#endless exu

[counterspelling]

Endless EXU 23/???

#critteredit #critical role #exandria unlimited #exandria unlimited calamity #exu calamity #exu spoilers #cr spoilers #calamity spoilers #cerrit agrupnin #brennan lee mulligan #travis willingham #aabria iyengar #sam riegel #luis carazo #lou wilson #marisha ray #criticalroleedit #critroleedit #myedit #endless exu

[thought-42]

A thing that I really enjoy is that all the Fae we’ve seen for an extended time onscreen (Ferne, Yu, Ira) are just a little unhinged. And then Loquatius fucking Seelie is just this guy. Just this dude with the character traits of a mortal. But you know it’s in there. You know there’re are so many things he is not saying and doing because if he did it would be fucking wild. And yes some of that is Sam deliberately playing up Loquatius fitting in with the mortals as a personal and professional tool, and yes some of that is probably Sam just not really thinking about the differences between Fae and mortals, but

#it sneaks through sometimes #getting distracted from the serious conversation by a magical drinking glass #'unhand her' #'I will end you' #And yes I get that his whole thing is making himself approachable and charming and nonthreatening #there are entire essays to be written about Fae changeling investigative journalist media personality Loquatius Seelie #but also. where else does the Fae wierdness sneak out? the possibilities are endless and hilarious #cr exu tag #Loquatius Seelie

[margoshansons]

I can’t believe gay love doomed the world, that’s the kind of LGBT rep I wanna see

#exu: calamity #exu calamity #exu calamity spoilers #zerxus ilerez #evandrin alterra #fuck gay love saving the world #give me that tragedy #that endless reaching out only to be too late

[sparring-spirals]

i have a feeling that i'm going to end up typoing Patia as Pate one of these days, so everyone keep your fingers crossed that it happens at the funniest moment possible.

#me in calamity part 4 crying over pate's tragic and heroic sacrifice #the sentence 'pate's incomparable sense of poise and grace' might happen. possibilities are endless. #critical role #exandria unlimited #exu calamity #patia exu #pate de rolo #shitpost #spar speaks

[einaudis]

I'm rewatching the episode and there's this part where Laerryn says: "(...) All she can remember is those last few days before everything broke bad and the panic of not knowing how to help him (Evandrin), and not knowing how responsible she was, as he began to fade. So it's that burst of joy and then the creeping guilt (...)" .

And, look, that's pretty much an admission to me: she "used" Evandrin as a test subject (?), sent him away and lost contact, he got lost, and she couldn't help him. But here's the thing, that project was a secret and so Patia, Nydas and Laerryn came up with the illness and the death (I don't really know if he's dead, he might as well still be lost out there).

Also, when Brennan was narrating the little "toy's" travel, he used the same words he used to describe Evandrin's vanishing, he said the thingy became translucent and then vanished. I mean, I don't want to use this word, but I think it's pretty obvious what happened here, they just told us with their storytelling (I mean, Laerryn grabbing the locket and whispering 'it was worth it'?).

Now, the way I see it, Quay (and Nydas and maybe Patia) found a way to hide that. But... What if Zerxus also knew? What if they modified his memory so he didn't feel as bad as he probably did, because he couldn't do anything to stop it? Because maybe Evandrin even volunteered??? And Zerxus didn't stop him? Or didn't volunteer himself???? But even worse, what if Evandrin didn't tell him he was going to volunteer and that's why he doesn't know? And what if the piece that's missing from The Herald's Tome was about that? Imagine if they had to, somehow, modify everyone's memory? (at the beginning of Quay's presentation, when he kind of made a mistake while doing the announcements, Aria told him something like: don't worry, we have a cantrip for that).

And now, when Quay told Laerryn about the secrets he's kept for her, Brennan asks for a Deception check (32) and then asks Luis for an Insight one (10) and he said the check wasn't necessarily for a lie, but for something else (maybe Quay doesn't really /know/ what he hid???? Maybe his memory was modified as well??????).

(I personally like the idea of them straight up lying to Zerxus, though, because I'm weak for drama. But this could also be it. So many options ahhhhhhh).

