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Every dialogue with Rolan in act 2 was so heartbreaking

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You artists who draw hot, steamy art of Rolan? You're the geniuses of our time. You are all tastemakers and masters of your craft and I would go to war to protect you. If you draw sexy Rolan things on Patreon and you see this post, please reblob or reply with your @ so I can subscribe to you. I'm so fucking for real all I want in life is to become a homely patron of the Rolan Smut Creators y'all are my holy rolan empire

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Husband

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Carved from marble.

Sad/soft feels.

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Loviatar herself found your performance... inspiring. She has deemed you worthy of her blessing.

ABDIRAK // BALDUR'S GATE III (2023)

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I’m tipsy playing BG3 and: Score for the “Gale is technically a sorcerer” conspiracy.

Along with the cute little “magma mephitic freaking out the house keeper” from the Grove you get this option while flirting talking with Halsin in act 3.

I’m not denying he was trained as a wizard, taught as a wizard but he was born a sorcerer.

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There's a reddit thread on the BG3 sub where the user u/InklingRain posted a spreadsheet they made with all the companion approvals. Super useful in general both for playing the game and for fic, so I thought I'd post it on tumblr and play around a little!

There's a top row with the average approval by companion, but I didn't find that very useful, so I changed it to the count of approvals (i.e. count of approvals & disapproval total, how often a companion had a reaction to something). We all know Astarion gives a lot of disapprovals here and there, but they're only -1 at a time, so no big deal, right?

No. Minsc has the least at only 45 reactions, Halsin at 95, Minthara at 145, and of the main companions, Gale is pretty average at 198, Lae'zel at 224, and Shadowheart, rather opinionated at 258...

but that's nothing compared to Astarion's 406. That's almost 150 more than the next person!!! That's more than Minthara and Shadowheart combined! Babygirl really woke up one day and decided to get in a snit over everything that happens 😂

(Longer post about count of positive and negative opinions, sum of approvals and disapprovals, and some major outliers below. Picture with values at the very end.)

But that's a bit disingenuous. If we look at the ratio of positive to negative opinions (not taking value into account), Astarion's pretty average at 30% (negative count over sum count, so let's call that negativity). This is similar to Gale (31%), Karlach (30%), and Lae'zel (32%). In theory, getting Astarion's approval or disapproval is just as easy as any of theirs, with a 20% bias towards positive approvals. Later companions are weighted heavily towards the lower end of the spectrum, with Jaheira at 13% negativity and Minsc at 9%. As you only get them very late, it's pretty clear that the game gives you a lot of opportunities to get their approvals and thus open up more of their quests and dialogue.

However. We have an outlier. Wyll Ravenguard, clocking in at an indecent 38% negativity! Which really just goes to show, while Astarion is the most opinionated, Wyll has the most disapprovals, making him the judgiest companion of all 🤣

However, this really wouldn't be a good post if we didn't look at the value of approvals. Karlach, for instance, has the strongest disapproval value of -100 (given if you sleep with her and then call it a mistake). Ouch. This is clearly at outlier and doesn't say much about Karlach's changeability of opinion in general. If we look at the sum of positive and negative opinions, this is a very heavy swing, making up 100 points of her total 191 disapproval points possible to her 281 approvals total. Another outlier is Minsc, who currently possesses a 43% disapproval percentage (a heavy -50 disapproval given if you sacrifice him to Sarevok. Jaheira, by contrast, apparently doesn't give a damn, or her value might simply not be included in the dateset.)

Removing outliers is really a matter of opinion here, so I'll only remove the most extreme swings, such as the above mentioned disapprovals.

The otherwise strongest swings are Astarion (-15 for telling him it was a mistake preventing him from drinking Araj's blood, or saying you only wanted to sleep with him, not deal with his trauma) and Wyll (+20 for siding with Karlach during his confrontation with her, which really shows he didn't really want to kill her and is very grateful you stopped him). Halsin gives +40 for reuniting Oliver with Thaniel, which...lifting the shadow curse is sort of his life's mission, and a bit of a unique case, so while it makes sense, I think it's such a unique event that can't be topped by anything else and will remove it. Jaheira give +20 for extending the Emperor's protection to Minsc, and, for funsies, Minthara's heaviest disapproval is -5 for donating to Lolth at the Stormshore Tabernacle. (lol)

I only chose to remove the aforementioned Karlach, Minsc, and Halsin values, as they're all very large swings and rather character-defining or personal to the individuals mentioned, so I don't think it says much about them in a more general day-to-day sense.

Now, using the sums of our negative and positive values, Gale is our most Negative Nancy, clocking in at 37%, which goes to show that while he's pretty average for the amount of things he cares about, when he disapproves, it's a strong one. Next up is Astarion at 35%, and Wyll at 34%. Lowest are Jaheira and Minsc at 7% and 4% respectively, which makes an intuitive sort of sense: Jaheira is old and just over being upset by the players poor choices, and Minsc is an insanely positive person overall. The next most positive companion is Halsin at 13%, which also matches with his vibe pretty well, followed by Minthara at 17%, Karlach at 24%, Lae'zel at 26%, and Shadowheart at 28%.

Tl;dr: Astarion has many, many opinions, but Wyll is the most judgemental (most disapprovals compared to approvals possible). However, when it comes to the strength of those disapprovals, Gale reigns supreme, followed by Astarion.

If don't break Karlach's heart, help Halsin achieve his life's ambition, or sacrifice Minsc, then they're pretty positive overall. Later companions are heavily weighted to approve of your actions, and Minthara is comparatively judgemental, but overall far more easy to gain approval than disapproval from.

If you take the average of all these values and include the later companions to look at as a personality "baseline" of how judgy and how strong those disapprovals may be, then...the Act 1 companions are all dramatic af, which really should come to no ones' surprise, while Karlach is the most willing to give the benefit of the doubt imo.

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all u had 2 do is b cool and u ruined it

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I completely respect the choice to make Gale monogamous, that's his vibe and it's understandable.

HOWEVER, when Halsin suggested we could have a relationship with Gale's participation I sprinted over to my silly little wizard to tell him the sexy news, only to be crushed by disappointment.

'You are not a loaf of bread to be divvied up at suppertime'

Of course I'm not babe, I'm saying you and Halsin are the bread. Get your enchanted pants off.

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The fact that there's a "How about a kiss?" Response for Lakrissa and NOT Rolan is actually criminal. I think we should be able to kiss every single damn tiefling!!!

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friendly reminder that astarion fell for kindness. he started genuinely caring because of kindness. because the "fierce leader" of their group helped people, helped him. it wasn't power, it wasn't authority, it wasn't seduction, it wasn't a promise of revenge - it was kindness, selflessness, companionship. it felt wrong and it felt strange but that's what got him to fall in love (or the closest thing to it). his "nice, simple plan" of seduction and manipulation fell apart because someone was good, because someone protected and accepted him. i think that says a lot about him.

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Here take my poorly edited console screenshots of Halsin and my Tav

If I give in, I may not be able to stop until I have devoured you.

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This man says he's not a good kisser? What a lie. All that spell casting made him good with the tongue and hands.

How to make Estelle's knees weak? And that of any other woman in Faerûn?

Answer: Gale Dekarios- chin hold and hip touch

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Deathbeds by Bring Me The Horizon

If I ask nicely who will rb this telling me what is the last song u listened to 🥺