maggotbxby

[maggotbxby]

i'm committed to not getting involved in any ship discourse,

but here are a few things i want to point out:

maximus is the main character along with cooper and lucy. his leading role doesn't depend on his romance with lucy. to say that we must ship max with lucy or else we'd be "erasing" him is to reduce maximus to a love interest.

no one says max is boring. people say that max and lucy's romance is bland and not necessarily engaging as a romance. but we don't want an exciting dynamic only for lucy, we want an exciting dynamic for max as well. that is why a lot of people ship max with dane.

max x dane is a great and rare rep, especially in scifi. as an enby myself, i was pleasantly surprised by fallout having an enby character and i hope that dane's role will expand in s2. the show giving the enby character a romantic dynamic with the main would mean a lot to me personally, tbh.

fallout is not a pure morality manual. it's the freaky series for the freaks. if people shipping lucy with the ghoul makes you uncomfortable, then maybe you shouldn't be watching such a show to begin with. there is plenty of puritan-friendly content out there for you.

lastly, this is for the vaultghoul shippers. again, believe me as i'm speaking from my and many others' experience, engaging with the antis is a futile business, you'd be giving them what they want. just block them on sight. don't pay any mind to their bs and just engage with your side of the fandom. that will ensure your experience there being fun and pleasant and also the general/casual fans not finding you annoying.

[maggotbxby]

Miranda ofc all day

ive made this pole before already but i wanna see if its still the same

#soulmate stories just make me go insane

[maggotbxby]

BG3 Drow Lore: Minthara's Social Station

Thoughts on Minthara's status in drow society. Before she became the True Soul of the Absolute:

🕷️ Female of House Baenre - Minthara is a noble by blood, born into the first and the most powerful drow house of Menzoberranzan. That places her among the highest-ranking nobles in the city.

🕷️ Matron's Relative - her mother's name is never mentioned, but it is implied that 1) she is a figure of power and 2) she is still alive.

While it is doubtful that Minthara is daughter of Quenthel Baenre herself (current Matron Mother of House Baenre who, in fact, rules the entire Menzoberranzan), she may be closely related to her - for example, she can be her niece.

🕷️ Paladin of Lolth - Minthara is not merely a priestess (a default profession for every noble female drow), but a paladin who took an oath to destroy the enemies of her goddess. This could be seen as a sign of profound devotion and possibly also Lolth's favour, which would give Minthara bonus status points.

🕷️ Leader - Minthara enjoys a considerable autonomy in decision making and is even entrusted with leadership: she deals with the Absolutists sent to Menzoberranzan and then leads drow troops to the surface, to find and destroy the cult. Such things also speak of her high social status.

🔹 Given her background, Minthara is the example of a drow who did not rise to the heights of Menzoberranzan society, but was already born there. She needed to meet her house's high expectations of her - and she managed to achieve that.

🔹 After becoming the True Soul and openly rejecting Lolth, Minthara would be seen in Menzoberranzan as a dobluth (an outcast) and an apostate. She would be most likely marked for death and killed on sight, although some Lolth priestess - from her own house or not - might also subject her to a more formal punishment. Like being tortured, ritually killed or changed into a drider.

[maggotbxby]

MOTHER MIRANDA resident evil village, 2021

[maggotbxby]

entangled prints | high res on patreon

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pspspspspspsps minthara armor reference pics

[maggotbxby]

free my girl she did the same things as the celebrated male protagonists but the fandom has labeled her irredeemable

[maggotbxby]

Day 9 - The Absolute

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very self indulgent doodle

[maggotbxby]

Lae'zel of Crèche K'liir my beloved

[maggotbxby]

I want to come back about the post of i don’t remember whom who said that Minthara wanting you as her consort in Menzo was an informal marriage proposal.

Drow matriarch don’t marry. They take consorts, sometimes multiple and they have a little harem of husband.

When Minthara says she wants YOU as a consort, she’s saying you are hers and you’re now her wife/husband.

IT IS A MARIAGE PROPOSAL. Not the Menzo part, the whole part!!!

Also Minthara not wanting to share you is like cutesy cute because she doesn’t want anyone else or more consorts when she could, she is a noble woman from the Baenre, no one would bat an eye if she got 10 consorts, just you, you’re enough for her.

I love the fact Tav is the only one she truly feels safe around

[maggotbxby]

I find it kinda funny and find it kinda sad how, trying to tell your companions about the Dark Urge, the only ones who take you seriously are Astarion and Minthara.

Everyone else just goes "lol haha sounds crazy." And don't seem to *get* it, they don't try to understand that you're telling them about what is clearly a serious mental issue of yours and downplay it. Even the person you're romancing doesn't GET it, get that you're alluding to a level of hyperviolence and derangement that potentially scare and frighten you as much as they draw you in like a moth to flame.

Except, of course, for Astarion and Minthara

Astarion gets that you feel an unending call for violence and murder because he feels thr exact same as a Vampire. He tells you to keep it on the downlow and not to tell many people about your unquenchable bloodthirsty because it's the exact same advice he would give himself.

And then there is Minthara.

Minthara gets it, she REALLY gets it. She tells you that what you suffer from is an affliction that some Menzoberranzan Drow suffer from and that it's an illness like any other. She instantly clues in that you are trying to warn about something dark and deeply dangerous, she gets that you're alluding to a level of violence that everyone else seems to downplay and ignore. She truly understands and is rightly freaked out that the person she is potentially in a relationship with is truly disturbed and dangerous in ways that she has been trained to avoid and fear.

I just think it's kinda sad.

