Breathe the Top Note

Meg. She/Her. Reader, writer, occasional artist, lover of musicals, and TTRPG. Brain is currently 90% The West Wing. Doesn't post her own stuff much, but reblogs with impunity.

[basketobread]

yes.

[problemnyatic]

"I would kill for you. I would die for you" would you take a break for me? Would you sit down and rest? For a day, a week, a year? Would you let others take care of your needs for me? Would you let yourself be held for me? By me?

[beeezah]

OP i hope its okay to reblog with your additions bc they are good

[problemnyatic]

not only is it okay, I think i'd like that very much, thank you.

[gerardpilled]

“Thin brows are back in” “skinny jeans are back” “wolfcuts are out” “this style of eyeshadow is soo trendy right now” “big asses are out, slim figures are in”

Hey do you guys ever make your own decisions or form your own ideas on how you would personally like to look that’s not based around what’s currently being sold to you. Is that not possible

[bakwaaas]

@fairycosmos / Comic by @shhhitsfine / Comic by @incendavery

[bakwaaas]

@ryebreadgf / alison zai / phillip roth / unknown / @archbudzar

[heywriters]

cannot emphasize enough how a good piece of media can reset a creative slump. stop putting off consuming that media because you "should be writing instead" and then not write either

[sparkylurkdragon]

A lot of really good writers note that good writers read a lot.

Doesn't necessarily have to be reading - it could be watching a film or playing a game or any number of things - but learning stuff and seeing what other artists have to say and how they say it helps you find your own voice, your own priorities.

[not-so-blue]

BALDUR'S GATE 3 — tara & gale (3/?)

devnote: Gale has died so she's very sad and nostalgic.

[willgrahamscock]

the bond between mutuals who only share one or two fandoms is stronger than an entire fandom combined… I do not know what you are blogging about but you are right, pip-pip and bing-bong are homosexuals who crave blood and understanding and I will heart that in support

[bauth]

hello gale dekarios enjoyers

[dmbakura]

This is from the interview larian did with ign today talking about various characters and their endings but I just wanna say ascended astarion being such a paranoid weirdo is very important to me and I'm glad it was touched on here 🤪👌

Edit: since apparently I need to break this down for people who can't read, this is not a statement on his evil ending being "more canon" or "the real astarion." It's saying that when you ascend him, he's not a different character. He's still Astarion just at his worst self. The two endings are not different characters despite them behaviorally being quite different, the contrast is meant to show validating his worst fears vs telling him he can be more than what Cazador made him to me. In other words, none of this is new information ie it's what we already knew about his character.

[endivinity]

one of my favorite books as a kid was this one on speculative zoology/evolution that I loved so much I borrowed it to the point my school had to chase me up on returning it several times. it influenced my early creature art and design and pushed me to delve into my own specbio (on dragons. no surprises there). I loved the informatic entries, all their little lore bits and ecological adaptations; the wild color palettes, their weird little shapes. it was called The New Dinosaurs, by Dougal Dixon.

there were two more books in the series that my school didn’t have, which is either a blessing or a curse, because the third book in the set is called Man After Man.

which contains this.

[all-hail-the-kazoo]

[rhapsodyinprogress]

Goddamn, I only started looking at BG3 posts for the pretty art and headcanons, I was unprepared for the number of people a) completely unable to respect the boundaries of the voice actors - like, please don't trauma dump on them or tell them about your sex fantasies, the actors are real people and that's gross, c'mon b) completely unable to understand that, in a choice-based video game, your choices matter, and so treating the characters like shit will get you treated like shit? Like???? Every bg3 character has the capacity to be a great person or a terrible person based on your choices? Because it's fun to see what happens? Because it's a fucking game?!? It's not that deep? And c) holy shit if you don't like a particular character and someone is posting about why they DO you can just SCROLL PAST?!?. Just keep going, find the posts that speak you you and ignore the ones that don't, my God I am too old for this shit, lmfao.

[werewolf-transgenderism]

truly just learn the phrase "I did not like this" instead of trying to give some moral or ethical reasoning behind why it's actually evil and morally wrong and problematic. you are allowed to just not like things because they're not good in your personal opinion, they don't have to be problematic you can just not like them

[bauth]

hello gale dekarios enjoyers

[dimmadoome]

Me: "Ketheric can't be that bad to fight". Walks into moonrise towers and hears JK. Simmons.

