three observations about my third crack at bg3:
- i've joked that karlach and astarion feel like bait for trans women & men respectively but i think i had a realization the other day: a big part of their appeal in that dimension is that they're presented as the genders they are but their traumatic backstories are associated with the opposite. karlach is a woman but "exploited war machine" is typically a masculine trope, and astarion is a man but "sexually traumatized abuse survivor" is a classically feminine one
- larian is bad at game designing their romances in terms of pacing but i think the characters are livelier than in any bioware game
- the fact that you can ace romance karlach is genuinely quite sweet. super touching to have her be completely okay with it
