#RQ meta

[arabella-strange]

people in the chat are disputing who Tal's character is, but I do [as of !break] think he is the Wildmother: who has better reason to hate the hubris of wizards who despise and murdered the ashari? And who has better reason to want to bring Aeor crashing back to earth, for their defiance of "nature"? She's the WILD mother, her alignment is not "good" -- it is True Neutral.

[sparring-spirals]

Hey the dynamic between the human Raven Queen and her guardian is. buck wild. And fascinating actually. Because I'm not sure Purvaan. Knows. What he is missing. (That his charge is a god???). But I think he understands it, on a deep, fundamental level. And he remains a devout champion regardless. He has dedicated his life without regret, to protect her. It was the honor of his life, even as the world crumbles. He protected her and taught her as she grew up, is confident enough in her capabilities to choose to step away. He isn't sure that he succeeded- he can still sense something missing, something she is searching for that he could never help her find.

He has devoted his life to her, and that is why he steps away- because he can recognize when he becomes a liability instead of a guardian.

It was the honor of his life, to protect her, he says. He thinks he's failed, in some fundamental way. He asks- before, I leave you. My only question. was there anything else I could have done?

He think he failed his mission, in some way. It was, still, the honor of his life. His finite, mortal life, in a world seemingly abandoned by the gods. You have to decide how to spend your life. You have to decide how to spend your death. He failed. It was an honor.

[quinn-pop]

mtdd week day 3 - gifts

the sentimental type

[teacup-gathering-itself]

Proud supporter of the head canon that Oliver Quidditch-for-brains Wood noticed the recurring pattern that many of the best players he’d ever seen were gay and decided that, post-retirement (or hell even as a side project), he would pursue a Potions and Charms Double Mastery to fix their fertility problem.

Because he saw Harry James Potter, the best Seeker in a century, absolutely obsessed with Draco Lucius Malfoy, a damn good Seeker and an even better Chaser, and wow all those fantastic Quidditch genes are just not even getting passed on. How absolutely unforgivable. That has to stop, and it has to stop now.

Anyways “Oliver Accidentally Gay Wizarding Pioneer and Icon Wood” that single-handedly fixed the massive fertility problem for all wixen just so his favorite gay Quidditch players could make Quidditch prodigy babies.

[ludinusdaleth]

i dont know how to put this one into words properly but something about the way relvin is imogen's actual blood father, but due to liliana (& relvin)'s physical and/or emotional absence, ludinus has taken the actual role of shaping imogen like a father would, as the shadow looming over her. the way imogen is liliana's spitting image but has traded her cowgirls clothes from gelvaan for archmage robes so like ludinus's. she even uses his old staff at times. both bear the burden of leadership from their party even as they insist they're on equal grounds. both seem to believe they need someone to be their tether, as that someone is drowning in their own powers. both, frankly, understand what needs to be sacrificed more than liliana.

liliana wants to come home to her simple life, an untouched relvin & imogen. but imogen is far from the sum of her & relvin's parts. as she marches to war, she has become the sum of her & ludinus's parts. due to her own mother she is not the farmer side of liliana, but her warlord one. and i dont think liliana's mind could bear to take that in.

[proship-cuties]

Can u make a Metakirby (Metaknight x Kirby) Stimboard :0?

Metakirby Stimboard !

x x x / x x / x x x

[they-bite]

forever thinking ab how revealing kindred spirits is for vlad’s character

[gravesung-moving]

some very ugly unformatted thoughts on suguru and curses. brought on by isaac castlevania amvs kahdajhddh (he’s such a big touchstone for my suguru portrayal though honestly)

can sense the presence of curses — within reason, obviously, but there’s a slight enhancement to his awareness of curses around him because of his strong connection to them. 

when suguru connects with a curse – established the link that allows him to absorb it, either automatically for weaker curses or by combat for stronger ones — he gets a sense of what kind of curse it is. What type of negativity created it. 

When he actually absorbs it, those emotions get absorbed into him as well; it is a horribly intimate intertwining of metaphysical selves. The stronger the spirit, the stronger the force of its emotions upon his. 

I think he could, theoretically, establish an emotional connection/tether WITHOUT consuming the curse, but it would have to be a very sentient cutse because of the mutual-agreement aspect of it. (ie @spungolden ‘s blake!)

