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primrose-path-of-dalliance · 3 years

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@trueblue-escapist this one got long! :) (edit: now on ao3)

It was by sheer fortune that the message arrived while he was dining at Beau and Yasha's home.

They were trying some of the latter's experimental recipes. Fortunately Yasha had progressed very well in the last several months; this was now the fourth meal Caleb had been over for since Beau declared her love's attempts at Empire foods to be reliably nonpoisonous.

He was comfortable, speculating with Beau over her recent visit to Shattengrod. So when Jester began speaking in his head, he almost dropped his fork.

With strained panting—"Caleb, we need some help."

Caleb’s thoughts immediately went to static. He held up a hand as her voice continued, eyes wide, and both Beau and Yasha fell quiet with concern.

"There’s a lot of fishy people and I have, um. One diamond. We’re on the ship. Hope you aren’t busy—"

Abrupt cut-off. No continuation. He shot a look across the table to the other two, and they seemed to instantly read the tension on his face for what it was. They darted from their seats as he replied, "I am with Beau and Yasha. Hang in there, please. We’re coming."

"Sword?" called Yasha from another room.

"Sword. Beau," Caleb shouted, his adrenaline spiking with every second they were still here, "diamonds?"

"One," came her terse response. "I got it."

He stood up. The chair legs screeched against Beau and Yasha’s nice hardwood. Dug a hand through his hair and pulled half of it out of the tie.

Next he slapped his hands together. A strand of amber formed from his pinched thumbs and middle fingers as he drew them apart. Gods, his trembling hands shook the arcane thread. Ten seconds since Jester’s message.

"Essek," Caleb said to the thread, which vibrated with each word. "If you aren’t busy and have the spells. Retrieve Caduceus if you could and bring him to the Nein Heroez. It’s urgent. And diamonds," he added hastily. The thread dissipated.

Yasha and Beau emerged together from the hall with weapons in hand as the reply came: "I will contact Caduceus, then, and keep you updated. Hopefully I can be of aid. Stay safe, Caleb."

Caleb closed his eyes for a single breath and tried to absorb Essek’s soft, controlled caution.

They were coming. They would be okay.

Without needing to look, he held his hands to Yasha and Beau. "Uk’otoa is being an exceptional nuisance."

Beau scowled and said, "I fucking told Fjord to do something with that ball"—and they were off.

***

Jester woke up to what felt like a giant spike piercing through her head, or maybe a handaxe being sunk into her skull—but if it kept going forever instead of happening in an instant. Her stomach felt like a tiny pool of boiling acid that the ship kept rocking back and forth.

She moaned, curling up harder and pressing the heels of her hands to her temples. It didn’t really help, but the pulsing pain eased a little over some time.

"Arty?" she eventually managed.

"I’m so sorry, my dear," murmured his low voice by her ear. "I came as quickly as I could."

"It’s okay. Water?"

She felt a small weasel tongue lick her cheek, then retreat.

After about a minute of measured, careful breathing through the migraine, Jester heard a door crack open and winced from the brighter light now shining in from the hallway.

"Sorry," whispered a familiar voice, and Jester might have started crying at the sound of his Zemnian accent if she wasn’t already teary-eyed from pain.

The door closed, dimming the room again to its singular lantern.

She did her best to uncurl as Caleb set down a bowl and cup on the small table nearby and brought over a chair to her bedside. He reached for his neck, too, and a crimson weasel slipped into his hands.

"Thanks," she said as he returned Sprinkle to her shoulder.

"Of course. Would you like help sitting up?"

"Please."

She had to rest her head on Caleb’s shoulder for a minute when sitting up gave her a rush of a dizzy spell. His hand had rubbed up and down her arm. He smelled like sweat and fish guts and leather.

Eventually Jester had her back against the wall and the cup of water in her hands as she took a careful sip.

"Everyone’s alright," began Caleb, voice still hushed in consideration of her headache. "We took care of them all shortly after you went down, and Fjord was able to heal you a little bit. Essek arrived with Caduceus not long after."

"That’s good."

She closed her eyes and sipped more water. The warm weight of Sprinkle was draped around her neck.

Gods. Jester loved her friends so much.

"Where is everyone? Where’s Fjord?" she asked.

"Out on the deck cleaning up and figuring out what to do next," came the wry response. "Beau gave Fjord a piece of her mind about that orb. Caduceus suggested to try hiding it in the Happy Fun Ball."

"Aw, man. That’s a really good idea."

"Ja. So we are figuring out who will take it in there and where to put it."

She nodded sluggishly, eyes still closed.

"I’m sorry," said Caleb after a long moment. "Do you want to sleep?"

"No. I'm just tired."

That last word came out with a bit more... a bit more than Jester had intended to say it with. She chewed the inside of her cheek and took a sip of water.

She could feel Caleb's gaze on her. "Is it something you would like to talk about?"

The headache continued to pulse in her temples. She stared down into her cup, at the water sloshing side to side from the rocking of the ship. "If you guys are going to Yussa's later, I want to come with. It’s been a while since I’ve seen Mama."

"Of course."

Jester breathed in and out and continued, "It's been a year and I think I'm sick of sailing."

"Ah."

"I mean, there's been so many cool things. The Lucidian Ocean is huge. One time we saw a sea horse that was big enough to ride on. And the port cities we've visited have all been beautiful. But most of the time it's just this boat. And less Arty. And Uk'otoa attacking us for the cloven crystal. I can't even prank people whenever I get bored because it's all the same people, and it's way less fun to keep pranking the same people over and over again."

Caleb made a considering noise. She sipped water, chewing the inside of her cheek some more.

Slowly he asked, "Are you... thinking of staying with your mother for a while?"

"Maybe."

Peaceful silence. They listened to the sounds of wood creaking and the ocean undulating. Jester felt the shittiness of her body continue to ease, and she set down the water to take a sniff at the bowl instead. Some stew, still warm.

As she had a cautious taste, Caleb said, "Hey."

She brought down the bowl and looked at him.

"Would you like to see something cool?"

"Of course I would like to see something cool, Caleb."

His smile as she sat up with anticipation and set down the bowl was very welcome—and a pretty cool sight already. But she watched him pull out a piece of wool and rub it between two fingers, and all of a sudden there was a cat in his lap and another cat on his shoulders.

Jester gasped, hands flying to her face. "Are those your cats?"

The smile on his face only got bigger and warmer as he looked down at the illusory one in his lap cleaning its brown-and-white face. "Yes. This one is Gretel, she is still somewhat a kitten. The other one is Mac, which is short for mackerel because he was eating one from a rubbish heap when I found him."

"Oh my god, Caleb, that’s so adorable." She beamed and leaned in to wiggle her fingers at illusion-Gretel, cooing without caring that it wasn’t the real cat.

He rubbed the wool in his hand and illusion-Gretel began to purr loudly.

She could feel the dimples in her cheeks from grinning. "I love them."

"They will both be very glad to hear that and will eagerly exploit your love to make you spoil them."

"Well, of course I’ll spoil them, they’re so perfect."

Caleb’s smile eased into something soft. "Would you like to meet them in person, then? Before you return to the Nein Heroez?"

The excitement welling up inside Jester faltered.

Oh, right.

She twisted her fingers together, fixing her gaze on the blood crusted in the space between them and beneath her nails. "Um. Yeah, I would love to, Caleb. But probably I'm not going to come back here."

No response except a careful inhale.

She picked at a bloodied crease in her palm and continued, "Fjord and I talked a couple weeks ago. It wasn't like an argument or anything, don't worry! We're one hundred and ten per cent still best friends who love each other and everything, you know? But he loves being captain of the Nein Heroez and doesn't really plan on stopping anytime soon. Or doing anything else. And I want to do more. The world's so big, and there's like a dozen other planes I could see, Arty promised he'd show me around the Feywild—"

Caleb's long-fingered hand placed itself on top of her fidgeting ones, and Jester's rambling mouth fell silent. The illusory cats were gone.

"It's fine, Jester," he said. She looked up at his furrowed brow and crooked smile. "I understand."

Deep breath in and out. Jester returned a similar smile. "Yeah."

Seeming reassured, he leaned back in his chair and seemed to look off elsewhere, his brow still furrowed in thought.

In the lull, she took up the bowl of stew again with more relish. The weight of the news she'd been ignoring had lifted from her shoulders, and with it some of her worries. She hadn't known how people would react. The more reasonable voice in her mind figured that everyone would take the relationship change with ease, reminding her of Yasha's advice in Eiselcross a year ago. The louder, more anxious voice had stressed over whether any of them might judge her for being a bad girlfriend.

Apropos of nothing, gaze still a little distant, Caleb said, "Essek and I are in a relationship."

Halfway through a sip of the stew, Jester's mouth fell open. "Really?"

His lips twitched at the squeal in her voice. "Ja."

She smiled, said, "Aw, I'm happy for you two," and returned to her stew to try and stamp down the sudden, strange sense of instability overtaking her. Like her heart found itself stuck in the second between missing the next step down the stairs and falling.

"Thank you. I am telling you this, though, because Essek and I have had... somewhat of a similar conversation." His eyes flickered to meet her startled gaze briefly, and she saw a bittersweet wryness in them. "Neither of us expect the other to be, well. Committed. My whole self, more or less, is dedicated to my home. I want to make it a better place. Essek has very different goals in mind for his future. We love each other, but between my life and his constant vagrancy, it would be unfair to expect us to stay the same. And, you know. I don't have as much time as he does, anyway."

Jester had the bowl of stew in her lap now, unable to stop staring at Caleb. He finally seemed to notice her attention and awkwardly fixed his eyes on a spot of the wall somewhere to her right and up.

In her chest, time started again. Jester's heart safely found the next step instead of taking a tumble down the stairs.

"Thank you, Caleb," she said softly.

He returned to looking at her properly, and the renewed warmth in his expression helped resettle Jester's sense of the world even further. "I'm sure your mother could be much more reassuring."

"Maybe, but it's you."

Caleb went a little pink. The flush was still visible to Jester's eyes in the dim room. Thank the gods that the warmth in her own cheeks would be much harder for him to notice.

That was enough conversation for her at the moment. She shoved the bowl of stew back against her mouth.

(send me a brief widojest prompt!)

#cr #cr fanfiction #widojest #caleb widogast #jester lavorre #the mighty nein #mentions of shad*wg*st and f/j #prim writes #prim post #trueblue-escapist #readmore

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loquaciousquark · 4 years

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Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E111 (Redux! Oct. 13, 2020)

Gooooood evening good evening good evening, all! I started the VOD late for this recap and somehow the first four or so minutes of the show have a Twitch audio copyright claim, so I am reduced to only reading Brian's lips when he asks if we're on the internet. Hilariously, Marisha's background room is a comfy-looking blue/gold fabric wall with a ceramic colorful abstract lamp and a yellow silk scarf over the lampshade, and Taliesin's is an industrial looking games room in grey and black with multiple monitors, overhead speakers, and mysterious metal fixtures behind him. What a treasure this group is, honestly.

Tonight's guests: Marisha Ray & Taliesin Jaffe, discussing episodes 110 and 111 again. I wildly speculate once more about what might have caused their absence: jury duty? Sam appearing on The Masked Singer? Something to do with the animated show? One day, we’ll know, one day... (One day this “copyrighted audio” section will come back from the wars, too. Ugh!) Finally! The audio comes back to reveal Brian discussing the endless reality of digital meetings and Marisha talking about (I think) her glare-reducing glasses she’s wearing. Welcome to the New Age (welcome to the New Age, to the New Age).

Announcements: Marisha suggests checking out Dimension20, another live tabletop gaming group, which premieres live on Wednesdays at 4pm (CollegeHumor).

Brian immediately wants to know how they feel about the revelation that Molly is alive. Taliesin’s personal reaction: he “knows some things” he can’t talk about and is aware of several possibilities that might be going on, but had a sneaking suspicion that there would not be a body for them to find. He says it’s almost all there for anyone to see in past material. Marisha’s personal reaction: she just wants to know how she’s doing with her theories, & was trying to block Tal’s face out deliberately as she was going off on her theories in the last episode. Taliesin says he thought her ideas were pretty good!

Cad has no clue what to think - it’s like listening to your friends talk about Buffy. Marisha thought it was a 50/50 Molly would still be there, but Beau had no idea. Not that it mattered, because as soon as Matt went through with it the reveal still blew their minds. Tal laid out his plans for the character with Matt during Campaign One (towards the end) after they all got their VM tattoos.

It is a “horrifying and gross” thing to dig up a body, and Beau was pretty reluctant to do it. Tal, as Cad: “Sometimes dead’s better.” The moral quandary of trying to speak with a dead friend was very different here than the frequent occasions they used the spell in C1.

Taliesin says his poker face is very bad, so it’s easier for him to over-react and let it all play out. The only other player he can see very easily from his place in their current setup is Travis, and because he knows Travis doesn’t watch TM, tweet, or participate in social media, he admits he thoroughly enjoyed watching Travis freak out at his freaking out. He says he only knew about 20% of what Matt described at the end of that episode. He was picking things to mug to increase Travis’s surprise. I love this so much.

Taliesin provided the table left leg shake; Travis provided table right. Ha!

Beau is really accepting her role in the Cobalt Soul. It’s good when “as a person, you feel like you can settle into your calling. Sometimes you can do more from the inside than fighting from the outside.” It’s a mirrored but opposite path of Keyleth from C1; Beau felt like she was too good for her duty, while Keyleth thought she wasn’t good enough.

Caduceus is not a big believer in jumping to conclusions. He does have an idea/notion of the “city of the undead” and thinks all this necrotic energy must come from somewhere, and wonders if this is the “capital of anti-death.” He’s willing to believe whatever he sees. This is one of the few things that trigger a bit of loathing and disgust in him. It was terrifying that the Wildmother didn’t know anything.

Beau is pretty confident in her Charlie Day impression laying-out-the-research last episode. She enjoyed taking the things that were known & extrapolating around them; this is a huge facet of Marisha’s own personality and she really enjoys it, so she built a character this time that would allow that kind of puzzle-solving. It’s also why she repeatedly notes when Beau journals, so she can avoid metagaming. Trent’s mention of Vess Durogna’s tomb raiding was completely circumstantial, and the only reason she’d made the connection to the Tombtakers was because she’d recently reviewed those notes for a separate unannounced project. Sometimes she tries to make connections and Matt is like, “It was...just descriptive. Just flavor. The curtains were red...” and she has to discard a paragraph of notes. She feels like it’s still something they have to do because of “look at what he does! Look! It’s totally valid!”

Cosplay of the Week: @kitsunstudios with a gorgeous Caduceus with a very intricate silk vest.

Caduceus’s takedown of Trent! One of my favorite moments in the entirety of C2. Taliesin felt Trent was an asshole; Caduceus felt sorry for him because of how dumb he thought he was. Caduceus’s response was "this is the dumbest man I’ve ever met in my life. He’s so dumb! Is nobody going to tell this guy how dumb he is? Oh, they’re all freaked out. Somebody needs to tell this guy he’s an idiot before somebody gets hurt.” (Marisha: “Before?”) Tal says it was the product of several years of therapy and many drunk conversations with Whitney Moore. It was from a genuine place of concern from Caduceus. “How are you allowed to have this much power and be that dumb?”

Brian loved how funny it was to watch everyone tiptoe around Trent and then Caduceus bulldoze through the end of the meal.

Taliesin: “Damage doesn’t make you interesting or better. It’s not what makes you good. Character isn’t found in damage. Just recovery.”

Brian & Marisha commiserate going through the stage where believing surviving something automatically made you a stronger person, better for the pain; instead it just meant you had to pick up the pieces after. Marisha talks about how strength through survival may be true for some people, but it shouldn’t be considered a necessity. Taliesin talks about how he used to think he had to be miserable to write. Brian talks about how believing he liked reading and writing miserable things only limited him for years.

Marisha feels it’s a C2 theme that almost all the PCs have someone trying to handwave or take credit for their accomplishments or explain their pain as being for their own good (Trent, Beau’s dad, Obann). She thinks it’s interesting to see all the various ways people try to take credit for your work/delegitimize you as a person. She loves that RPGs allow you to explore these odd moralities in interesting ways. The only way to fight it is to have a sense of your own self-worth, which is a problem a lot of the M9 started with.

Caduceus likes everyone, and really likes people who appear to need role models (Eodwulf). “With the right friends and the right bar and the right attitude, I think he’d be okay. Come over here where it’s so much better. That seems like an exhausting friendship that you have there.”

Marisha loves the mix of personalities in the M9; Veth, Cad, & Jester were all “we kind of like them!” after the dinner, and she immediately made eye contact with Travis and they both shook their heads. She knows Beau has to go along with it for Caleb’s sake for now, but she & Fjord are pretty sus of Trent’s proteges.

Beau is less concerned about Artagan’s relationship to Jester because “he showed his ass--she’s less worried about Jester now because a little of the magic is gone.” It’s a little like becoming an adult and realizing your parents are also just adults & human. Caduceus wasn’t suspicious of the Traveler for a long time until they got to the island. Aside: Taliesin loves the pantheon in D&D. “The notion of attempting to apply common Western conceptions of religion to a world where you have a pantheon of interventionist gods as baseline makes no sense to me. Everyone admits that every other god is there and doing shit; it has more in common with ancient Rome than anything else.” Now that he knows it was a con, he feels the wind had been taken out of it. He does have a sense that Jester’s gotten back together with an ex: “I hope that I’m really happy for you.” They’re both interested to see how Jester navigates the new relationship.

