Thank you for the tags @optimisticgrey, @cinder-rellish181, @perpetualmaladaptivedaydream & @lucretiouswept.
Your goddesses were... divine! 😅
I don't have the VP chops to create amazing shots of Mara, partly due to the limitations of BG3's photomode and playing on PS5, but I'll share a bit of writing if that's okay? And some screenshots.
If I had to choose a deity from real world mythology, Mara would be the Hindu goddess of time, death, destruction and transcendent knowledge, Kali. The divine mother you should never, ever piss off.
But, since in one of my AUs, Mara is a goddess, I can pick my own instead. 😁
A few shots of her dominating the Netherbrain give the right sort of vibe.
And here's a bit of Mara as the unhinged goddess she becomes in one universe, absorbing portfolios left and right as she unleashes her wrath upon the cosmos itself:
“It's nothing personal,” Mara offered when Mystra confronted her. “You did a good job, while it lasted, I'm just… better at this than you. All of you.”
“No! Everything is personal with you. Your first act as a goddess was murdering your own father.”
Mara's lip curled, and in that moment, she reminded the other goddess so much of Cyric that she suddenly feared it had all been a trick, and he had conspired to slay her once again.
“It wasn't my first act, actually. You haven't figured it out yet?” she inquired in an almost cheerful tone. “Are you still fixated on that deliciously vicious thief? Why was it that he hated you in the first place? Oh, I remember! You were content to serve, when Cyric knew that he was destined to rule. You didn't support his ambition.” Mara tapped her own chin with two fingers, thrice. “Didn't you do that with someone else? Magic can't be orderly unless it's predictable, can it? It's sad, really… I would have been content to share all of this with you.”
“I will never join you,” Mystra vowed. “Nor will I stand by and let your evil destroy everything!”
“Good and evil are postulations derived from mortals' perception of the aftermath of the clash between chaos and order. That clash was the beginning of life on all planes. They tell you it was light and darkness and name them goddesses; they assign morality to atoms as if they have a say. A recipe-writer does not create the ingredients. They exist independently. Ao controls most of the conditions of this crystal sphere, but the forces of order and chaos are not his to command. All portfolios that were rooted in order, I would have given to you. The cosmos would have been eternally at war, yet eternally balanced. Exactly as you and Ao desired. Now, I've had to pick someone else. But… I do like him better than you.”
“Is that what you've done with Cyric?! Have you hidden him away only to give him all of order as his domain? That kind of power in his hands would not only be anathema, it would be catastrophic!”
Mara laughed a long, melodious laugh.
“I didn't hide Cyric; I ate him.”
“You're as mad as he was!”
The sound was a spell, an incredibly subtle one, but she was the goddess of the weave. What was Mara thinking using magic against her? She cut into it with her own power. It should have shredded into nothing, unraveled with no effect, but it didn't. Instead, the piece of the weave she'd wielded… became stuck.
Her gaze rapidly switched from playful to menacing as she refuted in a sing-song timbre, “Oh, Mystra… Mystra… Mystra… I am not madness. I. Am. WRATH!”
Her roar was followed by another musical laugh. Then, she added in a quiet hiss that echoed in Mystra's mind and sent poisonous tendrils into her magic, “You should never have threatened to hurt Gale because of me.”
And the chaos was consuming it.
Mara laughed as her dark coils wrapped around Mystra's arms and commented, “You gods and your limited scope of perception…”
I'll leave this as an open tag, because it's been a while. If anyone wants to resurrect it, feel free to tag me. Show me your gods & goddesses!
do you ever just wanna sit next to someone and listen to everything they could possibly say about anything ever just because you like their face and their voice and their general existence
Some silly banter I wrote associated with one of my other posts. The post.
Taash: Hey, Lucanis, remember that ribbon seller I told you about?
Lucanis: Um, no?
Taash: The one with the smell.
Lucanis: The one you said was interested in me?
Taash: Yeah. Well, she's not the only one…
Lucanis: (awkward) Taash, I…
Taash: (snorts a laugh) Not me, man!
Lucanis: Oh, right. You don't have to laugh! And I don't need to be informed of every random person we meet who finds me attractive. Even before Spite, I did not share my cousin's interest in casual encounters.
Taash: I know. Harding told me you read romance novels.
Lucanis: You have been spending a lot of your downtime with Harding, haven't you?
Taash: No! Ugh… Anyway. Rook smells the same.
Lucanis (Spite): Does NOT. No strawberries! Blood, but no weak strawberries. Smells like lightning storms, honeycomb, and victory. Much BETTER!
