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nerdalmighty · 2 months

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hey! so, i just recently started playing baldur's gate 3 after seeing people put it all over my dash for months--and you're one of the people i've seen reblogging a lot of posts about it LOL. so if you don't mind me asking, i was wondering what kind of character do you/did you play as? and do you have any sort of backstory for your tav that you'd like to share?

Hoooooooooooooh my god thank you so much for asking. I have a friend who comes over to watch me play on Thursdays and I make a powerpoint every week to catch her up on what she missed - this week's powerpoint literally has slides about my Tav's background (more on those later). This is about to be long, I'm about to drop ALL my lore so buckle up! AND THANK YOU FOR PUTTING UP WITH MY BG3 BRAIN WORMS!!!!! I'm glad they convinced you to play 😈

So to begin, I've been in my first ever dnd campaign with a group of friends for a little over a year now. I didn't know much about Baldur's Gate except that it was a dnd video game and that you could romance people. Me, being a Big Fan of Romance And Fantasy was like "okay well I'm in" and my friend actually let me start a game at his house. Through that, I met Shadowheart, Gale, and Astarion.

Backing up a bit to my character; I decided I'd put my character from my irl dnd campaign into the game since I already knew her whole deal. I get pretty overwhelmed with making decisions, ESPECIALLY with big open world games like bg3, so knowing who/what I wanted to be really helped me out.

In the campaign I'm in with friends, it's pirate themed, and I play a half-elf bard named Birdie Harp who's secretly half-siren (murder mermaid). To make a long story very short, she was born in the arctic and escaped her murderous pod during a coming-of-age trial where she also lost her siren abilities (hypnotizing voice, breathing underwater, etc).

I've watched a ton of Dimension 20 which is an actual play show on Dropout.tv (an "actual play" is where you watch other people run a campaign of dnd - like Critical Role, which a lot of people have at least heard of - HIGHLY recommend Dimension 20, as I find it incredibly funny and easier to get into than CR because of the episode lengths), and I knew that I really liked the silliness and theatricality of the bard class. I also loved the bards from The Owl House which helped influence my decision as well.

To be honest, Birdie is my first ever dnd character, so she's basically a self insert but with a MUCH more traumatic backstory than me (this IS dnd after all). As for the half-elf aspect, it was more of an "I want to be half mermaid, what's similar to that?" as opposed to a love for half-elves or something.

BACK TO BALDUR'S GATE - knowing I wanted Birdie to be in the game, I felt a lot less overwhelmed to come up with something entirely new - I knew a lot about the bard class having played one so I wanted to CONTINUE playing one (and I've learned even more since playing bg3!).

When I finally got my own game (I no longer play at my friend's house, but in the comfort of my own home), I recreated Birdie and started on my journey in earnest. I'm VERY MUCH someone who likes to be in control and know what to expect, so I've had guides and walkthroughs to help me the whole time - SUE ME! When it came to first meeting Shadowheart, Gale, and Astarion back at my friend's house, Gale actually immediately stole my heart - a kind, witty wizard who likes books and cats? Literally say less. I went home from that session with my friend fully thinking I'd be a Gale girlie until I really looked into the other options and saw The Vampire.

Blah blah blah, he's hot and funny, but he can also be incredibly soft, which really won me over in the end. So I've been romancing That Guy.

Through Acts 1 and 2, I wasn't all too sure about this version of Birdie's background - sure she COULD still be that half-siren from the arctic, but the game kept suggesting she was FROM Baldur's Gate. I LOVED the inclusion of the harpies in Act 1 and thought maybe that was a viable entry point for her backstory, but so far, she was kind of just... me? She was making the choices I wanted to make (and a few that I knew Astarion would like lmao), but she wasn't really her own entity apart from me except for her name. She also felt vastly different from that character I'd created for my friends over a year ago. For instance, my irl Birdie currently has a crush on a Gale-type character, but this Birdie is ass deep in Astarion (hey, sorry I said "ass deep in Astarion"). The thing I love about Baldur's Gate 3 is how you can really come up with your own backstories, since the in-game one for your Tav is so vague. It's totally fine to ignore tiny details in the game and mold them to your own headcanons for your Tav, but I was so unsure of what I wanted for this Birdie that I kind of internalized that she was from Baldur's Gate.

