader doing whatever you'd like in her downtime.

[flecks-of-stardust]

wholeheartedly and with as much gentleness as possible, i truly think there needs to be more discussion about downpour in the community as it is now. for a variety of reasons.

[illegiblewords]

SOME ILLEGIBLE RAMBLES AND REFLECTIONS: ON GALE AND MYSTRA

I've been on the fence about whether to make this analysis specifically, but after seeing a few other discussions floating around figure it's worth offering another viewpoint in case it resonates.

These analyses in particular are very subjective and offer an interpretive option more than anything. I might allude to discussions I've seen elsewhere that I have different views from, but different views don't automatically mean personal dislike for me. Life would be boring if we all thought the same way, you know? Anyway. Hugeass post ahead, proceed at your own risk lol.

One of the arguments I've seen cropping up recently is the idea that romance between gods and mortals is inherently unequal, abusive, and problematic. I am very much of the mind that Mystra abused Gale. The developers at Larian have stated that every companion in Baldur's Gate 3 is a victim of abuse in some capacity. Some of my favorite romances over the years have been between gods and mortals. Mystra/Gale is not one of those. I think blaming the divine/mortal dynamic for any abuse misses the point. Moreover, it absolves Mystra of a huge amount of personal responsibility in the abuse she committed. I think it makes the abuse focus on what she is rather than who she is, how she looks at others, and how she treats others. I reflected on the divine/mortal pairings I've enjoyed compared to the dynamic between Gale and Mystra. In every divine/mortal romance I've loved, the god found wonder and saw a kind of power they lack in their mortal partner. This power stems directly from their mortality. There are experiences and perspectives specific to being mortal that are invaluable. The god doesn't relate to those experiences and perspectives the same way. The god always needs not only humility but equal respect for their mortal partner in some capacity. Additionally, the god acknowledges that being divine does not equate to omniscience. This is not a god according to the monotheistic definition. It's closer to an immortal being who excels in a very specific area and has certain responsibilities weighing on them. The god sees the forest but may no longer see trees, while the mortal sees trees but may not see the forest. There is value in what is ephemeral and fragile, just as there is value in what is permanent. The god and mortal need to bring balance to one another in the sense that the god helps the mortal find comfort in a bigger picture while the mortal reminds the god what it feels like to be small, vulnerable, and intimately connected to the world/other lives. A healthy divine/mortal romance requires recognition of multiple forms of strength, intelligence, and value. That very, very much is not what Gale and Mystra had. Another layer to the 'divine/mortal romance is always problematic' argument ties to questions of power imbalance. I would argue that even among human beings--power imbalance always exists. Human beings are not identical or interchangeable with one another. One partner might be brilliant at math and runs finances where the other partner would be lost. The other partner might be brilliant at people and can navigate social situations the mathematician would feel helpless in. One partner may be physically larger or stronger than another. The other partner has the full weight of social/legal support in most conflicts. And this isn't touching on issues relating to mental health, physical health, economic stability, societal issues, etc. People are multifaceted. None of us excel at all things, find power in all things, or suffer all things. We each have our own pains and triumphs. We each have the ability to hurt each other if we want to. If we wanted to avoid any power imbalance in favor of 1:1 equality, the only answer we'd have would be to literally romance ourselves . And that's 1) narcissism 2) lonely 3) sad. Just ask Raphael.

But unhealthy power imbalances must exist, right? And there is a horrible power imbalance between Gale and Mystra. I would just argue it has more to do with them personally than because of Mystra being a goddess. I'd argue that we should be looking at Gale and Mystra not as mortal and god or man and woman, but as people above all else with their own experiences/motives driving choices throughout the relationship. Examine the ways they look at and treat each other versus themselves. If Mystra was the mortal and Gale was the god, if Mystra was a man and Gale was a woman, I would not change my stance regarding where abuse was committed. Imo people get too caught up trying to make sweeping generalizations instead of focusing on the individuals and how they specifically interact. This in-mind, what are some examples of unhealthy power imbalance as I define it?

A character is physically and/or mentally incapable of participating with proper awareness of the situation, as a partner with equal respect and sway within the relationship.

A character is dependent upon the prospective partner for survival and cannot refuse them without fear of retribution or withholding necessities to survival.

A character is being systematically isolated and made dependent on their partner for all socialization and self-worth.

And so on. Hopefully you get the gist. What I do want to draw attention to though is that these examples offer room to include a variety of circumstances or dynamics within their umbrella. Ex. An underage character with an adult would easily qualify for the first criteria, but an extremely, non-functioningly drunk character would also count. So lets have a look at Gale and Mystra's situation in particular again.

