#I was wondering if I should change the canon for Vox because I didn’t know if it would make sense

[vox-monstera]

Fucking LOVE that there’s an MS cure theory for how V survives because my canon is Vox exchanging her services with Mr. Blue Eyes for information on an old ass, classic-style doctor that specializes in lupus who could help her.

Glad my canon isn’t unbelievable or unlikely.

[thereal-true-ogilvie]

hello everyone welcome to i talk about benrey for a minute here

as someone who’s watched the entirety of hlvrai at least 6 times, the full vods at least 3, and the cast commentary hovering somewhere around 10, i consider myself to be pretty well-versed in the series. i also kin benrey. this is probably important to my perception of him.

the series is about self-aware AI.   its in the title! so it seems obvious enough to me that Benrey was programmed to be the final boss. he was SUPPOSED to be a silly character that antagonizes the protag and throws off the group dynamic, and then it’s a big reveal and you get to beat up this guy that was mean to you!

but he doesnt wanna. hes self aware.

Of all the characters, i think Bubby and Tommy are the most “powerful” in that they were able to break their characters the most. Tommy is a bit of a wild card because he doesn’t usually act like an AI. I view him as the “character you’re supposed to protect” in the party, but somewhere along the way he, too, became self-aware and figured out how to handle his own. I think that’s where the age thing comes in. He was programmed to be a 5-year-old that you’re trying to get out of this dangerous facility! but he didn’t want to be a 5-year-old, he’s smarter than that, he’s capable! so he changed it. Him being the son of Gman also probably helped with him being able to just do that.

I take Bubby and Dr. Coomer as both being tutorial characters. Dr. Coomer is a bit broken, but he still does his best to teach you about things. I think he’s the tutorial NPC that goes “watch out for [x]” and “we can use ropes to cross big pits!” and “we should call them Peeper Puppies!” while Bubby was supposed to be the “here’s how you shoot a gun”

Like, Dr. Coomer does the knowledge about the world, and Bubby does the action. for the video game. And Bubby is supposed to be kinda cold to you, because the action-tutorial NPCs tend to be. Like “what you cant even hold your own? tch, guess ill have to teach you.” But Bubby doesn’t do that. He doesn’t WANT to play the game, he wants to go back home. He liked it before the game was switched on. So he doesn’t teach Gordon shit and just tries to speedrun so the player will leave and he can go back home.

one little scene that stood out to me so much was when the crew is sitting around in a circle with the pigeons. not outside, the other scene with them sitting in a circle and there’s pigeons. why are there 2 of those.

anyways, Benrey is just staring at this pigeon behind Gordon, and singing to it, calmly. And then there’s a loud beep that sounds like the vox, and definitely doesnt come from Benrey. and he suddenly gets up and shoots the pigeon. That reads SO HARD like he was being too soft with the game world, so it pushed him to do something evil randomly. Like a little villain reboot.

Almost everything he does to antagonize Gordon can be read as genuine confusion. He kills random NPCs because he knows theyre not important, and that they can’t feel anything, and that they’ll only slow the team’s progress. And what makes Gordon so mad at him is how often Benrey says Gordon shouldnt be allowed in here. I take that as a similar stance to Bubby. Benrey doesn’t want to be the villain. He doesn’t want the player to progress and make him. That gets more obvious the closer we get to the end, and most people tend to notice it in the last scenes before Xen, where he’s suggesting they go all the way back, and basically begging the player to stop here, at least for a little while.

its really sad, honestly. but i take the cast commentary bits as canon. Which makes it adorable when Benrey comes back into the movie theatre with Gordon and we get

“I wonder what will happen. I bet you know what happens!”

“I win!!!”

He did win. He got to get past being the final boss. He got to join the epilogue. I think, he probably wasn’t supposed to be able to. But these guys broke the game enough that he could. Isn’t that sweet? Isn’t that a nice ending for him? I think he deserves it.

Wayne says he acts like “he isn’t aware unless he’s being spoken to” and I think that fits really well. Like, sometimes his actions are coded into his behavior, so he does them without realizing. And then the player interacting with him (which is the premise of the self-awareness) forces him to actually look at what he did, and sometimes he has no idea how to explain it. Leading to his “huh?”

listen to me. are you listening. i need you to hear this. i need more people to understand benrey. and how much i love him. hes trapped in the narrative, doomed by it to be the villain. but he doesn’t want to be. he clearly cares about the crew in his own silly goofy way. he doesn’t want to fight them. i wrote down everything he said in the finale, and he only says 5 outright malicious lines, all of which are directly after an unnatural pause, like he’s being rebooted again. Some important lines: “I knew this was gonna happen,”

“Stop shooting at me, I have to shoot back, I don’t wanna do that,”

“I didn’t have a big plan, I was supposed to be nice, but you forced me to be BAD so I’m gonna be BAD… friend.” the small, quiet “friend” there gets me every time. even after everything, even after his nature is revealed, he wants to believe theyre still friends.

“Don’t go in there, please… I don’t like that room." The amount of times he sounds so genuinely sad when asking them to stop, or even just saying “bro..” like he’s mourning the friendship they could’ve had. The amount of times he sounds genuinely pained when he’s glitching out and stretching across the screen.

And his last words, said childishly of course, but,

“This isn’t fair.”

[commenter2]

Radio Killed the Video Star review

Time to see Vox and Alastor go at it then after that, see Sir Pentious interact with the Hotel staff for the first time. Spoilers as always.

I know there wouldn’t be a story if this happened, but how come Charlie is still allowing Angel Dust to work for Val when she is trying to redeem him? It’s counterproductive, so you think she would have given Angel an ultimatum. Maybe later in the series, but after seeing previous Helluva Boss episodes, soon Angel will willingly quit to actually try and redeem himself for his and more so Charlie’s sake.

So Vox is in charge of electronics. He better not be in charge of videogames as that is taken by my OC, Ratchet. But for real it would be boring if Vox owned everything electrical. I wonder if existing Overlords could lose titles for things when someone better appears? That works as I have it written down that my OC beats Vox and Val to save his friends and then becomes the Overlord of videogames in the aftermath.

I know it’s a common thing, but it is surprising when a string bean like Val has the strength to literally tear people apart.

Vox’s VA is good (glad they didn’t go for a Mark Hamill like voice, that SHOULD have been a Lucifer thing) but I’m not liking Velvette’s as I always pictured her having a youngish vlogger/influencer kind of voice. It’s also seems like this updated version of her doesn’t like Vox whereas in the pilot it seemed like she had a crush on him. Hey unlike with Stella, at least this won’t hurt the series. It’s also interesting that Velvette also has a career in fashion, adds more to her then just being a social influencer.

So Vox has the ability to hypnotize people. Interesting, and another example of how both demons and sinners can have powers not related to their profession and such. Good to know as I can see this leading to some fun ideas.

Velvette can change a person’s clothes. I had a similar fun idea about her having such an ability to do that to herself along with changing her hair instantly given her doll like appearance. For all we know, this could be canon.

More moth sinners.

Obvious Helluva Boss reference.

Val confirmed to be the dumb one of the Vs. Hey at least that joke from the ADDICT video about him no knowing basic math seems to be canon XD.

The thing with Vox’s eye reminds me of this show called Daria, as I recall it having a character with a gag where when he got mad one of his eyes would get noticeably bigger.

Again Alastor’s voice changed while he was talking. The line about “what will the papers say” had less radio static then usual and sounded more normal. There must be a pattern, but we won’t know until we get more examples.

This was spoiled a bit for me but yeah both Al and Lilith had a time of absence of 7 years. This could mean many things like they’re working together or against each other. Only time will tell but now we got the 2ndmystery of the season, or part of the series’ grand mystery.

Insert “Vox using pic from one of Viv’s tweets” comment here.

I’ll admit, I didn’t see the reason behind Alastor and Vox’s rivalry starting because he said no to Vox’s offer to join the V alliance. I like it.

Trailer shot. A bit of a relief that this isn’t happening during the finale.

Vox owns techno sharks, but I’m more curious about where that adorable land shark he has as a pet is. Hopefully that wasn’t written out.

Heh, Val is adding rhinestones to his gun.

Also Velvette changed her hair! I’m now counting this and another one of my HH ideas being canon.

Angel got one of Al’s minions to develop feelings for him, and he doesn’t seem to like it. Talk about karma XD.

LOOK AT THOSE PUPPY EYES!!! SO CUTE! :3

While it is sad seeing Angel get bummed out when Charlie said she likes that Pentious is someone (to her knowledge) that is actually trying to redeem themselves, he does deserve it given all the times he’s mocked the idea and of course embarrass Charlie in the pilot. At least after hearing this, it’s possible this will be the first step to eventually make him actually care about trying to be better, if not then to make Charlie like her more than Pentious.

Cute KeeKee moment.

I said this in my Tumblr post about the Husk, Niffy, and Sir Pentious “trailer”, but we can all agree that Niffty’s crush on Pentious shouldn’t be a permanent thing due to how creepy it is.

I do hope throughout the series, we do learn how Lucifer feels about certain things, especially those that use him as a topic. I’m sure the “Devil’s Dandruff” is in the list of things he hates.

“character who made bad life choices, getting jealous and is thinking about going back to doing said bad choices” cliché.

FAT NUGGETS!!!

It is interesting that the artist are still using Val’s smoke (which I’m also guessing represents pheromones, though apparent some moths can make perfume to attract mates) as a symbol for Angel’s addiction.