HEADS UP! The following has some spoilers for Act 3 and some side quests, so STOP reading if that's something you'd care to avoid (the last 3 paragraphs of this post are SAFE from spoilers):

When Act 3 finally rolled around (which is where I am currently, I only have the one playthrough so far because I become INCREDIBLY attached to things), I stumbled across the Water Queen's House in Baldur's Gate. Ah ha! Now this felt promising.

A temple dedicated to the Vengeful Sea Goddess, Umberlee, and her loyal Wave Servants to serve her. It's ocean themed, it has mermaid undertones, and their goddess is basically evil. Seems like the perfect place to FINALLY insert this version of Birdie. I wasn't 100% sure until I completed the Iron Throne mission and was faced with either handing a (mostly) innocent man over to the Wave Servants, or fighting to defend him.

Here are a few of the slides from this week's powerpoint that I mentioned all the way back at the start, starting with SOME background on the Wave Servants:

Ass and Shart are what I affectionately call Astarion and Shadowheart (Also I got this beautiful "Birdie" art on Pinterest which originated from someone named Dantrelium on Reddit):

Apologies for the small text here, but there are some more details about THIS Birdie here, which I literally made up/figured out earlier this week:

Essentially, this Birdie was born at the Water Queen's House as Kittiwake Crest - Kittiwakes are common arctic birds, which I thought would be a nice little homage to the original character she was based off of. She was raised by the collective of Wave Servants there, the main one being Flood Tide Allandra Grey who seems to be head honcho at the Wave Mother's House (in this reality, she is).

Since Umberlee is such a vengeful goddess, I imagine she asked her Wave Servants to commit unspeakable acts in her name, mainly drownings, which THEY see as merciful, but I think Birdie always saw as horrifying. Who were they to decide the fates of others? I also think that the Wave Servants themselves were abusive during her upbringing to keep her in line (but much like how Nocturne was a light in the darkness for Shadowheart, I don't think EVERY Wave Servant was evil). GOTTA have a classic tragic backstory.

Upon researching Umberlee, I learned that most of her servants are clerics, so in my mind, that means Birdie was raised to eventually become one, with her official title eventually going to be "Seawind Kittiwake Crest." Is she still half-siren/mermaid though? Not entirely sure. This IS a magical world though, so I'd be inclined to say yes, probably.

But when we first meet the Wave Servants, they're singing beautifully for their drowned sister, Holli. I think Birdie REALLY loved music and singing with her sisters and secretly trained herself in bard magic when she should have been learning to be a cleric. It's also a classic trait of bards to hide their pain through humor, so I often imagine the type of stupid things Birdie gets up to to bring herself joy (my favorite headcanon being when you meet Skittle the Rat in Wyrm's Rock prison - he's a rat merchant who speaks exclusively in puns. I think Birdie and Gale would excitedly throw puns back and forth with Skittle while Astarion and Shadowheart begrudgingly (and affectionately) roll their eyes in the background).

Another thing I love about the game is how you can string together your own ideas of how companions react to things between big cut scenes. For example, in my head, in my game, Astarion has really become a Big Softy thanks to how fucking Stupid (affectionate) Birdie acts in life and has drawn him out of his shell, but also runs a tag team scam with her where she plays her lute to distract people while he loots an entire place. Gale is Birdie's partner in crime when it comes to tomfoolery and loves to joke and fool around with her (so long as it goes easy on his knees). And Shadowheart is basically a sister figure who flip flops between sassing with Astarion and joining in on the fun. THEY'RE JUST THE BEST, OKAY? OF COURSE I'M GONNA WALK AROUND WITH A BUNCH OF IDIOTS. I LOVE THEM.

Anyway, back to Birdie's backstory: she always hated the atrocities that were asked of her, and she was looking for a way out, but was too scared to take that step and leave since the Wave Mother's House is all she's ever known. One night, while stepping out to quietly dip her toes in the water, the Mindflayers captured her, and that's where we start Act One, all the way up on the Nautiloid. She changed her name to Birdie to distance herself from her previous life, fully took up the bard class, and the rest is history.