Gale has, by his own admission, been involved with the Weave for as long as he can remember. He sees Mystra as synonymous with the Weave, and with magic. These are things he explicitly states within the game. Gale also has notable reactions to say, saving Arabella from being killed over the idol of Silvanus or Mirkon from harpies. With Arabella especially, the idea of being treated as unforgivable or deserving death for a youthful mistake is something he talks about as if he has some experience with it. And while this is a video game with limited character models, I'm going to estimate that the tiefling kids are probably somewhere between nine and thirteen. We know Gale has been stuck largely alone in his tower with the orb for a year or so. The orb specifically is something that happened when he was an adult, but the way he talks about Arabella with implicit personal identification of facing older authority figures as a young person who didn't know better... I don't think this is the orb alone troubling him. Minsc also has a dialogue option where he talks about how in Rashemen, boys with an affinity for the Weave were hidden away and he suspects it was to keep them from being preyed on by Mystra. Not men, boys. I've seen people try to argue that Mystra would have been indisposed/dead and unable to take advantage of Gale when he was a kid due to the broader Forgotten Realms timeline. I'm inclined to say in this instance, with all evidence in the narrative pointing to a particular arc and theme for Gale and Mystra's relationship, it's more likely that the timeline was something Larian chose to fudge in the interest of storytelling opportunities. The alternative would be that none of those dialogue exchanges meant anything. The narrative is weakened if those moments are made meaningless, and the characters become flatter and less credible without them too. If it comes between trivia and the emotional core of a story, I'd argue the core wins. Gale claims to have slept with other people before Mystra, but that a romanced character is the first person he's slept with after her. I personally suspect it wasn't a lot of prior experience, and he was pretty young when his romance with Mystra began. Additionally, while it's pure conjecture on my part--given how Gale reacts to the tiefling kids it would make sense to me if Mystra started grooming him when he was between nine and thirteen years old. Other people have shared analysis pointing to evidence that Gale unknowingly dual-classed and was a storm sorcerer originally, but was told he was purely a wizard and then had all of his sorcerous abilities eaten by the orb without ever knowing they existed. I do think it makes sense for Mystra to influence Gale as a potentially very powerful sorcerer this way to 1) get him to self-limit through wizard spells so he's easier to predict and control 2) be completely dependent on and devoted to her, starting as early as possible. (For the curious, sorcerer Gale theory is here and here. Very well-done imo!) In any case, Mystra absolutely has personal motive to do what she did, that has nothing to do with Gale personally. That it turned into grooming for a sexual relationship isn't a huge leap in light of her apparent mindset either. But lets take a moment to review that.

This is a really good recap setting up Mystra's situation. Karsus too, by the by. This second video here helps explain Mystra's own situation. My understanding is like this:

Mystryl was the original goddess of magic. Mystryl was a born-goddess rather than an ascended mortal goddess, which is important to note because both exist in the Forgotten Realms. Mystryl was neutral alignment. The Weave, magic, and those casting magic all tied into her divine portfolio. Divine portfolios reflect deities' jurisdictions and callings, which empowers them through use in the world as well as mortal worship. With all this in-mind, naturally it benefited Mystryl to encourage experimentation, devotion, and arcane ambition. The more spellcasters pushed the limits of magic, the more powerful Mystryl became too. This was when the Empire of Netheril came about, with its floating cities and its magocracies. Worth noting, eleventh level spells were being used at this point in time. Cue a bunch of aberrations showing up, called phaerimm. Cosmic horror monstrosities that sort of looked like if you combined grubs and lampreys then made them way too big. On the one hand they were ridiculously powerful natural spellcasters themselves. On the other, they could straight up detect, deflect, and eat magic at will. Incidentally they were also extremely hostile to other life forms. So them existing at the same time as Netheril caused some massive problems. The wizard empire was at war, struggling, and panicking. Karsus was a prodigy and the one most people were turning to for protection at the time. Karsus decided the best way to solve the problem was to become a god himself using the first and only twelfth level spell (of his own design) then get rid of the phaerimm that way. The spell specifically required the caster to replace a god of their choice. Karsus, being a wizard, thought Mystryl was the strongest divine force of all time and chose her. The first video explained very well, but it basically sounds like as a born-goddess--maintaining the Weave was essentially an autonomic process for Mystryl. Basically required as much thought as beating your own heart. It wasn't like that for Karsus. Karsus might have been the best wizard in the sense that someone might be the best marathon runner of all time, but if you take that marathon runner and then tell them they have to pump their heart manually from now on they're not just going to lose any future races they attempt--they might just die on the spot. Which is kind of what happened to Karsus. Karsus became a god of ambition along with magic, then lost his divinity to become a Great Old One instead. These days he's a stone stained in the gore of his dead people who speaks in fountains of blood. (One of the reasons I'm not enabling Gale in his quest to become god of magic, by-the-by.) Mystryl died because of Karsus's spell. Mystryl probably hadn't considered mortals, let alone the wizards who gave her so much power as a goddess, a threat to her personally before. An incarnation of Mystra (not Gale's Mystra) was born from the ashes of Mystryl to become the new goddess of magic. One of the first things Mystra does after basically reincarnating from Mystryl is ban mortals from using magic at level ten or higher. Mystra is now aware that mortals can challenge the gods and straight up kill her personally. She still needs casters using magic at high level to empower herself as a goddess, but it's a double-edged sword that can absolutely kill her. And to make matters worse... this Mystra also gets killed later. The Mystra we have now was a mortal woman (Midnight) who kept Mystra's name to avoid confusing worshippers, who'd been chosen by Mystra previously and ascended into that role. Midnight-Mystra, from the sound of it, also got killed for a bit and had to get saved by Elminster.

