The Reason I Like History So Much Is The Way You Can See How Unchanging Human Nature Is. People Have

The reason I like history so much is the way you can see how unchanging human nature is. People have always been doing the same things, with different tools. Ancient Sumerians writing "I am not warning you now in hopes that you'll actually do anything, I am writing this to later prove that I warned you and you did nothing" messages in clay tablets like you'd write an office e-mail. Ancient philosophers talking about shepherds and archers, explaining the exact same problem you had this morning, like they're personally calling you out.

200 years ago, somebody was complaining about Kids These Days burying their faces in books in order to avoid socialising just the same as someone else is now ranting how their children would rather browse their phones than listen to them rant. People were arguing anonymously in the posting boards and newspaper sections just the same as they do on the internet. Someone in the bronze age woke up at 5 am to the sound of toddlers fighting over complete nonsense just the same as someone woke up to the same noises today.

For as long as there have been people, there have been people doing the same kind of things as you. From some dude in a cave with berries for paint, some Roman planning a mosaic on a wall, ancient Chinese noblewoman illustrating her calligraphed poem and some medieval monk decorating the borders of a manuscript and me on my laptop with my stylus pen, we're all just sitting here in our different times and places, wondering why the FUCK are horses so hard to draw.

So the brainworms bit hard and words fell out. A mystery. Be warned, this is NSFT/W and has MAJOR SPOILERS for Act 3 of BG3 and the ending!

There are three kinds of LGBT headcanons:

Actual queer coding / metaphors ("Nimona is trans because her creator made her as a way to express his feelings as a trans person")

Vibes ("Link is genderless because I said so")

It's funny ("Phoenix Wright is asexual because he's the Ace Attorney")

tragedy enjoyers (hi) talk a lot about inevitable tragedies where the character(s) were doomed from the start, but to be honest as someone who does not believe in fate/destiny/etc. irl, the kind of tragedy that Really gets to me is the kind where you can see exactly why and how this didn’t need to happen, and you can also understand why the choices were made that made this happen, and you watch an entirely unnecessary but devastatingly predictable tragedy unfold due to a series of understandable choices

taking your own advice is so hard. it’s “make bad art” this and “kill your perfectionism” that until i sit down with an idea i like. the i have to execute it perfectly Or Else

The Tragedy of Ashtoret, Part 4: Love

Look if y'all haven't heeded the massive flashing warning signs of BG3 SPOILERS AHEAD on the last 3 posts, I dunno what to tell you at this point. Those who Know Things or don't care about being made privy to the Forbidden Knowledge, read below the cut.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Ah, Love. For many a hero, this would be their greatest source of strength. And indeed, for Ashtoret, their love, their empathy, their compassion was one of their finer character traits. However, it was also this trait that allowed them to be party to some truly horrific acts, take actions to protect people that were neither desired nor necessary, and ultimately stayed their hand at times when they most needed to strike.

Love convinced Ashtoret that allowing Astarion to go through with Cazador's ritual was a terrible mistake. Having failed to talk Shadowheart out of slaying the Nightsong (more on that below), they were not about to let Astarion repeat their beloved's error. Talking him out of the ritual tested their powers of persuasion to the limit, but they succeeded, and he was thankful for it.

Love made them wither with guilt inside whenever they interacted with Karlach after their absolute failure to protect the Last Light Inn. They knew she was on the clock, knew how much she loved life, enjoyed her presence and her company... and knew it was their fault that her engine couldn't be fixed. They couldn't let her sacrifice herself to become a mind flayer. But because they loved her as a friend and respected her desires, they couldn't tell her to follow Wyll into the hells to stay alive in the aftermath, either. The Karlach they knew would sooner die than return to Avernus. Better to let her burn out on her own terms than to force her to go back.

Survival may have motivated their decision not to head straight for the githyanki creche as Lae'zel wanted, but it was love that prevented Ashtoret from seeking the Orphic Hammer. And not just love for The Emperor, though the previous post illuminates more of that particular relationship (especially the worshipful devotion that fed that love).