#it's just ridiculous; the way I'm invested in this particular aspect of the story #cr spoilers #exu calamity spoilers #calamity spoilers #exu calamity #Evandrin #Laerryn Coramar Seelie #Zerxus Ilerez #Loquatious Seelie #Nydas Okiro #Patia Por'co #my shitty English #long post #wow the way I dare to write this endless post with my ugh English #I'm sorry but I can't stop thinking about this #the draaaaaaaama

[egsapress]

WordScope Puzzle

#loaded! tales of endless night! #exu #egsa press #puzzle

[cranesofibycus]

A few thoughts after having just rewatched the first ep of EXU Calamity:

It had never occurred to me that Avalir is a cruise ship but man Avalir is a CRUISE SHIP! The floating city that lands in a harbor once in a while and is full of people who think they've found the real meaning of life by living on this thing. The endless luxury and useless amenities. The unbelievable amount of resources needed to keep that city afloat. The metaphor is right there and I had never seen it.

I've touched on this before but it strikes me once again how great Brennan is at making ability check successes feel purposeful. When more people make checks in different abilities about the same thing he will describe in detail how their expertise helps them piece together information (specifically thinking about the solar bow fragment here). And it really makes it feel like a group effort.

Brennan sarcastically thanking them for breaking up the party two minutes after he had finally managed to get them all in one place is very funny considering how little time they will spend as a group in the following episodes.

It's such a small moment, but I adored when Nydas received the homemade loaf of bread from his brother and sister-in-law. It comes right on the heel of a sequence that is overflowing with descriptions of the most outrageously arcane surroundings. The sphinx, the automatons, the hundreds of wands... and then there is this mundane object that Nydas gets excited about in a completely different, much more private and quiet way. He hugs it and smells it like it's worth more than the vaults of Avalir could ever hold, and if that doesn't distill everything about what is right and wrong in that world down to its quintessence I don't know.

The hubris. It's just. It's everywhere and it's already painful to watch.

Anyway, episode 1 was already so much better than I had remembered and I was able to follow all of it without great effort or need for attention. Rewatching Calamity: 10/10, would recommend.

#critical role #exu calamity #calamity

[sea-buns]

While I don’t have any fresh ideas on themes for future Intrepid Heroes seasons, I am always filled with thoughts about cast arrangements. The loudest being:

GM side-quest. Make Matt, Brennan, Aabria, and Murph the players. This is ideally GMed by most player of all time, Ally Beardsley. Just imagine the sheer force of GM-curse energy at this table. Combined with the dice gods’ favoritism of Ally, and Aabria’s inability to miss

Murph GM season. The possibilities are endless. You can keep the IH cast and just swap Murph and Brennan. OR

Murph picks some of his own “emotional support” players for a mix of new and old (à la EXU Calamity and The Ravening War style)

#i literally dont care WHAT the season is about #prequel? sequel? totally new? #you wanna do a one shot? side-quest? full season? #ill take literally any of these cast arrangements in any form. i just think itd be so fun #dimension 20 #d20 #intrepid heroes #ih #matt mercer #brennan lee mulligan #aabria iyengar #brian murphy #ally beardsley

[comicaurora]

Hey I'm getting into DnD, do you have any podcast or series of a DnD campaign to recommend? I know there is critical role, but wich one of those should i start with? Is there a better beginning than critical role? I am lost here, please help

This is gonna very much depend on your personal preferences and attention span! I recommend sampling a range of DnD podcasts to find your personal tolerances and what parts appeal to you. I'm not the most widely-read person in this space because frankly most DnD podcasts are on too slow a boil for my attention span, but I've got a few you could check out-

Critical Role is the biggest and most well-known one for sure, but pacing wise I personally can't get through it. I love it in concept, but it's slow enough and huge enough that my brain zones out in the downtime and I lose track of important details when things speed up again. I think my first successful exposure to it was a brisk two-hour video that's just a Best Moments Of Grog compilation. That's also why I've been really liking The Legend Of Vox Machina, which keeps all the biggest and best moments but paces them like an actual story instead of a game. It's not representative of the experience of playing a TTRPG, but it is a lot of fun.

I personally enjoy limited-run miniseries a lot more, because they work better for my limited attention span, and on the critical role front that means I recommend EXU Calamity, a Doomed Heroes far-distant prequel to the modern setting of CR. Only four four-hour episodes and it's on a bit of a slow boil for the first three, but because everybody involved knows how the story's going to end, there's an endless drip of dramatic tension along the way. The DM, Brennan Lee Mulligan, is going to show up a lot more on this list.