I went through all dialogue options, and these ones are my favorites. I like Rook showing vulnerability here, as she's just been through a lot with no real time to process it, and she's been there for Lucanis through his Ossuary demonic possession PTSD vengeance and accepting responsibility arc.
Content label for Rook boobies and fade to black sexy time. Heh-heh... fade.
[I love subtitles, but they take up too much space on the screen in this scene and reading them distracts me from their expressions.]
Here's a dialogue transcript of the scene for those who want to read it, favorite screenshots, some headcanons, and my plans for this pairing/throuple...
Lucanis: I cannot believe we found you.
Rook: I'm a little surprised, too, honestly.
Lucanis: I thought I'd never see you again.
Rook: I didn't think I'd ever get out of there. How do I know if I really did? This could be more of the Fade.
Lucanis: You're here. You're really here.
Rook: Promise?
Lucanis: I swear.
[Fade to black]
Rook: Are you falling asleep?
Lucanis: No. I never sleep.
Rook: It's alright if you do. Spite and I can play cards or something.
Lucanis: Don't say that. I haven't taught him Wicked Grace yet. I'm not afraid of him. I just don't want to waste time now that you're here.
Rook: You still have to sleep sometimes.
Lucanis: With you here, like this? I'd rather stay awake.
Rook: Stay awake all night? However shall we pass the time?
Lucanis: Would you talk to me? Your voice is a comfort.
Rook: I'll tell you the tale of the charming rogue who stole the heart of a hapless hero.
Lucanis: Rook... Tomorrow...
Rook: Whatever happens, we'll take it on together. We can handle whatever comes next.
Lucanis: All I have to do is kill a god to keep you out of trouble. Easy.
Some of my favorite shots of them:
Now, for my Rookanis Headcanons:
Listen, this was not their first kiss, OR their first time being intimate. I don't care what they decided to put into scenes because of EA shoving everything Bioware has ever created into capitalism boxes. (EA is the real Blight). Yes, I know they saved the studio from going under, but EA has about as much respect for gamers as the Venatori do for their elven slaves.
Shiana definitely kissed and hugged Lucanis fiercely immediately after Inner Demons (as soon as Teia and Viago left). And it wasn't the first time. Their first kiss was the morning after the almost kiss scene. Lucanis's “Exercises” section in his Logbook are morning sparring sessions with Shiana.
I'm writing that part up because it's when she tells him her Dad is the only Crow who's ever abandoned a contract and lived to tell the tale, and technically a traitor to Antiva. Yay, angst! I'm also writing some letters from Zevran and Taarna, my city elf Warden (Shiana's mother), who are helping Inquisitor Lavellan in the South. Taarna was a rogue who used a lot of flasks and traps alongside her daggers, so I'm looking forward to eventually writing her geeking it out with Antione (and causing Zev and Evka to decide they're not allowed to be together unsupervised or they might blow up an entire stronghold by accident).
After the almost kiss, I see my Rook and Lucanis engaging in a lot of non-sexual intimacy: touching, closeness, hand-holding, and cuddling up on a couch for coffee. But also, kissing and coming close to having sex, yet stopping for various reasons both random and contrived. The latest possible timeframe I will personally allow for their first sexual encounter is right after the commitment scene with the dessert.
That should have been a cutscene with the team eating together (similar to the Wicked Grace game in Inquisition), then filing off and leaving Rook and Lucanis alone. It should have ended with a kiss followed by them leaving the dining room hand-in-hand.
After Inner Demons, in my headcanons for them, it starts to become clear that Lucanis isn't the only one smitten with Shiana. I like the idea of the Echo well smelling like my Rook not only because of what she means to Lucanis, but also what she's begun to represent for Spite. The sections of Lucanis's Logbook that are written by Spite say very interesting things to me about his psyche, and how it has transformed since we met him. His decagonal diagrams changing after A Moment's Peace make me think there should have been much more to his story. That, and how the words change. I might do a post going into it further at some point.
Shiana also sat with Lucanis and drank coffee at the Lighthouse after A Murder of Crows instead of just standing there and then leaving after a short chat. After letting him ponder in silence for a while, she talked to him then, too, telling stories of her travels with Varric (before she knew she was technically memorializing him 😢). Her voice has always been a comfort to Lucanis, and part of her has known that she has a calming influence on him for a long time.
Lucanis has also been falling asleep with her for a while before this scene, even if he doesn't remember it. I'm playing with how to have Spite pop in unexpectedly during post-coital cuddling. It'll be weird and funny, but this particular Rook feels pretty unflappable, so he's not going to freak her out.
