I still see people in tags saying that Magnus not listening to Luke and Simon about the SQ and Maia is OOC, and something that a “centuries old warlock” wouldn’t do. Or straight up calling him a jerk for “not caring” about Maia.
Was Magnus wrong for not listening to Luke and Simon? Yes. Does he care about Maia and considers her a friend? Of course.
But he did act like a “centuries old warlock” in that situation, he wasn’t behaving like a jerk, he wasn’t childish or OOC.
There are a lot of great meta out there explaining (to those who still don’t get it) why Magnus sided with the Seelie Queen, so I won’t repeat all of that again. What I do want to point out that Magnus is “centuries old” which means that he has experienced systematic racism, oppression and genocide committed by the Clave and the shadowhunters for centuries. One generation changed another but the Clave remained the same, the shadowhunters remained the same ignorant bigots. The only person, who had given Magnus hope in the system / shadowhunters (unwittingly) betrayed him by choosing to protect the Clave’s interests. During the events of 2x17 – 2x20 Magnus’ people are facing impending genocide. On top of that he’s suffering from PTSD.
He feels trapped and betrayed by all, including the person he loves. This is also why he’s so vulnerable to the Queen’s manipulative grooming. Not only Magnus sees her as the only one, who can offer him a viable option for survival of his people, but she’s also one of the only people, the only Downworld leader to be exact, who can understand Magnus, being another centuries-old immortal, who has similar experience with the Clave. He doesn’t expect that someone, who has this kind of history with the shadowhunters, would ever side with Valentine.
Now let’s look at that situation through Magnus’ eyes – his main priority at that moment is safety of his people, and finding Valentine, he’s in the middle of performing some spells with his warlocks – when he opened the door to Simon and Luke, he was holding a spell book and some potion bottle – he was in the middle of important work and had a company waiting for him to return:
My warlocks are on the roof, holding up the wards to keep Valentine in the city. I have to go help them.
And in the middle of all of this the two most biased towards the Queen people come in telling Magnus that he should break the one deal, that can save his people’s lives. All the while Simon and Luke have only their hunch to back their words. Yes, Simon and Luke are Magnus’ friends (as is Maia), and fellow downworlders, but neither of them has the same experience with Clave’s racism as Magnus shares with the Queen.
Luke is not an immortal, and on top of that a former shadowhunter, who still has bits of the worldview from his past life, who still relates to the shadowhunter mentality and morals (to a point). Luke also seems to have some personal grudge against the Queen, the same as Simon has after the whole Clace debacle. Simon has only known this world for a couple of months, sure he’s already experienced Clave’s systemic racism first hand, but even with that, most of his actual experience with the shadowhunters is mostly positive one – given his friendship with Clary and the gang.
We as viewers know that Luke and Simon are right, and that the Queen is a double-faced manipulator, but, for all that Magnus knows in the given moment - Simon and Luke are not seeing how serious the situation is, and are operating off of their personal, not very pleasant relationship with the Queen. Last time, in a situation similar to this, when he and Alec thought that Izzy was kidnapped by Azazel, Magnus ended up being trapped in Valentine’s body, while it turned out that Izzy was safe and sound all along. This time it’s not only Magnus’ own personal safety is at stake, but his people’s, and for all he knows Simon and Luke could be tilting at windmills.
Again, was Magnus wrong for not listening to Luke and Simon? – yes. Did he have justifiable reasons not to listen? – also yes.
So, no, Magnus wasn’t “childish” / “OOC” / “evil” / “stupid” – as people keep saying. He acted exactly like an immortal Downworld leader making difficult decisions in difficult situations.
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TWWS: The Best of D&D
Ladiiiiiiiies and gentlemeeeeeeeeeeen! Welcome to the ultimate showdown: THE BEST OF D&D!
This post contains the best of the best of the D&D/RPG posts over the years of TWWS, all the way from the beginning. At the end of the post, there will be a link to a survey where you can vote for your favourites in each category (other/3.5e, 4e, and 5e) and nominate MVPs for each category. If the person you want to vote MVP has only been referenced as “Player,” just note down what quote they’re responsible for. A week from today (or until enough of you fill out the survey), Round 2 of the competition begins.
Everybody roll for initiative!
