#icepick lobotomy

[romulus]

i thought to myself that surely the gas station with the cheap gas would not be busy at 1pm on a sunday. my fellow americans, it is more busy than i have ever seen it. i am going to explode

[circus-clangen]

i love how the dynamic between the current three is just

Tigertoe: hi dad, im just here, existing

Ringstar: Not Now Sweetie, Daddy Is Going To Kill Himself

Clownwish: (too busy making 'Ringstar Cringe Fail Complication Number 7 Deluxe 1-Hour Edition')

SO CORRECT this is their exact dynamic

[aliasknives]

what did she mean by this

[oathkeeper-of-tarth]

As promised, your daily dose of Thanks, I Hate It! Tadpoled Isobel dialogue, stitched together from some 20-odd lines that were present in the penultimate EA patch. The only remnants of this in the final game are what you can see in this scene, as you can't actually find abducted Isobel in Moonrise until you get to the basement boss fight.

I'm really quite glad to see you again. I had no idea you and my father were on the same side before, nor that I'd been such a fool to resist. I'm certain you don't want to get into it now, not when you're about to hear the voice of the Absolute! My mother died when I was very small, but Papa and I made a good life together. I grew up in the village below here, a place built by Thorms with aunties and uncles and cousins down every laneway. Then I… died… somehow. I'm still fuzzy on the details, but there's a great gap. And darkness. My father worked tirelessly to bring me back, to reunite us. When he finally succeeded, I was terrified. I had no way to understand, and it felt so sudden, like being locked inside a bright, hot room after years of darkness. And Papa had changed. There was no denying that. I fled from him, set up camp in the inn, met Jaheira, met you. I've had a chance to think now, to understand what my father did and why. Now I'm just grateful to him. To the Absolute. To you. To life itself! I admit, I didn't think second chances like this were possible. But with the Absolute, none of the old rules apply. I have my father and the love of a god who really, really listens. I didn't know it was possible. The moon is very distant, very high, and she only shows her face in the cold of night. The Absolute has shown me the kind of presence, the kind of love I didn't know I deserved. Not only that, I didn't know I could be so happy. He brought me back through the power of the Absolute. You should know that already. I believe it was she [Selûne] who abandoned me. And yourself, too. Whatever are you talking about? You've done everything right. Enjoy it. Whatever that means. What are you dilly-dallying here for? The Absolute is waiting for you, you know! I wish you luck. The very best of it. Go on, shoo! The Absolute is waiting.

Congrats to Mia Foo for freaking me out with this delivery, especially that disturbingly bright and cheerful voice that just sounds so wrong.

[utilitycaster]

Something that I find misses the point so completely it is breathtaking is when people are like "this player hates engaging with their backstory" about the CR cast. It's pretty much never true, and what's worst is that I've seen it the most about Travis and Taliesin, two of the players who I think have the strongest grasp on how to create and engage with a backstory.

The choice to have a character who avoids elements of their past can be a valid, informed, and deliberate character choice. People run from their pasts! People decide not to pursue things for a number of reasons - because it hurts too much, because they're scared to know the answer, because they think the people around them don't care, and because their interests change. Caduceus very much is an avoidant character. He has access to Sending by the time we first meet him, and he never uses it to try to contact his family. That's not Taliesin being stupid or avoiding. That's Caduceus making a conscious choice to not ask the question "is my family dead" because he is terrified the answer is yes. He waits for a concrete sign to go after his family to the point of deep loneliness and self-harm out of this fear. That's a crucial trait that you need to understand him as a character! Ashton is also on some level similar in that he engages in no shortage of harmful, wallowing, and self-indulgent behaviors - and that is a choice. They also have obviously messy feelings about the Hishari and it's pretty plain to see they feel extremely conflicted about their growing bonds with Bells Hells because now they'll feel bad if Bells Hells leaves them. So of course he's hesitant to bring this to Orym, because then he's entrusted Orym with this information, and he has to care, and again, this is a major part of who Ashton is.

