#consequential to any cannon i have

[askkwieon]

wip

wanted to put kerdor in a famcy fit and it... got outta hand

i do plan on doing this to All my trolls. so this will take a while

#arts #kerdor #jaespe #selnie #hieser #i was watching a music video and i was #so gay enamored #i was like perhaps if my trolls looked like the rap ladies #maybe id play with them more #but i think the real problem is i dont have a tight enough narrative for em #i might have to retcon my whole fantroll cannon back into its original form #like. the shit im currently interested in includes several AUs for characters who arent like #consequential to any cannon i have #which. i cant really figure out why #maybe cuz its easier to do random smutty shit w them without feeling like im contributing to some overarching narrative #maybe i need a looser narrative for my trolls actually #thanks for coming to my ted talk ig #this piece has me in a semi-manic state #probably because its way past my bedtime #and i work a fucking retail job and its sorta killing me #but i digress

[crissiti]

Cybertronian lifespans 

One thing about tfa cannon that drives me insane is the timeline and consequentially the unclear average length of a transformers life. Because according to the AllSpark Almanac, Alpha Trion is a few billion years old??? And true, he is considered ancient but that’s just too much. At the same time bots like Ultra Magnus and Ratchet, who judging by the timeline should be around 14 mil years? (Magnus is at least 12) are considered old, which fair, but there’s a really big difference between a few million and a few billion. At the same time the Decepticons should be around the same age as Magnus but we are never made to perceive them as old (as far as I can remember). So here are my head cannons to deal with this problem. Alpha Trion is an outlier. Normal Cybertronians do not live this long. The only reason he lives this long is due to godly intervention. He is serving a higher power and would not die (of old age, he can still be killed) until his duty is fulfilled. So how long would be the average cybertronian lifespan? I would say around 30 to 40 million, with war frames tending to live a bit longer than civilian frames. Any Cybertronian under 1 million would be considered young even if they are an adult. Around 5 to 10 million would be the human equivalent of 25-30 years old- not young but not old either. And from 15 mil upwards would be old. Due to the war there aren’t that many 30+ million year olds left.

Now because Autobots live on Cybertron and their population get renewed their perception for what old is would be different from that of a Decepticon’s.

Now with their lifespans in mind the next point of consideration would be reproduction. How often are new Cybertronians forged and how many? And in such a way that they don’t have an overpopulation problem. My take is that hotspots yield between a few dozens to a few hundred new sparks once every few thousands of years. Cybertron has a way (maybe through Vector Sigma)to keep track of how many Cybertronians there are on the planet and according to that to activate the hotspots. After the war there was a big baby boom because of the great decrease of Cybertron’s population. That’s why there are so many young Autobots and why their perception on what old is has changed. Currently the hot spots have considerably slowed down in comparison to how many new sparks they were pumping out in the fist few hundreds of thousand of years after the war.

The reason why there were shortage of resources at the end of the Age of Expansion was because majority of the war frames were off planet fighting wars, Cybertron could’t keep track of them and started producing more sparks that it could sustain. Once the fighting stopped and war frames returned home there was a bit of an overpopulation problem.

#transformers #maccadam #tfa #transformers animated #tfa expanded #tf au #my au

[honoviadakai]

Russia and his big and little sisters

This is sort of a continuation of this post because I’m having Hetalia brain rot rn so why not share the spoils?

In my last post I explained my theory that General winter could potentially be the spirit of the deceased father of the Slavic Siblings (Ukraine, Russia and Belarus), I also stated that he might be latched onto Ivan specifically for one of 2 reasons.

Reason number one is basically the idea that because he is dead and Ivan is the only boy in the family, he is now the “man of the house” and has to become stronger as soon as possible to be able to protect his family. Therefore, attaching himself to Ivan would serve as a way to both protect his children even in death but also it would just help Ivan, the son he sees a lot of potential in, grow stronger very quickly.

Reason number two however is slightly different. Attaching himself to Ivan would still be General Winter’s way of protecting his kids, that part does not change. What does change is how General Winter views Ivan. General Winter would see Ivan as the weakest link and attach himself to his young son during his early childhood because he needs his protection and guidance far more than his sisters do.

I personally believe that between the 3 siblings, Russia was indeed the weakest sibling and even in modern day, still is.

I’m aware that in hetalia’s cannon Ukraine is a major crybaby/pushover, Russia can destroy tanks with his bare hands and eat thumbtacks without batting an eye and that Belarus is really tiny when compared to her siblings and relies on them(most Russia) for everything. So by that logic, Russia’s the stronger sibling, right?

Not really. We see more of Russia’s fighting abilities because his one of the main 8 characters of the series and consequentially, his sisters aren’t featured as much as he is. However, a lot of times they are featured, Russia seems to be very cautious around them and they seem to baby him a lot, especially when they were younger.

When the siblings are younger, an interesting thing I noticed is that of the 3, Ivan is the one that is almost always anxiously looking out for other attacking nations while his sisters seem almost completely unbothered by the presence of the other nations living around them. While Young Russia is running away from and dealing with stronger nations like Mongolia, Sweden, Denmark and the Teutonic knights. Ukraine and Belarus on the other hand are either doing chores and foraging/hunting or even fooling around and making snow boobies.

Even while the other nations are trying to conquer Russia, they aren’t actively trying to attack his sisters even if it might be a tactical advantage for them to try and take over all 3 siblings. They clearly aren’t solely focusing on Russia because we see Lithuania becoming a target too. Even Russia was trying to recruit him to his side because Lithuania(at the time) was stronger than than he was.

When Russia is sulking over being rejected by a hamster, Prussia comes to their home, fully intending to fight him, but once Ukraine tells him to come back some other time he doesn’t get confrontational with her. Of course he gets pouty but he makes no attempt to challenge her in any way shape or form. He just says “oh that sucks” and leaves their home and everyone who lives there alone, all because Ukraine told him very nicely to leave. Had Russia been the one to tell him to leave I have no doubts he’d not only ignore him but he’d rudely barge in and degrade him the entire time.

In modern day they the only people on the planet that make Ivan, a 6’10 global powerhouse, nervous. All throughout their interactions in the anime manga and even in drama CDs, Ivan is doing everything in his power not to upset his sisters and even gets very scared at any indications that their mood is souring. Most of it could be that he’s trying to avoid Natalya’s incestuous advances without angering her, and that is true, but keep in mind the girl essentially yeeted a doorknob off a door because she was upset it was keeping her and her brother apart. Clearly strength is genetic in this family so I fully believe Irunya is capable of wrecking Ivan’s shit and Ivan is fully aware of this fact.

I think Irunya is a bit of a crybaby as a facade. Ivan smiles a lot to look friendly to others, so they both try to manipulate how people view them, Irunya is just better at executing this tactic. She wants to come across as friendly to others and if she has to act like a ditzy farm girl that’s easily brought to tears, she’s fine with that because it gets people to invite her to events, it gets her to make friends. She is the oldest child and had to take care of her siblings for their entire childhood. She’s fought through and survived many hard battles. She’s probably at a point where she just wants to live in peace and will do anything to hold onto that peace. Fighting will be the last thing she does but I feel once she reaches that point, the gauntlets will come off, mercy is no longer an option with her at that point.

Natalya on the other hand very clearly has fighting spirit and skill, but I feel like she holds back a lot so her brother can come across as the stronger, superior fighter. She doesn’t care about making friends but she cares a lot about how her brother feels and how people see him so she’s more than willing to look like a weakling in comparison to him and maybe even take a few punches from him if needed. Ivan may be capable of tearing through metal like it’s paper but Natalya just seems faster, she looks like she could run from across a football stadium, in heels, in under 30 seconds. Ivan may pack a harder punch than his baby sister but he could not punch her both because he loves her and because I just don’t think he’s fast enough to even touch her if he really tied to attack her. As long as she can stay by Ivan’s side she’s relatively peaceful but if Ivan ever flat out tells her to leave him alone, she will stop holding back.

Ivan has known his sisters his whole life so he knows how to navigate around their feelings. That does not save him from being occasionally reminded that they are both capable of ripping his spine out of his body and shoving it down his throat as a warning. The girls allow their brother to carry the title of one of the worlds strongest nations purely because they love him so much, but if they ever become cross with him they have no reservations about reminding him that they’re still capable of kicking his ass and Ivan lives in constant fear of angering his sisters.

As much as he loves his sisters, he knows just how terrifying they can be and strives to be just as strong if not stronger than his family.

#hetalia #Aph Russia #hws Russia #Ivan Braginski #aph Ukraine #hws Ukraine #Irunya Chernenko #aph belarus #hws Belarus #natalya arlovskaya #the Slavic siblings #hetalia russia headcanons #hetalia headcanons #poor Ivan lmao

[localsharkcryptid]

Okay fuck it, that funny wings of fire crossover au I have been working on is finally getting a fucking lore dump more or less. The brainrot worms have me at gunpoint so time to finally do some explaining!

Now with this crossover I have done my damnedest to fit this into the Wings Of Fire world without changing much or intruding too much on cannon, so you may ask, how the fuck am I going to have the war plots, the countries and all that? Simple answer - Magic continent.

Let me explain:

Taking inspiration from HTTYD's dragon island and it's mystery within the first film, land of the lost, Skull Island and things of the like along with a sprinkle of Bermuda Triangle conspiracies, I figured the best way to go about this would be a magic continent isolated from the other two, so this way it still can have certain things that are crucial to a lot of the dsmp plot since this keeps sorta to cannon with some bits like lives and all that. Along with that this ends up giving XD a proper godlike role and adding to Dream's consequential god complex.

-

XD within this au is an animus, having the ability to enchant whatever to do just about whatever, having initially been the first surfacing of a animus amongst the Rainwing tribe. Now the era XD comes from is a bit before Darkstalker, so the Rainwings were actually feared for the most part and well once word gets around about the massacre at the seawing royal family XD is quick to flee for their own sake before the Queen can even learn of their power, though this whole situation also sparks something within them, a curiosity in how dragons react to things though we'll get back to that.

XD ends up on a relatively small island far off the coast of the old Nightwing Kingdom and this is where it begins. Now having been experimenting with their powers here and there, they are confident in their abilities and thus make the choice of "If dragons won't let me into their kingdoms, I'll make my own". So they do just that, taking this tiny island and enchanting it to be something so much more, an isolated bubble of a world, but a project of this magnitude takes quite the toll on one's soul. They have their kingdom but no subjects. What's the fun in that? So starts a series of more enchantments to bring dragons to this land, a few make it yet in the end XD isn't pleased with them, the dragons not living up to the standards of show that they wanted to see. Out of this initial test run of a group that was maybe 15 or so dragons XD took aside several corpses- a Silkwing, a Hivewing, a Icewing, a Sandwing and finally a Rainwing. Now it's known that an animus can't exactly bring dragons back from the dead though who's to say they can't make something entirely new?

Now this little project is what results in Dream, the enchanted abomination of a dragon and even calling him that is a stretch. Effectively to ensure things got somewhat interesting XD decided to make their own player in this inevitable game, this being Dream. But I'll elaborate on him another day.

That aside, effectively the land that all this occurs in is an isolated continent that is technically in it's own little pocket dimension between Pantala and Pyrrhia- the barrier cleverly disguised as a seeming 'reef' of jagged seastacks much like Helheim's Gate from HTTYD. Dragons can go through the barrier but cannot leave it once inside, upon crossing the threshold they change as well- granted with 3 'lives' and if they hold any animus magic it's nulled though preexisting enchantments or enchanted items will remain, along with this firescales are also affected though they simply become very warm to the touch in place of their usual scorching scales.

This entire land has been sculpted and shaped as well as enchanted to be the perfect stage for XD to study what they consider mortals. And oh a show they do get in the end.

-

Now if you're still here it's time for some more general explaining.

·Due to the nature of this land there are background civilians, residents etc for the countries as they develop. There being a high number of refugee leafwings and silkwings along with some hivewings due to the issues of the tree wars on Pantala.

·The Death and Revival books do exist, I'm still working on a loop hole for the Revival book but thus far due to the mass amount of enchantments on the continent and XD effectively making themselves god of it the usual rules of animus magic don't apply to them anymore but they did at the time of Dream's creation.

·The general time period for this crossover is during what would be the start of the Sandwing Succession War, basically it's only like 5 years into the war upon the founding of L'Manberg. Though time works differently on the continent [Imma just start calling it The Isle <not the game>] but Im still working that out. Basically a year only passes if XD says it does and no one's really keeping track whereas time keeps moving outside of it.

·Also due to the nature of this au, the characters will have different names to better fit into the world since everyone but like Dream is from outside the Isle. I'll do the name list at somepoint. Same for the countries... Maybe, the country names will probably stay unless I get ideas for them- only change thus far is that the Greater SMP is called the Greater Isle.

-

Anyways for anyone who made it to the end of this probably hard to read lore dump congrats!! If anyone has questions or maybe just wants some explanations or my plans for certain characters feel free to shoot me an ask, I have sooo many ideas.

#crypts rambles #dsmp #dream smp #alternate universe #crossover #dsmp au #dream smp au #wings of fire #wings of fire au #wof #wof crossover #lore dump #please send me asks on this #I have so much I wanna talk about

[murasakikagekitsune]

My Problem with the DC Movieverse (and How to Solve It): Lack of Robin Continuity

Most of the time, the DC movies like to pretend that Dick is the only Robin. Yes, he may be the premier Robin, but he’s not the one and only Robin by far.

Only in the Dark Knight Returns (Christian Bale as Batman, Tom Hardy as Bane) do we see any glimmer of hope that the fixation with Dick as Robin is fading. Dick’s character in the film is wearing blue by this point, signifying his graduation from the circus freak Robin to his more mature mantle of Nightwing, because Nightwing’s key colours in his costume are blue and black. Moreover, we see the introduction of R’as Aghul, or most importantly, his daughter, Talia, through the introduction of the “Child in the Pit” storyline. This film alone could have easily paved the way for Damien to be introduced, given how this story could have been readily modified in order to apply to him. It could mirror the harsh conditions and trials he had to go through as the grandson of the head of the League of Assassins. In addition, Talia’s grand desire to continue her father’s legacy should have been an Easter egg to Damien’s conception, especially in light of the fact that the main encounter that Bruce has with Talia is sexual in nature. (Even though there are no clues, verbal or otherwise, that Talia is pregnant during the whole entire film.)

Damien aside, I believe Jason’s (and subsequently Tim Drake’s) joined storylines are an opportunity to explore the grim truths of being human that are closely associated with the DC universe. DC fans who have watched Justice League (both the director’s cut and the original version) will have noticed the pointers that lead us to believe that Jason’s death (but not his consequential resurrection via the Lazarus Pit, or Tim Drake’s request to take up the cowl on account of Bruce’s grief) have already passed. It was Joker who graffitied the Robin suit in the display case, as if it is his way of saying “joke’s on you” for Jason’s death. Furthermore, in the Justice League epilogue, the whole thing surrounding “you know what it’s like to lose a son” (notably said by Joker) and “don’t go there” (said by Bruce) is an overt reference to Death in the Family, because it is said by Joker, and nobody else; the perpetrator Jason’s death. Joker is attempting (and evidently succeeds in) pushing Bruce’s buttons. His abrasive reaction to Joker’s words indicates to us that Bruce knows exactly who Joker is talking about.

So now, we have the perfect (and completely cannon) reason for Tim to come into the picture.

 Question is, DC movieverse, when is it going to happen? We’ve been waiting a very long time…

#DC #dceu #dc movieverse #headcanon #fan theory #plot holes #past character death #because it's jay duh #the dark knight returns #justice league #batman #bruce wayne #daiman wayne #robin #jason todd #red hood #tim drake #replacement #you know why #red robin #talia al ghul #ra's al ghul #league of assassins #bane #tom hardy #liam neeson #christian bale #lazarus pit #possible pregnancy #pregnancy

[ruinedsam]

God the way the Finale managed to destroy the most interesting part of the show! Sam and dean's constant inability to get away from each other or the legacy of their family business! The family as horror. That could have been played two way: either overcoming it or subcoming to it. (now which one I prefer depends mostly on my mood and how pissed I currently am at dean) but in general after 15 seasons/years of the brothers fucked up relationship finding a way to actually explore them overcome it is basically impossible. Not just in a meta sense for the audience but also in universe. They cannonically just can not manage. So having Sam in the Finale just move on. Is so disappointing.