Overheard During Other RPGs
During Hackmaster, about a bottle label:
SB: “It says ‘Thou shalt not question the DM over inane shit!’”
Overheard During D&D 3.5e
Unarmed damage?:
MM: “It’s the difference between a slap and a bitch-slap.”
So wrong it's right:
MM (IC): “I like your spunk.”
KH (OOC): “So does [gay player].”
Rogue equipment:
KB (IC): “I need [boots] that are…soft-sounding.”
MM (IC): “We have socks.”
Describing a character:
SO: “She is built like a brick shithouse.”
DM: “She shits brick houses.”
Bubbles: “She makes brick houses shit bricks.”
When the party has two rogues:
KH (IC): “I can find it!”
KB (IC): “I can find it better.”
RD (IC): “[Wizard], if you do not stop right now, I will arrest you for terminal stupidity, and I can assure you, I will find a law against it!”
A discount on services rendered:
SO: “What’s 75% off of ‘I run and do whatever you ask without question’?”
Calling for divine help in very specific situations:
MM: “Please state your current medical emergency.”
KB: “Head-splosion.”
SO: “If you have been stabbed, press one. If you are currently being stabbed, press two.”
MM: “If your head’s detonated and you’ve launched into a wall, press three.”
RD: “Why did you press three? We never expected anyone to press three!”
SO: “We don’t know what to do in this medical emergency! Please dial again!”
IO: “[Wizard] is going to say - ”
KB: “Can I tell you why this is a bad idea?”
IO: “No.”
Proper procedure when everything goes to hell:
RD: “[Cleric] goes outside and makes a magic circle, sits in it, and cries.”
KH (IC): “That stupid fucking son of a flea-ridden bitch cunt wizard - ”
MM (IC): “Oh, him.”
How to pray to the god Ao:
KB, KH, and MM: “I throw my hands up in the air sometimes sayin’ heeeeey-oh! I worship Aaaaaaa-o!”
Bubbles: “[The wizard’s] gaaaaaaaay-o!"
Overheard During D&D 4e
SIDE NOTE: A Quiplash commentary on D&D 4e:
A more environment-friendly alternative to toilet paper
- 4th ed character sheets
What we think we saw - again?:
Player: “If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and weighs the same as a duck, it must be a witch.”
KH: “It’s a witch.”
RJ: “Build a bridge out of 'er!”
Healing needed:
Player: “I have a mess kit, will that help?”
WS: “Only if you want to make a mess.”
Captain: “Neverwinter ho!”
Dwarf: “Hos? Where?”
SB: “Eventually you end up at the most popular stall in the market.”
Player: “Porn?”
About attacking a character that may or may not be good:
SB: “Wait, what’s your alignment?”
Player: “Lawful Paranoid.”
Taunting the kraken:
Player: “Your tentacles are so short even an anime girl wouldn’t take 'em!”
Questioning the legitimacy of an NPC:
SB (IC as Priest): “I have a degree in polytheism from the University of Phoenix Online!”
Making sure it’s really dead:
SB: "You kick the head and it goes sailing through the open door of the tomb. You hear a voice in the darkness go ’Gooooooooal!’”
Killing the undead:
SB: “Congratulations, you choked something to death that doesn’t breathe.”
Mass undead murder:
Player: “We made a ghoul-ash. An evil gumbo, really.”
Architecture:
Player: “I like big buttresses and I cannot lie.”
Interesting kills:
SB: “You decapitated him with a bludgeoning weapon.”
About flying books:
Player 1: “The window opens in! How do they fly out?”
Player 2: “They’re paperbacks."
Player: “Thank God I decided to engage the dragon in melee.”
MW: “You’ll never hear that in any other D&D campaign ever again.”
Player: “Is the food still on the table?”
Three Of Us: “DON’T EAT IT!!!”
Overheard During D&D 5e
Annoying Teen: (about his character) “Would he still hate me?”
AD: (not about his character) “I think everyone hates you.”
Don’t mess with a dire bear:
JI: “There’s one inside who attacks the bear…" (rolls) "...and misses horribly ‘cause he shits his pants.”
JI: “He doesn’t have 100 hit points. He has 95.”
Demonic insight:
KH: “I say in Infernal, ‘Peace! We mean you no harm!’”
JI: “There’s no word in Infernal for ‘peace.’”
