#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

[blazingstar24]

The fact that the Raven Queen has tied the act of killing a god to being able to kill the ones you love makes me insane in terms of why no one can ascend like she did.

For one, it’s almost ironic that the god Vespin chose to try and usurp was Asmodeus. The one god who appears as the person you find most beautiful/love. Of course, Vespin fails because the RQ made it so no one can recreate the rites but now there’s this other layer of did Vespin falter? Was he unable to even try to do it because he lacked the conviction the RQ had?

It’s certainly interesting that when Vespin calls out the similarities between him and Imogen is when Imogen balks at killing Liliana.

[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.

[animusbell]

i love how it becomes increasingly apparent that there is no other gem that could've made steven quartz universe

you think, at the start, okay. this is an unusual thing, an unheard of thing, for a gem to have a child (transform into part of the material to create a child, give their gem to a child). but all gems can shapeshift, and can reform their bodies with different looks.

but... just looks. amethyst can't change the amount of mass she has, and changing how it's distributed causes issues. holding shapeshifted forms takes energy. for a gem to permanently change forms, and in fact, infuse their form with a growing and changing body in spite of the perfectly static nature of gem physiology... that's absolutely wild.

but hey, could be a rose quartz thing, right? after all, we haven't seen another rose quartz yet, and also, not everyone can shapeshift equally! era 2 gems can't shapeshift. ...gems made without pink diamond's essence can't shapeshift.

so shapeshifting is what pink diamond contributes to the pool; she's almost certainly the only diamond capable of doing so. (no wonder her legacy transformed her family.)

and hey, would you look at that: pink diamond held a shapeshifted form for extended periods with no visible difficulty. pink diamond reformed into a new shape, with entirely different mass and proportions and even gem orientation.

pink diamond was seen on a jungle planet and seen cracking her pearl, but she was never known to control plants or heal gems. her abilities were new with the transformation into rose quartz. and unique abilities came with steven's arrival, too.

no other gem could allow for so much change to their form that they could become part of a whole new person, without ever turning back.

no other gem could've made steven quartz universe.

[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.

[telesodalite]

Sort of a ramble, sort of me just writing my thoughts out while I'm stuck with writer's block, but I keep thinking about how Fulcrum was in stasis for roughly 3 million years??

Like, that's a long time, even for Cybertronians. Not a really long time, not an entire lifespan. But still, it's a large chunk of a normal lifespan just gone. Poof.

One second you're crawling across the pockmarked terrain of an alien planet, surrounded by the sound of gunfire, and the shouting and screaming before and after each earth shuddering impact of another k-con hitting the ground. And then it's quiet. You're not there anymore. You're drifting somewhere between not alive and just asleep. Preserved somewhere in the background of a doomed body, ignored by time and space, still here, but also not.

And then there's sound. Not gunfire. Not shouting or screaming. Not the sounds that'll haunt you till your dying days, your own death sentence pounding in your head. No. Just voices, talking, standing out against a silent, dead world. Wondering. Joking. Bickering. Familiar. Just, not familiar to you. And you're awake. Pulled back from the nothingness you've been frozen in, consciousness tugged forwards with the yank of a fuel pump and the nearness of life.

These two moments are roughly 3 million years apart, but only minutes, maybe even seconds, to him. From a hectic harrowing battlefield, to an old silent graveyard in one blink.

How long did it take to really sink in? I mean, he seems to just roll with it. He doesn't seem particularly bothered. But like, what happened outside of what we see? How did he really feel?

Also, his body aged without him. While his mind preserved itself, freezing him as he was right then, his body was left to weather Clemency for all those years. No wonder it crumbled to dust when he jumped off the world sweeper. It's probably a miracle of some kind that it didn't just fall apart each time someone leaned on him.

And even after they rebuild him, give him a better, newer body. His spark, it's casing, all the irreplaceable core bits that make up their inner bodies, it aged in the time without him. Does he feel it? Does it make his body even more foreign to him?

Then he's also a technician with information that's 3 million years out of date. Lucky him that the scavengers probably weren't working with top of the line material. But still it's gotta be weird when faced with anything brand new, because a lot can change and progress in 3 million years, and now some of the knowledge he once prided himself in is obsolete.

Besides those things, his view of the galaxy, of the war, of their kind, of other kinds, is one of the few things actually pointed out when it comes to him being stuck in the past. So, how often were his old views challenged? Facts of life he held close proved to no longer true? There's 3 million years worth of new science, new beliefs, new words, new terms, new views.

And sure, some of it can be familiar, because they're an ever evolving kind, and they have patterns, core beliefs, repeating behaviors, but a lot of it's gonna be unfamiliar at the same time, because it's 3 million years worth of catch up, it's not like missing last week's trend.

In a way, it makes him a living relic of a bygone era for Decepticons. It would've been really interesting to have had that explored a little more.

[proship-cuties]

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

Metakirby Stimboard !

x x x / x x / x x x

[gravesung]

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

[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.

[sasukeprime]

,

[blazingstar24]

The story of Death and the Matron parallels so hard with Ludinus’ and Liliana’s story that it’s making me feral.

Because tell me this isn’t the same: A mortal woman comes to this man of greater stature than her seeking to gain knowledge of the world and this mentor relationship grew into something more closer, something that even the RQ can’t exactly define as a relationship but she knows that she loved him. And then Death asks her to take on this burden for him, a duty that will make her eternal and powerful but also so very alone and even possibly kill her. But it would give him peace.

Is that not Ludinus and Liliana? Except it is Lud the one who defines it as love. The fact that the RQ says becoming the vessel is on par with her rite of Ascension? That Ludinus is Death asking Liliana to give up her mortal life to give him peace and her the thing she sought him out for (RQ- knowledge, Liliana-freedom from Ruidus’ call)

But the key difference is Ludinus lacks the conviction that the RQ had. He cannot bring himself to ask Liliana. Do I think he won’t do it eventually? No. But it’s so clear that he’s stalling. Why is he sending in lesser exultants? Why stall and have Liliana be on a side broadcasting quest? She’s the most powerful exultant there, by Ludinus’s own admission. And yet, he has yet to let her try, like he has all the other exultants.

Because let’s be real, Ludinus cares about her. It’s evident in the way he speaks of her, favors her, is very careful not to harm her daughter. He loves her in some form. Not a healthy kind of love but love nonetheless. And so very ironically, Ludinus, the elf who chose to use love against the world? The one who bet on the fact that yeah most people do not have the conviction to let their loved ones die for a goal or greater purpose? Turns out that despite all the people he’s sacrificed, all that conviction he thought he had fell away too when confronted with it himself. He is stalling for time as the moment where he has to ask Liliana to be the vessel is drawing near.

The way the RQ has tied the act of being able to kill a god with being able to kill/sacrifice the ones you love is crucial to her test. And it’s funny in a way. The fact that Ludinus was so ready to use love to break the world and yet it is that same thing that is giving the BH a chance to save it.

[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.

[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.