#lorde 3

[kirain]

My favourite bit of BG3 lore is that Withers is legitimately responsible for the Dead Three, but he's probably too embarrassed to tell you, so every time you ask him to elaborate he just gives you a very stern, "Noooo."

I also love that the reason he's responsible for their uprising is because he got bored. He literally got bored of his position as Lord of the Dead and wanted to retire, so when these three morally questionable humans came looking for godhood he was like, "Hmmm. Yes, okay. Here. Take my portfolios. Fight over them. I don't care. I quit."

So after bowling with skulls in a friendly competition to decide who would get what portfolio, they took up his powers and wreaked havoc on the world. Only at that moment did Jergal, AKA Withers, AKA our precious Bone Daddy think, "I'm just now, internally, asking myself, in quite a worried way, whether I might've made an error."

So he joins your merry band and watches your escapades, calmly twiddling his fingers while you clean up his mess. He's happy to lend his aid, even to the point that he'll bring Durge back to life if they reject Bhaal, even though he technically shouldn't. But he's Withers. The rules don't apply to him. If Ao doesn't like it, he can descend from the Heavens and say it to his rotting face.

And the reason he saves Durge isn't necessarily because he likes them or because he's a morally good entity (though one certainly could make that argument), but because he wants to add insult to injury. He steals Bhaal's child with a big smile on his face, dubs them his Chosen, and praises them for rejecting all the power they were promised. But of course, he still doesn't tell them who he is—or rather who he was.

Then, when all is said and done, he throws Tav and their companions a cute little party. No one knows it's probably half a thank you party and half a "Withers is bored again" party. And if anyone misbehaves, he'll get irritated and whisk them away. Because how dare they? He put a lot of work into that.

And at the end of it all, he walks up to a mural of the Dead Three and basically goes, "Lmao. Thou didst fuck around, and thou didst find out." Just savagely roasting them.

And then poof!

He waves them into non-existence.

[must-be-mr-boggins]

Taking a 5-second break from the Bagginshield angst to bring you this meme I created after an all-nighter, enjoy.

[kimjunnoodle]

Pov: all of your colleagues want you dead (sound)

[s-aint-elmo]

part 2 of my pining falin agenda aka I STAND WITH MARCILLE THAT DRESS WAS CUNT

part 1

(ID in alt text)

[ahahnopenope]

here's the picture i couldn't get out of my head

[greeneyessmize]

Pleeeaaaase may we have Lord Remington at the LW reveal??? I am still hoping only a small amount of people plus the Queen will find out.... but just let me have him involved.

[bg3shitpostandfanart]

Karsus crown heist with the bois.

30 secs later:

[lenin-it-to-win-it]

Frodo: Sam hates Gollum, but that is what I shall become once I have lost myself to the ring... he’ll despise me... 

Sam if Frodo did turn into a Gollum: That’s a very nice fish you caught with your bare hands, Mr. Frodo, and its very smart of you to eat it raw, saves us the trouble of starting a fire. I knitted you a sweater in case you get cold running around in that loincloth of yours. Is the sun hurting your eyes? I’ll kill it if it’s bothering you. I’ll kill the sun

[glitterfairy-21225]

I genuinely appreciate the character development given to Cressida this season, and I’m glad that her and Eloise have a genuine connection. And I find it so funny that her last ditch attempt to sabotage Pen and Debling is to tell him, “Yeah, her and Colin Bridgerton? That guy who just told you to get lost? They’ve known each other all their lives. They’re always like that.”

Like, I don’t know if I want her to be sighing in relief that it worked or absolutely gagged when Polin turns up engaged in part 2.

[magspeaches]

[stellarspecter]

@pscentral event 20: antagonists ↳ THE LORDS IN BLACK in NERDY PRUDES MUST DIE

[muyenbroma]

this is what they dont tell you in those “my parents sold me to one direction” fics

[kawareo]

Death by Snu Snu, Ketheric Thorm foresaw

Happy New Years!!

spent way too much time on this lmao but oh well it looks pretty and my boy looks even prettier

[loriache]

"I've been waiting for ages for somebody to unmask them."

This moment tends to elicit negative reactions in a first read through, and I've got some opinions about why where Kabru is coming from here actually makes a lot of logical sense. So I thought I'd elaborate on that.

I think people hear this and go, "He thinks they must be hiding something because they gave money to someone? What a cynic." Or "he dislikes them because they did charity?? What's wrong with this guy!". And obviously, a lot, a lot is wrong with him. But I think this makes more sense than it seems at first glance! What people evaluating this judgement miss is why Kabru is paying attention to Laios and co to begin with.

Kabru knows of the Touden siblings because (he's a little bit of a stalker-) he is keeping an eye on all the relevant parties in events developing on the island, in order to be able to guide them to his preferred outcome. This includes adventurers because they are the ones actually exploring the dungeon! He's well aware that something as minor as internal tensions between party members could be key to the historical events that are developing. (He would love the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.)

His desired outcome is that whatever the rewards are of breaking the dungeon's curse, whether that's kingship or the ancient elven secrets of dungeons, are claimed by:

A) a short lived person

B) Someone who will be a good, effective leader and/or use those secrets and the power they carry wisely, with foresight, and to establish a political bloc for short lived people.

The person he can best trust to do this is, of course, himself. But due to his PTSD regarding dungeons and monsters, he's not able to develop the necessary skills to conquer the dungeon. Once he realises this, he starts looking for someone else who he can support to that end.