My internet goes out, of course. I panic for a second, thinking I’ve lost everything above, but all is well! Thanks, Form History Control addon!

Marisha loved punching Artagan, but regretting rolling so poorly. “I miss violence.” Dani lets us know it’s been about four episodes since the last battle.

There’s no way the Cobalt Reserve doesn’t have a single document on the Eyes of Nine. Beau believes “there are no real secrets” because people are just bad at not writing things down. For there to be no information at all seems really suspicious for her.

Fanart of the Week: @oddalchemist on twitter with some awesome Beau conspiracy red-thread boards overlaid a distant shadowy Molly walking away.

Caduceus feels a little guilty for really enjoying his time right now with the M9 and not wanting to go home. He’s starting to suspect that he’s going to go home very different than when he left. “He has the softest problems. I don’t know if I want to move back in with Mom & Dad.”

Beau is trying to get comfortable with the idea of being happy. Jester is probably Beau’s first real best friend & one of the first healthy female friendships she’s ever had. As long as she still has Jester in her life, she doesn’t care. For Yasha... “At the end of the day, Beau is a lonely person and has always been a lonely person. And I think you kinda reach this point where once you’re not lonely anymore, you can kind of come out of the fog and realize that was horrible! And terrifying! And is even more terrifying now that I know what I could have, and I don’t want to go back to that. At the end of the day Beau doesn’t want to be lonely anymore. There’s always been that flirtation with Yasha, but everyone had to figure their own shit out. And now it feels like it’s coming out a little bit of that haze, maybe this actually could be...” There are a lot of ways they complement each other & are good-different from each other. Marisha believes people can be attracted to more than person at once.

Caduceus doesn’t think nature turned against him on Rumblecusp, it was just a reality of nature being dangerous and violent. “He has a complex relationship with nature.” He doesn’t expect special treatment.

Thoughts on the mansion: “Man, it’s nice to be seen.” Marisha: “I don’t know how I ended up becoming the Scanlan of this campaign, but I’m living for it.” It felt like an echo of “I’m better for having known you.” They compare Marisha taking specific notes on the campaign to Liam taking specific notes on people’s favorite tapestries, comics, etc.

They talk about missing theme parks and daydream a park version of the mansion in CritRoleLand. It’s lovely.

Taliesin never expected Divine Intervention to work; he just wanted to roll some dice. He’s still processing what he saw/heard. They all agree it was very useful in the Vokodo fight.

Vilya! Marisha: “Ah! Ah! Ah!” As a player, Marisha was so deep in Beau’s eyes she didn’t pick up it was Vilya at first (especially since Matt really emphasized they should not be looking for C1 NPCs). Marisha’s brain melted. She bawled her eyes out on the ride home after that episode. Right after it ended, Laura told Marisha “Keyleth finally gets her happy ending,” and it makes Marisha emotional again since Keyleth’s story ended so bittersweetly. She talks about the very real feelings of “just wanting them to be happy, though!” She went back and listened to all her old Keyleth playlists. Everyone was teary after the episode. “Everyone has these 100% real memories of being these characters and having these good times.”

And that’s that for that! Thanks for your patience, all, and is it Thursday yet?

#critical role #critical role spoilers #talks machina #talks machina spoilers #long post for ts

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paintedwarpony · 3 years

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CRITICAL ROLE REWATCH C2E110

(And further ranting and raving and campaign predictions...)

Hey guess what I'm back to talk about today you guys?

Verin Thelyss? Always. But not for this episode.

HOW ABOUT SOME MORE GODDAMN HINTED MULTICLASSED EODWULF.

Yep. You bet.

For those of you just joining this Ted Talk I posed a theory months ago that Eodwulf is NOT infact multiclassed as a paladin for the Raven Queen/Matron of Ravens as most of the fandom has considered. But is something far more dangerous and terrifying.

That Eodwulf is in fact multiassed as a War Domain Cleric.

WHICH IS BAD.

VERY VERY BAD.

At least from a D&D combat campaign point of view. Because essentially it creates an absolute malestrom of a NPC. And it turns the gut to think of the kind of fight it would put the Nein through.

*coughTPKcough*

Because the facts are this. Eodwulf is already a very highly trained, extremely powerful wizard, which is dangerous in and of itself. Add to that fact that he's ALSO a homebrewed Volstrucker and considered one of Ikithon's elites. That means there's going to be all kinds of shit mixed up in that bag of tricks that we haven't seen or yet to speculate.

My basis as to why I think Eodwulf is a cleric of some kind leans heavily on the fact that Matt Mercer himself very often grumbles and complains during campaign about how "unfair" it is that the Nein have two clerics. Yet to date the Nein have not actually gone to combat with a full party that includes a cleric (that may change with the Tomb Takers, who knows) but its certainly not an oversight by any means. I'm positive Matt is saving the use of a cleric enemy for a particularly nasty encounter or series of encounters.

Because lets be real

Clerics will fuck some shit up no matter what their domain is. Between the ridiculously long list of spells they have access to and the ability to pop other members of their team back up clerics are brawlers in the disguise of supports.

NOW HERE'S WHERE IS GETS DANGEROUS CONCERING EODWULF.

Considering Eodwulf is a wizard, and a homebrewed Volstrucker at that theres going to be alot of fire power there but Wizards are notorious glass canons unless handled or multiclassed correctly. Caleb is EXTREMELY powerful mage wise BUT he still follows wizard format to balance him from becoming to powerful. At lvl 13 his AC 15 (jumps to 16 with Mage Armor) and he has 96HP. They're at a point of the campaign where they are coming up against creatures that deal out damage in the 50s, 60s, 70s, or more in one shot. And in turn the Nein themselves are starting to be able to do that kind of damage back.

Which if Eodwulf was just a wizard played by wizard stats, even just slightly homebrewed, wouldn't make him much of a threat.

BUT THROW CLERIC IN THERE AND MAKE IT A WAR DOMAIN CLERIC?

You just turned that glass canon into a GODS DAMNED SHERMAN TANK.

That gives Eodwulf access to martial weapons, heavy armor and a PLEATHORA of other equipment that most wizards could only look longingly through a shop window at before. Not to mention the spell list expansion. His AC jumps. His HP jumps. His attack ability skyrockets as he could both cast spells and make (multiple with certain effects) physical attacks in the same round. His magical longevity bolsters as he can save spell slots until more opportune times to but continue to cause damage with physical strikes.

Not to mention the aspect of keeping the rest of his side of the fight up. Healing up other Volstrucker, Astrid, fucking Ikithon himself to keep them in combat. Hell even using FUCKING REVIVIFY to bring one back if he needs to.

Counterspell? Got it. Cure Wounds? Got it. Guiding Strike? Yep got that, too. Divine Intervention? Sure thing! Fireball? Pssht, for sure.

Considering the hint in C2E110 that Eodwulf favors electricity the same way Caleb favors fire I wouldn't be surprised if he has friggin' Chained Lighting as a go to favorite spell.

BUT I DIGRESS

Some more hints came into focuse during C2E110 to support this theory but the biggest one was said by Eodwulf himself. When questioned about what he did on the front lines Eodwulf admitted:

"I am not much of a front line fighter..."

Its kind of a throwaway line BUT is very much known and considered within D&D that paladins (like Fjord) are considers front line fighter types. But wizards AND CLERICS OF ALL DOMAINS are considered SUPPORT LINE. That they hang back and try to stay out of the thick of danger. Despite the abilities of a cleric to be absolutely savage in combat, as displayed by Jester and Caduceus over the campaign, they're still considered 'support/support line' classes.

It might not be a huge hint but the only time at the table Eodwulf showed any small bit of his own personality was when he bragged just a little about himself and admitted to liking being called a 'living magical weapon', he was also incredibly honest and forthright when he answered questions or spoke about their duty, parents, the torture that he'd been put through at the hands of Ikithon and his faith in the Matron of Ravens was no secret and peppered casually into his conversation. I think that if he was in fact a paladin Edowulf would not hesitate to talk about his pride at serving the Matron of Ravens AND the Empire in direct combat. A wiz-pally combo like that would be formidable but...

A Wiz-War Cleric combo thats a homebrewed Volstrucker and backed by the goddess of death...

Its gonna get real ugly really fast for the Nein if they have to fight him.

I fully believe Eodwulf can be flipped to the Nein's favor but I think to manage that he needs to be separated from Ikithon AND Astrid. During C2E110 he took ALL of his cues from Astrid, looking at her EVERY TIME before starting to speak or reacting to anything. He only acted a little more independent when they were outside the tower. Everything about Eodwulf's demeanor and behavior suggests someone so very lost and used to being bullied or directed one way or another that he doesn't think twice to follow instructions or vomit back up beliefs he was 'taught' but might not be his own. People like that bury their personalities and only find their way to the surface when they're separated from the supervision of their influence. Caleb as expressed multiple times he wants to win both his friends back with a much heavier emphasis on Astrid than Eodwulf. Astrid seems a much more difficult person to turn to their side imo and habors to many secrets and ulterior motives and its worrisome the way she does execute her will over Edowulf. Its clear by some of the interactions at the table that Astrid was very much the 'leader' of the Blumentrio, as she several times tried to cue Caleb with looks to stop or change his behavior and actions. Caleb has been free of Ikithon (and Astrid's) influence for so long now and grown so much in the care of his found family it didn't even cause him to balk but it worries me that if Astrid were introduced into the Nein her influence and manipulations that she does still hold over Eodwulf may start to sink in and control Caleb again as well. The encounter certainly rattled him and left him repeatedly insisting "freeing" her specifically over the course of the campaign since.

But thats a whole different can of worms...

If the Nein turn Astrid to their cause I'm almost positive Eodwulf will follow her. He cued to her FAR more than he did to Ikithon and that speaks volumes.

But I would so much like to see Eodwulf on his own, see his personality and see his own decision to join the Nein's side or not.

But truly... if the answer is 'not'...

Its not going to be good...

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ncisladaily · 3 years

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Life started to fall apart for Kensi (Daniela Ruah) and Deeks (Eric Christian Olsen) last month on the Season 12 premiere of NCIS: Los Angeles when Deeks was informed that his services as an LAPD liaison to NCIS were no longer needed. And to make matters worse, he can’t return to the LAPD because of cutbacks, his job there was also eliminated.

It couldn’t have come at a worse time because the couple were discussing buying a house and starting a family.

“Last season, Kensi was concerned about getting pregnant,” Ruah tells Parade.com. “The biggest disagreement between Deeks and Kensi was the fact that he was ready to settle down and have children and she just wasn’t ready to do that because she didn’t know who she was without this job. And now the table’s turned a little bit, now he’s the one who’s very concerned about the logistics, which makes total sense.”

The fact that they have each seem to have done a 180 makes for an interesting storyline. And viewers can’t find fault with either of them because both of them are completely justified in how they feel about the situation.

“Deeks is very concerned about the logistics, about having only one income, and we’re about to buy a house and we want to get pregnant,” Ruah continues. “And we can’t afford to do any of this right now. She has become the glass is half full partner in the relationship. ‘We’re going to make it work. We can do this. We can do this because together we can do anything,’ which is incredibly romantic because she loves him so much. It’s like, ‘We’re going to make our life work the way we want it to work no matter what, we just have to figure it out.’”

To compound matters even more, Deeks also finds out that the ship has sailed when it comes to attending FLETC (Federal Law Enforcement Training Center) and becoming a full-fledged NCIS agent, because he is too old. And Hetty (Linda Hunt), who can normally solve all difficulties of this sort, has tried and failed.

“That seems to be a FLETC thing,” Ruah explains. “It’s like, ‘Well, actually, they don’t take people above a certain age.’ It’s an academy where kids go to learn. So, that’s definitely a big obstacle that these two are going to have to overcome.”

Whether the two will catch a break remains to be seen–although Ruah does hint at a possible positive resolution down the line. Even so, in the present, Kensi has lost her partner of 11 years and is functioning on her own. It will work out to her advantage in this Sunday night’s “Raising the Dead” episode, when she is recalled to an old case.

In order to get intel on a matter of national security, Kensi must come face-to-face with David Kessler (Frank Military), a sociopath who has been obsessed with her since she put him in jail years ago. And like Clarice Starling in Silence of the Lambs, Kensi has to stand outside his glass cage and try to get information out of him as he taunts her.

Like Hannibal Lecter, David Kessler picks up on clues and vibes and he can tell that Kensi has gotten married and he senses there is an issue when it comes to starting a family.

“There is definitely a crack in her armor when he talks about her inability to have babies,” Ruah says. “There’s definitely a viciousness in her in that moment. But, of course, you have the guy behind the glass who is incredibly dangerous and he’s attempting to manipulate and get information by prodding and stabbing away. It’s hard not to equate it to that, but I don’t think it’s exactly the same as Silence of the Lambs.”

The last few seasons, there seems to have been at least one Kensi-centric episode and each time we get one, we find out something new about her. Are you still learning things about her, too?

Yeah. For one, I learned during the episode that her capturing of David Kessler was what got Hetty’s attention and what brought Kensi into this team, the Office of Special Projects. I didn’t know that.

But we don’t necessarily delve into her history. We know about her father and we know about the ex-fiancé who suffered PTSD and left her on Christmas. We’ve found out a lot about this girl. Let’s face it. She has a pretty traumatic past. She lived on the streets as a young girl, ran away from home, didn’t have much of a relationship with her mom. So, she has a pretty phenomenal background that has shaped her and given her this incredible amount of resilience and strength.

She’s like a Phoenix. This girl just keeps coming back from the ashes, no matter what the trauma, whether it was being kidnapped by the Taliban in Season 5 in Afghanistan, or getting caught under a helicopter when flying back from Syria in Season 8 and then having to fight through having half her body being paralyzed.

The show has a different feel this season. Hetty is out again, Nell is subbing for her, Beale is off somewhere. We have two new characters, Fatima and Roundtree. Does it bring a new energy to the show?

Definitely, and then, of course, we can’t forget that there’s a pandemic that we’re also working around. On the show we’ve chosen to make this sort of a post-pandemic setting, or some parallel world where it hasn’t happened, and so we have to take a lot of precautions to be able to not have our masks on.

So, that means less people in a scene to avoid too much contact, a few more phone calls as a result, and you have to adapt the directing to stuff like that. If you just have two sitting ducks at desks talking on the phone, that’s not interesting no matter what they’re talking about. So, you have to create movement within those scenes where there’s only a few people at a time. You don’t get the whole cast in the ops center anymore.

Even the cast is in pods each episode. So, we’ll seldom interact with everybody, or never interact with everybody, in one episode. But after 12 years, you have to have fresh blood. You have to have a fresh energy. You have to have a new input. Not because the audience is tired of us or anything like that, but, I think, it makes it more interesting. And now you have two new characters to fall in love with and get to get to know.

And new story possibilities?

New story possibilities, new connections, new relationships. I love those two. Fatima [Medalion Rahimi] and Roundtree [Caleb Castille] have been incredibly rich additions to this show. I think the more we get to know them as characters, the more interesting this is going to become. I have had the title of junior agent for the longest time and I think I still do, which is weird. I feel like I should’ve been promoted by now. But Kensi was the green one learning from Callen [Chris O’Donnell] and Sam [LL Cool J], and now she’s experienced.

In real life, becoming a mom, and having a real life to manage, especially now with homeschooling and learning my lines, and there’s no break from anything now, which is fine because I love hanging out with my kids. But it brings something else to you. And now to be the big sister to someone else, or the mama bear to someone else as characters, I like that transition. I don’t want to be the junior agent forever. I want to evolve into someone who’s now guiding someone else.

But Kensi doesn’t want Hetty’s job?

No, I don’t think Kensi’s cut out for Hetty’s job. I think the fact that they’ve placed Nell in that position is pretty brilliant, because we know that Nell is an incredible field agent. The times that we’ve seen her in the field, she’s more than capable. She’s incredibly intelligent, so is Kensi, but listen, different people are cut out for different things, and I don’t think that Kensi is cut out for the Hetty position.

I heard when Beale returns, he’s going to have a different job. Can you elaborate on that?

So, if you remember last season, Beale was developing this technology for a company in San Francisco, and the company went bust. But the technology that he was developing is his, and so he’s continued to develop it. And now Mr. Beale has become a multi-million-dollar tech guy, who rolls in in new clothes on one of those electric monocycles, sporting a mustache. The man has come a long way. We don’t have the polar bear pajama bottoms anymore. I think that Mr. Beale probably has Chanel pajama bottoms now.

Here’s a frivolous question: are you keeping the shorter hair or are you growing it back out?

Definitely growing it back out. I like it short, but I’m growing it back out. Maybe once it gets to a certain length, I’ll cut it off and donate it again. That’s why I cut it off. It has to be at least 10 inches and it can’t be bleached.

#interview #Daniela Ruah #s12 #ncis la #ncisla #NCIS Los Angeles

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makeste · 4 years

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BnHA Chapter 270: Harry Potter Rules

Previously on BnHA: Present Mic punched Ujiko in the face! It was awesome. I’m thinking about getting a tattoo of it. Meanwhile Endeavor saved Mirko’s life by setting her on fire (reason #15 why I will never become a superhero), and Aizawa did some sexy Spider-Man poses for our viewing pleasure while fighting the rest of these Noumus which are still annoyingly refusing to die. Anyway but back to Present Mic, the undisputed MVP of this chapter. Because you see, in addition to the punching, he also used his Loud Voice attack (literally the actual attack name; Horikoshi will steal all of my jokes and leave me with nothing) to smash open Tomura’s Noumutank! Which I really thought was going to immediately lead to Everyone Dying, but apparently I was wrong! Anyways so yeah, right now Tomura’s just lying down all heart-stopped and not-breathing. Which seems very anticlimactic, BUT I JUST HAVE THE CRAZIEST FEELING that maybe, just maybe, the super powerful villain lad who just spent the last three arcs slowly upgrading his bad self just in time to wage war on the world as the story reaches its climax, might not actually be dead though.