You know. I'd make the argument that after season 5, it would have been virtually impossible to come up with any believable narrative that would have them live happily separately from each other. Dean let Sam make his own decisions even if it would separate them forever and moved on from his brother and the life TM with someone else. And still they end up back together. After that it's so difficult to buy them ever seperating

Pretty sure this is a reference to this post.

Tbh for me the finale worked because I too want to have the cake and eat it too. On the one side Sam and Dean are so enmeshed, I couldn't imagine them ending up apart, but on the other side it's just really satisfying to see Sam breaking the cycle of intergenerational violence (I agree that you could argue the cycle is not really broken with the naming of Dean junior and his tattoo, but that is not how I chose to read it), and the finale played both into the codependency and final girl Sam. I liked the bittersweetness of Sam's ending, that he has the strength to go on and finds it in him to sincerely love someone else without his baggage ruining that relationship (unlike John), but that the grief stays with him as long as he lives, that a part of him died with Dean.

I agree with you that after s5 it wouldn't be believeable for Sam and Dean to end up apart (also very boring storytelling), but I didn't interpret the finale as them overcoming their codependency in any way. The way I see it, Sam didn't "just" move on, the codependency was never overcome, Sam's life was just a temporary separation before they spend eternity together.

And sure, it might not be the most narratively consequential ending, they played it very safe, but for me it worked very well because I can never lose :D If I have samdean feels, I can go Sam living without Dean is the real tragedy & they spend their afterlives in intimate togetherness, but if I have bittersamgirl feels I can go Sam had something independent from Dean.

That said, I really get where you are coming from and obviously I would have been very happy if they had gone the family horror route. I do maintain that the perfect ending would have been Dean jumping into the cage after Sam in Swang Song - it's so delicious how their love saved the world but doomed them to suffer for eternity in this scenario 😌 But I would argue that any kind of horror ending was never going to happen with Dabb, who tried to downplay the family horror despite the fact that the family dynamics in his era were probably the most fucked up.

#sorry anon gotta disagree with you here but peace and love i get you <3 #ask #spn finale #spn discussion

[smokeonshadows]

We need to talk about the Bobbseys

Strap in, kids. This is going to be...a lot.

To put it bluntly, the way the Bobbseys were handled was messy, unnecessary, and probably the worst thing about an otherwise great season.

It's really disappointing because the Nancy Drew writers have already proven themselves to be not only good writers, but also socially conscious writers. They actively and publicly aim to be inclusive in their storytelling, so I think it's fair to hold them to that standard.

There was a lot of potential in the Bobbseys–they're a morally ambiguous brother-sister team of codependent twins from a rough/tragic past who sometimes lie, cheat, and steal in order to make ends meet. This is interesting, this is full of possibilities as to how they could fit in with the Drew Crew, and, most of all, this was a great opportunity to have complex representation of the south asian community that subverts popular stereotypes (model minority, traditional upbringing, perpetual foreigner, etc.). Amanda and Gil would've been great characters in their own rights...but instead they were used as nothing more than cannon fodder for an unnecessary, half-baked love square with low key racist undertones.

Problematic elements

I've already talked about the racist undertones in previous posts, but in a nutshell, Gil is portrayed as being controlling/aggressive/domineering (particularly towards Nancy and Amanda) and it's a stereotype that south asian men (and I'd say black and brown men in general) are misogynistic, aggressive, and otherwise abusive towards women. This portrayal is made even worse because he's meant to be a foil for Ace, a soft/gentle/sensitive/emotionally stable white guy who Nancy is obviously meant to be with. And for Amanda, she's also portrayed in line with the stereotype of asian women being very submissive (particularly to their male counterparts). I don't think any of this was intentional, but it's just not a good look.

This problem could've at least been somewhat alleviated if Gil and Amanda had been written as fully fleshed out characters who were going on their own journeys and were consequential to the story, but that didn't happen.

Stereotypes aside, another problematic aspect of the Bobbseys is that they both fall into the unfortunately common trope of being the character of color that the white character has a superficial relationship with and leads white character to realizing that they should actually be with this other white character who's been there all along.

Even when they have roles in the episode apart from being superficial love interests, oftentimes they don't do much aside from being useful for getting the Crew from point A to point B of a mystery.

Underdeveloped relationships

Was I the only one who found the resolution of the Nancy x Gil relationship in the season finale to be a bit abrupt?

While I appreciate that they showed how seemingly small transgressions within relationships can actually be red flags and that a situation doesn't need to escalate to full-on physical abuse in order to count as domestic violence, I found that the moment when Nancy has this realization and then breaks up with Gil lacked the emotional weight befitting that situation. I think this was the case because Nancy and Gil barely had a relationship. There was attraction and sexual tension, they hooked up a few times, but it was never shown to be a real relationship. It's not just that we didn't often see them together, but with or without him, Nancy didn't think much about Gil or what he thought of her and, more importantly wrt the breakup, we aren't shown all the ways that his treatment of her affected her sense of self or the way she operated. Nancy's relationship with Gil was inconsequential, so the stakes were low.

And yes, casual hookup situations can also turn abusive, but from a narrative standpoint, the way this particular situation was portrayed, it was given both more and less weight than it should've been given. It felt like the writers wanted the breakup to be big and impactful but they not only didn't work for that payoff, they also wanted to resolve it quickly so they could move onto more important plot points (the breakup was at the beginning episode and Nancy never mentions it or even hints at any emotional fallout from it ever again).

(Amanda was done dirty)

Actually, if anything, the big dramatic breakup should've been between Amanda and Gil. Even with her severely limited screentime, almost every time we do see Amanda, we are reminded of how close she is with Gil, how badly he treats her, how much she values his opinion, and how smothered she feels by him. And it sucks that we never actually get to see Amanda make the realization, stand up for herself, and confront Gil. All we see is Ace encouraging her to break away and then cut to her living her best life post-sibling breakup.

In the end, it's as if Amanda's pain and suffering was made to be less about her and more about Nancy/being evidence that Gil is not good for Nancy. Again, not a good look.

And Amanda and Ace's relationship is also underdeveloped compared to the impact that the writers seem to want it to have. Like, I don't understand why Ace would give her a pseudo-ultimatum ("I'll prioritize you if you prioritize me") at this stage of their relationship. Yes, they do seem to be more of a relationship than Nancy x Gil, but it always felt like they were very much in the budding romance stage. While he does talk about her when they're apart, we still rarely saw them interact with each other outside of the context of Ace needing to use Amanda's connection at the hotel or to her father or brother in order to help solve the mystery. And we don't learn more about or see a different side either character through their relationship with each other.

Poorly executed, unnecessary love triangles

The whole point of having a love triangle is to raise the emotional stakes.

It's always been my belief that if you're going to have a love triangle, you need to commit to it. That means making both legs of the triangle equally viable, developing both romantic options and both relationships equally.

As noted in the sections above, this was not the case with either love triangle, which makes the whole thing feel cheap and unsatisfying. Like I said in a previous post, I think it would've been more powerful if Nancy had two really great options, but in the end chose Ace because that’s what her heart really wants no matter how great the other guy is.

Anyone with a healthy understanding of love and relationships would choose Ace over Gil. It's no contest, no real choice, so it adds nothing to the conversation, it says nothing about Nancy or her feelings for Ace. It's inconsequential, the emotional stakes are practically nonexistent.

Literally, I feel like if you took the Bobbsey love triangles out of this season, Ace and Nancy would still end up in pretty much the same place wrt their feelings for each other. I mean, yes, the whole jealousy/green eyed epiphany thing did play a role, but the relationships with the Bobbseys featured so little and were so underdeveloped that it would be more or less the same as one of them flirting with a background character every once in a while.

And Nace still didn't end up together after all that! It's hinted that for some reason, Ace will be stringing Amanda along next season while he pines for Nancy. Which is exhausting.

This is really what we sacrificed two perfectly interesting characters of color for. I'm upset.

#nancy drew cw #gil bobbsey #amanda bobbsey

[hilltopsunset]

4 Ways to Breathe New Life into the Pokémon Franchise

I love the Pokémon franchise. It’s because I love it that I truly want new installments of the game to feel meaningful, to make an impact, and to provide players with something new, different, and worth coming back for without relying on complexities that could turn away new players.

As I will talk about in a later blog post, Game Freak seems afraid to stretch Pokémon’s creative muscles any further; meaningful innovation has been petering out since the end of Generation IV in lieu of minigames like Pokémon Contests and Super Training alongside inconsequential time sinks like Secret Bases and Poké Pelago. While I do enjoy the inclusion of things to do outside the main storyline, these additional events and sidequests should not be the only significant additions to new generations of main-series Pokémon games.

The main attractions of recent generations have provided slight twists to gameplay with the addition of mega evolution and Z-moves, but these changes don’t fundamentally change or challenge the way players experience the game on a moment-to-moment basis. And despite the graphical and processing power of recent gaming devices, and even the long-awaited shift of the franchise to a main console, we are still getting the same low-effort and outdated battle animations we’ve been seeing since X and Y. We are continually denied a more genuine battle experience with Pokémon physically interacting with each other through animations that more appropriately suit each Pokémon’s unique identity.

So what can be done? Here’s a short but detailed list of 4 things I would like to see in a new Pokémon game, in no particular order of importance.

1.       Let the Player Character Be an Active Part of the Story

When has the player character ever been a consequential part of a Pokémon game? They never speak; they never have any personality whatsoever. They never experience any growth, regardless of NPC’s trying desperately to iterate how much the trainer has grown over the course of their journey. Certainly the Pokémon carried by the player character have some impact on the story, but the trainer?

Let them speak! Let the player character actually interact with NPCs in meaningful ways rather than just listening at all times. Give the trainer a personality of some sort. Don’t just slap a never-changing pleasant face onto the model regardless of tense, frightening, or sinister scenarios (I’m looking at you, Sun and Moon). 

Giving the player character a more active role in the story provides intrigue—as a player, it doesn’t feel compelling being pulled from one place to another; it’s not interesting when the only thing pushing me forward is NPCs telling me I need to get the gym badges, or stop Team Rocket. It would be much more interesting if the Player Character had some imperative reason to pursue these endeavors, rather than get involved simply because “it’s the right thing to do” or, worse, “it’s the ONLY thing to do.” I want to watch the character I’m controlling grow as a person and make choices that have positive or negative consequences on people they care about and the places they visit, rather than be a perpetual observer of events with no real stake in the game.

2.       Trainer Levels

Speaking of the player character, create a leveling system for them. There are so many possibilities for a system where the trainer more actively impacts gameplay. For instance, there could be a class system and each class can have unique skill trees that provide access to passive and/or active abilities that improve how the trainer interacts with the world throughout the game. It could be required to choose your path at the beginning of the game, or perhaps you can access them all throughout the game, but can only have one active at a time.

Here’s a list of example possibilities:

Explorer: The explorer class specializes in travel, as well as tracking and catching new Pokémon—this tree can be subdivided into those paths: Travel, Tracking, and Catching. This tree provides skills that assist them in accessing otherwise inaccessible locations, increasing encounter rates with rare Pokémon, and specializing in different types of Poké balls to improve catch chances. Experience for this class is gained through catching Pokémon, encountering rare Pokémon, and exploring (walking in new places, finding treasure, accessing hidden areas, etc.).

Combatant: The combatant class excels at offensive battle prowess through its three branches: Type Affinity, Commands, and Reputation. This tree allows a trainer to specialize in certain Pokémon types (up to 2) to improve their STAB damage. Eventually, you can get a skill that provides STAB for your specialized types even for Pokémon not of those types! You gain access to in-battle shout commands that provide momentary buffs to your party, like improving damage, resisting a big attack, or improving critical hit ratio. A strong reputation will allow you to avoid battle even with trainers who have caught your eye; and in battle, an enemy Pokémon may flinch due to your intimidating presence. Experience is gained by knocking out Pokémon, winning battles, using moves of your type specialization, and issuing commands.

Breeder: The breeder focuses on developing deep relationships with their Pokémon. Skills of this class can be divided into the Breeding, Bonding, and Healing branches. Through this tree, trainers can hatch eggs more quickly, improve high IV chance from newborn Pokémon, develop friendship levels more quickly, etc. Bonding provides Pokémon with beneficial defensive capabilities during battle, like providing a chance to survive an attack that would otherwise bring HP to 0, and having a strong will to resist abnormal status effects like paralysis and confusion. A Breeder’s knowledge of caretaking allows for healing outside of battle, and can even teach Pokémon how to slowly recover in-battle. Experience is gained through hatching eggs, developing friendships with your Pokémon (through feeding/petting, etc.), participating in Contests/minigames, and having Pokémon in your party with whom you have developed a close relationship.

The establishment of a class system like this, where experience is gained through different means relevant to each class, incentivizes players to participate in those aspects of the game, and provides extra rewards for players who already want to get involved. It makes the trainer feel like a relevant and impactful part of the team, rather than a hollow vehicle strictly used to lug the real heroes—your team of Pokémon—from battle to battle.

And for those who think the inclusion of such a mechanic would trivialize the content, I have several suggestions: first, they could easily make the game content more difficult to compensate. Second, they could mitigate the strength of these class skills during key battles like Gym Leaders, the Elite Four, the Enemy Team (Rocket, Galaxy, etc.). Third, NPCs (especially the aforementioned key NPCs) could have access to these skills as well. Remember, I’m asking for significant changes, and this would provide something new, interesting, and impactful.

 3.       Battle Animations

Update them. It’s that simple. Let Blastoise shoot water out of his water cannons rather than out of his face. Let Scorbunny run up to its opponent and give it a nice kick! Get rid of the old, outdated animations of a drawn foot—we now have well-rendered 3D monsters on gaming systems capable of handling the graphical processing necessary for this to happen. Give each Pokémon a more unique identity with their animations; make them feel like they’re actually in a battle with one another. It’s time.

I acknowledge that providing significant animation updates for the 800+ models is an enormous undertaking that would require a massive amount of time and manpower to make possible. To this I say: spend the time doing that rather than developing Dynamax or whatever. Spend the time on more significant animation development instead of wasting that time on another gimmick that isn’t going to significantly impact gameplay anyway.

To be honest, this point alone would be enough to convince me to buy a new Pokémon game.

 4.       Populate the World with Pokémon

I know that the Let’s Go series and Sword/Shield did this a little bit, and while it certainly wasn’t executed perfectly, it was fun running around and actually seeing all the Pokémon that inhabit it. Spawn rates in both games were often a bit too high, resulting in cluttered areas. Adding aggressive Pokémon would further enhance the immersive experience—being required to sneak around certain stronger Pokémon could be a really fun mechanic and provide tension; it was a bit too easy to avoid Pokémon in Let’s Go and in the Wild Area. While it was nice to get through Mt. Moon without encountering a single Zubat, imagine instead running through a section of the cave with a trail of 15 Zubats on your tail? Make me work for it a little!

Ultimately, I want to see Pokémon behaving more naturally in their habitats, and not just in sections of the world that I can’t get to. I want to run into a Caterpie hanging from a tree, or a Fearow fishing for Goldeen, or a Pikachu grooming itself. I want to interrupt Pokémon from their lives, not run into a giant gaggle of automatons circling tiny areas for no reason.

So there it is: a look at just a few things Pokémon games could include to make things more interesting and breathe new life into an aging franchise. These changes would require work, but any new game should—I would hate to see Pokémon continue the troubling trend of easy and/or insignificant content when there is so much potential to do so much with what they have.

