#wizard Byron

[josh-xd-2004]

Wizard Byron in his two versions.

[unamazing-sheep21]

more Adventure Time Jane Eyre, in colour!!

Edward and ADE

Edward realising Jane doesn’t think he’s handsome

And Wuthering Heights Heathcliff as Huntress Wizard

[hyenakat]

weird fuzzy dragon guy (he's also a wizard. and a cowboy)

[the-most-faithful]

THE MOST FAITHFUL Read on Ao3

[foxsketch6543]

Venture Bros Movie Countdown: Dr. Orpheus

Dr. Stran- OH! I mean Dr. Orpheus!

[keepofkandrakar]

"oh calamity" by all time low is so wisty x byron coded like idk why but it IS AND I WILL NOT SHUT UP ABOUT IT!!

[the-satellite]

DO NOT REREAD WITCH AND WIZARD. I DONT CARE HOW MUCH YOU REMEMBER BYRON BEING KINDA INTERESTING DONT DO IT. AINT WORTH IT

[omgshiftercat]

I have a friend whose ex, a minor celebrity in some circles, was abusive.

Shortly after she and some other women went public about it, there were some people who chimed in talking about other misdeeds of his.

Her ex was, and is, a loathsome waste of oxygen, and the words, "...who deserves every accusation leveled at him" would almost escape my lips...

...Except that some of the accusations people began throwing around because they (understandably) hated this guy weren't true.

This did not help my friend at all! It muddied the waters, and gave her awful ex ammunition for his claims that people were just out to get him, and were willing to make stuff up to smear him.

Switching gears: there's been a lot of discussion recently about how some brilliant and influential art has been created by objectively terrible people. Part of that discussion has been calling out people who say, "Their work always sucked," or "I never liked it." Not only are statements like this unhelpful, they provide cover for predators. If you insist that your tastes reflect your morality, you're giving yourself a huge blind spot, and making it easy to dismiss evidence of harm done by creators you happen to like.

This is one reason why I think exhibits like this one are important: they help teach that lesson.

Three notes on this: 1. by the time of that exhibition, Gill was long dead and therefore unable to profit from it.

2. This kind of thing isn't necessary for every artist, because not every creator does heinous things.

3. My friend's ex is nowhere near the artistic league of Eric Gill or any of the other creators I'll discuss.

Switching gears again...

If someone mentions a bespectacled British boy wizard with an owl familiar, in a modern setting with "secret world" magic, the name that springs to mind is most likely "Harry Potter", right?

But Timothy Hunter, from The Books of Magic, was published a full seven years before that. I was working in a bookstore when the novelizations for the BoM comics came out, and had to tell kids that no, this was not a HP rip-off.

I don't think the reverse was true, either: for one thing, The Books of Magic is set in the DC Universe, and I've never heard of JKR reading superhero comics. But also... sometimes completely separate creators will come up with strikingly similar ideas, utterly by coincidence. It's one reason why most authors tell fans NOT to send them ideas or fanfiction based on their work: there is rarely any good way to prove that you didn't steal a concept.

Now, obviously every creator is influenced by other people's works, and I completely agree that it's good to acknowledge that and to point fans towards your influences!

When Rowling began channeling her resources into making life worse for trans folk, I saw a lot of people saying, "Well, Harry Potter was just a mediocre rip-off of The Worst Witch anyway."

While I haven't read that series, I strongly doubt this claim. The idea of magic schools is older and more widespread than either of those series, and "British boarding school hijinks, but it's a magic school" was bound to be written more than once.

Now, some of you already know, and others have looked up, who originally wrote Tim Hunter. And... yeah, it's Neil Gaiman. *sigh*

In the last few days, I've seen some people saying, "The Sandman ripped off Tanith Lee's Tales from the Flat Earth." They cite a number of similarities: Azhrarn, the Lord of Darkness, is a pale-skinned, raven-haired Byronic figure with a sibling-like relationship to the Lord of Death and the Lord of Madness. Like the Endless, these beings are god-like, but specifically not gods. Apparently some people have mistaken fanart of Azhrarn for Morpheus. And Chuz, Prince Madness, has a bisected appearance, half his face horribly messed up, like the demoness Mazikeen.

