I like to think that Kaz is sort of like Wylan's and Jesper's cat. Like they hear some small noise downstairs at 3 AM, and they'll roll their eyes and say "It's Kaz again".
One day Wylan leaves the house and screams in terror because Kaz is casually chilling on the roof. "For a better view on my targets," he says. What targets does he mean? No idea. How did he get up there? No one knows. Can he get down on his own? No. Will he climb up again tomorrow? Absolutely.
He comes by- uninvited!- just to eat their food, and when they ask him to stop, he gives the "You told me to take better care of myself!" response. Oh, and he pushes things off tables, just to be an asshole. Once Kaz is more comfortable and has learned to trust his friends and be vulnerable around them, they randomly find him napping in strange places of the house as if he pays rent.
When he's sick or hurt, he hides and hisses when approached.
Sometimes he kidnaps people that annoy or threaten Wylan and Jesper and drops them at their doorsteps. As gifts ❤
The final straw is when one day Wylan and Jesper plan to take a romantic bath together, and when they enter the bathroom- surprise!- Kaz is already in the bathtub with a glass of brandy in his hand, having the audacity to look scandalized and be like "Can you KNOCK?!"
It has come to the point where he's their mean, murderous, asshole roommate who just eats all their food and breaks all their locks constantly lol
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tell us about Santos :3c...
My tav Santos!! He's a fighting x rogue class tiefling who's a bit worn out in life, but doesn't stop him from being the rock of the party. He's 143 years old and a seasoned weapons maker, tho it's been a few years since he's kept up with the craft. He dabbled a bit as a mercenary in his 90's, but ultimately ended up as a bartender in Baldur's Gate yearning to go back to guildwork. [Which is when he got abducted, after a shift]
Personality wise he's not the loudest nor quietest of the group (choosing to be the listener a bit more than be the talker). He can seem quite serious, but is relatively easy-going and is known to give some of his own snark back when need be. He's a realist with a good heart, but won't hesitate to lie himself (and party) out of situations and attempt questionable persuasive maneuvers to at least avoid some unnecessary bloodshed. (Tho sometimes he goes a little too far with the snappy remarks at enemies that leads to greater bloodshed)
He has a well of unwavering patience for his party members in the emotional sense, but gets incredibly exasperated by their antics and rivalry (looks at Shadowheart & Lae'zel, Gale & Astarion). He doesn't know what he's gonna do after they defeat the Absolute, but for now he'll just try and make sure that everyone in his party makes it out of this in one piece.
[Santos' tent, he collects enchanted weapons and borrows Lae'zel's grinder often]
Character Relationships:
He gets along very well with Jaheira since they have a very similar sense of humor, their friendly jabs turn into some very confusing flirting for the rest of the party.
Likes to poke fun at Gale, who has a bit of a crush on him. Santos has some propensity for magic and spellcasting, but it's unrefined and he never bothered to do much with it, tho he does like to ask Gale to teach him a thing or two when they have the downtime and he has access to a wizard with knowledge that loves to talk.
He rebuffed Astarion's advances quite quickly, especially since he realized why he was doing it, but they remained good friends regardless, which it seems Astarion really needed. He lets Astarion feed off of enemies since they're gonna kill them anyways, but offers himself in case if emergencies.
He's really good friends with Wyll and Karlach and can be found sharing a drink often in their downtime, both of them having Santos barking with laughter. He's not much of a meddler, but he'll leave their hang outs to leave both of them alone in hopes it'll inspire something.
He and Lae'zel have an unspoken camaraderie as fighters and weapon masters, and she likes that he'll give her bullshit right back. He likes sparring with her bcs she has him eating shit and landing on his ass, but he learns a lot.
He butts heads a bit with Shadowheart and Halsin, but they eventually remain on friendly terms and respect each other.
Santos killed Minthara and has yet to meet Minsc.
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akechi's "i do not regret with my choices i'm rather proud" line in no more what ifs is so widely misunderstood it drives me nuts. it's a coping mechanism guys. it's a lie.*
(*that has an element of truth to it, as most of akechi's lies do.)
like. there's this trend to take the line at face value. he doesn't regret what he did for shido. he doesn't feel bad or think he did anything wrong. he has zero remorse. but you shouldn't take anything akechi says at face value, and regret and remorse are two very different things.
there's a lot to unpack here, so bear with me as i try to break it all down.
so okay, the source of this whole misunderstanding--the line in no more what ifs. i've gotten into this before in my analysis of the song, but the context of it is specifically in maruki's reality. goro is looking back on his life and thinking about where he ended up because of his choices. he's thinking, was i a fool? did i mess up? was there a better way? this line of thinking is reflected within the game itself when he explicitly says in the engine room that he wishes he met akira sooner, but that it doesn't matter what he wants because it's impossible to change what happened.