[maggotbxby]

Me talk about minthara now? Nnyes

Hhhhhhhhh I revert to a whiny little baby whenever I think about the fact that some portion of the bg3 player base will simply never encounter minthara in any capacity hhhhhhhhhhhhhh

I am aware minthara is believed to be "rushed content", and that accounts for many of her bugs. But I don't really care about why she's a mess, im more interested in talking about the result of that reality.

So I've finished 2 runs of bg3 so far, one in which I played a generally very good character and one in which I played a generally pretty evil character. After completing the latter run, I'm left with several qualms about what felt like a simply inferior experience to my first play through. The most frustrating being that Minthara, who became one of my favorite companions, is completely chained to the much less satisfying "evil content" with no way to see her story otherwise.

For context, minthara can only be recruited if the player helps the goblins attack the Grove in act 1. This alone is enough to stop plenty of players from ever seeing minthara beyond that single misleading conversation in the goblin camp. Some players don't enjoy role-playing being mean/evil, and attacking the Grove is unfortunately about as despicable as a game can get. For some reason, you can't tell the tieflings to leave despite the fact that they're only collateral damage in the attack on the druids. You gotta kill every druid, and every innocent refugee, or no minthara.

But the deck stacked against my beloved drow doesn't stop there, not only do you have to kill the tieflings along with all their associated content and side quests, in order to recruit minthara you have to forgo recruiting Wyll, Karlach, and Halsin because all 3 object to the attacking the Grove.

3 companions for 1, a frankly unpleasant task of slaughtering tieflings even for someone who enjoys role-playing evil characters, not to mention she's been plagued with bugs that cause her content to fail to trigger. All those things considered, why would anyone go out of their way to recruit minthara...?

Well... i just think she's neat.

After the first encounter with minthara in the goblin camp I was not necessarily looking forward to recruiting her. I assumed she was a murder hobo and nothing more based on first impressions, but at the very least I was looking forward to getting a third companion who wouldn't nag at me for every choice I was making. At the very least, she would be another character in my corner.

However, much to my shock, she turned out to be far more nuanced then she seemed at a glance. Because the person the player meets in the goblin camp isn't minthara, but rather a puppet of the absolute wearing her skin. She has little to no control over her actions, including the roll she plays in the attack on the grove.

I really struggle to wrap my head around this choice to tie her completely to the grove. Especially considering she's being mind controlled, but there's no way to know that. Minthara is a bait and switch, someone who (despite still being evil) is nowhere near as bad as the game inclines you to believe. But you can only discover this if you help her do something truly despicable. So there's a companion who's a better person then she seems, but you can only find out about her better side if you're evil. Why? Why can't a good tav save her? Why doesn't she get the same opportunity at redemption that laezhel, astarion and shadowheart get? I know the reason is probably time constraints, but I'm mad about it.

I really think she's worthy of a closer look, i love me some good lawful evil energy. Minthara is a good example, I believe. She takes no pleasure in killing or violence, but she will also eliminate anyone who remotely impedes her without hesitation. And she weaponizes grudges like her will is sharp enough to kill on its own. She's fierce, eloquent and cunning, and also managed to make me laugh out loud with how dead pan she can be (see her response to dribbles: "Say the word and I will kill the clown. We will be heralded as heroes." with a look of pure distress on her face).

She's a lolthsworn drow who is now exiled after falling under the influence of the absolute. The place she comes from is harsh and punishing, and yet she was a noble. She describes the beauty and majesty of menzobarenzan (sp) in the same breath that she discusses battle. I wish she would've gotten a flash back cutscene like shadowheart. Either her home or Ketheric betraying her.

Honestly I wish every character had gotten a flashback cutscene like shadowheart. It's a win/win of exploring the social aspect of the tadpoles by sharing memories and also adding a visual to the events the characters describe. But I digress.

Minthara's character trope may not appeal to everyone, she is still not a good person. But neither is astarion, and he's fandom favorite. Surely people wouldn't hold minthara's morality against her while also praising Astarion for some weird reason i cant put my finger on???? HaHA-

I wouldn't blame anyone who doesnt do an evil play through. The game didn't let me have fun with it, and playing games is about having fun. Why try to be evil and get nagged at by the game for 70 hours of gameplay when I can instead save everyone and enjoy myself?

So the reality is, Minthara may remain a cryptid for many players, riddled with bugs and cursed by the narrative to lose so that many other characters can win. But at the very least, I want to draw attention to one snippet of her dialogue. This is from a conversation after Orin is defeated.

I can't shake the idea that the minthara I know and love is trapped within the person you meet at the goblin camp. In a similar vein to gortash's mother in baldurs gate, trapped behind eyes she no longer controls. At the mercy of the tadpole and the whims of the brain and the 3. A helpless victim desperate to get her chance at vengeance at those who wronged her.

And that knowledge will haunt me every time I play a "good" character. I will know that even though my goal may be to save them all, there is one that I quite literally cannot save. Because the game won't let me. And God damn it, she's too interesting for that to be her legacy in this game. Minthara worries that no one will remember her, but I will think of this dialogue every time my journal flatly instructs me to "kill the goblin bosses".

[maggotbxby]

y’all love the morally gray, snarky, grief stricken characters until it’s a woman. i’ve seen so much discourse regarding female characters who display the exact same character traits as male leads and are criticized for it while the men are praised. let women be cruel and vindictive. let them deal with their grief and trauma in destructive ways. let them be real. give them the same treatment you would give to your favorite male love interest.

#bg3 fandom defending astarion #while calling minthara pure evil #when minthara is arguably more good aligned than astarion

[maggotbxby]

Mommy's pet.

[maggotbxby]

I have a folder called Time is a Flat Circle in which I collect evidence of humanity. Here is most of them.

[maggotbxby]

she's so real for this