I've just been thinking about these two hanging out at camp. Context: Mori is my seldarine drow dark sorcerer tav. This is mostly for me lol
calling this one "Why Won't They Shut Up?"
Killing the goblins had been easy. Nearly a hundred years of life as a wandering criminal had prepared Mori for most raids. She was most prepared, however, to do things alone.
At every turn, Lae'zel would sneer at the goblins. Her fingers twitched on her weapon, eyes scanning the camp as she was parched for fresh blood. Shadowheart was more cautious, but both of those two had the noisiest armor Mori had ever been forced to listen to, she was sure. More raucous than the clanking metal was their ferocious bickering. Whispered, sure, but most certainly distracting. All day, Mori had to argue over who got to make the first kill, what corner to hide in -- convincing her companions that stealth kills were more worthwhile at all.
The only competent member of their ragtag group (besides herself) was Astarion. There was a certain elegance to his prowess. Mori respected that about him. She was capable of killing foes, but not gracefully. He rivaled her in caution. He knew where to go. He knew which shadows to cling to. It was impressive.
Mori didn't feel the need to mother him. His fighting style, his appreciation for stolen goods and supple lies matched her own. She was drawn to him, she hated to admit. She knew she couldn't trust him. That was the appeal.
By the time they all got back to camp and unloaded the loot they'd picked up, Mori's patience for foolishness and folly was worn down. Her tent was on the outskirts of camp -- so hidden that even if she were sought out, she may not be found. That's how she liked it.
She dropped off a magical item near Gale's tent before he could trap her in a conversation. She left enough supplies for supper. She cast darkness around herself, even, as to not be disturbed.
Of course the one person she deemed as sneaky as herself would come poking around.
She sighed deeply, setting down the blade she was sharpening.
"I know you're there. I can smell the perfume you douse yourself in."
Astarion's head emerged from where he was hiding, his body following soon after. His countenance was one matching those of the boogeymen parents describe to their children. He was pale, alarmingly so. The grin he offered -- with his head lowered and mouth tugged in to an imperfectly perfect curl -- would scare her if she wasn't so used to being unsettled.
"Of course you'd recognize my scent, darling. I felt your gaze through this cloud of despair." He crept closer and she stood to meet him. It surprised him. This was evident through the slight falter of his movement. Mori figured that would happen. She thought about tackling him to the ground, holding a blade to his neck to even the score. She still hadn't gotten him back, so to speak. But that would undoubtedly make the others aware of where she was. And she didn't want to deal with them. Astarion was, at least, the most tolerable of her travelling companions.
"Recognize your stench, more like. Too much rosemary."
Mori grinned before picking her knife back up, tracing the blade with her hand. Astarion scoffed indignantly, which made Mori's grin wider, before opening his mouth to speak. Mori spoke over him.
"What do you want?"
He glared at her and put his hands on his hips, tapping his foot in the same way a toddler might indicate the beginnings of a tantrum. She waited for him to speak.
"What are you hiding for?" he asked, gesturing to the shroud of darkness around them.
"Everyone here pisses me off." Mori huffed. She stowed her knife and walked backwards, making eye contact with Astarion to exhibit her choice to not turn her back to him, and pulled a bottle of wine from her tent.
"You happen to piss me off less than the others. So unless you're interested in a wine-fueled verbal thrashing of the idiots we find ourselves stuck with, I suggest you make yourself scarce."
She grabbed the cork with her teeth, plucking it out, and spat the cork off somewhere in the distance. She offered the bottle to Astarion.
He studied her, his expression morphing from annoyance to glee, and took the bottle.
"You should have said so sooner, my sweet." He ended the sentence with an airy giggle before moving to sit with her, both of them sitting down together. He took a swig of the bottle before passing it over. She took it and drank more than he did, chugging the liquid. A droplet of wine ran down her throat, and Astarion was momentarily entranced by the red liquid moving against her pulse point. His eyes darkened.
She passed the bottle back to him before letting out an immodest belch, and that snapped him out of his daze.
"You can rather be a brute, my dear." His nose crinkled up as he studied her.
Mori leaned back onto her arms, her legs spread out in front of her. Astarion sat with his legs crossed, back straight as an arrow. Mori eyed him over.
"And you can be rather ladylike for a rogue."
Astarion smiled softly before bringing a hand to fluff his curls.
"It doesn't come easily, being the most gorgeous damsel in camp."
Mori rolled her eyes and snatched the bottle back. It would be a long night.