On the subject of short miniseries DM'd by Brennan Lee Mulligan, Escape From The Bloodkeep is my personal favorite and the one I revisit the most. Six two-hour episodes, deeply unhinged and intrinsically comedic as it's a full-series parody of Lord of the Rings. I recommend it for a lot of reasons, not least of which being that Matt Mercer, who is an excellent DM, gets to play, and his playstyle is a great example of how to roll with the punches and the dice, since his extremely menacing nazghul captain is afflicted by a string of hilarious failures and he kind of just owns it, to the point where his character arc becomes accepting his worth as an individual with the power of friendship. It's a great example of not taking yourself or your character too seriously, which is a vital skill for players to learn in order to handle the whims of the dice sometimes (or often) not cooperating with your narrative wishes. If CR isn't working for you but you're interested in what you can pick up from this extremely talented DM, this is a good way to get that!

Dimension 20 (Collegehumor's DnD branch) has several series I really like, most of them DM'd by Brennan Lee Mulligan again. His DMing style really works for me, and he takes an approach to pacing that I quite like, so they're generally a safe bet for me. One I categorically recommend is The Unsleeping City, an urban fantasy DnD game set in New York City. This one is 19 two-hour episodes, so longer than the other miniseries but still much shorter than CR, and it can give you a bit of a sampler for (a) the genrebending you can do with DnD and (b) a longer-form story with a less rigidly determined finale than the previous examples. Brennan's DM style is very cool, and he puts an unusual amount of focus on characters getting solo vignettes, which is sometimes considered a bit gauche in DM circles because it means the other players don't have a whole lot to do during those solo conversations, but it works for him and his players and the effect is very cinematic!

But if you want to see a different DM's style in the same space, A Court Of Fey And Flowers is run by Aabria Iyengar, one of the EXU Calamity players, and she has a very different but also cinematic DMing style! The game is also a hybridization of DnD and a different system for facilitating Jane Austen romances, which is dope. Only the first episode is up on Youtube, but that should probably be enough to let you determine if you want to check out more.

I'd be remiss if I didn't at least mention the two DnD Actual-Plays I'm in, Rolling With Difficulty and Heart of Elynthi. Rolling with Difficulty is subdivided into three seasons of 8-10 four-hour episodes each, with each season having one overarching plot or threat but mostly being composed of episodic adventures - it's a Planescape series, meaning most episodes take us to a completely new plane of existence to deal with its unique geometry, fun denizens and wacky threats. It's also a lot more edited than some actual-play podcasts, with an effort to avoid the slow parts and the dice-rolling, mental math, "what am I gonna do this round," etc. Heart of Elynthi is an ongoing series that's only about five or six episodes in, with an overarching mystery in the background and a "collect the things to save the world" plotline in the foreground. It also streams new episodes on Twitch on (some) Wednesday afternoons, so if you'd benefit from a live chat to hang out and talk with during games, that might be worth checking out to see if you like it! Elynthi also has had some pretty cool behind-the-curtain stuff about how the players can handle in-character disagreements without them turning into IRL fights, which is something I don't think I've ever seen another DnD actual-play explicitly unpack but is also extremely important for players to consider, so that's fun.

#asks #not aurora #media recs

[septembermonologues]

YES to everything about dorian but may I add... I'd think it'd be so spicy that if orym breaks down due to everything (cause let's be real the possibility is not that far off now) and dorian comes back it's their exu arc but it's swapped places. dorian is the one that realises the path orym is on can hurt him and everyone even more...dorian is the one that tries to pick orym up when he's at his lowest...dorian is the one that has to say things orym doesn't want to hear but NEEDS TO hear cause oryms too caught up in everything...but it's even worse now its even more intense now it's even more sorrowful now than it ever was in exu. with the rest of the hells and everything ofc ofc but....idk I think it'd be SO INTERESTING and the parallels would drive me insane if even if they both break down...dorian realises that he is the own who's gotta pick them both up for the better he realises he's the one who needs to be there for orym AND AHHHHHH FEELINGS

ur brain is so sexy babe. i think dorian is in a place where he'd be able and willing to be oryms support but again the guilt of having left and being gone when orym started needing an extra shoulder to lean on..... "glad you aren't here. wish you were" "missing you here. could really use your special brand of creative optimism" bouncing around his brain forever.... idk. it all boils down to my endless repetition of how much i want dorian back.