Today on BnHA: DON’T MIND THAT OMINOUS ORGAN MUSIC PLAYING IN THE BACKGROUND, IT’S NOTHING, IGNORE IT. Ahem. So first of all, as some of the bolder among us dared to speculate, Tomura is not, in fact, dead. He’s still very much kicking it with his nipple-less pecs and truffula tree hair, putzing around in his mental landscape filled with crumbled buildings and disembodied Theatrical Gesture Hands. For some reason he doesn’t have shoes or a shirt in his mental landscape, which was a very interesting choice on Horikoshi’s part, but we will speak no more of it. Anyway so to sum things up, Tomura’s family is all “TENKO WE LOVE YOU” and he’s all “oh hey” and then AFO fucking appears and he’s all “COME HERE MY BOY” which is exactly as creepy as you would expect, and for some fucking reason TOMURA ACTUALLY DOES COME HERE. And lol it turns out Ujiko gave him AFO. Like the quirk. Yes, that quirk. So long story short, Tomura is about to be possessed by AFO’s evil soul or some shit, and to put the cherry on top, fucking Deku out of fucking nowhere, MILES AWAY, is all “HE’S COMING.” Because of course he can sense it, because AFOFA IS REAL, AND FUCK ME THIS IS ALL HAPPENING TOO FAST, FUCK.

I know this chapter has been out since like 1pm, but I’m not getting to read it until 5 hours later because for once in my life I was trying to be responsible and actually get some work done on a Friday. I thought this might lead to less oh-god-I-still-have-to-get-that-done anxiety hovering over my weekend, but instead it just led to oh-god-I-have-to-get-the-chapter-recap-done anxiety hovering over my now! anyways so this might be a bit rushed lol

(ETA: yeah turns out this wasn’t exactly the kind of chapter you could just read quickly and get on with your life lmao. so, then!)

what a nice panel of Present Mic taking out the trash

you heard ‘em fellas. the doctor is secured. good job everyone we did it, manga over, congratulations. now to cut away to a two-page spread of Dark Shadow comically smothering Dabi’s flames with a giant stock pot lid, and that’ll be that! what a wonderful, extremely short and strangely underwhelming arc in which we haven’t even seen the actual main characters do anything yet. but I guess we don’t need them since the main bad guy is lying dead on the floor! everything is just so fucking dead and secured!! do you think if I keep repeating it enough Horikoshi will finally be like “okay geez I get it” and reveal his hand already

Mic is now ordering Ujiko to power down the Noumu, which again, I’m sure he will definitely do without a fuss since after all the good guys have clearly won the day

OH SHIT OH FUCK

rip X-Less. gonna just take a moment here to imprint your beautiful face onto my memory before it turns into a pile of ash. your face, I mean. not my memory. well my memory more or less already is a pile of ash but that’s neither here nor there ANYWAYS

:’)

what are these little sound effects. I think that’s supposed to be a buzzing noise?? anyways whatever it is PLEASE STOP IT, I AM NOT HAVING A NICE TIME SO STOP

ffff Horikoshi sure has done an excellent job of setting the mood in such a way that all of these panels of X-Less doing incredibly mild things are sending my stress levels through the roof. like is anyone else reading his lines more or less like “WELP, TIME FOR ME TO DIE, ANY SECOND NOW, WE’RE REALLY DOING THIS, THIS IS REALLY HAPPENING, HERE IT COMES”

(ETA: when is this poor sweet innocent man going to fucking die already.)

LET’S CUT BACK TO MIC ESCAPING THE IMMEDIATE VICINITY

I have the clearest mental image of Horikoshi standing by with a walkie talkie in one hand and one of those remote bomb detonation clicky switch thingies in the other, patiently waiting to receive the go-ahead once all of the important characters have gotten to safety

anyway so now Ujiko is talking again

no fear everyone this is just the beginning of his verbal noumu deactivation sequence. nothing to worry about. everything is fine

yes for some reason his code phrase to put all the noumus back to sleep involves going into rambling detail about his work researching quirk singularities and shit. it’s fine. it’s not a big deal. code phrases are just like that sometimes all right

just ignore the increasingly panicked look in Mic’s eye as he slowly realizes he was way too fucking keen to just leave the “dead” Tomura back there with his laser-eyed hero buddy. anyway so let’s continue learning all about the Quirk Illuminati or whatever the fuck

okay so... he faked his own death? 70 years ago, at age 50 or thereabouts? I mean, that’s interesting and all I guess. not saying I wouldn’t be thrilled to spend the rest of this chapter learning all about Ujiko’s boring evil life. I don’t need to say it because it’s implied on account of Ujiko sucks and is the worst. so yeah can we get a move on though

oh shit?!?

WHOSE NARRATION IS THAT IN THE BOXES TOMURA IS THAT YOU OH GOD OH GOD

also, comparing AFO’s smile to a buddha’s really sent an actual shudder of disgust down my spine for some reason lmao. I personally would have steered that comparison in a different area, maybe less to buddhas and more to Norman Bates from Psycho, but to each their own

oh shit wait up

okay but this is actually a pretty big revelation though, isn’t it? because it’s been hinted for a while now that AFO and Ujiko had some method of duplicating quirks (the fact that all the Noumu share the same regeneration quirk was the biggest clue, but there was also John-chan’s quirk, as well as Hood’s Muscular-esque quirk), but as far as I can recall, this is the first time we’ve had it confirmed. though to be fair I wasn’t joking when I said my memory really has been shit lately sob

anyway so for real though, can you really call it a BnHA chapter if you’re not spending a good chunk of it being hopelessly confused over the ownership of some ambiguous thought bubbles. WHO IS THIS. I do seriously feel like it’s Tomura, because he’s the wrathful one, but another hallmark of a typical BnHA chapter is me constantly questioning everything I know as I muddle my way through

(ETA: yeah I’m pretty sure it was him. still impressive how vague it is though! it could also potentially be Ujiko, Mic, or even Deku. hopefully Caleb’s translation on Sunday can shed some more light on this. though he wasn’t really helpful last time this happened lol.)

SOMEBODY PLEASE TELL ME WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON

didn’t... you just... say that “preservation” was your quirk?? what do you mean that you wanted it?? CAN YOU JUST FINISH YOUR SENTENCES LIKE A NORMAL PERSON

anyway so here’s a summary of this chapter thus far

present mic: okay goodbye forever x-less

x-less: what a strange thing to say! :) also is it just me or is this machine fucking staring at me

present mic: turn the noumu off please

ujiko: seventy years ago... society... singularity... he’d be 120 years old now...

??: [REPULSIVE FEELING EW WHO’S TOUCHING ME]

ujiko: all for one has the smile of an angel...

??: [SON OF A BITCH I’M SO FUCKING WRATHFUL]

ujiko: my quirk... preservation... the truth is... my quirk... preservation... the truth is... my quirk...

all caught up?? grand. also btw is anyone else super disturbed by the fact that Ujiko recognizes Mic as being “Kurogiri’s friend”, like holy shit though? how would he know that. I can’t think of any implications of this that aren’t super disturbing tbh

anyways back to -- LOL WHAT THE

Horikoshi Kouhei: [furiously scribbling notes to himself at 3am] BUT WHAT IF THE FOLDING CITY FROM “INCEPTION” HAD MORE GIANT HANDS

jesus christ. is this like some mental representation of what shit is currently like in Tomura’s mind? lots of crumbly destruction and traffic lights and the house his father built (isn’t it? I feel like it looks familiar), and SO MANY HANDS, HE JUST LOVES HIS HANDS

anyway so at this point it’s a coin toss whether or not anything in this fucking chapter is ever going to make any kind of fucking sense! but here I am voluntarily along for the ride while Gene Wilder sings that creepy boat song right in my ear!

DSFKLDSJ

ACCURATE REPRESENTATION OF SOMEONE WHO HAS BEEN FLOATING IN A JAR FOR THREE MONTHS TBH. that is some luscious quarantine hair

SDFLKJSDLFKJSLKFDHLKSDJFLKJLKSDJL:FKJSDL:KJ

(ETA: that Tomura in the top left may be my new favorite panel. look at him. all he is is a nose and chin and ~*~HAIR~*~.)

HANAAAAAA AHHHHHH OH MY LORD OH MY LORD! OKAY I’M FINALLY PAYING ATTENTION NOW FOR REAL! NO MORE JOKES! EVERYBODY SHHHH!!!

FFFFFFFFFF

“LOOK AT ME I’M A MAIN CHARACTER I CAN HAVE STRANGE VISIONS AND TALK TO DEAD PEOPLE IN MY DREAMS, SOUND LIKE ANYBODY ELSE YOU KNOW?” TOMURA SHUT UP I DON’T HAVE TIME TO ANALYZE THIS SCENE THEMATICALLY RIGHT NOW I’M TOO BUSY BEING SAD ABOUT YOUR DEAD SISTER WHILE SIMULTANEOUSLY CALCULATING THE ODDS OF THIS SOMEHOW BEING FORESHADOWING FOR HER NOT REALLY BEING DEAD. OH GOD, OH FUCK YOU GUYS, I’M FREAKING OUT

WHAT KIND OF YOUNGER BROTHER DOESN’T CALL HIS OLDER SISTER “NEECHAN” TOMURA WHAT KIND OF ANIME CHARACTER ARE YOU

AT THIS POINT HIS HAIR IS ITS OWN INDIVIDUAL CHARACTER WITH THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS WOW

HORIKOSHI PLEASE STOP SHAKING THIS CHAMPAGNE BOTTLE OF SIBLING FEELS SO VIGOROUSLY I AM SO TERRIBLY AFRAID OH GOD

“BY THE WAY TENKO I JUST HAVE TO SAY, YOUR MAN BOOBS ARE SERIOUSLY IMPRESSIVE AND YOU SHOULD BE VERY PROUD.” YES HANA I WAS JUST GOING TO SAY. HOW ASTUTE OF YOU TO POINT THAT OUT. BOY HAS BEEN HITTING THAT BOWFLEX

WTAF IS HIS HAIR THOUGH SERIOUSLY??!

IS IT JUST ME OR IS THIS DIALOGUE BUBBLE ACTUALLY COMING FROM THE HAIR ITSELF. TOMURA. TOMURA BLINK TWICE IF YOU ARE IN DANGER

SJJKJSKJSW

TENKO IT’S ME YOUR GIANT MOM I’M BEHIND YOU HONEY TURN AROUND AND LOOK HELLO HI I LOVE YOU DO YOU STILL WANT TO BE A HERO

ffff why is he so pretty all the time lately

you are very handsome with your billowy hair and ken doll abs, you. sure are having a lot of trippy visions for a dead guy too there

HEY!!!!

WHO SAID YOU WERE ALLOWED -- DO YOU THINK YOU CAN JUST -- ffffffffff I need to be alone with my thoughts for a few minutes fuck

okay well. but since it is getting late I guess we’ll just pack these feelings up real quick and put them inside a box and neatly label it “feelings I have about Tomura having a vision of his mom and immediately turning back into his innocent little boy self in said vision as soon as he sees her.” not too sure about the contents of this box yet but I will have to explore them thoroughly at a later date

oh hey it’s this asshole

“THAT WAS TWENTY YEARS AGO, DAD.” jesus Kotaro. get over it

and also guess what, if you go and get Tomura all riled up so he wakes up grumpy and disintegrates the first hapless guy he sees, I will hold you solely responsible for that poor man’s death. I’m just warning you now

oh my

I remember this conversation going a bit differently the last time, but hey

LOOOOOOL

HIGH FIVE. PUT ‘ER THERE

WHY WOULD YOU LOOK SO SURPRISED LOL DID YOU NOT JUST TURN TOWARDS HIM WITH A SINISTER MURDER FACE LIKE TWO SECONDS AGO. LIKE WTF DID YOU THINK WAS GONNA HAPPEN

OH NO OH SHIT

FUCK ME, GUESS IT WOULDN’T BE A DRAMATIC BNHA DREAM SEQUENCE IF THIS ASSHOLE DIDN’T MAKE AN APPEARANCE AT SOME POINT OR OTHER NOW WOULD IT

-- HOLY SHIT?!

RECORD SCRATCH, FREEZE FRAME??

holy shit. holy shit. holy shit. holy shit. holy shit. holy shit

holy shit. fuck

...okay so

is this implying that AFO has been Noumufied? but that doesn’t make any sense, does it? he already had multiple quirks. what other advantages could there be to him becoming a Noumu. well whatever I’m just typing out all of my thoughts real fast for the time being and I’ll try to make sense of them later

or is it because he sees Kurogiri as a father figure? and AFO also?

or is he using Kurogiri’s quirk????? IS HE SOMEHOW WARPING INTO TOMURA’S DREAMS

because that third one, to me, is what this panel most looks like? Tomura says he looks like Kuro, but he doesn’t though. Kuro has a very distinctive face which this is very much lacking. instead it looks to me much more like one of Kurogiri’s portals, with AFO’s buddhaesque smile sticking out. so yeah. I got nothin’. except, again, fuck

(ETA: yeah I obviously have more thoughts about this now, but we’ll get to those in a bit.)

...

.......

-- !!!!!!!!!!LKJLK!JLKJ

oh shit oh shit oh shit

OH SHIT

NO BABY NO DON’T DO IT

GASP

THEY’RE TRYING TO SAVE HIM AHHHH

I HAVE LIKE TEN THOUSAND THOUGHTS IN MY BRAIN RIGHT NOW YET SOMEHOW MY MIND IS ALSO STRANGELY BLANK?? I DON’T EVEN KNOW?? I’LL JUST KEEP READING

KOTARO ARE YOU TRYING TO HELP HIM OR ARE YOU PULLING HIM TOWARD AFO??

OH HE’S PUSHING HIM BACK!! OH SHIT IT’S A WHOLE FAMILY EFFORT

THEY’RE TRYING TO SAVE HIM AFO IS GOING TO TAKE HIM OVER AND THEY’RE TRYING TO PROTECT HIM OH GOD OH JESUS

BABY TENKO EYES OH MY GOD HE LOOKS SO MUCH LIKE DEKU THAT I THOUGHT IT WAS DEKU FOR A MOMENT

NO TENKO!!!

FUCK -- DOES HE NOT CARE? HE ACTUALLY UNDERSTANDS WHAT’S ABOUT TO HAPPEN BUT HE DOESN’T CARE?? IS HE TRULY SO PROFOUNDLY MISERABLE THAT HE’D GO AHEAD AND ACCEPT THIS FATE WILLINGLY

NO SOUNDS. NO WORDS. YOU COULD HEAR A PIN DROP IN MY ROOM RIGHT NOW

except that I have the most incredible, chilling, disturbing, electrifying feeling that my mental soundtrack is about to start blaring AFO’s theme from the anime on full blast...!

LOOOOOL SOB OH FUCKK

THE MOST TERRIFYING, DRAMATIC KIP UP YOU’VE EVER SEEN IN YOUR LIFE!! THIS IS IT, IT’S BEEN REAL FRIENDS, THIS IS WHERE WE DIE

-- ARE YOU REALLY, TRULY, GENUINELY SHITTING ME RIGHT NOW

NOW OF ALL TIMES IS WHEN WE FINALLY CUT TO THE TRIO, I’M CAN’T, I’M FUCK

AND THAT’S THE END AHHHHH

holy shit holy shit holy shit. wow

okay so. I don’t really have any sort of neat and tidy way to wrap up this hot mess of a recap lol. so, just... have a whole mess of all of my stupid whirling thoughts

those first four pages really did nothing to brace me at all lol

okay, so. here’s my understanding of all this, I guess. basically we’re going full Harry Potter rules here. AFO horcruxed his quirk, and from the looks of it, a piece of his soul (perhaps even the main piece) along with it. he then passed it on to Ujiko to implant into Tomura

horcrux!AFO then wakes up, and takes over Tomura. so then my understanding is that he’s going to be possessed by him. and I also got the impression that he’s fully aware of that, but just doesn’t care at this point. he knew his family was trying to warn him, but he didn’t care. and that look in his eyes when he disintegrated them just seemed so fucking resigned to me, though. jesus

but now the more interesting thing! so we can liken Tomura to the resurrected Voldemort from book 5 and onward, reborn after transferring his power into a new vessel. which would go a long way toward explaining how AFO was able to sense what was happening from all the way in Tartarus; because if we liken it to Voldemort and his horcruxes, it would mean that he still has a connection to them (similar to the connection between Voldemort’s mind and Harry’s)

but so now comes the really interesting thing -- what does this then imply about the connection between AFO and Deku? because you’ll recall that AFO alluded to a similar mental connection back when Deku first activated SIXQUIRKS. and now we have Deku somehow being magically aware of AFO’s sudden resurgent presence in this chapter. but why?? if the reason AFO and Tomura share a psychic link is because of a shared quirk, why would Deku also be experiencing the same link? the answer is, he wouldn’t -- unless he, too, had the same shared quirk

in other words, I think All for One for All is fucking confirmed you guys. I can’t think of any explanation for this other than that OFA is also a horcrux quirk. a little piece of AFO broken off and embedded in his brother, and then passed along through the generations. and now residing within Deku

anyway. so that’s a hell of a lot to ponder lol. I guess we can at least be grateful for the fact that we’re not waiting two weeks for chapter 271 like Hori originally planned. can you fucking imagine. what a fucking asshole lol

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doof-doofblog · 3 years

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"He's My Brother?!"