But speaking as someone who was a fan of the late Tanith Lee years before I picked up an issue of The Sandman: I don't believe the latter was stolen from the former. Are there similarities? Yes, but they're superficial. If you've read both series, as I have, you'll know that the stories, settings, and characters are very different!

It's possible Gaiman was influenced by Lee's writing, and if so, I agree he should have acknowledged that. He did promote the work of other female creators, which is one reason why many of us thought he was "one of the good ones". But it's also entirely possible that these two authors independently came up with similar ideas.

When it comes right down to it, I think that statements like this -- "their best work was just a rip-off of something else" -- are just another variant of "their work always sucked".

It's often an easier accusation than "they've always been crap", because, as I said, writers come up with strikingly similar concepts all the time, and it's very hard to prove you didn't steal an idea. But it has the same problems, so -- barring the kind of case you could make with a college-level plagiarism-catching program -- I think it's best avoided.

Now, telling people, "Hey, are you sad about this creator turning out to be an awful person to whom you don't want to give any more money? Try this other person's work instead!" This is good! Let's have more of it!

Addendum 1: I think "separate the art from the artist" should mean, "you don't have to treat books already on your shelf as if they're suddenly coated in poison", not "I'm going to ignore this creator's actions and keep buying their products anyway."

Addendum 2: I just posted a version of this to Bluesky.

[lightningant]

I saw your thing with Snape being aro/ace and I wanna hear more about that. Specifically the reasoning behind it and then with the dynamic of him and lily :3

My reasoning is that I am aro/ace and he's my little princess.

Okay, seriously. He's derided a lot for being an incel, but what he felt was most important about his history with her is that she was the most valuable person in the world; that she was the new life he was running to, that he'd get a good job with Voldemort so he could establish magic supremacy so people like Lily and himself could cast off their muggle upbringing and flourish. He wanted to share his new life with her.

If we look at the memories, what Snape selects to describe what their relationship:

His fumbled attempt to connect with Lily over his magic, hungry for her attention

Him mentoring her with what his mother taught him (again he is hungry for Lily's attention) and his inability to understand her love for Petunia [muggles].

The splinter of Petunia and Lily's relationship, and the grounds of the Snape-James rivalry and what about James grated on Lily

Lily sorted to a different house, completely breaking down their dynamic

The beginning of Lily and Snape's splinter; that he has become obsessed with the Marauders specifically because James is in love with her, and she is frustrated Snape isn't interested in what his own friends do. Snape prioritizes Lily not being taken away over what she has to say. See above; he doesn't understand the worth of muggles, just fantasizes about muggleborn and halfbloods like them getting to shuck their heritage and go on to greater things. Very Fuck You Got Mine philosophy.

Snape repeating his worst memory on purpose. It is humiliating but core to what happened; he is the one in the wrong, he reacted poorly, he is the cause of their parting.

And a memory of him grovelling to hammer it home. She catches him out on his Fuck You Got Mine attitude; that muggleborn who love their muggle families and indulge their muggle culture are just mudbloods, but he refuses to believe that about her, because Lily's so smart and talented and superior and destined to outgrow them. 😬

So the purpose of these memories is pretty clear, that she had been very consistent while Snape kept trying to introduce her to his fantasy of a better life that she (rightly!) didn't think very highly of. When he loses her, he goes back to live at Spinner's End, wallowing in the world he was trying to escape, because escape was no longer possible. The wizarding world no longer had anything to offer, because uplifting her was so core to how he understood it. He just didn't understand her.

I think Snape's paternalistic treatment of Lily and obsessive attitude towards James would result in more signs of desire; in fact, he is at his most ravenous for her when he is like, ten years old. After that, the one who reacts with attraction is Lily, because she's flustered by Snape being byronic and hormonal at her.

This is all to say I just think there's solid basis to read Snape's love for her as platonic, and that not undermining what he is trying to convey by selecting these memories. I'm not crazy.

