#This idiot has no friends and Tav broke up with him
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"who the heck is this guy and why am I his emergency contact" is SENDING me 🤣🤣🤣🤣
it would be like when that one ex that never got over you sends a drunk text and you're like wtf (this was the first thing that came to mind as a comparison)
It is exactly that. And sometimes he just shows up in your garden and yells about how great you were together. And like. You're not worth it but if you beg he'll take you back or whatever. He's big like that.
Babe. Babe? Just beg him. BEG him, babe.
BABE.
#Ask#It's peak pathetic hours#This idiot has no friends and Tav broke up with him#Who else is he gonna use as his contact?#Haarlep?#Haarlep tells the doctors to pull the plug when they're checking his reflexes
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Post-chapter 29 thoughts + spoilers below
A key thing to note is how different the relationship between Tav and Astarion is compared to the game. In bg3, early Act 3 is a fledgling relationship burdened by Astarion's obsessive, even frightening, drive for the ritual, and the player character can either indulge that or question him.
In FATWR, that's secondary: Astarion has tied his chances of success to keeping Tav happy so that she will help him, as he has no faith is his ability to do it by himself. He leaves it in her hands, and Tav notably gathers less information than he does in-game due to her preoccupation with Cazador. Freedom is a nebulous concept to Astarion, though he imagines the ascended version of himself might be an equal partner to her, or even free entirely (whatever that means.)
I don't consider Astarion to be particularly touchy-feely, so note how he lingers compulsively close to Tav for the past few chapters. He doesn't view them as a relationship, per se, though he does know she feels something for him and vice versa - instead, he continually refers to himself as her favorite, i.e. favorite spawn, a position that is up for grabs and competitive in nature. He's more snippy with the companions, who are competition. He postures before camp about their relationship because it's a more positive re-imagining of his position within the spawn ranking, a role Tav unconsciously pushed him into with all her deliberate and unintentional reflections of Cazador. Because Tav is touchy, he's doing what he thinks she wants - being affectionate, even overbearingly so - and indulging in a position he never wanted/would be allowed to achieve, and finding it strangely enjoyable, if anxiety inducing and intense. (He's roleplaying a dedicated boyfriend very, very hard rn.)
He pushes for the Love Test because Astarion does want to escape the role of favored spawn by becoming equals (though this of course goes completely over Tav's head.) Neither particularly wanted to talk about such personal things in front of a stranger, and end up spitefully pushing each other into honesty. And Zethino confirms that they do have an healthy path out of this, their love being akin to a fledgling tree growing in the undergrowth of a forest, choked out from sunlight by Sylvar & Cazador's impressions towering impressions. It's the Californian in me: they need a good forest fire, to clear out the brush and ancient, dead trees.
When confronted by Dalyria and Petras, he almost introduces her as his new master. In the first draft, I had him do so to Tav's immense satisfaction, but once I decided the glowing spawn eyes were a sign of Caz staring through them, I decided to cut it - let's not aggravate Caz too much just yet, though he definitely caught what Tav was trying to pitch, even if not explicitly said.
Tav's a bit of a misandrist, mistrustful of men and diminishing of them, so she ignores Petras and focuses on Dalyria instead. I wanted to mimic the feeling of watching a dysfunctional family: little slights blow into huge ones in an instant, and Astarion's feelings + Dalyria's instant hysteria are meant to evoke that. It's like watching a typically calm friend immediately blow their cool when confronted with a minor dig by a parent or sibling - they blow up because for them, it's the straw that broke the camels back, while for the observer it's nothing, and they therefor seem ridiculous and sensitive.
Astarion burns Petras for far longer because it's the first bit of control he's gotten so far in the whole story, he's stressed (she did say they'd talk about the love test, and Astarion expects more than just that), and Tav doesn't give enough of a shit to stop him. Had he killed Petras, she would have been like "well, guess you didn't want to ascend after all. Idiot."