Tuesday 16th March 2021

Part One

Hello again everyone, hope you're all doing well! I wanted to share some personal news with you, I received my first Covid-19 vaccine yesterday, we're slowly on the path on getting things back to some form of normality! Who knows, maybe soon EastEnders might be able to go back to its original 30 minutes, even though I'm enjoying it and don't care how long the episodes are, it'll just feel normal, right? Anyway, I've seen a few spoilers regarding these two episodes, I'm really intrigued to write about these episodes. Tuesday aired two episodes of EastEnders so I'll be doing two posts to review each one.

Monday's episode ended on such a cliff-hanger, it's only right that I start this blog with mentioning Lucas and Chelsea first. The episode opened right there Monday left off, Chelsea and Lucas are at the airport preparing to go to Ibiza with suitcases full of drugs. Chelsea's suitcase is currently being checked, she's stood in absolute panic about what the security guard is going to find. Only when he reveals a bottle being over the correct amount she's allowed to take, I got really confused! I was completely and utterly convinced that Lucas had given Chelsea the drugs as a way of teaching her a lesson, and not in a bad way but in a cruel-to-be-kind kind of way. But as soon as Lucas begins to walk through with his suitcase, Chelsea hears commotion from behind and Lucas is surrounded by armed guards. The interesting thing is, Lucas doesn't hesitate, calmly and willingly, he drops the suitcase, opens it up to reveal the amount of drugs stored inside it, Chelsea watches on in dismay as her Father basically gives up on the whole job. Lucas looked over at his daughter, but the look on his face, I couldn't quite tell what he was doing? Was he doing this to save his daughter?

Frantically, Chelsea later arrives home, informing her Mum that Lucas has been arrested and he plain and simply gave up the drugs as if he'd planned it. Denise is visibly shook to hear but she's more relieved to know that Chelsea is safe and no harm has come to her, as far as she's concerned, Lucas can look after himself, whereas Chelsea needs her family around her. However, Chelsea seems to think that Lucas has given up the job on purpose, and now because the job hasn't gone through, Chelsea and the rest of the family could be in danger.

Returning to the airport, Lucas has been taken to side room, there he is begging the officer to allow him one phone call. At first the officer seems to think he's part of a drug gang and is wanting a call to let his comrades know about his arrest, however when Lucas mentions that it's to do with his family and that they could be in danger, it looks as if the police officer suspects he could be telling the truth and allows the phone call. As Denise and Chelsea are at home, Jack is there trying to keep them calm and discuss what actions could be taken due to Lucas's arrest, but of course his main concern is to keep Denise and Chelsea safe, if Caleb finds out the job hasn't been done, he knows that the Fox family could be in huge danger, he instructs them to not go on their phones and don't answer any calls or answer the door to anyone but himself. It's then that he receives a phone call from Lucas, pleading to for his help. What on Earth could Lucas be asking of Jack? Will Lucas be okay? (Of course some of you may have already seen the second episode, but as I haven't, I'm going to be speculating, please no spoilers, thank you!)

The next thing I want to mention is Bailey and Bernadette. The sisters are still deeply saddened by Bronson's passing, but as they sit in the park with Mitch, they continue to discuss Bronson's personality and his favourite foods. Always the best way to remember a happy doggo! Unfortunately, as the family reminisce about their beloved pup, Mitch has devastating when he hears a job opportunity had fell through, which he was hoping would keep him going until the winter. Are the Taylor family falling on hard times? Are they really struggling for money so much right now?

Bailey however tries to reassure her Dad, informing him that he has to keep positive as something will come up eventually, but she also drops the bombshell that he wouldn't have to pray for Astronomy Camp for her as she didn't win her competition, both Bernie and Mitch voice their disappointment for Bailey as she begins to feel sorry for herself. But suddenly a little surprise makes the young girl begin to smile, a little dog approaches her as she holds food in her hand, it appears to not be wearing a collar and no one is around to claim the dog, must be a stray. Happily Bailey interacts with dog and smiles to her Dad that it's a sign from Bronson.

Seeing the little pup bring a smile back onto his daughter's face, he later approaches Karen about the possibility of keeping the new found dog. I also just want to mention how adorable the new dog is, I know not many dog last for long on the Square, but it would be nice for them to fill the void of Bronson. I don't think EastEnders have ever had a better dog since Wellard. They need a pet who's going to become memorable, and with one as adorable as this new pup, it could really work. Karen unfortunately is against the idea of getting a new dog, mainly because they can't afford it. But something tells me that maybe she's just not ready to get over Bronson, maybe? I feel if you've been able to afford a dog before, there's no reason why you can't get another one after? Right?! Mitch really wants to cheer his daughter up, I'm hoping Mitch will go and find the new dog, adopt him and bring him in to their family.

The next thing I have to mention is Ash and Suki, after finding her daughter at home alone with Peter, Suki takes it upon herself to confront Ash about the fact that she's been suspended from work, of course she has no idea why, but we all know it's because of Peter begging her to give him pain medication whilst off duty. As the ladies begin to argue, Ash tries to reassure her Mum that everything will be fine when she attends the hearing, she'll be able to explain and she'll get her job back. But Suki begins to fret, considering how much she cares for her family, and more so their reputation, I reckon?

Peter takes it upon himself to interrupt, informing Suki that Ash wouldn't have been suspended if it wasn't for him, this makes Suki realise that it's all Peter's fault, but the devastating blow is that her daughter could potentially lose her job because of a boy! Later on, as things begin to cool off, Suki is alone at the family business as Ash visits her, without Peter in tow. She begs her Mum to not worry and let things slide as she and Peter have a plan of way of getting her job back, but Suki seems to really struggle as the realisation sinks in, she voices that the reason she's so upset is that was she so proud of her daughter for getting so far with her career, for the job role she took on in life, how she has become successful in life, and now she fears that because of Peter, everything could be taken away from her! For me, I found it interesting to see this side of Suki, we know she loves the idea of power and success, but to actually hear that she's proud of one of her children, seems that maybe she really just wants the best for her family.

Okay, now the main event! After hearing the news that Gavin has passed away, Kathy and Sharon are discussing whether to attend the memorial. Of course, Sharon isn't interested in sharing memories of her biological Father, needless to say she doesn't have any fond memories of him, Gavin did have a bad reputation after all. Kathy however, considering as she was married to him once - I'm assuming, we know for sure she loved him and/or dated him, is considering going, whether Sharon joins her or not. As far as Sharon is concerned he can "Rot in hell!"

However, after a few wise words from Callum about Dad's in general, regardless whether they were pigs or not, it's always best to be the bigger person, Sharon then decides to tag along with Kathy and attend the memorial. As the arrive Kathy realises that she recognises a few faces, where of course Sharon knows nobody. Sally, Gavin's sister approaches them and thanks Kathy for coming, regardless of the awful things Gavin did, she makes the valid point that she did love him once.

As they look around the room, there is one bloke in particular who seems to be downing a lot more alcohol than others, he seems to be banging to people and knocking into the bar, eventually this man decides to make a speech, but it's not one of the speeches you'd expect. But however, to Sharon's interest, he seems to be saying things which she would actually agree with. Gavin was the scum of all scumbags. This speech however doesn't sit well with other family members and the young man dashes over chairs and tables to escape the angry mob!

As Kathy and Sharon make their exit, they watch as everyone gathers in the parking lot. However Sharon seems to have somehow managed to get her hands on Gavin's urn, without a second thought she simply dumps it into a litter bin, much to Kathy's shock. Looking for the drunken, suspicious man who rudely corrupted the memorial, both Kathy and Sharon seem to notice that their car has been left un-open. Realising that the young man could be hiding in their car, they make a subtle entrance and sit in the front seats. This scene looked like something out of a comedy, the young man appears between them in the backseat, shushing them not to give away his hiding place. Unfortunately, for the young man, the angry mob begin taking their anger out on his sports car - I did find this pretty comical as Kathy and Sharon both describing the damage being made to his car as he hides on the backseat. After the angry mob seem to finish off the last of their damage and head back into the building, Kathy asks the young man his connection with Gavin, how did he know him? Why was he at the memorial? Were they business partners or something?

But then as he walks away, he drops the big bombshell, introducing himself as Zack and that Gavin was in fact his Dad! As he walks away to his damaged car, both Kathy and Sharon look at each other in their shock as they come to realise Sharon has a brother she never knew existed!

Now I just want to say, most of us recall what happened when Sharon found out about another long-lost brother, however, I have to make the valid point that Dennis was in fact an adoptive brother. Den Watts was her adoptive father, so technically Sharon and Dennis were never really blood related, which I guess is why their romance can be looked to one side, however, Zack would be Sharon's Half-Brother! People might think history will be repeating itself if Zack was to become Sharon's new love interest, but I'd hope that EastEnders wouldn't go down the route of incest. It would be interesting though to see how Sharon will come to terms with knowing about her secret brother, will she want to build a relationship with him? Will he want to know her? Could they bond knowing that they've both had such a horrid man for a Father? Who knows?

I'm really looking forward to seeing the second episode following this one, I will be posting about it tomorrow, but in the mean time please no spoilers for me. I'll look forward to blogging about it tomorrow! Thank you again for reading! Love you all xXx

#eastenders #chelseafox #lucasjohnson #denisefox #jackbranning #mitchbaker #baileybaker #bernadettetaylor #karentaylor #ashpanesar #sukipanesar #peterbeale #kathybeale #sharonwatts #callumhighway #gavinsullivan #zackhudson #soapblog #soapfan

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thepetulantpen · 4 years

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Reforged/Reborn

(Late to the party, as always, but here’s a contribution for @widofjordweek ! I’ve got a few more of these planned, but I’ll probably be late. It’s been like a million years since I’ve written critical role stuff.)

When Caleb wakes up, he thinks he’s having another dream. He thinks it’s one of those nightmares where he wakes up choking on smoke, on ash, making horrible retching sounds until he’s aware again.

Then, he realizes the retching is not coming from him but his bed partner- Fjord is choking in his sleep, water curling at the edges of his mouth. Caleb jolts awake and into action, pushing Fjord onto his side. Immediately, water pours from his mouth, drenching the inn floor with seawater.

It takes a minute- a very long minute- for Fjord to get it all out, Caleb patting his back awkwardly as he convulses. It goes on too long- it shouldn’t happen at all.

Fjord gags one last time, water slowing to a trickle, and sits up, wiping at his mouth. He takes Caleb’s offered handkerchief with a silent thanks, mouthing the words as his voice is too hoarse for true sound.

It takes another long few moments for him to recover, getting back his breath and voice.

“Ever feel like you’re not gonna wake up from a dream?”

Caleb blames his own exhaustion and surprise for saying, “I haven’t woken up from mine yet.”

Fjord pauses, processing, and Caleb almost has a chance to take it back before Fjord gets it and exhales in a rush. “I’m sorry. Your nightmares must be-“

“It’s not a contest,” Caleb cuts him off, firm, if only because he does not want to talk about this.

Fjord nods, a blurry shape in the darkness. It should stop there. They should fall back asleep- or pretend to- but neither of them move.

The silence stretches, tense, for an indeterminate amount of time as they sit upright, staring into darkness. Time feels strange in these dark hours, an infinity contained in a moment.

At one point, Caleb thinks he sees- or hears, sort of- Fjord’s mouth open, then close. Not sure what to say, but Fjord’s never been one for silence, and he doesn’t let it go long.

“Maybe we can help you dream a new dream.” Another pause- Caleb can’t see Fjord’s face, in the dark, but he guesses his expression, from the cringe in his voice. “Gods, I sound like I’m going to break into song.”

Caleb snorts and waves at the water sinking into the floorboards, possibly leaking into the room below. “Not after all that.”

“I just,” Fjord sits back against the headboard and sinks down, until his shoulders hit the pillow, “I think we both know a bit about reinventing ourselves.”

“I think we both know a bit about pretending to be something we’re not.”

It comes out more bitter than he intends- but then, he’s not sure he meant to say it at all. He’s tired; his only uninterrupted sleep in a few days ended by someone else’s nightmare.

“You think I was pretending?” Fjord asks, voice quiet.

Caleb’s mind stalls- he hadn’t really thought about it. Pretending probably isn’t the right word for Fjord, who wasn’t pretending to be Vandren, just... borrowing his voice. “I- that’s not what I meant.”

“You just meant it for yourself,” Fjord confirms, “That’s an awfully bad habit, you know.”

“Projecting?”

Fjord scoffs, like Caleb is being intentionally obtuse. “No. You give everyone second chances, except for yourself. It’s like double standards, in reverse.”

Caleb bites back, Maybe I don’t deserve one, because he thinks it might only further Fjord’s point. They shouldn’t even be talking about this- Fjord is the one having nightmares, the one they should be focusing on.

“I guess,” he says, to brush off Fjord’s worry, and changes tact, “How’re you feeling? After the dream, I mean. That was a lot of water.”

Fjord clears his throat a few times, and sounds a little better. “I’m fine. It’s just... the usual.”

Caleb expects that to be the end of it. He tried his hand at concern, failed, and now he’s going to lay down, turn over, and drop it. They can pretend this whole conversation never happened- but it’s not so easy, with Fjord.

“I try to think of it as emulating. You know, strive to be more. To be better.”

Caleb turns back over, finding Fjord laying on his back, staring up at the ceiling. That’s probably not wise, considering he almost drowned in his sleep lying on his back a few minutes ago.

“What?”

“You said pretending,” Fjord glances sideways at Caleb, “I don’t agree.”

Caleb doesn’t know how to respond to that, so he doesn’t. He just watches Fjord- his face, even hazy in shadow, displays his thinking process in detail. Every new thought flickers across with its own expression.

“At first, I thought I was going back to who I was. You know, leaving behind Vandren and just being Fjord.” Fjord shifts in place, uncomfortable. “Now, I think I’m working on Fjord number three. A whole new thing.”

“Yeah?”

He looks at Caleb, meeting his eyes. “It seems like you’re working on Caleb number three, as well.”

Caleb doesn’t respond. He’s not sure he can.

Fjord turns onto his side, to face him, and lowers his voice, “Am I wrong?”

He hesitates and stares at the ceiling, even if he can’t really see it. The curtains are pulled closed, so even the moonlight is muted, useless.

His voice acts of its own accord, sneaking past his brain with a whisper, “There might be a few more Calebs in between.”

Fjord chuckles then fidgets, deciding what to say next. Caleb knows the feeling and gives him time to consider. It’s not like they’ve got anywhere to be.

“I’ll give you as many chances as you need to get it right. As long as you repay the favor, for me.” Fjord pauses and it takes Caleb too long to realize he’s supposed to respond, when Fjord prompts, “Deal?”

“Of course. It’ll be a rebirth, after...” he trails off, sure he’s put his foot in his mouth again.

“After drowning in the sea of life?” Fjord laughs, and the sound shapes his words into the distinct curve of a smile, happy. “Reforging ourselves. Melting it all down and starting again, with new accents and names.”

“Rise from the ashes,” Caleb whispers, bringing them both to a quiet, slow stop. It doesn’t feel as bad as it should, the image of fire evoking something... hopeful, for the first time.

Fjord reaches over and takes his hand, squeezing. It’s an intimate gesture, but it’s not a surprising one. When Caleb turns to face him completely, he sees the same fond look in Fjord’s eyes that he’s been noticing, and ignoring, for weeks.

It’d be easy to let it go, to let it fade into the not-memories of the late night or early morning. A product of exhaustion, gone by morning.

Caleb squeezes back and pulls himself a little closer, reeled in. He lets Fjord lean back against him, curled around each other.

To prop him up, of course. In case he needs to throw up more sea water, and be on his side.

Any other reason is pure speculation and possibly slander. Caleb refuses to admit to cuddling, not while he’s sober, anyway.

Nott is going to have a field day when she hears about this.