Back to that dilemma with handing over that (mostly) innocent guy or fighting the Wave Servants: with encouragement from the party, they convince Birdie to face her traumatic upbringing and fight the Wave Servants once and for all. At this point in Act 3, she's basically helped every single person with their problems except her own. Here's another slide featuring Ass and Birdie:

That's right folks, Birdie faced her past! But the bad news is we don't get to see Astarion in this (audio from The Adventurous Adventures of One Direction):

(Video description - Astarion from Baldur's Gate 3 wearing the Wave Mother's Armor with the following audio:

Guard 1: Whoa, check it out.

Guard 2: Hubba hubba hubba.

Gaurd 1: Nice. I love dudes in skirts.

END VIDEO.) I don't want to tell you how many times I recorded that until I felt like I got it right lol. Also yes, I DID do a scum save where I handed the guy over ONCE just so I could see Ass in this outfit, but Birdie did canonically save Redhammer in my actual save file.

And honestly, that's BASICALLY it for now! My most recent save was after that battle, so I need to figure out if Birdie's going to go back with her party to confront the rest of (or most of) the Wave Servants, or if this chapter of her life is closed.

In an ideal world I'd LOVE to make one of those artsy gif edits of my Tav like this and this, but PS5s make it hard to download clips without uploading them to YouTube first which I don't really want to do.

Thank you SO MUCH for this ask, I had a blast writing it!! Sorry it's so long, I just love this game so much and LOVE talking about it. Please feel free to ask more questions OR chat with me about YOUR Tav! I'd love to hear all about them :)

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sergle · 1 year

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I think ppl see, say, a $10 skirt, and go “that’s the baseline”. then when they see a skirt sold for $40, they go, well, that must be OVER priced. that extra $30 is for greed’s sake. it’s extra money for the sake of more profit It’s not Worth that much. when it really goes the other way around. somewhere down the line, the -$30 is indicative of workers being paid 75% less. does that make sense??

#I am not articulate but do you get what I mean #sergle answers

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skyloftian-nutcase · 6 months

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Did you hear they are making a live action zelda movie, what are your thoughts on this?

I’m… skeptical.

Bonus reaction faces that matched mine:

#you ask skye answers #lovely anon #legend of zelda #Thank you Jojo’s linked universe for helping me articulate my inarticulate reaction #low key proud of my editing skills lol 🤣#but anyway yeah… I… ehhhh 🤨

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mokeonn · 2 months

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Before I go to sleep I leave you all with this piece of advice: sometimes you don't actually have to answer big political questions, sometimes you can just say "I am not smart enough to know that, I just know the small things I do to help." Like you can often times completely avoid making a fool of yourself if you just say you don't know.

#simon says #to explain here and not in a reblog:#sometimes when you try to explain big picture solutions you're gonna sound dumb #you might not have done enough research #you might not have a rebuttal to a counter argument #you might not be articulate enough to explain why you think this #sometimes you gotta take a step back and give the simple solution. the one man solution #you do what you can to fight against the problem #you talk to people to help spread awareness and how to fight the bad problem #and you vote and invite others to vote for bigger steps towards solving the problem #like you can talk about theory and how you believe we need to do a huge drastic thing to solve and issue #but people will disagree and argue til you're blue in the face #they'll poke and prod until you mess up or lose your temper and use it against you #and you'll feel dumb and they'll learn nothing #sometimes the best thing to do is step away from the big picture and just say 'idk what the solution is I just know the things I can do“#sometimes you gotta admit you're not a scientist/expert and you can't answer that #i used this while talking with my Dad tonight #he brought up our climate crisis and space travel as a possible solution #and I said I think that's just addressing the symptom and not the cause and we need to care for our Earth now #and he asked me what solutions I think would fix it #and knowing my incredibly smart Dad who is articulate and ready to throw rebuttles at a moments notice to play devils advocate #and my past experience in struggling in this topic with him before #i just told him I didn't know. all i knew is the little things I can and do do to help #and that hopefully by spreading the word and habits and encouraging others to vote for those bigger solutions I could help make a change #but all I really could do is the little things I have control over #and the topic became much less stressful about the little things we have control over #like planting native plants and recycling and adopting habits that are healthier to our planet #which was 100% more preferable to if I tried to give a big solution. because I would reveal i didn't have all the knowledge needed to argue #and my articulation would make me sound like a stupid kid who only thinks they know what's best #so yeah I basically suggest that if you dont wanna feel like shit after debating someone just step away from the big picture for a moment

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highabovethecloudssomewhere · 8 months

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the WINGS THE WINGS THE WINGS tell me more about. the wings

👏 👏 OKAY SO THE WINGS

I’m still hashing out the finer details on this AU and I’d love to write something for it one of these days but the long and short of it goes like this:

The people of Xerxies are descendants of an ancient minor deity/eldritch being, and the people of Xerxies through bloodline inherit a pair of wings. The wings exist in a pocket-dimension and can be manifested or banished as their person wills.