Like I said before, I do think there were some timeline blips going on for Mystra with Baldur's Gate 3. As long as she's died and reincarnated twice, her psychological state is cemented. How long it took her to come back and whether there were even more deaths than that is less important. I'd argue the key ideas we're supposed to take away about Mystra from this are that she is a goddess who 1) at this point is an ascended mortal who may have certain inherited memories or experiences from born-deities 2) is hyper aware that mortals can kill her 3) has been killed and reborn multiple times, not just by mortals but the very wizards she draws power from.

This is absolutely a shitty situation. It makes sense Mystra has complexes around it. It makes sense Midnight-Mystra would feel especially afraid when it comes to wizards seeing as she herself is a former mortal, so her position likely feels even more tenuous. The way she interacts with wizards and relates to her own position as a goddess is not as someone secure in her own power, but someone who sees anyone coming close to her level as a direct threat to her life. She needs casters to be strong to fuel her portfolio, but if they're too strong they can challenge her. So she is using whatever tools at her disposal to keep them beneath her while maintaining her own strength. It's also worth remembering that Mystra has no pretense of being good-alignment. Her motive in confronting the Netherbrain wasn't to protect Toril from mindflayers, but to protect herself personally from the Crown of Karsus and protect the Weave from the Karsic Weave. If magic as a force is in danger (as per the Karsic Weave) she might try to do something, but what befalls mortals is irrelevant to her. I'd argue she's 1000% acting out of self-interest for Baldur's Gate 3. And again--it makes sense given her position. It makes sense given the track record for gods in the Forgotten Realms.

So, if we go with the in-game implications that Mystra is supposed to have been active across Gale's life and was active when Minsc was running around a century ago (referenced in his comments about Rashemen protecting boys from Mystra)... what kind of relationship has Mystra built with wizards in particular? This is heavy speculation here but I'm going off of Gale's experience, Elminster's behavior, a point of notable cattiness from Lorroakan, and Mystra's motives.

I think Mystra encourages wizards to compete for her favor, both through their arcane power and on a personal level. She encompasses their entire world and dictates everything they are capable of by holding the Weave in her portfolio. Casters are nothing without her. She is fickle in her attentions, moving between wizard paramours and chosen so they constantly feel the need to prove themselves worthy of her love. As their goddess, they have no room to question her or ask for loyalty born of personal affection. Mystra does not care. She is inherently more than they are and ever will be, and unless they have something to woo her through her portfolio specifically there is no reason for her to stick around. They're lucky she gives them the time of day. Even if she can't literally, physically, personally prevent a wizard from interacting with the Weave--she can seriously screw with them while they do. Mystra's first post-Mystryl act was to blanket-limit the spells wizards could perform, remember? And BG3 Mystra was able to pluck the orb from Gale's chest at any time, whenever she felt like it. She just didn't. Lifetimes of work, dedication, study, and innovation are not ultimately credited to the casters who built themselves through their art but to Mystra. Memorized spells, arcane gestures, the interaction of components. She can make all of that so much harder. And she takes credit for any advancement a wizard makes. Origin Gale has lines with Minthara where he struggles to see himself as capable of anything without Mystra's say-so and needs to be reminded that she can't claim everything he has ever done through magic, and she hasn't managed to stop him yet. The fact that Gale himself, as Mystra's former lover, doesn't believe this initially and needs someone who very much is not a wizard to remind him says a lot about the dynamic Mystra set up with him and (in all likelihood) other wizards. So how does all of this fit in with the grooming point? Well, magic users are going to be much easier to psychologically control if Mystra starts taking advantage of them when they're still children and don't know any better. She needs to feed off of their strength with no risk to herself, so she needs to make sure they are can't even fathom turning on her. Maximize the power difference, ingrain that shit early. And if it becomes a sexual relationship... Mystra can tell herself they're even less likely to consider turning on her because it's just one more way they depend on her for validation.

