Team Building

Amphibiuary 2024: Day 17 - robot

Robo frog will fix your car 🚗

Pictured: Gale rolling a nat 1 on his insight check

Honestly? My main piece of advice for writing well-rounded characters is to make them a little bit lame. No real living person is 100% cool and suave 100% of the time. Everyone's a little awkward sometimes, or gets too excited about something goofy, or has a silly fear, or laughs about stupid things. Being a bit of a loser is an incurable part of the human condition. Utilize that in your writing.

As of patch 6, the companions have (mostly) kinder lines for when spawn!Astarion starts to burn in the sun on the docks after the Netherbrain fight

These aren't fully in the game yet- they are marked as Impossible- but they are voiced and in the text files as well, so likely will be fully implemented in the next patch! I am excited about this- before, the companions seemed oddly mirthful/apathetic about Astarion's fate, instead of nice like (most) of them have been rewritten to be here. (Minsc, however, keeps the same response as before, "We will find you, Astarion! AND BOO WILL BRING A SUNFLOWER!" Which is fine because his previous response was perfection!) This is very welcome!

Lae'zel: Call him man or call him monster, but Astarion was a force against the Grand Design. He deserves to bask in the sun, not to hide in darkness.

Shadowheart: Poor Astarion. How he loved the sun- if only the feeling was mutual. I hope that isn't the last we see of him.

Wyll: Astarion! Gods, what a horror, to feel the sun on your skin for so long, only to be forced back into the shadows.

Gale: Astarion! Cured of one affliction, only to be reclaimed by another. The sun is no longer a friend to him, but we must be- he'll need more solace than shadows can provide.

Halsin: A cruel blow- Astarion loved feeling the caress of the sun... only now it gouges him with its claws. Perhaps we shall meet again, beneath a shield of darkness.

Jaheira: Be well, Astarion. Hide while you must- but do not think your city is done with you just yet.

Minthara: Astarion is cursed to flee the sun as I am cursed to walk in it. Do not belittle him with pity- he is a survivor, and will thrive upon what bounty the darkness provides. There is life in him yet.

Karlach: Astarion. Burnt by the sun again. Godsdamn, that's fucking cruel.

nightly rituals

Hellothisisveryniche but. Hadestown Epic III and Ascended Astarion. Either just recasting Hadestown with Astarion as Hades and Tav as Persephone. Or perhaps a bard Tav (like the one I’m currently romancing Astarion with, *ahem*) singing an old mythic song to their lover who’s lost himself to power and greed.

Just. Thinking things.

By existing as a citizen in and paying taxes to the imperial core, we automatically hold complicity in imperialist oppression because we are literally footing the bill for it. That is just the basic nature of being born to privilege in systems of oppression in general. We can be disadvantaged and marginalized in every single other consideration and we still have to understand and cope with this, and ensure we leverage it as effectively as possible.

Voting abstinence/sabotage does not absolve us of our responsibility to do everything in our power to lessen harm, but it DOES show that when our personal morals aren't satisfied, we retreat into (imperialist, this time) privilege to 'wash our hands' of the situation and declare it's not our fault and it's not our problem.

big acting announcement coming on Tuesday :P

Batstarion a lil thirsty.