But most of the adventurers don't have any intentions of conquering the dungeon, don't have the skills, or are unsuitable in other ways. In fact, it seems like some potentially suitable people are the Toudens. There are a lot of good rumours about them going around - they actually seem to have a very positive reputation! That's what Kabru means when he says "unmask".

So when Kabru is observing something like them giving money to an old comrade from their gold-peeling days, he doesn't consider it a problem because "they're giving money to this person who doesn't actually need it" or because they must have some dark secret if they act superficially nice. I think he actually understands this situation and what it implies about Laios (in particular) perfectly well.

Laios and Falin gave money to an old comrade who got injured and couldn't work. That person then healed up but kept taking their money. Then he used the money to start smuggling illicit goods to the island.

The key is that for Kabru, the problem here is the same as with the corpse retrievers - people using the dungeon's resources to fuel dangerous, selfish, or violent pursuits cause problems for the island, attract more criminals and people with motives other than breaking the curse, and increase the chances of the whole situation ending in tragedy.

Kabru is willing to work with the Shadow Lord of the island if it gets him to his goal - he isn't scrupulous - but the criminal element of the island increasing is something he sees as a major issue.

Also, when you're evaluating someone as a candidate for power, riches, secrets, potentially kingship - then being curious about how the money you give to people is going to be used is kind of a relevant trait!

Interpersonally, Kabru's actually very easygoing - I mean, Mickbell isn't exactly an upstanding guy, is he! But Kabru likes him and they get along well. These traits wouldn't be a problem at all in a friend, or a comrade, or someone Kabru was confident he could use. But he can't get a handle on Laios, and Laios is someone who has the potential to be a major player!

On Laios' end, this is the same as with the marriage seeker who joined their party. She kept asking for things and he gave them to her, because he tries to be nice to others. He even gives her money! It's the exact same thing.

That's fine, but it became a problem because he basically wasn't interested in her motives, didn't notice she was trying to manipulate him, and it also didn't occur to him that the other party members would notice or be affected. We can assume the situation with the gold peeler is the same. When Kabru says that "It's not that they're bad people, they just aren't interested in humans," he isn't wrong.

The extent to which this is true of Laios is linked to his autism imo, (because it isn't just disinterest - he genuinely isn't able to notice nonverbal cues that people are lying to him or have ulterior motives) but to a greater or lesser extent I think it's a very common trait. Most people aren't actually that interested in other people who aren't close to them. Kabru is the weird one here. It isn't an issue except as a leader - which is why we see an immediate comparison to the Island's Lord, because that's how Kabru is evaluating them.

And disinterest in/lack of ability with people to the extent Laios exhibits it, it does, actually, make him a worse leader... it's just that as we see in the story, people can help him out. The rest of the party tell him the marriage seeker is taking advantage of him so he tells her he can't give her special treatment anymore. They're pissed and it's a crisis point - he couldn't have recovered their trust without Marcille and Falin - but that's exactly the point. With Marcille and Falin, he was able to recover their trust.

And he has other good traits that make up for it, such as his intelligence, strategic knowledge, open-mindedness and sense of fairplay.

Kabru doesn't disqualify Laios as a candidate based on what he sees about him from afar, though - he still tries very hard to get close to him, obviously hoping that if he manages he can steer Laios to defeat the dungeon and make up for his lack of people-skills in the aftermath. (Which... he does eventually achieve that goal!) He completely fails until the events of the story, so... definitely I think "They just aren't interested in humans" could also partially be a stung reaction to Laios' complete disinterest in him.

Anyway, that's my read on what exactly Kabru's "issue" with Laios is. Obviously, once he does find out what Laios' true nature is like - about his love for monsters - he develops an entirely new set of fears about Laios' priorities. But since Laios kept that a secret until the start of the story, he has no idea of that yet.

Given all that, I think it's interesting that he says that he doesn't think that the Toudens are suitable to defeat the dungeon, and that he's hoping they'll turn out to be the thieves. As some of his few potential candidates, people who he thinks may play a big role in the island's future, you'd think he'd hope they would be good people!

I suppose it's better, in his eyes, because it means that he's involved in something "interesting". They haven't just had their stuff stolen by regular criminals (boring, puts them further away from his goal) - they've been caught up in the beginning stages of "a historic event". The desperate and dwindling group forgetting morals in their quest to retrieve their lost comrade probably appeals to his sense of melodrama. Because he also just... loves drama.

Despite it being "uglier than anything he was expecting", he still pursues Laios as the person he wants to conquer the dungeon pretty much as soon as it becomes clear that he won't be able to do it himself and they are out of time. That's because... well, to be fair, there aren't any other options. And he fits standard A: he's short-lived!

and Kabru still hopes he can fit standard B, too, and be persuaded to use the power he wins for good. No matter how many nightmares he has about Laios, or whether he thinks about killing him. He doubts him, but ultimately he puts his faith in him and seems happy after the manga's ending that he made the right decision.

[chocmoon-latte]

Love it when people draw videogame characters with more realistic and nuanced bodies instead of how the games portray the characters and make them all look like overly ripped, clean shaven actors who spent the past several hours dehydrating themselves.

Make that character hairy! Give that girl some muscles! Put some weight on that man's body! Give that slim character a lil bit of a tummy every time they sit in a certain position!

[skiitter]

low key very obsessed with sex-adverse Astarion. like he's The Thirst Companion. The fucking Only Fangs joke. All the smut fan content. And then it does a total 180 and he's like "actually my sexual identity was weaponized against me and i was forced to use it to lead hundreds of people to their deaths". It's just such a compelling and interesting twist on his character. I love it.