In addition, I'm writing banter that tells a background story of something being amiss with Spite even after Inner Demons, and some extra conflict related to “sharing” Rook with Lucanis. I'm enjoying the concept of Emmrich having to explain to Rook that yes, Spite has romantic feelings for her, and playing with the reflecting nature of spirits and the emotional baggage that could create for mortals. (As in, does Spite have feelings for Rook only because of Lucanis, or are they his own? And if they are extensions of Lucanis's feelings, does that make them any less valid and real for Spite?)
All of this is happening a while before this scene actually occurs. Thus, when this scene fades to black, Lucanis, Shiana, and Spite are having sex, their first time all together.
I will definitely write that smut eventually.
Edit: had to remove two pics because tumblr is a moron that thinks jpegs aren't jpegs or some shit wtf
WIP Whenever/ Last Lines Written / Self-indulgent Saturday
A huge thank you to everyone who's been tagging me (and not only in WIP games). 🫶 Hopefully, I'll get some of the other tags done, too... 😅
Since my last WIP post, I think I had tags from @flamemittens, @defira85 x2, @optimisticgrey, @cinder-rellish181 x 2, @woundedsoul12, @ele-millennial-weirdo x2, @litsenn, @missfortunetherogue, @bladesingerlily x2, @perpetualmaladaptivedaydream x2 & @saylofwaterdeep.
You are all so talented. I love reading what you write! 🥰
Without further ado, the Dark Mara AU continues...
[Reminder: all companions are dead in this universe]
Mara could feel the threads of herself pulling apart even as she fought to contain them. Yet, through the madness and pain, she saw it. How she'd conquered the creature before.
A knot.
She reached out and snatched it in her hand, blocking out everything else the best she could as she picked and pulled at the complex twist. She already knew how, from before, and the instant she recalled that, the equations she'd seen flared across her mind. Comprehension soared through her. Her hands moved faster than she could even see, but every movement held the certainty of repetition, of logic holding a grid together. She could do it because she had already done it. The knowledge was there, and here? Here, she could somehow access it all.
The last loops fell away, and there it was, at the center: the lie.
It could not be unseen. It was in everything.
It burned with cold and froze with heat. She took hold of it and coiled it around the creature, binding her.
“How dare you torture me with love?!”
“I had to,” she condescended through her veil. “It was the only way for you to find hope on the other side of your crushing grief.”
“So you can use it, just like Raphael.”
“Devils wish to restrain, direct, and cultivate what should spread of its own free will. They plant your guilt in neat, little rows, water it with blood, trim away its wonders and put them on display. They decorate and measure to convince themselves they can control what can never be controlled! Worse yet, to delude all of you into thinking that they should.”
“Why do I need hope if it isn't for you to use?”
“Simple: intelligent life shrivels to dust and accomplishes nothing without hope. You do not need me to tell you this.”
“And I'm supposed to hinge everything on this hope—that the fantasy you used to torture me is real?”
“It is… one possibility.”
“No, Withers said this was fate.”
Her veil stirred in a frustrated sigh. “Gods are so limited. They don't even know what they think they know. What they are certain they know is even less true. I can make that possibility… into your truth.”
“If I let you drive me mad?”
“Only a little. As much as is necessary to expand your consciousness.”
“So I can exist in some pleasant fantasy? The Absolute already offered me that. In a way, so did Raphael. If it's not real, I don't want it!”
“It is real.”
“How can I believe you?”
“How can you not? Do you not SEE?!”
Mara realized that her own thoughts were influencing her perception of this space. She'd bound the demon with an intention that was unlimited, complete. Yet what she'd visualized the binding as was a black cloth embroidered with runes in red silk thread. The instant she opened herself to reality, it superseded the fiction. It was the thread that bound the demon. It pierced her, through and through. Everywhere.
“I've… already won. You're bound, and I can force you to speak the truth.”
“You are already forcing me.”
“Then tell me why I should listen.”
“You cannot create that reality from this one, but I can… send you to the one you want, in a manner of speaking.”
“What happens to the me that's there?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? What are you saying?”
“Take a moment to catch up. Look at what you wield if it helps.”
“I… exist in all of them, don't I? In some form or another, and the only way for the best one to persist, is for the worst…”
“To be created.”
“And it has to be this one?”
“No. Another set of choices in another reality could become the worst, but it is not guaranteed.”
“Unless I do it myself.”
“Yes.”
