#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.

[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.

[blazingstar24]

And the thing is that it was not a mercy to save Hallis. His mother is dead, used a toy that the Primes and Betrayers fought over. His home, the rest of his family is dead and gone. He literally was just in a hospital wasting away before being healed and is now in some foreign land, no money, no identification, nothing but the clothes on his back.

It is not a mercy to realize in the wake of nuking a city that oh yeah you are killing children and save only one because his mother was useful to you. And it’s ironic that the power to blow up Aeor came from a sacrifice of a child. (Though that also points to Erathis knowing the costs, to make the scales equal, giving her child up because they are sacrificing all these innocents)

And in the wake of all this, the one who loses the most is this child from Aeor. How long do we think Hallis lasted, in an age of war and strife? And if he did, was it any good? A child, sickly and alone, family dead. What kind of life did this supposed kindness give him? The Calamity lasts for another century after the fall of Aeor. Is it a mercy to be the sole survivor of a city that the gods who saved you will make sure to never tell the tale of your mother’s sacrifice? Is it mercy to be the sole survivor of a city that will be scorned, rightfully for its evils, but never once thinking about all the people on there who tried to do good, who were just living day to day? To be a survivor who will want to speak of the doctors who risked their lives everyday to try to heal him in secret but will be met with words like “Aeor deserved what it got”.

Was saving him a kindness or something to appease their guilt?

[the-magpie-archives]

Cassette tapes are such a painfully beautiful display of human life, both in form and in metaphor. To make matters worse, they seem to have a tendancy to outlive their owners.

One of the first tapes I ever owned was a collection of love songs from 50's films. It was delicate, clearly well used, and old. I adored it. It was only when the tape snapped after very light use that it dawned on me.

That tape belonged to someone, and they heard it, it had significance, it had meaning. Maybe they'd danced to it with a lover, maybe they played it at picnics like I did. Or maybe they sat by themself in their room playing it, and yearning for something they couldn't have.

That was a prerecorded tape of songs and it meant so much, but self recorded cassettes? They're a whole different thing. The very sound waves we communicate with, captured in a physical object. A surviving piece of a soul, one might say.

You could argue that any form of recording is the same, but there's something about the cassette tape that CD and audio files don't have. Something otherworldly, easier to hold, to quantify, to relate to.

Hearing your own voice on tape is strange. However uncomfortable hearing your voice recorded digitally makes you feel, I'm certain you'd feel different with if it was played on tape . And to hear the voice of someone else? A friend, a stranger, anyone trying to communicate? It's oddly haunting.

Many of these personal tapes put me in mind of The Cave Of Hands; it's us reaching out, saying 'I was here', leaving a physical reminder, but one so dependant on tape players existing on into the future. It's a foolish, sentimental, self centered act, and it's so filled with humanity, honest desperation.

Nobody wants to become another mystery.

[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]

,

[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.

[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

[utilitycaster]

Hi there, I saw in one of your tags recently that "if you think the raven queen was being unfair, I'm not really interested in your opinions." I was wondering if you could talk a little more about that because I'll be honest, Vax isn't my favorite character but I've seen all of C1 and I really don't get why some people HATE the RQ, call her unfair, manipulative and pretty plainly say this moon conflict is mostly her fault because she took Vax and through a Domino effect Ludinus is releasing Predathos. Also, I enjoy your theories and analysis for CR so much you got me listening to Midst, so thank you.

Hi anon,

Great question! This is going to be a very long post, with a relatively short initial answer, because there is both the literal misinterpretation that indicates this is not someone with strong analytical skills nor knowledge of canon, and a number of potential mindsets that lead to this manner of thinking in the first place, none of which I respect. You happen to have sort of hit upon the foundational elements of my whole deal re: CR meta, so, buckle in.

The first part is simple: Vex died because Percy triggered a trap before she'd been healed up. We've seen this sort of trap elsewhere in non-divine contexts (Folding Halls of Halas); it's just a form of trap. A particularly nasty one, but this is for a very powerful relic she doesn't want falling into the wrong hands, and, moreover, the party could have likely disabled it either through rogue skills or magic had Percy waited. Vax, then, as the third part of the resurrection ritual, told the Raven Queen to take him instead of Vex. The Raven Queen did precisely as he asked. He did not need to offer this (Scanlan was going to make an offering, the other parts of the ritual had gone well, it was Vex's first death so the DC was low, and Vax could have made any number of other, less dramatic offers), and he did so with the understanding that he would die in lieu of Vex, right then and there. He did not. I think that's the only case, actually, where the Raven Queen was not 100% upfront with her intentions before Vax accepted something; but he offered it voluntarily. Vax was a person who formed extremely intense connections, to the point where it was perhaps unhealthy, and did not believe life without his sister was worth living, and was willing to sacrifice himself to a god.