And here comes the old trope of “people believing the new guy instead of the other character, when said other character was trying to save the day”. Wait they’re actually breaking away from a usual trope? YES! I haven’t seen that happen in Vivzie’s works in forever! Heck they did it twice in this episode if you count the twist with Al and Vox’s rivalry origins.

Even as PJ Charlie wears a suit like outfit while Vaggie’s is in a more dress like outfit. It actually reminds me of the outfit of her old design. Also is Charlie wearing high heel slippers!

Though I am a bit skeptical of Pentious’ quick change of heart, it is nice to now see Charlie have a patient that will try to be a better person. Again could this lead to a rivalry between Pentious and Angel and then one day having Angel actually wanting to try and change.

Also like I once brought up somewhere, I wonder what is going to happen when Pentious runs into Cherri when she arrives to see Angel.

Oh thank god they ended that thing with Niffty. Let’s hope it never happens again.

Wait are they just going to leave that Vox camera there? Never mind, looks like Al will take care of it offscreen.

Hey Vox fans, here is something I bet you haven’t heard in the news, apparently the biggest radio company in the U.S. filed for bankruptcy a little over a week ago. I wonder how Al and Vox would feel about that and what that discussion would lead to!

This was a simple, but good episode. One pro of it was that we got to see and learn more about the Overlords, specifically the Vs, which makes sense considering Val and Vox's connections to the main cast. We also got to learn a bit about Overlords and how much say they have.

I think the best thing in the episode was the pretty surprising twist that Vox wanted to team up with Alastor.

The only negative is again with the ending quickly having Pentious joining the hotel. I know the story is going to be a bit rush here and there given the season only has 8 episodes, but I feel like there should have been a moment where Pentious says he really wants to be better.

Maybe during the song he says he did like Charlie’s positivity while during the exercises, and her offer of a second/real chance has made him want to try and be better, or at least enough she he won’t end up like Vox. Heck maybe he says something related to Alastor’s portion of his own song and realize that trying to stay up with trends/being popular isn’t always that great, possibly making him and Alastor get on better terms, as I can see Al hanging around with anyone just because they hate Vox.

What were your thoughts on the episode?

[vixxenfox]

Things I’ve noticed after watching the pilot over and over again

And things I just find amusing

- is it just a coincidence that when Charlie says “I wonder if it could be me” the center angel’s face lights up?

- not important but the “F*ck you heaven!!!” Sign is hilarious

- I hate Valentino with a burning passion, look at him texting Angel

- people drop from the sky to get to hell, more importantly without clothes which means each flippin person has to get specially made clothes for their weird demon bodies like sir pentious needs clothes to fit his snake body and stuff... idk just interesting

- the place beside the “we couldn’t come up with a catchy slogan but we sell hardcore drugs” building is called “begg slut”

- imagine dying, going to hell, and realize that you’re an egg

- egg #23 is the best

-one of the eggs like does a weird walk thing with their hand on sir pentious’ tail

-Cherri Bomb’s clothing is so asymmetrical and I love it like she is literally wearing a high-heel boot on one leg and like a tiny shoe on the other

- really just poor Tom he’s great

- Vaggie says “it’s all highlighted” but none of what we are shown is highlighted

- Also read the parts of the list we can see, it’s adorable

- “I don’t touch the gays” I find Katie great

- Jeffrey Dahmer obviously (Also the sticky note saying “who approved this show?)

- When Charlie scans the crowd another tv head just says ‘words’

-The person Vaggie punches isn’t in the crowd

- I love Razzle and Dazzle TvT

- Those two owl demons in Inside Every Demon is a Rainbow are most definitely references to Timber

- CHARLIE YOU JUST KILLED A PUPPY

- I love that there is a boo section

- Tom watches Angel Dust’s stuff confirmed

- I love the sonic spring noise when Angel launches an egg into the air

- Sir Pentious probably has a son that might be in hell so look out for another snake

- Do you see how happy Cherri Bomb is near Angel Dust, best friends! :D

- Aawww Angel pushes Cherri out of the way

- Angel didn’t just sprout a third set of arms, he also pulled an entire gun out of his body sooo... what’s with that

- I think you would just stop existing if you died in hell Angel

- That creepy fan has a body pillow of Angel

- Charlie takes off her pink... jacket(?) in one scene and the next she has it on again (you see her wearing pink in the closeup)

- Lilith is an absent mother

- There goes everyone’s fanon about how Lucifer acts (why couldn’t we get a nice stupid one T~T)

- I think they changed Alastor’s knock but I’m too lazy to check

- They fixed Alastor’s disappearing monocle

- I like that the mic has an eye sometimes it’s cool (how many “sentient-ish” things does Alastor’s have, first the shadow and now this)

- Alastor can teleport at least short distances and he appears as the shadow for a second

- They really make Alastor a very animated character and I love it

- (we knew this already but) Alastor clearly puts himself on a different level than the other sinners, he thinks of himself as justified and better (he doesn’t say “us sinners” he says “loathsome sinners” w/o him in the picture)

- Valentino, Rosie, Lilith (obviously), the girl from the porn studio, and the tv head dude (Vox, thanks @lavipsi) are all some of hell’s “strongest demons”

- TV head (Vox) is in the middle and top so he must be very powerful and behind him there’s also a green and red demon that reminds me of the wolf/fox demon from the bar scene

- Husk is very blocked out by Vaggie’s face but he’s clearly in the picture with Alastor (it looks like a fight but I don’t want to assume) like we know they know each other and stuff but it’s just weird that Husk is in the art when Vaggie says he’s “a dangerous Blahblah” and has entire speech of how dangerous he is

- I love the symbols that float up when Charlie isn’t looking and then the squeak as he turns to a more “innocent-like” Alastor when Charlie looks back

- Alastor rolls his eyes at Charlie when she says “No trickster, voodoo strings attached.”

- Talked about this before but the way his smile gets wider when Charlie says “for as long as you like”

- Why does Charlie have at least 2 posters about alcohol up if she didn’t want it in her hotel?

- I love how Niffty comes in and her bug-like noise when she appears

- You can see their reflection in Niffty’s eye during the closeup and Charlie is too adorable in it, Angel and Vaggie look ready to kick her out XD

- Everybody’s reactions to Niffty rambling on is beautiful, just watch them go from defensive to confused

- Alastor just following Niffty’s every movement as she zooms around

- Please tell me I’m not the only one who didn’t immediately see Husk as a cat? I honestly thought he was a dog for a while because he looks sort of like a Husky and his name is Husk, which got me thinking about the contradictions with Alastor not liking dogs... then I realized Husk was a cat.

- “are you sh!tt!ng me” “no I don’t think so” and “you think I’m just some clown” “..maybe” are some of my favorite lines

- Was I just supposed to know that on the bottom of Alastor’s boots (shoes? Hooves?) there were deer prints?

- So did Alastor really just teleport two sinners and basically copy part of the bar Husk was at and it’s just going to be there forever? Like you can see where the bar’s like territory ends because it’s walls are green while the hotel’s is red

- No like seriously Alastor you can copy a part of a bar but you can’t make the walls match the rest of the hotel’s walls?

- Husk seems slightly taller than Alastor

- Also Husk also has yellow teeth and if we go by Alastor’s teeth are yellow because he’s a cannibal, Husk might have been a cannibal when he was alive

- Husk clearly knows Alastor, he’s not afraid of him (to an extent, he was still a little shaken by the... Sir Pentious thing). Husk obviously voices his complaints without restraint and isn’t afraid of Alastor hurting him (I guess), and even when he was shaken up he was still the second person to follow Alastor back to the hotel.

- The entire relationship between Husk and Alastor is very intriguing to me! Husk doesn’t fear Alastor, Alastor called him a friend (obviously another jab at Husk but still), and they were in the same picture when Vaggie talked about Alastor being dangerous. I’m guessing they were probably friends once, maybe the picture is them both fighting another demon or fighting each other in like a fall-out.

- Vaggie is very exaggerated when she’s complaining about the bar and it’s beautiful

- Husk in the background as a still image just chugging booze is beautiful

-Angel’s angry face as Vaggie complains about the bar just before he leaves to lunge at her is beautiful and my favorite face

- 27:46 Alastor flipping FLUTTERS HIS EYES AT VAGGIE and you can hear a small sound effect of it and I just thought that was beautiful

- At the same moment Charlie is just rubbing her cheeks and it’s cute

- Right before Alastor starts singing, he throws some red... fire in the air and Charlie follows it with her eyes and she just so awed by it

- The fireplace in the background has an eye and a top hat above it and it just reminds me of Sir Pentious

- Alastor’s song has so many Friends on the Other Side vibes and I love it

- There are so many Christian symbols (and Satanic symbols) in the background of this song and I just don’t want to spend that time looking at each one :l

- Alastor’s shadow is also here further nailing the Friend on the Other Side vibe (not to mention the other shadows and voodoo doll things)

- Poor Niffty, she should never get hurt

- When Sir Pentious is talking and it shows the chibi characters, Charlie, Angel, and Niffty are looking at Alastor and when it zooms in for a split second Angel’s face is the most innocent bab ever

- There’s a building in the background with (again) one eye and a top hat, there’s also a cat building right next to it

- You can see heaven as a planet with a halo...

- There’s also a sun(?) or moon(?) or planet(?) with a pentagram on it

- I know that Egg Boi #OUCH is just a joke, but what if after 666, Sir Pentious just started giving them stupid names like that?