Tav continues to display next to no sensitivity for Astarion's sexual trauma by making him kiss Dalyria. It's both a silly little thing to prove to Cazador that Astarion does what she says, that he's hers, because she finds Cazador's insistence on feeding them vermin to be disgusting and needlessly degrading, but also giving Dalyria real blood is a quick way to endear herself to her (of debatable value, considering Dalyria's getting flayed for it). She also just thinks it's hot. Tav really wants to watch him have sex with someone else. It's not about watching other people have sex - it's about Astarion being in the throes of pleasure, regardless of how/why/how many people are involved. As Tav would absolutely participate in an orgy if he asked it of her, she sees no problem with this.
A lot of Tav's reactions (or lack thereof) to Astarion's issues can be summed up as "I did the same thing and it was fine, absolutely fine, I definitely do not have trauma about this, and honestly, I wouldn't let anything truly terrible happen to you anyway and will stop the second you ask, so why is any of this a problem? It's fine. EVERYTHING'S FINE." sigh she's a handful
Anyway, because Astarion is the practical sort and not much of a planner, while he does realize that Tav's flexing towards Cazador, he doesn't understand why, and is quite frankly sick of trying to figure it out. The more he's compared the two, the less he wants to think about Cazador, full stop, because that goes too close to thinking about any latent attraction he might have to Cazador, how much he's been ruined and molded by him, and how Tav keeps telling him the same. The less time he spends thinking about Cazador the better (unless it's fantasizing about brutally murdering him), and genuinely, he's still mad impressed she talked so many people into killing themselves + the Gur fight. If whatever she's planning gets Caz killed faster, great. He trusts that she won't give him back, that she wants Caz dead, and that she promised to ascend him, a promise he strangely believes despite himself.
All he's got to do is keep his position as her favorite, keep her happy, pray she doesn't completely enthrall him before the ascension, and hope she doesn't come up with too much weird shit in the meantime because god knows his mind can be a terrible place at times, and he has no doubt hers is just a depraved. (They've both got such a skewed sense of normal sexuality & relationships that there's some truly wild shit coming up lol. This act isn't even about their relationship, really! It's about Tav & Astarion's quests! The smut just keeps smutting!!! 💀)
Anyway, Tav's upset because he compared her to Caz again (correctly), said she doesn't flex her power enough (except when she does, he compares her to Caz) and it's a comparison she's finally decided doesn't serve her, but Astarion's already done so much work accepting the idea that honestly she's never going to escape it. Womp womp hence, hoisted by her own petard.
Because he was so accurate with the love test answers (besides the one) and she was both vulnerable and sucked his dick last night/realized she loved him, she's both incredibly pleased and disengaging at the same time. Daydreaming, horny - but also degrading, bringing him down to her level by making him kiss Dalyria and being a whore like her, casting herself as Sylvar, and thinking about him in terms of an object to be won, a "beloved pet", which, ouch. I love him like a pet it's different he's my little vampling ok this is definitely not a real relationship
The "boiling to frog" bit is about Astarion. He's the frog being boiled. Tav's pushing his boundaries further and further to move the goalpost on how much he can take from her.
"This is fine," Astarion thinks, "it's definitely normal for my new master girlfriend lover to have so much power over me, and make me kiss my kind-of sister despite knowing how traumatic that is for both of us. This is fine. This will be a real relationship someday. Once I'm powerful, she'll respect me. Do I need her to respect me? Maybe? I don't know. I've never had that before. Don't ask to be commanded again don't don't don't please keep loving me"
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BG3 playthrough: Last Light Inn
Spoilers below the cut
HOOOOOOO it’s my tiefling buddies from act 1!
…some of them!
………a very, very small amount of them.
Goddamn I was so happy to see them, smiled so wide to see those kiddos there, but SO sad to see what happened, and see how few of them were there. Dammon seems undaunted, the kids are making the best of a bad situation (Mol I take my eyes off you for one minute and you are making a deal with a GODDAMNED DEVIL), but fuck me, Bex crying by the bridge broke my heart, and Rolan being a dick at the bar made me so sad as well. I wonder if people dislike him because of how rude he is being here? Like, he’s literally calling me names and blaming my tav for things that aren’t my fault at all. But it didn’t make me mad at him - it only made me more sad. He’s totally drunk and angry and blaming me for things that don’t even make sense, because he’s so upset about his siblings. The more it doesn’t make sense, the more sad it is. Poor guy. I know he told me to fuck right off when I said I would save them, but I mean it, I will. I love Rolan. He’s such a fucking idiot. That’s my type I guess, idiot men who have no idea how fucking lame they are.
