#VM 1

[keyleth-clay]

(Second half of this ask from @fey-changeling)

Venture Maidens Ship Headcanons (one for each of my ships):

Arrnodel/Aaron: I like to headcanon Arrnodel as acespec, specifically demisexual (largely influenced by mild spite towards an offhand comment that Brittany made in one of the Q&A's from early on in Fate), and I think that that colours their relationship very heavily. Between her overall lack of experience, her only just now realizing that she can, in fact, experience sexual attraction, and Aaron being pulled between his love for Arrnodel and his loyalty to Mila and Rem, it's not surprising that their relationship got rocky towards the end of the campaign, though I like to think they end up working things out eventually (yes I am once again ignoring the legacy games 💙.)

Kara/Gidget: Chrysanthemums. Ever since the first date way back when, when Kara brought Gidget that bouquet of mums, I can't help but associate them with the flowers (and hey, you read Two Months, you already knew that, I wasn't subtle about it lol). In the language of flowers, they symbolize love, loyalty, and longevity, and I think that's really fitting for them. Kara has a mums-patterned shirt, Gidget makes Kara a bouquet of metal mums, Gidget's favourite perfume is chrysanthemum scented, etc etc.

(bonus Glitchhilde headcanon: you know that post about "rubber duck debugging"? Kara is Gidget's rubber duck.)

Fera/Chess: okay, so sneak preview for Two Weeks, but given that Chess is a demi-deity, I think we as fanfic authors get to break all the rules and let them do whatever the hell we (and they) want. Specifically, they can kinda... communicate telepathically/slightly share a body with Fera, even across long distances? If that makes sense? They can slip a little bit of their immortal consciousness alongside hers, since they're basically her patron, and whatever she sees, they can see, and whatever she feels, they can feel. This, of course, leads to some very fun and kinky sexual experiments. How strongly does Chess feel what Fera does? Do they feel it in their own body, or is their some kind of disconnect? Does the connection go both ways? Can Chess open up the connection a little bit more and (consensually) control Fera during these encounters? They have a lot of fun figuring it out.

Rem/Isolde: God, I'm not even sure what headcanons I have for them that you haven't given me... let me think............ actually, kind of inspired by you anyways, but since Isolde is connected to the Sisters of Sorrow (weavers), I think it would be cool if she was also a crafter - knitting being the obvious choice, but also a seamstress who creates her own dresses, too. I think she'd always wanted to use Rem as a muse/mannequin for some of her dresses, but wasn't able to until Rem ended up in her Wood Elf body (due to being gremlin sized™). After the gods fall and the two of them aren't the main leaders of the Sisters/Furies anymore, they'd have a lot more time to get to indulge in their hobbies, and Isolde gets to dress Rem up all pretty and then make a mess of her later ❤️🤍🖤.

Valerius/Dee: Okay first of all, not a headcanon, but I just want to yell about how much I appreciate their relationship. Valerius is quite overtly flamboyant, in a way that could easily be read as queer, and it's so rare to find m/f relationships where the man is a flamboyant guy but still genuinely attracted to women (rather than just a closeted gay man), and that the woman is genuinely attracted to that flamboyance. They just feel like everyone's cool queer aunt & uncle and I love it. As far as headcanons go, I think that Valerius is quite fastidious about his appearance and hates to (literally) get his claws dirty, but he'll always make an exception for helping Dee out in the kitchen. I think they're also both quite good with kids, and any time that the Sisters/Furies end up taking in any children, the two of them end up being the de facto caretakers (again, cool queer aunt & uncle).

Bonus: literally just this post. ship them with me 🥺.

[volatilemask]

yayy!!!

[moghedien]

Artagan: Welcome to the Feywilds Vox Machina *looks at the twins’ daddy issues* I’m gonna make Vex and Vax have a reunion with your dad

Artagan: *looking at Keyleth’s mommy issues* This one is more of a long game thing

[pyrotechnicdarts]

grinning and giggling and kicking my feet about the placement of this burn mark i see you tlovm twitterrr

[keyleth-clay]

Oh my goodness, that's so cute!

Sawyeh and Alistar's morning yoga inspired by this post by @keyleth-clay, nov 2024

[ginalongillustrations]

Keyleth & Vax'ildan

I didn't know how much I would love these two paintings until I saw them in warm afternoon light. Even though they are test paintings and there are things I would change if I get to make them again, I love these two so very much.

Vax'ildan looks.. incredible. I knew when designing his armour the way I did that he would look great but this exceeded my wildest dreams. He looks like the champion he is. Bless my friend Em for helping me fix the things I was unhappy about originally.

Keyleyh has the most beautiful colouring and it shows when the sunlight passes through and him purchase on wall or ground. Her mantle is so vibrant and her dress was worth all the hassle. She's beautiful.

