#lady's BG3 caps

[ladyinthebluebox]

WOMEN OF BALDUR’S GATE 3 VI/??? >> Beacon of moon light

[mikuchan]

Notes and thoughts on my Araj Oblodra tag dive. This one is long.

Everyone loves an evil woman (unless she's mean, and a woman).

Oh boy! I started Araj because I'm too busy lately to keep tackling Orin or any of the DA tags, so I thought I'd bang out some ~100-tag characters. With only 122 English language works, Araj has a pretty small tag that manages to be an unsurprising but illuminating facet of the BG3 fandom experience.

Like I said on the infographic, 85% of works tagging Araj also tag Astarion; going further with that, in over half (59%) of works tagging Araj Oblodra, she is only in the story to act antagonististically towards Astarion. The criteria for this was: Araj seeking Astarion's blood in an impolite/creepy/pushy way, hurting people close to Astarion, or treating him in any kind of rude, demeaning, or abusive manner; and she has no separate interactions or plot points.

This number jumps to 71% when mistags are removed.

Over a third of her works total specifically follow her exact canonical in-game role.

I divided her tag presence into 5 roles because of this: Main, Side, Minor, Mistag, and Canon Antagonist. In Canon Antag works, whether she appears for a single scene or an entire fic, Araj does not deviate from canon. She says her game lines verbatim, and if/when Tav attacks her later, she does not have any further unique dialogue or actions except for like, dying on the ground. If she deviates from canon in any way, this shifts her role into main, side, or minor. (Here is a deeper explanation of how I sort roles.)

Of all the fics tagging Araj, an alarming amount go on to have her screamed at and assaulted. She's choked, stabbed, sliced, beheaded, dismembered, grabbed by the collar and spat at, called a bitch in all caps. I get it, kind of -- it's fun to imagine how you or your Tav would confront a bully, and Araj is distinctly a bully. But it's a little jarring when we consider how few other characters receive this treatment.

Lady Esther, for comparison, is a nearly identical character: a selfish merchant who profiles and belittles a companion while making a dehumanizing request. There are four works total tagging Esther on AO3. One of these involves her crimes against Lae'zel. (so for Lae'zel, that's 1 anti-merchant fic per ~6k works)

Lann Tarv, the bugbear merchant found in Moonrise Towers, is also similar: offering a material deal in exchange for triggering a companion's past traumas. There are two fics tagging Lann Tarv on AO3; one of these is about him and Karlach. (so for Karlach, that's 1 per ~8k works)

For Astarion, who is tagged in 21,817 English language works, there's 1 anti-Araj fic per ~300 works -- over twenty times the rate of those mentioned above.

So what makes Araj so different? Why do Astarion fans care so deeply about her?

This is rhetorical. We know why Araj receives this kind of hate and backlash while others go ignored or enjoyed. She's not a woman hurting other women like Esther, Viconia, or Orin do; and she's not an abusive man, like Cazador, Raphael, Gortash, Ketheric, Lann Tarv. Instead she's committed the cardinal sin of being a woman who is mean to a hot white guy, so she deserves to be called a bitch and kicked until she spits up blood and dies -- or at the least, used as a mean little stage-prop for someone else's growth. No further character exploration needed.

I'm not arguing that Araj Oblodra is this misunderstood character who deserves only love and cinnamon buns. I'm also not saying we need to coddle her because she's ~just a girl~ or something. She's a self-serving merchant who dehumanizes and triggers Astarion, and isn't apologetic about it. She'll give you a potion to make you explosive. She's got some sketchy experiments going on.

But she's also like...not that worse than a lot of other characters in the game. She's not even really worse than Astarion himself, who is also nasty to a lot of people (he's funny, but he's an asshole); also iffy about consent (just bites you in the night); is not apologetic about chunks of his past (the Gur, their kids); and is equally self-serving at times (wanting to ascend despite the blood toll).

I'm not saying Astarion is some awful, irredeemable character, either. Both he and Araj are complex characters operating within their own unique set of morals, seeking personal power to right past wrongs and traumas.

Together they paint a good picture of the problems in the BG3 fandom, and really, fandom as a whole. The martyrdom of a hot white blorbo guy; the demonization of a woman; the often-female OC swooping in to uphold this status quo; the relative fixation on the whole melodramatic scenario.

I'm sure some people will disagree. Before you do, stop!

Do not tell me about how your Tav is super deep and well-written and so it's actually really feminist of her to kill Araj for her vampire lover. Awesome for you. Take that energy and write something about Lady Esther, and then we'll talk.

The rest of Araj's stats were pretty predictable. She leans hard towards Explicit and Mature ratings, which isn't surprising. I like the ones where she and Minthara interact, always fun to see drow from different Houses working together (or against each other!). I also like the idea of Araj x Aurelia, the tiefling vampire spawn.