But this connection also goes the other way. Curses sense him just as he senses them; there is a draw, a pull toward him, somewhat like a “queen bee” vibe (i’m pulling on ancient magus bride here for this headcanon, because i think it does that very well); cursed spirits feel an impulse to be close to him and devote themselves to him. it’s not as high of a priority as Inflicting their Curse Shit though, so most will ignore it unless suguru himself commands them. it’s also weaker in higher-grade spirits i feel

Once he absorbs the cursed spirit, he has that empathic connection i mentioned before, where its rancid vibes kind of mix into his soul. Suguru has to fight very, very hard to keep his and the curses’ feelings separate, and he hasn’t always been able to do so in the past. It’s an overwhelming feeling. Coupled with the horrible taste of a curse when swallowing it, it’s sort of just the worst fucking thing ever to feel, and he has to feel it day in and day out, feeling the human in him rebel against the onslaught while the sorcerer intakes it hungrily. 

So a curse has been put in the pokeball. What next?

No canon proof of this, but I feel like they don’t lose their sentience (or the echoes of it, for weaker curses) when he is tethered to them. 

Channeling Isaac and his night creatures from Castlevania for vibes here. 

??????

they’re dark pokemon that’s all i’ve got. sometimes they can rebel but he’s pretty good at not letting them do that

[illusion-reality-steve]

Here me out here: RQ predictions au, where your and a bunch of other peoples RQ Predictions were actually a part of the canon while still including all the rq characters

I know some predictions were about which TSS characters would appear in RQ so LET’S GO. RQ PREDICTIONS AU TO MANIFEST PLAGUE, MEMORY, AND ILLUSION INTO AN RQ AU. LET’S GOOOOOO. I don’t remember 80% of my RQ predictions tbh. The only one I remember the most is my debunked theory of Orange!Rainbow being the last Hero and the semi-true theory of Steves learning they can’t rely solely on the Hero.

[essayofthoughts]

#vox machina's story is that much stronger for vax having permanently died for several reasons#but one of them being that if vax hadn't died there isn't really anything narratively for him to DO.#vex and percy raise a family and lead a city. keyleth leads her people. grog learns to read. scanlan and pike get married and then divorce#and scanlan runs a mercantile enterprise while pike rebuilds a wholeass religion while running a bakery#even tary's leading a non-profit adventuring brigade and getting married#what is vax's 'happy ending'. i will be soft with keyleth and love my sister forever :) like great. anyway#vax was someone who yearned for purpose and he became a celestial champion. that's an actual STORY#critical role#cr meta tags from @burr-ell

But exactly this - if you don't like Vax's choice, that's fine, you're entitled to your feelings, but it was still a choice that player and character made, and which gave both purpose and joy. To tell someone they can't make a choice that brings them those things because you don't like it - I mean that's TERF shit baby! That's "your choices make ME unhappy therefore you shouldn't be allowed to make them". It's shitty!

Yeah, Vax's ending is sad, but Vax's ending also gave the character purpose and is something Liam has said repeatedly he is happy with and at peace with. The Raven Queen didn't force shit - simply enforced the rules of her literal godly nature and was very open with Vax what those rules were.

People make their own choices. To try to deny that because you don't like it, or because you think there's external factors - I mean maybe there is, we live under capitalism for example, but we still make choices. To take that way from people is to deny them agency. To take it away from characters is to make them boring.

i truly am baffled by some of the cr fandom when it comes to the topic of the gods and c1 and death in general because. the raven queen didn’t kill vax. in fact she gave him more time. she Does get the blame from keyleth and some from vex but even those two by the end were more so just holding grudges wrapped up in their own issues that were exacerbated by vax’s choices. but it was always vax’s choice. which, y’know, i’m aware of a portion of the cr fandom’s propensity for dismantling every interesting choice a character makes into something forced upon them, but the role of fate in exandria has never been like bad faith you must adhere to the path chosen for you, it’s much more like what brennan has spoken about wrt specificity: as one makes more choices they become more particular to a given outcome. but that’s not some curse by the gods that dooms characters that’s literally just. what living is.

and of course death is a complicated thing that everyone approaches differently but. god the amount of people who view vax’s dynamic with the raven queen as an injustice or his death as some unforgivable thing the raven queen caused some how? in the words of laura bailey, Were We Watching The Same Orb? it isn’t an injustice that vax, completely willing to pay whatever it cost him to save his sister, was bound to the Deal He Agreed To. his role as the champion was one he found meaning and purpose in. further, it was the raven queen that allowed him to be resurrected later in the campaign. like, it isn’t fair that vax had so little time but it is time he chose and time he was given, but vox machina tends to fall on the reaping the benefits side of unfairness of power in exandria. if what makes the gods — particularly the matron of ravens — irredeemable is that they have the power to make choices that mortals can’t like denying someone’s resurrection, how irredeemable must the group of heroes called vox machina (whose members drop like flies to be revived moments later) be to the everyday person who just has to watch the people they love die and make peace with it?

of course it sucks that vax could not have a happy ending or epilogue like the rest of vm, except of course, vex has a family and is happy and loved, and keyleth is strong and alive and protected, and i think that looks a lot like what vax wanted most.

