#Tomb Takers

[realistically-rachel]

my favorite part of the night?

essek laughing when orym finds the tomb takers bodies and half of the table finally figuring it out as well

[arthurn9]

Oh hey, the corpses of the Tomb Takers! As featured in our #10 pick for Best HDYWTDTs from C2!

when you have a moment go check it out :3

[manamuses]

and on the topic of returning to find places and rare other muses to rp with. i am a lucien rper and my dream is to one day meet tomb taker rpers understanding how rare this likely is but i'm out here... so looking for any discord/forum/groups in general where they maybe exist in but i'd also return to tumblr rp for this one too. i'd consider writing cree or jurrell too, maybe one of the others if that doesn't work out since i've never written for either. lucien (and molly) are my main muses though. i don't have a lucien doc already written to provide writing examples or anything and this is an old blog but... i do love him a lot. i did write this drabble recently? (normally only second person in drabbles but it is rly fun) (it was mfrp based thus the derail/new info at the end)

[aspiringsophrosyne]

Critical Role’s fights cannot be as long in animation as they are in the stream. They just cannot. And even if they could, they shouldn’t, because it’d be a massive slog in that context.

However.... some battles need to feel long, even if they’re not. They need to feel tense and dangerous, like you just want them to end already. Not in a boring way, but in a suspenseful, scared for characters you love way.

The final battle of campaign 2 is an obvious pick. But there are others in that campaign that come to mind besides that one.

Let's talk about one of them.

(Spoilers for Campaign 2, specifically the last arc, below.)

More than almost any other fight in Campaign 2, we need the one between the Nein and the Tomb Takers from episode 123 to feel long.

And there’s something we can do to get us there. We can make the fight feel longer without actually making it longer if we inter-cut the fight with other previous scenes.

In episode 121, while traveling with the Takers, the Nein takes watch. Jester with Yasha, and then Fjord with Beau. During these shifts, Jester and Fjord reveal their kiss, and Yasha and Beau reveal their upcoming date. Everyone is excited by these developments.

I say, don’t show the romance talks when they are supposed to happen in the timeline. Skip them. Then, during the fight, flash back to them.

Like so:

Beau slams down off the back of a giant eagle into the snow among the Tomb Takers, popping several of them in the face one after the other. We cut away to:

Beau: No, on that note, I kind of — We were in, like — We just walked through a creepy forest and we were, like, a mile beneath the earth and I kind of asked Yasha on a date. Fjord: You did what?! Beau: I know. Fjord: You asked her out on a date? Beau: Yeah, yeah. Fjord: What’d she say?

We cut back. Lucien stalks up to her while she’s still swinging and unawares. When she turns, he puts his hand to her throat. His eye tattoos glow. Her head rocks back, but not out of his grip. Blood gathers in the corners of her eyes like tears.

Beau: She said yes. She said yes. That she was— Fjord: Shit!

As blood pours down out of Beau’s eyes, out of her nose, as she gags up a thick trickle of blood from her lips, as Lucien’s grin widens in sadistic satisfaction, we don’t cut away. Instead, this audio plays over him Rending her Mind.

Beau: She was, like, really excited. She was like, “I’m happy about this because, like —" I don’t know whether it’s — I just want a fresh start with Yasha because we’ve been through so much.

[...]

Beau: So it just felt like maybe, maybe a date.

She sucks in a desperate, blood choked breath.

Caleb and Cad crawl backward through the snow, frantic and trying to get their magic to work. Yasha swoops down towards Beau in her eagle form. Just before she gets close enough to make the grab, we cut away:

Jester: But did you give her the poem? Yasha: Well, I was working on it and then I just sort of ended up writing her a letter. I still have a poem, but I just ended up writing her a letter. It felt weird and it felt like really I wasn’t ready yet. So I just wrote her a note and yeah, and then she asked me out on a date, yeah.

Yasha makes the grab, Beau’s free.

Later, when Fjord’s on the opposite side of the battle field from everyone else, he brings his blade down on Lucien’s back. It's blocked without him even turning around. As he does turn and the two lock blades, Fjord’s eyes travel to the rest of the group and we see-

Fjord: Hey, I meant to tell you, I-- I told Jester how I-- how I... Beau: You did? Sorry, Caduceus. Caduceus: (snores) Beau: You did? Fjord: Yeah, on the-- real, yeah. Beau: How’d it go? Fjord: It went okay. I was pretty nervous. Beau: Yeah? What do you mean okay, though? What’s okay? Fjord: No, it was good. I-- uh. We kissed. Beau: (gasping) Sorry, Caduceus. Sorry.

He’s struck, he teleports near Zoren. He’s closer to the rest than he was, but he’s not there yet.

....And I mean, I think you get the idea at this point. You'd maybe want to pace it out slower or a little differently, but this is just to give you an idea of what you could do.

What also could be cool is intercutting this fight or later ones with scenes where the Nein talk about the city; what’s coming to Exandria if they die in Eiselcross without stopping the Tomb Takers. Remind the audience what’s at stake on a macro level (the city coming to swallow the world) and a micro level (the Nein have started more intimate relationships and might not get the chance to experience them) to keep tension high.

This is just one example, but you could use it for multiple important fights. Other good candidates include both Iron Shepherd fights, the King’s Cage fight, the Cathedral Fight and one or both fights against the Sea Spawn that come for the orb.

Sometimes you really don’t need a lot of fancy effects or animation. Sometimes just some creative storyboarding and/or editing can elevate a story in a way you wouldn’t expect.

[isa-grapes]

the fact that essek isn’t explicitly evil anymore, but remains deeply bitchy is so funny to me.