I know I already made a post to this effect but it's so baffling to me when someone defends the fact that headphone jacks are slowly but surely getting phased out by smartphone manufacturers with some variations of "wireless headphones are more convenient anyway" bc like. If we're talking about convenience what I like about wired headphones is that they conveniently have a single plug that makes the same damn pair of headphones universally compatible with every single audio-output-capable device I own, from my phone and my computer to my fucking gameboy and my casette player, it doesn't get any more convenient than that.
if you’re reading this, i’m putting a thought out into the world for you. a hope that whatever’s worrying you works out in your favor, that a happy moment comes your way, and that you have a heartwarming reason to smile tonight
Autism Representation written by an allistic: My name is John Autism and I like the designated autistic interests
unintentionally autistic character written by the creator who hasn't really thought about whether or not theyre autistic: I wish I could be human like the way everyone else is but I know they can tell I'm not. And I know they're right
washing dishes is evil because you go "oh fuck there's so many dishes this is gonna take foreverrr" and then you enter the dish abyss and emerge with your abdomen somehow covered in water and your hands all wrinky and then you look at the clock and what felt like half an hour was actually 10 minutes
I've spent a lot of time lately researching the Greek 'epic hero,' so let me lay out what I've found.
The ancient Greeks valued principle. They valued meaning and purpose. I've spent months researching this, and there's so much I could go in to here, but suffice to say that the ancient Greeks placed heavy emphasis on ideals. The most obvious example of this is the idea of the hero.
The hero is someone virtuous, bestowed honor and attributed glory (the classical idea of the hero is distinctly gendered, which is a topic for another time, but i digress). The greatest glory for a hero comes from their death.
It's the idea of choosing a meaningful death over a mediocre life, finding a promise of purpose and an assurance of glory. Valuing the legacy they could have over the life they already do have. See where I'm going with this?
Let me add a disclaimer (which I add to most of my posts, anyway): I haven't actually played bg3. It's not something I'm able to do rn. I have, however, observed a lot of things from playthroughs and posts of/about the game.
Gale wants to be a hero so badly, in the classical sense. He wants to have that meaning. He wants to have glory behind his name. He even changes his title to one he perceives as being more worthy of grandeur, opting for 'Gale of Waterdeep' instead of plain old 'Gale Dekarios.'
So of course he thinks it's understandable for him to sacrifice himself for what he thinks is the greater good. Of course he appeases his anxieties by thinking he's saving the lives of many people by making such a choice. He hungers for glory. If he wields the crown, he literally becomes the god of ambition.
Gale is a man defined by wanting. He's a man tempted by the prospect of glory, starving for recognition of greatness, and haunted by the image of the man he thinks he could become. His greatest challenge, and greatest flaw, is not being able to see that he's enough as he is.
This is so clear in his romance with tav. Tav challenges him to see himself as he is and be content. There's a quote somewhere out there about "you can tell how much someone loves themselves by the partner they choose." When Gale was Mystra, he was burdened by his mortality. With tav, he sees that he doesn't have to be 'more' to be worth something, to be worthy of love or of glory.
And the sweetest part of this, for me, is that he can still be a hero as 'plain old Gale Dekarios.' He can still achieve that meaning he seeks without sacrificing his personhood.
I found the quote that got me started on this train of thought...
"Babe or crone, coward or hero, death is assured. Mystra's forgiveness is not. If you knew the end was near, would you not want to ensure it had meaning?"
Gale says this in the romance scene where he confesses, right after the dialogue option to ask him if he really wants to die for the promise of Mystra's forgiveness.
i was talking about it irl and another thought came to me: in a way (following the epic hero thing), Gale's death *could* be seen as another way of him being elevated to a divine status. mainly because of the reverence given to heroes.
think of the heroes of old. if they sacrifice themselves (especially in the context i speak about above), they are (sometimes) acknowledged as greater than human.
and while there's a great deal of grief, regret, and remorse in Gale's decision to sacrifice himself, one potential offshoot of his thinking is that a heroic sacrifice would give him a glory attributed to noble or sacrificial heroism.
if he lives, he wants to become a god. if he dies, he wants to become a hero. he doesn't consider being just 'Gale' either way. so his character progression continues to amaze me.
my partner and i co-oped bg3 yesterday and he ran into certain dialogues before i did and i felt like the dude in shrek
telling him to pick certain dialogue options and then he'd say "YOU can play an evil drow if you want to but I'M playing a goodie two shoes paladin i'm not picking that option that's gross" (it was when you could get the gnoll to eat herself with mind control)
and that made me mad bc it's MY playthrough but then seconds later he was nice to someone that i would have been rude to and he got the password to their hideout or whatever -_-
this is a long post, so buckle in. discussions about my tav, Mori, and her murder-hungry behavior
not tagging this since i sound kind of like an idiot in this post lol
just rambling about decisions in rp and in having an image of who Mori is and what she stands for
hello friends and followers
i've talked a little about my bg3 playthrough (mostly screenshots of Mori, my sorcerer drow tav) but there's a decision i made in-game that i NEED to talk about more mkay.
i'm extremely invested in the rp of this character that i've created. Mori came to me in a dream about bg3 and i continued to ruminate on her until the point that i was certain my first playthrough would have her as a tav.