#k watches cr3 #orym of the air ashari #dorian storm #dorym #critical role

[counterspelling]

Endless EXU 26/???

#critteredit #critical role #exandria unlimited #exandria unlimited calamity #exu calamity #criticalroleedit #critroleedit #lou wilson #aabria iyengar #myedit #endless exu #cr spoilers #exu spoilers #calamity spoilers

[just-a-torn-up-masterpiece]

you don't feel pretty, you just feel used - K.B.

(Part of my Red (Taylor's version) fics)

Song - The Lucky One

Pairing - Kate Bishop x Reader

Summary - When your date ignores you Kate is there to show you how you should be treated

18+ : smut; daddy!kate, sub!reader, thigh riding, nothing major idk

Word Count - 2204

A/N - this is kinda shit but i haven't written for like a month and wanted to finally post something also she's so hot and beefy in that gif i-

You were starting to hate SHIELD agents. Sure, maybe it was just one particular agent that was the subject of your anger filled eyes but for tonight, your petty self hates them all. 

You thought it’d be nice, accept an invitation to a Stark party, maybe an Avenger bringing an agent to a party would look good - you didn’t know, you just didn’t want to go alone. So, you accepted their suggestion but of course they’d leave you sitting at the bar alone whilst they flirt with countless other people. You didn’t like them anyway, just thought a crappy trainee agent might enjoy a night out.

So, you let yourself sulk at the bar, dressed to the nines with nobody to appreciate it; feeling annoyed at yourself for thinking you’d finally have somebody to spend one of these repetitive nights with and like you could punch that stupid flirty smile from that stupid agent’s face.

You swilled the syrupy liquid in the bottom of your glass, watered down from the melted ice, cringing at the diluted taste as it burned down your throat. You smiled at the bartender as he slid another over to you, this time with an orange twist balanced on the rim, two fresh cubes of ice surrounded by the dark whiskey.

You couldn’t help but feel slightly sorry for yourself, mindlessly swinging your legs from the barstool, leaning your head on your hand as you looked out at other people who seemed to be having the time of their life. There’s only one person you’d want to spend this time with and you were yet to spot her in the crowds; she had spotted you though, looking over your body where you sat with effortless beauty. Her eyes were drawn to you the moment she stepped into the room and now she was waiting for an opportune time to slip away from the conversation she’d been dragged into.

It was a dull few minutes for her, nodding and smiling politely and quickly calling Sam over when she saw him. He glared at her playfully when she walked away, leaving him to be bored by the businessmen guests with endless questions, a sheepish smile and a shrug thrown his way. She nervously fidgeted with the rings on her fingers as she approached you, loosening her shoulders with a deep breath to psych herself up, mumbling potential opening lines under her breath. She was always nervous around you.

“Uh, hi - fancy seeing you here. At this bar, this party - well, of course you’re at this party, you’re an Avenger and I am too so. I knew you were gonna be here but hi.” She rushed out, blushing at the soft and amused smile you gave her, the same one you always give her.

“Hi Katie.” You smiled, gesturing to the stool beside you which she clumsily climbed onto. You couldn’t help but always smile at her endearing awkwardness, the ways she stumbles over her words. “You look great.” You grinned looking over her outfit, dark suit perfect on her body with a tie loosely hanging down, you’d be lying if you said it didn’t make your skin burn hot. She always was so effortly attractive, everything about her was perfect to you, the small snort she does when she laughs and the way she rambles about anything and everything. You could listen to her all day.

“You look beautiful.” She smiled, such earnest in her tone and surprisingly no awkward blush, just a completely sincere look in her eyes as she took in the view. 

“Mm, well I’m glad you think so.” You hummed. “My date didn’t seem to.” You shrugged, pointing over to where they had their arms looped around someone else’s waist.

“Well, fuck them.” She grumbled, a blush in her cheeks but this time in annoyance accompanying the angry tone she rarely exudes. “You look perfect - like always.”