[ex-textura]

I don't think I've ever been part of a community quite so charmingly unhinged as the Gale girlies. We saw an autistic man approaching middle age who says things like "pish posh" genuinely and laughs at his own corny jokes and went truly feral. That's right professor infodump on me some more I wanna see that finger in the air I'm gonna love you and cherish you and make you cry from overstimulation you sad fuck you mama's boy you cat dad I need you carnally AND emotionally let's have a spot of tea and fuck nasty in your library

[ssvnormandysr-1]

Something I've seen talked about a lot is some people calling Gale abusive, manipulative, or toxic for being occasionally passive aggressive or saying things that seem like guilt tripping. And you know what? Yes, he does get passive aggressive. Yes, he does have some unhealthy communication style. AND these do not necessarily mean he is abusive.

There's a difference between abusive (continued and consistent harmful behaviors to exert control over the other person) and unhealthy (sometimes being passive aggressive, communication not being completely open and free). In fact, if I had to guess, he may not even realize that his behaviors are not healthy. His passive aggressiveness or "guilt tripping", I feel, are reactions to his precious relationship with Mystra. When your attachment figure is high and mighty and do not acknowledge or respond to your needs or is very withdrawn or withhold love/praise unless you do something, people are gonna start to develop strategies to get their needs met - pouting, begging, acquiescing, etc etc - this can manifest as such unhealthy behaviors. Similar to how when children have withdrawn parents, they do all sorts of things ranging from making themselves very endearing or acting out to make them pay attention.

Do I think that this is 100% mystra's fault? Not necessarily. After all, she is a god and probably had lots of other things to care for and one mortal man among many other chosens (and who knows, potentially other lovers) likely wasn't on the highest of her priority list. But that doesn't mean the damage wasn't done. And I still believe that as a god Mystra should've known better than to be involved with a mortal romantically with such huge power differential.

Going back to the original point - such unhealthy strategies can absolutely get better and be changed when you do have a partner who responds to your needs, who is engaged, who doesn't withhold love, because that means you no longer have to survive the way you did before. You no longer have to elicit or win love from your partner because that love is already there. Such corrective emotional experiences can lower the defenses and build up healthy communication and relationship. With Tav, and hopefully other supports in his life, I think Gale can do so, too.

idk lots of people really seem to take just one part of certain characters and make them super evil or absolutely innocent - and they're not. None of the characters are. And that's the whole point especially in Gale's romance - he is a flawed human being, he made and still makes mistakes. And those are what it means to be a mortal, actually, and all parts of him still deserve love and compassion. He can be accepted as he is and still move towards positive changes.

[rhapsodyinprogress]

Gale and Astarion are my two favourite companions and it is so mind boggling to me how people forgive one for their flaws but not the other. Astarion is TERRIBLE when the game starts. You get approval from him for letting a snake kill a child! (Among other questionable things) but no one has any problem looking at Astarion and saying "well that's his trauma/abuse talking" and then turn around and hate Gale for the way his trauma makes him act. I hate this from a writer's perspective because it us SO OBVIOUS that every companion is traumatized and broken. Then as Tav you can choose whether to help them or break them worse. So pointing at Gale and calling him manipulative (when you ACTIVELY BREAK HIS HEART) but giving Astarion a pass for, I dunno, literally being a murderer. Like. Come on.

ALSO. MILD ACT 3 SPOILER HERE:

If you're romancing Gale and you do the Dryad's love game at the circus, the answer for "what is Gale's greatest flaw" is that he thinks the world would be better if he were DEAD.

Y'all. Y'ALL. This poor sad man. The goddess who groomed him as a teen then dumped him has convinced him that his only worth to the world is the good he'd cause with his death.

Like Christ on a bike. Yes, he says/does questionable things because he is depressed and lonely and a strange hybrid of proud, ambitious, cocky and completely lacking in all self worth.

[dekariosclan]

I think one of the reasons I’ve gone completely wild for Gale’s romance is because it has all the dressings of a Classic Austen Romance (handsome eligible bachelor, charming dialogue, an impediment keeping the two love interests apart, slow burn, sweet confessions of love, etc.) but with the gigantic curveball of it being in an absolutely batshit insane setting.

The eligible bachelor wizard just happens to have a goddess as an ex-girlfriend, the impediment keeping Gale and Tav apart isn’t some basic society class snubbing but a literal nuclear bomb in Gale’s chest and a gigantic brain monster, Gale’s sweet confessions of love are very romantic, poetic, and classy but also occasionally include things like him telling Tav how much he’d love to smash in the middle of a battlefield.

It’s….perfect.

Classic romance is obviously an incredible genre and I love it, but there’s something that hits different and is infinitely sweeter when it’s not two beautiful well-dressed fancy people proclaiming their love flawlessly to one another, but an imperfect self-loathing man standing in a puddle that he for some reason set his camp up on, telling a scarred, scaled, fanged, sweaty, smelly person with bits of Goblin guts in their hair that he loves them with his whole heart and that the celestial canvas is the only worthy backdrop on which to place their beauty.

That is love.