With all that said, I do want to offer a bit of praise—Sirfetch’d and Galarian Ponyta are pretty awesome, and Galarian Weezing is perfectly ridiculous. But I ask that you keep in mind what your money is telling Game Freak when you purchase their games: it tells them that you don’t mind the severe lack of innovation and improvement. It tells them you don’t mind Scorbunny hopping in place as a giant, orange, human foot strikes its opponent. It tells them that you’re willing to fund their copy/paste animations from 6 years ago, their uninspired gameplay updates, and their ever-increasing focus on gimmicks and minigames.

As for me, I will continue holding Pokémon to a higher standard and hoping that, eventually, Blastoise will fire water from his cannons.  

#pokemon #game review #game freak #hilltop sunset #suggestions

[ilguna]

Belamour - Chapter Twelve (f.o)

summary: they say the odds tend to favor those who need them. well, they were wrong.

warnings; swearing, mention of murder and gore

wc; 9.3k

NOTES: i give reader a last name to fit the world. –

After it all, after everything that you’ve been through, you thought silence would be the most comforting thing that the Capitol would have to offer. You looked forward to it, to get away from the sound of birds and other animals in trees, the sound of the waterfall, another person’s presence.

But now that you’re sitting here, by yourself, all alone, in a white room that offers nothing but silence, you’re taking it back. You need the background noise, because it’s the reason that your thoughts had been kept at bay for so long. Always focusing on something, took away the loud voices of paranoia.

In this white room, is nothing but the bed you sit on. There are no doors, there are no windows, there is no one, but you. And it’s the eeriest thing you’ve experienced in a very long time. You hate it a lot more than you thought it would. You didn’t mind the silence with the others, because at least you had their presence.

You miss Finnick.

For a while, you wait in this room, staring at the adjacent wall, looking forward to anyone coming through and greeting you. To give you the next step in the process. You lived through the Hunger Games, you made it out alive with Finnick. What happens next?

You get to see him, you’re sure of it. But when? You have so many questions to ask him specifically. You only remember so much, and it stops after a certain point in time. You remember Lennox chasing you up the cliff, you struggling to breathe at the top when you and him were at a standoff. You remember the second to last cannon sounding before he jumped at you.

The tumbling, the rolling, the panic settling into your body. The will to live, the shot of adrenaline, knowing that if Lennox didn’t get off of you, you were going to die. You were weak, small, and sick. He could have punched you, and that would have been it for you. He leaned forward, locking your hands above your head, sitting on your hips. He was prepared to kill you.

But the panic became useful, you thrusted him off, towards the cliff. He scrambled to grab onto anything around him, looking for just one small part of the ledge to hold onto. And in that scramble, he found your left wrist, still tightly held onto. Eventually, it would slip down to your hand.

Below him, high and beautiful dark blue waves, large black spikes sticking out of the water. If you could get him to let go, he would die by any of the three things: the height, the spikes, or the lack of the ability to swim. Your thought process was sped up when you started to slide off the cliffside, too.

You grabbed your knife, and then stabbed through his hand, and through yours too. You can still feel the sharp pain, but it wasn’t even comparable to the other pains in your body. You and Lennox let go, him taking the knife with him. He fell, and you rolled onto your back, still halfway over the ledge.

And this is when it gets blurry. You remember holding onto the pain in your hand, trying to keep yourself awake. You were waiting for something, and it wasn’t the loud trampling sound in the woods. Thinking back on it now, it was Finnick, coming to your rescue before you ended up in the dark blue waves, too.

Then, it happened. The loud and clear sound of the cannon, that’s what you were waiting for. You vaguely remember hearing your name, and then passing out. You don’t remember anything else past that point, not even the head gamemaker announcing your win. You missed it. But your family didn’t.

You want to see them all. You want to see your brothers now. For them to hold you in their arms and tell you that everything is okay now. And they’ll never let you go, not until you ask them to, because you don’t know when that will be. All you know is that you can’t stand it in here anymore. You can’t stand the Capitol. You want to go home.

And overall, you want to see your best friend, Finnick.

You can’t stand sitting here anymore. You have to move.

Beneath the sheets, you’re naked, but the cotton blanket manages to feel soft and soothing against your skin, instead of rough and scratchy like the blankets they have in District Four. When you look down at the floor, you catch a glimpse of your skin, and stop your idea of getting up.

It’s clean. There is no giant bruise on your upper ribs on the left side. When you run your fingers over it, you can feel every single rib on the way down, consequential of the weight loss during the games. Further down, your stomach is healed perfectly, with no scars left behind. Without even thinking about it, you reach for your nose, next.

Inside of the arena, even if you didn’t complain about it much, your broken and crooked nose was throwing you off too much. Made it hard to think, not to mention how tender it was. But running your fingers along it now, it’s smooth, and straight, and unbroken. It brings no pain when you move it to each side.

Your hands are the last thing on the list, as you hold your arms straight out, staring at the back of your hands. On your left, there is no evidence that a knife had ever pierced through your hand. Beneath your nails is cleaned, no more permanent dirt spots, no more remnants of the nail polish from the interview. They’re clean, and perfectly rounded.

Flipping your palms towards you, the scars from the scorching campfire is nowhere to be seen, too. And neither are the tiny scars that had belonged to the tips of your fingers. They had been there for years, from all the times you’d accidentally pricked your finger with a needle or hurt yourself with a fishing hook on the boats. Furthermore, there are no blemishes on your skin. 

You’re in perfect condition, your body is almost like it had been before going into the Hunger Games, minus the weight loss. When you go to get to your feet, you’re prepared to crumple into a useless heap on the floor, but find that your legs are strong, and it’s nice to give them a stretch. 

You bring your arms above your head, because it’s nice to do without a stabbing pain in your body anymore. You stretch backwards, hearing all sorts of popping sounds, and when you’re done, a slight burning in the areas you haven’t moved since you got hurt. It feels good to be able to use your body again. 

You can’t imagine how long it took to get you back to this condition. There’s always a gap between the last day of the games, and when the tributes are revealed to the country yet again. It’s so the doctors inside of the Capitol can do the exact thing that they did to you; heal you up and make you look human again.

You breathe out a laugh, and then catch yourself, anticipating the pain in your side. When there is none, you laugh a little harder, you’re back, at least for now. As you move towards the end of the bed, you catch sight of something familiar, and daunting. You flinch, raising your arms like the clothes will hurt you themselves. When in reality, they’re nothing but a memory of what happened.

It’s the clothes from the games. The black undergarments, the black jeans, shoes, the navy blue shirt, and the thin, white jacket. You want to retreat back beneath the blanket and hide beneath the covers, away from the clothes. But the only reason why you don’t, is because you want to see Finnick.

You pull on the underwear and sports bra, then the pants and the shirt. You put on the socks and the shoes, and contemplate whether or not to bring the jacket. You pull it on anyway, once you realize that since you lost so much body weight, it’s going to be harder to stay warm. You don’t zip it up above the belly button.

Now, you stand and stare at the wall, hoping that there is a door, after all, and you’re not just a lab rat. When you move to grab your ring, you find the space empty. You have to hold out your hand to double-check and see, and sure as hell, it’s not there. They must have taken it off. 

You can’t imagine how much of a struggle that must have been. Inside the arena, you couldn’t take it off, even if you really wanted to. Your fingers had swollen around the metal, and no matter how hard you tugged, it wasn’t budging. Eventually, you just settled for twisting it around your finger to ease the itch and have something to do when things got slow.

Now that it’s gone, you just rub the spot where it used to be. Your skin is silky smooth, did you mention that?

You’re about to go and sit on the bed, not wanting to stand in front of the wall like an idiot any longer, when the wall breaks, and the door slides open. It reveals a slightly dark hallway. When you move out, you’re expecting something, anything, someone? But find no one, not even another door along the walls. The hallway is empty.

You stand for a moment, dumbfounded and wondering where to go next. To your left is a dead end, it looks like. So, you turn and head to the right, wrapping your arms around yourself like a hug, even though you’re not cold. All you want to see is Finnick, where is he?

You take a left turn, and find that the hallways aren’t as empty as you thought they were. Standing in the middle of this one, is a familiar head of black hair, next to him is a tall woman with sleek and shiny dark brown hair, and next to her, is a not-as-tall woman, wearing a seafoam green outfit.

Just as you open your mouth to catch their attention, Anchor is quieting down, eyes locking onto you. Laurel and Elysia notice, looking over their shoulders, and eventually opening up to offer you a spot in their group. Your walk starts slow, like you couldn’t care, but the more you walk, tears gather in your eyes, and you give it up.

You run straight into Anchor’s arms, and he hugs you tightly, letting out a laugh. The tears are streaming out of the corner of your eyes at a steady pace, and you have no doubt that it’s out of joy. It feels good to be in someone else’s presence, to be around the people that know you the best. To know that you’re safe once again.

“Welcome back.” Anchor says, letting you go. 

Laurel doesn’t hug as tightly, but she doesn’t push you off of her, either. Motherly, she’s rubbing your back. You hesitate with Elysia, because she doesn’t look the type for physical affection, but she opens her arms for one final hug, and you grip onto her tightly. You know that you two will be around each other for a long, long time now.

“How do you feel?” Anchor asks.

“Fine, where’s Finnick?” you ask, Pleurisy isn’t here, and neither is Mags, which means that they’re somewhere else, with Finnick, you think.

“You’ll see him soon.” Laurel soothes, “They want your reunion to be live, you just have to wait until then.

You nod, but you don’t like it. You want to see him now, to hug onto him and thank him for everything that he did. He might not think it, but he saved you. He’s the reason why you get to see your brothers and sister again. 

“We should get going.” Laurel says, nodding towards Anchor and Elysia, “We’ll see you two, later.”

Laurel brings your elbow into hers, and keeps a hand on your upper arm the entire way to the elevator. She doesn’t fill the silence, you listen to the click of her shoes against the cement flooring. Her hand on your arm is a constant reminder that she’s here, and you’re not alone.

The elevator leads you up and into the lobby of the Training Center. You grit your teeth and try not to let the thought of it all overwhelm you. The windows that used to let so much sunlight in, are now blacked out to prevent anyone from looking inside. There’s a few peacekeepers here and there, and they seem to barely acknowledge your presence.

Laurel brings you into the elevator, presses the button to the fourth floor, and the doors shut. There’s a quiet hum to the elevator, something that you never noticed before. But with the deafening silence between you two, you have no choice to listen to it. When the doors open, you’re immediately greeted with the prep team.

They’re loud, and excited to see you. You mostly tune them out, but listen in here and then. They don’t say a single word about what had happened in the games, you’re not sure how they manage to find topics, when that seemed to be the main focus before the games. You wonder if Anchor or Mags tipped them off and gave them specific instructions not to say anything.

Nevertheless, you’re brought over to the dining room, where you’re allowed to eat. The moment that the rich, delicious food is set in front of you, your mouth waters. You remember what happened on the first day inside of the train, and eat slowly and carefully. Conversation is light, and you count everything you’re given, and compare it.

One serving of lamb stew, plums and rice, a handful of vegetables, and two buttered rolls is all that you’re allowed. You’re free to have as much water as you like, but as far as food goes, you can’t get anything else. This is almost nothing compared to what you had been eating during your week here, pre-games.

Three--maybe four--servings of stew, too many bread rolls, vegetable plate after vegetable plate, and so much water that you had to cut back before you dry-drowned yourself. As for Finnick, it was nearly twice this, maybe more. You’re sure that soon you’ll be able to start eating like that again, but for now, you’re required to keep yourself from being sick.

After eating, you’re brought to your room, which is when Laurel breaks off. You realize on your way to the bathroom, that there’s a mirror, and you’ll be seeing yourself. So, the moment that you four get inside, you close your eyes and get every last bit of clothing before bothering to open them again.

Once again, you’re naked in front of the mirror. This time, you’re able to see just how bad you look. Beth stands off to the side, a crease between her eyebrows as she stares you over. As for Cleo, she runs a finger along each one of your ribs, “Wow, no scars! That’s fantastic.” 

“No, there’s one.” Beth says, pointing straight at your back, they all have to take a step backward to get the full picture, and they all awe at it.

“Want to see?” Leo asks, and you nod.

They turn your back to the mirror, and hand you a smaller, handheld one. They angle it for you, and it takes a moment before you can see it. And right there, square on your back, are the three claw marks that the bear had made. Long, and deep. Like a ripple in the water.

“Not a full body polish.” Cleo says, “It still looks good.”

“I bet Anchor kept it for you.” Leo says, and you do too.

They might have erased every other little scar on your body, but he left the bigger one, the most important one. Your first ever injury inside of the games, and coincidentally, the one that seems to have left less of a toll. Most victor’s have their symbolic body alteration, like Enobaria with her sharpened teeth. You have something authentic, almost secretive unless you show it off.

When you’re all done aweing, you’re moved right into the shower. They press the buttons and turn knobs for the showing settings for you, washing you down one last time, and doing your hair again. When you step out, it’s when their job really does start. You get a chair to sit in, as the others find their spots to get things done.

Beth does your hair, drying it, straightening it, styling it, then curling it. Cleo sits on the floor with her legs criss-cross, doing your nails, as Leo does your makeup. And it seems like their manner of avoiding the topic of the games has subsided, because it’s all they can talk about. Where they were when what happened inside of the arena.

You don’t listen, just occasionally hum and respond when it’s really needed. You like them, a lot. But you wish they knew better than to pick that topic immediately when they had the chance.

Before you know it, it’s over and Laurel is coming in with your dress. It doesn’t require a bra, since the inside is padded anyway. The dress is a baby blue color, with no sleeves on the top half. It shows off your collarbones, and an inch or so down, the top is secured tight enough to keep it in place. It doesn’t show off any breasts.

It’s tight around the back, and it’s a little difficult to breathe in at first, but you get a hang of it. It has a white pattern on either side of the top, as for the bottom, it’s not very poofy.Enough to give it volume, but that’s it. The fabric is soft, it ends above your knees, and when you spin, it extends all over, like a perfect circle.

Cleo helps you put on white half-socks for the white flats that have a white lace pattern along the sides. Cleo has the job of placing every little accessory that Laurel wants, onto your body. Like a clear anklet around your right ankle, a silver band around your wrist, earrings that dangle because your hair won’t be getting caught in your earrings, and finally, a necklace.

Beth’s allowed a few stands of free hair in the front, curled at the ends. She made it so half of your hair is up and out of your face, and the rest is laid out and pretty. While they circle around you, you reach for the ring, but realize that it’s still gone, and settle for rubbing the spot.

Laurel seems to remember in that moment, and presents the ring, now polished and free of scratches again. You thank her, and slide the token back into place on your right ring finger. You’re brought in front of the mirror, for the final look before you’re led away. 

Your makeup is simple, all that’s different is little stars that Leo added to the corners of your eyes. They’re glued into place, no matter how many times you smile, they don’t fall off. Your nails are covered in the same blue color that you’re wearing. You think that this is a look that Reed would approve of. Not too showy, but not too conservative, either. You look your age.

You’re brought back to the elevator, down to the area of the gymnasium underground. You know what’s happening now, you’ve known the entire time of course, but it’s more prominent. Soon, you’ll be back on stage for the recap of the Sixty-Fifth Hunger Games, where you’ll relive every little moment.

You watch as Laurel and the prep team bid you a temporary farewell and disappear to go get ready, themselves. They’ll be on stage with you, since it’s customary that the mentors, escort, stylist and prep teams be introduced to the audience, too. Normally, it’s only one victor that’s being presented, but this year, it’s two.

You’ll rise from the metal plate in front of you, up and onto the stage. First will be the prep teams, so Beth, Leo, Cleo and whoever tends to Finnick. Then, it’ll be Elysia, since she’s the escort, then Laurel and Pleurisy, next is both Mags and Anchor. And then finally, you and Finnick, both at the same time.

It smells clean under here, and while you adjust and readjust the creases of the dress, you spot a wall a few feet away, and automatically know that Finnick will be over there. He’s probably waiting awkwardly for this to be over, and anticipating the moment that the two of you be reunited.

You know you are.