#critical role #widofjord #widofjordweek2020 #fjord #caleb widogast #timeline? idk her #set in some nebulous period after Fjord’s accent change #but before ukatoa stopped bothering him #listen i just want late night existential chats between characters #is that so much to ask

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hawkinslibrary · 4 years

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i love hearing what you have to say about season 4!! i promise it’s not too long lol, anyway i have a question for you: what do you think the next season holds for mike & el? i’m a little worried tbh

ahhh thank you !! same rules apply: spoilers ahead, so please read no further and blacklist/filter out the ‘s4′, ‘st4′, ‘spoilers’ tags if you don’t want to see anything !!

i’m going to talk about them both as individuals and as a pair but first, i have to say that i don’t personally feel like you have to worry about them breaking up or anything again this season. i think s4 is really going to establish romantic jopper and once that happens, i don’t see them, mileven, or jancy not being endgame unless someone actually dies. which -- i’m not going to think about the possibility of anyone dying until i’m forced to confront it, so. this is fiction and it’s already unrealistic and i’m gonna take my ‘everyone survives, happiness all around, time to relax’ endings and go. anyway, i would love to add lumax to this list but i honestly think it could go either way depending on what happens in s4. that’s a different essay, though.

i tend to think that the most important dynamic on the show is the one between the whole group and i just don’t really see them spending much more time trying to develop romantic relationships outside of the ones set up since s1/2. maybe steve, robin, and will get love interests, maybe they decide to develop dustin and suzie more, maybe suzie is never even mentioned again, idk. but these will probably all be secondary -- as in less screen time, not less important than the main romances, but probably still less developed. unless it happens to be a new person added to the main cast. which, as of now, the only new mains are brett and priah who has gone from recurring to regular. so.

i think s3 showed how messy and complicated romantic relationships (or, really just relationships in general) can be. everyone was arguing, there was miscommunication all around, everyone thought they knew what was best, no one was seeing eye to eye. but when it comes down to it, they would do anything for each other. they understand each other better than anyone else ever could. i can’t see them spending another season on breakups and romance drama after the ending of s3.

mike and el have already been separated once before. this time, mike knows for sure that she’s alive and that’s she’s with the byers. this time, el won’t be kept completely isolated away from everyone else. they’ve made plans to meet for the holidays. they can still call and talk to each other as much as they want. i’m hoping they handle being separated this time better than they did in s2. i don’t want mike to be moping and i don’t want el to spend a lot of the season thinking about how much she misses him. in fact, i think in their case that some distance could be good for them. the same for jancy and jopper, too, honestly. it’ll be nice to see them existing outside of these relationships while still acknowledging how important they are.

as far as i know, the byers and el stuff has not started filming yet so all there is to speculate on are rumors, the audition tapes, and logical guesses about where the story goes after s3. el obviously moves away with the byers. we still don’t know where. she’ll still be mourning hopper and trying to figure out life without her powers. and, of course, she’ll be in a long distance relationship with mike. i think she’ll be having a hard time and she’ll wish that mike was around, but she’ll realize she’s got a pretty good support system around her now with the byers, too. i’m very, very excited for more joyce and el content particularly, but there’s gotta be some great scenes with her and will and jonathan as well.

there’s only one audition tape that i can confidently tie into the byers + el plot(s?) and it’s the queen bee/mean girl character ‘angela’. if we’re running with the whole ‘there may be some truth to the audition vids’ thing, then this one teases that el will be going to school and that angela will be bullying her. this is something she would probably want to talk about with mike (b i g troy s1 vibes) but i don’t know if she actually would ? so this is probably more a thing that el and will could bond over or that she could talk about with joyce or maybe jonathan. i do think there will be at least a few calls between the two of them before the action really hits and the whole group is (hopefully...) reunited.

so, el -- at least in the beginning of s4 -- will be going to school where ‘angela’ bullies her, forming a bond with joyce + will + jonathan and becoming part of the family, mourning hopper (+ hopefully having conversations about him + his past with joyce), missing her friends back in hawkins, continuing to learn how to navigate life without her powers, and trying to maintain a long distance relationship with mike.

mike... i’ve been seeing some wild theories about him today but they aren’t really that far-fetched i think. first, going back to the audition tapes, the ‘eddie’ audition i saw makes it seem like mike is going to be part of the hellfire club with dustin. i’ve recently learned that there’s another version of the scene where ‘eddie’ is only talking to dustin and mike might not be a part of the club after all. if he isn’t part of the club, then the basketball v. hellfire, jocks v. nerds thing turns into lucas v. dustin and mike’s probably there just caught in the middle while max is off distancing herself from everyone.

at this point, i really want mike and max to become good friends. i think the end of s3 gave them the perfect opportunity. s4 max has s2 mike vibes. it’s not the same situation at all, but he knows kinda what she’s feeling and they could connect through that + the fact that they’ll both be missing el. i also just really want... some wheeler siblings content. i’m hopeful that s4 gives us good nancy and mike scenes bc there’s no reason not to give us good nancy and mike scenes (+holly!). however...

while there’s proof that gaten and sadie and natalia and priah have all been filming since production restarted, and while i have reason to believe that caleb has been filming a lot inside/at the studio recently... there’s no evidence that finn has been on set. there’s none for maya and joe, either, but people have said that finn isn’t even in atlanta right now. maybe he is and maybe he just hasn’t been seen and maybe he’ll pop back up tomorrow. or, maybe he already filmed whatever he needed to film for hawkins before production stopped.

the wild theory that’s popped up today is that everything gets to be too much for him in hawkins and he just... hops on a train to go visit el + the byers. i don’t know if i buy it, but it is interesting to note that he was sitting with them at the table read. and since we can guess that steve and robin will still be working at the video store, robin and nancy will be investigating pennhurst together, lucas and max may have some angst, joyce and murray are probably teaming up for the finding/saving hopper plot, and el is going to bond with will and jonathan, it seems like the order might mean a little something. i’d even bet that dustin and erica have scenes with them bonding over d&d.

now this theory pretty much only exists because no one’s seen finn on set and one of the paps posted some pics of some trains. there’s also always theories about how there will be issues at home with the wheeler fam and if that’s going to happen, what better time than in s4 when all of his friends are pulling away and el’s gone again. so if he is missing el (and will) that much, and if he has any reason to worry about her and how she’s doing, or if the party becoming distant and issues at home are weighing on him and he feels like he needs to get away, he’s absolutely the type to venture off on a train by himself. i don’t know how it would work since he’s definitely supposed to still be in school and his friends/nancy at least would notice he’s gone, but.. it’s fun to think about and we’ve got zero actual content to go off of right now.

another way i could see mike’s plot going is that he’s the one trying to keep the party together this season. playing mediator with lucas and dustin, becoming better friends with max, being the connection between the hawkins plot and the byers plot (along with nancy).

there was also talk of him joining the track team bc the track has been set up with hawkins high colors for filming. but mike ‘this isn’t a stupid sports game’ wheeler? i don’t think so... basically, no one knows at the moment what’s happening with mike wheeler in s4 lol.

s4 mike is just like s4 byers fam -- a complete mystery to me currently. i don’t personally think that he’ll be leaving school and hopping on a train to visit el. i think he’ll be a part of the hellfire club with dustin, or that he won’t and instead will be attempting to keep the party from completely disbanding. i hope that we get wheeler siblings scenes and that max and mike have a breakthrough and become better friends. i also feel like he’ll be having some complicated feelings about hopper, the last interaction they had, etc. and, again, the whole long distance thing with el.

so... mike and el broke up in s3. it was messy. but then they reconciled. and then hopper “died”. s3 ended with them at this weird place where she’s heard him say that he loves her and she’s told him that she loves him back. things are a little awkward in the scene bc everything has changed at this point, but a kiss, an ‘i love you’, planning to meet up on the holidays, and promising to call frequently all sounds like they’re back together and going to try making the long distance thing work to me.

i think they’ll be together when s4 starts. i think that we’ll probably only see them talking on the phone or their radios for the first few eps. maybe we’ll see flashbacks or something to them being together on the holidays. the distance might be hard and they’re definitely going to be missing each other. like... el doesn’t have mike or hopper with her now and i’m thinking the party is going to be drifting apart, plus they’re both probably going to have other personal issues that have nothing to do with each other or the party. maybe they’ll be experiencing some emotional distancing of their own while dealing with the aftermath of hopper’s “death”, the move, and whatever’s going on with them at home and at school. i think that once they reunite (probably not until the last half of the season), they’re likely to be stronger than ever.

now, onto personal theories that have zero basis. for some reason, i can’t get it out of my head that this season might dive into psychological horror a little bit ? like a greatest fears type of thing ?? and i keep thinking about brenner popping back up and using the people el loves to get to her or something and 👀👀

#this took forever to write and it's so long and for WHAT #when i tell you i've been typing and deleting and typing and deleting and typing again all day #anyway.... a l l of this is speculation pretty much bc the byers/el haven't even started filming yet #and there's no info on mike as of now #these don't even really touch on what could happen at the end of the season #bc i just have... no idea what's really happening or how it could possibly end #there was that whole thing about s5 being the part 2 of s4 so like...#what if we don't even get the reunions this season lol #nah i have to believe that everyone will be back together by the end #answered #s4 #st4 #spoilers #thank you for the question 💖 !!#sorry it's basically nonsense on my part though #me @ me: how can you ramble so much but say so little #Anonymous #idk if this even makes any sense but it's 2 am now and i've been staring at it forever so

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fuzzyface · 5 years

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“You make your own fairytale” - Jester, comphet, and realizing you might not want what you thought you did

It’s no secret to anyone who follows me that I headcanon Jester as a lesbian and have enjoyed pointing out the not-so-straight moments she’s has on the show every week. Until recently, I wasn’t any more invested in this than I usually am in my lgbt headcanons - which is to say it’s fun and meaningful to me but I don’t think it holds much weight outside of my own imagination.

However…

These past few weeks finding “evidence” for this headcanon has felt like less a treasure hunt for subtext and more like just… watching the show. It’s been very easy lately to read Jester’s behavior as that of a closeted lesbian or bi woman, to the point where I’ve started questioning whether it even makes sense to continue calling it a “crack theory” or “conspiracy”. If you’re willing to entertain the belief that gay readings of characters don’t always have to be purely self-indulgent, please enjoy this long-winded explanation as to why I think there’s a legitimately good chance that Jester is canonically in the middle of figuring out her sexuality.

To start I want to say that, no, I don’t think this is something that was planned from the start. I don’t have a portal to the inside of Laura Bailey’s head, but if I had to guess I’d say that she probably left Jester’s sexuality “undecided” at the start of the campaign, but defaulted to having her like men. Even then I didn’t see her as straight, but there were decidedly less ‘moments’ early in the campaign to support that. This actually lines up fairly well with my theory, which is that Jester’s arc is one of self-exploration. But more simply, I think the idea probably just wouldn’t have occurred to Laura when she was busy just trying to get a feel for the basics of her character. I don’t consider any of the early campaign to “contradict” anything I’m going to say next, I just know somebody would bring it up if I didn’t address it first.

(I have some friends who do very firmly believe that Laura is playing the full long con with Jester and has been slow-burning her sexuality crisis since the start of the campaign, and they’re valid, but I won’t really get into that here since that’s not my personal interpretation. If Laura wants to prove me wrong on a Talks episode sometime in the future, I will gladly eat my words.)

Jester did start out as a character who ostensibly “liked men” but even from the start I thought her way of interacting with that attraction was… interesting. She had an idea in her head of what an ‘ideal man’ was like and projected it onto nearly every man she found attractive, regardless of their actual personalities. All the men she likes are dashing, they’re all handsome heroes, they’re all suave and they’re all definitely interested in her. She thought she wanted a fairytale prince, and so she saw fairytale princes everywhere she looked. It was also really interesting to me that she never made an effort to pursue most of the men she was ‘attracted’ to. With the notable exception of Fjord, she only commented on the appearance of men after she was already distanced from them. Even Nott - the married woman - made more actual passes at men they met than Jester - the romance obsessed one - ever did. Jester seemed to care more about using her attraction to men as a way to gossip and bond with the rest of the party than she did about using it to actually court anyone.

Speaking of Fjord… boy, he’s a whole thing in of himself. Fjord was the first man she ever befriended outside of the very small bubble of people she knew growing up. He was nice to her, they trusted each other, their meeting probably felt like fate, and because of that Jester thought she was in love with him. The fact that Jester was in love with the idea of Fjord rather than the real him was something I had been speculating for a LONG time, but now that Laura has outright confirmed it I can talk about it without having to use any sort of disclaimer. Jester took a very short amount of time to decide that she was “in love” with Fjord, and almost all of the instances where her attraction was most obvious were prompted not by anything he did, but by things that reinforced Jester’s own beliefs on what romance was supposed to be like. She bought a cheesy smut book and started comparing Fjord to the protagonist because of course he’s exactly like Oskar - he’s a man and he’s handsome, isn’t he? Another woman flirted with Fjord and Jester got sick with jealousy because he’s supposed to fall in love with her, isn’t he? When the two of them were free from expectations they were cordial friends with no particular tension between them; it’s when Jester was reminded that they’re ‘supposed to be’ a love story that she got anxious, upset, or started putting on an obvious front.

A lot of this could be argued away as Jester just trying to take things too fast, but what really stood out to me was that Jester never seemed happy about her crush on Fjord. She wasn’t giggly and bubbly when talking about him, and with few exceptions she didn’t seek him out to spend extra time with him or confide her desires in him. The three times she openly addressed her crush - to Nott, the Traveler, and Caleb respectively - she was anxious, confused, or outright upset. Her talk with Nott seemed like she was trying to get reassurance that she was “normal” and that she was having the “correct” feelings in response to Fjord kissing her, which is extremely easy to read as Jester starting to realize that she might not have the feelings for men that she “should” have. Her conversation with Caleb was equally distressing, because by that point she was starting to see her fantasy was falling away. She asserted that she was “stupid” for believing it in the first place and openly admitted that she’s no longer sure her feelings still exist now that the idealism is gone. From that point forward all of Nott’s attempts to set her and Fjord up only caused her more anxiety and distress. The couple of times they were forced to be alone together they were stilted and awkward - a far cry from their original easy friendship - and after a point, Jester started to turn down offers to spend time with him altogether. “No, he’s not flirting with me,” she said, no longer even able to pretend she’s excited by the prospect.

The thing about Jester is, so much of her outward personality is based on appearances. She acts happy and cheerful and confident all the time because she thinks she has to, and she’s an accomplished liar who doesn’t like other people to see her upset or doubtful. Only in drastic situations does Jester willingly let someone see her vulnerable. It would have been incredibly easy for Laura to play Jester as her usual, cheerful, ‘no problems here’ self during her conversations about Fjord if we weren’t supposed to interpret her as being obviously and deeply conflicted. Something in her head felt very, very wrong when Fjord kissed her for her to be able to tell Nott that the only thing it made her feel was “not dead”. Something in her mind didn’t click right when she finally got what she wanted for her to be able to tell Caleb that she wasn’t even sure her crush was real.

The slow resurgence of the bond between Fjord and Jester recently made me wonder if I was wrong about my interpretation, if maybe Jester had just been sulking because she thought Fjord didn’t like her, and now she was convincing herself again that he did. But Laura confirming on Talks that Jester was mostly over her crush on Fjord solidified for me that her arc was intentionally about learning how to move on from unhealthy infatuation. So if it’s undeniably canon that Jester’s only real crush on a man was based on her misunderstanding both the situation and her own desires, and it’s canon that she is moving on from that attraction and starting to learn what she actually wants, that leaves us with the question: Where is Jester going from here?

I’ve talked a lot so far about Jester’s relationship to men and how so much of it mirrors the experience of a woman dealing with comphet; performatively talking about attractive men without pursuing them, idealizing and projecting ‘ideal’ traits onto crushes instead of developing them naturally, convincing herself she’s in a fairytale romance because a man was nice and nonthreatening towards her. But being a wlw doesn’t ‘require’ comphet, and regardless I can’t - and wouldn’t - build a gay headcanon just around her feelings about men. So let me talk now about Jester’s relationship with women.

Jester has been naturally complimentary of women since the start of the campaign. She’s quick to call them cute, call them pretty, compliment their clothes. I don’t necessarily think - until more recently - this was meant to be read as ‘not straight’. If anything I think it was just another example of Jester’s naturally flirty personality - she likes to compliment people, she likes to tease. However, the difference in how she approaches women and men has been extremely blatant recently and I genuinely don’t think it’s an accident. The ways that she - and Laura while playing her - acts around characters who are beautiful women isn’t the same ‘casually complimentary’ demeanor she had towards all genders since the start of the campaign. Jester calling Lady Olios ‘beautiful’ no less than three times in a single meeting and being noticeably flustered isn’t usual Jester behavior, Laura repeatedly asking Matt what the Bright Queen is wearing only so that Jester can be visibly awed by her beauty isn’t usual Jester behavior. The fact that she compliments women to their face, while with men it’s always an offhand comment after they leave, also stands out to me. It’s the little moments too that I notice, the times where there’s no reason to even make a comment in the first place unless you’re trying to make a point, like Jester telling Caduceus that the Wildmother is hot, or mentioning how attractive Yasha is in the middle of an unrelated conversation. It all adds up.

I’m aware of my biases in viewing these scenes as a lesbian, but completely outside of headcanons it’s obvious that Jester has an established fixation on beautiful women, and it’s obvious that this has come up more frequently now than it used to in the past. It’s the fact that this overlaps with her realizing that she’s no longer sure what she wants - that love and romance and attraction aren’t what she thought they were - that feels deliberate to me in a way that Jester’s earlier offhand comments about women never did. If Jester’s feelings towards women are meant to be entirely platonic, then the insistence on highlighting them - sometimes even interrupting scenes to do so - seems strange to me. It’s not played for comedy, it’s rarely relevant to the scene at hand, so why does it come up often enough that my friends and I keep a running joke that if there’s a beautiful woman in a scene Jester will comment on it at least once? (Play that game yourself when you’re watching new episodes, you’ll be amazed at how rarely you’ll be wrong)

So where’s this going, if Jester is being played as in the middle of discovering her sexuality? She gets over a major crush on a player character just to flirt with random attractive NPCs? Is Jester’s gay awakening supposed to be centered on her occasionally thinking powerful and unattainable women are hot, or would Laura have the logical sense to plan such a serious character decision around something that would have an actual impact on the party? Well, let’s be honest, you probably knew this part was coming eventually…

Jester’s relationship with Beau is one of the closest and most stable friendships in the group. The two of them have an intense love and trust of one another and are both verbally and physically affectionate on a greater level than any pair in the party. I’ve talked myself to death about these two already and I’ll do so plenty in the future, so I’m not going to give an entire summary of their relationship (if you need a refresher, here you go). Yes, I ship them. Yes, I’ve talked plenty about what I think of Beau’s side of the relationship. But it’s regardless of shipping or the potential of mutual feelings that, for the purposes of this essay, I say there’s a good chance that Jester canonically has a crush on Beau.

