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Astarion interjecting in this scene had me dying laughing, especially when Gale entirely ignores him and just continues on talking to Sunniva (Tav).

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Fun fact: I bought BG3 specifically because of Gale. And I have absolutely zero regrets.

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Gale looking at Sunniva during the boat scene.

Gale looking at Mystra after she requests he come see her.

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Would you dare to get candy from Tara?

Gale for spooky month.

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Still making painstakingly slow progress in this BG3 run, but I did at least get the boat scene tonight.

The way they look at each other after Gale tells her "You're everything"...

And of course, Sunniva is against Gale using the Crown and becoming a god. She knows that kind of power would change him, despite Gale's insistence otherwise. She doesn't want him to be anything more than the man she fell in love with.

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The hurricane has wiped entire towns off the map. Places I’ve lived in have no roads in or out— the entire city of Asheville is only accessible by air. Even the interstates flooded. I’m waiting to hear back from so so many friends who live in this part of the state but most of the cell towers are down.

The thing that really turns my stomach is that there’s so so little news coverage of it. I’ve seen more articles about empty condos and beach houses in Florida than I’ve seen about ENTIRE TOWNS BEING WIPED OFF THE MAP in western North Carolina.

The way Appalachia is overlooked time and time again has probably led to some of the loss of life in the region because the news just… didn’t really talk about the danger of flooding that far inland.

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This will be a long-winded post, different from what I usually share on here.

I typically only post gaming content, but today, I want to talk about what's happening in my area of the United States.

Hurricane Helene slammed the southern Appalachians on Friday.

There aren't enough words I could ever find to describe the destruction this region will spend years recovering from. Entire towns are gone, buried under debris or washed away by flood waters that moved in faster than anyone could ever imagine. Thousands of people have been cut off from the outside world due to landslides, washed out roads, and collapsed bridges. Thousands more don't have cell phone service or working internet to reach relatives or friends to let them know if they're okay. People don't have potable water or access to food.

It may take weeks, if not months, for many people to have running water and electricity again.

Government and civilian groups are rallying all around the region to get supplies to those who can't get out. Every day there are numerous search teams scouting for survivors or just trying to recover the bodies of those known to have been swept away by the flood waters.

The death toll will undoubtedly continue to rise now that water levels have begun to recede and cleanup efforts can begin to clear debris. There are still dozens of people who are considered missing.

I have lived in this area my entire life, and I have never seen so much devastation. Towns leveled. Homes lifted off their foundations and carried for miles by the current. People desperately clinging to hope that the relatives and friends they haven't heard from yet are still alive and okay.

"Why didn't people just get out?", some ask.

"Weren't they told to evacuate?", others wonder.

"Couldn't they have prepared better since they knew the storm was coming?," some stupidly argue.

The answer to those questions are:

There was no time for many people to get out of harm's way. Some barely had time to find higher ground as the rivers crested and water began flooding the area. In Unicoi County, Tennessee, staff and patients of the town hospital had to evacuate to the roof when flood waters rushed in and left them without any other escape route. Blackhawk helicopters had to be called in to rescue them from the roof.

Evacuations were never really mentioned until after the storm hit, when it became apparent that flooding was going to become even worse. Evacuations were ordered late Friday into Saturday for some areas as local dams strained to hold back more water than they had ever been tested with before.

There was NO way to prepare for this storm. Nobody could have predicted this much damage would be done or that some places would see 24+ inches of rain by the time the storm was finished. Yes, we were told to expect heavy downpours, flooding, and high winds. But I don't think a single person could have predicted just how bad it would get for some places. Our infrastructure also wasn't made to withstand a hurricane hitting this far inland. Okay, so Helene wasn't a full fledged hurricane by the time she got this far inland, but the point remains that the storm stayed almost fully intact until it got to the Virginia/Kentucky state lines.

My heart aches for my beloved Appalachian region. So many people have lost everything. It will take years to rebuild what was destroyed, but the people in this area are resilient.

The people of Appalachia will persevere through this disaster.

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"Even though you do not follow her..."

There is so much irony in narrator saying this while Sunniva, a human wizard, is looking at Mystra's statue in Stormshore Tabernacle. It's even more ironic considering part of Sunniva's lore is that three years prior to being taken aboard the Nautiloid, she stood before Mystra herself...

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this made me feel ill. chapter 2 vs chapter 6.

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"Well, I'm still alive..."

Until you almost aren't, Hosea.

I recorded this 3 or 4 years ago, and randomly remembered it today. It makes me laugh like an idiot just as much today as it did the day I recorded this clip. It's the casual "oh, my God" as he's falling that gets me every single time. That NPC's timing couldn't have been any more perfect, honestly.

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My best friend: "Why does it feel like you have been playing that game for 5 business months?"

Me: "Because I have been. 😭"

It's literally been 5 months since I started my first run of Baldur's Gate 3. I only have time to play maybe one night a week, if I'm lucky, due to my work schedule and how exhausted I am all the time so it's taking forever. I'll get there, though. Really hoping to finish this first run by the end of the month. Then I'll wait for Patch 7 to come to Xbox so I can do it all over again!

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Galemancers:

Gale:

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-ahem-

To my fellow Galemancers/Gale-fuckers I present

Sweaty Wizard Hours

💜 enjoy 💜

The mens nightsong outfit is necessary for optimal sweaty Gale results.

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Find yourself someone who looks at you the same way Gale looks at the person he loves. 💙

Playing on console means I'm pretty much limited to cutscenes for decent shots of these two for now. I'm going to be insufferable when a proper photo mode comes to console.

Sunniva is honestly one of my favorite characters I've ever created for a game. I've had so much fun romancing Gale with her.

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I'm still working on my first run of the game, and finally confronted Cazador. I wasn't prepared for this dialogue at all. The emotion in his voice absolutely destroyed me.

The way Sunniva just stares at him...

My inner writer is screaming at me to write a short fic in which I explore Sunniva's reaction to Astarion abandoning the group so abruptly. And honestly, I may start working on that this week because I can't stop thinking about how she'd be reluctant to leave him behind. She would refuse to believe Astarion truly meant what he said. Shadowheart would probably have to restrain Gale from Fireballing Astarion into next week for speaking to Sunniva in such a way, though.

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😍