As you play with the ring, you can hear the roaring of the crowd, Caesar is getting them ready. You flatten out your dress, and turn when you hear your name called. It’s Anchor, wearing a black suit like he’s going to a funeral. He gives you a wide smile, and directs you onto your metal circle.

“Super easy stuff, it’ll all come naturally.” he says, “I’ll see you in a minute.”

He leaves into the darkness, and you’re left by yourself, once again. You press your lips together at first, glad that the gloss Leo had applied earlier seems to have dried. You place your arms behind your back, closing your eyes when the anthem starts. Now, it’s up to your imagination.

Caesar greets the audience, like he does every single time. Only, this is exciting. Two victors are going home to Four, and there hasn’t been two victors in at least twenty years. You twist your ring, round and round. You can hear him introduce each and every one of the prep team members, starting with ladies first. The audience is loud, cheering and clapping.

You’ve seen this part, plenty of times. They bow, curtsy and wave, excited to have their own moment of spotlight. Next is Elysia, you can see her too. In big heels, walking smoothly across the stage with a wave, a bright smile on her face. Then it’s Laurel and Pleurisy, there’s louder cheering. Their outfits have been amazing so far, and who knows what they have in store for the future? Your whole Victory Tour in the winter will be featuring their cool outfits. And lastly, your mentors. Anchor and Mags get the loudest cheering so far, but you know it will be outdone as soon as you’re on stage.

It lasts a while, one minute after another. They’re bringing two tributes home, both young. One of them has broken the record for youngest victor, the other is deceitful, smart and cunning. Both of you will be cherished for a long time after this, and it will take a lot to top you two.

You can feel the rumbling beneath your feet, the metal plate is finally moving. You fix the ring to make it look right, and place your hands in front of you, your right hand on top of the other. You raise your chin a little, and you’re conflicted between a straight face and a smile, but settle on the latter because the dress you’re wearing is nowhere near threatening.

At the very last moment, anxiety sprouts like an annoying flower in your stomach and blossoms in your chest. It’s too late to bite it back, because the lights are blinding your face, and forget deafening silence, because the audience is outdoing themselves now. Clapping, cheering, screaming, whistling, stomping, everything they could possibly do to greet you.

You wait for the metal plate to stop moving before you dare to move yourself. Your legs seem to solidify, and you’re looking over to your right, where Finnick stands. His dark hair is curled like it dried naturally, he’s wearing white slacks with a matching blue button down. He’s got the sleeves pushed up to his elbows.

He’s got the cheeky smile on his face for a moment, hands stuffed into his pockets. You find yourself moving before you can stop, arms outstretched wide and waiting for him. He closes the distance, and pulls you in tightly, arms wrapped around the middle of your back. You place your head on his shoulder, keeping him tight against your body.

You think he’s saying something, but you can’t hear. When you pull back for a moment to look at his face, to take it in while you’re not half-unconscious, he swoops in and kisses you. The cheering somehow manages to get louder, and Finnick smiles halfway through the kiss. After that, it’s right back to hugging, the two of you refusing to let go until you have to.

Caesar wants to continue the show, and neither of you have complaints. It’s only going to be the three of you on stage, so everyone else that’s helped you along the way, has to find their seats in the audience. Finnick takes your hand, sits first and opens his arm wide for you. You take a seat right next to him, letting his arm rest around your shoulders.

He smells nice, like the expensive cologne that Caesar had worn during your interview, but this one is much sweeter. It makes leaning into him all the more bearable, and you don’t dare move an inch away. You can see your brother’s faces already, screwed up and maybe slightly upset.

Or maybe not, because Finnick saved your life. They owe him a little, for bringing their younger sister home.

Caesar manages to settle down the audience before carefully guiding everyone into the mindset of watching the recap. The recap of your games is mainly made up of highlights, that’s going to last exactly three hours. The person who puts it all together has to choose clips from several weeks--in your case, twenty days worth--and most of the time, make a story out of it.

You’re not sure what it is at first, because you don’t think friendship is right. Until it comes through as a ‘hidden alliance’ sort of thing. The first thirty minutes of the three hour recap, is spent on events that had happened before the games. Starting with the reaping, and then the tribute parade through the Capitol, the training scores, and finally, the interviews. It’s a recap of all the tributes, but it focuses on you and Finnick mainly. Which means that you’re able to see how the friendliness between you two slowly dies out and becomes nothing.

Needless to say, it’s obvious that something had happened between the two of you.

The bloodbath is covered in detail, which is the part where you get the most sick watching. This is the first time that Finnick is truly able to watch you in battle, actually killing. He heard you tell the story, but never got to see it himself. You press your lips together and stare, not liking the way that it makes you look.

You’re not a killing machine, you just did what you had to, to survive.

The first two deaths are the District Ten tributes, the boy being from Lennox, and the girl being because of you. The Nine girl gets unlucky with another tribute, Cass gets her neck snapped by Trink. Lennox kills Amos, the boy from Nine gets unlucky with another tribute. And just like that, it’s over for District Nine.

Verda gets unlucky, Five boy is cornered by you, Trink and Lennox, but Trink ends up killing him. And the very final kill of that bloodbath is Horace, which is the one that’s most focused on, in the end. You lunging at his leg like a rabid dog, slicing it open, and then bringing your sword down against his head.

Eytelle dies that next morning because of you and the bear mutts working together. This is when Finnick is able to watch you get hurt for the very first time, and watching you get healed by your allies. The boy from Twelve is killed later on that afternoon. The next day, Finnick is sponsored with his trident, and Thyme agrees to be a distraction. Together, they kill the girl from Twelve, another district down.

Finnick is on top of it with most of the kills. Him and Thyme worked harder than you did. You almost don’t seem to compare. They draw in the tributes, net them with rope that they were sponsored, and kill them that way. The water wasn’t as clean as you thought. He takes out the District Six girl on the fifth day, and Sydney and Thyme on the eighth. 

Things seem to slow, but they’re focusing on you and Blaire a lot more, since Thyme died. They play your entire conversation with Blaire on how you plan to kill Allio to keep the alliance going, and his advice on how to do it. On day eleven, you wake up in the middle of the night and kill Allio, and the audience even now seems captivated by your performance.

Finnick squeezes your shoulders, and you seem to realize that he’s about to watch the shit get beaten out of you, and maybe Blaire. They play those scenes in full, too. Blaire swoops in, saving you, but you’re still wounded. The screen splits into two at first, showing you fleeing and Blaire trying to keep both Trink and Lennox off of him. But as soon as you make it near the waterfall, it splits into three to show what Finnick was doing, too.

Finnick saves you, Blaire dies, and since the two of you are together, it’s much easier to keep track of you two. The sponsor gifts come through, Finnick does his best with keeping you alive. Mac dies on the fourteenth day because he fell out of a tall tree. Finnick carries on with his trap and kill plan with Nestor, the boy from Eight, even though you’re just behind the waterfall.

You wake up on the seventeenth day, and it shows that Trink kills the girl from Five, leaving just four tributes left in the games. You can pinpoint the exact moment that you drink the water, and watch as you deteriorate on screen. You realize why Finnick was beating himself up so badly, now. Because while you didn’t think you looked too terrible, you were awful.

And then the last part of it all plays. Seeing Trink and Lennox at the cornucopia, setting the shack on fire, and watching as your opponents slowly get closer. You and Finnick set up the fake body at the base of the cliff, he sets a pile of sticks and dry leaves on fire, and barely spots them through the trees before running back to you.

He comes, you assure him of the plan. He kisses you, and the battle scene plays. This is when the cheery music that had been playing the entire time, changes to something more dark. The banter between you and Lennox, Finnick chasing Trink through the trees and taking the knife with him.

The screen splits in two again, and it’s two different scenes. While you’re running uphill, struggling to keep ahead of Lennox, Finnick is gaining on Trink. He manages to get a hold of her, but she’s strong and doesn’t go down without a fight. By the time he gains the upper hand on her, you’ve reached the top, having your standoff with Lennox.

Finnick kills Trink, and starts running fast through the trees to where you should be with Lennox. You’re not there, and he sees the footprints that lead uphill, and doesn’t hesitate to follow. While in the meantime, you’re fighting off your attacker, trying not to die. You get Lennox off, he falls over the side of the ledge. You lay there on the cliffside longer than you thought you did, deciding your plan. All while Finnick grows closer and closer.

You begin to slide, unsecure the knife in your belt, and send Lennox to his doom. Finnick can see you through the trees, and there’s a desperate look on his face again. From his angle, you don’t look very alive, and it worsens when the cannon goes off. He shouts your name, and you cringe at how loud and sad it is. Finnick collapses onto his knees, hands shaking as he pulls you away from the edge and into his arms, moving your hair out of your face, begging you to be alive.

You can feel actual tears springing in the corners of your eyes, and you feel the same amount of relief as Finnick when the gamemakers announce your win, “Ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to present the victors of the Sixty-Fifth Hunger games, (Y/n) Gallows and Finnick Odair, the tributes of District Four!”

The recap ends there, which you’re glad for. After reliving all of that, you’re not sure if you can stand it any longer. The anthem plays, loud and clear. You and Finnick rise from the loveseat, still holding onto his hand. President Coriolanus Snow takes the stage, with a little girl, she holds a single crown on a pillow.

He stops in front of Finnick first, giving a twist to the crown to have it split in two halves. He places it on Finnick’s brow, a wide smile on his face, and then he moves onto you, doing the same. His smile reaches his eyes, and he gives you a polite nod, and then moves on.

There’s more cheering, loud and clear. You’re left with Finnick to bow and wave and try to give the last bit of entertainment that you can. Caesar wraps up the show, bidding the live audience a goodbye. You blow kisses while he does this, and Finnick laughs at you. Caesar reminds them to tune in for tomorrow’s final interview, and then that’s it for the night.

You don’t have any time to talk to Finnick after the recap, because the two of you are being split and brought to the President’s Mansion for the Victory Banquet separately. You’re upset, because you’ve been away with him for so long already, and you didn’t get to have a real conversation with him just yet. You can only imagine what it’s going to be like at the banquet.

You and Finnick don’t have much time to eat, and you don’t even get to finish your meal before you and Finnick are being overwhelmed with the amount of Capitol officials and sponsors that want pictures with you two. You hold onto Finnick’s hand tightly, he doesn’t let go, no matter how thick the crowd gets.

One face after another, the more they come, the drunker they are. Your cheeks begin to hurt from all the smiling that you’re doing, and you can feel a dreaded headache coming on. Not as bad as the one you had inside of the arena, but this one isn’t pleasant at all, either. 

Nearby is Anchor and Mags, enjoying drinks and talking to others. You think that after the people take pictures with you, they move on to congratulate them, too. It’s a feat, bringing two tributes home. They’ve got to be ecstatic too.

There’s a break, where Elysia comes through and shields people from taking pictures so you and Finnick can eat a little more again. You try to talk, but you’re drowned out by other voices, other people competing for Finnick and yours attention. You hardly even get a glance before you’re talking to some woman that had helped sponsor the food you ate with Blaire.

The night drags on, you’re growing more exhausted by the minute. It isn’t until the sun has begun to rise, when you’re finally allowed to go back to the Tribute Center. Finnick is allowed in the same car with you, now. But there isn’t any conversation, you’re half-asleep against Anchor’s shoulder when you reach the center.

No talking is allowed, you’re brought to your rooms and ordered to sleep, you’ll be on camera at two in the afternoon. You don’t complain, you hardly pull off the dress, shoes and accessories before you’re collapsing into the bed, half-naked and too tired to put anything on.

Elysia comes through at around noon and helps you get dressed into something comfortable to eat brunch. You drag your feet, sitting at the table. Unfortunately, you’re not given much opportunity here, either. Mags is telling you two to eat quickly, and doesn’t leave room for argument.

When the prep teams arrive, your guys’ time is up. You’re brought right back into your room, and they start the showering process all over again. Leo complains about how you didn’t wash off the makeup, but then says that it’s for the better, and doesn’t offer any complaint after that.

You ask them meaningless questions that keep them babbling throughout the next two hours. Beth pins back hair from your temples, and secures it in back with a silver moon hair pin.. After that, she says her job is done and goes to sit down on the counter and watch the other two finish theirs.

Leo moves away, allowing you to see yourself in the mirror. Winged eyeliner, big eyelashes, rosy cheeks. You look a little older like this, but still practically your age. When Laurel comes through, Cleo sets aside all the things that she’ll need, and then your prep team disappears.

“Just an interview with Finnick.” she says, helping you into the dress, “And Caesar, of course. No live audience, just a camera.”

You smile, thanking her for her help. The dress is a silver color, reaching your knees again. No bra again, since the top is padded, and there’s thin straps holding the dress on your shoulders. The drop of the dress ends just above your belly button, and the fabric is see-through. As for the bottom half, the first layer is tool, with stars, constellations and sun patterns, beneath the tool is silk. Around the back is lace, which Laurel tries not to tie it too tightly, and lets the bow hang.

She helps you into the half-socks and the silver flats. There’s no excessive accessories tonight, only your ring. Laurel leads you down the hall and to the sitting room. Your blue and white loveseat is back, where you and Finnick will be sitting. There’s an adjacent chair for Caesar, and all around is decoration that resembles back home. Starfish, nets, sand, seashells in clear vases. You wander around the room, and pick out a seashell that you swear you have back home.

Caesar moves into the room after you, and you look over to see. He’s got a bright smile on his face, “Congratulations, (Y/n).”

“Good afternoon,” you say, and then turn back to the small table holding the ornaments, “And thank you.”

You settle the shell onto the top of the pile again, moving around the loveseat. Coming through the doorway is Finnick, wearing a black suit with a white undershirt. He gives you a white smile, and following in behind him is Anchor and Mags. They take their spots by the doors, and you’re welcomed to sit in the loveseat to go ahead and start the broadcast..

Finnick sits down first, and you right next to him. You keep your feet firmly placed on the ground for a moment, but then settle for crossing one of your legs over the other. Finnick takes your hand, giving you a tight squeeze. There’s a countdown from ten, and you fix your posture and give a polite smile.

The conversation is light at the beginning. You expect him to marvel at your guys’ strength, for being so young and all, and you called it exactly. Caesar is fantastic at his job, making sure that the two of you are comfortable throughout the beginning, until it begins to dip.

“I’ve heard around that you and Finnick were friends before the games, did that influence an alliance at all?” Caesar asks.

“Yes, at the very beginning, but it didn’t hold up for long.” Finnick says.

“And why not?” Caesar looks between you two.

When Finnick doesn’t answer immediately, you’re left to pick it up, “Well, we had agreed with trying to get into the career pack. We had even talked to them all after the tribute parade, but it wasn’t until the first or second training day when I realized that Finnick wasn’t interested in the alliance with them anymore.

“Inside of the gymnasium, he’d pulled me along and introduced me to Blaire, Verda and Thyme. I thought I had better chances with the careers, and split away from him.”

“So it was a mutual understanding?” Caesar asks.

“Yes.” Finnick says, and Caesar’s making a face and tilting his head.

“There’s more, I know it! What had happened? In the cave, (Y/n), you mentioned something about him being right. What was he right about?”

You give him a brief smile. You know he’s only asking the questions that the Capitol is dying to know, so you can’t be mad at him. But this is about to get nasty, especially if Finnick still won’t accept what you have to say about it.

“I think it was the night before the interviews when Finnick and I had talked for the last time,” you start quietly, “He was already in my room, and he tried to tell me that being with Trink, Lennox and the other two would be dangerous. I told him the same thing, but with Blaire, Verda and Thyme, I told him that they’d end up getting him killed because they weren’t as skilled as him or I.

“And then he tried to tell me that it wasn’t a plan that my brothers would approve of. I--”

Finnick shakes his head, “She told me her brothers had told her to do anything she had to, to win. I couldn’t be mad at her for that, and she asked for me to leave and not talk to her again. And I listened.”

