#NOT A MAN W THEM ….

[arcanegifs]

ARCANE LEAGUE OF LEGENDS: ↳ "So was I. I was angry, just like you. I led us across this bridge, thinking things could change. If I hadn't… your parents would still be alive. I know you wanna hurt the topsiders for what they've done to us. But who are you willing to lose? Mylo? Claggor? Powder? Nobody wins in war, Vi."

[sisaloofafump]

Half-mask Mask Bats

Alternate cropping:

[hinamie]

hina... have you ever drawn nanami & yuji. pls i need to see them. my reluctant mentor and ray of sunshine. maybe eating together after a mission

cleaned up this request doodle from a while ago <3

[decarabias]

forever thinking about royal’s bad ending. my thing with it is that maruki doesn’t necessarily give anyone what they want most, he gives them what’s most appropriate for them to want within a maruki-approved framework. iirc there’s a really interesting text sequence in the game where he just straight up changes someone’s career because they’re not “good” at it, regardless of whether that’s what they actually want. why struggle at all? ever? right?

and so ultimately i don’t think goro akechi’s greatest wish is necessarily ren. i think it’s a wish for sure, but his greatest wish is his own agency. despite any regrets he has and the fact that shido and yaldabaoth treated him like a pawn, he's generally pretty adamant about owning his choices and their consequences. he doesn't want that erased. and instead, you end up with pleasant boy™ if you take maruki’s deal. maybe maruki (incorrectly) thinks sanding off all of akechi’s rough edges will make him easier for ren to love. but the crux of it is really that maruki has to essentially lobotomize him to preserve the illusion of his perfect reality, because their ideologies are so diametrically opposed that akechi would spend every waking moment fighting back.

this isn’t to undermine ren’s importance to akechi btw — he explicitly acknowledges that he wishes they had met earlier, and there are countless moments throughout their confidant that underscore how much it means to him that they mirror each other so well. he absolutely does want more time with ren, just not under these circumstances.

and that’s also what makes ren’s choice on 2/2 doubly devastating. he knows that either way he loses akechi. and if he takes maruki’s deal, he loses him knowing that his last moments with the real akechi involved the two of them being unforgivably out of sync.

[transmechanicus]

I know some people have unfathomable beef with the term but i really don’t see the issue with transmascs describing their specific experiences with societal mistreatment and persecution as “transandrophobia”, like i think it’s good to be able to discuss specific experiences and articulate the problems you’re facing actually.

[lesbiamano]

FINEEE i'll draw your stupid greek mythology people

[rattlung]

again idk if this has been said before but i love the lucanis approval when you're going after zara and illario meets you half way. lucanis is trying to get him to fuck off but illario ignores him and addresses rook, flirts w them, tells them that they should let him give them a tour. and when they also tell him to fuck off cause their honey said so, lucanis likes it. he follows up with "this isn't your job, there's no one you can charm into dropping their guard". and idk it kind of reminds me of the comment lucanis makes during the coffee date cutscene where he says smth along the lines of "even before i was captured, most things were determined for me" and adding that w the implication of illario absolutely hating when attention isn't on him paired with his resentment toward lucanis for being their grandmother's favorite AND lucanis telling emmerich that he "doesn't have illario's gift for flirting" like idk i imagine illario poaching any person he sensed lucanis had even a passing interest in just cause he's a spiteful mf

so here "there's no one you can charm" = "this one is mine, they won't fall for it"

i just think the mutual possessiveness is neat :)

[ruushes]

not dead not alive but a secret third thing

[sushiisiu]

bike + doodles

[obsob]

one thing u can count on me for is being normal about Some Guy

process under cut where u can see me losing my mind trying 2 figure out what i was doing in real time! :3

[renonv]

Here comes the Sun himself ☀️

glassless versión

[opikiquu]

my life a movie (PSYCHOLOGICAL HORROR)

[hinamie]

summer is coming so i'm giving them the beach day they deserve

[tubbytarchia]

I don't know what this is all I know is that LimL Joel makes me really emotional

[blorbologist]

Y'know, I think I figured out why the Hells still feel like a new low-level party to me, even though they're level 13 and almost 100 episodes in.

I don't quite think it's the lack of conversations, or the fact half the party's plot hooks are big ties to past campaigns - though that definitely plays a part.

... Bell's Hells still primarily rely on quest givers.

Most of their goals are given to them and do not feel organic to the party, and constantly remind us that the Hells are pretty much never the most powerful people in the room. Which is usually something you see with a low-level party.

NPCs offering jobs is not a bad thing; it's a very common plot hook. Matt has been extremely skilled with using NPC quest givers in those two campaigns. Not only do they provide an obvious plot thread, but they can put the party in the path of others (say, the Nein running into the Iron Shepherds while doing a job for the Gentleman and everything that came of that). And the Hells had a solid start with it too - Eshteross was an excellent quest giver!

The problem is that Bell's Hells have never really not had a quest giver.

Maybe it's a byproduct of the more plot-heavy structure of this campaign? But while prior parties have felt like they decided on their course of action and what they prioritized, Bell's Hells feels less like level 13 (13! Level 13!) experienced adventurers and more like an MMO group clicking on the exclamation point over an NPC's head. Where does the plot demand we go next? Who do we report back to?

They're level 13.

At level 13, Vox Machina had just defeated a necromantic city-state to clear their name and Percy's conscience. And, you know, the Conclave just destroyed Emon. No one was explicitly telling the group to gather Vestiges and save the world (though Matt guided them there), and they were usually among the most powerful people in the room. They chose which Vestiges to prioritize, which dragons to tackle when, even if the over-all plot was pretty clear.

At level 13, the Mighty Nein were celebrating Traveler Con (another PC goal, I'll note) after brokering peace between two nations, accidentally becoming pirates and heroes of the Dynasty. The Nein regularly chose what to do based on personal goals, not grand ones. Though definitely smaller fish than Vox Machina at this level, they were very independent and gaining solid political clout.

While we're at it: level 13 is one level lower than the Ring of Brass, who had a huge amount of sway over Avalir. They ended the world, and also saved it, while in the grand scheme of things being only a smidge more powerful than Bell's Hells are now.

Can you really see the Hells wielding that amount of influence, when they're constantly being told what to do next?

The god-eater might be unleashed, so Bell's Hells have no time to do anything but what is asked of them. No time for therapy unless stolen from Feywild time, no travel on foot and late-night watches. They haven't even had time to grieve FCG. Percy was grieved in the middle of the Conclave arc. Molly was grieved when half the party was still in irons.

Matt is in the very unfortunate spot of not being able to give the Hells the same agency as the other two parties. Not only because of the world-ending plot introduced so early on; they are surrounded by characters they know (and the cast knows) are stronger and wiser than them - the familiarity of the past PCs and NPCs is to their disadvantage.

Why would the party reasonably ignore Keyleth's task that will help save the world and go off on a romp? Why would the cast when they know well Keyleth has to be sensible and with the best intentions in mind? The stakes are just too high.

It means that the Hells still feel like they're running errands instead of pursuing their own destiny. Their accomplishments are diminished as just being parts of a to-do list, and any stakes feel padded by several level 20 PCs/NPCs standing 5 steps away ready to catch them.

This isn't Bell's Hell's fault, nor is it Matt's. It could be amended, I think, if the Hells are really left to their own devices for a long period of time without support and shortcuts (like during the party split)... which would be really tricky to pull off at this point in the campaign.

They're level 13. They're big fish, but they're stuck in a pond full of friendly sharks, so they don't feel big at all.

[fuupan]

drew these for heart pirates day and uhhhh ep1115