Doomed Voyage
Somehow, I doubt this title actually relates to Jon and Basira's voyage.
Oh, Basira is sea sick. I can relate hon. Motion sickness is a bitch.
Jon... hon, what are you doing? Feels a little dangerous. You got nowhere to run if this guy gets pissed off at you once he's done telling you his story.
Ah yes, Salesa again, seller of the homophobic vase. This should be uncomfortable if nothing else...
Why do I believe this old woman actually exists?
Weird... must be the Spiral, right? Can't imagine what else that would but why?
Nah, these people saw a lot of weird shit on this boat at this point. And he didn't just say there'd be a big pay out, he also said it would be dangerous. If he's acknowledging the danger then you all should have the good sense to not do this job.
Small, private island? Does this have something to do with the Dark? Yeah, sounds like it...
An old camera?
Well that's... bad... uh? Sea monster?
I genuinely don't know which fear this might be?
Dude, Salesa, what is your deal my guy?
Did the boat blow up? Uh? Okay, so he killed Salesa, I'm guessing.
UH?! JON! What the fuck, dude?!
Yes! Exactly, what Basira said!
JON! I don't like who you're becoming, SIR! I must insist you not become like Gertrude, thank you kindly!
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141 at the dentist
Simon is fine. It's not his favorite thing in the world but he's had enough cracked and/or broken teeth to know his way around a dentist. It's just a part of being a lieutenant under captain price. The man is a damn mother hen.
Which brings us to soap. He HATES the dentist with a passion. It's not even like he has bad hygiene. He has excellent hygiene. He brushes, flosses, mouthwash, the whole sh-bang. But no matter where he goes they always talk to him like he's a child, or they talk over him. Plus they ask questions and then shove their fingers in your mouth, like how are you supposed to answer then. Also where the hell is he supposed to look when they're face is directly over his face, like is he suppoed to stare into their eyeballs ???
Gaz does that thing where he keeps licking the dentist's fingers while they're cleaning... it's awkward for everyone
Price honestly has no problems at the dentist. He's friends with his dentist.
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[ID: Eight digital drawings of Jonathan Sims from TMA, a thin, British-Indian man with dark, curly hair and a moustache that are shown to rapidly grow out and turn almost entirely grey over the events of the story. He also accrues various scars on his face, neck, and arms, and in the images based in seasons four and five he is shown to have an eerie glow in his eyes, similar to the red eye effect in photos. The drawings depict: Jon with his head raised as Daisy presses a knife to his neck, drawing blood; looking down with a peaceful expression, reading something; smiling sheepishly to the side as he says “To be quite honest, Martin, I’m really rather relieved”; smiling eerily, his face mostly obscured in shadow, as he says “It’s alright, Floyd. You just... need a break”; raising one eyebrow with a horrified expression as he says “We do not want it”; staring silently into the middle distance, shirtless and covered in grime; lifting one hand in a placating gesture as he says “I am not losing you as well!”; and smiling, the sclera of his eyes visibly damaged and red, as he says “Yes, Martin, you are my reason”. The background is dark red and there are frenetic scribbles behind each depiction, which grow brighter and more disordered according to his level of distress. End ID.]
well you see i decided that my s1 jon design needed a receding hairline and a moustache and it just kinda spiralled out of control idk what to tell u. he’s just like that
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Hi! I'm sorry if you've already talked about this, but I was wondering what your thoughts were on Caleb's becoming a professor at the Soltryce Academy? As compared to what some fans thought he would do (going rogue and taking down Cerberus Assembly)
Hi anon,
I don't know if I've talked about this, and I don't think I have at length if I did, so I'd like to thank you for asking me and providing the opportunity for the rant below. If you were simply looking for a brief answer that is only about Caleb, then I do have to ask whether you are familiar with this blog and my whole deal. But also the brief answer is "I think it's beautiful that Caleb carves out a place for himself that harkens back to his childhood dreams, in a world he once thought he would have to remake entirely in order to ever feel at home. The idea that this is somehow a failure, and that the secret good ending is him turning into Batman or perhaps a moderately sympathetic Agatha Christie villain seems unfathomable if you are not stupid and lack all media literacy. Unfortunately being an idiot with no media literacy is somewhat in vogue these days. In this essay I will - "
(and here's the essay)
The ending of Campaign Two felt horribly abrupt when announced: I was among the people who thought so, and who thought so loudly. Yet it finished, after a marathon session, with an ending that, at every turn, showed how profoundly the cast cared about and understood the arcs of the characters they had built and the story that they had told. They truly did, as the advice Brennan repeated recently goes, surprise us with the inevitable. I would not change a thing.