“You scrub up pretty perfectly yourself.” You returned, fiddling with the end of her tie where it hung down and she instinctively moved closer. She was so close you heard the breath leave her lips as she looked into your eyes, saw the movement of her neck as she swallowed thickly and the air seemed to heat up between you. “Come with me.” You breathed, pulling her towards you by her tie as you hopped down from the stool.

“Where are we going?” She muttered, following you through the crowds of people as you kept hold of her tie, looking even more beautiful in the brighter light of the hallways. Her hands subconsciously held onto your waist when she stumbled into you from a harsh pull, wrapping the tie around your hand to pull her closer.

“Kiss me.” You breathed, so close to her she could feel your breath against her lips, licking them nervously before using all of her confidence to close the space between you. She tasted like apple juice and vanilla vodka, an odd combination she swore by, her lips were perfectly soft against yours as she pulled you into her with her grip firm on your hips.

The way she kissed you was surprising, confident and sure movement of her lips against yours as she guided you backwards until your back was flush against the wall and her body was pressed against yours. 

Your hands looped around her body, holding onto her back with your hand getting lost in her hair, dark strands wrapped around your fingers as her lips perfectly melded with yours. You gasped slightly at the coldness of her rings against your skin where her hand slipped beneath your shirt to hold onto your waist, giving her the perfect opportunity to slip her tongue past your lips, kissing you with all the confidence you never knew she had.

She left a path of soft kisses across your jaw to your neck, softly biting into the flesh of your neck beneath your ear. “Would you, maybe, wanna go somewhere more private?” She asked beside your ear, grinning widely at you at the eager nod you answered her with, taking your hand and dragging you in the direction of her bedroom. 

You hurried with small giggles through the hallways, bright smiles at the finally revealed attraction you’d been harbouring for one another for a while. You smiled against each other’s mouths as she pulled you back into her as soon as the door shut behind you, laughing at the way you stumbled in your eagerness to be close, clumsily falling onto her bed from the push she gave you.

“I did not mean to push you that hard.” She laughed looking down to you where you sat on the edge of her bed.

“It was kind of hot actually.” You smiled, pulling her into you by her tie and pressing your lips to hers again. She lifted the hem of your shirt questioningly, watching with her lip caught between her teeth when you pulled it over your head and discarded it across the room along with your bra before leaning back on your elbows to watch her do the same.

Her eyes never left yours as she pulled her tie from around her neck, fiddling with the buttons of her shirt to reveal the soft skin beneath, discarding it along with her bra. The sight made your breath hitch in your throat, face flushing under her gaze and the smirk plastered across her lips as she continued to undress until only her underwear remained. 

“Like what you see?” She smirked as she approached you, crawling across to straddle your hips whilst you just dumbly nodded. “Makes a change for you to be the flustered one, huh?” She chuckled, cupping your jaw in her hand with her thumb stroking over your cheek.

“Oh shush.” You huffed though couldn’t help but be flustered more as her lips pressed kisses across your chest and she dragged her nails down your torso leaving goosebumps in their wake.

“Can I?” She asked, lifting the hem of your trousers, only tugging them and your underwear from your body after receiving an eager nod from you. “So beautiful.” She muttered, dragging her eyes over your naked body beneath her, adoring the sight she’d longed to feast her eyes upon for so long. 

She positioned herself over your leg, pushing her lips to yours again in a lust filled kiss, lips moving together whilst your hands idly roamed her back and your bare chests pressed together. It was a glorious feeling, finally having her in the way you wanted with her soft skin against yours, only feeling better with the way her fingers danced across your body venturing south.

“This okay?” She asked, her breath hot against your lips from her proximity, as her hand grew ever nearer to where you wanted her most.

“Mhm, please.” You nodded, sighing out at the way she slid her fingers through your folds.

“Fuck, so wet for daddy already huh?” She asked, pushing her fingers into you with ease, the name she’d given herself had only left you craving her more, wanting nothing more in this moment than her, her touch, her lips. 

Her fingers curled inside you, tips brushing over your g-spot in a perfect motion and the heel of her palm brushing over your clit whilst she kissed your neck. Never have you seen her successfully multitask but somehow she was able to push her fingers into you in the best way, bite into the skin of your neck and grind herself onto your thigh all at the same time; if your head wasn’t going fuzzy from the feelings between your thighs you’d be in awe at her skills.