Hear me out.

The two of them had an ostensibly platonic relationship for the majority of the campaign. There were some charged moments but nothing that could really and truly be read as explicitly romantic or sexual without shipping goggles on. Then Episode 46 aired. Jester was directly in the middle of her crisis about her feelings for Fjord, Laura was clearly playing her as starting to realize that she didn’t feel the way she originally thought she did, the group had just been through a tremendously traumatic experience that made Jester question whether she could trust them… and then Beau hugs her, and talks about their shared childhood trauma, and tells her she’s beautiful, and tells her that she loves her. I can’t say for sure that this would have been the moment that Jester fully developed feelings, but I do know that if you were already planning for your character to have an arc about learning what she wants from love, this would feel like an awfully convenient moment to build off of. And I can certainly observe the ways that Beau and Jester’s dynamic has visibly changed in the episodes since.

We already know what platonic friendship between Beau and Jester looks like; we watched 40+ episodes of it. What we have now is Jester blushing and giggling when Beau blows her a kiss, Jester asking Beau if she’s secretly in love with her, Jester stepping in to counter every derogatory thing said about Beau with showers of compliments, Jester asking to look down Beau’s pants, Beau offering to let Jester watch her make out with another woman, Jester approaching Beau and only Beau to discuss her thoughts about love and romance. These are often explicitly flirty interactions that we genuinely never saw between the two of them previously, and given how it directly lines up with Jester falling out of love with someone else and clearly having romance on the brain, it feels oddly perfect to just be a coincidence. Even the more ‘dubiously platonic’ moments between them are more frequent and more tender. Jester doing things like giving Beau a massage to help her fall asleep (a scene she logically shouldn’t even have been awake for), pulling Beau aside to ask her to commit some vandalism for her, or repeatedly complimenting her when she shows any sign of insecurity. The fact that Jester immediately chose to stay roommates with her - in a house with so many rooms that the only other people bunking up are a married couple - at the very least confirmed for me that Jester has been prioritizing Beau in her life in a major way lately.

The little comments, the encouragement, the way Jester seems to almost hover over Beau for any sign that she needs to be comforted or reassured… it all adds up to something big in their relationship having changed and there is absolutely nothing contradictory or unreasonable in viewing it as Jester having developed romantic feelings for Beau. If Jester went up to someone the very next episode and told them she was in love with Beau, everything that’s happened between them would feel like a perfectly natural progression up to that moment. Call me crazy, but when you can draw a line that easily from A to B using only what’s available to you in canon, I think at the least you usually call that an entirely plausible theory.

So what’s my point here? Am I saying Jester is for sure being played as a closeted gay woman who’s secretly in love with Beau? Of course not. I don’t claim to be any more certain of what Laura Bailey has planned than anyone else. I’m also not trying to say that Jester is “coded” as gay or anything like that. But I can look at the storybeats that I correctly predicted due to my own headcanons (Jester questioning and ultimately abandoning her feelings for Fjord, Beau and Jester growing closer and having more non-platonic interactions) and follow it to its logical conclusion.

If all these things have been correct so far, and Jester being gay is an easy and logical interpretation that contradicts nothing and explains a lot, then why not assume it might actually be what Laura is intending? At the very least, why not stop treating it like a wild fringe theory that could never have solid supporting evidence?

Jester is gay, tell your friends

#critical role #jester lavorre #cr jester #beaujester #minor spoilers #fuzzy tries to be meta #i'm so sorry if the read-more doesn't work on mobile #i can't fix it

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conceptstage · 5 years

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Survival is a Talent {Part One}

AO3

“What is it?” Beau asked, frowning down at the swaddled creature in the crook of her elbow.

Caleb stood beside her, nervously scratching his arm as he watched it squirm. “I believe, Beauregard, that that is a half-elf baby.”

“I know what it is,” she hissed.

“Then why did you as-”

“I don’t know!” The baby’s face screwed up in distress at the shouting and Beau cursed as her little lip started to wiggle. “Fuck, what do I do? What- Shh, shh, don’t cry. I’m sorry, I won’t yell.” She started bouncing quickly, rising up on the tips of her toes and then falling back down sharply. The baby had the dark purple skin of a drow and the slightly pointed little ears of a half elf. She was wearing a cloth diaper and was wrapped in a beige and red plaid blanket that was fastened closed by an elegant hair clip.

“Wait, wait, wait-” Jester said, reaching out to grab Beau’s shoulders and hold her down. “Slower, slow. Can I hold her?”

Beau practically shoved the baby into Jester’s arms. “Please.” When she was baby free, she threw up her hands and turned away to pace along the alleyway.

Jester grinned and lifted the girl up above her head. “Hello, little baby! Hello, are you having a good-” The baby burped and spit up landed with a splash right on Jester’s face. She sighed and closed her eyes to keep it from getting in and held the baby out to where she’d last seen Caleb. “Okay. I’m done now.”

Caleb hesitated but took the baby and looked back at the others who were keeping their distance. He cleared his throat and looked down into the baby’s wide brown eyes as she gummed at her own fist. He thought of the dead drow woman laying nearby, presumably the mother. “Ah. Hallo. Do you know where we can find your next of kin?”

Beau groaned. “Oh my god…” she mumbled. “Does anyone in this fucking group know how to take care of a baby? Caduceus? You had siblings, right?”

“Older siblings. I’ve never been this close to a baby before. But I could give it my best shot.”

Beau instead looked at Fjord, who shrugged, then Jester, who was cleaning off her face and muttering angrily to herself, then to Nott. A lightbulb went off in her head. “Nott! You’re, like, a mother or something, right?”

“I’m not ‘like’ a mother or something. I am a mother.”

Beau snatched the child from Caleb’s grip and held her towards Nott. “Here.”

Nott gave the child a critical glance. “She’s… so much bigger than Luc was at this age. I don’t know if I can hold her.”

“Don’t say that, you’re gonna give her body issues,” Beau chided. “Look, just sit down or something and we’ll put her in your lap while we go get supplies and try to figure out where she came from.”

Nott sighed but sat down on the ground with her back against the stone wall of their house. Caduceus had heard the crying from the dining room while they were all eating breakfast and had come to investigate. The woman was dead when they arrived.

“I bet that she’s from a border town,” Jester said, her voice taking on a dreamy tone. “She was out picking flowers one day when she came across an injured human man who was escaping bandits in the mountains. She took him back to her little cottage and they fell in love even though they knew they shouldn’t. The made love in the moonlight and he left to go back home to take care of his sick mother but he promised to come back for her when he could but then she discovered that she was pregnant! She came to the city for medical attention but when the nurses saw that it was a half human baby they grew violent and called the guards. She ran for her child’s life and has been in hiding ever since, but tonight she was found and chased down until she was shot dead in the back!”

“Natural causes,” Caduceus said, checking the woman’s body over. “She died from pneumonia.”

Jester pouted and crossed her arms. It wasn’t nearly as romantic.

“Is the baby sick?” Beau asked, pausing as she tried to situate her into Nott’s lap. She was more than half nott’s size, almost two feet in length.

Caduceus frowned and shook his head. “I don’t believe they had enough contact for it to transfer. This isn’t the baby’s mother. She’s been dead for two days and moved here.”

Beau frowned and stood up while Nott struggled to hold the baby’s giant head up off the ground. The baby started to cry again and wiggled violently and Fjord rushed to keep her from falling down hard.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Beau asked. “Was this staged? Someone dragged her here and dropped the baby beside her... why? What do they want?”

Caduceus frowned and looked solemnly back at the baby. “So that we would find her and take care of her. Maybe they assumed we’d think this woman was the mother. I suspect, if we investigate this woman we’ll find she had no family or anyone who would miss her body. No one who would be willing to take ‘her daughter’,” his finger quotes were clunky and odd looking. “-off our hands.”

“So this is just a convoluted way for someone to abandon their baby?”

“They wanted us specifically to find it though?” Caleb asked, moving over to check the woman for clues. “Because it is half human?”

“I suspect half human children aren’t common in these parts. The baby looks drow but it will have the metabolism closer to that of a human and will need specialized care that a drow unfamiliar with them would be unable to properly provide. We have humans in our group and the rest of us are very familiar with humans and their anatomy, they probably hoped we’d know what to do.”

“We don’t though!” Beau exclaimed. “We don’t know what to do!” She turned to look at Caleb with wide, scared eyes. “What do we do?”

“We need food,” Nott said. Beau and Caleb spun around to look at her as she gently leaned the baby back and forth. “She hasn’t been here long, she’s not cold, but it’s better to have it ready than scramble for it when the time comes.”

“We can mash up some carrots?”

Nott nodded. “We can do some vegetables. She can probably handle stuff like rice, maybe some plain, soft beans. And diapers. Not for eating, for the other end.”

Beau nodded and walked over to pick up the baby and hold her at arm's length. “Alright. Some of us should stay at the house with her and get her set up. We have some milk in the ice box but we’ll need more supplies. The rest of us will go shopping and then try to find her mom.”

Jester turned to Fjord and found that there was some moisture gathering at the corners of his eyes. “You alright?” she asked, quietly as everyone moved out of the alley.

Fjord cleared his throat and nodded. “I-I’m fine. It’s just… they left her.”

Jester gave him a small smile and put her hand on his arm. “But now she’s with us just like you are. We’ll take care of her until she finds her family again.” She gave him a bright smile and started skipping after the others.

Fjord heard Beau call out from around the corner. “Hey Nott, how do I hold this thing!”

Jester gasped. “Don’t call her a ‘thing’, Beau! She’s a beautiful, perfect little ange- ah! Don’t give her to me! Ew, she’s got spit up all over mouth.”

Fjord sighed and started to follow.

Essek stared at the baby with a curious frown. “A half drow child,” he mumbled. “How unusual.”

Nott had volunteered to watch the baby and Fjord had drawn the short straw so they were both stuck at the house, Nott with the baby in her lap and Fjord pacing across the room. “So you have no idea who she could belong to?” They had called Essek over before Jester left because there was a dead body behind their house and they needed a grown up to deal with it.

Essek hummed. “Not a clue. You said the scene you found was staged?”

Fjord nodded, chewing on his fingernail. “Beau thinks it was someone’s convoluted way of abandoning her and throwing us off their trail.”

Essek looked thoughtful. “I am inclined to agree with her, though I would appreciate it if you did not tell her so.”

Nott nodded sagely. “Yeah, we get it, we won’t tell her.”

“What can you tell us about the woman?” Fjord asked.

Essek frowned and crossed his arms, idly tapping his finger on the inside of his elbow as he pondered. “I did not recognize her but I have a group of guards coming over to collect her body. If she’s a few days dead, I imagine that she was stolen from a morgue. I’ll have someone go around and inquire about any morgues missing a body. My suspicion though?” He sighed. “There is no report with the guard’s office about a missing body. Either the leader of the morgue is incompetant and doesn’t realize the body is gone or she never made it to a morgue in the first place.”

Fjord frowned. “Then how did the real mother find her?”

Essek considered this for a moment. “Perhaps she merely stumbled across the body by chance. Perhaps she knew the woman somehow. Speculation at this point is useless, we do not have enough information.” He seemed about to turn to the door and leave, but paused and looked back at them. “Will you all be okay with taking care of the girl until we get this settled? I have no other people familiar enough with her needs that I could trust such a sensitive matter too. I will have someone begin working on finding her a suitable home but for now…” he trailed off, staring at the half-elf in Nott’s lap as she snored quietly.

“Of course,” Fjord said, nodding.

Essek nodded back and then continued towards the door. “I have much to do, I will contact you with my findings. Farewell.” Then he left them alone in the dining room of their house. There was a ruckus at the door. “Oh, Jester. How.. lovely to see you,” Nott heard Essek say dryly.

“Hi, Essek,” but she didn’t stop to bother him today and ran right for the dining room, squealing when she saw them sitting there. “We got things for the wittle baby!”

Caduceus followed her in with a small, tranquil smile and held up a burlap bag. “Diapers and milk.”

Jester gasped. “And I found her the cutiest little purple dress and I just really, really hope she doesn’t puke all over it right away.”

Nott sighed and held the baby out to Caduceus, who took her extremely carefully into his arms. “I’ll set up a diaper change station. Fjord, go get me one of your clean shirts that you don’t mind never seeing again.”

Fjord blinked and uncrossed his arms. “For… For what?”

“For cleaning up poop.”

Fjord winced. “What? Why my shirts?”

“Because you spent the entire time they were gone complaining right in my ear. Shirts, now.” Fjord groaned and sulked out of the room while Nott started pulling the diapers out of the bag. “Where are Caleb and Beau?”

“Sleuthing,” Caduceus said. “Beau said that they were going to see what they could find out about this dead woman and see if anyone knew about a half elf baby being born in town.” Nott frowned but let it go, instead focusing on find a clean enough surface to work with.

“We should name her,” Jester said, rocking back and forth on her feet at a safe distance from the baby's vomit hole.

Caduceus was holding her gently in the crook of his arm, bouncing her and swaying slowly back and forth like Nott had shown him before. “She’s several months old, I suspect she already has a name.”

“Yes, but we don’t know it and she can’t tell us. So maybe we can give her a temporary name, like a nickname. Something cute like… Matilda or Calla Lily or Sunshine.”

“Matilda is nice,” Nott said, laying the baby down on the table and undoing her clothes to change her diaper.

Fjord was frowning as he walked back into the room. “Matilda? No way.”

Jester gasped at him. “What’s wrong with Matilda?”

Fjord handed his shirts over to Nott reluctantly. “It’s an old lady name. Seeing a kid with an old lady name is just… off putting.”

Jester pouted. “Well, I think Matilda is lovely. Do you have any ideas?”

“He has a silent ‘J’ in his name,” Nott interjected. “He shouldn’t have any naming rights at all.”

Fjord and Nott started to bicker and Jester blocked them out, turning to Caduceus so that she could make faces at the baby. “What do you think, Caduceus?”

Caduceus didn’t answer right away but he looked thoughtful. “Suvi. She was left alone in a heartless, deadly world but she is a survivor. Suvi for short.”

“Oh, Suvi is perfect! I love it so much!” She grinned and let the baby grab her finger. “Hi there baby Suvi! We’re going to take such very, very good care of you until we find your family. I promise.”

Suvi just stared up at her with big, dark eyes and gave a little cough, shooting spit up down her bare chest and Jester’s hand.

“Oh, why does this keep happening!” Jester exclaimed, rushing over to the wash basin.

Nott finished laying out one of Fjord’s shirts on the table and then made grabby hands towards the baby. “Here, sit her down. Diaper change. I’ll show you all how to do it, but then we’ll take turns, alright? I’m not being saddled with this by myself. And I’m not doing any fucking blow outs, so you just need to draw straws or something.”

Fjord blinked at her incomprehensibly. “What’s a blow out?”

Nott snorted. “You’ll know it when you see it.”

Beau was getting antsy. She was sitting in the chair of the guard’s station, chewing anxiously on her cheek and tapping her foot. “Why the fuck won’t anyone talk to us,” she hissed.

Caleb sighed, tapping his fingers against his knees. “Maybe it was a bad idea for just the two humans to do this?” he suggested, watching two of the guards across the room looked at them with disdain and talk quietly with one another. “We cannot get any information if the people here are too suspicious to speak to us.”

“Goddamn it,” Beau hissed, probably a little too loudly. “Prejudice blows.”

It was perhaps the understatement of a lifetime but Caleb just shrugged in agreement. Caleb looked up when the front door opened and he sat up straight when Essek walked inside. “Ah, Essek!” he called, clearing his throat and getting swiftly to his feet.

Essek looked over at them and smiled softly. “Ah, Caleb, Beauregard. I assume that you’re here for the same reason that I am?”

Beau hopped to her feet and marched over to him, tension in every line of her body but Essek didn’t seem bothered. The guards nearby all reached for their weapons, though none of them drew yet. “We’re here to see missing persons reports from the last few weeks but these clowns keep giving us the runaround. We even flashed our badges but they won’t listen.” She snapped her head around to glare at the guard at the desk who had been telling her ‘Just five more minutes’ for the last hour and a half. “A woman is dead and there’s a baby without a family and these fuckers don’t even care cause we’re human. Fuck all of you!” Caleb put a hand on her shoulder, maybe to hold her back, maybe to calm her down, and squeezed. She growled under her breath from the effort it took to keep from yelling some more and just relaxed beside him.

Caleb sighed and cleared his throat. “Beau is just a little high strung. She is really worried about the baby.” Beau sneered and crossed her arms but didn’t speak. “Do you think you would be able to assist us?”

Essek just smiled, seemingly unbothered by Beau’s outburst. “Of course. I'm here to ask if any of the local morgues were missing bodies, I didn’t think to check missing persons, that’s a good idea. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you, Essek,” Caleb sighed.

Beau was still fuming when they both walked back over to their chairs and Essek was lead inside a door across the room. “I’m not worried about the baby,” Beau said quietly. “I just want to get her out of our hair. We’ve got more important things to worry about.”

Caleb pat her shoulder placatingly. “Of course.”

#critical role #critical role fic #beauregard #caleb widogast #jester lavorre #nott the brave #fjord #caduceus clay #Empire Kids #disaster siblings

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amphibious-thing · 5 years

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Did Washington let Hamilton and Laurens share a cabin at Valley Forge?