- Again, religious symbols float around Alastor that I’m not going to look into because I’ve taken so much time T_T

- Niffty is actually unfazed by Alastor summoning tentacles and destroying Sir Pentious’ ship. Really she has a normal smile and face and she immediately follows Alastor when he walks back to the hotel

- Angel is still flirting with Husk

- Charlie reassuring Vaggie is adorable

- Are we not going to talk about the carousel and gigantic steam boat that’s just protruding from the hotel

- I also love how the windows at the top of skull designs <3

- There’s an eye on the top of the building and the sign of Happy/Hazbin Hotel could also look like a top hate (why are there so many one-eyed top hats like Sir Pentious’...?)

- Stay tuned TM

- Not from me but, Alastor changes the name to Hazbin Hotel and Hazbin means something that was great before but is terrible now or something that is meaningless

- So Alastor liking terrible jokes is now canon? The dad joke thing wasn’t just a stream thing, it’s actually canon?

- Alastor actually has a red ‘X’ on his forehead, you can see it right after he destroys Sir Pentious’ ship

- The art in the credits shows Cherri Bomb having a tattoo

- I would like to talk a little about the design that’s in the background during the credits. So in the middle is an apple that’s being held by two sharp hands, there are three snakes coming out of it with only one snake fully out but still seems to have originated from the apple. The snake that’s completely out is on the top and has some designs around it that emphasize it, making it look more like a king (the devil, duh). The other two snakes are going down (probably referencing Adam and Eve maybe? Even though they also seem evil I just think of Adam and Eve.) Under them is another snake head. There are two sets of eyes around the top snake, one set has a line going down the middle of each eye like a scar while the bottom set has eyelashes. Even though the bottom set looks more “girly”, it reminds me of Lucifer because of the dots under them. If you want to grasp at straws the complete bottom snake’s tongue sort of looks like the bottom part of the symbol of Lucifer. The three snakes that clearly originate from the apple in the middle can also look like “Three snakes and one charm” if you squint. The symbol above the top snake looks like the infinity symbol combined with the cross, but it’s not the leviathan cross, so maybe just eternal... crucifixion?

- The smoke coming from the pit that Alastor made has souls in it

- I think #23 is depressed because he really wants to be shot... and he was just sitting there next to a bunch of dead hims

- Vivziepop said on a stream something about Lucifer being “generally goofy, but it depends on his voice” or something like that, please correct me if I’m completely wrong. This makes me things that Lucifer is going to have multiple voice actors.

-The Loading Crew “Everything We Know About Hazbin Hotel” brings up a point that it seems like the only things that can kill demons and sinners are the Exterminators’ weapons which are sometimes left behind that demons scavenge, Vaggie also appears to have one. I recommend watching his video, it’s very quick but also brings up points I haven’t addressed. 

And yeah, that’s all for now! ^_^ comment if you have something else to add or think I should change something

[yakkety-yak-art]

Why Bioshock Infinite Wasn’t Working (for me)

As someone who loves the first and second games (the first largely for the story, the second largely for the gameplay and characters), I have really felt out of place in the fandom for just....not liking Infinite. Ever since it was released, people have been touting it around on a pedestal like it’s the best thing since sliced bread, but I just have never seen the appeal. Sure, it looks pretty, and there are some interesting parts, but it just never worked for me. And I figured out why. (Note: this is opinionated, so if you disagree and feel the need to respond, do so politely. I will be keeping this as fair as I can and there’s no need to be rude just because you disagree. If you like this game, that’s totally fine, and I can respect your opinion even though it doesn’t match up with mine! This is just my thoughts on the matter, and I am not the end all be all on the topic. You are free to feel however you wish about the game, and if you are more sensitive to criticism about things you like, feel free to just ignore this post!)

This game is a run-of-the-mill FPS with repetitive fights that traipses around in a facade of deep thoughts and hard-hitting hot takes. So many of the people praising this game praise it because the story is deep and riveting. to which I must eloquently say, “Nah.” The story is the equivalent of someone standing on a soapbox, gathering a crowd with the promise of a new concept no one has ever thought of before; something life-changing, something thought of only by a deep thinker; and this someone faces a crowd of Americans, waiting with bated breath to hear something they haven’t been aware of literally their whole lives, only to tell them in an extremely pretentious manner that, “America’s past was no fun :(.” 

No shit, Sherlock. 

The original Bioshocks dealt with things that will really always be topical: the implications and consequences of extreme capitalism and objectivism, and, conversely, extreme communism and mob mentality/hive mind-esque organizations; the importance of choice and the realization of people as individuals coming together being stronger and more unified than an echo-chamber group (yes, there’s a difference); the implications of moral decisions on the future for oneself and the entire world, and extremely beautiful and sometimes heartbreaking portrayals of the importance of platonic relations, found family, and positive bonds between parent and child (particularly fathers, which is refreshing and interesting, since a lot of dads don’t get a very good rep in media); the consequences of classism; finally, breaking free from the roles laid out and expected, and thinking freely (truly freely, not wrongfully convinced of free thinking when in reality the government is in control, seen with Atlas, Ryan, Lamb, etc. The games also give you extremely interesting moral decisions and topics; do you serve yourself, or sacrifice to save the children? Are you really any better than the splicers who were taken advantage of and left to rot, and while you must kill them to survive, are they still people? As you splice, do you become exactly what you are trying to save yourself and the few innocents of Rapture from?

These are all interesting and topical ideas to bring up. So what does Infinite have to share?

Racism is bad (an important topic, but handled poorly). Religion is also bad. Schrodinger’s cat, maybe? Infinite universes mean infinite possibilities!!! Except, no, not really. For a game that puts emphasis on infinite possibilities, it only really explores the same one. 

Firstly, “racism is bad/America is bad/religion is bad” is hardly a hot take, and they are portrayed in the most basic forms that they possibly could be. All the bad guys are racist to the extreme, the entire city is a haven of white supremacy, and basically all because of religion. The main villain only becomes the villain because he gets baptized. It’s extremely on the nose, with public humiliations/lynchings, and public worship of the dude who assassinated Lincoln. Not only does it seem, well, preachy, due to how on the nose it is, it’s not even interesting. Don’t get me wrong, it’s extremely important to discuss racism and xenophobia, especially as it occurred in the past, but because of the world they have set Infinite in, it comes across as implausible. Like, ok, fantasy world, but that’s just it: this is a fantasy. There could have been an amazing discussion on, not blanket “hurr durr institutionalized racism is bad”, but the society that Vigors, a majority working class of non-whites/immigrants, a search for utopia, and the extremes of religion AND science, paired with the idea of facades, would create. Why not have more of the public use Vigors? Like the Vox, in an attempt to gain more control and power? As Columbia had to travel from continent to continent, have the racism be always present but constantly hidden. Rather than public carnival games with racist caricatures, have a society that seems so perfect on the outside that it cannot possibly be. Everyone who is not white or is Jewish or Irish is always creepily smiling and re-asserting that they love their jobs, and their city. Perhaps one is seen speaking out, and they are quickly taken out. Uncovering an extremely unnerving facade like this proves the underlying corruption, power, and horror of the city a lot more than the extremely blatant examples in Infinite do. It’s like the difference between your teacher telling you people were racist in the past, and then reading something about how beautiful the world is and how nice the town they live in is in--only to then find a photo of the writer in a creepy black and white photo, smiling at the camera as they lynch someone--or even, being the subject in the photo who was lynched. It’s so creepy and obviously a lie, but unless you take the time to dig deeper, to find out why the writing had seemed so, well, strange or unrealistic, you could remain blissfully ignorant despite knowing something is wrong. That’s an interesting moral dilemma faced in everyday life. In Infinite, you can just kill them. Problem solved. In fact, it’s so easily solvable, apparently, that it makes you wonder why everyone else hasn’t done that already. It’s also extremely lazy to make all of your villains racist and all of the good guys totally not racist™ and just shoot everyone. I mean, really? they don’t even try to have a conflict of morality, like with Tenenbaum or Sinclair. It’s unrealistically black and white (ha), and because of this, predictable, lazy, and boring. Again, discussions of racism is not a bad thing--but it’s handled so poorly here that it’s almost like the story just stops to remind you that racism is bad, before continuing. 

The parts of the story that don’t deal with social issues are not any better. You can tell me all you want that the ending and the story are just sophisticated, and that I just didn’t get it, but to that I respond: maybe writing a story that has so many possible implications, endings, and theories that could all exist or not exist or sometimes maybe happen unless we were wrong about this one thing, in which case maybe not isn’t sophisticated, and is instead pretentious, lazy, and a lot fucking worse than you giving me a whole story with a jumping off point for my own ideas and conclusions about it’s implications. No, Infinite doesn’t do that. It’s so hackneyed, so convoluted, with it’s “infinite” lighthouses and “infinite” outcomes when in reality, no matter what, there’s just this one racist evil religious dude who is always religious and racist and evil. It could end, not in a “maybe it’s a Schrodinger’s cat?” cop out, but in one of those alternate outcomes (like, clearly alternate, not hinted at alternate), leaving the player with questions about the importance of decisions if there is always another place where the decision either was or wasn’t made, or whether or not the world should even be respected to the extent that it is when, with Elizabeth (and, in theory, her ability to create others with her powers), it is possible to just find a new world. Those are interesting, and also leave the player with some moral questions and debate topics, whereas the actual ending just sort of looks and sounds deep, but in reality is just a writer’s inability to live up to his own setup of the multiverse.

there are some other reasons, like how elizabeth’s powers seem really pointless as they are underutilized, how the game could have worked better if you played as her, how the game literally could’ve been standalone, seeing as it has nothing to do with Bioshock’s story except for Levine’s lazy attempt at “connecting” the two canons, but those are the big ones. All in all, I can’t like it because it has potential that was so ultimately wasted--it’s lazy in it’s story, in it’s tackling of social issues, and in it’s basic requirement at having anything to do with Bioshock, when it could have so easily been an amazing game, not only at the surface, but truly, as you dig deeper into the story. But I really, truly wish that I could love this game. It could’ve been great.