Ashtoret overheard Vlaakith sending orders to Lae'zel to free Orpheus and then kill him. Curious, they peered deeper into the Undying Queen's motivations to find that if Lae'zel did as asked, she would abuse her strength until even her bones and her soul were no longer of use. Orin got hold of Lae'zel shortly afterward, and once Orin's Netherstone was in their hands, they were out of time and had to head straight for the Elder Brain before its quakes ripped the city apart.

Lae'zel watched her comrade transform into a vile ghaik for the sake of defeating the Netherbrain after consuming Orpheus' brain matter. The goal of her queen was accomplished, to a certain extent, but not as ordered. Perhaps it is a mercy that Lae'zel perished in the battle atop the Netherbrain, burned in dragonfire. A mercy that she did not have to put her companion to the sword. For she will never understand that the reason Ashtoret did not do what good sense and morals would indicate was that they perceived something she did not, and cared for her too much to let her go through with it.

"I love you too much to let you do this," as a phrase, accurately sums up Ashtoret's relationship with Wyll and Gale. In Wyll's case, they couldn't allow him to damn himself forever for the sake of his father. (And in the end, managed to (albeit briefly) outwit Mizora and rescue the father Wyll sacrificed for his freedom anyway.) And in Gale's, while the strategic prospect of detonating the Netherese Orb was never out of their head as a final option, they weren't going to let him simply volunteer to explode himself and resolve problems.

Now, we come to the crux of where Love led Ashtoret straight to their downfall in the form of their two romantic love interests: Shadowheart and The Emperor.

On some level, they suspected they were being led astray from the beginning. The Emperor's facade as the Dream Visitor was too good to be true. And yet, the longer they interacted with him, the more he proved useful and an effective protector, the more they were willing to extend him trust. Empathy. Compassion. None of their companions were exactly saints, and Shadowheart especially had a penchant for secret-keeping that led to numerous intraparty conflicts with Lae'zel and frustrated Ashtoret to no end as a romantic partner.

It would be hypocritical in the extreme to offer their companions understanding and forgiveness for their secrets and not do the same for their mysterious benefactor. Hypocritical as well to judge The Emperor harshly for his true illithid nature whilst letting Astarion, a vampire spawn, something else typically considered categorically evil, regularly sup on their blood.

It's interesting to note that both of Ashtoret's primary love interests present in very guarded ways at first. Both value their privacy and both understand the necessity of secret-keeping. And yet, behind both of those facades, Ashtoret saw something. Something they wanted to protect in Shadowheart, and something they wanted to nurture in The Emperor. And in both cases, they needed someone to breach that inner shell, someone who could be trusted as a confidant, and someone who would look at their innermost nature or their deeds and not cast judgement.

Ashtoret may regard their inability to stop Shadowheart from slaughtering the Nightsong as a failure, but they could not have acted otherwise if their words were destined to fail. They loved her too much to intervene, if intervention meant stepping over her corpse. Even if it would have been the "right" thing to do.

Love led Ashtoret to stand by Shadowheart's side and encourage her coup against the Mother Superior of the Sharran Temple after her ascension as a Dark Justiciar. But it also led them to raise their voice in protest when they saw how cruelly Shar forced her memories of her parents back onto her for the sake of making their murder in Her name mean something.

It took every ounce of guile that Ashtoret had to convince Shadowheart not to spear her parents through. Even if it meant pissing off the goddess, even if it meant likely condemning her to suffer from guilt in the living realm and Shar's endless torment in the next, they couldn't let her repeat the mistake of the Nightsong. But this time... this time, their words were enough to make her stay her hand and give her back the parents and some few fragments of the past she had forgotten for so long.

And in the end, it was Love that motivated Ashtoret to let Shadowheart take some time to spend with her parents and figure herself out. Time away from them and the difficulties of discreetly partnering with a mind flayer in a city once ravaged by them. Even if it meant parting, possibly for good.

But perhaps the greatest irony (and tragedy) of all for Ashtoret is that while they were quick to tell others, "I love you too much to allow you to do this" and "I love you too much to kill you", they were never willing to hear those words applied to themselves. And thus, something that was quintessentially "theirs" was lost for good, quite possibly never to return.