Everything after that was extremely straightforward. Vax communed with the Raven Queen, who spoke very directly with him in his vision in the Raven's Crest. She was extremely clear when she met with him following his disintegration: he was given the option to refuse her offer, and he took it instead. It is not manipulative to give someone a difficult decision, and if a character you like makes a choice you don't like, it is not automatically the result of manipulation.

As for the moon conflict being her fault…that is, to put it bluntly, unhinged, and what's more, ironic given that that's the manipulative argument. Ludinus tried to commune with Ruidus using a random crystalline artifact beneath Molaesmyr, centuries before Vax was born. He was going to do this regardless. If he couldn't get Vax, he'd get some other sliver of divinity, and what's more, it's been all but stated that Vax is not actually supposed to be leaving the Shadowfell to protect Keyleth, and is disobeying the Raven Queen directly (and it's been stated that this isn't necessarily helpful for Keyleth, who is trying to grieve and move on). So: Vax made his choices with the knowledge of what they entailed, is trying to bend if not break the conditions to which he agreed with full knowledge in a way that probably isn't healthy for him or Keyleth, and it's bananas to be like "wow look at how the Raven Queen made Ludinus try to free Predathos." Like. Even if she had tricked Vax, which she didn't, Ludinus literally could have just kept on his racist imperialistic longevitymaxxing beat indefinitely and left the moon well enough alone. The domino meme is a meme. I mean, while we're at it, couldn't we trace it back to Vecna instead, for killing Vax with Disintegrate in the first place, since had he not done so, Vax would have either survived that fight or would have been resurrected normally? Or perhaps it's Percy for triggering that trap. Or the Chroma Conclave for being the reason why Vox Machina was seeking the Deathwalker's Ward in the first place…but that only happened because Allura and Kima didn't kill Thordak but rather sealed him, and because a priestess of Melora cursed Raishan so that she had reason to ally with Thordak. We can go on indefinitely; the point is, to assign blame specifically to the Raven Queen when Ludinus literally did not have to do a goddamn thing with the moon is a fucking stupid take.

Below the cut, I talk root causes behind why people might decide the Raven Queen was unfair and come up with the above nonsensical argument to support that, since I don't think people say stupid things just to be stupid.

I think one root cause for this mentality of this is that the person in question wishes Vax hadn't died and is looking for someone to blame because they don't want to blame Matt Mercer and Liam O'Brien, even though yeah, that's who to blame. The thing is, as we learned in Campaign 2, character death is quite literally on the table. Had Vax not made his bargain, either in episode 1x103 or his original one during Vex's resurrection? He might have simply remained dead. Had he not given his life for Vex's, he was pursuing paladin anyway with the Everlight, and we don't know what she'd have required of him. But more importantly, for all people like to bring up a PC-centric perspective (which, in Actual Play, is inevitable) Vox Machina's frequent use of resurrection spells was in fact a massive privilege most people in Exandria do not have. And, unsurprisingly for a table whose DM made up rules specifically to make resurrection more difficult, the Critical Role cast is open to a story where death exists. I do not think it's an accident that resurrection has been made even harder in the subsequent campaigns. I also happen to think that Campaign 1 is a far richer and better story with Vax's death, given the other events that occurred. Had Vax not been the sort of person who would offer his life for a god to take in exchange for his sister? Sure, he'd possibly have lived to the end. But he was, and that's the character those people who wish he were still alive loved. If he wasn't that person, they wouldn't have liked him in the same way.

D&D is fundamentally about exceptional characters becoming more powerful, and will be focused on those characters. I do not think D&D supports a story about characters who reject all power. They can give up political power (the Mighty Nein, for the most part, do this - certainly more so than Vox Machina, and Bells Hells is yet to be seen) but they will progress in levels, which is power. Even if unwanted, it is power, because most people in the world are commoners with 5 HP and 10 in all their stats. With that said, a lot of people desperately want a subversion of this power narrative. Vax is, I think, the closest we get. In D&D you are not going to get a player character who finishes a campaign and remains Just Some Guy. But you can have someone like Vax, who doesn't have any interest in power (compare to Vex, who very much is about power and who gets a much happier ending) who nonetheless ends up on the Tal'Dorei Council and the favored of a god…and yet, in the end, his equally powerful friends still can do nothing to save him. I think a Power Bad story is overly simplistic, but "there are limits to power, and ultimately none of us have complete control" is not. I think Vax's death gives the story of Vox Machina a finality and heft that it would lack otherwise.