You pulled her face back to yours, stomach twinging in arousal at the moan that bounced from the back of her throat to yours. You pulled away from the kiss with a bite to her bottom lip, leaving a path of kisses across her jaw to her neck, no doubt leaving marks behind from how you sucked onto her skin.

“Daddy, I’m so close.” You breathed out, groaning internally at how her actions slowed at your words.

“Hold it, baby. Cum with me, hm?” She returned, looking down to you with lust blown eyes, her lip bitten between her teeth and her thumb stroking over your cheek where she tenderly cupped your face in her palm. Her breathing quickened as she pushed her clothed centre over your thigh, thrusts growing sloppy as she neared her climax. You gripped onto her hips to aid her movements, fingernails digging into her skin at the sudden pressure of her thumb over your clit. 

“Fuck, I’ve always wondered what you’d look like under me like this. Let me hear you, baby.”

It didn’t take much more for you to fall apart at her touch, moaning out beside her ear as she pressed tentative kisses along your collarbone and the grunt of pleasure she let out through shuddered breaths as she came moments later was music to your ears. 

Your lips reunited in a messy kiss through heaving breaths and lust filled air, tongues swirling together whilst your hands tangled in her hair to hold her close. Her teeth nipped at the skin of your chest, trailing down teasingly slowly as your hand stroked through her hair. She kissed over your thighs, softly biting into the flesh before looking directly into your eyes as her tongue licked a stripe through your folds to your clit.

The confidence and intensity of her gaze was enough to set your skin on fire, a feeble whining at the pleasure of her lips latching onto you with a suck. She hummed at the sweet taste of you on her tongue, wrapping her arms around your legs with her nails digging into your thighs with dominance to keep your hips from bucking upwards in search of your release.

Your hand tugged on her hair with her actions, skilled lapping of her tongue over your aching bud and a stare that never wavered; watching your mouth hang open with heavy breath and choked moans, your eyes scrunching closed from the pleasure. The sight was perfect to her, only spurring on her motions.

“Fuck, Kate. ‘M so close.” You stuttered out, hand squeezing into a fist tangled within her hair making her groan against you. The vibrations of the sound along with the particularly harsh suck onto your clit was enough to send you over the edge, cumming into her mouth with a moan.

You looked down to see her hungry eyes on you still, her tongue swiping over her glistening lips cleaning away every drop of you she could as she crawled back over you.

“You taste so good, princess.” She muttered, kissing you again and you could taste yourself on your tongue. You rolled her over to switch positions, straddling her waist and looking down at the beautiful sight, eagerly pressing your lips to every bit of skin you could.

“My turn.” You smirked, kissing your way down her body as she watched with her bottom lip gripped between her teeth. “Let me make you feel good, daddy.”

#kate bishop x reader #kate bishop #kate bishop x female reader #kate bishop x you #kate bishop x y/n #kate bishop fanfiction #mcu #marvel mcu #marvel wlw #marvel x reader #avengers #marvel fanfiction #marvel #marvel fanfic #boyfriend hailee #hailee my beloved #hailee steinfeld

[piquedpequod]

"SALVATION" - fanmix for Zerxus Ilerez from EXU: Calamity.

Listen: (Youtube) Lyrics:

Fortitude / The Chant - Gojira Get a hold of yourself, rise above The better part of you, immortal

May this purple spring flow into your soul Exhausting all these black holes inside Wake up to the sound of doom Let this chant ring in your bones and lift you up

Lost! - Coldplay Just because I'm hurting Doesn't mean I'm hurt Doesn't mean I didn't get what I deserved No better and no worse

Drowning Man - U2 Take my hand You know I'll be there If you can I'll cross the sky for your love For I have promised All to be with you tonight And for the time that will come

Salvation - Editors Salvation! Deliverance is ours by the light of the stars

Howling - SYML I lay me down at the feet of your beauty Power my spirit, awaken within me My blood and my body will sing out your praises Save me, save me, save me now

How'm I Supposed to Die - Civil Twilight How'm I supposed to die When there's only one way to live?