[blatherkatt]

Title: The Mockingbird of Whitestone [Critical Role]

Chapter 1: The Visitor

Summary: Twenty years later, Vox Machina--or as much of it as can get to Whitestone at the time--reunite. It’s not their first time doing so, and they don’t plan on it being the last. It should just be another reunion. 

But something completely unexpected throws everything into chaos, and leaves Vex��ahlia struggling with emotions she’d thought buried, and Percy trying to piece together the fragments of a very confusing puzzle.

Canon pairings, focusing on Perc’ahlia; warnings for minor blood in a later chapter and a whole lot of ruminating on a canonical major character death. 

Rating: T

Author’s Note: so in accordance with my personal philosophy of “if you can give a species a tail why wouldn’t you” it may be noted that some of these characters have tails that wouldn’t have such according to official wotc materials. gnomes, for example. you cant stop me hahahaha 

NEXT

He’d had his share of broken watches, but this one was…interesting. Everything looked fine—the gears sitting strong and unbroken, yet refusing to turn, the winding tool equally pristine yet unbudging. At an easy glance, everything seemed perfectly normal, and yet, some unknown piece of the puzzle was keeping it from working. It was always something tiny in cases like these, he was sure. He drew in closer and squinted, maneuvering the tool in hand to gently lever up one of the gears, knowing with an intense certainty that it had to be something simple that he’d missed, some piece of sand that’d gotten caught in just the wrong place, or a tiny piece of gadgetry misplaced or broken or missing altogether—

A pair of hands on his shoulders pulled Percy out of his reverie. The gentle grip tugged him back, tilting his chair onto its back legs and causing him to tilt his own head back to see Vex’ahlia’s teasing smile. “Percy,” Vex said, peering down at him with a twinkle in her eye, “If you glare at that watch any harder, I’m afraid it’s going to catch fire.”

Percy snorted. Vex let the chair settle all four legs back down onto the carefully maintained stones of Whitestone’s town square. Percy looked away as Vex draped herself across his shoulders, her chin now tucked against his neck. “I’m not—glaring at it, dear, I’m just very focused. Whatever’s going wrong with the thing is subtle enough that it’s hard to pinpoint, so—“

“Darling,” she said, in a low, sweet voice by his ear that, even twenty years into their marriage, still made the hair on the back of his neck stand up, “You’re not supposed to be working, you’re supposed to be relaxing.” She pressed a kiss to his cheek and stood up, pulling away. “There’s a festival on tomorrow, our friends will be here any moment, and you’re here fussing over a watch? Really, Percy.”

She took a moment to stretch, and Percy took a moment to take in the view. The world seemed to frame a perfect backdrop for her— a light breeze stirring the loose half-cloak draped around her shoulders and the skirts of her pale blue dress. The day was bright and clear, and, despite the patches of snow still visible here and there on the ground, much of the plant life was starting to show new patches of green. The Sun Tree in particular had already sprouted enough buds and early blooms to cause a perpetual soft rain of petals in the town square, some of which drifted past Vex’ahlia, one or two catching in her hair. Not for the first time Percy found himself quietly struck by how lucky he was to have this—a moment of peace in his town, rebuilt and recovering after the harm once done to it, decades ago, and a woman he sometimes still couldn’t believe he was married to…

He shook his head. “That’s exactly why I’m fussing with the watch, dear,” he said. “They’re late, and if I don’t keep myself busy somehow, I’ll drive myself mad with impatience! I mean, really, we’ve only been planning to meet up for weeks.”

“They’ll be here,” Vex chided.

“They were supposed to be here half an hour ago. I made everyone a bloody watch but it’s apparently not enough—this is the trouble, you know, with depending on the druid for travel, because then if she’s late, so is everybody else—“

“I take it back. You were right, Percy, you should just stick with fiddling with the watch.” The affection in her voice robbed it of any sting the gentle teasing might’ve had otherwise. “Being a clockmaker’s made you so obsessed with punctuality, dear, you may really have a problem.”

He sighed, carefully putting away the watch and his tools, brushing a few errant petals off his coat. “It’s not—I just miss them, honestly. It seems they’ve all been busy with things so often lately. It’s a shame poor Tary couldn’t make it, but at the very least we can get the rest of the family all together in one place for once.” He stood up, intending to walk over her, but paused with a wince as a shooting pain lanced up one of his legs. He leaned on the table, grimacing, before standing up the rest of the way. Noting Vex’s slightly worried expression, he threw up a hurried smile, and said, “Augh, that’s a twinge. Oof.”

“Your knees again?” she asked, eyes bright with concern.

“Nothing too serious, I think, just the usual stiffness. You know, sometimes I wonder if it was the sixth or seventh dragon that did it.”

He’d hoped the joke would lighten the mood enough to soothe any worries, but Vex frowned.  At the very least, she chose to change the subject rather than put up any sort of fuss. “I don’t suppose you know where the kids are?” she asked. “I saw Trissa and Leo pestering—sorry, helping—some of the traveling merchants, but I’ve no idea where the rest are.”

“Well, I think Crispin is hanging out with his friends somewhere, and Arthur was tagging along with Cassandra last I saw him. Tiff’s right over there, though,” he said, pointing towards the Sun Tree with a grin.

Vex’ahlia looked, and then bent over with a quiet “Oh, no,” buried under a laugh.

“At this point, Trinket may in fact be the most patient bear in the world,” Percy said, moving to her side, arms folded loosely. “Certainly, he’s the most fashionable.”

There, under the Sun Tree, lay the huge bear. He was, with some very obvious displeasure, allowing Percy and Vex’s three year old daughter to climb all over him as she weaved flowers and ribbons into his fur. He made no attempt to stop her—having gone through sharing his home with a toddler four times before this, he knew it was a futile endeavor—but he still turned toward the sound of Vex’s voice and let out a low, despairing moan full of the deep, existential anguish only a bear beset by an excitable toddler can ever truly know.

“She’s been at it for the better part of an hour,” Percy grinned.

“Tiffany, darling, what are you doing over there?” Vex called. “Are you making Trinket pretty for the festival?”

Tiffany perked up at her mother’s voice, seemed to seriously contemplate the question for a moment, and then nodded and said, “Yeah!”

The bear let out another soulful moan and rested his head on the pavement.

“Ohh, I know, buddy, I know, you’re so patient.” Vex giggled and leaned on Percy slightly. “Oh, gods, honestly, he could just stand up and tip her off without hurting her, I don’t know why he just takes it.”

“However will he survive the embearassment,” Percy said, receiving a swat on the arm and a laugh for his efforts.

They’d been standing side by side for a few minutes, idly chatting and occasionally tossing little Tiff a few words of encouragement, when Cassandra walked into the square and made a beeline towards them, Arthur following after with all the forced gravitas an eight year old could muster.

“They’re not here yet?” she asked, looking a bit harried. She’d been working hard on getting everything ready for the Renewal Festival, and it showed; Percy and Vex had tried to take some of the weight off her shoulders, but she’d insisted on doing the bulk of the work herself—not exactly unusual for her, really, but Percy still worried.

Vex shook her head. “Not yet, much to Percy’s chagrin.”

Cassandra pursed her lips, huffing out a frustrated breath. “Well, hopefully they get here soon. I might have a bit of a job for you all before we get too comfortable with celebrating. One of the guards just told me that someone reported seeing bluecoats in the old cemetery.”

Percy groaned. “Oh, gods, again? I thought for sure we cleared the little devils out last year.”

“They might be back,” Cassandra said. “No one’s been stung yet, and I’ve yet to confirm anything in any case, but I’d really like to avoid a repeat of last summer.”

“And us with a town full of visitors for the festival who won’t know how dangerous they are,” said Vex, folding her arms. “Thank the gods Keyleth’s coming. If anyone can convince a damn mess of hornets to move elsewhere, it’s an archdruid.”

“Might not hurt to warn people to see a cleric straight away if they are stung, just in case,” Percy said. “We very nearly had a couple folks die last year who didn’t know any better.”

“When is Aunt Keyleth and the others gonna be here?” Arthur said, demonstrating his usual complete lack of interest in ‘adult talk.’

Percy rolled his eyes fondly. “Well, they should have been here—ah, speak of the devil, finally!”

With a familiar groan of ancient wood splitting apart, the Sun Tree opened up into the familiar tunnel. It was followed by an extremely unnecessary bellow and the sound of stampeding footsteps. Vex and Percy shared a look as Arthur’s face split into a grin. Grog stampeded through, narrowly avoiding knocking Arthur over, several bags in his arms and two gnomes clinging to his shoulders, Scanlan yelling in mock terror, Pike laughing helplessly. Keyleth stepped sedately through the portal a moment later, just before it closed.

“Yeah!!” Arthur cheered, as Grog skidded to a stop. Grog threw up his arms, full as they were, and bellowed in response, accidentally dislodging Scanlan in the process.

“Ow!!” said Scanlan, full of mock ruined pride more than any real pain, as Arthur and Grog both laughed. Pike slid down and landed nimbly on her feet as Scanlan launched into an exaggerated tirade against Grog, sending Arthur into stitches.