I’m really sad that Alfira isn’t here: it seems she would have extra dialogue about what happened to them on the road, some horrible details about what happened to poor Asharak, and exactly how Rolan and his siblings saved the kids. And it seems talking to HER gives me a little extra dialogue options for when I talk to other people. Ah well. Dark urge sacrifices.
As mentioned, Mol is already waist-deep into more trouble, and she’s considering making a deal with Raphael. What an interesting conversation this was. I tried to warn her off and she said, but no one is helping them. She is going to protect her kids no matter what she has to do, and if she has to make a deal to do it, then that’s what she’s going to do. I thought to myself, god, that sounds exactly like Zevlor. THEN, the very next thing she says, she mentions Zevlor, how he froze, and how she is going to do better. I’m sure the game did that on purpose, I’m sure that writing can’t be a happy accident. NO MOL NO. No deals with literal devils.
The conversation here between Raphael and Astarion is super super interesting, I think. Astarion can sound suave when he’s doing a seduction, but here more than anywhere else I’ve seen so far, it’s really evident this is only because of the practice he’s had. Talking to Raphael, it’s obvious he’s nervous, halting, even whining. 10 cha boy, truly. I love it.
The strange ox is in the stable outside. Dark urge has some options to talk to the ox and realize it has the same horrible murder fantasies that you have. It’s startling for sure but I don’t think it has anything to actually do with the dark urge: as far as I’m aware, the only thing that’s up with the ox is that it’s a shape-shifted ooze hiding out, right? Are oozes really just that murderous??? I was showing a friend of mine the ox scene, and wanted to aggro it to show them what the ox really looks like. I picked a dark urge option instead of the normal aggro option and…. wow. Dark urge isn’t playing around, huh. We were both surprised, lol. I’m playing a resisting durge so I hadn’t actually done one of these scenes before, lol. If you say the right things, the ox will be pleased with you and… hork up a gem. Thanks?...
This area is crappy. It just feels bad. Like, not even just the shadows, but the ground itself is all broken up and off-kilter. I now have, like, four different tasks to do, and I have no freaking idea what I want to do first. The first thing I guess is to decide how I want to get to moonrise… go with Kar’niss and the goblin caravan, or ambush them? I want to go with Kar’niss so I can meet up with him later at the top of the tower, but if I do that, I’m going to be stuck at the tower without a lantern for a while and I’m not really wanting to do that either…. Sigh. Not sure.
Fun note - my daughter who is also playing just got to the gith creche. She is really committed… for some reason… to playing a character who doesn’t really want to be nosy about investigating in other people’s property, or about stepping in and interfering where she is an outsider. Play the game how you want, I guess, but end result of this that she just stood back in the gith classroom and let Varrl get knifed, thus killing one of my favourite NPCs. I was…. Surprised…. With her choice. Lol.
I was also wanting to see what her thoughts were after talking more with the guardian. I wanted to know if an unspoiled player would think the guardian had something to do with, or perhaps even WAS, somehow, Orpheus. But, she mistrusts the guardian so badly that this thought apparently didn’t even cross her mind. So that’s interesting. She ended up stabbing the guardian, lol.
I still don’t know what I’m going to do next here. Sigh. Maybe I’ll explore around and do some of the small stuff, need to go save Rolan’s foolish ass, and then decide what to do about moonrise?…
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I am by now getting quite invested in the relationship between my Tav and his ex-girlfriend Kantei. I wrote her in while I was working on my Tav's backstory for Voice of the Voiceless. The two know each other since forever and have been a couple in the past for four years, though two years before the game is set, she broke up with him.
Because my Tav is an idiot, to be frank. Or rather, because he keeps putting himself into danger and she was done with keeping him from getting himself killed.
How well has that worked, given they stayed best friends? Debatable. Given they are still very close - though in a queerplatonic way. And she is still so protective of him, making her so mistrustful towards Astarion. Like, she is gonna kill that vampire, if he breaks Tav's heart.