Mystra's own fear and trauma (like Cazador's) does not prevent her from becoming an abuser. And like Cazador, she's using it to fuel the abuse she commits herself.

Something else I want to highlight before I segue to focus on Gale further, is how wizards deal with each other and why policy differs toward wizards versus other casters.

Wizards are nerds with shared interests. They're fucking around to see what's possible with magic and seem genuinely excited when anyone innovates. Innovation is something they can learn from and incorporate it into their own art. But actual wizard friendships, at least in Baldur's Gate 3, seem to be rare. They undercut each other emotionally and often look for ways to elevate themselves above their peers. Gale's colleagues left him to twist alone in his tower for a year. Elminster prioritizes pleasing Mystra by passing on her message for Gale to kill himself, and defends her if the player condemns Mystra's behavior. He even gets angry for certain dialogue options.

(It bears saying, I think Elminster has been psychologically wrecked by Mystra too. He does seem to be trying in spite of that but guy's not well himself.)

Even if not all wizards look to become romantically entangled with Mystra, Mystra has definitely encouraged competition and mistrust between them. After all, if the wizards supported each other they might realize they're stronger than her and that she's been causing harm. Another potential death.

I suspect the reason Mystra focuses on wizards is because wizards are ordinary people who know they were born ordinary, and know how hard it was to build arcane power. They aren't as secure in themselves as sorcerers who use magic like a reflex. And warlocks manage to work around Mystra with patrons who aren't beholden to her. So best for Mystra to undermine, manipulate, or otherwise occupy sorcerers who are strong enough to pose threats and teach the wizards they'd be nothing without her.

... One of the other arguments I saw recently was that Gale was being disingenuous/lying to himself and the player when he claims he wanted to gift Mystra a part of herself back. That he only wants power for power's sake, is kind of a terrible person, and it would be boring if he was being genuine. I deeply disagree with this stance.

When it comes to motivation, I'd argue power is by nature a means to an end rather than the end itself. "If I'm powerful enough no one will be able to hurt me again," "If I'm powerful enough I can fix every terrible thing I feel the need to," "If I'm powerful enough I can push the boundaries of what is possible and find a sense of wonder at the results."

Power because power does not cut it as a motive. It's likewise with ambition. We're not 2-D mustache twirlers here.

Ambition includes experimenting with a project to see if you can pull off something new or particularly difficult. Finding joy in the process and challenge itself isn't evil. It isn't even unhealthy.

Competing with others isn't necessarily negative either, in the right context. Being an elite athlete at the Olympics for example, you're putting your own skills against those around you in the hopes of surpassing them. It doesn't mean you think poorly of your fellow competitors. If anything, one would hope you respect them deeply for the shared discipline and passion. (But you still want to win, course. ;P)

If you read my post about DnD's pantheon, it's pretty clear I'm not opposed to the idea of A. firing gods from positions they're neglecting or B. nominating others to oversee necessary-but-unused portfolios. There are established gods of the Forgotten Realms who need, urgently, to be sacked. Being born into divinity, set up through nepotism, or 'elected by seniority' is not enough to shield a deity from my judgment. Mystra is abusing her worshippers, and while her portfolio might be able to squeak by I'd argue she's been compromised and is committing unprofessional and detrimental behavior in her capacity as goddess of magic. ESPECIALLY knowing she's like this as an ascended mortal. Any other mortal would be well within moral bounds to replace her. She has no ethical high ground in that regard. Managing autonomic maintenance of the Weave is an issue, but if someone showed up to replace her with the argument that Mystra is unfit due to committing abuse... I don't think that person would be morally wrong. Ballsy as hell, but not wrong.

So what's going on with Gale?