Caleb Widogast, like any good character, was more than the sum of his parts. Yes, he was a sensitive portrayal of a character who had undergone traumatic child abuse and who still was dealing with the aftermath. Yes, he was an equally sensitive portrayal of someone who is primarily speaking in one's second language. Yes, he was a wizard, which rules, and bisexual, which also rules, and he had a magic cat and a great sense of humor. But most of all Caleb was the realization of a coherent goal that was deeply tied into the setting not just of D&D 5e but of Exandria, of Wildemount, of Zemni Fields, and of the Soltryce Academy.
He was once a young man who dreamed of something better and who had a gift for the arcane, and he managed, so he thought, to find a way to rise above his humble origins. His dream was to become a teacher. Trent had other plans, you know the rest, and he woke up in his late 20s, a fugitive, with the magic powers he'd had in his mid-teens, and a life he felt he had nigh irrevocably destroyed. For a time, he lived mostly not because he wished to be alive, but because he felt his death would not serve his goal: his moonshot, to undo the mess he'd made of his past. Along the way, he met a goblin, and then he met a few people more. He started to laugh again, and to become more powerful, and encounter new ideas, and fall in love, and inch by inch, begin to heal - all without yet undoing his parents' death. He made arcane breakthroughs that had nothing to do with altering time and all to do with helping his closest friend. He tentatively found that there were other wizards he could trust, and learn from, and perhaps even care for.
And also, along that path, he learned there were others who pursued secrets about time, and possibility; there were wizards he could not trust but from whom he might have been able to learn. And he sometimes chose not to do so, because somewhere along the line, the plan changed. I don't think Caleb even realized it had until he was faced with his chance. It is worth noting that Caleb's murderous rampage through Vergesson Sanatorium, and his decision to leave Trent Ikithon alive, were separated by no more than a week.
Caleb did not end the campaign fully healed. That's not how this works; that's not even a meaningful or measurable statement. But he did end the campaign having told himself, inch by inch, that moving forward cannot happen while also moving backward. He let go of so many things, recognized they were not to be, and then he finally stood in a room with Essek with an ancient machine that said "you can do it. You can have what you've wanted for so long." And Caleb had planned this, planned it carefully, no paradoxes for him, just his parents living a quiet life half a world away, and he could have done it. In a way, it would have felt inevitable too. And he hears Essek say "Will you do it? I will help you." And he hears Essek say "But I accept my regrets, my thoughts now, and I'm here today with this knowledge, in this moment with you, because of those mistakes." And he hears himself say "Because you're not my cat. My cat is dead." And he sees himself with Frumpkin around his shoulders like a scarf in the tiny hut in the middle of the tundra. And he hears himself say "Yeah, he's always been one to control narrative. And that is a big part of holding onto power, controlling narrative." And he drags some dust up his arm, and disintegrates everything in the room, and burns what's left.
***
My brother works in a middle school (I promise this is relevant). My brother is also an openly gay man with rainbows plastered prominently on various laptop and backpack surfaces. As one might guess, he's had multiple kids come out to him. I think about this when I think about what Caleb said, about how, when the guard changes, will he and Astrid "mangle more children to feed the fields of Wynandir." And I think about what it means to the Assembly, who we know benefited from Trent's actions, who in some cases were well aware of them, to not only have one of his former victims among their number, but to have one in the very school they used to recruit. What it means that both these people publicly gave testimony. What it means to the Soltryce Academy students that there's a teacher they know will believe them.
Caleb has already struck down what he needed to of the Cerberus Assembly.
It's simple. Sometimes happiness looks like a return. Sometimes happiness looks like a boat heading towards the horizon. Sometimes happiness looks like a place to rest. And I think that it's not out of the question to say that to some, happiness does come after a righteous round of revenge. But does not look like that for Caleb, and what's more, while he took the whole campaign to discover how it might look for him - to even believe that it was a thing he could still perceive and one day have - it never, at any point, did.
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