Retroactive Edit: Demons actually speak Abyssal. Devils speak Infernal.
Animal form disadvantages:
AD: “I’m going to bite [the zombie].”
Everyone Else: (mass noise of disgust)
JI: “You feel a pinch in your mind as if she’s flipping through your yellow pages.”
AD: “That’s got to be a euphemism for something.”
ST: “Oh, yeah, baby, turn my yellow pages.”
JB: “Turn to ‘F’ for fun.”
What happens in every religious venue in every D&D campaign ever:
JB: “Here is the church, here is the steeple,”
KH: “Open the door, and here are the zombies.”
KH: “Did you sneak off to her house in the middle of the night?”
ST: “Does that sound like something I would do?”
KH, AD, and CD: “Yes.”
JI: “You guys came in here - ”
AD: “ - like a wrecking ball - ”
Post-adventure considerations:
KH: “[Rogue] wouldn’t know what to do with her life.”
AD: “She can bail herself out of jail.”
Switching to melee for a change:
CD: “Let’s see if this ‘offense’ thing you do all the time really works.” (rolls a critical hit)
The logistics of being swallowed by a sea monster:
ST: “Am I going to take damage if I move further along his digestive tract?”
EC: “If you had leprosy and your ears fell off would you be a deaf leper?”
Identifying mysterious cults:
KH: “What’s the Cult of Howling Hatred?”
EC: “The Westboro Baptist Church, obviously.”
DR: “Apparently your god has personally intervened due to your badassery.”
A Mass Effect cameo on a dexterity check for dancing:
EC: “If you roll a one, you dance like Shepard.”
EC (IC): “So what you’re saying is that it’s very dangerous and we shouldn’t go in. I’ll take point.”
Things to worry about in combat:
KH: “You don’t have enough hit points to take it like a man, honey.”
The ends justify the means?:
Bubbles: “Did you have fun role-playing an interrogation?”
DR: “You guys are fucked up.”
KH: “How do you stun-lock a Terrasque?!?”
JB: “Fourth Edition.”
ST: “Do we have to kill them before we eat? I hate murdering on an empty stomach.”
About a revenant and a possible lover:
EC: “Well the beast is committing necrophilia and the necro is committing bestiality…”
DR: “What happens in Faerun, et cetera.”
Rolling high on a seduction check:
DR: “Frankly, I didn’t think you’d go down this road.”
KH: “Oh, I went down all right.”
More on the seduction roll:
Bubbles: “Try to convince her to come with us. The way she came with you last night.”
About a nonviolent kua-toa:
Player: “He’s a paci-fish.”
About dealing with face-hugging enemies:
CD: “You swung at yourself and missed?”
AD: “I swung at myself and missed.”
ST (IC): “I’ll be staying in the boat unless you have need of my specific skills.”
CD (OOC): “Dying first is not a skill.”
About cultists:
DM (IC): “They are water people. Maybe they’re just going with the flow.”
About a minotaur who keeps missing:
DM: “At least when you put a bull in a china shop he’ll break shit.”
About bottles of brandy:
EC: “I have two questions: how many of them are there and how many of them can I carry?”
Ideas so bad they’re good:
KH: “We’re gonna blow up the temple with the distillery.”
F: “The temple, the lich, half the plot…”
About going forward:
KH: “Against our better judgment.”
DM: “What better judgment?”
KH: “Good point.”
About shooting arrows:
KH: “'Nock’ yourself out.”
About using a lot of magic:
JS: “We’re blowing a big load here right now.”
JS: “You wanna go up the shaft?”
ST and T: “That’s what he said.”
About flirting with an efreet:
JI: “Below her waist is a trailing cloud of black smoke, so you’re not getting anything.”
Questioning the guardian imp:
Player (IC): “What happens if someone disturbs the sarcophagus before your time is up?”
WS (IC): “There’ll be six more weeks of winter.”
MR (IC): “Trying to undercut me on my quest to restore my former glory?”
KH (IC): “You have no glory to restore.”
Other Players: “Oooooooh!”
SW: “Quick, someone cast heal!”
When talking with a spirit:
MR (IC): “You can’t just ask someone if they’re dead! That’s incredibly rude! The correct term is ‘mortally challenged’!”
After a petrifying encounter with some basilisks:
BC: “I always thought she was stone-hearted.”