Gale canonically, in dialogue, thinks he and the world might both be better off if he was dead. I'll go a step further and argue that before the game even starts Gale considers his personal self a net-negative. If he isn't offsetting that with magical skill, knowledge, achievements, material possessions, and overall usefulness--he doesn't think he has a reason to be alive. The universe is worse for his existing in it.

Gale brags because he's trying to show he has something of value to give other people when he sees nothing of value in himself. He's trying to prove he can be an asset so others will keep him around. He brags notably less as he gains a sense of self-worth, self-confidence, and general support as acts progress. The times he gets snippy with other casters are because if he isn't the only and most useful magic guy to get something done, Gale thinks he might as well be thrown away. He is replaceable. He's also terrified to admit anything about the orb in Act I because there is no way to see it as anything but a danger and a burden. When that's added to his depression, he's sure he'll get abandoned in the wilderness to explode by himself and it might even serve him right. No one will mourn him. They might even be glad to be rid of the burden he brought.

Gale wants others to like him, to see him as a good person, to see him as someone brave and smart and worthy of trust. He absolutely does not see himself that way. If he's trying to prove it to the party--he's trying to prove it to himself just as much. There's a line he can give with The Dark Urge where he comments that if people are being killed just for being annoying, he should be dead a thousand times over. If you get solid approval with him at the tiefling party, he'll admit he didn't have any friends before the game. And while I can only speak to a particular romantic route, in Act III he talks about having been told to his face at various points/in various ways that he's insufferable. He knows other people don't like him and don't believe in him. If bad things happen to him they probably think he deserves it. He might even think so too.

Gale doesn't see anything worthwhile in himself that isn't built through wizardry. It has to be because he was smart enough, worked hard enough, and showed enough character to earn his power. If it's sorcery (and this is only a standard he applies to himself) then all that effort he put in would become meaningless. He can't look at his personal self as having done anything deserving of value or respect if he's a sorcerer because magic was easier for him than other people. And if he can't provide any magic, knowledge, or resources at all then no one has reason to give him the time of day. People hate him. Mystra only paid attention for his abilities as a spellcaster. The mortal, personal aspects of him were things she put up with.

So forget power and ambition for just a moment. What does Gale as a person in that position, who feels that way about himself, actually want? I'd argue that he probably just wanted to know the person he loved most actually gave a shit about him as a person. That he wasn't disposable or only worth as much as his skills and material possessions. I'm pretty sure he'd have wanted that regardless of whether Mystra was a goddess. Mystra both being the kind of goddess she was and the kind of person she was kept telling him he should be satisfied, that he shouldn't want any more than she was giving him. He can't climb any higher than her. No one can give him more than her. She is divine, she is the world itself. Gale never felt loved in that relationship. Due to Mystra's abuse he got to a place where the idea of wanting to be loved back became sacrilegious. It meant there was something wrong with him, that he was arrogant and insatiable. How else could he feel utterly alone and unlovable with a goddess?

Gale desperately wanted to mean something to Mystra personally, so he tried to offer a gesture of love in her language. Something he thought would be valuable to her as an individual and something requiring a ton of arcane skill/strength to deliver. He wanted her to look at him like he was irreplaceable as a person. I genuinely don't think that's a power-hungry or ambitious thing to want.

Gale didn't understand the orb, and unfortunately for him he didn't understand Mystra either. She wasn't the wise and understanding goddess he thought she was. She never wanted an equal. She does not have it in her to love someone as such. The idea of equality, for Mystra, is something that must be crushed to preserve herself.

I figure that the Gale who ascends to godhood has accumulated a divine amount of stuff and power to compensate for his belief that lacking those things, he would be worthless. If Gale wasn't a wizard it might have been music, or writing, or fighting, or politics--any skill, influence, or resource could be used the same way. It’s not that ambition is inherently bad. It’s that for Gale, it’s unhealthy. The ambition isn’t for its own sake. He’s using it as a counterweight against his own sense of worthlessness. God Gale buries his problems instead of dealing with them. He will never know if a character who romances him only did so because they saw his potential and wanted to come along for the ride. He will never know if they'd have bothered to stick around if he was only Gale Dekarios, if he didn't have so much to offer them. He tells himself it's enough that they believed he could do it.

With the mortal Gale ending, we should note that Gale doesn’t need power to enjoy the study of magic if he’s healthy. His priority isn’t about pushing the limits of spells, making new ones, or making a name for himself. Given room to decide for himself, he just wants to uplift and share with others through teaching. His trends in approval and disapproval support this preference too.