but here's the thing--that impossible wish he made in the engine room, where things were different and he and akira could be friends? it's no longer impossible. it's literally right in front of him. but it has a catch. accepting the reality of his impossible dream comes at the cost of being himself. all his choices and agency will be stolen, including the choices he made in the past that got him here. so he's left with one last choice--accept maruki's reality, give into his desires, and lose himself. or accept the choices he made for himself, and the consequences that came with them.
so, his conclusion in the song is that any what if's and regrets are pointless. he cannot afford to regret. he must be proud of what he did and who he is. goro is terrified of losing himself and being forced into becoming another puppet like he was for shido. (and notice--him acknowledging that he was a subservient puppet before, as he does on 2/2, requires that he's aware that the choices he is so apparently proud of weren't entirely his own. he was pushed there by someone else. he still blames himself for being manipulated, but a part of him knows that what he did for shido was wrong, and that he shouldn't have done it. doesn't sound like someone completely without regrets to me.) so he has to hold onto his choices and be proud of them. he can't let himself be tempted. the price he'd pay for them is far too high.
so, yeah. it's a coping mechanism. he's forced into that conclusion by his circumstances. akechi does regret where life has brought him and how he got there and the choices he's made, but regret is pointless, because he can't change the past and he can't accept maruki's future. so he chooses not to regret. people like him can't let themselves regret.
but of course, that's not all. in a post-canon world where he lives, goro isn't going to suddenly break down and be filled with remorse. because like i said, his feelings are complicated, and he still has his pride. akechi doesn't want to admit his faults or his weaknesses, and he does still think the people he targeted deserved it. so is he remorseful? yes and no. he is aware what he did was wrong, and that it was all for absolutely nothing. but he still doesn't view the world as something worthy of saving or protecting. to him people are all still inherently evil, save perhaps for akira, so what he did was both deserved and negligible, because the people he hurt were on the path of destruction regardless of him anyway.
so feeling for his victims and experiencing true remorse is going to be a process of recovery. at the same time, akechi still has the innocent child who wanted to be a hero hidden inside him. part of him does care, it's just been so neglected he isn't aware of it most of the time. that part of him began to be reawakened with akira and would continue to be as he makes connections, especially with the people he hurt like the phantom thieves.
which is part of why i think akechi befriending and reconciling with the thieves is so important! he needs to face the consequences of his actions and realize what he did didn't just hurt evil people, but innocents too. he needs to learn to see people as beings who can change, who are redeemable and are good. that people can love him even if he's done horrible things. and as he realizes these things about himself, he will eventually start to realize that it's true about the rest of the world, too.
goro wants to believe in the world, and in people. he doesn't anymore, but he wants to. when he starts to believe in people again, that's when he'll be able to finally be honest about his past mistakes, and feel true remorse for his actions and mistakes, and be able to start to make amends. the parts of the detective prince that reflected the little boy who believed in truth and justice are still in him somewhere, he just needs a lot of time, self reflection, recovery, and help to rediscover those parts of himself.
another aspect of this is how akechi voluntarily turns himself in. i do think there are ulterior motives here, mainly that he can be the one to help convict shido. it's also self-destructive, a way to sort of end his life when literally doing that didn't work. it's the path of least resistance, where he never has to truly look back on his crimes and self reflect because well, he's paying for his crimes anyway, so who cares. it's the easy out. but it also shows that he is aware what he did was wrong and that it's right for him to try to make amends. goro isn't totally without remorse or regret. his remorse and regret literally pushed him into trying to kill himself. he's just very, very bad at coping with them, and so chooses instead to repress those emotions like he has been for years.
okay, so, conclusion. stop forcing in lines in comics and fic where akechi is like "I don't regret!" without also portraying the nuance lying beneath that line. how in third sem it's a coping mechanism, and otherwise it's a shield keeping him from being honest with himself about his past and his ruined dreams of being a hero. remorse ≠ regret, and goro feels both but to different extents and different reasons. he hates his victims, but he's deluding himself about their guilt, and once that delusion crashes down and he sees that he's hurt innocents, he's going to have to deal with a lot of intense feelings like his already existing self hatred.
akechi isn't some heartless killer who feels nothing for his victims. he's only using that idea of himself as a coping mechanism. he forced himself to become that by repressing the parts of him that care until he can barely feel them anymore. he isn't just the black mask, he is also the detective prince. he's both. akechi is and always will be both sides of himself, even when he tries so hard to shut one of those sides down and ignore it as an aspect of the truth. you can't write akechi well until you understand that. akechi is always both.
so, does akechi regret? well...it's complicated.
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