[argonianfeather]

also been playing a necromancer build as moonlights hairless khajiit meemaw, Tomb-Taker.

[genderless-ghost]

diversity win! the halfling that picked your pocket and tried to kill you multiple times uses all pronouns!

[melnathea]

Don't be my hero

[talontalk]

The cast all scream/yodeling after that one note in the battle music is the only thing that gets me through these battles rn

[seizedeath]

@divinatiions asked: Be honest - do you ever wonder about your family? 

“which one?” they ask, gaze fixed on the ground. wringing their hands, molly sighs, choosing instead to shove their hands into their hair. “i have a sister who doesn’t even feel like --- like my sister. the circus is --- gone. the mighty nein are... i don’t know. by the time i died, we were barely friends. none of them even trusted me. i can’t imagine they think of me as family. i don’t know why they would.” 

casting their gaze to the sky, molly sighs again. “yasha is... all i’ve got, really. i miss her. yeah. i miss her a lot.” 

[yudol-skorbi]

just watched as Beau figured the whole Vess\Tomb takers\Molly\Lucien shit which was very sexy of her and i love her so much she is incredible and smart wow women

[moonlit-imagines]

Preferences: Batfamily finding out reader, their sibling, is an archaeologist

Batfamily x reader

warnings:

a/n:

prompt: @jade-178: “Can I have a request for a one-shot of The whole Bat-family finding out what their adopted sibling reader does for a living. Basically they thing reader is an innocent bean but when she's not with the bat family she basically goes exploring the whole world for tombs for artifacts, is a risk taker, an adrenaline junkie, sassy, has a high sex appeal, flirts a lot and Carries dual pistols. Basically the reason why is that the reader loves to be an archeologist and protects the artifacts they find.”

Barbara is super interested in your work and asks if she can help with research and see some of the artifacts you’ve discovered during excavations. She enjoys the idea of you getting out of Gotham and making a name for yourself.

Bruce is proud to say the least. He still trained you, so he knows you’ll be able to hold your own out there. He supposes you’ll be a good ally to have being more “worldly.” You asked him if he’d ask Diana to take you to Themyscira. He said he’d think about it.

Damian asked if you’d take him with you on your next trip. He was tired of this “stinky old city” and wanted to see some different culture. You liked the idea actually. He offered you one of his Grandfather’s swords (the grandfather that’s centuries old not the dead one). You took a page out of Bruce’s book, “I’ll think about it.”

Dick high-fived you and said it’s good to get space from Gotham and he thought your work was unique. You had a really good in with a lot of superhero-types who come from many different backgrounds who could also give you pointers, advice, information, whatever. He was just a little worried that sometimes you’d be on the other side of the world alone.

Jason asked if you had a gun. Then he asked if you wanted one. Then he gave you one anyway. You saw it as a love language for him. His only advice was not to bring any expensive artifacts back to Gotham because Bruce had been letting Catwoman in the house again.

Tim was also interested! He compared archaeology to detective work as far as tracking down lost historical artifacts and researching lesser known things. He’d like to sit down with you and talk over your findings, plus he had a few things he was super interested in that he wanted to “point you in the direction of.” Also warned you to make sure Catwoman didn’t steal your stuff. Especially if you found any nice jewels.

taglist: @captainshazamerica // @cipheress-to-k-pop // @the-did-i-ask // @azazel-nyx // @summersimmerus // @deanzboyfriend // @zoeyserpentluck // @mr-mxyzptlk-1940 //

[essektheylyss]

Okay but you know what's really clever about the choice to include off-screen campaign content in the Nein animated show, is that it puts the audience on far more equal footing.

There's a lot of intrigue going on in Wildemount behind the scenes, and those of us who've seen the campaign have an idea of what that is, but rarely a clear answer. There are a lot of interpersonal dynamics that we don't see but that make a major impact on outcomes for the character: not only Essek's dealings with the Assembly but his relationship to the rest of the Dynasty's upper echelon, the Assemblies' interactions amongst themselves, Astrid and Eadwulf's dynamic with Trent or other scourgers, or Lucien's relationship with Cree and the other Tomb Takers. These alliances make or break the characters' decisions with regard to the Nein depending on how much loyalty or trust they share, and they shift a lot while the Nein aren't present.

I think there's a bit of this in tlovm with the happenings in Whitestone and the dynamic among the Chroma Conclave, but these exist primarily to ground the antagonists, because it's not the same kind of story; Vox Machina's story is about how they become Big Damn Heroes. There is political action happening, but while it does have an influence on them, it always exists to an extent to be either a boon or an obstacle to them, because it cannot deal with the threats at hand without heroes (not necessarily Vox, but in the archetypal sense). The Nein, in contrast, are in a story about being the tangential players to numerous plots of intrigue that occupy no small position of power in the world, plots that in fact actively resist the role of heroes, and the struggle for personal agency that comes with that.

So giving more information to the audience about those other happenings means new fans get a lot of the information that existing fans will go into the show with much sooner, while existing fans are receiving new information at the same time. By the time the characters find out what the audience knows, the audience is more or less on the same page waiting for that shoe to drop.

[maudlinjane]

i often think about the moment when fjord said yes when essek asked him if the troops should engage with the tomb takers so the spellcasters could get their rest. it still gives me chills. the nein often argue who their leader is, and i think after that moment, there was a definite answer.

i think it reflects on Travis as a person too. Matt called him the lion and paladin of the group. He’s a fighter and defender of the ones he loves and cares for, and he makes the hard decisions when they can’t. Travis is an amazing human being and is devastatingly underrated.