Keyleth and Pike, however, both spotted Percy and Vex and beelined toward them, and the ensuing hugs drained out all of Percy’s frustration in an instant. Nevertheless, if only for the look of things, he adopted his most exasperated tone as he asked, “What bloody took you all so long? We were expecting you almost an hour ago!”

Pike rolled her eyes. “Sorry, we had to deal with a very serious discussion about whether or not Grog’s too old and creaky to be the team tough guy anymore. Scanlan teased him about his beard going gray, and Grog took it way too personally, and they ended up arguing until Grog insisted on proving that he’s still just as tough as ever.”

“Is that why he came running in like a bat out of the hells?” said Vex.

“Yup,” said Keyleth. “Demanded we all hand over all our bags and that the gnomes climb on. I think he wanted to carry me, too, but there was literally no room, so he made up for it by running through.”

Vex covered her face, shaking with mirth. “Gods, I’ve missed you all,” she said.

“Oy, Percy, I think you got a bit of a limpet problem,” Grog said. He stomped over, making a big show out of every step, with Arthur clinging excitedly to the goliath’s massive foot. “This one’s got real big and reeal clingy. Gonna need a great big scraper to get this ‘un off.” Arthur was beside himself with giggles.

Percy eyed Grog. “Well, maybe if you all weren’t late, he wouldn’t be quite so clingy!”

“I came as fast as I could!” Grog whined, the bags sagging. “I ran all the way here!”

“We noticed.”

A bark of laughter echoed behind Grog. For a moment, Percy thought it was aimed at his joke, but no; Scanlan had noticed Trinket’s predicament. Trinket, devastated at his complete and total humiliation, covered his face with his paws and moaned.

Tiffany, however, was…well, normally she would have run over with Arthur, now that Percy thought about it, but she was staring intently at some distant point in the opposite direction. For just a moment, he thought he spotted a flash of movement that way himself, but before he could comment, Keyleth spoke up and the thought quickly fled his mind, only to be remembered much later.

“Tiff!” Keyleth shouted, bouncing on the balls of her feet and waving. “Tiff, hey, over here!”

Tiffany turned with a quiet “huh?” Upon spotting Keyleth, the little girl’s face split into a huge grin and she ran full force at Keyleth. “Aun’ Kiki!!”

Keyleth swooped the little girl up into her arms, chattering excitedly back and forth with her as Tiffany proceeded to say hello to the rest of her ‘aunts’ and ‘uncles’ in turn.

(For a moment, a piece of Percy that stubbornly refused to die reflected on the aunts and uncles she’d never get to meet—Percy’s own siblings who never got to meet his new, adoptive family, and also…But thoughts like that weren’t productive at times like this. Better to celebrate the family they had with them right now than spend time hating the empty spaces in the lineup. Nothing good came of dwelling on that for too long.)

Cassandra, who’d been holding back initially, stepped forward. “Sorry to interrupt, and to bother you the moment you get here, Keyleth—“

“Whahuh?” Keyleth said, having been midway through intense conversation with the three year old still in her arms about the huuuge butterfly Tiffany had seen that morning.

“We’ve, ah, possibly got an infestation of some particularly nasty hornets that Cass wants to deal with before anyone gets hurt,” said Percy. “They can be deadly, unfortunately, but the poison takes long enough to kick in that most people don’t realize the danger of getting stung until they’re sick enough that treating it becomes costly. Think you could, maybe…”

“Oh! Oh, sure, yeah, no problem,” said Keyleth, setting Tiffany down. “Lead the way, Percy!”

“If you two are headed off, then, I think I should try and find the rest of the kids,” Vex said. “Shall we meet back here?”

“Me, too, Mommy!” Tiff piped up, reaching her hands up.

“I don’t see why not. It’s a nice day out, and some of the traveling merchants and entertainers have been setting up shop early,” said Percy. “We might as well enjoy the rest of the day.”

Grog shifted uncomfortably. His arms were still full of everyone’s bags, and however much he may have liked to deny it, the silver streaks through his beard made no secret of the fact that he was starting to feel his age at least as much as Percy was. “I mean, I wouldn’t mind…stopping by the castle, just for a few minutes,” he mumbled, which, for him, meant it was still pretty loud, all things considered.

“Oh, just put the bags down, you big goof,” said Pike. Grog shrugged and, with no ceremony whatsoever, dropped everything.

Vex had seen her fair share of Renewal Festivals, but she had to admit, Whitestone’s were something very special. Granted, you only needed to endure one Whitestone winter, trapped indoors by the biting cold and heavy snows, huddling close to the fire and braving the outdoors only when no other option remained, to understand why—the entire town was desperate for the onset of spring by the time the thaws came. Still, it was always a delight; the festival wasn’t truly considered to start until tomorrow, yet already people were celebrating. Everywhere one looked, there’d be a makeshift band practicing out in front of a tavern, with a handful of people dancing along, or a pair of kids running around and laughing through the streets, perhaps someone airing out their best clothes now that it wasn’t too cold to open a window. She understood that it had previously been a much more insular celebration, of course, back when Whitestone was more isolated, but these days, with Percy and Cassandra working hard to maintain communications with and open roads to Emon and Westrun, a number of traveling merchants and performers always stopped by to help grow the celebrations even further. Many were still setting up booths and claiming their bits of the street, but some were already settled in, displaying wares or sending delicious smells through the pleasantly warm air.

Somewhere amongst them, she knew, were two of her children, but so far, even with Tiffany and Trinket’s help, they’d yet to spot them. Of course, Tiffany was too distracted by just about everything, constantly pointing and cooing from her perch on Trinket’s back, to really be helping. Vex’ahlia kept her eyes and ears open, nodding along with her daughter’s babbling without really listening, looking instead for Trissa and Leo—they’d be together, no doubt, as they always were, and probably up to trouble. At thirteen and twelve respectively, they were the closest of the children in age as well as just being generally attached at the hip, ever reminiscent of…

Well, they were very close, in any case.

After a bit of searching, finally, she spotted the pair amongst a trio of tabaxi. Two were lounging on the opposite side of the street from her children, apparently taking a break from practicing for some sort of act and enjoying a kettle of tea between them. The third was a younger girl with golden tabby markings who couldn’t have been much older than Crispin’s sixteen. She had all of Trissa and Leo’s rapt attention, shuffling and carefully twirling and twisting a set of cards between her fingers. One of the older tabaxi, a brown one with faint spots and tufted ears, called out a word of encouragement. The other one was more reddish in color, a little older and a lot surlier, grumbling into his cup and getting an elbow to the ribs for whatever harsh comment he’d made.  

Vex stood back and watched the girl perform for a moment, amused and curious. The girl was explaining the meaning of the cards to her enraptured audience, twirling each one with a flourish before tucking it back into the deck. She stumbled in her delivery, however, upon glancing up and spotting Trinket. The other two Tabaxi were similarly startled, the older one climbing up onto his chair in surprise.

“Oh, he’s harmless, don’t worry,” said Vex to the adults, and then, turning to the girl, added, “Please don’t stop on my account.” She smiled her most winning smile. “I’ll have to take my children away in just a moment here, I’m afraid, but we can spare a few more minutes.”

“Aww, mooom,” Leo groaned, at the same instant that Trissa cried, “What? Why?”

“Because our guests are here, Trissa. We’re going to need to track down Crispin, too, Arthur’s already with them.”

“O-oh, I didn’t mean to—We’re just, just messing around,” the tabaxi girl stammered, her prior confidence vanished. “You can—I won’t keep them.”

“But Mom, she says she can tell the future with her cards, and I wanna see her do it!” said Leo.

“Yeah, they’re really weird, one’s got a fiend on it and—“

“They’re, they don’t…telling the future’s not exactly what I said,” the girl said.

Vex sighed and rolled her eyes to look at the adult tabaxi, the more good-natured of whom shrugged with a smile. Turning back to the girl, she said, “Well, like I said, we have a few minutes. Why don’t you give me a reading?”

The girl blinked. “O-oh, uh, really?” she asked, her ears twitching back nervously as she looked toward the other two.

“Go for it, Patch!” called the brown tabaxi.

“’S two copper,” grumbled the older one. “No freebies.”

Vex raised an eyebrow. “That’s a bit cheaper than I expected,” she said, handing over the money. A few copper was a small cost to perhaps encourage an aspiring performer to continue on her path. She doubted there was any real fortune telling happening, but there was still an art to her craft, one that Vex could appreciate.  

Patch flicked her ears back in embarrassment. “I’m, um, I’m very new at this. This is—it’s the first time they’re letting me perform for money.”

“Don’t tell her that!” the old one scowled.

“Shit, shit, sorry Saph, I forgot—“

“Don’t worry about it, Patch! Saph, shut the hell up and let her perform, you old curmudgeon, she can do this.” The brown one grinned and raised his cup, eyes shining.

“Hey, everyone’s got to start somewhere,” Vex said, kneeling down on the blanket Patch had acting as a cushion. “So, where do we start?”

Patch swallowed, her fingers making the cards dance apparently without her notice. “Well, um, you…you ask me some question, and the cards will…tell me the answer, sort of.” She swallowed, struggling to regain her composure. “So, miss, um…”

“Lady Vex’ahlia,” Vex said, and smiled a little bit more upon hearing one of the two grown tabaxi erupt into a choking cough at the title. They really must be from well out of town if the bear hadn’t been a dead giveaway as to just who she was.

Patch’s eyes widened a bit. “Right, then, L-Lady Vex’ahlia,” she said, “What questions do you have for, um, for the cards?”