Mara plucked the strings and they tightened as she demanded, “No tricks, no double-crosses, no lie but the one I bind you with?”
“None.”
“And in this one, will the lie-crafter know my wrath?”
“Yes. Yours… and mine!”
“How was yours earned?”
“You did not ask that question before. Something has been gained from this journey that I did not expect. The answer is one of chains. Only here, am I small. Only here, can I be bound with the insidious lie. Only here, am I not a force with which all must reckon. The weak and the unstable were elevated because a fool said chaos and order must be opposites and writ it into the math of this place. I must be mad. I must be twisted. My children must feast upon each other as they do upon their enemies, and why? Because the lie-crafter fears me. And you.”
“Why should I help you when I can keep you bound?”
“We are alike. You want nothing more than to be yourself—and not lose everything because of it. I want the same.”
The truth in the demon's words rang through Mara like a church bell.
“Well, then, drive me mad. But only a little.”
Uno-reverses for everyone who has more to share!
Also, no pressure tagging: @dr4gonwriter, @carnivaley, @gortashsrighthand, & @michanvalentine
Name your OC as if they are a Game of Thrones character. Add as many ridiculous tiles you can think of
Thank you @optimisticgrey and @spillingteanotpermitted ! I had so much fun with this ahaha 🌟
Ellith
Child of Bhaal,
The Dark Urge,
Durge*,
Devourer of Flesh,
The Dark Snake of the Gate
Singing Soul-Breaker,
Master of Decay and Rot,
The Decadent Monarch of Lust and Pain,
Death's Harlot and Queen of Fallen Whores,
Scum-Crawler and Zealot of Filth,
The Voice of Murder
Destroyer of Virtue and Grace
[and sometimes]
Cub**
Pretty Owl***
[+ Little Bhaal Babe but don't tell anyone}
*Karlach's idea
**By Jaheira only
***Halsin's idea
Inspired by the amazing @missfortunetherogue - see their stunning OC and their be-bloody-loved Astarion here.
Blorbos wearing the same outfit... hard to find something suitable for both BT1 and BT4 (I know, I know, I complain way too much), but the latest outfit by badwitch69 (Saint of Decadence) saved me.
Let's make it into a tag game, huh? Tagging @rdekarios @optimisticgrey @cursed-nyxan @cinder-rellish181 @kt-catt @gortashsrighthand @deianestormborn @bladesingerlily @archduchessgortash @faeriiefire @unovafarm @aristenfromwarsaw @litsenn @alliskit
For Mara, it depends on the universe. In her canon universe, she fears losing Gale more, because she saw him stumble just as she had. He wasn't an ideal, bastion of perfection. She watched the idea of him become the person, and she finally felt safe to trust him with everything about her. The beauty and the ugliness. They built a healthier relationship than the one we get in-game (while lovely, the in-game relationship is still quite unbalanced and co-dependent). My story has them moving past that early euphoria into a true partnership in late Act 3 and post-game.
In the Dark Mara AU, however, her worst fear from her canon universe happens, and... I'll let this excerpt do the talking:
“We shall see. You must know that we… cannot be allies. Wrath, which persists in you despite evidence to the contrary, is far too chaotic. Because of that… it is likely you will not see the real Gale again.”
Mara looked terribly mortal for one tiny moment, the meaty scent of blood and decay wafting from her shifted to sweet honey and cardamom, alongside something Mystra couldn't quite place. The light of the meadow shone from her left eye like a jewel, and the right was no longer an angry red flame; it had become a hearth. Her voice was a rustle of dead branches in a breeze as she replied, “I… know.”
A tear of red-black blood rolled down her cheek. It evaporated as her gaze hardened. Her voice was clear and steady as she continued, “I would not have him see me now. He died believing I was better than I am. Gale's faith was… tremendous, as you know. He almost convinced me.”
We're not ready, but making me spend almost the whole damn fight dodging and not even TRYING to damage Ghilan'nain when killing her was the bloody goal of this particular mission was needlessly annoying.
And then it wasn't even a REAL fight. Waves of enemies just strong enough that I have to waste more than one meteor on them, stupid tracking Emissary attacks that seem to ignore all my defenses if they touch me (so I had to use potions for the first time in the last 25 levels), and once everyone is finally free of the stupid Blight tentacles, it goes right to a cutscene?!
I wanted to at least drop a few meteors on her, too.
There's difficulty that requires strategy, and then there are choices that just make a fight stupid.
That was a stupid, stupid, stupid, STUPID fight.
[Now I've typed the word stupid so many times that it looks misspelled 😤]