For Gale, I really think ambition and power are crutches he uses to justify being alive because he doesn't see any other reason. Give him a reason and he genuinely doesn't need them. They're the means, not the end. He does not want power for the sake of power. Guy is sad and doesn't know how to live with himself. He's not a worse or less believable character with that being his motive. Stories are about people, and people don't move through the world with static 'flaws' and 'virtues' checklists that need to be balanced. There's nothing inherently deeper or more meaningful about villainous characters compared to heroic ones. People make choices and deal with situations according to their experiences moment to moment, trying to make sense of things as best they can throughout their lives. Gale fits perfectly within this. The other cast members do too.

And for the record, while I'd argue Karsus was far more ambitious in character than Gale--even for him, it wasn't just about power. The guy was trying to save his people. He fucked up in a horrible and traumatic way so he's a Netherese blood fountain now. (RIP Karsus but also someone please pact with him.)

And as one last, controversial section... what did Gale's experience with Mystra do to him when it comes to his relationship with sex?

From how Gale talks about and shows Weave-sex, I'd argue it's an extension of him feeling inadequate as a mortal. And knowing this is a controversial point + a lot of people have done and loved the Weave scene because it reflects Gale's love of magic, I offer this: Gale would not be less worthy of love if he didn't have magic. Gale does not know this about himself. He went from an archwizard with a tower and Mystra's chosen to a level one adventurer sleeping on the ground. His entire relationship with magic for much of the game is incredibly unhealthy because he sees the person left in its absence as worthless. For Gale to have a healthy arc, I'd argue he needs to learn how to look at himself as nothing but a man and know he's still precious and irreplaceable. He needs to learn that he doesn't need to prove he deserves to be alive. He isn't disappointing. He doesn't have to try to impress others all the time to have a place in their worlds. He doesn't need to bribe people with shiny things or unique abilities so they'll tolerate the rest. He can exist as no one and nothing but himself and be treasured just for that.

I think at some point Gale could potentially have sex in the Weave again as a repairing experience where he's confident that his physical body, his reactions, and his wants weren't anything to feel ashamed of. Reclaiming that from his experience with Mystra could be very powerful and sexy. But for the first time he has sex since Mystra, when he thinks he's going to need to kill himself any day now and has been struggling between terror and self-hatred, I personally think it's healthier for him to get the validation of being enough as just Gale. Not the Wizard of Waterdeep. His life isn't being advocated for because he's strong or unique in bed. Someone wants him alive as just a person.

And not for nothing... I'm saying this as a writer who can't not write. I've had to do my own share of reflection about how I look at myself if writing isn't the metric of my worth. I wouldn't think Gale needs to abandon all magic any more than I would need to abandon all writing. But it's really important to know we aren't empty trash without our callings, you know?

Before I end this post, I do want to invite readers to think back to those bullets I made before on unhealthy power imbalance.

A character is physically and/or mentally incapable of participating with proper awareness of the situation, as a partner with equal respect and sway within the relationship.

A character is dependent upon the prospective partner for survival and cannot refuse them without fear of retribution or withholding necessities to survival.

A character is being systematically isolated and made dependent on their partner for all socialization and self-worth.

If Mystra deliberately started grooming Gale from a young age, emphasized and exaggerated the power discrepancy rather than making any effort to close the gap, that's a pretty big deal. Gale definitely never had equal respect or sway in the relationship compared to her. She'd probably find the idea insulting in the face of her godhood. She didn't want a partner but a supplicant who obeyed her with no needs for himself. Mystra actively distorted Gale's sense of boundaries and magnified what she could take from him if he displeased her. His life's work, his ability to access parts of his own mind for spells, his means of functioning in the world, his ability to defend himself... but also? His health and survival, once the orb was brought into play. And socially, Gale was incredibly isolated. It sounds like he hasn't even seen his own mother in at least a year, which I have some thoughts on. He was friendless for a long time even as Mystra's chosen. And Mystra made sure other wizards knew when she abandoned him to the point that even Lorroakan was aware. Mystra's offense was something for others to look down on him for. And Gale struggles in-game with the idea that Mystra mistreated or neglected him--because how could a goddess, his goddess, do that? He's been gaslit so hard that he doesn't quite get a moment of fully realizing it wasn't his fault. In some dialogue options Mystra even tries to frame his trauma over her abuse, unaware even that he had the Karsic Weave inside him, as wallowing in self-pity.

Gale did make a mistake, but I'd argue it matters a lot that the mistake was innocent and that he's woefully misjudged Mystra's character. He's being told it couldn't have been innocent and he deserves to be punished for it. He largely believes that. Doesn't make it true.