[empressxmachina]

"You're No Fun!" by me | (Also on DA)

Previously on Not-BG3, someone, perhaps the player character or Tav, if you will, had a thirst for bodies (no cap, no Diddy, no vampire), and the rest of squad found a way to contain it... and its wielder. Here, it looks like they're even smaller and maybe even rowdier, almost lost in a crowd with blood prices and tadpoles the furthest from a mind.

For all intents and purposes, if I come to create more ideas like this, they'll be in a gallery/group called "Spoiled Homebrew" or something like that, in that link on DA or in my tag of the same name here. Get it? Homebrew? D&D? Beer? I'll leave.

(references under the cut)

May the Power of Bhaal, Myrkul, or Some Other God Compel You!

Sketchbook Pro

Photopea

~~Just so you know, the font used here is Crimson Roman, if you're curious. It's a close fit, and it's free. Like the Hells I'm paying $88 or whatever to get the actual font used.

[huge hand] "Hands PNG, hand image free" is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0

[little lady] "Woman in Black Long Sleeve Shirt beside Blue Wall" - Photo by Kseniya Kopna from Pexels

[crowd] "Pink holi powder blowing up over people" on Freepik

[tattoo] "Stock Tribal Tattoo Artwork Vector Icon" - Image by Vectorportal.com, CC BY 4.0

Circa June 2024.

The goal was to make this quite coded without actually being the thing. Though if one's headcanon somehow works well enough with this and him to imagine such a scene in-game or inspire something else, then I'm flattered.

I wonder what the wrist mark is about. It could be like Gale's orb situation, but I just thought it looked cool.

[g-kat423]

Now that I’m playing rdr2, I’ll tell you guys my Rob Wiethoff story.

I went to retrogamecon in October so I could meet Maggie Robertson as well as a friend I made on TikTok who lives a few hours away from me and also wanted an opportunity to meet Maggie. In addition to having a few BG3 actors, they also had red dead actors there. At the time, my only knowledge of red dead was what had been spoiled for me on TikTok and knowing that Roger Clark plays Arthur Morgan/what Roger Clark looks like. Wasn’t familiar with the other actors or what they looked like.

The first day of the con before my friend got there, I aimlessly wandered around the floor in my Lady Dimitrescu cosplay. I was nervous since I am *not* good in public spaces, but felt somewhat safer than I normally would since there was security and metal detectors. There was also the anxiety of being perceived since I was in cosplay and wasn’t sure how people would treat me,l. Luckily everyone who came up to me only said nice things.

This is where we get to the Rob Wiethoff part. As I’m walking, there’s a guy over in the red dead redemption booth, I didn’t know who he was and assumed he was one of the volunteers taking payments for signings/photos. He called out to me and complimented my cosplay. I thanked him and went on my way to eventually meet up with my friend, get the professional photo op with Maggie, and then also go to her booth so I could get a print signed and talk with her more.

A few days pass and a guy comes up on my TikTok fyp and I’m like “omg that’s the guy who was nice to me at retrogamecon” And after some digging, that’s how I found out that John Marston liked my Lady D cosplay.

Now that I am actually playing through rdr2 and getting familiar with the characters, I hope that I get the opportunity to meet him properly as well as Roger Clark. I would have felt like too much of a poser to go up at the time. That and to keep spending low, I chose to only meet Maggie. I had wanted to meet Neil Newbon, but his line was ridiculously long and already capped right from the start of the con for both days he was there since he was only able to be there Saturday and Sunday. I didn’t have to wait all that long to meet Maggie. Even if Neil’s line wasn’t capped, there’s no way I’d have been able to stand for several hours. That and since I had spent most of day 1 in different lines, I didn’t want that for the other 2 days of the con since there were games to play and other things to see.

[ladyinthebluebox]

WOMEN OF BALDUR’S GATE 3 IX/??? >> Sword of Selûne

[ladyinthebluebox]

WOMEN OF BALDUR'S GATE 3 V/??? >> The last one left

[ladyinthebluebox]

Just two normal people living normal lives very, very normally...

[ladyinthebluebox]

WOMEN OF BALDUR'S GATE 3 III/??? >> Resplendent

[ladyinthebluebox]

WOMEN OF BALDUR'S GATE 3 IV/??? >> Happy to be alive

[ladyinthebluebox]

yours is the light by which my spirit’s born: yours is the darkness of my soul’s return –you are my sun, my moon, and all my stars - E.E. Cummings, #38 of 73 poems -

[ladyinthebluebox]

WOMEN OF BALDUR’S GATE 3 VIII/??? >> More than prepared

[ladyinthebluebox]

WOMEN OF BALDUR'S GATE 3 I/??? >> NOT a devil

[ladyinthebluebox]

Mirabelle Morley V/??? >> Devourer of secrets

[ladyinthebluebox]

Mirabelle Morley XIII/??? >> The evil within

[ladyinthebluebox]

Mirabelle Morley IX/??? >> Mind games

[ladyinthebluebox]

Mirabelle Morley VII/??? >> Dagger stare