Narrative-wise, as in, "what does Snape's love for Lily being platonic add to the character": I do think that this is often a cop-out to make him a more appetizing character and rescue him from incel allegations, which is kind of a bummer because... I mean, he's obsessed with James Potter's sexual fascination with Lily and is paternalistic towards her.

I think it would upset him he's not attracted to Lily.

I think he would be pretty conscious that he is a boy and he is fascinated and enraptured with a girl, and how ~obviously compatible they are~ (🙄), and that should mean they start a romance and become more intimate, but...that desire does not exist. He doesn't want to date Lily, he just wants to... [vague gesture] have her. There is no way to process his adoration of Lily; the only way to make her exclusive to himself is not something he actually wants, but that means she can't be exclusive to him, and so James Potter is free to take her in ways he can't.

I'm even willing to assume Lily was waiting for Snape to express sexual interest in her, because every word out of his mouth since the day they met has been worshiping her and talking mad shit about her suitors. And I can definitely see a lot of her dejection and hatred of him as that like, oh, so its okay to consort with mudbloods, but you could never touch one.

Which he can't really refute; what exactly is the end state of being so deeply devoted to someone platonically? Not dating, nor marriage, nor "like a sister to me" (which is just a way of saying you aren't going to date, and anyway isn't true because he's never seen her in a familial way), an eternally open, hanging question of a relationship without a knot to tie the ends together, dooming them to eventually unravel. He wants her to love him as much as she loves her future husband. That's not how things are meant to work.

And he's afraid of it, but resigned to it, and ends up just letting it unravel. He doesn't bother to understand or listen to Lily, or express what's radicalizing him (when she told him off for being friends with Mulciber, it seemed to be the first time it's ever come up), or share his vulnerabilities, because he's always viewed her as an opportunity to show how worldly and wise he is.

And as an adult, selecting those memories for Harry...He's keenly aware of that, and regrets how poorly he treated her, and yet for all the clarity he's gained... that frayed, open strand of their relationship is still drifting and unresolved.

Which is, of course, nothing like how Aberforth or Aurelius experiences aromanticism in herringverse. See what I mean about these specific headcanons being an ecosystem. They're all chewing on each other to power their own hangups. Beautiful.

[note: this can all also apply to a gay reading, but part of the terrifyingly ephemeral nature of this dynamic is that there is no new direction to head in. There is no new catharsis that explains this more-than-friendship. There is only the fact of his love, which he nonetheless bore for a lifetime.]

A bonus theory on Snape's unabashed haterism; he is not really interested in Harry because he's not interested in Lily's bloodline; she was always a future, and now that future doesn't exist, so James Potter gets to pass down his superb genes and superb pureblood privileges and superb legacy, while unremarkable inconsequential muggleborn Lily Evans dies as the wife of a pureblood bully and a scar on her son's brow.

[maxdibert]

OMG, I also love the idea of Severus having a partner. Whenever I think about a post-war Snape, I can’t help but imagine him forming a small family. It doesn’t have to involve a child—a kitten or a parrot could be the little one of the house, or even a guinea pig. Someone small to care for.

But beyond that, what kind of partner would Severus have? I’ve always thought that if he did have a partner, it would be a Muggle. He’s tired of the magical world and wants to step away for a moment, which would lead him to start moving within Muggle society, inevitably meeting a Muggle. Although this also creates a conflict for me, since the only Muggle in his life up until then was his abusive father. But then again, he also put up with a lot of crap from many wizards. I don’t know—it’s a topic with so many layers, depending on the time period in which the story takes place and how the culture of both societies is portrayed.

Right? Like, let the man live peacefully. Let him have a quiet life with a house and a garden full of magical plants where he can research his stuff, read his books, and not be bothered by magical world nonsense or political intrigues anymore. With kids or without, it doesn’t matter—just let the man be at peace; he’s been through enough already. Honestly, I’m fully behind this idea. Because Severus wouldn’t care about being considered a war hero—he’d just want to be left alone.