This is her, by the way. Though the game did not allow me to give her her most striking scar. (She has a scar across her throat from where someone has cut it. While Tav saved her life, his healing skills back them were not good enough to prevent scarring.)
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ben barnes . cis male . he/him . wasn’t that ares dunne walking the palace grounds ? it’s nice to see the king’s guard out and about on such a fine day as this. i’ve heard from the court spies that they notoriously melancholy, whilst also managing to be quite charming. the thirty-nine year old is eager to find out who exactly is behind the killings from what’s being said at court. i heard that they themselves are vrajiit ( forcefield generation ). it’s funny, whenever i think of them, i think of billowing cloaks, sandy hair, a wink as he leaves. great to see the protector around, isn’t it ? ( lucy . she/her . 23 . aest .)
originally born in crysala, ares never though himself anything special. his family had been fishermen for generations, and he had always assumed that he would end up down the same path. more than that, he was more than content with leading a life on the sea. he loved the sea breeze in his hair as he and his parents sailed out in the mornings, enjoyed spending his afternoon sunbaking upon the shore. he enjoyed telling the nobles lies about merfolk he’d seen and warning them that the kraken could come to call any time it pleased.
the simple life suited ares, but fate had other plans. when he was thirteen and one of the boughs of his father’s ship broke, hurling straight for him, pure instinct took over and a sheer silver forcefield had emerged from his hands. he and his family had been shocked to say the least. no one else in his family had ever been a vrajiit, and ares had never so much as considered the idea that he could be one.
he tried to keep his powers a secret, but like most things, ares had no control over that. another accident happened in town, he used his powers to keep anyone from getting hurt, and boom. he was whisked away to the academy to begin his training.
he was thankful for the fact that he at least only had one power to deal with, unable to deal with the idea of handling more than one. he did, however, excel at hand to hand combat and was particularly skilled with a sword.
that being said, while he enjoyed sparring with classmates, he didn’t enjoy fighting itself. he loathed the idea of battle and so, he put off his service in the army for as long as he could. instead, he returned to his family home and continued being a fisherman, enjoying every moment of normality he could until he ran out of time.
he only spent five years in the army and that was more than enough for him. being more of a fighter only when necessary, his powers came in handy when it came to blocking off those who opposed them as well as protecting other soldiers.
his service ended on a bitter note when during battle, his dearest friend in the army was killed. it sent ares down a spiral of guilt, beating himself up over the fact that his reflexes should have been quicker, that he should have been able to save him. he hasn’t been quite the same since.
he became a guard more out of obligation than anything. war left a bitter taste in his mouth, and it was clear to everyone that his powers were better suited towards protection. he takes it seriously, the king (and his family’s) safety becoming his number one priority.
no matter how many years have passed though, he still longs for the end of this war in the hope that he can return to his hometown, living out his days on the ocean like he’d always planned. he’s a little too cynical to really believe it will happen, but the thought helps him sleep at night.
he definitely acts more carefree than he actually is. he kind of has jaime lannister sagittarius kind of vibes if that makes sense?? he likes to drink at the end of his shifts, will flirt and befriend most that cross his path, and he always wants to bring up people’s moods when they’re down.
honestly should be married and have kids by now, but he has some major commitment issues and fears that everyone he gets close to will end up dead so. he sucks.
connection ideas:
people that served in the army the same time as him! he finished his service nine years ago.
ex-betrothal(s): he honestly has probably been engaged a couple of times and has just not been able to go through with it in the end. he’d still care for them and love them deeply, but he just wasn’t ready to completely let someone in.
closest friend: mayhaps someone from the same town with him, someone he went to the academy with, a friend of one of his siblings that befriended him. could stem from anywhere, but give me someone he can get tossed out of the tav with because he’s too drunk.
lovers: he’s a bit of a hoe, but he’s a nice hoe at least.
enemies: please give me people who when they enter the room, ares just sighs and rolls his eyes every single time, i am begging.
literally anything, i’m always down and ares is always an idiot that lives for drama.
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