A story I’ve seen floating around a lot is that Washington gave Hamilton and Laurens a cabin to share at Valley Forge, and that this is somehow evidence that Washington was accepting of homosexuality. I think this belief came from this article (that doesn’t properly source anything) which writes:

[Washington’s] concern for his male colleagues clearly extended to their personal lives. This was especially true of Hamilton, whom he brought with him to Valley Forge, giving Hamilton a cabin to share with his then-lover, John Laurens, to whom Hamilton had written passionate love letters that are still extant.

This makes it sound like Hamilton went to Washington and asked “can I share a cabin with my lover Laurens?” and Washington said something like “of course you can, you know how I love and support you and your relationship with Laurens.”

This seems really unlikely to me.

First off I’ve not seen any primary source evidence that confirms whether or not they shared a cabin at Valley Forge. If you visit the Potts house they have this room set up at the aide-de-camp room.

As you can see it’s a pretty small room. The Historic Furnishings Report places three folding camp beds in this room. As there was between 7-9 aide-de-camps there at certain times it seems unlikely they all slept in that one small room. It’s possible that one or two of the aides may have slept in the smaller bedroom when there wasn’t a guest however what did they do when there was a guest?.

It’s possible that the aides (or some of the aides) may have slept in the garret, as it’s said John Laurens hit his head on the ceiling there. However It’s thought that the servants probably slept in the garret and there wouldn't be enough room for the aides and the servants.

It’s speculated that they may have slept in a cabin built out the back of the Potts house. On the 7th of March Martha Washington wrote “the Generals apartment is very small he has had a log cabben built to dine in which has made our quarters much more tolerable than they were at first.” In his book George Washington's Indispensable Men, Arthur Lefkowitz speculates that this cabin “was probably used as an office and dining area during the day and provided additional sleeping quarters for the headquarters staff at night.” (p135) If we assume Lefkowitz is correct and the dining cabin was indeed also used as sleeping quarters for the aides we still have to wonder where the aides slept before it was built. Martha indicates that it was built after her arrival at Valley Forge which was “about the first of February”. Washingtons army had been at Valley forge since the 19 of December.

It’s said that Washington (and presumably his aides) slept in tents with the enlisted men until the huts were built. However in reality they moved into the Potts house on Christmas Eve and not all the huts were completed until sometime latter. This leaves at least 40 days between moving into the Potts house and the construction of the log cabin. So where did the aides sleep? The answer to that might indeed be the second bedroom.

Alexander Hamilton and Caleb Gibbs had been sent on a mission to Albany and neither arrived back until 20th of January and even after arriving at Valley Forge it’s possible that Gibbs slept with the Life Guard rather than the aides. James McHenry didn’t join staff until the 15th of May. And no one is quite sure whether Peter Presley Thornton was there at all. So between 24th of December and the 20th of January we’re looking at probably 5-6 men in the second bedroom, if we assume it was two to a bed while probably not the most comfortable it’s possible.

During the 1779-1780 winter encampment at Morristown Washingtons staff stayed at the Ford Mansion where “Washington had a large upstairs bedroom reserved for himself and his wife. The aides shared the remaining two bedrooms sleeping on their folding camp beds.” (Lefkowitz p197) Much like at Valley Forge at Morristown they had built a large log structure. At Morristown the log cabin “butted up against the side of the mansion and the new doorway to Washington's office ... A visitor typically entered the mansion through the log building. He was met by a headquarters officer of the day who was stationed there. This officer probably belonged to the Commander in Chief's Guard. He would determine the visitor's business and direct him accordingly. If someone had an appointment with His Excellency, the officer could take the visitor from the log building, through the doorway cut in the wall, directly into Washington's office.” (Lefkowitz p196) Lefkowitz speculates that the “arrival of important visitors probably required the aides to move their sleeping quarters out of the house to the log office building.” (p197) This is supported by McHenry’s poem which describes the aides waking up in a hut.

It’s quite plausible that the same happened at Valley Forge and that earlier on in the winter they slept in the second bedroom and latter moved to the log dining cabin to make room for guests. It’s also worth noting that Martha Washington had a sitting room at the Potts house which is described as being “near the small room” if you look at the floor plan this is clearly the ‘aides room’. So perhaps the aides were moved into the log cabin to make room for Mrs. Washington’s sitting room after her arrival.

So while it seems likely that Hamilton and Laurens did share a cabin at Valley Forge, they were probably sharing it with 4-7 other men. It’s hardly the sexy scenario the article seems to imply.

But wait you might be saying, if we don’t necessarily know where the aides slept is it possible that Hamilton and Laurens shared a cabin just the two of them? The answer to that is yes, it’s certainly possible. Lefkowitz writes that it has been “speculated that a number of temporary huts were also built near the house to further accommodate the large headquarters staff. Evidence for the construction of a log building onto the back of the Potts house comes from the fact that a soldier named Gideon Savage kept a diary, which mentions that he worked at Washington's quarters for several days during mid January 1778. Savage worked as a carpenter before joining the army.”

The huts at Valley Forge were “fourteen by sixteen each—sides, ends and roofs made with logs, and the roof made tight with split slabs—or in some other way—the sides made tight with clay—fire-place made of wood and secured with clay on the inside eighteen inches thick, this fire-place to be in the rear of the hut—the door to be in the end next the street—the doors to be made of split oak-slabs, unless boards can be procured—Side-walls to be six and a half-feet high—” It was 12 enlisted men to a hut but officers would have less people per hut. So it’s possible that Laurens slept in the second bedroom with the other aides until mid January when these huts were supposedly built. When Hamilton arrived on the 20th on Jan he may have joined Laurens in the hut.

However even if we assume this was the case, space was tight and platonic bed sharing was a normal thing in America at the time. It was not uncommon for complete strangers of the same sex to share a bed together at an Inn if there was little space. A custom that was not appreciated by many European visitors. In 1816 Lt. John Le Couteur, a British army officer and Captain George Thew Burke traveled through New York together, Le Couteur complained in his diary:

There was only one spare bed, a small one, which of course I insisted Burke should take. The Yankee Landlord wished me to take half of it as a matter of course but I said: "we Britishers were particular on that pint.' ''Then,'' said mine host, "I guess if you don't chuse to take half a bed with some one, you'll jist sleep in a cheer [chair] or by the kitchen fire'

Another example of this cultural difference can be found in this amusing anecdote from Pierre Du Ponceau’s autobiography:

One evening at an Inn in Virginia, a Frenchman and a Virginian were discussing about the manners of their respective countries. The American exclaimed violently against the horrid custom of the French of kissing one another at meeting and parting. The Frenchman made no answer, but as it was late, he took his candle and went up to bed. He was soon followed by the Virginian who after undressing came to take his place in the same bed with his companion "Stop, Sir," said the Frenchman, "that won't do—I shall kiss you as much as you please, but by Jupiter, I'll not sleep with you."

However bed sharing was not always merely an act of necessity, E. Anthony Rotundo explains in his article on romantic friendship:

Perhaps it is not too much to suggest that in an era before central heating, the body warmth of an already beloved bedmate may have been so welcome as to be a source of emotional as well as physical pleasure. This was, after all, a culture that fervently contrasted the secure and cozy warmth of home with the coldness of a cruel and heartless world outside... A bed, when shared with a special person, could become a nest of intimacy, a place of casual touch and confidential talk.

Once we recognize that this possibility of intimacy in bed could exist in an era when men slept together as a casual occurrence, then we can see the spectrum of meanings that attached to the act of sharing a bed - a spectrum that spread out from the incidental (and often annoying) contact of strange bedfellows, to the body warmth of fond brothers, to the embraces of Wyck Vanderhoef and James Blake, and on to the loving kisses of Albert Dodd and Anthony Halsey.

So while sharing a bed may be an emotionally and even physically intimate experience for Hamilton and Laurens it’s unlikely anyone would have thought twice about Hamilton and Laurens sharing a bed let alone a cabin. In fact it’s likely they would have been required to share sleeping quarters (and possibly even a bed at times) due to lack of space.

So while it’s possible that Hamilton and Laurens may have shared a cabin a Valley Forge, and its certainly likely Washington would have been aware of his aides sleeping quarters, the idea that Washington gave them a cabin to share and that this is somehow proof of him being super gay friendly seems like a bit of a misapprehension to me.

TL;DR: It’s very likely Hamilton and Laurens shared sleeping quarters at Valley Forge, and Washington would have almost certainly been aware of that. However they probably did not have their own quarters (just the two of them) and even if they did it would not be considered unusual for them to share the same sleeping quarters or even the same bed. If Washington was aware of a sexual relationship between Hamilton and Laurens he (as far as I’m aware) left no evidence of that knowledge.

#alexander hamilton #john laurens #george washington

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currycurrie · 5 years

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So I totally wanna hop aboard the Fjord multiclassing speculation. I just rolled out a new College of Whispers bard for myself and SWEET JESUS if this class wasn’t made for Fjord. Ya know, if Fjord takes a bit of a darker turn, and really leans into his high CHA. I’m sure someone has already mentioned this before, but I just wanna gush.

So first off, Bards use CHA for spellcasting so it’s a no brainer for multiclassing purposes. I’m sure he would approve of the additional spell slots too, even if they’re weaker spells than his usual.

Then we get the class feature Psychic Blades. This essentially is a paired down sneak attack. You spend a point of inspiration to add 2d6 psychic damage to a weapon attack. The number of dice go up as you level. It would really mix well with Hexblade, and he could do some crazy damage with the falchion.

At this point, if Fjord only took Bard levels from here on out he’d only get to a max level of 11. Meaning, he’d only get two more Whispers specific class features. Those being:

Words of Terror - You learn to infuse innocent-seeming words with an insidious magic that can inspire terror. If you speak to a humanoid alone for at least 1 minute, you can attempt to seed paranoia in its mind. At the end of the conversation, the target must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw against your spell save DC or be frightened of you or another creature of your choice.

This is already what Fjord does during any contentious negotiations. The guy creeping on Jester’s mom, the orcs messing with him and Caleb in the City of Beasts. Fjord relies heavily on intimidation tactics already, and this would give him a bit of extra oomph.

Mantle of Whispers - When a humanoid dies within 30 feet of you, you can magically capture its shadow. You can use the shadow as an action. When you do so, it vanishes, magically transforming into a disguise that appears on you. You now look like the dead person, but healthy and alive. While you’re in the disguise, you gain access to all information that the humanoid would freely share with a casual acquaintance. Such information includes general details on its background and personal life, but doesn’t include secrets. The information is enough that you can pass yourself off as the person by drawing on its memories.

I mean COME ON. I keep thinking back to when Fjord mimicked the awful guy in Nicodranas as an intimidation tactic. Fjord is already basically a magpie for personalities, why not take it to the next level? (Side note, really hoping he’s gonna take the actor feat at some point.)

My favorite Fjord moments are when he gets a little dark and terrifying, and I’d love to see him embrace that a bit more. Of course, this could mean some interesting and perhaps not so great things about his character arc should he choose this class. But then on top of all this you get all the usual great bard stuff like inspiration and jack of all trades etc. I think this could be a very fun option for Fjord, but also highly unlikely to me since he seems to be going a more godly route. Always fun to speculate, though!

#critical role #cr spoilers #long post

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eponymous-rose · 6 years

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Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E21 (June 5, 2018)

Buckle up, keep your arms and legs inside the ride at all times... and for the love of everything you hold dear, don’t read the chat. Tonight’s guests are Marisha Ray and Liam O’Brien!

The episode starts with Marisha and Liam fighting over a bowl and then hugging. Brian: “Wait, it was that kind of bowl?”

F̩̤̹̹̞̳j̣͓̝o̶̖͍r̙͚̝̹̪͙͔͘d̪̭͎̮̞͜ ͉̤̖͇̦̗̕b̸͈̳̥̻̳̤̼u̺͔̩̻͚͍s̘͞t͎̼̺̜͉̝̞ ̣͉̯̤s҉͖̯͖ee̜͙̤͕͓̺s ͙̳̘͍̪̳́a͓͓͞l̫̻l҉̩̖̬̰͉̬.̝̖̙͔

Announcements: Vox Machina comic is still on sale, including the limited edition! Winners of fanart of the week will now be hosted on critrole.com! New Instagram account!

@critrolestats for this episode: This is the first episode of the new campaign to surpass 4 hours of gameplay (4:07:27); Beau got her 30th Nat 20 in this episode and continues to have the most Nat 20s, with Nott in a distant second place with 19; the Mighty Nein rolled their 100th Nat 20 in this episode (Fjord’s concentration save for Hunger of Hadar); Nott and Beau are tied for the most Nat 1s with 18 each, and Caleb ranks third with 14.

Of all the great stuff in the D&D Beyond ad spot, Liam was least surprised by Sam’s singing, because he knew he had the a capella chops to pull it off; he and Marisha got teary-eyed watching it the first time because of animation style nostalgia (it especially reminded them of Thundercats).

Beau is deeply enjoying having a friend in Jester, especially since she doesn’t seem to question Beau for who she is. “For Beau, it’s like appreciating an adorable little flower.”

Everyone was enamored with Mark and Cali. Marisha: “I loved how cute he was, his appreciation for cute things.” They’re going to try to Skype Mark in on Talks next week to see what his side of the experience was. Brian: “Probably horrible.”

Beau isn’t likely to be too dramatically changed by her near-death experience. "I think Beau was unconscious and then Beau was woken up and was like, ‘This is fine. This is normal, right?’” Marisha talks about how it would’ve been a huge bummer as a player to lose Beau before her backstory even came out.

There’s some speculation as to how long this campaign might be. Liam: “Could be shorter, could be 852 episodes like Naruto.”

Caleb’s passing around of Frumpkin is his main outlet for expressing affection; Frumpkin’s deep importance to him and the significance of handing him off to someone else for even a brief period of time will become more clear with future reveals.

Beau doesn’t think she’s immortal, but she still has the youthful perspective that risk-taking will probably work out. “It’s not that she thinks consequences can’t happen to her, it’s that she thinks they won’t.” Marisha points out that Beau wouldn’t really know how close it came since she was unconscious for most of it.

Gif of the week: Jester casting Speak with Dead and everyone freaking out.

Caleb knows Nott’s laying it on way too thick when it comes to his magical abilities, but he doesn’t want to call her out on it, because he’d feel a bit hypocritical pointing out someone else’s irrational behavior. "Caleb hates himself. Nothing gets through that wall.”

Apart from Caleb, Frumpkin is most comfortable with Nott, despite Nott "eating” Frumpkin twice. After Nott, it’s Jester. Liam: “Laura would kill me if I don’t say Jester.” Marisha: “I thought you’d say Yasha.” Liam: “I was going to say that, but Laura would kill me.”

Beau’s still processing how she feels about not getting left behind despite her worldview that everyone’s basically selfish; she wouldn’t have begrudged them leaving her behind (even if she weren’t dead in that scenario). Once again, it’s hard to reconcile because the players all know how close she was to dying, but that’s not really reflected in the game’s universe (she didn’t even have to roll saving throws; she was just out for a few seconds). Beau knows it was Cali who saved her, because she knows Cali has Levitation.

The parallel between Cali and Caleb’s backstories was most influential earlier, when Caleb warmed to her faster than he might’ve otherwise, but didn’t have much time to percolate and didn’t factor into his actions at the end of the episode.

Fanart of the week: a spectacular Mollymauk!

Beau saw Caleb’s actions as him being cautious, and that was fair and warranted and justified, and Beau knows that more than anybody else (along with Nott), considering she has the peek into his backstory. From Beau and the rest of the Mighty Nine’s perspective, they didn’t see the conversation between Nott and Caleb, and when it came down to it, in Beau’s eyes, having this thing that’s this potentially horrific artifact on their person when they already have the dodecahedron was just going to bring trouble down on them. Marisha: “This isn’t our jam, and if Cali is telling the truth and she is going to destroy this, great! Bonus points for us! If she is lying to us and she does want to go out and talk to Tiamat, I think, in Beau’s head, that’s another adventuring party’s problem. That’s above our payscale. That’s not why we’re here.” As a member of the Cobalt Reserve, she knows exactly how bad this kind of stuff can be. “What are we going to do, go around intercepting every potentially dangerous item that doesn’t have anything to do with us?” She emphasizes that Beau’s not a hero yet and doesn’t have that mindset. “I’m not saying it’s the right choice or the wrong choice, but it’s the character choice. (...) What she was trying to tell Caleb is ‘You had no knowledge that this bowl even fucking existed before Cali came along.’ Beyond that, she was going to go along with it until Caleb suggested holding Cali overnight. Due to stuff that Beau has dealt with in her backstory that unfortunately no one knows about yet” she wasn’t going to let that fly.

Brian talks about how much he admires that Marisha is willing to make bold character choices, especially after so many folks have seemed to enjoy attempting to tear her down for it. “That’s fucking awesome. You’re going to own the shit out of that character.”

Liam: “I want to toss out three ideas about all this, because obviously there’s been a lot of discussion about this, a lot of passion and debate. (...) One, I encourage everyone who watches our show to watch Rashomon. Something happens in the woods, and the movie is three different people telling their account of what happened out in the woods, and every story is totally different. Different people are the hero or the villain depending on who’s telling it. The other thing is that I know that VM was more of a family, and this clusterfuck of a-holes is not. This is not a Sunday School Bible parable class, we’re not an afterschool special, this is a character study of a lot of really messed-up people.” They might end up being role models, but it’s an ongoing arc. “And then the last thing is, this is a game of D&D. If Caleb can’t decide to have a moment, if Beau can’t grab the bowl, what’s the point of Dungeons and Dragons? I don’t care what gripe Caleb and Beau had together. I live in Caleb’s skin, so of course I associate and feel passionate about Caleb’s point of view, but it’s not the only point of view. The point is not to be right, the point is to have fun and get into it.”