You don’t think it was that simple, and you frown slightly, looking at him. He doesn’t look at you. So, you go right back to the camera and Caesar, “And he was right, because the careers nearly got me killed. I got too bold with my actions, and I nearly died because of it. Finnick saved my life, whether he wants to believe it or not. I got lucky with his compassion when he found me. If not, I wouldn’t be here.”

Finnick doesn’t push it, and Caesar is either oblivious or doesn’t care, “But you two did come together in the end, despite the fight.”

“I knew her before the games, and I couldn’t just leave her.” Finnick says, “I know her brothers, her family knows mine. I remembered all the times we walked home together after school. It wasn’t even a choice to leave her, I didn’t consider it.”

Caesar begins to uplift, backtracking to before you and Finnick had seen each other. He asks Finnick questions about his system with Thyme and how they came up with it. Next is you, with seeing Blaire and your decision to keep him alive. You tell everyone that Blaire had been kind at the start, and you saw him as a friend after the training days. Right after comes the plan with Allio and why you chose him, out of the others.

You calmly explain that Lennox or Trink would have gone berserk if their district mate had died. And Allio was the more worrying one. He might not have killed anyone, but you felt like he was getting close to it, asking dangerous questions about how you killed Eytelle and the Twelve boy. And then how your plan had been completely foiled when you lost your special knife, and Trink and Lennox found it beneath the box at your bed.

Caesar reveals to you that the pond water was never bad, and neither was the fish. It was the water at the waterfall that was bad. You’re nodding along, saying, “Beauty can be deceiving.” They agree, and the very last part, is how you managed to come up with the plan of ending the games.

You don’t know what to say anymore, so Finnick gives his interpretation, how he saw you the entire time. A trooper, how you kept pushing on even though it was obvious that you were exhausted. He wanted you to take more breaks than you willed, but allowed you to continue on.

He was extra worried when it came around to leaving you in the woods by yourself. During that entire walk, you were on his mind, and he was more than eager to get back to you. When he spotted Trink and Lennox through the trees, he panicked and came straight back, not caring about the fire, because there was no doubt that they’d seen him.

How he wanted to hide you somewhere and fight off Lennox and Trink alone to save you. You, of course, didn’t allow him that, and he sobered quickly. When he kissed you, it was because he was afraid that you’d be the first cannon, and he just wanted to get his feelings out there. You squeeze his hand tightly.

It all finishes up, the climax being the end of the games, where you’re on the ledge.

“You were still awake.” Caesar says, “Why? We didn’t see you close your eyes, even though you very well could’ve.”

“I wanted to make sure that Lennox was gone, and he wouldn’t be coming back. That I had redeemed myself, and took out the boy that mattered the most. I didn’t know if it was Finnick coming through the trees, and I didn’t even care.”

“What about you, Finnick? What were your thoughts when you got to her?”

“I thought she was dead, and I was prepared to beg for her to come back.” is all Finnick says, his hand is tight in yours, almost painful.

Caesar finishes it off, and then the cameras are dead. It’s over, the final interview is over. You reach over to Finnick, letting go of his hand and pulling his body tightly against yours. Some are crying, others are also hugging. You and Finnick keep close as you get up from the loveseat.

You bid farewell to Caesar, thanking him for being so kind. He wishes you and Finnick good luck with the coming months, and your Victory Tour. He’ll be looking forward to speaking to you two again.

You’re welcome to go back to your room and collect anything that you might want, but there is nothing. You’ve got your mother’s ring, and FInnick still has his rope around his wrist. With that, you’re brought out of the Tribute Center and into a car with blackened windows. They drive you through the streets of the Capitol and straight to the train.

It’s a brief goodbye with Laurel and Pleurisy. You thank Laurel and tell her that you’ll be looking forward to what she has in store for the Victory Tour. After that, you and Finnick are brought inside with Anchor, Mags and Elysia. The door shuts behind you guys, and the train is dark for a long moment as you move through the tunnel. As soon as you’re out, is when you’re being brought to the dining car for dinner. 

You eat as much as you can, being wary of the fact that the food is still very rich. You know that it should take a long time to recover from the weight loss, but you want to be back to normal now. You don’t want to look like this in front of the entire district, and Finnick seems to be thinking the same way.

When you’re done eating, you’re brought in to watch the replay of the interview. You notice that while it had felt like you were talking more, Finnick was answering more questions. Caesar tried his best with alternating between the two of you, to catch both of your perspectives, but it was hard when the two of you were thinking nearly the same.

After the replay is commentary, and you all decide that it’s time to dissipate and do your own things. You decide on a shower, to get rid of the dress and watch away the makeup. Finnick says that he’s going to do the same, and you promise Anchor and Mags a real conversation later, if they want. They say it’s fine, you’ll have plenty of time for talking, later.

You take your time in the shower, running your fingers through your soft hair, and scrubbing your body until you smell of lavender permanently. Then, you sink onto the floor and turn the water lukewarm to sit there for a while. Tomorrow, you’ll arrive back home, you’ll get to see your family again.

You close your eyes, and the only time you get up again is to turn the water hotter. As you sit here, you realize that this is your real moment of peace. No chaos, no one to interrupt your thoughts. You’re welcome to do how you feel. Following that thought is an onslaught of tears and sobbing so hard that it leaves your throat sore.

With your head on your knees, arms wrapped around your feeble body, you cry. You cry for everything that you’ve been through, for every tribute that you killed, for every friend you just lost. You cry for their families, and their friends, and their district. They will never get to see their children again, and they will never know what it’s like to hold their child.

Six tributes fell by your hand. One of them being thirteen years old, just a boy, only a year younger than Finnick. When you were thirteen, you were going through what you thought would be the hardest part of your life. Living in poverty, both of your parents gone, and a baby to replace your mother. 

You just want to go home.

Other victors would be happy, especially the main careers. Pumping their fists, screaming and cheering. They were all excited to have survived, proud and confident. You doubt they ever showed a lick of weakness because they’d trained their entire lives to win the games. Them compared to you, is nothing. Show them your defeat and you’ll be just as forgotten as the other victors that fell to their survivors' guilt.

You didn’t have a choice.

Out of the shower, you put on dark grey shorts and a lighter grey tank top. You brush through the snarls in your hair for a while, but give up and place it all into a ponytail in the end. When you leave the bathroom, you find your room empty. Finnick is nowhere to be seen. You drop the ring into the bowl on the nightstand and fall onto your back on the bed.

You wanted to talk to him, but you’re not sure if there’s anything to say. He already knows how grateful you are for his help, so what’s the point in saying it? You stare at the ceiling for a long time, listening to the rumbling of the train. You wish for sleep, to finally get a night full of sleep.

Even hours later, you’re met with nothing. You give up, take the ring with you on your way out. It’s dark outside of the windows, and it’s silent inside of the train. You hesitate in the hallway, wanting to see if Finnick’s awake in his own room, but decide that if he’s sleeping, you should let him.

You wander down the hall, the peacekeepers give you a nod and you greet them quietly. In the dining car, on the way to the sitting room with the tv and the couch, you see that there’s food laid out. It’s so that you can serve yourself, there is no Avox or otherwise around to tell you not to.

You dig through the cold beverages, and then the hot, looking for something that will make you feel cozy. At the very last cabinet, you find a whole potluck of liquor, and consider it for a brief moment. Then, you remember that you don’t want to make a fool of yourself when you get back home. So, you settle on hot chocolate, and warm sweet rolls that are still steaming. A whole loaded plate later, you move on.

In the sitting car, you place everything onto the coffee table, pushing the couch away as you sit on the floor. You turn the tv on, vaguely remembering the buttons that Anchor had pressed effortlessly. You get it to turn on, and immediately, your games start playing from the very beginning, starting with the reaping. 

You watch it numbly, sipping on your hot chocolate and eating your rolls until they’re all gone. You watch the games twice, the first time paying attention to yours and Finnick’s movements, every little thing that you did to bring yourself to be a victor. The second time around is everyone else. Blaire and Verda’s reaping, Tribute Parade costumes, scores, interviews and deaths. You watch how they start out so hopeful, and slowly dwindle to nothing.

The sun comes through the windows, and you don’t find yourself tired at all. You clean up your mess, turn the tv off and go into the dining car to find that Elysia is already awake. She looks over, completely surprised, “How long have you been up for?”

“Didn’t sleep.” you tell her, setting the dishes aside for cleanup.

“We’ll be there soon, you should get ready.” she says.

You go back to your room, brush your teeth and fix your hair. You pull it out of your face again, but at least this time it’s smooth and looks nice. You go into the closet to find an outfit has already been set aside for you. Ripped white jeans, with three silver buttons instead of a zipper, and a light blue blouse that you button up. You put on tennis shoes, and when you leave the closet to go see yourself in the bathroom mirror again, you find Finnick dressed and sitting in the chair in the far right corner of the room.

“Where’d you go last night?” he asks.

“Sitting room.” you tell him, placing your hands in your front pocket, “Sorry I wasn’t here, couldn’t sleep.”

He smiles a bit, “I could.”

You roll your eyes, and laugh, “Ready for breakfast?”

“Yeah.” Finnick says, following you out of your room.

You eat a quick but large breakfast with everyone. Elysia is keeping track of the clock, and when the time hits ten minutes, it’s over. You’re only allowed orange juice and water to drink before you arrive. You and Finnick spend the time in anxiousness. This will be the final time you’re on camera for a couple of months, you think. And it’s you greeting your home.

You and Finnick position yourselves in front of the doors. The train goes dark as you move through the final tunnel, and it lights up again when you reach the station. You offer your hand for Finnick first, giving him a smile. He takes it, and the two of you squeeze. The train stops, the doors hiss, and open to your entire district being at the station.

There’s cheering and clapping, and whistling. Everyone here is so much louder and more excited than the people in the Capitol ever was. You raise your left hand to wave, squeezing Finnick tightly. Completely forgetting about the cameras, you let the tears gather in your eyes, overjoyed.

Hello District Four, you think, it’s nice to see you again.

#ilguna #finnick odair #finnick odair imagine #finnick odair oneshot #finnick odair fanfic #finnick odair x reader #finnick odair lacuna #lacuna

[dndeed]

Critical Role Miniature Rollout: C2E98

With Andrew Harshman

An archive and review of the minis used on Critical Role.

Quite the consequential and gripping episode. D&D often catches flack for having long, drawn-out combats. This was indeed long and drawn-out, but it was also very engaging. Two hour combats are not always so, even when you’re playing. Well done Critical Role.

Don’t get too attached to your spell component diamonds or your green party members, it’s time for Critical Role Miniature Rollout Campaign 2 Episode 98!

The List

Dungeons and Dragons Condition Markers by thelukec

Arcknight Spell Effects

Mats by Mars: Dark Caribbean Tabletop Wargaming Play Mat

@Minileed Custom Ship

Legendary Realms Bed (out of print)

Legendary Realms Bed, Double (out of print)

Legendary Realms Crate and Barrel (out of print)

Mantic Games TerrainCrate Dungeon Debris Crates

Treasure Items Accessory Set Chest

Rusty Dragon Inn Dressing: Table

Steamforged Games Critical Role Miniatures

Axe N Shield Single Flyer Risers - Clear Mithril

D&D Spell Effects: Arcane Fury & Divine Might

Custom Lollipop Spiritual Weapon

D&D Spell Effects: Halaster's Tumultuous Templates

TerrainCrate Campsite Bedrolls

Dwarven Forge Furnishings Pack Chairs and Beds

Tiny Furniture Carved Chest of Drawers

WizKids Deep Cuts Unpainted Miniatures: Cannons

Steamforged Orly Miniature

Steamforged Games Veth Brenatto Miniature

Tomb of Annihilation #024 Yuan-Ti Broodguard

Monster Menagerie 3 #012 Tridrone / Kraken Priest

Waterdeep Dragon Heist #039 Lord Victoro

Storm King's Thunder #015 Bandit

Waterdeep Dragon Heist #019 Renaer Neverember

Classic Creatures Sahuagin Mystic

Classic Creatures Sahuagin

Monster Menagerie 3 #023 Sea Spawn

Maze of Death #018 Urdefhan Necromancer

Valor Maps ship deck paper maps on cardboard

The Characters

Orly Steamforged Orly Miniature Alternate paint photo sourced from the Steamforged blog

Hey Orly, sweet baby blue Fullmetal Alchemist military uniform! This fine figure is part of the Steamforged Critical Role resin series. I picked up an Orly model kit at ECCC 2019. Tortles are still pretty rare to encounter in-game, so I’m not in a huge rush to construct and paint it. My home campaign is not really in need of extra tortle figures. Let alone one with a nautical theme and body mod bagpipes. 

The core concept of a turtle tortoise person is rather goofy, but this sculpt looks far from ridiculous. This is a very cool take on a humanoid turtle. Orly looks capable and impressive.

Veth Steamforged Games Veth Brenatto Miniature

I’ve been unable to find any decent photos of Sam’s new mini. Not much to say at this point, aside from I assume this is as nice a model as the other Steamforges. At a distance, her headband and ears line up in such a way that they look like WoW elf eyebrows. But hey, that’s very anime, very on-brand for CR.

The Terrain

Lucidian Ocean Mats by Mars: Dark Caribbean Tabletop Wargaming Play Mat, @Minileed Custom Ship, Valor Maps ship deck paper maps on cardboard, assorted terrain accessories (see The List).

A brutally brilliant map setup! A spectacular naval display the likes of which streaming has never seen. The Ball Eater model by @Minileed returns! This map layout is a great way to track action across multiple multiple decks. The lower levels of the ship are paper maps attached to cardboard and the furniture contents are from Dwarven Forge, TerrainCrate, Hirst Arts, Wizkids, Tiny Terrain, and others.

Many of these models have been featured on past maps. The Tiny Furniture chest of drawers is new, it looks very stylish, very post-d20 Modern. The Wizkids cannons are also new. They look slick, the paint work is precise and clean. The fact that these are from an official D&D lines is good news for fantasy setting firearm enthusiasts. Guns and those to sling them have been in Critical Role from the start and it’s nice to see wider D&D setting acceptance of such tech.

The Spell Effects

Area Effects D&D Spell Effects: Halaster's Tumultuous Templates and Arcknight Spell Effects

At first, I scoffed at the Halaster’s Tumultuous Templates $59.99 MSRP. But now that I’ve seen them modeled by Matthew Mercer, I’m more liable to purchase them. These templates look splendid both on the battlemat and on the DM Matt.

The Villains and Monsters

Uk’otoa Acolytes Classic Creatures Sahuagin Mystic and Classic Creatures Sahuagin Image sourced from minisgallery.com  

The two Sahuagin minis that appear in this episode are from the D&D Icons of the Realms Classic Creatures set. A boxed set including 9 classic monster minis designed to look like the original Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual art. Good idea, bad execution.

The sculpt fidelity and paint quality throughout is rough. These miniatures needed to be larger scale with higher sculpt resolution to properly capture the art style and creature design of the old school art. Quite a bummer. For comparison, here are some D&D Miniatures Game sahuagin and a Pathfinder Battles sea devil:

What a difference. Sure the above models are bulkier, but they have so much more character and detail. Shockingly, the rightmost figure (Skull & Shackles #008 Sea Devil Champion) and the Classic Creatures miniatures are both manufactured by Wizkids. What gives, did they forget how to make aquatic monster humanoids over the span of several years?

Sea Spawn Monster Menagerie 3 #023 Sea Spawn

Not a huge improvement over the Sahuagin, but the detail is a tad better. The face is distinct and the paint work is passable. This is a serviceable minion. 

Uk’otoa Acolyte Maze of Death #018 Urdefhan Necromancer

I’m conflicted about this figure. I like the character design, pose, and paint. However, the level of detail in the casting is disappointing. This is most apparent in the arms and hands. They hardly look like limbs and digits, more like pool noodles really. This doesn't sink the model for me though. On the whole Urdefhan Necromancer is a quality villain miniature.

Closing Thoughts

Not the best episode for monster models. But the good news is that the party has two clerics with two diamonds and we are unlikely to see the worst of this episode’s minis again. Uk’otoa needs to find some more stylin’ acolytes.