My Body Is A Cage - Arcade Fire I'm living in an age That calls darkness light Though my language is dead Still the shapes fill my head I'm living in an age Whose name I don't know Though the fear keeps me moving Still my heart beats so slow

Start the Healing - Korn I should've withstood, I shouldn't bow down I couldn't get through, what could I do? I can take it all away, the feelings Break apart the pain and start the healing

Shadow and Soul - Red Dark and light Caught between, caught between Endless night Underneath, underneath Hunger, my untold, I’m waiting Find me inside endless night, our endless night My furtive soul, a heart unknown It’s buried alive The boundary fades between Shadow and soul

Cassandra - Echoes and Signals We will go Into the flames And we will turn Into the blazing fire

And I know Some things are meant To become gold Inside the burning fire

Cover: official art by Hannah Friederichs. started and fin. august 2023

#zerxus ilerez #exu calamity #fanmix #first i binge-watched this series in a week #then i spat out this mix in two days #i am feeling so Normal about everything #the dark sun on the back is an inverted callback to his comparison to the dawnfather

[utilitycaster]

So I wanted to cover that bit about the "not everyone gets the same amount of Christmas presents" that I mentioned here. The original quote from the EXU Calamity Wrap-up is:

"I didn't want it to be like Christmas where it's like, 'Everyone gets the same amount of presents.' (...) There's some people in this Brass Ring that are up to an asymmetrical amount of shady shit and that's realistic and that's going to create fun dynamics."

I think with actual play, there can be this artificial expectation that every does get the exact same amount of presents - focus, plot, items, etc - that we don't have as much for scripted works. Some of that is that in D&D, a few of these things are objectively quantifiable and some aren't and people struggle to evaluate equivalence (my endless struggle to get people to understand that the fact that some sorcerers get more spells is not game-breaking or unfair is indicative of this). Some is also that I think people take their own experience of playing D&D, in which you are deeply attached to your character and often see them as the main character of their story, and struggle with their favorite PC not being obviously the main character of the story on screen.

Critical Role gets this more than other shows, and I think some of it is that most other shows either have significantly smaller (3-4 people) parties or in the case of D20 are often more heavily plot-driven. Critical Role is also alone among the more popular shows in its lack of editing, so if one player is in focus, there's no way to condense all the little hems and haws and backtracking that is typical in D&D and so the plot focus seems longer. Its particularly long runtime means that a ten-episode arc focused on a character you're less invested in will take 3-4 months in real-time and 40-ish hours to watch. And finally, I think Critical Role's fandom has groups of people with pronounced preferences for certain actors that at least to me have little to do with acting/d&d skill or recurrent themes explored, and I have not seen this phenomenon elsewhere.

Getting to the actual topic though: the fact is, different characters require different stories! I think a prime example is Fjord having a particularly cool sword; he is a hexblade, and having a sword is a fundamental part of that class and serves as a symbol of the source of his powers, and on top of that he grew up having very little and so the possession of a special material item is meaningful to him in a way it wouldn't be to (for example) Beau, whose story is much more about overcoming the self-hatred she learned from her father's abuse; finding a position in the world she loves and in which she can excel; and in finding family in the Mighty Nein, in the Cobalt Soul, and with Yasha. Percy's story is deeply tied to a particular location and enemy such that it belongs in a self-contained arc with largely background development afterwards; Vex's story is a highly internalized one of constant slow progress with notable and consistent beats but no specific clearly defined arc throughout the entire campaign; and Keyleth's arc is a mix of concrete trials and ongoing personal growth. Or, going back to Brennan's original statement, Patia, Nydas, and Laerryn have background information that isn't present for the rest of the party because that's the story being told! It doesn't mean that Zerxus, Loquatius, and Cerrit don't have compelling backstories; it means that they are differently positioned within the city and the story and have their own specialized knowledge. In fact, giving these characters the knowledge that Patia, Nydas, and Laerryn had would significantly change the intent of those characters from what the players had planned.

Which is in fact another part of this issue: overall, I think most characters get a decent number of "christmas presents", but sometimes the fandom response goes further not just to quantity but also a belief that everyone should get the exact same things, too. I still recall people asking me about TLOVM and whether Vex and Keyleth had comparable screentime with each other, or if they had comparable screentime with the men in the story. These remain among the more baffling questions I've gotten - and I've gotten some weird ones - because it's such a profound lack of understanding how stories work. One would hope that all D&D characters get the same amount of development overall, but that does not necessarily mean the same amount of screen time.