[sparring-spirals]

im thinking about bor'dor, towards the end of that brief and bloody battle, going "just do it", "take me out of my misery" "just turn into a giant spider while you do so?" and its like. its like tragically funny but also so. so fucking sad.

because its essentially about bor'dor exhausted and injured and knowing he wont live, going "do it", wishing for a quick end, surrounded by people who liked him and will now kill him because he betrayed them (they betrayed HIM- before he could know how much he'd like them). its about the resigned exhaustion of- what else do i have to lose?

Except I think about the devastated way Bor'dor talked about the loss of his mother, of his friends in the Ruby Vanguard, and the grief and the fear and the anger, and I don't think it's the first time he's thought that. Bor'dor joining the Ruby Vanguard at all, fighting a vendetta against the gods, is not someone who thinks they have lots of options. You don't generally agree to plans that could devastate the existing world unless you feel like you have more to lose than gain. Bor'dor, his magic a curse, his loved ones lost, the world cold and cruel and painful, being spun a tale of a world without gods, of a fight and a battle and a purpose, even if there are casualties, losses along the way.

Bor'dor, full of grief and rage, having lived a hard fucking life, being promised a solution, a world without gods, maybe thinking: what do i have to lose? they've never done anything for me. Then, he's watching a plan go awry, watching friends and comrades he'd made and bonded with fall to a bunch of- nobodies, cutting through them like it's nothing, remembering he does have things to lose. Bor'dor, knowing that the plan went wrong and his friends bodies are lifeless somewhere far away from where he is, lying furiously and ridiculously about being a shepherd and unknown magic to the suspicious faces of a bunch of killers. Probably thinking. what do I have to lose?

Except he eats with these people, he trades watches with them, he fights with them, he heals them, he shares a pipe and they share hopes and fears and pasts, and-

and he's standing as they all recoil from acid, everything falling apart, and. maybe he did have something to lose, after all.

[ludinusdaleth]

the thing about c3s plot "coming out of nowhere" is if you look in my friends twitter accounts far enough, we realized a second calamity about the gods morality & mortality probably led by ludinus would happen, before the m9 even went to travelercon. and i know before i had joined their discussion theyd pieced some together long before me. there were enough plot threads to hint, it was just about loose interpretation at the time.

[thefirstimagifabricator]

I just saw this while scrolling through the end and just. the third tag. it got me thinking

just. y’know how so many fandoms are like. basically people are often told “you can enjoy the media and not engage in the fandom”—which i guess is something that could apply to orv but. it doesn’t feel like it. should?? to me—

just that. if wos was a story for that one reader, orv is a story for yes, that one still, but also all readers I think? and wos helped kdj survive in his loneliness but orv brings us all together and begs us to love each other and not just survive but live and like. be happier and kinder and gentler towards ourselves because kdj wouldn’t allow himself to be and we all wish he would and like. we’re all him?? so be kind to ourselves and those kdj fragments within us, to self-reflect and give ourselves the love and grace he couldn’t give himself then, and hope that maybe somewhere out there the original Kim Dokja can finally do the same—and basically we’re meant to find each other ig and continues the story on our own in our own ways but also together and that’s so fucking beautiful idk—

and shit i think this was coherent-ish at some point but I highly doubt it is anymore lmao but um. here are some orv thoughts—

thank you @localapparently for the tags that spurred this ramble lol—orv means a lot to me too jdhsnkfs

hi! orvies, i'd like to do something small.

in here, could you write something about orv? it could be your experience with orv, a quote, a message to a character, or something you'd want other readers to see. i'd like to collect a little piece of everyone

[azurem]

Tis one was also a request from the instagram im afraid. Hm. Okay quick yapping under cut

Okay so this rq was based on the idea of nm asking ink to marry him. However I believe the idea of marriage for Ink at least is a bit more complicated specially since marrying Nightmare means rebuilding his role

Like he'd only been fooling around with nm. At this point, their relationship has been centered around usefulness. They both use each other at a degree, and that was fine for both of them. They use each other to receive affection and to give it freely. They've been well and good. They could stay like that forever and that'd be fine.