Pedantic monster model complaints aside, this combat presentation was glorious. And even the uglier miniatures looked reasonably good on camera among the high quality terrain and professional lighting conditions. 

Episode 99 will presumably involve the diplomatic ship meeting. If the peace talks are disrupted, the resulting encounter map is sure to be incredible.

#criticalroleminiaturerollout

#criticalroleminiaturerollout #critrole #crspoilers #criticalrole #cr

[dishonoredrpg]

Congratulations, PAYTON! You’ve been accepted for the role of THE TOWER with the faceclaim of RODRIGO SANTORO. What poetry could I write about Feivel? He is, at his core, a worldly man, has seen much, knows plenty, and still finds himself entrapped in a world which he feels he cannot possibly belong to. There is such a human quality to him in the way he shifts and turns just to keep himself alive; your concept with the mirror was especially fascinating -- he has a charm to him, but is it a charm that he’ll be able to stomach later on down the line? I also vastly appreciate your willingness to step out of the box and explore a character you’re not as familiar with; I can really see your affection for him here, and I’m excited to see what you bring to us with him!

Please review the CHECKLIST and send your blog in within 24 hours.

NAME: Payton or Paypay

PRONOUNS: She/her/hers

AGE: 27

TIMEZONE, ACTIVITY LEVEL: My timezone is GMT-7. I anticipate being active on the dash (as in posting starters/writing responses) typically between 4-6 days a week, with 4 being more typical. Writing is a pretty big component of my self-care and allows me a creative outlet to use some of my energy, so I will be on frequently. 

ANYTHING ELSE?: I know this is a second application picked from a small handful of skeletons that still remained, but I wouldn’t be applying for another skeleton if I wasn’t just as excited and dedicated to what I could bring to the group with this skeleton as I was with my first application. At first I was pretty bummed and told myself if I couldn’t get back into a very excited state I would just kind of let it be, but the more I worked on this application the more excited I got about the skeleton and the character I was building out from it.

IN CHARACTER

SKELETON: The Tower

NAME: Feivel Asturias

FACECLAIM: Rodrigo Santoro, Chris Hemsworth,  Joel Kinnaman

AGE: 42

DETAILS: What about this character interested you? Who are they to you? This can be as long or short as you want it to be, in whatever format you prefer.

I suggested this to you during our conversation during which you gave me feedback for my previous application, but The Tower’s skeleton is a big old jump away from characters I’m used to playing. Out of the skeleton’s that were left, I found The Tower’s to be quite compelling and likely the most challenging role to play for me. But I like challenges! Challenging is fun. I think in terms of my own development as a writer, playing a character that feels like such a departure from what I’m used to is a great way to stretch my creative muscles and really push myself to think deeper into the choices I’m making for my character.

Another component I like about The Tower is their history as an explorer. I would like to see story-telling be a strong component of their characterization because they have so many lived experiences. Given the setting, it’s likely he would be one of the most if not the most well-travelled roles in the group. His lived experiences would take him to the ends of the earth that his contemporaries only dreamed of, and I imagine he would be all too eager to recount the stories of his youth (only slightly editorialized… okay, fine, with some pretty significant embellishments). I imagine his life has led him to present as rough around the edges, as a survival tactic, as a leadership strategy, and as a mode of self-preservation… but when he gets to talking, when someone really gets him in his lane of story-telling he takes on an air of slight warmth and overwhelming nostalgia. He also absolutely adores young people, which is discussed a little further elsewhere in the application (one of the plot points if I’m not mistaken).

I am also very interested in toying around with his current role as an antiquarian--because who doesn’t want to make up a whole bunch of mythical items and historical artifacts and lore? I feel like not only would I be able to use him as a method to contribute to the general story line, but it would be a great way to explore some world building within the parameters you’ve set for the group.

I also think that the skeleton suggests that The Tower would be willing to take some risks, which would be interesting to play out. The fact that they were willing to play dumb in front of the king until it was clear playing dumb meant certain death, they take a chance: they try to bargain for their life, and it works. As an unofficial advisor, they view their stakes as being slightly less high than someone officially in the post, so they take risks: they combine a healthy amount of tact with speaking their mind. They see a monarch unhappy in her marriage and desperate for release, so they take a risk: they stand a little too close, brush the back of their hand against hers as they pass in the hallway, and find themselves in a full blown affair. I think taking risks would be an inevitable character trait of The Tower, who likely feels lonely for adventure and too big for their body now that they find themselves land-locked.

The actual card of The Tower also relates strongly to the history I imagine for Feivel and what I would assume could be a turbulent future given his affair with the queen and potential shifting alignments. I see “Tower upright: Sudden change, upheaval, chaos, revelation, awakening” relating to his arrival in Tyrholm and the killing of his men and consequential end to his way of life/loss of freedom. “Tower reversed: Personal transformation, fear of change, averting disaster” makes me think of his need to navigate the court and avoid what could be certain disaster if the affair with the queen became known to the wrong people as well as his perceived need to tiptoe around The Sun.

Something of interest to me regarding the typical depiction of this card is the image of the card itself. One website’s information on the card stated: “A stone tower is struck with lighting and lit in flames, two people jump from the tower presumably to their deaths. An image of chaos and destruction is painted.This lightning/subsequent fire enters in through the top of the tower and knocks off the crown. The people jumping accept that they do not know what awaits them when they fall - but it is certainly better than burning in the rubble of the tower.” I find this really compelling because I think that if Feivel was present for the event Mini wrote for Kithri’s para sample (and Mini makes that headcanon) or if Feivel sees or perceives Septimus mistreats his wife or perceives King Septimus as cruel in other ways it would be relatively easy to radicalize Feivel. Feivel knows he’s coming in hot on his expiration date, and even if he isn’t on the brink of death and he’s just feeling a little run down, I think he would really struggle to accept a land-locked existence where he’s essentially prisoner in Castle Tyrholm, and might, as the card depicts, run headlong into certain doom rather than accept the alternative if he found a cause worth self-destructing for.

BACKGROUND:

You are born on high seas, the ocean so ingrained in your identity that you could scarcely tell the difference between the waves of a storm battering your ship and the untamed beating of your own heart. Your childhood is composed of tangled memories of stern looks, rope burn, aching muscles, calluses, stolen goods, and the sound of splintering wood. The smell of gunpowder from the cannons found a permanent home in your nostrils and you lived with a constant sensation of breathlessness between the battles and seascapes that colored your days.  Your early years are like the ocean itself; ever-moving, unforgiving, and constantly threatening to pull you under in its cruelty if you so much as dare to be still for even a moment.

As you enter your teenage years, the treatment you receive only becomes harsher. You are no longer only responsible for chores around the deck, but you are brought into roles of responsibility where a misstep can be the difference between life and death of a crew member. You participate in your first ambush, and it terrifies you how easy it is to drive a blade into another body and how hard it feels to draw it back out. But letting that deter you is not an option. The stakes are high, and the sting of every slap and lashing’s meaning is two-fold. Corporal punishment is a daily reality of your life, the best way a motley crew of pirates knows how to instill discipline. And beyond discipline, you know you’re the next in line for leadership and as a leader you must be unyielding. Your father is preparing you, and the way you see it the crack of his leather strap against your back is the only way he knows how to say he loves you.

You are seventeen when you inherit your father’s ship, his death a sudden and brutal blight that stains a corner of your mind you avoid with vermillion and a mix of pain and resentment. Your mother died long before, when you were no older than six or seven. The closest thing you have to any memory of her face is the memory of her running her fingers through your hair to soothe you to sleep. every time the sea breeze rustles through your hair it evokes her memory. You keep it long and unkempt for that reason alone, though if anyone asks it’s a matter of convenience. It is unbecoming of a captain to display such vulnerabilities as sentiment and weakness—or at least that’s what your father before you conditions you to believe. You quickly realize you see leadership fundamentally differently than your father. Where he asserted authority by means of dominance and violence, your approach values brotherhood.

You find yourself establishing a Brotherhood of Asturias. You name your clan in honor of your ship. Later in your life, you will name yourself in honor of your clan—not as a badge of honor, but as a reminder of your shame. No one would accuse your clan of reformation. To anyone outside of your fold, you’re just as ruthless as your father. You’d still burn the world to the ground for the promise of glory when the flames died down. But within your kinship, you develop a sort of honor code. Your commandments are as such: honor those who honor you, betray no other lest your life be on the line, help the needy if it helps yourself, to kill an innocent is the most mortal of sins, and you shall not advance yourself at the harm of others. Your reputation does shift, but only slightly. Rather than pillagers and barbarians, you are seen as a ruthless treasure hunter.  

For the next fifteen years, your reputation precedes you. You travel to the ends of the earth in search of the relics of the old gods and to reclaim the wonders of the world. It isn’t easy work, but the payoff makes it worth it. You accumulate wealth with nowhere to spend it, but the sense of power of merely possessing the rarities and finery you have is enough. And you love the camaraderie and catharsis. By your mid-thirties, you are grizzled and scarred. Your body aches from the strain of your journeys, but your mind is somehow light under the sheer weight of the stories you have to tell. Your life is spent fast, but if anybody asks it is spent well.

Finally, aware of your limitations and content with your life of misdeeds, you select your successor and one final mission. You view it as a training exercise to cement your decision: both to lay down your arms once and for all and that you’ve chosen the best and brightest to take your place. You set sail to the remote island of Calamity in search of an item of lore, so simple that the common man would pass it over without a second glance: the Mirror of Ouroboros. The mirror is a small, handheld curio of impossible value. The reflector itself is a small, obsidian mirror that upon first consideration seems harmless if not impractical. However, upon looking in the mirror its magical virtue presents itself by revealing three truths about the user, each of them as destructive as the next if the user is without fortitude of mind. You recover the mirror with little consequence along the way, and you are reassured that your decision making was sound. You are resolved to your fate and wary from travel, you drift off to sleep easily after your final ransacking.

You are dragged from your bed by a pair of hands as cold and harsh as death itself. The mere touch is enough to pull the breath from your lungs. You don’t recognize her at first, but The Sun will haunt your nightmares for the next several years, and in a much more present way haunt your days as well. You are thrown before the king, your crew not far behind. But it is toward you who the king directs his ire. He demands the mirror, and you bite back at his entitlement. You tell him you don’t have any such item, and he knows you are lying. You tell him the mirror is no creation of his god, the Undying One, and as a result it shouldn’t be any interest of his. It’s the wrong answer. You realize it’s the wrong answer when you hear a squelch from behind you, and the sound of a body drop to the floor. The groaning is easily recognizable as your second in command, slaughtered as result of your folly before they even had their real chance to carry on your legacy. The world mutes, but you’ve seen this scene before. There is nothing but a loud ringing in your ears, but you know The Sun is working down the line of your men behind you.

Your hands shake as you pull the mirror from your breast pocket, and you consider looking into it. Surely the madness is a better fate to resign yourself to than to live with your indirect responsibility for your brotherhood’s death. For another moment, you consider allowing the king to look into it, to exact your revenge without needing to so much as lift a finger. Instead, you slide the mirror across the floor, still safely contained in its cloth shroud. You hear your voice warning the king of the mirror’s power, that with patience and research it could be the key to turning his kingdom into an empire. You tell him that more relics exist across the span of the globe, some of them here on the continent of Markholm. You’re bargaining for your life, despite the fact that according to your very own honor code you no longer deserve it.

For some reason, the king lets you stay. You know this is more a strategic move on Septimus’ part than an act of mercy. You are hardly a free man. You yourself know that not all prisons have bars. Yours doesn’t, but you’re locked in a cage all the same. Your wild heart rails against your fate at first, but your tired body cannot keep up. You slowly resign yourself to your circumstances. You spend your day lamenting and licking wounds for months, giving Septimus advice through gritted teeth and refusing to recognize kindness from anyone around you. You are like a cornered dog, but you damn well know better than to bite the hand that feeds.

Slowly, the dagger in your heart loosens and you move through the stages of mourning your freedom, your crew, and your former life.  This doesn’t mean that your life in Tyrholm is easy, but you start to recognize areas of comfort. The Empress shows you a modicum of kindness, and you cling to it. The way you see it, the pair of you mean little more to each other than a pair of warm bodies at first, but it’s a momentary distraction the both of you welcome. The way your rough, calloused hands catch on the silk she seems herself to be spun from reminds you of your place, it stops you from being careless enough to leave fingerprints. You stop yourself from getting emotionally attached--no one ever accuses you of being a wise man, but you know better than to shit where you eat. The Moon gravitates in the perimeter of your attention, and you wonder what she wants from you, though she never seems to ask for much. The Sun also exists within your gravitational pull, though you wish she wouldn’t. You have nothing but enmity for her, an emotion you know is futile but that you can’t seem to put away.

The one thing you take seriously is your role as advisor. Septimus strikes you as mad and simple, a ruler grounded in dualism and individualism. Your belief in brotherhood and the collective clashes with Septimus’ harsh reign, but you can stomach it given your years spent under your father’s thumb. You yourself are never treated with particular cruelness after you are added as a member of the court. A part of you cares how everything shakes out, even though your body tells you it might give out before you see things through. Another part of you only cares about slowly convincing Septimus to give you a longer leash to try to convince him to dispatch you for one last adventure or two.

PLOT IDEAS:

You’ve Got Your Reputation and Your Good Intent (The Emperor): Feivel was not exactly a willing addition to the court. With death as the only alternative, joining up with Septimus looked like a good choice, but in the skeleton it doesn’t suggest that The Tower ever develops any sense of loyalty or admiration for King Septimus. In fact, in the connection section with Judgement, it suggests that The Tower finds the world they find themselves stuck within to be “horrible”. Given I want to incorporate captaining a ship as part of Feivel’s past, he would chalk up the state of the world to mediocre leadership. Further, The Tower is smack in the middle of the triangle depicting attitudes and loyalties. He doesn’t have much skin in the game, but he kind of gives a shit. I have to imagine that given their travels, The Tower would have a stronger concept than Septimus of how the other side lives, how people perceive things, of even surface level diplomacy, who seems to make decrees and decisions at a whim. Knowing that The Emperor is the next in line for the throne, I imagine The Tower would want to see the heir equipped with more of a holistic outlook rather than a self-interested, dualistic approach. While it sounds like Septimus is the one who likes to be regaled with stories of adventure and daring, I imagine Feivel might try to impart some sort of wisdom about different perspectives, universal truths, and interest in the plight of fellow man. The Emperor has probably never experienced life outside of the castle walls, certainly never outside of Tyrholm where many valuable lessons for a future ruler wait to be learned. But Feivel struggles with putting his meaning into words, he isn’t some educated member of the court, he’s a rogue in nice clothing. There is no underlying agenda aside from expanding the young heir’s worldview--but the danger of saying the wrong thing, of the slightest slip up in the tone of voice being read as a criticism of King Septimus makes the line between good intent and treason a tricky one to walk.

Suffer the Fools (The Moon): Feivel enjoys young people tremendously. Youth tends to couple with ambition and vigor. This is also part of why he even wants to bother trying to impress some of his lived experiences on The Emperor. Based on the connection written in The Moon’s bio, it seems like The Moon would be eager to listen to those very same stories. The Tower is depicted as a cache of information regarding other civilizations, the old gods, history, antiquities, magic, and tales of their own youth. I think in talking to The Moon about these stories and being listened to, a friendship would be forged and from that friendship, trust. Feivel understands thieves' code, he can pick up the dynamic in most any room he walks into, he knows history, he recognizes value when he sees it, navigation and survival in the wild is a given… but all of this was learned through oral tradition. Books were of little value on a ship, education wasn’t valued in his lifestyle. In his previous station, Feivel couldn’t have cared less, but now it’s developed into a soft spot. What does it say of a king if their antiquarian and unofficial advisor is illiterate? I think that if Feivel developed trust with The Moon, he would be willing to share this vulnerability asking them to write correspondence for him in a pinch and potentially how to read and write. I think this vulnerability might help lead The Moon to ask the questions they have about magic as discussed in The Moon’s connections.

