Saturday Spice Dump 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️

Creator; destroyer.

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MYSTRA COULD NEVER...

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Golden autumn woods stroll for this outfit, pairing a beautiful kimono with momiji (maple tree) silhouettes, with an embroidered green obi depicting resting shika (deers) and maple leaves.

The air is ripe with magic

VIGGO MORTENSEN as ARAGORN

in THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS (2002).

Because people asked, now with armpit hair and daytime

C0mm for @senualothbrok ❤️

Lil bit NSFW version here: X | Bluesky

Thank you so much @ym523 for this amazing and spicy piece of Gale and my Tav 🫶 This is genuinely a dream come true for me as a big fan of your work 💜

If you can afford or manage to get a commission, I highly recommend it. Not only is @ym523 's work fire but they are so accommodating and lovely to work with. You will not be disappointed! 🤗

Careful

Having ADHD is so fun because sometimes youre looking for something that you use regularly and definitely put away in a smart and reasonable place and you have absolutely 0 hope of remembering where and finding it. And then other times ur like "hmm I need a some kind of small pointed object. I feel like i remember seeing a paperclip under the left couch cushion a month ago, i wonder if its still there" and it is

OP please wait until I am asleep to murder me, thanks.

Neil Newbon & Tim Downie shipping Bloodweave 🫶

If the bg3 gang were in Skyrim they wouldn't be able to do the college of winterhold questlines because Gale would be so outraged at the state of the school he'd just explode the second he hears that 4 entire students went missing months ago and no one has found them

Local Galemancer Loses Mind Over Body Language

Okay so, after restarting my main save for Gale and my tav Elerra, I just last night reached the conversation with Elminster at the end of Act 1 and I noticed something immediately that I can't believe I hadn't really thought about before. Instead of just telling you, let's take a look at some comparison photos, shall we?

Here are some screenshots of Gale speaking with Elerra following them growing closer through his lesson on the Weave.

This is the Gale we all know and love. Open, expressive, he's fully present and invested in this conversation and the time he's getting to spend with his tav, regardless of the circumstances that brought them together. Honestly this post could go on for miles if I included examples of every little gesture he makes, the little pleased expressions as he talks, or even the moments of puppy eyes when they discuss that their relationship can't go further at this point in time. Even when he knows they both want more, he values the time they spend together and he's not taking it for granted.

Now. Let's take a look at his body language when he learns his old friend Elminster brings a message from Mystra. The goddess who literally abandoned him after treating him like little more than a plaything during their time together, due to what essentially amount to a mistake (granted a big fucking mistake, I won't argue that) in his effort to please her and perhaps even remedy the severe power imbalance that had been present in their relationship. Not to mention the grooming that preceded that, but that's a whole other conversation.

Now this is a whole different Gale from the one we know. Not only in the way he's got his arms crossed over his chest, but even down to the look on his face. He has completely closed himself off, the mere mention of Mystra and her so-called "forgiveness" has him in a defensive position that seems so alien to our normally open and expressive Gale.

So, beyond the obvious, what does all this mean?

Well, come, walk with me. Let's take a look at what a few of the companions had to say on the situation, hm? (I wanted to include everyone's reactions, but wasn't quick enough on the draw with my screenshotting and didn't feel like reloading so oh well).

I think this points out something that perhaps even Gale would suspect, but didn't want to let himself believe. He's still so tangled up inside from the way Mystra shaped him in his formative years - she made sure that she was his everything, classic abuser behavior, and that when he first acquired the orb in his chest, he spent that time in isolation pining for her forgiveness and beating himself up for his mistake in seeking out this power. That he didn't put as much weight on the way her treatment of him had pushed him towards those actions, how he had never felt good enough in their relationship and her responses to him only reinforced the idea that he was lesser and should be grateful for whatever scraps his goddess decided to throw to him. She wanted him convinced that it was all something he had brought on himself, keeping the blame squarely on his shoulders and taking no responsibility on herself.

But his friends all see clearly what he still isn't ready to admit in the wake of her newest and cruelest act. They all know that her orders for him to destroy himself are both unnecessary and, frankly, petty. Gale is no longer alone, he has people who care for and support him exactly as he is, despite the mistakes of his past, and see his value not only as a wizard but as a person. But Mystra can't have that, how can she continue to punish him with her dismissal of him as her chosen when that's no longer the sole focus he has? What can she dangle in front of him to get back that devotion she craves yet never returns? Why, her elusive forgiveness, of course. And even better it can take a form that would then make it impossible for him to ever move on from her again.

I think perhaps Lae'zel phrased it the best. "[P]erhaps he'd find forgiveness in a fiery death. But I can't help but wonder why he'd want it at all." When it's so clear that there are other options they can try, when there's an entire team of them working together to face it as Wyll pointed out, it seems so obvious to everyone around Gale that for him to do this would do nothing more than cut his life needlessly short. Yet Mystra's orders had come just at the right moment to hit him where it would hurt the most. Where her words, that she couldn't even bother to deliver herself but sent Elminster as a glorified errand boy, could cut through that defensive posture Gale immediately assumed and strike where they would hurt the most.

Yes, he has Tav, he has his new companions, yet they still haven't filled the hole that Mystra had managed to carve within him. He hasn't allowed them to get close enough with the threat of the unstable orb that could go off at the wrong time and destroy them all. And even with it being newly stabilized, that alone isn't enough to make him immediately realize that Mystra could have stabilized the orb all along and chose not to, only doing so when she could craft it in into this new punishment disguised as divine mission. It's not enough to make him realize that he no longer needs her forgiveness because he finally has what he wanted with the people that now support him. It still takes an entire other act of the game for him to accept that Mystra does not now, nor has she ever, have his best interest in mind and he's still nothing more than a toy she broke and cast aside, only to throw a tantrum when someone else picked up the pieces.

No wonder that by Act 3 he's considering his own ascension. After a victim accepts that they've been abused, it's only natural to want to ensure that no one can ever treat them that way again. Regardless of what decision your gameplay leads him to, I will never blame Gale for considering the option after everything that he's been through.

Anyways, fuck Mystra. All Gale's homies hate Mystra.

I mean, how would YOU react if your mentor knocked on your door out of the blue, and said "hey, your ex wanted me to talk to you. It's pretty important. She said you should kill yourself, for the good of humanity"

pov: you glance over during training in camp