As for the rest, Severus is a guy with a lot of issues, but mostly with a terrible personality. He’s got a strong temper but is also very repressed, though he can’t fully control his temper because he’s emotionally volatile. While I think a post-war Severus would be calmer due to less pressure, I also believe his emotional scars wouldn’t magically heal, so he’d still be a jerk, a git, and generally difficult to deal with.

That’s why I always picture him with a partner who also has a strong temper and enough backbone to handle his tantrums without being intimidated. Someone who’d tell him to go to hell and calm down before talking to them when he explodes. Probably someone used to dealing with emotionally and mentally unstable people, or someone who wouldn’t take his outbursts seriously and would just ignore him until he chilled out. I also see him with someone extroverted because he’s extremely introverted and would never make the first move in a million years. The other person would have to be the one to approach him and make him feel safe about the decisions he makes. Severus is incredibly insecure when it comes to emotional matters and would probably think no one could ever like him, mainly because certain people spent his entire adolescence calling him ugly and greasy, and that stigma followed him throughout his teaching years. That, and deep down, he has awful self-esteem and probably sees himself as a failure in general. So, I can’t picture him making the first move—it’s very hard for me to imagine. That super-confident, Byronic hero version of Severus in some fics doesn’t fit with how I see him. He’s insecure until someone proves there’s nothing to fear.

He’d benefit most from a confident, extroverted partner with the guts to take the initiative. Someone who understands he has a lot of baggage but doesn’t fall into a maternal/paternal role, because your partner isn’t supposed to be your parent. Your partner is your partner; they can understand and support you but aren’t your therapist. Especially for someone like Severus, who needs to work on himself, not rely on others to patch up his wounds. They can help him heal, but he has to do the work.

I actually started writing a Severus fic with a Muggle!Reader because I love the dynamic and found it really interesting. It’s fascinating to explore, especially since he grew up in a Muggle environment and clearly knows some things about that world. But I’ve always imagined that he completely distanced himself from it once his parents died, and probably didn’t have much contact with the Muggle world after becoming a Hogwarts professor, except when strictly necessary. By the early 2000s, he’d be totally out of touch with many modern advancements.

I also like that dynamic because Severus is a well-known figure—he taught nearly twenty generations of students, which is insane given how small the magical community is. Practically half the population must have had him as their Potions professor. Then there’s the whole "he killed Dumbledore" thing, being a Death Eater, and later revealed as a double agent. In a post-war AU where he survives, he’d basically be a magical-world celebrity, sparking very divided opinions. And that would give him massive anxiety. Like, on top of surviving (when we all know he wanted to die because he was so fed up with life), he’d have to deal with that nonsense? I 100% see him being much more comfortable with someone who knows nothing about him, has no preconceived notions or judgments, and gives him a chance to just be himself—or explore a side of his personality he couldn’t show due to his spy role and all the deception he had to maintain.

There’s also an interesting theme of cognitive dissonance—having prejudices against Muggles (which all wizards have, even the good ones, because they treat Muggles like idiots) and then being confronted with the reality of what Muggles are capable of. Especially given that he was a Death Eater and deeply hated everything Muggle due to his experiences with his father and the poverty he endured as a child in that world.

So yeah, 100% your headcanon because it’s mine too! 😂

[josh-xd-2004]

From this oddity I got the idea for the DTIYS of the lumberjack dressed as a wizard and I'm just sharing it before Halloween.

I'm going in order:

The first drawing is from the end of August and I did it when I was afraid of how my semester was going and I assumed that the idea was of the lumberjack competing for a "Halloween event" with a wizard theme.

The second drawing there was in the middle of the competition and the lumberjack appears celebrating even though he came in third place. There I had to add the alleged wizard who appears in an episode of season 4 of the series, Byron with his original wizard skin (which is the one that came in first place) and that fat cat with a hat (which is actually the original generated by AI). I know it sounds bizarre and it is forbidden to dress up as Clawly there.

The third and last drawing just occurred to me and I imagined Derke believing that the woodcutter was a real wizard (In general all this is from modern Au 💀).