All’s Fair in Love and War (The Empress): I am interested in exploring the connection listed in The Empress’ bio depicting the affair between The Empress and The Tower. It is not really mentioned in The Tower’s bio or in the main body of The Empress’ bio. I am interested in exploring Feivel’s motivations in this affair. Is there genuine affection that Feivel feels for The Empress, or does he see her as a pretty treasure of the king’s that makes for an interesting conquest? If there is genuine affection, how does he deal with the jealousy or perceived mistreatment of The Empress as a wife? Additionally, there could be a number of interesting consequences for the affair to deal with as far as jealousy, not being able to bit his tongue regarding Septimus’ attitude about his wife, or even the secret of the affair becoming more widespread. I think the affair could also complicate the way that some members of the court and group see Feivel. They could potentially misread the affair, whether it’s a matter of the convenience of the two just acting as warm bodies for one another or if it develops into a full blown emotional affair, as Feivel tries to step into a role of power or exploitation. It’s also some pretty damaging ammunition against him if he crosses the wrong person.

Mirror of Ouroborus (The Sun/The High Priestess): One of the things I would look forward to adding to Feivel’s character and the group as a whole is sort of building out the world with some mystical items. In this case, I think it could be fun to toy around with the item that landed Feivel on King Septimus’ agenda in the first place. This is a plot I would build out with either of the two more experienced necromancers. The item I have in mind for this plot point in particular would be called the Mirror of Ouroborus, an ancient, magical artifact the most of the world either doesn’t believe exists or has already forgotten. The mirror itself is a small, obsidian mirror that upon first consideration seems harmless if not impractical. However, upon looking in the mirror things begin to complicate. When looking in the mirror, it shows its user three truths. The first truth is easy to swallow: the reflection morphs into the user at the epitome of their potential, in their greatest state of glory. The second, the reflection morphs into what it is that stands in the way of those accomplishments, whether its an internal or external force. And third, it shows the essence of the user as they really are. Each of these reflections manifest as a simultaneous, momentary vision, but the mirror itself is dangerous. The lore surrounding the mirror depicts the third reflection driving everyone bold enough to stare into the mirror mad, incapable of swallowing the truth about themselves and the inherent flaws of humanity. However, who better to look into the mirror than someone numbed to even the most base emotion? Though it’s unlikely Septimus would put something as valuable as a master necromancer on the line for anything less than a guarantee. I would imagine in this plot, Feivel and either The Sun or the High Priestess would be tasked with unraveling the mystery of the Ouroborus Mirror for its eventual use.  

If You Stand For Nothing, What Will You Fall For (General): Check out the triangle of alignment and who is smack in the middle but The Tower? I think this presents a few interesting concepts. There are so many different components of the skeleton that could suggest many different ways for his allegiance to be pushed and pulled. If he has a personal rather than transactional relationship with The Empress, her alignment of general tolerance of King Septimus might pull him toward anxiously waiting out the king. Then again, it might have the opposite effect if Feivel ends up having very spiteful feelings about the Empress being stuck in the marriage. I envision most of the connections listed on the bio slowly dragging Feivel’s alignment toward the bottom left of the chart. I want to explore Feivel’s character with a moral alignment of true neutral as well, which I think would create a lot of interesting dynamics given Feivel seems to be starting from a place of general neutrality as well. I would be very interested in seeing what, if anything, could radicalize Feivel given his starting point.

Through Terra Incognita: Feivel is not exactly a member of the court by choice, but rather quick wit and Septimus’ whim. I would argue that Feivel sees himself more as a prisoner of the court than actually free. He was brought to the court by force, and he’s essentially kept there out of fear of the Sun. Sure, there are perks. He probably is all about that food, a nice bed, fancy clothes, and a comfortable place to rest his tired bones… but just because he wanted a rest doesn’t mean he isn’t restless. It might be interesting to have Feivel be dispatched by Septimus to retrieve some sort of treasure or antiquity with another character or maybe even two. This item could potentially be central to the plot if it interests you to invest in the plot in that way. I think this could be an interesting way to interact with Judgement (religious relic?), or potentially The Hermit or Strength. However, I’d be happy to make this plot work with whoever might be interested even if they aren’t listed there. Fievel is probably incredibly eager to go on any sort of adventure and get out of the city, so he would jump at the chance to go on such a quest, even if he clashed with his travel companion every step of the way.

Brave, Intrepid, and Then Some: If you do not recognize the lyrics used as titles (here and the plot point above), the song “The Trail We Blaze” from Dreamwork’s masterpiece The Road to El Dorado is big inspiration vibes for Feivel and his adventurous side. He knows he is never going to be the marauder he was before his years in Tyrholm, but there’s a spark in him that can’t quite go out. I think something to feed into this, and his general world knowledge, would be to develop a sort of “wonders of the world” for Markholm. Something I think that might be interesting to do is to pick a few characters and try to create artifacts, locations, etc. that are sort of drawn from or inspired by these characters. Perhaps they would not be significant to the plot, but I think it could be a fun concept to build out Feivel’s experiences.

CHARACTER DEATH: I think given some of the pies he’s stuck/will stick his finger in there’s a pretty real chance he might piss off the wrong people eventually (Septimus, Reynaud, Naenia given his fear of her) whether that be by him making a false move or his affair moving from a bit of an open secret to a full blown scandal. Also, he’s lived a rugged life, which I’m sure has taken a toll. Given the parameters you’ve set up to support players if there’s a character death and the context of this character I’m comfortable with it.

WRITING SAMPLE

Another restless night, and Feivel found himself roaming the halls of Castle Tyrholm with the company of his faithful hound, Gunport, at his side. It was the sound of the wind whistling outside his sleeping chamber’s window that kept a good night’s sleep at bay, the sound reminding him of those wind whipped days out at sea that built him into the man he was now.  He lobbed a ball down the corridor lazily and got some mild entertainment watching the hairy beast chase after it with gusto before bounding back to its master’s side and pushing the slobbery toy into his hand. But even the momentary distraction couldn’t hold back the feelings that he was now more a ruin than a man.

His father had died valiantly in battle, though the skirmish itself could have been avoided by better planning. Even so, his father had died with his reputation intact, ruthless to the end. Feivel himself had quickly built his own mythos around himself, even if it was not as cruel as his father’s. He knew the Clan Asturias had gained a measure of renown, enough for King Septimus to know of their accomplishments, and as the captain of the ship Feivel himself was the figurehead of the legend. On nights like this, he would retract his steps and try to pinpoint the exact moment he had gotten too far ahead of himself or too comfortable. He knew what his father would say, that his downfall was the direct result of trusting anyone but himself. Some nights, Feivel felt that conclusion was correct. On other nights, he surmised that his fate was inevitable. For years, he had wondered how legends were brought to their knees. Now he knew he was little more himself than some exotic game King Septimus had cornered and would eventually mount on his wall like the other trophy animals in Castle Tyrholm’s gun room.

The candlelight flickered from further down the hall, and both Feivel and Gunport stood aware, their two sets of wild eyes pointing in the direction of the disturbance. He wondered vaguely if someone else was being kept awake by the ghosts of their past, or if perhaps it might have been the growing sense of restlessness that had been building behind closed doors and in whispered conversations throughout the castle. He had only been a member of the court for a handful of months, but he knew what the early stages of insurrection looked like. This was something he altogether aimed to avoid, more than convinced that the king would be able to put an end to any treason before it truly started.

It surprised him to see the queen passing through the hall, and for a moment he felt his presence was inappropriate. Life in Tyrholm had come with a healthy dose of culture shock, to say the least. He had cleaned up well, this was true, but he knew he was far from noble. His manners had provided ample fodder to mock him in his first months in the court, and the stiff clothing he had been given felt like it choked him. Perhaps it was his station in his office that made him feel most like the butt of a cruel joke, the books that lined the shelves and his pot of ink and paper virtually useless. He had wondered for a while how long King Septimus would humor him after he realized his master of antiquities couldn’t so much as write his own name. Luckily enough, he had proven himself entertaining enough to listen to that when he was called upon it was almost exclusively in person. Whenever the need to write was unavoidable, it was no trouble to intimidate a servant or page into writing it for him. It took little more than a menacing glare and the simple lie that he preferred to dictate his response rather than be saddled with the chore of writing his message himself.

As The Empress approached, Feivel bowed. It was practiced to look natural, as if he’d been bowing to monarchy all his life rather than copying the other members of court over the past few months. He also took grain pains to make the motion as fluid as possible despite the strain it caused his lower back. “Your Majesty,” he greeted, “I apologize for disturbing you this evening.” He tossed the ball away again, figuring someone of her stature had little interest in being near such a creature. The dog took off again after the ball, springing clumsily down the long hall.

“It’s quite alright,” Queen Calliope responded in a muted voice. She lifted a slim, graceful hand that caught the moonlight as she gestured before them. “Perhaps you would walk with me?”

Before Feivel had much opportunity to respond, Gunport had asserted himself into the situation. The dog pressed the ball into the palm of the queen’s hand, wet nose, slobber, and all. It was the habit of a well trained dog to return whatever it was fetching directly into the hand of it’s master, but Gunport was friendly and apparently wanted to extend the invitation to play to the queen herself. Embarrassed by what he assumed was poor manners, Feivel became somewhat nervous and hoped to escape the interaction without insulting Queen Calliope. He turned his attention from her hand to her face to respond, but his answer was delayed slightly as he observed her unassuming beauty; the smoothness of her skin, her piercing dark eyes, the way her silk-like dark hair framed her face and swept against her shoulders, and the delicate shape and hue of her lips. He was a man who recognized finery when he saw it, and what held more value than the wife of a king?

“Another night,” he mumbled, staring at the toe of his boot rather than in her eye. His voice was gruff, a bit terse as a force of habit. “When I don’t have the hound with me.”

Accepting his answer, the queen lifted her hand to pass the ball back to Feivel. He extended his hand, accepting it from her, unintentionally brushing his fingers against the back of her hand. The contrast between the two did not escape him, his own hand rough with work next to her unmarred skin. Her skin was smooth and cool compared to the warmth and calluses of his own hand. He let the touch linger for a moment before his eyes met her own. She didn’t seem disturbed by the touch, which even if unintentional was an insult to her station. Queen Calliope placed the ball in his open hand before bidding him goodnight with a soft, amused smile. “Another time then, Feivel. May the Undying One bring you safely to another day.”

“Another time then,” Feivel repeated, holding the ball up as if it were some secret known only to the pair as he walked backward toward his quarter. He tossed the ball over his shoulder with a roguish grin, his eyes trained on Queen Calliope. Only when she turned his back on him to continue on her way did he turn away from her.

EXTRAS

I want to plot out what the affair looked like, from start to current state, with The Empress’ player, so I’m not taking my writing sample as gospel. It just seemed like the most natural thing to write because I think the connection with another person in Tyrholm he established with The Empress was probably a turning point in his mourning process/ability to accept his current station as basically a glorified prisoner in Castle Tyrholm and to engage more with others.

Inspiration Blog (There are three pages, you gotta click the last little dot with a sort of square to get to the next page)

#accepted #accepted: the tower

[dontexpecttomakesense]

I know I’m like one year latter to the Onision wrote a book train, but I have read now Onision’s “Reaper’s Creek” and this is a bullet point of cannon things that happen in the book. Which incidentally also works as a diary of my decent to insanity. I will probably put a read more somewhere down the line, right before the story goes off rails completely. This more or less happens 1/3th of the way into the book, which all things considered is not that early.

The protagonist sleeps on a bed suspended by chains, next to the boiler and the washing room. It’s implied that this is because the family has financial struggles, but it never goes to fully explain why the family would give an 11 year old boy this particular set up.

The protagonist has a stepfather who is vaguely described as a physically attractive adult with a moustache, who is generally a great guy, loving unconditionally their adopted sons as if they were their own. Midway through the book (right after a time skip of 4 years) this characterization gets a 180º turn and he’s suddenly a drug-abusing alcoholic wife-beater. There is no foreshadowing whatsoever     of this abrupt change nor it gets explored at all, as it seems the only objective it had was to give a reasonable excuse to write the character out of the book.

In fact, and as you’ll see as I describe the other paternal figures in the book, Onision is uncapable or unwilling to write any sort of paternal figure in a positive light. They are either actively malicious and abusive or incompetent to the point of enabling abuse.

The main character’s name is Daniel. But he’s called Greg (Onision’s name) in some parts. This leads me to believe that Onision is projecting like hell onto Daniel, and that the book is some sort of bizarre power trip to live the childhood he never had.

He has two sisters, Joanna who exists simply to mock him in an ill fitted atmet to create some semblance of sibling rivalry. And Christine, whoe existence is similar to Schrödinger’s cat: depending of the moment of the story she exists or she doesn’t.

Daniel is wise beyond his years because he plays Metal Gear Solid.

There is an entire chapter dedicated to soapboxing about how anti-alcohol and anti-drugs Onision is. In involves the mother leaving their children go to their uncle bonfire where some people what to force an 11 year old to drink whiskey and shame him when he doesn’t want to.

The fact that the sentence “I have no explanation cognitive abilities in a sleeping state.” Exists at all.

Daniel routinely imagines people dying in gruesome ways just because. Like the schoolbus blowing up and his sister and his cousin dying covered by shrapnel.

In general characters are described very vaguely. The only character to advert that is a girl named Heather and is to make sure we know she’s ugly.

Apparently, VHS tapes that delve in how a hybrid  of human-dinosaur would look like is what Onision thinks an average biology class for a 11 year old should be.

Daniel’s best friend, David, more distinctive trait is that he really likes girls, so he consequentially says Daniel’s sister is hot or has the bright idea to plot how to make a random girl he has met  at a sleepover to kiss him. Out loud.

Also David just invites himself to Daniel’s house. Who does that?

Daniel beats up his bully, not as self defence or because he was tired of being constantly insulted but because he was ruining his chance of a date with a girl he liked.

Then the bully randomly dies in an off-screen accident.

Around the 1/3rd of the book Daniel acquires to power to see death people and animals. The appear to him a glowing red dots. The only thing that this development leads to is being annoyed that his mother invited a woman with a still born baby at home to try convincing her to get the baby removed.

At one point Daniel mentions having a heart condition that causes him to faint. This has no foreshadowing, nor it appears or is refenced ever again. It’s brought up exactly once to justify the main character losing consciousness.

Daniel and his family get on a car crash, but since that day are too tired from having spent the day at the hospital (they went there to treat a wound David had on his chest), they decide to let the stepdad deal with the police and go home to, and I quote, “self-medicate”. Keep in mind that that means leaving an accident scene with one dead person involved and that the sister had been described as getting a glass shard rammed onto her ear.

Daniel melts his mother’s eyes with the power of his mind. Then he makes them grow back. This even is mentioned afterwards     a couple of times as some sort of selfish reason of why Daniel’s mother doesn’t like him anymore.

The special ed kid (his words) turns out to be an alien.

Daniel has recurring dreams of him being abducted and experimented by aliens. To avoid this he decides to wrap himself in tinfoil and put a pot over his head. It works.

At least until the aliens just decide to beam him up, actually experiment on him and then just return him.

Daniel’s biological father is a sexual predator that abused of his ex-wives sisters and even her children (never specifies which). Still the mother allows him to spend the summer with the children.

And 11 year old boy and a 14 year old girl have sex. They don’t actually go all the way but the word “grinding” is used. To this day I don’t know if Onision was absolutely clueless to what he was actually writing or that he was projecting so hard that he forgot that Daniel is 11.

The alien disguised as the special ed kid possesses a flight attendant to ask Daniel why he didn’t impregnate Julia (the mentioned 14 year old girl).

Daniel kills the alien, who was hiding in the bathroom of the plane, with a plastic fork.

After a time skip, Daniel cheerily informs that he (14) has had sex with Julia (18). Again, I’m not actually sure of if Onision was actually aware of what he was writing.