KT: “I dunno, I thought she rocked.”
JS: “I am going to kill all of you.”
What to do with windmills:
KH: “If we had a lance, we could go tilting.”
MR: “Cavalier idea.”
Quest priorities:
Player 1: “No one’s going to pay us to do it right now. It’s not worth the attention.”
JF: “Roll to see if you hit me by accident.”
KH: “Oh, I’d hit you on purpose.”
K’s paladin chastising A’s paladin about her sex habits:
A (IC): “I thought you were the paladin of joy!”
K (IC): “Not that kind of joy!”
About a previous edition of D&D:
KH: “[What] the hell couldn’t you do in 3.5?”
SW: “Win.”
KH: “Technically you’re underage.”
ST: “That’s never stopped me before.”
AD: “You or your character?”
ST: “Do I have to answer that?”
D: “We’re gonna make the Underdark great again!”
ST: “We’re gonna build a wall - a really big wall in the Underdark, and we’re gonna make the gnomes pay for it.”
A: “We pay for everything already! Screw you!”
About a character who caught fire:
T: “He’s not rolling initiative; he’s rolling on the ground.”
T (IC): “Let’s go before the men’s egos get us killed.”
JB (IC): “My god believes in good opportunities. Not dying is a good opportunity.”
Passing on some bad news:
JI (IC): “[Chief] not sick!”
AD (IC): “He was when we were done with him.”
To a healer:
KH (IC): “I don’t suppose you have a cure for the common cold?”
JI (IC): “I’m not a miracle worker.”
Reassuring a woman scorned:
AA (IC): “Go tell her - all men dogs.”
JI (OOC): “Says the cat.”
To the tune of “Like a G6”:
ST and KH: “Roll a d6, roll a d6!”
KH: “Of course it’s always about dirty sex - I’m a bard!”
AD: “The hell are you two talking about down there?!”
To a mindflayer, about a stupid character:
KH (IC): “I’d offer you his brain to eat, but I don’t think he has one.”
JS (IC as mindflayer): “I don’t eat junk food.”
MGW: “It’s Tza…Zsa…his name is Jasper.”
Saying goodbye to the barkeep:
MR (IC): “I’ll be back visiting the northern parts soon.”
KH (OOC): “And then you can visit her southern parts.”
About a questionable NPC:
ST (IC): “I would never dream of hurting you!”
KH (IC): “I would.”
About prison visitations:
JB (IC): “How often is it that a [gypsy] walks in here voluntarily?”
Failing a romance/persuasion check:
AA: “Ooh, she cast Zone of Friend!”
Preparing for a swamp adventure:
CD: “I want to buy some insect repellant.”
AD: “What, your personality doesn’t drive them away?”
About a magic boat:
JB (IC): “I saw it grow!”
ST (IC): “Are you sure you didn’t rub it? That sometimes happens with wood.”
JB (IC): “You would know.”
ST (IC): “You wouldn’t.”
JB (IC): “Tell that to my two children.”
About an injured drow:
MGW (IC): “Look at that poor girl! She has a black eye! You can’t see it, ‘cause her skin is black, but still!”
Last-minute aliases:
RD (IC): “Unfortunately, no, my name is Dick Ballsenshaft.”
To a half-orc and Sir Bearington, regarding weirdness:
MGW (IC): “…but for me to assume you’re in a loving relationship with a talking bear is where we draw the line?!”
Wisdom for stealing magic items:
KC: “Anything that glows goes.���
About fleeing:
RD: “I’m going to run like an Amazon employee during the holidays.”
MGW: “You were doing so well until everybody died.”
JF: “D&D in a summary.”
Once more about fleeing:
RD: “A smart man knows when to run like a little bitch.”
J: “Why do you think that’s the first thing I did?”
Recapping the previous session:
A: “There was a shitshow, but we got away with it.”
S: “So the usual, then.”
About creature size:
MR: “Is an ettin large or huge?”
MGW: “I think he’s just large.”
A: “He’s probably large but pretends he’s huge.”
AS: “Typical guy.”
When a pervy character is disgusted by a perv:
RD: “Dear Kettle, I have an issue with your current hue. Signed, the Pot.”
A: “He told us to send a message.”
KH: “A sword in the stomach is a message.”
SW: “The Lannisters send their regards.”