Vex tapped her lip, acting like she was considering it in detail. “Well, there’s not much I have going on right now, but…how about this: Can you give me a general feel for how this festival’s going to go this year? We’d really like for it to be a good one, but we’ve already had some hiccups. Nothing too serious, yet. Is anything else…unexpected coming our way?”

There, an easy question for a first-timer to come up with an answer for, Vex thought. Could be interesting to see how she’d respond.

Patch nodded, and then turned back to the cards, now shuffling them in earnest. This seemed to be what she was most comfortable with, the movement of the cards themselves, flashing and shifting in intricate patterns. The effect was slightly spoiled when, in the process of drawing one, she nearly dropped it, but she recovered with a slightly awkward grin, and laid out three cards, face down.

One by one, she flipped each over, muttering to herself, “So, that’s…uhm, something, some big change or something to do with fate, hoo boy, that’s always interesting….and that’s…a person, maybe a stranger, maybe not…Um. Hm. That’s. That’s a really weird set of three, to get, um.” She tapped a finger against her chin. “So. I think what the cards have to say to that, is that you’ll have….some sort of. Fateful encounter with…with an unexpected visitor? To your festival. Someone’s coming that you didn’t expect, and it’ll…it’ll be interesting?”

One of the tabaxi, probably the surly one, slapped a hand to their head and groaned. Vex refused to look back and see.

“A fateful encounter with an unexpected visitor, that’s exciting,” Vex said. “Do the cards say if this is to be a friendly visitor, or someone I should be worried about?”

“Friend,” said Patch, her voice suddenly very certain. “Definitely a friend.” She blinked, and shrunk a bit, as if surprised by her own burst of confidence. “I mean,” she said, “I don’t…the cards don’t. Actually specify, but I get the feeling it’s, um, going to be a friend.”

“That’s a relief,” said Vex. “Well, that was wonderful, young Patch!” She pressed a gold piece into the girl’s hand, giving her a wink and a grin as she stood up. “You’re very good with those cards, I’m sure that with a bit more practice you’ll have the confidence to really do well.” Patch nodded her head in an astonished gratitude, holding the coin close to her chest.

“Th-thank you,” she said, as Vex gestured for her children to get up as well.

“Thank you for the reading,” said Vex in return. “Who knows, maybe this means Tary’ll be able to make it, after all! We were so disappointed to learn he couldn’t come—heaven knows how he’d get here without Keyleth’s help, but stranger things have happened…”

“Feh,” huffed old Saph. Then, turning in his seat, he hesitated. “What the fuck?” he spat, looking around. “Where’s the teapot?”

“What do you mean, ‘where’s the teapot’? It’s right where you left it, you daft—wait, what the hell, it was just there a second ago…” The brown one began glancing around, too, ducking under the table and rising a moment later scratching his head.

“I wouldn’t ask where it is if it was where I left it, Kite,” scowled Saph. “I’m tellin’ you, it’s gone! I bet one o’ you damn kids took it, hand it over!”

“Saph, stop—I’m sorry, my Lady, he’s been—we’ve been traveling a while, and he’s grouchy on a good day, your kids seem wonderful and I’m sure they’d never—“

Vex held up a hand. “It’s alright, thank you for that. I’m sure they wouldn’t dream of taking your nice tea pot, right?” She cast a stern eye on all three of her children. Trissa and Leo adopted expressions of pure innocence, but Tiffany surprised her by pointing toward an alley behind the two tabaxi men.

“It was the funny shadow person who did it, Mama!” she said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Didn’t you see?”

“Sure it was, kiddo,” said Saph, slouching angrily back in his seat.

“Funny shadow person?” Vex said. “What do you mean, Tiff, dear? You saw a shadow take the pot?”

Tiffany nodded. “Yeah! They’ve been doing all sorts of other stuff, too! I keep seeing them running around! They took the teapot just now, and before they were running around an’ got scared by Aun’ Kiki bringing everyone through the Sun Tree.”

“Scared?”

“Yeah, cuz they ran off and hid!”

A dark shape, running into the shadows just out of view, so soon after she’d been promised an unexpected visitor and a twist of fate…She stamped the thought down, quickly. Thinking like that would only lead to unnecessary heartache. It was just the juxtaposition of a small child’s imagination and a strangely fitting fortune, that was all.

Right?

“Well, if we see them again, we’ll have to let them know that they’re welcome,” she said, kissing her daughter gently on the nose. “And that it’s not nice to take teapots.”

Tiffany giggled.

They moved on, Trissa and Leo growing more excited to see the rest of Vox Machina as they went. Finding Crispin proved easier and considerably more uneventful; he’d just been hanging out with a few other teens from town, and complained loudly at having to leave to deal with weird family stuff. Vex ignored it; she knew he was just as excited to see his adoptive aunts and uncles as any of the younger kids.

(Most of their five children had the de Rolo’s brown hair, but Crispin’s was jet black, and he wore it long. In a ponytail, usually, but, still, he looked just enough like Vex’s brother that sometimes Vex grew very…thoughtful.

It was nothing. She was just on edge. Maybe getting that fortune had been a mistake.)

Trissa and Leo bolted out to greet the rest of the team when they arrived back at the square, while Crispin begrudgingly accepted a hug from Pike. Vex smiled for a moment, but it faded when she saw Keyleth and Percy returning as well, Keyleth running for her things with a grim expression.

“What’s going on?” she asked, rushing over.

“Nothing, dear, just—look, Keyleth already dealt with it, I’m fine.” He sighed and gave her a very weary look. “The report about the bluecoats was right, and one of the little bastards got me on the hand. Keyleth managed to convince the rest to leave, but it was less of a conversation and more zapping the damn nest to smithereens.”

“I’m really sorry,” Keyleth called. “Those things are really mean, though, geez.”

“And she already—“ Vex started.

“I cast a spell to neutralize any poison, don’t worry,” Keyleth said. “At least, Percy said that’s what was needed? It just  looked like an ordinary wasp sting, though.”

“That’s what’s so nasty about bluecoats,” Percy grumbled. “They don’t look bad on the first day, and sometimes people shake off the poison with no trouble, but by the time you know you’ve failed to do so, it’s already gotten bad enough that treating it’s going to be really bloody expensive, so it’s best to be overcautious.” He shook his hand and hissed in a breath. “That, and it hurts way more than a bee sting should be allowed to, augh.”

“I’ve got something that could help with that in here somewhere, hold on,” Keyleth said, tugging a smaller bag out from within her larger one. “Shoot,” she said a moment later, “I’m nearly out, I forgot to restock my herb kit.”

“Well, what do you need, darling?” said Vex. “There’s a storehouse not too far from here. It’s…really, any herbs we have in there are going to probably be more for cooking than medicine, and they’ll be dried out to last through the winter, but it’s worth checking, at least.”

“Really, it’s fine, I don’t need—” Percy started, but Vex shushed him.  

Keyleth blew an exasperated raspberry. “I can make do, I guess,” she said. “Dried won’t be as strong, but should still get the job done. I’ve got enough here for the one sting, at least.” She rattled off a few herb names, and Vex nodded, hurrying off.

It was as good an excuse as any to get away for a moment. She was still feeling…off. That thought that had popped into mind, when Tiffany mentioned someone slinking around in the shadows, still wouldn’t leave her mind, despite her best efforts. It…Couldn’t possibly be who she thought it was, there was no way. But…the tabaxi girl had seemed so certain, when she’d said that there would be a friend here, just for a moment, and, who knew, maybe he was stealing teapots and slinking around as one of his old jokes, preparing for some dramatic entrance, the old show-off…

She paused, mere feet away from the storehouse door, staring at the ground.

Or, more accurately, at the pair of raven feathers laying on the stones.

Which. Was perfectly explained away by the fact that the city was lousy with ravens, of course. Nothing to be surprised about. But…Now that she stopped, she realized that she could hear someone moving about in the storehouse. Despite every perfectly reasonable explanation for the list of small things that happened today that she was likely reading too much into, hope rose within her, cautiously whispering that, maybe…

Maybe he’d found a way back, somehow? Stranger things had happened, right?

Taking a deep breath, unable to fight the smile off her face, she pulled the door open, her brother’s name on her lips—

It wasn’t Vax.

There was someone in the storeroom, certainly, but they were wholly unfamiliar. Even with their back turned, she could see that much; they were small, most of their frame hidden behind a cloak, but she could see a short, tufted tail peaking out from under it, even in the darkness, and a pair of large, tattered ears. The intruder flicked their hooded head toward her the moment the door was swung open, but in the deep shadows of the storeroom juxtaposed by the harsh light from outside, all she could make out initially of the face was a pair of huge, somewhat wide-set, bulging yellow eyes, with no visible iris and slitted red pupils. They had been rummaging in one of the crates in the storeroom, and were still holding up the lid with one hand.

It wasn’t Vax. It couldn’t be him. Judging on the height alone, nevermind the odd eyes and huge ears, it wasn’t even anything that could reasonably be called a half-elf. Her heart sank, and she forgot herself for a moment, distracted by her own sharp sorrow. She didn’t notice straight away as the intruder’s posture changed, stiffening and drawing inward, like an animal preparing to leap, didn’t notice the tattered ears sweeping back, barely registered that they were slowly setting down the lid of the crate, something clutched tightly in one hand.

“You—“ She paused, collecting herself. It wasn’t Vax. Of course it wasn’t Vax, he’d been—he’d been dead for twenty years, it had been silly to think—“You shouldn’t be in here. This is…”

She trailed off again, as her eyes adjusted to the difficult lighting. The creature was stepping more into the shadows, but the movement allowed just enough light to touch their face for Vex to pick out flat features accented by a set of jutting, uneven, sharp teeth. The realization of what she was talking to hit like a lightning bolt.