Sorry for the bizarreness but I could regret doing this at any time. HAPPY HALLOWEEN I'm still thinking about what to draw before November 5th (You know which country has elections and it's not mine 🦅).

[marcyiyi]

This should’ve been over a long time ago, Remus thinks as he walks around the black lake.

It should’ve ended after they finished their butterbeers at The Three Broomsticks. They each had two and stayed a while longer just to talk. But what could he do, when Sirius was as sweet as the beverage and as bubbly as the whipped cream on top. The conversation was relaxing, lighthearted. No school, his furry little problem, the Blacks or the upcoming war. It was like they left all of that on the cold street. New music, muggle movies, Christmas cookies, prank ideas, Sirius’ hairstyle and ballet. Nothing even remotely stressing. The only strain came with paying, as both of them insisted. The winning argument was that Remus wasn’t the one to arrange the date, so he shouldn’t pay.

It should’ve ended when Remus helped Sirius into his jacket and wrapped his own scar around his neck. He also opened the door for him before stepping to the street. They both stood in front of The Three Broomsticks, not quite sure what to do now. Sirius suggested they go check out a book by an author they were talking about earlier, and unsurprisingly, his date agreed. In Toms and Strolls they found the book, Remus stunned to see so many of his favourite writers. It made sense for them to be wizards, he just never thought of it. As a true bookworm, he pointed out and rated every book he’s read to Sirius. And the uncultured little crap wasn’t even interested in them, he instead followed Remus with his eyes like he was being hypnotised. Just as before, there was nothing heavy or uncomfortable about it. Only whispers muffled by shelves of books and colours of book spines muted by the autumn light. Remus’ favourite place, favourite time and possibly favourite person. Said person stopped staring at him only when he picked up a book that looked intriguing. Sirius was quick to offer buying it for him, but Remus was just as fast with denying the offer. The debate was victorious for the black haired wizard again, he just insisted on buying it himself.

It should’ve ended outside of Toms and Strolls, it should’ve ended together with the day. But the sunrise only gave Sirius good ideas, and he proposed going back to Hogwarts the longer way. And the colours of cotton candy in the skies, the autumn smelling air, and more time with Sirius convinced Remus, even through the pain in his hip. And he might’ve blamed said hip a few times when he tripped, though the real reason was the boy next to him. They stopped by the black lake, which wasn’t doing its name justice, because it instead reflected the cotton candy skies and fiery trees. Remus just breathed in the evening, his surroundings, the peace and quiet. Before it was no longer quiet. ,,She walks in beauty, like the night/Of cloudless climes and starry skies/And all that’s best of dark and bright/Meet in her aspect and her eyes; Thus mellowed to that tender light/Which heaven to gaudy day denies.” With each line, Sirius came closer, and by the last one (A heart whose love is innocent) he was standing in front of Remus, leaning the book on his chest. And Remus thought this couldn’t get any better, and how glad he was it didn’t end any earlier. However, he was proven wrong in the next two seconds, as Sirius leaned in and tasted butterbeer and their beginning on his lips.

@wolfstarmicrofic jan. 5, first date

the date that caused Lily to swear in earlier microfic with She Walks in Beauty by Lord Byron

[morrigan-sims]

OC A-Zs / OC Alphabet

I was tagged by @someone-elsa to show off one of my sims for each letter of the alphabet. (Fancy graphic optional, but I love playing in photoshop too much not to make a little graphic.) I could have made this a lot easier by including other characters that I've made sims of (Yasha and Nocticula, for example) but I decided to be strict about it and stick to my own OCs/sims. Surprising to absolutely no one, it ended up being very heavy on the D&D characters, though a decent number of RTQ/ATQH characters (the ones that I created) made it onto the list.

[a (very long) guide to who's who under the cut!] (and I do mean long. You have been warned.)

A - Avra Shadowbreath [D&D]

(she/her) My shadar-kai/reborn phantom rogue from my ongoing Curse of Strahd campaign. Devout worshipper of the Raven Queen, and a massive hypocrite. Kind of a bitch sometimes. Legally and biologically dead. Also a werewolf now.