The pervy paladin:
A: “I used Lay On Hands. I healed him.”
KH: “Yeah, but where did you lay your hands?”
MGW: “Wherever she wanted.”
About our tactics:
SW: “We put the 'fun’ in 'dysfunctional.’”
About possible activities:
MGW (IC): “I know you’re a tiefling, but we’re all the same color in the dark, right?”
Interesting weapon material:
MGW: “You all take a moment of reflective silence.”
JB: “Nah, I’m just cleaning my bone.”
KH: “Technically that’s a moment of reflective silence.”
KC: “Not if you’ve seen the barbarian do it.”
Scrying like bad cell reception:
KH: “Switch to AD&D.”
JB: “Can you scry me now?”
About the taste of human:
SW: “You would know.”
A: “Nah, I don’t swallow.”
MR: “This conversation is making me uncomfortable.”
Wrestling prep:
MR (IC): “I want a good, clean fight.”
A (IC): “No we don’t.”
JB (IC): “What’s a clean fight?”
A (IC): “It means you have to take a bath first.”
JB (IC): “What’s a bath?”
MGW: “There’s a bridge that looks like it may have collapsed at some point.”
JB: “Is it a-bridged?”
Beautiful references (read in Rorschach’s voice):
AA: “I’m not grappled with YOU,”
ST, AA, and KH: “YOU’RE grappled with ME!”
About remaining spells:
KH: “I have three 1st-level slots and one 2nd-level slot.”
CD: “Those are 'keeping people alive’ slots.”
Dealing with extra-limbed gorillas:
ST: “Uh-oh! They must have been forewarned!”
AD: “What makes you say that?”
ST: “Forewarned is four-armed.”
AD: -_-
Negotiation skills:
AD: “It’s just me trying to bullshit him.”
JI: “Why don’t you make a bullshit check?”
Trying to figure out if the staff is necromantic:
CD: “We could kill a mouse in front of the staff. We could kill a mouse with the staff. How much is it to buy a mouse?”
JB: “Anyone die while I was gone?”
SW: “Not on the outside.”
Wizarding limits:
JS: “You may not polymorph your zombies into t-rexes.”
Zombies aren’t too smart:
BC (IC): “Bobs, attack the closest gnoll!”
Bobs: (run at gnoll party member)
KH (OOC): “Et tu, Bob?”
JS (OOC): “If this doesn’t belong in your blog, I dunno what does.”
Far too relatable:
JS: “Twenty psychic damage.”
BC: “I’ve taken more psychic damage from my mother.”
Worst-laid plans:
KH (IC): “I have a very bad feeling about this.”
MR (IC): “You should.”
Our go-to combat tactic:
MR: “Are we going to stupid the guy to death?”
Zing!:
MGW (IC): “If you join me, I can make you the greatest dwarf who ever lived.”
TP (IC): “I am the greatest dwarf who ever lived.”
Whole Table (OOC): “Ooooohhhhh!!!”
Another verbal duel with a sea god/character class limitations:
KH: “I would say 'what is a god to a nonbeliever,’ but I’m a cleric.”
Activating the mysterious device:
BC (IC): “We did it! I wonder what we did?”
Business as usual:
KH: “This seems like a bad idea, but go ahead.”
Old adages:
MR: “No plan survives contact with the enemy.” (IC) “But then, no enemy has survived contact with us!” (OOC) “Was that quote-worthy?”
KH: “Yes.”
KC: “She can ride me. I don’t care.”
KH: ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
KC: “…I’M A BEAR IN ARMOR.”
Advantageous druidic inanity:
KC: “Are you still riding the flying bear?”
MR: “It’s flying now?”
KC: “Yeah, he flew up to unlock the door.”
AS: “…So he’s a flying bear with armor…”
Spell modifications for humourous purposes:
MR: “Using a Dex[terity] save for Zone of Truth means they’re literally dodging the question.”
About a wild, crazy, out-of-left-field hypothesis:
RD (IC): “I figured if you pulled something that big our of your ass there’d be bleeding involved.”
MR (IC): “…That’s between me and my proctologist.”
SW (OOC): “Did you take fire damage for that? That’s like Taco Bell levels of burn.”
As is per usual:
MR: “We may have once again survived this by the skin of bullshit.”
Take the survey and vote for your favourites!
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