(i have two tavs that i'm intending to use: Mori and Mirena, who I had in mind for an Astarion and a Gale romance respectively)
a few things about Mori: she's a seldarine drow and a shadow magic sorcerer. around 150-170 years old. somewhere between chaotic evil and chaotic neutral. i dont know anywhere near enough information about drow lore to have a solid background for her, but what i'm thinking is that she witnessed the culture of the lolth sworn drow when she was younger and detested it. maybe she grew up in Menzoberranzan and was the first in her family to really reject some of the spider queen's teachings and culture. again, i know *so very little* about the lore... these are just some very basic thoughts. i know enough about her character to know that there is some form of abuse in her past. she saw the cruelty around her, experienced some of it, and took vengeance. she has a criminal background. the *loose* idea of what happened is that she fought tooth and nail to escape her origins and used her knowledge of violence and manipulation to get by and make a life of her own. she's a drifter with a "shit happens" mentality. her empathy is extremely scarce, and she doesn't get terribly involved with the affairs of others unless it aids her in some way. see why i chose her for an Astarion romance? she's ruthless and self serving, cynical, and extremely manipulative. does *not* like other people being in her business, but will try to gain as much information from others and about others as possible so that she feels like she has the high ground.
speaking of Astarion romancing, i didn't get the bite scene this time. initially, i thought this was a good thing because if i were true to Mori's character, she would kill Astarion for trying to take advantage of her. the more i think about it, though, maybe she'd respect him for trying to keep himself safe. their dynamic is an interesting one. Mori likes Astarion the most because she knows she can't trust him. She's used to people not caring about her, and she prefers it that way, at least initially. Mori likes to avoid recognition and suspicion. she needs to know that she can remain unknown. people having concern for her means they want to follow her around, check in on her, ask her questions, etc. this is her perception in the beginning. she'll learn that having allies is a good thing, and she shouldn't assume that friends are burdens. she and Star both have to learn this. she knows that there are "good" people in her party. she avoids them. she doesn't need people sniffing after her, judging her actions. this brings me to the decision i made yesterday in my playthrough.
when Zevlor asked Mori to kill Kagha (before the goblin camp), I really considered it. I decided not to then because i didn't know if this would cause Halsin to not travel with Mori and, at least from the perspective of my tav, he's a viable option for curing this tadpole nonsense. Mori hated Kagha. Firstly, Mori respected the tiefling kid for trying to fix everything (and managing to steal a priceless artifact... even though she got caught). She hated the way Kagha reacted, the authority high she was on, and the general way Mori felt Kagha disrespected her and her community. Mori has a thing about authority figures who misuse their power. Alas, Mori did not kill Kagha since she needed her alive (maybe?) to recruit Halsin. Well, after the goblin camp and finding the underdark, I went back to the grove for some trading. And guess who was standing by a cliff all by herself. mhm. evil druid woman. so Mori killed her. and i did get some decent loot from her, plus the fight was surprisingly easy, but im bothered by this decision now.
part of the reason why i concluded that Mori hated Kagha is because of her abuse of her position. if Mori doesn't care about the affairs of others, why would this bother her to the point of going back and killing Kagha later? to be fair, i didnt know she would be wandering around the grove by herself... it just kind of happened and there were no serious consequences from what i could tell. why does abuse of power bother Mori? my line of thinking was because of abuse in the underdark and the lolth sworn drow. Mori saw her family and her home as a network of abusers trying to control her. so she has an instinct to get involved when people are trying to escape something bad. it's one of her only "good" qualities. but how far does this desire go if she doesn't get involved often?
im trying to figure out the nuances of Mori. i'll probably research some drow lore later and try to pin down a more solid idea of who Mori is... i want her to be balanced between not really caring about the affairs of others and feeling compelled to do something when she sees someone in a situation she's been in. does she look down on those who are weak and unable to help themselves? or does she want to balance the scales? maybe the route i choose for her is that she would rather kill the oppressor than aid the oppressed. she lets people figure things out for themselves, but if she sees an abuser, she delights in eliminating one more of them.
if you read this far, thank you, and i hope this makes some semblance of sense. let me know if you have thoughts, headcanons, pieces of lore, or suggestions, and happy scrolling <3