B - Byron Lockwood [D&D NPC]

(he/him) Rook's least interesting half-brother. The "forgotten" middle child of Lord Alistair and Lady Evangeline Lockwood. Extremely boring. Only Lockwood brother with a job (and shockingly he's not terrible at it). The worst combo of all your shitty bosses.

C - Carrion Vice [D&D]

(he/him) My second-favorite OC at the moment. Biologically a tiefling but mechanically a beasthide shifter. Path of the Fractured barbarian. Transforms into a fucked-up monster when he rages. In an ongoing Dungeons of Drakkenheim campaign.

D - Daldinia Veneta [D&D, misc]

(she/her) A sim I made for my random D&D CAS challenge and now want to play for real someday. Reborn circle of spores druid. Named after one or two species of fungi.

E - Elira "Ellie" Duskstep [D&D]

(she/her) High elf abjuration wizard who I might never play, but I love none the less. Very autistic. Has a grey cat familiar.

F - Fallon Oakes [RTQ/ATQH]

(she/her) My queen, the first love of my life, the woman who changed my life. Queen of Anvia and the protagonist of my story. Stubborn as hell. Thinks she has to do everything alone.

G - Gwendolyn [misc]

(she/her) The hypothetical child of Amelie (I can't find the pics I know I posted of her??) and Adrian. I don't know much else about her. She was really just a CAS experiment.

H - Havoc [D&D, Video Games]

(they/them) A tiefling swords bard who stared out as a random sim, became a dnd character idea, and then ended up being my first Tav for BG3.

I - Irina [misc]

(she/her) One of two sims I have named Irina, who hilariously were both made for other simblrs. Made for @/wildfairies ages ago. A classy vampire lady.

J - Jay [D&D NPC]

(she/her) Elf. A former member of the crew of the Tide Breaker, and Rook's only friend before meeting the Vanguard (our dnd party). Made a very brief appearance in-campaign to save Rook's life before being tragically eaten by a giant rainbow snake.

K - Kholl [D&D NPC]

(he/him) Elf. Former surgeon of the Tide Breaker. Jay's mentor. Dragged Rook back from the edge of death more times than he should have had to.

L - Laverna Rosefist [D&D]

(she/they) Tiefling thief rogue. The first dnd character I ever made. Originally made for a simblr thing. Has gone through several iterations before reaching her current (and final) form. A (seemingly inevitable) product of my obsession with both tieflings and rogues.

M - Morana Novak [D&D]

(she/her) Fetchling curse patron witch for a Pathfinder game I'll eventually be playing in. Necromancer. Very practical about death. Has a sketchbook full of detailed drawings and observations about corpses she encounters. Nicknamed "mortician" by one of her party members. Her familiar is a raven named Miro. Autistic as hell and has no empathy whatsoever.

N - ?

O - Odynia Adrasteia Erinyes [D&D]

(she/her) Aasimar vengeance paladin (with a dip into hexblade warlock) sworn to Nemesis. Currently playing in a Greek mythology themed campaign. Made a literal "eye-for-an-eye" exchange. Charged with keeping a man alive who kind of doesn't want to be alive.

P - ?

Q - ?

R - Rook [D&D]

(he/him) My favorite OC of all time, my beloved idiot bastard man, the love of my life. Half (wood) elf swashbuckler rogue. Bastard son of a nobleman who ran away and became a pirate. Compulsive liar and Very Good At It. Chaotic motherfucker. Accidentally made the BBEG get very attached to him (and he to the BBEG). My little punching bag. Had daddy issues. All his parental figures end up shitty or dead.

S - Sera [Video Games]

(she/her) My PC for my first playthrough of Pathfinder: Kingmaker. An aasimar traditional monk. Has an AC of 50 and can make up to 8 attacks in one turn. Never takes her halo off.

T - Tessa Smallwood [RTQ/ATQH]

(she/her) The palace healer at the royal palace of Anvia, near Carisfell. The sweetest person you'll ever meet, but will ask you to please take care of yourself. (A hard ask if you're Fallon, apparently.)