But Nightmare still asked him to marry him. So it takes another tone. The main thing that confuses Ink is... reasons. He lives in a world where entropy doesn't exist. Creators make everything happen, there's no chaos. So everything has a reason to be. They know Nightmare likes him, they know his secrets and he knows theirs as well. But why would Nightmare make a point of marrying him when they were already a solid thing.

Was it a way to send a message? Does he want to make sure their things remain private? Is it to demonstrate love, a higher love? Maybe this was his way of tying Ink to him, to make sure that time would erode all his edges?

The idea of marrying and his role after also is complex for him because Ink is the one who'd get subjected to more change. Nm already has a solid antagonistic role while Ink goes with the flow. To be known as his husband would mean that his meta role (what the creators see when they look at him) would change. He'd have a solid bias and the role to prove it. He'd be more character than a concept for once and for all.

It's scary. Nightmare scares him because he radicalizes him. He cannot remain neutral as long as their thing remains a thing. Nightmare makes them a character and grounds them to the multiverse as a solid, warm thing and not just as an ideal they must protect.

So why did they say yes?

[gorboble]

So, Meta Flowey. Encore Flowey. whatever you wanna call it. I wanna discuss it rq

I believe I have a pretty solid explanation for the specimens (intentional by the devs or not,) and I've come to one conclusion: They're based on childhood fears. Let me explain each one.

Clay

This one is a bit obvious, at least to me. I think it's based on how kids will see claymation and get scared of it, you know? Like Mabel in that one episode of Gravity Falls. Might have something to do with Uncanny Valley.

Polygonal

Another obvious one. This is based on late 90's games when 3d was becoming a thing. The kind that is mostly good fun until one moment when the scariest enemy known to man comes out and has you quit the game for 6 months. Like Majora's Mask! Every kid was scared of that game, weren't they?

Patchwork

Creepy dolls, and such. Maybe just the slight discomfort you feel when you go into a room in grandma's house, the one where she sews blankets and toys. I always had a slightly unnerving feeling when it came to stuff like that. This one might be a little more personal, but it's valid.

Now, these next ones weren't so obvious. I had to do a little reaching for them.

Mechanical

It just wasn't quite obvious to me at first. This one is based on how heavy machinery may scare children and make them nervous. It's unknown and foreign to them. They don't know anything about it, but they have a feeling that they'll get hurt if they aren't careful with it (and they're right! machinery will kill you if you're not careful!)

Also guns. Guns can be scary to kids. I hope.

Organic

Now, I would say this one is the fear of doctor visits. But... it's gotta be more than that. You hear the beeping and see blood cells and such. You probably won't see that at a check-up. I think it's a bit deeper than that.

I think this is the fear of going to hospitals in general. A bit more serious than the doctor's office. It could be for a serious, painful disease the child has contracted, or... it could be visiting a loved one while they're in medical care, maybe after a horrible accident, or a terminal illness. The song supports this sort of dread regarding the inevitable loss of family. And the beeping at the end... yeah. This one is pretty grim.

Paper

specimen paper was the hardest phase to think about. Mostly because... who the hell out there is afraid of paper? I know there's a phobia for it, but it's rare.

So, I looked further into it. Paper airplanes and paper balls are flying around as attacks. And in the music? Laughter and talking.

I think this is bullying. It doesn't play into the... paper flowey, but I couldn't find any other fitting explanation. At least for this theory. Because, again, paper isn't exactly a common childhood fear that people have. Neither is bullying... but it's a huge issue in schools and is a lot more scarring than something you might find scary as a 6-year-old.

Also, note how Flowey doesn't move in this phase. Along with the organic phase. They feel really empty compared to the others, in a good way. It paints the picture of darker memories than just a scary enemy you encountered in SM64. It could also bring up some questions about Clover's past..

remember this post was entirely theoretical and probably not intended by the devs. i just wanted to write this lol. anyways i think im done. i wanted to make this post for a while now but i just now got to it at like midnight on a Friday ok byeeeee

[dundykelevesconte]

i just want to say rq i am endlessly overjoyed by the amount of people who have been dming me and interacting with me and talking to me whether it’s about meta or concepts or just sharing posts with me…… really grateful for the friendships i’ve been making lately i just want to put that out there. i want to talk to each and every one of you so if anyone ever wants to message me or would like my discord or anything just ask i’m happy to give it out :D love my mutuals … just want everyone to know that