Anyway: the questions to ask are not "who gets the most presents" because most people aren't great at defining what a "present" is or which presents are equivalent in the first place; it's "is this character getting developed in the story in a way that makes sense, and is the plot compelling to other characters around them even if it is for the moment centered on them."

#long post #anyway this is all to say most though not all of the time when people complain about too much/lack of focus it's...not well thought out #it's bc they're throwing a fit bc someone else's slice of cake is slightly larger even though THEIRS has the rose

[sheerling]

rewatching EXU calamity is like. idrk how much of the druids/splitting of teramunda/pact of crown and throne was from Matt, how much was Brennan going nuts with the lore, and how much was influenced by the PCs creation but whoever it was. its some very succinct commentary on colonialism, extraction, and exploitation of Indigenous people which. is very interesting and, truly, essential themes to discuss in a series exploring industry, capitalism, technological-advancement-no-matter-the-cost, and the endless growth mindset (and the downfalls thereof). and then Marisha said "im gonna play Thomas Jefferson's granddaughter" and Lou said "im gonna play a robber-baron" and Aabria said "im gonna play, essentialy, the head engineer of the Big Oil company" fucking fantastic. im obsessed with how these characters work SO WELL into the themes of the series on so many levels its fantastic. one of my favorite actual play series of all time

#exu calamity #exandria unllimited calamity #laerryn coramar seelie #i mean theres always more to say about it. and i do think that (like with anything) it wasnt perfect but. #it touched on those topics in a more effective and way than 90% of other media so. i will be giving them props. on this one.

[rinion-b]

Despite several attempts, I find myself unable to get back into playing Arknights regularly. I love the game, I love the characters, and despite my qualms with the VN genre I do tend to enjoy the story, but there's just am immense barrier to entry called Being A Mobile Game.

So.

What's the deal with mobile games?

At a base level, there's the issue that I get burnt out from some combination of frustration and overstimulation when confronted with endless daily missions and red notification dots. Arknights is actually not that bad with these, and you can safely ignore the News/Updates panel after your first login each day (though i would Vastly Prefer it if I could simply disable that until there is actual New things to read that I have not seen before).

Mobile games also have the other barrier to play that they require either a physical extra device, or an emulator.

I barely use my phone.

I don't enjoy how the game controls on PC with a mouse.

So the majority of my desire to play gets eaten up by the dread of not liking either the environment (phone) or controls (PC), and then the rest by the ever-present need to manage Sanity and dailies.

And this ties back into the trend in game design that has been present for a while and just continues to get worse, one that live-service games and particularly those on mobile platforms cannot avoid. You aren't expected to play the game on your own schedule, on your own time. You're expected to play the game for an hour a day, for the rest of the time it exists on your phone.

Far be it from me to call Hypergryph a greedy company. I know so many that are far worse, and all of the merchandise I have physically and all that I see them do for their fans and in their game design shows that, despite this being a product at the end of the day, they do care. But they are a company, and a company needs to turn a profit, and to turn a profit on mobile means to play with the tools that are proven effective.

For every player who, like me, stops playing the game, or has never spent money on either the gacha system or the cosmetics shop (it's been really hard sometimes, to be fair), there are several others who spend a bit of money here and there to enjoy the game a bit more.

Side note, I don't actually have an issue if I sink a couple hundred into the game itself one day. It's been well worth my time despite these complaints, I just enjoy the challenge of playing without spending a cent. That exu skin pack for global, though...

Anyway. This is all to say things that have been said before, and I don't really have a grander point to make other than "I really wish I could still enjoy Arknights to the point that I could play it daily". But I can't. Neither as a game dev, nor as a player, nor as the writer that I was back in college. It sucks, but that's just how it is. Forcing myself to log in is just going to make it worse.

I'll probably hop in here and there at a whim still, but I don't see myself ever getting back to logging in 7 days of any week ever.

I really do enjoy all of the fan-created posts I see from the AK community, and for what it's worth IS has been some of the most fun I've had in the game, but even with the cool events or the operators I'm looking forward to...

Arknights is still A Mobile Game.

Anyway.

Give me more Frostleaf content if you want me to play. When is she gonna get her Alter? Where can I buy her headphones? What's her number so I can ask her out for a drink? What are those old songs she listens to, I'm really curious. Frostleaf Module where?

#arknights #game dev talk #me as rambling #i will actually pay real money for frostleaf content hypergryph istg