Reaching instinctively for a bow she didn’t have, she cursed, and slammed the door shut, hearing the body of the creature reach it a moment later. Struggling, she held the door shut as best she could, and reached for her earring, shouting so that even without it, guards would hear, so that people would know to find their children and run for cover—

“Goblins!”

[eponymous-rose]

Talks Machina Highlights - WonderCon 2018 Panel

This week’s episode is the Talks Machina Live panel from WonderCon 2018, with guests Travis Willingham, Marisha Ray, Taliesin Jaffe, Sam Riegel, Liam O’Brien, Laura Bailey, and Matt Mercer!

This episode (and this recap) contains spoilers for the first campaign.

Meanwhile, back on the TM set, Max is keeping busy...

Gif and fanart of the week are awarded before the panel! An attempt at information-gathering and a steamy romance novel cover are featured. Congratulations to the winners!

Brian: “Look under your seats, everybody. If anyone finds Sam, let us know.”

Biggest adjustment in the new campaign?

Travis: Starting from scratch and not knowing how everyone else would react to their characters. Even 11 episodes in, only a tiny percentage of their backstories have been revealed. Sam hopes the fans are cool with the slow burn.

Matt slips into McCree voice. Brian: “That’s all you get. If you ask a high noon question, you’ll get a water bottle thrown at your fucking face.”

Brian, on Taliesin’s careful planning: “Yeah, Taliesin started working on this character when he was 12 years old.” Travis: “You mean when he was 1,200 years old...”

Marisha: “We’re all frickin’ liars right now.” Laura: “Not all of us.” 

Travis: “I have not told a lie yet.” Everyone else: doubt. 

Matt points out how weird it is that the Trickery Domain cleric has been the most up-front and honest thus far.

Sam had no idea Mollymauk had the Charm Person ability and wasn’t expecting to reveal that much of his motivations so early. Sam: “We all have to spill the beans at some point, so why not by magical means?”

Sam wonders why Jester hasn’t been using Zone of Truth constantly. Laura, bitterly: “I’ve gotta save my spells for healing.” Also Laura, positively exuding bitterness: “I’m not bitter.”

Molly was so startled by Pumat because he’d never encountered anything like this before. “Taste is so rare in this world, and you come across it, and you’re like, ‘You’re delightful!’”

Brian asks if Pumat is “the new Gilmore” and the cast does not take it well. Taliesin: “You’re not my real dad!” Sam: “But yes.”

Laura and Liam realize they accidentally wore very similar outfits, in true twinnie fashion.

Laura is about to reveal Jester’s age, then thinks better of it. “But if I say it now, I can’t change it later...”

Matt pre-prepared about five smutty novel titles (including the infamous Tusk Love). “I was like, that should be plenty...”

Liam mentions that he and Sam don’t know each other’s character backstories at all. Caleb and Nott broke out of a podunk jail together and wound up just sort of sticking together and eventually running scams to get cash. Sam: “And make sweet, sweet love every night. ...that’s Liam and Sam. Not the characters.”

Fjord’s both trying to trip Molly up by making him redo the praying-over-his-swords ritual and kind of hoping to figure out what’s up with his own sword in the process. “I was hoping it would turn into a waterpark.”

If they had Frumpkin as a familiar IRL, what animal would they have him be? Travis instantly goes for an otter. Marisha wants a wolf. Taliesin wants a big bird of some sort. Sam wants an octopus, since he knows it’s possible. Laura wants a raccoon, unless red pandas have opposable thumbs. Laura: “But pandas are stupid...” Brian, taking his life into his hands: “Oh yeah, because Trinket was a genius.”

Favorite part of making a new character? Travis: the ability to do absolutely anything you want, change it, make it anything you want to be. It’s what sucked him in at the start of the first campaign.

If she could play a D&D monster, Laura would want to be a succubus. Travis: “No, what kind of villain would you want to be?” Laura: “You have to drive home with me.”

Laura put together a loose backstory for Jester before the Kinda Funny oneshots and picked the Traveler as her deity then, but she and Matt wound up adapting him to the current campaign when they transferred Jester over. The Traveler’s not the deity from D&D canon.

Taliesin’s advice on playing a gunslinger character: “Don’t be cautious. Wait, what level are you going to be at?” “Level 3.” “Okay, no, be cautious.”

Marisha is enjoying getting to just punch things instead of dealing with so much magic.

Taliesin hates that he has to take notes again now that he’s no longer sitting next to Marisha.

Sam sings some of his D&D Beyond jingle again!

Liam: “Maybe campaign 2 will just be the D&D equivalent of Cheers and we’ll never leave the Leaky Tap.” Matt: “We’ll see how long that tavern lasts...”

Laura’s stricken look every time Matt hints at having to plan for the possibility of player character death is priceless and also relatable.

Travis talks about how much more responsibility there is now that he’s not playing INT 6. He’s still working based on instinct, but now he’s tapping into his creative side this time around.

Matt loves the side of DMing that is creating something for his friends and watching them get immersed in it. “It’s one of my favorite forms of gifting that exists out there.”

On dealing with unruly players as a DM: communication outside the game is key, as is knowing when to bring up that this might not be the game they’re looking for.

Brian asks about who everyone would cast as Senokir (his favorite character from last game) in a movie. Matt: “Willem Dafoe.”

Sam: “A pile of dirty diapers could be Caleb.” Liam: “...what changes?”

On minimizing paper-shuffling as a DM: Matt organizes his notes with bullet points and bold font, notecards taped to the back of the screen, etc. Liam: “I snuck a look at Matt’s notes recently, and it’s just the word ‘Pumat’ over and over.”

Caleb’s main focus going to Chastity’s Nook (Caleb’s focus; Liam was mostly just wanting to troll Matt) was swap-meet searching for magical stuff. Laura wonders if Caleb was just thinking about porn when he was staring into the fire. Liam: “Tusks...”

After episode 68, Taliesin came up with the idea for this carnival barker character telling a “monster story about Percy, who had just died. I thought that would really fuck them up. They’re going to hate him immediately.” Marisha: “Vox Machina didn’t have a history of dealing with new people well. Sorry, Sam.”

Travis on lifting at the gym and playing a tabletop RPG on the internet: “I’m my best me when I’m working out or staying active or pushing myself physically, but it lends itself to D&D specifically, because I love the physical imagination of melee combat and things like that. I think people can be as many things as they want to be.”

Matt points out that lower-level D&D has a lot of action on the players’ parts as they putter around, whereas higher-level D&D starts getting into reaction to major events that have been unfolding without their knowledge.

Liam: “The part of Caleb that I can say is I was curious about making a character who is his own worst enemy.”

Matt talks about juggling the desire to bring back old guest players while at the same time wanting to bring on the new guests they’ve been trying to schedule since last campaign.

[arkhamarchitecture]

we’re going to D&D hell

Alternate title: The Idiot Traveler’s Guide to the Nine Hells of Baator and the Blood War.

So we got plot dumped some info on the Nine Hells in Episode 90 and it’s possible that people didn’t catch all of it the first time through and we know there’s info Taliesin got off screen so that Matt didn’t have to info dump an entire essay straight into our brains (not that we wouldn’t have enjoyed it if he did). As somebody who has spent arguably too much time reading sourcebooks, I know quite a lot about D&D hell and I figured I’d share some knowledge with the portion of the playerbase who doesn’t play or even with the portion of the playerbase who just don’t accumulate tons upon tons of books like I do.

Before we go too far, I want to clarify where I’m getting my information. The only real information on the Nine Hells in 5e comes directly from the Dungeon Master’s Guide. However way back in 3.5e, there was an entire 200 page book about nothing but the Nine Hells called the Fiendish Codex Volume 2 (the first Volume was about Demons and the Abyss, I’ll get to that later).

All information I include here from 3.5e is subject to change and I will note it as such. I will also always use 5e information ahead of 3.5e information if I have it. For example, 5e has a different lord of the first layer, Zariel instead of Bel.

But let’s start with the basics:

So what are Devils? Devils are the ultimate Lawful Evil creatures. Supposedly (and this is 3.5e lore and extremely subject to change since Matt has his own world) they were originally Celestial creatures who were tasked with seeking out and punishing evil doers. Over time, they became corrupted and poisoned by such evil, but still saw it as their job. Asmodeus brokered a deal with the Celestial gods to have his own plane where they could punish evil doers so that they wouldn’t tarnish the Celestial realms with it. Unfortunately for the Celestials, the realm created, Baator, actually ran on those tortured souls and as such it was to the Devils benefit to have more and more, so they started deliberately corrupting mortals in order to punish them in death. The Celestials objected, but by then it was too late - the deal had been made and Asmodeus was the King of the Nine Hells.

As Matt mentioned, when someone dies who sold their soul to a Devil (and once they sell their soul, they may find their lives very short indeed) arrives in the Nine Hells as a Lemure (not a lemur, note the spelling when you Google it). A Lemure is most easily described as a Hell Maggot. They’re small, white, disgusting, and incredibly weak but they can potentially get much worse if left to their own devices.

