#it's the 'why are all the characters 20? because they're blank slates' problem

[snugglyporos]

// one day I will find a way to write an isekai that isn't awful

except I have never figured out how to make their previous life matter to the point where it doesn't A. make them insanely and boringly overpowered or B. entirely not matter at all

[riddlerosehearts]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[foggyfanfic]

One (very kind) person asked, so this is what I'm using as "character sheet" whenever I doodle them. 20's Bruno headcanons and stuff about Leandra under the cut.

Bruno

I love the headcanon that Bruno shrunk in the walls, it's so good for angst, so I like to think he started out about as tall as Pepa and Juli was the short triplet. Then he comes out of the walls and Juli has this guilty moment where she realizes she's not the shortest anymore and feels a split second of joy before the implications set in.

He doesn't get the ability to grow a full beard until he's almost forty, but he has a pretty easy to maintain goatee until then.

Once upon a time there was an effort to keep his hair trimmed and neat, but as he gets further into adulthood he stops bothering.

He's had three main ruanas in his life. One when he was a kid, a simple one when he was an adult that was only slightly too big, then when he accidentally ripped it beyond repair he got the one we see in the movie. He also has a church ruana and a boring ruana for when he wants to blend in.

Hates closed toe shoes and only wears them when his sisters ask him to (on runs, weddings, etc.)

The OCD is still under control in his twenties, but steadily gets out of hand in his thirties. This is the 1920's so nobody realizes his "quirks" are caused by a lack of serotonin, right? I assume everybody thinks they're a side effect of his visions.

Not that religious yet, but still has a healthy respect for the church.

This isn't specific to 20's Bruno, just my thoughts in general, and it might be me projecting, but Bruno seems very gender to me. I think he's one of those people where historians would be like "It's a different time and culture so we can't know how he'd identify" but he has had both a boyfriend and a girlfriend.

Leandra

You'll have to zoom in to see Leandra's freckles but they're there and cover her entire body.

She's meant to have the body type of a female boxer, she does a lot of manual labor so I figure she would be muscular but not in the same way as Luisa who we see actively working out. The problem with drawing that body type is if you put saaay an apron around your characters waist because you want to show she spends most her time working, it's going to make it look like she breasts very boobily. I've decided to lean into it after drawing this, but I try to keep in mind that she has broad shoulders and thick limbs when describing her.

She has double hips, no reason why, I just feel they're under represented.

Hair type is 3B. Base color is dark brown, but she has red undertones and is always out in the sun where they're extra visible.

Most of her clothes are handy-downs from Rosalie, whose parents are rich.

She is what I consider to be straight, but if she realized that bisexuality was an option, she would have experimented just to be sure.

I made her an orphan because in the beginning I was going to make her a reader insert, and I wanted to give her as blank slate of a background as possible. I kept it that way since I figure the first five years in Encanto were probably pretty rough. Her birth mother was the last person in her family to pass, and that was when Leandra was three (most people start forming long term memories at four so her Pa is all she knows).