Also, I'm gonna be posting like 4 more videos of these guys, I've got so many drafts on tiktok. I'm not sorry. Vaxleth has my heart, what can I say.

[olessan]

Re: TLovM episodes 3x07-3x09

[artificialhaunts]

It's loving Vex'ahlia hours... it never stopped being loving Vex'ahlia hours...

[iamindifferenttolamp]

Scanlan: *can't remember the name of the continent they're on*

Also Scanlan: *remembers that 55 episodes ago he awkwardly asked this one guy that they haven't seen since then if he was married*

[utilitycaster]

The answers Marisha gave in this 4SD felt a lot more realized than in the past, which is good! But it still makes me feel like this character concept is incredibly ambitious and when juxtaposed with the various "I don't want to think anymore"/"go with the flow" statements I'm not sure she realized that.

The biggest example is that Laudna has two conflicting traits: she is extremely sensitive to betrayal, and she is very quick to trust even after experiencing a number of betrayals in her life. And when I say "conflicting" I mean that they are in conflict with each other, not that it doesn't make sense for a character to be a complicated person with traits that frequently work against them; in fact that's in my opinion a fantastic way to create a compelling character. But it feels like the why is only just starting to get explored in any capacity, and because of that even good choices raise more questions: why is this only coming out now; why so young a regression; why has it peeked out so weirdly and inconsistently in the past; why haven't the repeated betrayals in the past two months affected her mindset and made her more closed off. It once again makes me really wish we'd gotten a sustained outburst after the party reunited, because that would have made far more sense - a fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me situation.

I agree with the opinion that Laudna conceptually just fits far more with being an actual child herself - her desire to befriend children frankly comes off slightly weirder (not line-crossing or anything, just a little off) than it would had she died younger, as does her approach of dolls, and her failure to do anything with Delilah would make a lot more sense if she was at an age to be much more reliant. It would also make her inability to just blend into a city much more reasonable; no one is going to rent to a lone 11 year old. It really does feel that when the creepy child idea was rejected - which is a valid choice - it wasn't reworked sufficiently to fit someone who died in her late teens or early 20s.

I also don't really get the idea of her childlike nature being without malice. A pretty consistent theme for the various traumatic childhoods the characters of Bells Hells (and, tbh, past parties as well) has been the cruelty children are capable of - Ashton even says it in 3x78. Delilah being stuck with someone without malice would honestly lead to a situation in which Laudna was very trusting of her, which isn't the case, which again goes back to the conflict of betrayal as a trigger vs. being so quick to trust. Given that Laudna was frequently bullied and rejected as a kid, one would think she'd be aware of this. The specific example of Delilah calling Ashton a child and Laudna making him a doll still works wonderfully, but the overarching theme falls apart in places.

I think things have been on an upswing as of late, but ultimately we're at a point where, without some retcons I don't think Laudna will ever truly make complete sense because it's just such an intensive concept that did not get the work that required, and still feels reliant on a now-rejected premise.

[keyleth-clay]

Do you have any headcanons about your favourite venture maidens ships or characters that you'll never let go of?

I always love getting VM asks from you, even when it's been long enough since I've watched Fate that I'm a bit fuzzy on the details 💜💜💜. (That means that if canon contradicts any of these headcanons, I genuinely don't remember, so therefore no it doesn't 💙.)

I'm sure I've made it clear by now that Sawyeh Noor is my most favouritest gorl, so I'll stick with her for the character headcanons, but I'll jump around a bit for the ship headcanons. (Now that I've finished typing this out, this got way longer than expected so I'll be putting the ship headcanons in their own post.)

Character Sawyeh headcanons:

I like to think that with Sawyeh's background growing up in the monastery, she developed a unique perspective on community that the other Maidens don't necessarily have - every member of the monastery would need to contribute to the upkeep and care of not just the building(s) and grounds, but the other people within it as well. This does come through a fair bit throughout the campaign, most notably post-Bastard's Breach and her consistent commitment to helping rebuild and train and help anyone in the Sisters of Sorrow that she can, but she's also just like that in her day to day life, to the point of occasionally being almost naggy towards the other Maidens to clean up after themselves or to keep their gear repaired and stuff like that.

I also think she would have learned how to cook while in the monastery (part of taking care of the people and not just the place is making sure everyone is fed), and I think she'd both be quite good at and genuinely love cooking, and find the process almost meditative.

Alistar Fritz Patrick occasionally joins her during her early morning yoga sessions - instead of cat yoga, it's pseudodragon yoga!

As a Way of the Four Elements monk, she obviously ends up having a connection to the elements, but I find it interesting which elements she ends up gravitating towards. She starts the campaign using fire the most, and then uses it and water (bc of her connection to Olhydra/Persana) fairly evenly throughout the campaign. She also uses air a decent amount, and that connection gets stronger once she gets her dragonfly wings...

