#major bg3 spoilers

[littlestarbigfangs]

"SWEET HELLS!"

[luxlightly]

"oh ascended Astarion doesn't love you anymore. he thinks you're degrading yourself to be with him. he says himself he's not capable of love" Ascended Astarion thinks he needs to be Cazador. Thinks he wants to be. I think he does still love Tav. I think he shows that pretty clearly in his actions and his words. But he no longer knows how to express it because he is caught up in how a Vampire Lord™ is supposed to act (and high on power and control). So it expresses itself it being extremely possessive of Tav. If you break up before the end, he says he would have just used up your love because he doesn't know any other way, but I think he just believes that because it's what he knows and because he's still consoling himself to losing you. And, again, how he thinks he's supposed to be as a vampire lord. I do think he has the capacity to love Tav as an equal, still, especially Dark Urge that went the Slayer route and the Dead World ending. Like, good luck completely controlling someone who can turn into 1500 teeth and claws and is the Chosen/mortal manifestation of a god who is also their dad. It may just take some time for him to realize that, again. He's a truly horrific person, of course, but I think that a truly horrific Tav, especially Dark Urge, could have a happy, horrific relationship where they kill people (and each other, since they're both basically unkillable and could be torn to pieces and be fine, probably) over and over again forever and then destroy the world and honestly good for them.

[elvenmoans]

The dark urge was formed as a pretty elf with wide eyes for a reason: To lure his victims in with a false sense of security.

He wanted to carve and tattoo designs into his face to feel like it was his when he looked into the mirror, and to looked like the predator he was.

But father wouldn't allow it. It was not in his plans to look fierce. It was stupid to give that lure away only to make it easier to be spotted.

Now he knows what he is again and knows that he is more than what his father planned for him. So with a needle in his beloved's kind hands and ink smeared between them, the designs he wasn't allowed are pricked into his skin.

His face is his own for the first time in his life, remembered or otherwise. It was not as fierce as he had pictured once, a long time ago, but it was made with his lover's hands and for a much kinder world than he had ever dared to dream for.

[anendtopursuit]

not to gush too much abt neil newbon's performance as astarion (and stephen rooney's writing for him) but like. he's discussed on streams before how conscious the decision to make him feel like he's constantly performing is (regardless of outcome; theatrical spawn astarion & operatic ascended astarion), and how stephen rooney leaned more into the whimsy and fun of the character based on things he saw in his portrayal (hence astarion progressively getting funnier and more charismatic through game development). but the thing that drives me absolutely mad tbh is the moments where all of it drops and he's suddenly so sincere, because it hits you like a truck to the face.

his voice going all soft and quiet and brittle when he describes cazador instructing his spawn to torture themselves. his mannerisms shifting from seductive and playful to a little more nervous. but the one that always gets me is in the graveyard romance scene, talking about what cazador has taken from him, how it was taken by force; "but he did take it," in this voice that's so full of sorrow that it almost sounds hollow, muffled by none of his usual pomp and theatricality, when even in cazador's palace his admissions of upset were sandwiched between attempts to brush it all off. dear god.

[houndvoice]

🌙 The moon will sing a song for me I loved you like the sun ☀️

[johnny-depplyloveyou]

When Gale uses the orb with Tav by his side during the final battle...

· We might still have a chance.

· It's been an honour.

· Do it, Gale.

😭😭😭

[gwynbleiddyn]

im so fucking unwell about him

[moron-rights]

end cards please, an epilogue, please, I’m begging

[vounoura]

> [Level Sceleritas.]

[creakysocks]

So having a bronze dragonborn tav who looks just a little bit too similar to ansur sure was an experience-

[druizard]

"I've lived hundreds of childhoods, first loves, marriages, feuds and friendships. I remember them all. And in this way, we all live on. Together." -Illithid Karlach

[2lim3rz]

I WILL DO ANYTHING FOR YOU, SIR.

[thefloatingstone]

My apologies. I meant no bad faith. I was just surprised you hadn't come across that part yet.

Well I have only done one run and I have never been openly hostile and cruel to him. I know that if you turn him down, he accepts it and is fine with it. So I assume only if you are REALLY cruel to him and choose the dialogue options clearly expressing that you find him disgusting for being a mindflayer.

Because if you just turn him down normally he accepts, is disappointed, and moves on.

In which case, if you call him a disgusting monstrous mindflayer, is it REALLY so surprising for him to respond by showing you illusions of JUST how disgusting a mindflayer you think he is and lean into your belief that that is what he is? His entire THING is trying to placate you so you and him can have an alliance to kill the elder brain. If you lash out at him in anger and disgust, would it not make most sense to, instead of argue, agree with you and reinforce that image because it will at LEAST continue the alliance?