A second possible cause is the "What if the gods are BAD" argument. I'm going to be totally honest: I did not see this in the fandom until Campaign 3, and honestly, not until EXU Calamity in any widespread sense, which does lead me to believe that most people did not come up with it as a reasonable idea on their own until characters started saying it, because it is so plainly in conflict with the themes of Campaigns 1 and 2 that to make this argument would be obvious projection. Do I think a nuanced view of the gods as flawed beings, rather than perfection, is warranted? Absolutely. Mortals, too, are flawed, and we don't kill them all for it. I think Vax's story makes them uncomfortable because it makes it clear divine favor is not, as Ludinus Da'leth tries to argue, the gods just bestowing and withholding their gifts arbitrarily, but rather that divine favor comes with a divine responsibility as well. Clerics and paladins do not study the way wizards do; but they must live lives in service, whereas a wizard can shut the book at the end of the day and do whatever. Clerics and paladins have powers that can be taken away; a wizard does not. That's the fundamental concept behind the Age of Arcanum - wizards trying to get around the fundamental rules of this world! Vax's paladin powers came at a price. His options are guided, but also limited, by the oath he took. He is far more fettered than a wizard, in the end, and I think that fucks with the narrative of the gods cruelly withholding their gifts from all but a select few, so they instead make their gifts into manipulative punishments…while still, contradictorily, arguing that characters such as Laudna or Ashton or Imogen were denied the mercy of the gods. Now, setting aside the obvious, that these characters have their backstories because Marisha and Taliesin and Laura decided they would because this is a story, and one in which someone had a perfect life would be boring and so the gods didn't intervene with Laudna because Marisha Ray wanted to play a Sun Tree corpse (see next section), it really is fascinating to see how people who hate the Raven Queen so neatly align with Ludinus. It's fine for sorcerers to have inborn powers, apparently, and Ludinus actually has himself tried to ape druidic magic; it's not about power, it's just about that power source. Honestly, they're not even above the gods as a power source - Ludinus used the crystal beneath Molaesmyr seemingly unaware if it were of the Archheart, and he's demonstrably using Vax, and everyone loves a resurrection from the gods, but heaven forbid you pay someone for the work you feel yourself entitled to. (Entitlement: this will also be a theme throughout the rant portion of this post.)

As a brief subsection to this: the idea that bad things happen to good people because the other side of that coin is free will is an ancient theological and philosophical discussion, and one we are obviously not going to solve here, though it is a little depressing I have had multiple rewarding conversations on this topic, thanks to an academically rigorous religious education, starting from the tender age of 9, and a lot of adults on Tumblr seemingly can't engage on the level of my third-grade classmates. I think, however, it tells a truth that fits in well with the wizard (and entitled fan) desire to control everything. People are terrified of random forces. Cancer, for example, is a matter of probability. There are things that can increase your chances of developing cancer, to be sure, but the simile I used when I was taught about radiation-induced cancers was that of lottery tickets: if you buy more, you have a better chance; but sometimes someone who bought a single ticket "wins" and someone who bought a ticket weekly never does. By believing the gods of Exandria are on trial for not intervening with every little hardship or for not taking Vax precisely as he intended, they reveal a profound terror of random chance and of the free will of people who are not them. Which is very funny when you consider we're watching Actual Play, where random chance is a deliberately induced element. I think the takeaway of all of this is "I think some of you guys are really mad this is a D&D game." But let's continue.