The same goes with Fjord and Vandran (and Sabian). One of the core themes of Fjord's story is deciding whether to run from or embrace your past, and which parts of that past you want to bring forward as you change, which means that to explore that, he has to do some running! He makes efforts to learn more about where they are (going to search for Vandran during the Zadash downtime; hiring a bounty hunter for Sabian) but those get interrupted by Fjord's shifting feelings about Vandran, and fact that this is an ensemble and the story naturally shifts.

Which brings us to the practical element. Fjord doesn't want to release Uk'otoa at the time, so it makes sense to return to the mainland and process next steps, and the focus of the story then turns to rescuing Yeza, and then finding Yasha, and rescuing Caduceus's family, and changing Veth back, and brokering peace, and TravelerCon, and Eiselcross. Through this, he still in fact does quite a lot of backstory work (changing patrons and taking a paladin oath, asking Jester to contact Vandran), as well as an immense amount of character growth and engagement with the ongoing story, but Travis doesn't wrench everything off its natural course just to check off every box on Fjord's list, because that would be selfish, obnoxious, and not fun to watch. And Caduceus achieves exactly what he set out to do! He found and rescued his family and found a way to hold off the corruption! Despite his avoidance, he covers all the bases! And as for Ashton...we've had precious little time to cover anyone's backstory in depth other than Imogen's, and we've actually seen a decent amount of Ashton's backstory regardless with their contacts in Bassuras and their interactions with Jiana. There simply was not time in Bassuras to stray from the main objectives and search for the Nobodies, and I think if we had people would be annoyed since that arc already took a very long time (and, for what it's worth, rather like Fjord, Ashton has explicitly asked after The Nobodies. Do not mistake lack of payoff for character disinterest).

It is, to me, incredibly telling this criticism is most commonly seen about the two players who I think also get the most "well they had an central arc/more focus than my fave" criticism.There's no way to make everyone in the fandom happy, and I think Travis and Taliesin are the players at the table who most understand that and give the least fucks about what the fandom thinks, and who (possibly relatedly) have some of the strongest grasps of narrative and what it means to play in an ensemble. Which is in my opinion a major factor in why their characters are so good - even the ones I do not vibe with are fully realized and well-crafted, because the players are not trying to make likeable characters, but rather interesting ones, and they're not trying to take center stage, but rather be generous at the table.

[lament387]

CW; BLOOD, ORGANS

I didn't use a ref for the brain

[zipmode]

misc conviction stuff ^_^

[zinziinziiin]

how do I dig the cisnormativity out of everyone's brains

[powdermelonkeg]

Would Nellie play D&D in a more modern setting?

Didn't know how to answer this one when I got it since I was VERY inexperienced with D&D, but now that I know BG3 stuff: Yes. She'd be an Archfey-bound Pact of the Chain warlock. She LOVES her summons.

[herrfivehead]

What’s bg3’s obsession with taking eyes from people. My current party has like five eyes between the four of them

[thinevmother]

I feel like a lobotomy would be a really refreshing experience. Kinda like a spa day for my brain tissue but with a lot more blood and memory loss :)

[the-last-dillpickle]

Evil psychiatrist!Sloan 🥺🙏

[propertyline]

every like three weeks i will listen to both little big league albums like this is sooooooo good omfg does anyone else know how good this is then make a post like this one save it to drafts rinse and repeat. anyway lbl is sooooo good u guys

[iamthecutestofborg]

I notice most people seem think Ice Pick Joe got his name because he likes to kill people with an icepick and not because he was given an icepick lobotomy at the age of 9.

[ban-joey]

well at least my many health buzzwords are all associated w each other. I love googling hypermobility and migraines and discovering a crazy high prevalence. not to mention hypermobility and autism. and autism and migraines. what the hell goes on

[torutorubozu]

first thing i post is a fucking gojo thirst i cannot do this anymore