Edward and Alphonse, being half-Xerxien, were born with a set of Xerxian wings. It takes time to learn how to manifest/banish the wings in and out of the pocket-dimension, so they just sort of let the wings do whatever they wanted for most of their early childhood. Hohenheim kept his wings to himself while the two of them were growing up because the memories of his people were too much to bear. Once he left, Edward and Alphonse started keeping their wings to themselves more often too.

Since Edward and Alphonse are only half-Xerxien, their wings do require the occasional maintenance (preening) and sometimes Edward struggles to control whether they appear or disappear (reservations against Hohenheim, wings responding to his emotional state/impulsiveness, etc). He’s more torn on his wings, but tolerates them because it’s something he has in common with Alphonse and Alphonse loves their wings.

Then their mother died. Then they tried to bring her back. Alphonse lost his body; Edward lost his arm and his leg. Edward refused to bring out his wings after that, no matter how many times Alphonse urged him. What did it matter, anyway? Alphonse’s wings were taken along with his body. Hohenheim was never coming back and neither was Mom.

For years, Edward lived as a grounded Icarus.

Then there was the ‘incident.’ Edward reacted without thinking, because a moment’s hesitation meant life or death, and his wings manifested before he could think. But something was wrong. He kicked off the pavement, his arm outstretched, only to come slamming back down. That was when he realized the Gate was cruel beyond coincidence.

It’d taken one of his wings—just one—to make sure he never forgets that he used to be able to fly.

(This marked the first time Mustang and his team saw Edward’s wings. Edward had never so much as mentioned them before, but Mustang heard stories of the ancient civilization that flew on wings made of comet tails and stars.)

(It was supposed to be a myth. It isn’t.)

— Aaaand that’s what I’ve got on this AU so far. TL;DR Edward somehow needs even more hugs

#Fullmetal alchemist #Edward Elric #Xerxien Wings AU #Fma #I have several thoughts on this that I cannot articulate at the moment #but if you guys have any questions about it I’d love to hear your thoughts!#this has been a fun AU to work on artistically #I freaking love wings #cloud rambles #cloud draws #dismemberment #tw dismemberment #Sort of #tagging just in case #Answered ask

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donut-entendre · 1 year

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I say a lot that Wash isn't empathetic when talking about people giving him Carolina's personality, but I don't think that really explains my thinking. Empathy is too vague of a concept in discussion of character.

Wash cares a lot about people. Wash cares so much it hurts. He trains the Chorusans without being asked, on his own initiative. He doesn't leave the reds and blues at the first sign of trouble. He's traumatized by violence by his own hand that he still agrees with the logic of, he remembers what he's done to people and while he doesn't regret it, it still haunts him. He doesn't want to care so bad but he does, he cares so much that violence against relative strangers hurts. Even if it was his best choice. Even if it was his only choice.

Carolina doesn't want people to know violence like she does. Carolina wants to tackle the whole world to keep it away from the ones she loves. Carolina wants to be the one to handle everything, to keep war off the doorstep.

Washington knows violence, and well. He thinks it is something that sometimes is the best option. He knows how to make the people he loves capable of protecting themselves. So he does.

Carolina is someone who wants to protect. Washington is someone who wants to teach people to protect themselves. Carolina wants to be the one to offer shelter in the rain. Washington wants to burn the fire so hot and so bright the rain evaporates before it can ever touch them, so hot it never even comes down, so bright no one could ever get lost. And he wants to teach everyone he cares for just how to do it, too.

Just in case it ever rains.