The third, and honestly most likely cause, is honestly sort of a continuation of the first but not centered around Vax so much as just a general, in my opinion deeply childish discomfort of any sort of tragedy or unhappiness in fiction. I've noticed this a lot lately, and I am not a cultural critic and don't have a high enough level view to pretend to be one, but as others have noted a lot of people seem affronted when whatever show they are currently watching does not meet their specific standards of "comfort media" or "hopepunk." It's a self-infantilization I don't care for, and it's certainly not limited to the CR fandom (see: any grown-ass adult passionately defending a choice to only watch children's cartoons and only read YA) or even fandom at all (see: the baffling popularity of the Mr. Rogers "look for the helpers" line which was intended for anxious young children, not for adults who can and should be the helpers). It really came into focus for me with CR when people referred to both EXU Calamity and to Candela Obscura's Circle of Needle and Thread as specifically "hopeless." They are, to me, deeply hopeful series. They are sad, and tragic, and many characters do not get a happy ending, but they are ultimately about how some people will endure, and will live on and find meaning after great loss. Calamity explicitly states that because of the actions of the heroes, while devastation will occur, total annihilation is mitigated. It's like the adage of how courage only means something in the face of fear; hope only means something in the face of darkness. Happy and fluffy tales are not hopeful; they are merely not things that require you to have hope. The root word of catharsis is that of cleansing and purgation and it originally related to physical excretion - cathartic stories are about getting those complicated and ugly emotions and fears out and feeling better for it by briefly feeling, perhaps, worse! Now, again, this has worsened with Vax's story with time. Shortly after Campaign 1, it was very common to see stories where Vex or Keyleth were utterly distraught, indefinitely, but those at least were engaging with grief, even if in a very shallow and unproductive way. But this has morphed into this idea that the fact that a work of fiction might make you even feel sadness makes it bad, and wrong, and hopeless, and the machinations of a cruel and heartless god. Which brings me back to the entitlement narrative: it's really as simple as "the story didn't give me what I wanted (whether that was a happy ending for Vax, or for Keyleth, or just a lack of sadness generally, or a narrative about the gods that validates my personal beliefs, or a way to justify Ludinus's actions), so it is bad." Which again is about being in control of the narrative, which again, in D&D, is simply not something anyone can claim. Why are these people here watching a D&D game? I don't know.

So that's really it: on a basic level, if you think the Raven Queen is unfair, you are profoundly ignorant of canon, so I'm already going to have to fact check anything you cite (if you cite at all), but there's a much deeper refusal to meet stories where they are and expand one's own comfort zone at play, and that means any analysis will never consider the possibility that your pre-existing beliefs were wrong (absolutely crucial in meta). You will always play it too safe and be uninspired and reactionary because the alternative is uncertainty and fear. I think a refusal to embrace tragedy in fiction is itself a profound tragedy; that is someone who is terrified to believe that life goes on.

[lonelycomics]

Since y’all liked my rambles here’s some more but even more unorganized Dp x DC. Part 2?? Idk

Danny is very chill with Gotham’s spirit. Unlike what most people would think, Gotham loves having the “Ghost King” living there. Something to show off. To whom, no one. But it’s cool af.

How Danny works is basically, communicating with ghost speak and/or portal. But no one knows ghost speak without being a somewhat ghost (;

Some Batfam see Danny and think of whatever sibling when they were younger, take your choosing, but Bruce just shits himself. Like ong, looks like a kid he would adopt and train. Looks like Jason too, just as feral.

Speaking of Bruce, Batman saw Danny work a few times. But somehow these are the times where Danny just ghost speaks. So B-man is very concerned.

More magic users go to Gotham and just shat themselves. Not because of Danny, but because Gotham itself is proud and actually feels like a spirit of a city rather than just the feeling of anger constantly. Now, that was concerning already and the magic just shifts.

Bing-baba-boom magic users feel Danny nearby, and most are so confused. They feel a powerful presence but it doesn’t seem uncomfortable. So they just stand like 🧍 what the fuck they supposed to do?

Danny soon starts to help the previous henchmen of (insert villain), and they feel like in debt. But not like the debt of their lives, but rather the debt of their protections.

Joker gets to Danny, kidnapped and all. Joker does this villain speech. But he knows Danny’s “meta”. But Danny never lets anyone have peace half guessing what he was. So Danny just yells “who you gonna call?” And then 20 fucking ghost just appear, all screaming “ghost busters!” Joker got his answer rq even he didn’t want it to.

Bonus points if the JL are saying “yo bats, the fuck happened to the joker last night? Mfer got his ass beat.” And Bats, who’s still VERY into the case, says “idk but if it’s a kid I know, imma scream.”

Danny does his job but likes staying around, mainly because Gotham helps him with his human side. Finding the best places to sleep, drink, and eat without too much of a problem.

Jason feels Danny around. He knows the “King” is around. Jason feels more comfortable yet alert. Everything feels fine but somethings gonna change. It always does.

That’s all I have rn so byeee