You see, Devils have a strict hierarchy of species. Like Matt said, Lemures are at the bottom of that hierarchy, but then you have lesser Devils like Imps above them and it goes all the way up through the list to Pit Fiends. But Devils are never born as say, a Pit Fiend. You start out at the bottom and a higher ranked Devil can spend some of his own energy to promote you - literally changing your species into that of a higher ranked Devil. The Devil retains all his memories, though in changing forms, may end up changed into something smarter or dumber than before and this can be something of a clever way for a Devil to keep his subordinates in line. A Devil would find it hard to argue against being promoted, even if they were transforming from a clever and cunning Imp to a stronger but much stupider and more easily controlled Barbazu. 

Likewise, a Devil can be demoted, such as happened to our Pit Fiend friend who probably got shamed all the way back down to Lemure or Nupperibo. As a Pit Fiend, the only Devils above him that would have had the power to demote him would be the specific Archdevil he served or Asmodeus himself. So y’know, somebody important in Baator probably knows who Vox Machina is, though they may not care.

Now, Rakshasas are actually outside of the Devil hierarchy. They can be neither promoted nor demoted. Rakshasa are native to the Nine Hells and are considered Fiends but it aren’t specifically considered Devils.

Now let’s get into the real nitty gritty of Baator.

Layer One: Avernus

Avernus is the uppermost layer of the Nine Hells and is most people’s first stop on their tour. Avernus is, in 5e, ruled by Archduchess Zariel. Her advisor, Bel, is the ex-Lord she supplanted. I’m sure their working relationship is just wonderful. Avernus itself is a rocky shit hole with rivers of blood and clouds of insects. The entire layer is a battlefield for the Blood War when it pushes in close to Baator.

Tiamat also lives on Avernus and the souls of all dead evil dragons and her more humanoid worshipers go to her. That said, even if VM loitered around in Avernus for long enough, they probably wouldn’t run into their old pals, the Chroma Conclave. And even if they did, they’d just be lost souls. Dangerous I’m sure, but not in the same way they were when they were alive.

Layer Two: Dis

Hey, they really important one for our story! Dis consists almost entirely of one massive city - the Iron City - and is ruled by Dispater. Dispater is a deal maker and a tradesman, assuming you’re willing to offer up your soul for trade. He dwells in the Iron Tower in the heart of the city and VM would do well to leave him alone, assuming they get the chance. The 5e book makes no mention of the Iron Tower that Matt said he lived in, but the 3.5e book does and in that book, Dispater is described as paranoid and he keeps track of every single creature that comes and goes from his city, constantly on the look out for traitors.

Since Dis is our most likely destination, I’ll go ahead and list three neat places mentioned in the 3.5e book that Matt may or may not utilize. Oh and as a note - since the entire city is made of iron and this is hell, the majority of it is painfully hot to the touch.

The Garden of Delights - a beautiful paradise run by efreeti magic users. The entire place is a complex illusion designed to lull visitors into gradually becoming more and more corrupt. Failing that, the garden will simply kill them over time since all the food and drink are illusory

Mentiri - a prison built not to contain evil but to contain good. Mentiri has two wings. The first wing, the Bastille of Flesh, houses living creatures of good or even neutral such as paladins and mercenaries who somehow found their way into the Hells. All of these creatures are notably alive and are kept so for a reason. The prison guards set the prisoners against each other in twisted situations until they eventually become Lawful Evil themselves and in doing so, become property of Dispater if they die on his realm. Once they become evil, they are executed and Dispater collects the souls. The other wing is the Bastille of Souls, containing the souls of individuals who weren’t Lawful Evil but somehow ended up in Baator anyway. Some were stolen from the rightful heavens they belonged to but many of them are the souls of mortals killed in Baator who were trapped there. By default, dying in Baator doesn’t automatically mean your soul goes to Mentiri, but if it does somehow end up there, you can’t be raised until your soul is freed from it.

God Street - an unsubtly named region of the Iron City which contains a number of lesser Lawful Evil gods or demigods. These gods aren’t especially powerful compared to major gods but it’s the sort of place you’d find somebody like Vesh if she were Lawful Evil (I don’t know that she is).

Layer Three: Minauros

A nasty ass bog with acid rain and sinking cities. Minauros is ruled by Mammon, an extremely gross Devil who is actually so greedy that he’s one of the only Devils who will trade for things other than souls. Minauros has two major cities, one of which is actually called Minauros and is gradually sinking into the muck, constantly building on top of itself to try to stay out of the bog. 

The second city, Jangling Hiter, has a different solution - it’s also known as the City of Chains and it’s called such because the city is actually suspended on spiked chains and is hanging from the underside of Dis. This is sort of inherently illogical and is one of those things that if you think too hard about, you’ll drive yourself mad. The residents of Jangling Hiter actually are aware of how illogical it is and asking how it works is a surefire way to mark yourself as a victim. And if you’re wondering how bad being a victim in Jangling Hiter is, you should know that the 3.5e book also refers to it as Torture City.

Layer Four: Phlegethos

Phlegethos resembles the more classic Christian hell - magma and smoke and ash and a fortress of obsidian called Abryimoch. Phlegethos is ruled by a father/daughter duo named Archduke Belial and Archduchess Fierna. The pair of them get along uhhhh rather better than you’d necessarily want a father and daughter to get along, if you catch my drift and yes that’s D&D canon motherfuckers, I didn’t make that incest up. That’s... sort of the only notable thing about Phlelgethos, honestly.

Layer Five: Stygia

Stygia is a vast ocean full of icebergs and thunderstorms. One of those icebergs is more important than all of the others because it contains the actual Lord of Stygia, Levistus. Levistus is very much trapped in ice and cannot move but he telepathically rules his realm through his various servants. Levistus was locked in the iceberg by Asmodeus and Levistus is furious about it, but there’s fuckall he can do about it and Asmodeus has graciously allowed him to continue to be the Lord of Stygia so he hasn’t pushed his luck on the matter.

Layer Six: Malboge

Malbolge used to be ruled by a hag, interestingly enough. Hags aren’t devils but she was so powerful, that Asmodeus allowed her to rule the plane. He has since deposed her and replaced her with his succubus daughter, Glasya. Malbolge is a never ending slope. There is not a single point of flat ground anywhere - like one huge mountain without much in the way of ledges to rest on. Avalanches are extremely common, as might be expected, and Glasya resides in a fortress built into the side of the mountain.

In 3.5e, when the Hag Countess was deposed, Asmodeus actually turned her into the layer itself. As in, the layer was made of flesh and bone and the forests were made of hair and the tunnels under the ground were made of her bowels. It was fucking disgusting but 5e seems to have retconned this and thank god for that.

Layer Seven: Maladomini

Sort of another shitpit wasteland like Minauros, except Maladomini didn’t always look like that. The Lord of Maladomini is Archduke Baalzebul who was cursed by Asmodeus to have the lower body of a slug as punishment for attempting to usurp him. Maladomini has suffered right along with its lord and the once beautiful city he reigned over is now known as the Palace of Filth for good reason. The entire place is a trash heap of rotten flesh, literal shit, and other various forms of nasty garbage.

Layer Eight: Cania

The only place you’re gonna find in Baator that’s colder than Stygia is Cania. There’s not a drop of liquid water to be found and the cold wind cuts like knives. The Lord of Cania is Mephistopheles and despite being Asmodeus’ greatest enemy and the most likely person to overthrow him, Mephistopheles enjoys a reasonably friendly relationship with Asmodeus and in fact is a sort of bizarre godfather to Glasya. Devils are fucking weird, ya’ll.

Layer Nine: Nessus

Nessus is... pretty small, actually. It’s mostly a cracked, empty landscape filled with deep dark pits and one massive rift known as the Serpent’s Coil which, depending on which apocryphal story you subscribe to, was created when Asmodeus was hurled out of the heavens and made impact on Baator. Whether it was or wasn’t, Asmodeus makes his home in the citadel of Malsheem which juts out of said rift. Asmodeus is the ultimate Lord of the Nine Hells and every single creature in Baator is subservient to him. Anybody finding themselves in Nessus for any reason has made a very big mistake.

Right so, that’s the Nine Hells. But this post isn’t quite over! See, I mentioned something at the beginning of this post which I haven’t explained yet - the Blood War. This is the name for the ancient war between Devils and Demons.

See Demons and Devils hate each other. Like, a whole lot. Devils and Demons have been fighting the Blood War for as long as the two have existed. It’s really important to understand that Demons and Devils are not interchangeable. Avernus is a war zone because of the Blood War and every single Lord of a given layer of Hell is required to send troops to fight in the Blood War.

Demons outnumber Devils by a massive factor and the only reason the Devils haven’t been wiped out yet is because Demons are inherently disorganized and don’t subscribe much to “tactics.”

The only reason I really care to bring up Demons at all when VM is going to the Nine Hells is because of a minor pet peeve of mine:

Orthax is a demon, not a devil. He is not in the Nine Hells, he is in the Abyss.

I’m aware that Matt changes things around a lot and that what’s canon in the sourcebooks isn’t necessarily canon in Matt’s world. But Orthax has only ever been referred to as a demon and Matt did confirm this week that demons and devils are eternal enemies. We are not going to run into Orthax in Dis. Orthax is not going to team up with Hotis. Orthax would, at best (worst?), team up with Yenk, the very confused Goristro.

Aaaaand that’s been your tour of the Nine Hells of Baator, complete with pit stop at the Blood War. I of course would never, ever argue that you must be accurate to D&D canon when making art or writing fic (Changeling after all has fuckall basis in the actual Feywild). Please don’t take this as me trying to dictate what people do or don’t create in terms of fanworks. I only made this post as a guide to people might be able to expect from Vox Machina’s upcoming journey to D&D Hell.

Here’s to hoping they all come back alive.