#it may seem like i went off topic immediately. but trust me. it's a hard concept to communicate.#logical 'empathy' where you care but you don't understand. you don't share it. it's hard to articulate.#it feels stupid. why do people care so much about this temporary problem? it's so obvious to you how trivial it is.#but they still care. even if you can't understand. and you care about them. so you show them how to approach it.#maybe your answer is callous. maybe it doesn't quite grasp the complexity of the situation #but it's what you know. it's what you can offer. maybe it's just inevitable that you will cause pain no matter what you do.#very autistic of him!#rvb #rvb washington #rvb carolina #nonsense thoughts

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canisalbus · 3 months

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"The concept of love is of course prominent in Christianity, so even as a kid being raised in a religious environment . . . Machete wasn't completely alienated from it. But it has always been a nebulous, unperceivable and unattainable thing for him."

I love that you could replace "love" with "God" or "divinity" here and it would still work. And in that way it matches the way I've been perceiving their relationship as Vasco granting Machete a kind of holiness he didn't think living people could have

#ah I'm so glad you noticed that!#I'm bad at articulating anything but that's the vibe I've been trying to convey #if you choose to believe so these concepts can overlap a lot #to my understanding both love and religious experiences are capable of inducing intense altered states of consciousness #in other words they can mess with your head in similar ways #I dunno I just find that interesting #answered #daggermall #“the only heaven I'll be sent to is when I'm alone with you” kind of deal

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spoopdeedoop · 14 days

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I need you to be unhinged about elevenponds some more. /j Which one is sun, moon and Earth.

anon please dont enable me i won't be able to shut up otherwise /lhj

uhh here's a screenshot of me going in a teensy bit more detail in phox's dms bc i can't be normal for two seconds

#spoop speaks #answered asks #thank you for asking abt this i needed Someone to hear abt this sdkhsdkh #elevenponds #doctor who #someone a bit more articulate than me could go into more detail if they'd like im just. i dont have enough words

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fractiflos · 1 month

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How do you think that Yoichi and AFO survived as newborns if their mom died and they were in such a terrible enviroment that literally the first thing that happened after being born was that they almost got eaten by rats and drown in a river?

Babies can't eat anything but milk after certain age, because, not counting they don't have any teeth, they can't digest it, in the best case scenario, consuming another thing that is not milk, would cause them to develop a serious allergy to that specific food that could kill them later with an anaphilatic reaction, and in the worst, kill them right away.

Besides, a newborn has so many needs besides the food, specially a malnourished one as Yoichi.

A baby as him, a donor baby, would have been left several months in the hospital until he gained certain weight.

And even AFO, the receptor baby, could have several health problems that could kill him.

The fact alone that Yoichi was not born dead, is a miracle itself, almost none of those donor babies survive. And as I said, there is a chance that the receptor could die as well.

Wow, I wasn't expecting to be asked for my thoughts on this question!

(Before I answer, I should say I haven't actually read those chapters, I just saw the leak translations on here because I don't know where everyone else is able to read it.)

Anyway, I do think that they managed to get a little milk. ShigaMom hadn't been dead for too long, so she still had some, which is why Baby For One bit her breast, to get to the milk. Plus, he was strong enough to carry Yoichi, so he might've helped him get the milk on the other breast, as Baby Yoichi still should've been able to smell her.

But, that wouldn't have lasted long.

I'm of the belief that someone found two newborns suckling on their dead mom and thought, "I should get these children to a hospital".

So, the milk helped them hold on for a little bit until someone came and called an ambulance or something and they were taken care of. From there, I say they got abandoned once people realized the white hair was there to stay, about 2-3 maybe. And I can see AFO not wanting to admit someone other than him cared for Yoichi as the scene seemed to be his POV (but his thought process is a different topic).

However, I do have a very stupid theory that I can't get out of my head, so thank you for giving me the excuse to talk about it.

They were raised by animals.

Humans have been breastfed by animals before and survived (though it's not ideal), so it's not totally impossible for.

Except there's the health issues. I think part of it is that quirked people are hardier than regular people and human bodies will do all sorts of stuff to avoid dying. The reason this is a stupid theory that no one should take seriously is because I can't think of another reason.

#yoichi shigaraki #all for one #jane's asks #Still in disbelief I got asked this!#I hope my thoughts were articulate enough. I'm not used to answering these but it was really fun #Don't be afraid to ask me more stuff :)

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