He also mentions that she’s always sexually available when he want’s her, and leaves him alone when he doesn’t. It’s  later revealed that Daniel subconsciously makes everyone do what he wants, so he brainwashed a 18 year old to become a child predator and at the same     time she’s essentially a victim of rape.

When Daniel discovers another alien disguised as a kid he kills him with his mind and then he “sees reality glow around him”. The scene reads almost like a re-enactment of the galaxy brain meme.

All of Daniel’s powers come from a rock in his head.

Chapter 16 ends with Julia being dead by a shot on her forehead. Chapter 17 starts with Julia being dead by a shot in the neck. Because fuck continuity.

The sniper that killed her was dressed in black with red polka dots.

Daniel kills all of the aliens hiding in the earth as revenge for killing Julia even though he has confirmed that he can revive her an even protect her from hare with just the power of his mind.

Killing all aliens would’ve taken 17 h and 47 min, but since he did it in a different realm of existence it just takes an instant.

The sentence “ I knew I would have to commit further genocide against them to truly protect myself”

He later on decides that to truly kill another human life, that life has to be an active threat to another, but the he goes to kills some people under the premise that while they are not active threats, they have hurt people therefore they deserve to die, making himself judge jury and executioner and completely ignoring the line that he had drawn for himself.

With his newfound Mary Sue OP powers Daniel tries to “improve the world” but he does it in an incredible roundabout and ineffective way.

He strengthens people that can be victims of crime, but that’s technically everyone so…?

He eliminates disparity between genders but it’s unclear to what disparities he talks about: social imbalances? sexual dimorphism?     both?

Other changes include parents being able to find their children easily, fingernails strong as steel and women having vagina dentata.

We meet Julia’s father and during dinner with the family he makes some sexist remarks so Daniel mind-rapes him and discovers that he’s a predator so he kill him on the spot. Julia is very saddened by it so he asks Daniel to leave, but like 3 chapters after she has completely     gotten over it.

Before leaving Daniel conjures a coffin and some money and it just pops out and falls in the dining table.

With the alien plot mostly concluded, Onisioin tacks in some random plot about Daniel finding dead prostitutes around his old house so he uses his Mary Sue OP powers to learn who the culprit is and it’s all a man named Gary and some henchmen he has, so he goes and kills them all but one.

Also we know that those men are in the business of killing women because they wear plaid.

In the middle of this chapter Daniel goes super-sayan and becomes blond, tall and muscular. Aging to the age of 29. There is no     explanation for this, even in-universe this is acknowledged as just     happening for any given reason.

Daniel’s grandma withneses the transformation and cries because she thinks her grandson has been blessed by God. Daniel kindly informs the reader that there isn’t such thing as God.

Hold onto the previous point because it’s about to get contradicted. Hard. Where roughly at 2/3rds of the book. Now is     where everything derails, now where going for the fun stuff.

So after killing all those men, Daniel is beamed up by a golden light and the Grim Reaper appears to kill him.

But thanks to the stone in his head he survives death itself so his spirit creates an new elements and traps death in it and crushes it to the size of a marble.

From Death, Daniel is capable of discovering that God exists (remember when he said that there wasn’t such thing as God?), and not only that, God has a father a God of Gods called Kull.

Then he creates himself a new body, and his old body is regenerated into a being called The Body, who is supposed to be kind where Daniel is cruel and in general his “good” opposite, but through the book there is no indication of that and in fact he behaves exactly as Daniel.

God is divided in 3 so The Body goes to take one part, Daniel goes to take the other, and Daniel gives the same Mary Sue OP powers he has to Julia so he can kill the third part of God. She refuses and beaks down crying.

Daniel response to that with: “This is my dysfunctional way of spending time with you, but clearly I didn’t think about you before thinking about myself” which is  one     of the most nutritional self-descriptions Onision has made of himself ever.

Daniel goes to fight God, who is described as “someone who looks like you assume God would look like”. God hands his ass to him but suddenly The Body appears, now ten time bigger for some reason and defeats him.

The body says that he has evolved and now he is to people what people are to computers. Whatever that is supposed to mean.

With the confrontation of the last part of God is revealed that Cain&Abel, the fall of Lucifer and other similar stories are in fact the way that God has med understand that he raped and killed his sister.

God has a sister.

God has an older sister.

She was the one actually in charge of Earth, before God disposed of her and committed genocide against her creations to be able to put his creations in place and the torment them with everything that is wrong in life.

God is evil because he wasn’t “coded correctly”, Kull made him at the end of his “life cicle” and at the end was too powerless to stop him.

Kull, God’s father, is described as looking like someone that is 145 years old.

Daniel revives God’s sister. She then proceeds to remake the world to as she sees fit, disregarding opinions or cultures.

The aliens make one last appearance and as it turns out they had been manipulated by God to stop David of getting his powers because for some reason he could not destroy the rock in his head.

It’s revealed the God’s sister is actually Daniel’s real mother, because she created the rock that gives him powers.

Daniel undoes the genocide he had committed, so that’s like the one positive thing he does in the whole book.

Should be noted that we never learn God’s sister name.

In fact onision’s treatment of female characters is downright misogynistic: they are either reduced to an object defined entirely by their relation to a man or when they are not they are one-note simplistic characters without any real plot importance.

And that is everything. This is the book. Well not exactly the book because I lefts some details, but since Onision has a tendency to indtroduce irrelevant details that won’t end up mattering down the line it’s ok.

#Onision #reaper's creek

[livemeofficial]

LiveMe Fiesta

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[space-n-sky]

Are you ever gonna do part 2 on the ZAGR comic analysis? I'm not trying to rush you or anything, I'm just so excited to see your thoughts on their comic interactions.

*deep inhale* So, Nony, I’ve been chipping away at my comic/issue 16 analysis for a good while now, I have a big file of comic panels I’ve saved and everything. Just wanna get that outta the way. I’m very flattered you loved my silly little rant!!

But ever since the movie and the consequential spike in IZ’s popularity, there’s a renewed distaste towards zagr and zadr and it’s dissuaded me from finishing part 2. I mean... Mr. Vasquez’s assertion that Zim is old (i.e, an adult) can’t be overstated. Yeah, the fandom has always known he dislikes zadr and any genuine relationships forming in iz, but Vasquez’s posts are playful and sarcastic. The fandom never ignored his statements, more like overlooked them for the sake of our ships. IZ always had a loose cannon (it made for some great jokes in the show, like Skoodge’s sudden revival) so it made sense that Zim’s age was more or less up to the viewer. I guess a lot of confusion came with Zim’s child coding. I mean, he went to school, tried to court tak when he thought she was a classmate, it’s even revealed by issue 40 and developed later in Florpus that he has parental issues expressed through the Tallest and is parallel to Dib and Membrane: Zim’s fear of failing the Tallest and wanting their approval= Dib’s fear of Membrane not being proud of him, shared frustration their central authority figure overlooks them. When I first watched the show years ago, I assumed  Zim was a little older than  Dib, and later made the conclusion that he was ageless because he easily fits into adult and child roles. 

Still, Vasquez has made it clear that Zim’s always been an adult and his portrayal as a child is supposed to be a cruel joke at his immaturity.  That said, I’m not sure I should ship zagr or even post my part 2 for the sake of completion. I don’t think the fandom would take it well ^^’ It’s not just the fear of backlash, I’m not keen on shipping an adult and child, even if I decide to age them up in media. I’m still really on the fence with this, but I love the potential in Zim and Gaz’s chemistry regardless of ship. I hope this answered your question!

#invader zim #iz #zim #invader zim enter the florpus #zagr #she speaks #hhh fandom please be kind in your response ;-;

[man-vs-cube]

Biden: Flawed Man, Amazing Brand?

In many ways it's difficult to understand why Joe Biden will be the Democratic nominee for President.

His record as a politician is bad, from a modern Democratic point of view. His history of alleged sexual misconduct is bad. His history of lying is bad. His alleged cognitive decline - or whatever is fueling his incoherent campaign performances - is bad. He's struggling to attract donors or rally attendees.

(Here's an article describing the substantial case against Joe Biden. Here's an article discussing his latest sexual misconduct allegation.)

It's easy to think he will lose just like Hillary did.

But I don't count him out yet. Hypothesis: Joe Biden has amazing branding. Not only is his brand much more positive than his flawed reality, it is also arguably a good counter-brand to Trump.

If Biden hadn't been Obama's Vice President, does anyone think he would even be in the race for President? I observe that Biden got a big boost to his brand by his stint as VP. I speculate that people who remember Obama and the Obama years fondly think fondly of Biden as well. That's brand.

From what I can tell, the Democratic public generally sees Biden as an honest man of good character. That's absurd. His character is arguably the worst of any of the major Democratic primary candidates. He's telling self-serving lies about his involvement in the Civil Rights movement and the sexual assault allegation against him is both a more severe and more credible allegation than that against Kavanaugh. (I do not intend that sentence to suggest I believe the Ford allegation is false; I believe it is most likely true.) How do so many Democrats think he has a good character relative to the other options? That's the power of a good brand.

Comparing Biden to some of the other candidates, he has the appearance and demeanor that suit our prejudices of who is a Respectable, Trustworthy Person. Bloomberg is short. Buttigieg has a funny looking face. Warren is a nerd. Bernie has a bad haircut and hunches. Warren, Kamala, and Booker all have sexism and/or racism to contend with. These are all brand problems.

So I speculate Biden's excellent brand comes from a) being Obama's VP and b) looking the part.

--------

Hold on a second.

What about the alleged cognitive decline?

I don't know for sure what's going on with Biden. The clips I've seen indeed look like he's losing his train of thought or struggling to express himself clearly. But using my subjective, nonexpert interpretation of clips chosen by his opposition to discredit him to diagnose his overall cognitive capacity seems epistemically risky.

Still, I think it's likely that 77-year-old Biden is losing some cognitive ability. He's old and the clips make him look bad. And if that's true, I think it is an astonishing rebuke to the idea of him becoming President. This is a country of over three hundred million people and the best the Democrats can propose to rule it is an elderly man in cognitive decline? To be one of the most powerful humans on Earth, with sole authority over the world's largest nuclear weapons stockpile for the next four years until he's eighty-two years old?

Incoherent speech and "cognitive decline" sounds like really bad branding, doesn't it? Shouldn't it sink my argument?

I'm not so sure.

--------

I mean, sure, when I say, "the man with sole authority over the world's largest nuclear stockpile shouldn't be someone who is losing executive function to age", it sure sounds bad. But I think that for many people, that's not the context that Biden's brand is being evaluated in.

They're comparing him to Trump. Many perceive Trump's style as brash, disruptive, uncivil, arrogant. They see him as a loose cannon. They're exhausted at having their attention drawn to his latest inflammatory statement or tweet, his latest insult, his latest retaliation towards those he deems disloyal.

(Do I think Trump is a loose cannon? I think that characterization is easy to exaggerate. The biggest loose cannon president of my lifetime was George W. Bush, when he started the Iraq War for no good reason. That's a lot more consequential than insulting a deceased veteran's family or tweeting about the press being the "enemy of the people".)

The manifestation of Biden's alleged cognitive decline could be characterized as "the opposite of loose cannon". Watching him, you're worried not so much that senility might lead him to drastic, risky decisions. You're worried he might be totally inert, unable to do much or to lead the country anywhere, for better or for worse. It seems entirely reasonable to speculate that a President Biden might choose a younger, more capable VP, appoint a boring technocratic cabinet, lean out of the presidency, and stick to low-volatility decisions. That's a sharp contrast to Trump! It even potentially stands out compared to the other Democratic candidates, many of whom would surely draw more attention to themselves than Biden. On the single issue of "who will make the Presidency itself a less exhausting attention sink", Biden might legitimately be the best candidate.

Trump himself has nicknamed Biden "Sleepy Joe". But to a voter looking for a less provocative President, that might be a compliment. Vote for Sleepy Joe, and you won't have to wake up in the morning wondering what Trump's latest inflammatory tweet is. No more "I hate to pay attention to him but I don't feel I can ignore him either." Vote for Sleepy Joe, and you'll sleep better too. I think this could be a reason Biden has been so successful. In this framing, cognitive decline enhances his brand. It doesn't diminish it.

--------

Some are predicting that Trump will beat Biden in a blowout victory. Anything could happen - including a Trump blowout. But my best guess is that it'll be close. I'll be surprised if Trump wins by a large margin. Sure, Biden doesn't look very good when held up to scrutiny. But maybe he's just got a great brand.

#biden politics branding

[junossteel]

Romantic Parallels: Klance and Allurance, which will become canon??

I don’t see a lot of people talking about this at all, so I want to talk to my thirsty klancers out there about a seemingly not-klance scene. 

That’s right. This scene. 

This screenshot is right after Lance says “we make a great team” 

Sound familiar? 

Now I know this seems consequential at first, but hear me out.

The reason this is so important is because one scene his feelings aren’t completely shot down, and in the other, they are. The romantic coding of this phrase is essentially confirmed when Lance gets all blushy after saying it to Allura. However he is shot down, essentially closing a potential pathway to get closer with Allura, the only thing that makes it different from the moment with Keith is that he delivers the line in a completely softer way, and Keith remains emotionally open to him, smiling at him with acceptance. However different the deliveries are, the choice of words is where the parallel lies. Writing is a deliberate art. ESPECIALLY in television shows, where creators drop foreshadowing left and right. I think the comparison of Keith and Allura being referred by Lance as being a part of his “team” is intentional, and meant to imply that Lance wants a partnership, he wants to get closer to them whether he believes it explicitly or implicitly.  And the rejection he receives from Allura implicitly shoots down this possibility of a partnership in any more than a platonic sense. While the emotional readiness of Keith to be a part of his “team” could be foreshadowing for a possible non-platonic relationship to come. Essentially, the parallel between the phrase said to Keith and Allura is made. The “door” to Allura is shut immediately at her own volition, however the “door” to Keith is left open and ambiguous, possibly foreshadowing something between them in the future. 

This might seem a tad bit deep for just a one-liner, but I beg to differ. Parallels are added to characters with intention. In this case, I believe the intention of the creators to connect Allura and Keith in this way ties to Lance and his eventual love interest. So while it may be just a one liner, if you think about it, the one liner is meant to connect something ever larger together that could possibly happen in the future.  

The other reason as to why I am so confident about this theory is that the connection between Allura, Lance’s initial crush, and Keith, has been made many times. So it’s not that much of a stretch to say that they would do it again. I’m sure I’m not the first to point this one out, but the connection made between Keith and Allura has been made pretty clear over the course of the seasons.

in season four, with the most blatant connection: 

  Also, his use of the words “The two of us” to refer to both him and Allura (in the same scene that I’ve been talking about) was said in a dreamy voice. While he said the EXACT SAME WORDS to refer to himself and Keith helping Shiro out of the Garrison hospital (back in S3 ep1, during the ‘hey man’ scene)

I probably could find some more parallels but finals are coming and I don’t have that much time on my hands to rewatch the show, so I’ll leave you to find the other ones ;)

One final note: 

This is not to say that it confirms any existing feelings, rather, it foreshadows them. I know a lot of Klancers out there who want a definite answer as to if Klance is Cannon King™ but the best I can offer is foreshadowing. Because if it’s foreshadowed, that of course means it’s going to happen later on. So while I can’t confirm for sure that Lance has feelings for Keith, I can sure as hell convince you that that is where the writers are headed.

#in other words..... #klance is cannon king #klance #klance meta #ppl better reblog this i spent a shitpile of time writing this up #season 6 #voltron meta #voltron season 6 #voltron spoilers #voltron teaser #keith kogane #keith #lance mcclain #lance voltron #keith voltron #keith meta #lance meta #allura meta #allura #allura voltron #hunk garret #takashi shirogane #shiro vld #pidge #pidge vld #here take my ramblings *yeets post into the void* #i really hope ppl believe me on this one #i see dumb bitches over here think they theory gods because they pointed out #that lance cradled himself while he said #we make a good team