U - ?

V - Val (Kyron Valris) [D&D]

(they/them) Tiefling hexblade warlock. Captain of the smuggling ship the Devil's Scorn. Hired by the Vanguard to chase down Captain Wolf in order to rescue Rook after he was kidnapped. (Aka, my temporary character when he was gone.) Former gang member. Criminal with strict morals. Has more common sense than the entire Vanguard put together. Still isn't entirely sure whether or not they regret taking this job.

W - Wymond of Oryn [RTQ/ATQH]

(he/him) Fallon's biological father. Member of a low-level noble house from the neighboring kingdom of Oryn. A lying, traitorous piece of shit who is directly responsible for the death of Fallon's mother. The only thing he and Fallon have in common is their eyes.

X - Xavier Blackthorne [RTQ/ATQH]

(he/him) Fallon's emotional father, even though she would deny this. Her mother's personal guard before her death, now the captain of Fallon's guard. The nicest man you'll ever meet. Has a habit of collecting strays. No biological kids, but the strongest dad energy in all of Anvia.

Y - ?

Z - Zenara "Zen" Raventhorn [D&D]

(they/them) Tiefling fiend warlock. The first dnd character I ever played. An accidental result of my Mighty Nein obsession. Occasionally gets possessed by their patron and wakes up in the middle of a mess with surprise new powers as an "apology".

[the-most-faithful]

Caradoc Dearbon in The First Wizarding War

[ohwolfling]

adjacent to the discussion of gale's narrative i suppose: i've come back to tumblr after years of not engaging in fandom at all for bg3 and something that sticks out to me is the amount of people who do not seem to realise -- or perhaps, accept? -- that gale is the comedic relief? he's played by a fantastic comedian and is full of rib tickling lines such as but not at all limited to "a bhaalspawn? gosh!" "pish posh!" "what's on your hind--" "i am NOT for eating!" the wizard is a little bit silly! even outside of the fact that a lot of the characters you encounter are cruel, might-makes-right types in prime positions to belittle him, he's going to get the piss taken out of him because he breaks the tension. it's arguably the single most important quality of his that makes him one of my favourite characters, and it puzzles me when i see it erased (both when people discuss him, and in fan works), because whilst he definitely cemented himself in my heart when talking about precipices, he already had it at pish posh.

granted, i could very well be taking crazy pills as i suffer through the woobification of a beloved character for the first time in an age, but i can't be the only one seeing this, surely?

Honestly, I think so many people are not equipped to engage with literature anymore and this struggle we're witnessing really demonstrates that. Naming fan fiction tropes is not the same thing as being capable of independent analysis or comprehension. You're missing out on figurative language, motifs and themes, and character archetypes that have been traditionally very complicated for hundreds of years. I don't know that many people are comfortable speaking on the function of comedic relief or comedic archetypes. Unfortunately, a lot of folks' understanding of comedic relief is limited to the MCU's Laffy Taffy wrapper quips in between high drama but ultimately low stakes scenarios (I say scenarios because you really can't even say plot imo). It makes sense then that those people think jokes can't serve a bigger purpose or be attached to incredibly character archetypes and tropes that actually push characterization AND plot forward.

Gale's story- if you don't intervene- is very Byronic. If you intervene, especially if you romance him, it's Austenian. And you've touched on the thread that runs through all of it... the archetype of the fool. Gale is ultimately very Shakespearean.

Gale's own sense of humor and performance coupled with the comedic beats he is given within the game do not downplay the tragedy he has experienced or will become. It enhances it. I'm constantly on the verge of doing a big meta on this (someone could bribe me to do so via my ko-fi comishes, shameless shameless little plug), but if you think of how The Fool is positioned in both the in universe of Shakespeare's works and what they stood for to the audience, Gale's position as both comedic relief and "Mystra's play thing" feels too good to be entirely accidentally (although props to Tim Downie, who I think very lovingly took Gale into directions they didn't at first intend, especially considering specifically Henry Cavil's Charles Brandon was their inspo).

Very long way of saying that I agree, ha.