Not to mention The Emperor expresses very VERY obvious signs throughout the entire game that, for all his talk about being happy about being a mindlfayer and that he sees it as a positive, he is very affected by other people's judgement of him being a mindflayer. (Which is an interesting detail to think about how when that insecurity rooted itself in him because it is NOT from his own issues with being a mindflayer. Or at least he very earnestly expresses he views becoming a mindflayer as a positive which is why he encourages you to become at least part ilithid yourself)

But anyway

There are multiple situations, conversations and details where he shows he is overly self-aware on how being a mindflayer is judged by others. SPECIFICALLY in regards to him being viewed as a monstrosity. This is clearly a sore spot for him.

So if you call him disgusting? And if you hit exactly in the weak spot? Can you fucking BLAME him for lashing out and going "ok if that is what you think I am then fucking fine by me. Here I will even give you AMMO to think of me as a monster". resurrecting ironclad walls between himself and you on an emotional level so there can be NO mistake on where either of your feelings lie.

After all, lying to you about being an angelic dream guardian here to save you from your doomed fate didn't work. Why not then lean into the lie of being the ilithid abomination you think he is?

Also Anon you absolutely did mean it in bad faith because I kept answering you on why I liked the grey morality going on here and your response was to push more and more into "Ok but he did an evil thing" when you were not satisfied by my response. Do not insult my intelligence please.

[luxlightly]

In line with my last post about getting good endings with companions, the writing of The Emperor really stands out in how it defies the expectations we have as players of a game of this nature. He's a very well written character who definitely wades through the very grey areas of morality and bends the truth so much he leaves you wondering just how much he's bought into his own lies,as well.

Major spoilers beneath the cut.

If you go through the same steps you do with other characters, endlessly giving him the benefit of the doubt, leaning into his comparisons of you to himself, helping him reminisce at the Elfsong. He seems to open up. You bring him back to his old home, seemingly listening to emotional secrets of his. All this culminating in him professing love for us. We expect this. It seems to be progressing normally as an ally would in a game. To the point where many might even kill the Gith prince for him.

So those who don't do so feel blindsided by his willingness to abandon us to join the elder brain the instant we won't do exactly what he asks.

But playing again, I picked options I wouldn't normally. I called him out for secrecy. I pressed him for the truth even when it seemed to truly hurt him.

And I didn't like what I found.

The Emperor is manipulative in such an organic way. He first pretends to be someone else entirely, but, when revealed, constantly poses himself as being at your mercy or otherwise making himself vulnerable to you. Every time he's caught in a lie, he says "ok this was a lie I had to keep to protect himself but only because it was basically the truth just with little details left out" and he does that again and again, each time pushing the truth a little farther, all while still insisting he has never lied to you.

He pretends that you just wandered into the prism in your dream because he was distracted and lonely, then he shows you little trinkets with cute stories attached at the Elfsong, giving you gifts in the form of his old armor and sword. He speaks so fondly of Duke Stelmane and acts so saddened by her death, then when you next see him in your dreams, he isn't wearing a shirt. All these things that make him seem so vulnerable. Like he's bared everything about himself.

Except he hasn't actually revealed anything. He tells you he was just some adventurer even though he knows how important who he was is to your quest. He acts like he and Stelmane were partners or friends. He never tells you anything about him, just anecdotes to make him seem relatable. Nothing but soft words to soften your heart and lower your guard.

And any time you express distrust or ask for proof or for him to be honest with you, he gets upset, he acts as though you are the one being cruel and unreasonable. As if you are hurting him after he made himself vulnerable for you.

So feels bad to select any dialogue choice that calls him out. That accuses him of what you suspect in your mind. Of what all the little red flags point to:

"You do a good impression of a human. But it's just an act, isn't it?"

And finally the facade comes down. He finally lets you see his thoughts. See something besides the story he concocted.

You see him torturing Stelmane, breaking her mind and reducing her to an empty shell. The same scenes he showed you before of them in a friendly partnership play again, this time revealing that she was just a glassy eyed puppet, her mind torn apart so he could use her body to serve him and control the city in secret.

"Be glad my methods have improved" he says. And tells you you were never anything but his puppet. That you never had a choice and you will not get a choice. That you are his thrall as much as Stelmane was.

And it feels like a real betrayal. Because he does a good job of acting the part. Even knowing you will mistrust him, even intending to mistrust him, you fall for at least pieces of it. And looking back the signs seem obvious and you see his you ignored them. Because that's how it was supposed to work. You were supposed to allow him to be vulnerable with you and be rewarded with his trust.

And that's exactly what he wanted you to think.

[helpimstuckinafandom]

"To think I believed godhood was worth losing all this" "I can see why I loved you" CAN YOU FUCK OFF MAYBE

[johnny-depplyloveyou]

“Do it, Gale.”

“Until we wake, my love.”

wip. I wish this ending had a different cinematic than when he does it alone, so here’s my vision of it