Marisha: “I think ‘character study’ is the right way of putting it. We’re uppity actor types. We like making complex characters, and we want to explore that and see what these complex characters do, because people are complex, people are complicated. You hear a lot of people complaining about contradictions. I mean, yeah, have you ever had a Facebook post pop up from two years ago like, ‘Remember when you said this two years ago, you dumb shit?’ You’re allowed to be upset at our characters, and you should, and I think that’s why we as actors have jumped into this profession, is because we like making people feel things.”

Brian paraphrases Melville: “A great moment is about the opposite of what it appears to be about.” He points out that this wasn’t about a bowl, it was about what was in the rearview mirror for both characters. “Ultimately, it’s the stuff that brings you guys closer together.” He talks about how it’s probably harder for viewers to watch that after Vox Machina, given that they were more in the flawed-but-noble vein as characters.

Liam: “Caleb is trying to make good with the group and (laughs) is not doing a good job of it. He obviously saw the extreme parallel between [his and Cali’s] backgrounds. Because of the things that she was dealing with, he put on a different pair of sunglasses to watch her and make sure everything was fine.” At the end, even Caleb knew it was probably over-the-top, but he’d found out this thing and was awkwardly trying to communicate that to the rest of the group. “Caleb thinks that he’s a broken bag of glass that everybody doesn’t want to touch, and he’s right.” Even in a moment when he thought he was doing what the group wanted, he couldn’t do it right. “He’s been in a fucking asylum for eleven years.” In the moment, in his mind, he didn’t think his trauma had anything to do with his actions, and didn’t understand why that was being brought into it, and just disengaged. “Another thing with Caleb is that he doesn’t need, in this group, to feel like people respect him or think he’s cool; Caleb thinks that he is a piece of shit, so this is just confirming what he unconsciously wants. All he needs to do is learn more and grow, so if he needs to just shut up and deal with it, as long as they’ll keep him around, fine, because he just needs things that he hasn’t had access to for five years.” He’s getting what he wants out of this group: he’s getting that unconscious need to be told he’s a fuck-up.

Liam on Beau: “She is talking from her experience, she has nothing to do with what happened to him, she is not responsible for him, he doesn’t want pity from anyone, he barely knows how to accept what Nott is doing. So everyone get off her back. Caleb is where he wants to be, which is moving towards his goal.”

Caleb’s latest actions were too similar to someone with authority that Beau had trouble with in the past. Beau bringing up Caleb’s trauma was speaking directly to that point, which she and Liam have since talked about offscreen.

Marisha doesn’t think at all that this has destroyed Beau and Caleb’s relationship beyond the point of no return: “I don’t think that’s how conflicts between friends work. Honestly, I was stoked after all this, because I thought this was a breaking point that maybe we were all waiting for.” She also thinks it opens up an organic way to bring Beau’s backstory into the limelight, and she thinks having some of this out in the open will bring the group closer together. It’s tough for her to analyze that episode because nobody has all the information behind Beau’s reasoning yet. Brian points out that it can be really refreshing to be surrounded by people who call you out on your bullshit. “Those moments create respect.” Liam mentions that there is no friendship yet, because they haven’t known each other that long, but that this confrontration could be the beginning of a real friendship between Caleb and Beau. Marisha points out that it’s very much “I wouldn’t get mad at you if I didn’t care.”

Marisha mentions that she’s used to being cautious where she treads on the internet after an episode like this, but “if you’re upset at Caleb or you’re upset at Beau or you’re upset at Fjord for holding the sword to Caleb’s throat, I think art and acting and media and these stories are there to teach us about ourselves, and why we get these emotions towards these certain things. Liam and I have been talking all weekend about how fascinating the Team Beau vs. Team Caleb discussions have been.” Liam: “It can only come from people being deeply invested.” Marisha: “They care. And we’re truly blessed to be a part of something that people feel that passionately about.”

Brian: “There’s a difference between a conversation and lashing out between the actors.” Liam: “Just know that we’re playing strange people on purpose.”

Talks Machina After Dark (It’s Machine-a)

Oh.

Oh no.

Oh dear.

Marisha talks about how fun it can be to experience DMs who aren’t Matt, because at this point they all fall into the habit of trying to over-analyze his tells. “In my opinion, different DMs are like different teachers. Each one teaches me a different thing, and I love it.”

Marisha does her accent from the Stream of Many Eyes. Liam: “Casting director Liam is listening.” Marisha: “Oh, God! No! I’ll never work again!”

Liam and Marisha talk about how essential it is that they (and the rest of the cast) know each other so well and trust each other so much, so they can play out and explore those conflicts safely. Marisha: “There isn’t necessarily supposed to be comfort in conflict. It’s not going to be comfortable. I think it does take a more experienced roleplayer to make sure they can tread those waters safely, because there is care, and you do have to have personal care and after-care.” The two of them checked in afterwards, and all of them have been doing so since the first campaign to make sure they’re on the same page and feeling okay about what happens on-screen.

Liam talks about how embracing failure goes beyond rolling 1s or having bad things happen to characters. He legitimately was not paying attention when he nearly cast the spell that would’ve killed Beau, and appreciates that there’s enough of a rehearsal feel in the game to allow for those imperfections when they do arise. Marisha: “Yeah, thanks for not killing me, man.” Liam, deadpan: “It’ll happen.”

Swoleregard. Jumbeau. Beaulossus. Beaugantic. Dani: “Beauyasha.” Liam: “That’s a different thing. That’s not my job, to worry about that.” Dani: “It’s my job.”

Caleb is terrible at accents, terrible at impressions, terrible at musical impressions, but okay at singing (because he speaks Celestial). Marisha: “I think Beau would be full-on drumline.”

When they were going into a show for the stream this weekend, the whole audience broke into the D&D Beyond theme song. Marisha: “It was... it was so surreal.” Liam talks about how he keeps starting to sing it without thinking, then inevitably segues into another Sam song that goes “put your finger in my butt”.

#critical role #critical role spoilers #talks machina #talks machina spoilers #long text post

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nihilisticlinguistics · 5 years

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NOTT THE BRAVE PLAYLIST BREAKDOWN:

Shoplifting | The Slits: “Ah, the thrill of the perfect crime. Yes, Nott the Brave steals for survival… but let’s not kid ourselves — she also kinda loves it.”

Sam is definitely in full goofing form for his first song or two. It’s his favorite pattern--joke, joke, joke, twist. This song is literally an account of shoplifting, one of Nott’s favorite hobbies. The old strategy appears in these lyrics; Caleb talks to the shopkeeper, who “won’t suspect” while Nott sneaks various trinkets into her packs and clothes. As the campaign has gone on, however, we see her stealing less and less. As Sam once pointed out, it’s a lot easier to steal things when you can pay for them. At one point we see her mail a package of stolen baubles to Felderwin (A Favor in Kind); the next time she sends off a package, she simply pays for the types of things she wants to send off (Commerce and Chaos). There’s an adrenaline rush to theft, for sure, but she can get that rush by adventuring. The thrill of “doing a runner” is still there, but it’s been absorbed into the day-to-day life of the Mighty Nein.

Ugly | Violent Femmes: “Funny tune, but also how Nott views herself. Loudly, constantly, mockingly ugly.”

Sam’s little explanation pretty much sums up the point of this song on the playlist. Nott’s image of herself is complicated, even more so now there’s the possibility she wasn’t always a goblin. I find it very interesting that this song is from the perspective of someone else. Not only does the song speak to Nott’s view on her appearance, it also expresses how others treat her because of how she looks. The line “Ugly-- you’re no friend of mine” in particular gets to this idea that Nott has been rejected time and again for her outward appearance--see how Lawmaster Norda in Trostenwald reacted to Nott in episode four, for example. Although this song is also silly in tone, it’s still pretty revealing. It does make me wonder how Yeza reacted to Nott-the-goblin, and how his response to her (changed?) appearance affected her self-perception.

I Will Follow Him | Peggy March: “Meeting Caleb ignited a flame of hope in our skittish goblin. She quickly pledged herself to his protection and care. Where he goes, she will follow.”

This song is unquestionably a song of devotion. But devotion to whom, exactly? As we’ve recently seen, Nott’s bond with Caleb bears more than just a passing resemblance to her relationship with Luke. Nott has grown close with Caleb, her dearest friend and surrogate child, and will follow him anywhere he goes (though perhaps not anywhere after all, as we see later in the playlist). The lines “and nothing can keep him from me/he is my destiny” are standouts here, because they seem to represent what Nott sees as her ‘endgame,’ i.e., no longer being a goblin. Flip the narrative around, however, and we see that something has been keeping Nott from Luke, in spite of her best efforts and “trying to get back” but “not being strong enough.” It seems that in Luke’s absence, she hasn’t just transferred her protective instinct to Caleb but also her desperate desire to be with her child--one that has a significant obstacle attached to it, where until now, nothing has come between Nott and Caleb.

The Wizard and I | Stephen Schwartz: “Remarkably perfect song reflecting Nott’s dream of being saved by the magic of a wizard. Favorite line: ‘Would it be all right by you if I de-green-ify you?’”

Yeah...Sam’s blurb calls out the number one line in this song, for sure. But there are other parallels here, too. In the first part of the song, Elphaba learns that her own magical abilities that she’s tried to suppress might be the way she can get closer to the Wizard of Oz and eventually achieve her dreams. Nott, similarly, has latent magical abilities that Caleb has been teaching her and encouraging her to explore on her own, further strengthening their bond. Elphaba has been hoping to meet the Wizard (and by implication to be rid of her green skin) “since birth”--and if Nott was indeed reborn as a goblin with her adult memories intact, she would be in the same position. The lines “and this gift or this curse I have inside/maybe at last, I’ll know why” are also really interesting in this context. With the speculation that meddling with the beacon caused her to be reincarnated or transformed into a goblin, the idea that being around Caleb might lead her to answers about why it happened suddenly becomes a lot more possible--since without Caleb and the rest of the Nein, Nott might never have known what the Beacon, or dunamancy, was, and perhaps never would have heard about the reincarnation powers it holds.

I Got Drunk | Mal Blum: “Brilliant track about the monotony of drunkenness. Nott relies on her inebriation more than she probably should. But booze is always there, a steady, reassuring friend.”

“It’s just so easy when there’s nothing else to lose,” Blum’s first verse says. And isn’t that the position we found Nott in when the story began? Without a home, without a family, and with almost no hope left--just the chance that Caleb could one day be powerful enough to change her. The later line “I’ve got to drink ‘til I am dead or I am numb” points more to how Nott drinks to self-medicate or cope. She definitely seems to use the alcohol as a coping mechanism for her body dysmorphia, and the fact that drunkenness makes her immune to fear calls to mind the halfling traits that she lacks--or has lost. She drinks to numb out both her pain and her fear. Nott wants to “drink ‘til I get drunk, do something dumb,” and indeed, she does get seriously reckless and more impulsive when intoxicated.

Brave | Riley Pearce: “In this song, I hear less about bravery and more about trying to be courageous for someone else. This is a powerful driving force behind some of Nott’s finer moments. She’s not trying to prove anything to herself — she’s doing it for another person.”

It’s unclear if Sam’s referring to Nott’s past when he mentions “someone else” or if he’s speaking more generally about how Nott’s bravery depends on her being needed. “I’m just trying to be brave” is literally the entire chorus, and we see that in how Nott drinks to overcome her fears, but also in her presumed desire to become (or return to being) a halfling. We also get a hint at Nott’s fears in the post-chorus lines “It’s the body of water/that splits us right down the middle/I’ll be coming back for you.” The speculation that water might have played a role in Nott’s death (if that happened? we need answers) plays right to this part of the song--that water literally separated her from her family, but that she wants to come back for them eventually. Another verse says “to get home now would take something/that I’m not sure I have left,” reflecting how Nott said she “wasn’t strong enough yet” to come home, and how she said “I will be [alive again] too,” implying that at least for the moment she doesn’t see herself as fully “alive.”

Hotel Detective | They Might be Giants: “Being a small-time detective gives Nott endless entertainment, and has sparked a unique friendship with Jester, one she hopes will last forever.”

After that string of relatively heavy songs, Hotel Detective is another lighthearted interlude. After all, Nott and Jester’s relationship tends toward the comic relief. The lyrics are fun, and so is the tune. Lines like “if you’ve got a secret, boy/forget about it!” are pure Jester and Nott, and the confidence they exude even when they’re wrong in the course of their “investigations.” There’s another subtle line that jumps out at me: “she says she likes my face.” Jester, moreso than any other member of the Nein, insists that Nott is beautiful. While the rest are more realistic about goblin features and especially how they’re perceived by the public, Jester stalwartly sticks by her perception of Nott as pretty and feminine, and I have no doubt that insistence plays a role in how quickly Nott got attached to Jester.

Hiding and Seeking | Little Chief: “She is always hiding from the judgment of others… but also seeking their acceptance. It’s a tricky balance, one that Nott has not yet mastered.”

This song is really brief, but nevertheless there are still lines worth unpacking. “I am free to roam/there is nothing to fear” seems to refer to Nott’s sense of safety with the Nein; she doesn’t need to hide herself from them, and she doesn’t need to fear them. Nott doesn’t want to hide, but hiding is absolutely how she survives; she wants to be *found* in some way, but I suspect it’s more that she wants to be understood than literally discovered or tracked down. She may be asking “come and seek me” because she’s hidden parts of herself that the Nein haven’t paid any notice to yet--but now, I think we’ll see the rest of the party will “come and find” her sooner rather than later.

Psycho Killer | Talking Heads: “Nott may be anxious, but if you push her around too much, the little goblin girl might get set off. And then… it’s on.”

Sure, this is a song about Nott going off on her opponents, but there’s a lot of “run run run run away” for a raw combat-oriented song. I almost feel that a part of this song is a commentary on the party: “you’re talking a lot, but you’re not saying anything/when I have nothing to say, my lips are sealed” being a commentary on how the party often goes in circles rather than cutting through the bullshit. The bridge of this song is in French, and the line “je me lance, vers la gloire” [roughly, I’m going for the glory] sticks out in particular given that of the entire party, Nott has far and away the highest kill count.

Self Care | Mac Miller: “Tragic song by a tragic musician. Nott’s need to self-medicate could get her killed one day, but to her, it’s worth it.”

“And you can find me, I ain’t hiding” is interesting in contrast with Hiding and Seeking, where Nott is hiding in spite of her desire to be found. I think it’s key that this song is referencing Nott’s drinking--she’s engaging in constant, public substance abuse, and makes no attempt to hide the fact that she’s an alcoholic. Miller says “I was, thinking too much, got stuck in oblivion;” Nott copes with her anxieties by drowning it out with liquor, and she’s trapping herself in that position. We’ve started to see the cracks in that carefree facade now that she’s lashed out at both Caleb and Jester while severely drunk.

Two Birds | Regina Spektor: “The lyrics describe a wonderful, inseparable pair. But there’s a lingering doubt. Something standing in the way. Some force that might pull them apart someday…”

This is almost certainly about Caleb and Nott. She has insisted that “there’s nothing I won’t understand,” i.e., she loves him unconditionally and wants him to forgive himself. But as Sam says, there’s something standing in the way. This ‘force’ that’s present isn’t quite pinned down--Caleb’s goals, or Nott’s family, perhaps. But as this backstory begins to unravel, I think we see that Caleb doesn’t want to move forward--he’s “never going to let go of that wire” while Nott is inclined to go on with life, and the fact that he’s trapped in the past and afraid to open up might be the very thing that pulls them apart.

Sinking Ship | Wild Child: “Just a really sad, beautiful song. Nott has a deep, underlying regret every day of her life. But sometimes you need to experience true sadness to emerge on the other side.”

“Oh, if it’s cold in the water/am I better for it” is, um. It’s a lot, especially given the theory that Nott-as-a-halfling could have died by drowning. The theme of water comes up several times in the playlist, but nowhere so tragically as here. This “underlying regret every day of her life” that Sam mentions, in conjunction with the water theme, makes me desperate to find out exactly how Nott was separated from Yeza and Luke, and if leaving Felderwin is her deep, underlying regret, or if something even more profound has shaped her. “Both my broken hands are true” definitely feels like a commentary on her loyalty to both Yeza and Luke, and her desire to come home someday, feeling “always here and now with you” in spite of being miles away.

S.O.B. | Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats: “How wonderful it would be if we could all just let loose, be who we are inside, and get totally f—ked up.”

“I’m gonna need someone to care,” Rateliff sings, but “if I can’t get clean/I’m gonna drink my life away.” Isn’t that the worst ever summary of Nott the Brave? She’s desperate to have someone who will help her, and she’s sure to have found more than one ally in the Mighty Nein, but until this moment, they didn’t realize how fragile Nott’s composure has been. If she can’t get out of her cycle of alcohol abuse--something that might only be remedied by being True Polymorphed--drinking really will put her life at risk. The line “my heart was breaking, hands are shaking” doubles down on her relationship with drinking as an inherently unhealthy coping mechanism. “Son of a bitch, give me a drink/one more night/this can’t be me” addresses the facts of Nott’s situation in exactly the way Sam lays it out: Nott wants to be herself in some way that is inaccessible to her, and she drinks both to cope with that reality as well as to get closer to what she wishes she could be. At the same time, she wants to get “totally fucked up” and let go altogether, because when she’s drunk, she doesn’t have to worry about anything.

#critical role #nott the brave #cr spoilers #critical role spoilers

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