...but she doesn't use earth all that much, if at all. Which I think is incredibly fitting for her, as a big part of her motivation in leaving the monastery was her desire to travel and experience new things - and if A:TLA taught us anything, that freedom and curiosity is essentially the opposite of earth as an element. I think she genuinely struggles with that kind of rooted-ness.

Building off of both of the above, I like connecting her to Ranna and Chidi once she starts studying from/training with the Carillons, and as such, she has someone who has influenced her life that is directly connected to one of the elements: her mother Maheen is water, her father Aram is fire, Ranna is air (bc air genasi), and Chidi is earth (bc of The Tree).

We already know that she's a big tea-drinker and avoids alcohol (I am considering late-campaign Sawyeh drinking an exception to the rule due to. y'know. the potential unravelling of the fabric of reality), but since I am also a big tea drinker, I have Thoughts. and by that I mean I am projecting my own taste in tea on Sawyeh.

She tends to favour black teas, but also really enjoys rooibos and herbal (especially anything with ginger or chamomile), and doesn't particularly like green teas. Properly brewed masala chai is her absolute favourite, and when she was growing up it was a treat for special occasions.

I know that Naseem is Iranian-American, and I know that Sawyeh Noor and Maheen and Aram are all Arabic names (or at least from neighbouring regions/languages), but in the very first stream that the Venture Maidens made on their channel, Naseem describes Sawyeh as Filipino, and that idea has stuck with me since then. However, I am Incredibly White and know next to nothing about Filipino culture - but I can definitely look up traditional & popular Filipino food, tie that back into my earlier headcanon about Sawyeh and cooking, and say that her favourite food is tinolang manok.

Also she can fucking DESTROY some minatamis na saging and lumpiang saging.

In the time-honoured tradition of the one ace/aroace friend in the group, she's somehow the person all the rest of the Maidens come to for relationship advice. Maybe she just seems wise beyond her years. Maybe she's able to keep a clearer, more rational viewpoint that isn't distracted by attraction. Maybe she's just the least likely to deliberately give them bad advice as a joke. Who knows.

(It's all three.)

As I said in the tags on one of your art posts that I reblogged, I love the idea of Sawyeh and Persana ending up as queerplatonic partners. I'm always a sucker for ships where one half is human or essentially human-like, and the other is just so inherently alien that their relationship fundamentally can't be put into the typical framework that we usually put relationships in.

Also that one scene from The Shape of Water. You know the one.

[exandrianpunk]

Vax talking to the girls after Scanlan left (around 2hrs in the podcast) is hitting me especially hard this time around. he's so scared that more of his family will leave, that Vex won't understand if he leaves her to go with Kiki for a while, that he isn't doing enough to keep them all together, that more people will blindside him by suddenly exploding and walking out on him, that he feels so deeply how his fate is interwoven with those of the rest of the members of Vox Machina but the threads are getting tangled and he can't see the way through, and he's just so scared of what's to come now that they have time to think about themselves instead of the world-ending forces of evil that have loomed over them for so long...

[keyleth-clay]

Oh, this is so lovely! I love the poses for them, especially Gidget leaning in to Kara like that!

Little doodle inspired by Two Months by @keyleth-clay May 2024

[espejodejade]

Inspo for my next handmade project

After my first handmade skirt I got excited and now I want to make a full OP ▼⁠・⁠ᴥ⁠・⁠▼

This is something that made me fall in love with lolita since the very beginning: the strive for creativity and experimentation. I once again want to use the fabric of a garment that I no longer use to create a new and unique piece!

Maybe I'm getting a little too excited, after all I've never done a full dress from scratch before, so I'll be kind to myself if I make some mistakes and learn from them. (⁠✪⁠㉨⁠✪⁠)

I'm still new to lolita, so getting brand pieces and filling my wardrobe has been hard since I don't have a lot of money (I work selling my art and it doesn't pay off much lol). I've been buying clothing from local lolita brands since their more accessible for me, but I think that learning to sew it's gonna save me from bankruptcy :⁠,⁠-⁠)

I'm gonna follow some instructions that I found on the internet, I plan on documenting the process so I will share the tutorial that I'm gonna follow when I finish it in a future blog. Wish me luck! (⁠♡⁠ω⁠♡⁠ ⁠)⁠ ⁠~⁠♪

[screechingfromthevoid]

My unrealistic goal: catch up on LoVM before the new episode comes out at 3 EST

My much more reasonable goal: watch literally all CR content before the mighty nien show comes out

[pyrotechnicdarts]

noticing a lot of similarities between percy de rolo and the dawnfather. authoritative. hypocritical. willing to do a lot of bad things in the name of family. bordering on paranoid (re: the desperation to claim the leyline at hearthdell through any means) merciless to his enemies. cold and intimidating to strangers. much softer and protective to the people he loves. violent. kind. angry. gentle. complicated. etc