#also kind of wild to me that keith isn’t a guy that’s well known in bandom considering that he’s in the damned things with joe and andy

[0vercastgirl]

Does anyone remember when there was a photo going around on here of gerard way and keith buckley performing together but no one in this fandom listens to every time I die and therefore no one recognized keith, so for some reason EVERYONE in the notes was tagging at as geoff rickly even though keith and geoff look nothing alike. And then someone was like hey guys this can’t be geoff he has a nose ring. It must be adam lazzara. And no one stopped to consider that maybe the reason they were having trouble identifying the guy in the photo is because he wasn’t actually one of the standard bandom approved men

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

What do you think the Animorphs would be like playing D&D? Not "the Animorphs in a D&D world", but the Animorphs actually sitting down and having a campaign of D&D. Like the classes/races they'd pick, their play styles, wacky shenanigans (because we all know it would happen).

[Credit to Cates for 100% of the character builds, and most of the lore, in this AU.  In case you were wondering, I’m the Jake-style “never read the manual” chaotic-dumbass bard of our campaign; she’s the Marco-style “uses the rules exactly as much or little as needed” DM.]

It was decided almost right away that one on the team had any alignment.  As DM, Marco attempted to start there, only to have Ax begin questioning whether the manual’s explanations of “good” and “evil” truly captured human ethics on a grand scale.  Tobias claimed that Ax was looking at it all wrong, that the moralities were only default behavior types within the game, and that within this particular context morality didn’t matter.  Cassie got very concerned about the idea of context-dependent morality, Rachel declared that the book was stupid and short-sighted for claiming that destroying things was always bad, Jake quietly asked for the fourth or fifth time if this game was actually a good idea…

“Fine!” Marco announced.  “You’re all amoral characters.  Happy?”

“‘Amoral’ implies that we’re immoral, doesn’t it?” Cassie asked.  “Or that we exist outside the spectrum of moralities?”

“Just…”  Marco rolled his eyes.  “Everyone leave that spot on your character sheet blank, okay?  If it ever comes up, we’ll deal with it on a case-by-case basis.”

“Yes,” Ax said, “although you never did answer my question about the implied ethical structure of this universe.”

After that, character creation went fairly smoothly.  Kind of.

“Why does Dennis need a backstory, again?” Jake asked, looking down at his sheet.

“Dennis?” Marco said.  “Dennis?  

“You already said I wasn’t allowed to use ‘Dylan’ or ‘Brad’, so…’”

“C’mon man, this is D’nD.  There are no Dennises in medieval fantasy epics.”

“Fine.”  Jake crossed out and rewrote the name at the top of his character sheet.  “Why does Keith need a backstory?”

“To explain his motivation.”

“You just said that the whole time we’re going to be chased around by orcs and whatnot.  Isn’t not dying enough motivation?”

“You really don’t understand this game, do you?” Rachel said.

“I really don’t understand this game,” Jake agreed.

“My character’s a dragonborn rogue named Joan, and she’s the greatest gymnast of all time.”  Rachel added a Dexterity marker to her sheet with a flourish.

“I thought I was a dragonborn,” Jake said.  “Is that allowed?”

“Yeah, we can have as many dragonborns as you all want.”  Marco shrugged.  “We just can’t have multiple bards.  And since you called dibs on that class, and Rachel wants to be a rogue, we’re fine.”

“Yeah, okay,” Jake said.  “I just want to help out the team.  Or, uh, Keith does?”

“Great.”

“So that’s my backstory, right?  Being a bard?”

“Yes,” Rachel said, at the same time Marco said, “No!”

In the end, Marco declared that if neither Rachel nor Jake could come up with a proper backstory, he was making their characters cousins.  Tobias, who had a better flair for the romantic, declared that said cousins were from an internationally feared family of highwaymen.

“So does that get us any extra skills, coming from a family of pirates?” Rachel asked.

“Maybe it’d explain how good your character is at gymnastics,” Jake said.  “Because of riggings and all.”

“Highwaymen.”  Marco looked up from where he was trying to salvage Keith’s stats from the hopeless tangle of Jake’s incorrect math.  “Tobias said you guys are highwaymen, not pirates.”

“What are pirates but highwaymen of the sea?” Tobias asked, tilting his head in thought.

“Just put us down as jewel thieves.”  Rachel made a note on her own sheet.  “Jewel thieves of diverse methodology.  Wherever jewels can be found, there we are with threats of violence to take them away.”

“By the way, why is Ax now a tiefling?” Tobias asked Marco.

“I told Marco I have no preference for my class and race,” Ax said.  “And the word is most pleasant, tea-fling.  Ffflllling.”

“They’re blue and have tails.”  Marco smirked at Tobias.  “It’s perfect!”

Rachel and Jake might’ve been vague on the idea of backstory, but Ax was quite definite.

“I am Eldrias the tiefling, fffflllling, paladin.  She was raised by cows,” he announced.

“Don’t you mean raised by wolves?” Jake said.  “Isn’t that a thing, raised by wolves?”

“Uh-huh,” Marco said, “since your land-pirates make perfect sense.”

“Wolves are beautiful animals, but they pale in comparison to cows,” Ax said.  “Among other things, wolves’ meat is not so succulent and does not pair nearly as well with french fries.”

“Okay then,” Jake said, “raised by cows.  Got it.”

Becoming a barbarian was Cassie’s idea.  She spun through the manual in a rapid burst of pages, brushing gentle fingertips over the beautifully rendered illustrations, and then pressed it shut.  “Barbarian,” she said.  “That’s the one that can protect the team the best, right?  So I’ll be a barbarian.”

Marco laughed.  “All right then.  Barbarian it is.  Anything else in mind, for this barbarian of yours?”

Cassie tapped a finger against her lower lip, fluttering through the first several pages of the manual once again.  “I could make my character a big, tall guy, right?”

“Sure.”

“But I want pointy ears.”  She grinned at the rest of the table, somewhat sheepish.

“Half-elf barbarian, then?”

“Half-elf barbarian.”  Cassie looked down at the sheet in front of her.  “He can be named Reisgalan Von Schwartzel of the Morsgalath Half-Elves, Lord of the Plains and Wielder of…”  She glanced around.  “What’s that thing with the spiky ball on a stick?”

“Mace,” Rachel provided.

“Mace is that spray you use on bears and muggers,” Jake said.

“And it’s also a spiky ball on a stick.”  Marco glanced at Cassie’s sheet.  “You have a backstory for Reisgalan Von Whatshisface?”

“Hmmmm.  Can I be widowed and have a tragically dead prince I must avenge?”

“Is it me?”  Jake smiled hopefully.

“What?”  Cassie frowned at him.  “No.  That’d be horrible.”  She looked over at Marco.  “Uh, can my character be a guy and also have a dead husband?  Is that allowed?”

“Yeah, sure,” Marco said.  “I’m the ruler of this universe, so I say it’s fine.  And Tobias is the designated rules lawyer, so he’ll probably have some reason that it’s not.”

“I am not rules-lawyering!”

Marco looked at Ax’s character sheet, and then pointedly back up at Tobias.  “Ax, how did you end up as not just a paladin, but a paladin that’s even more overpowered than the standard build?”

“Paladins are allowed.”  Tobias shrugged.  “It’s right there in the manual.”

“Ax, how you have splint armor?” Marco demanded.

“Paladins can wear Heavy armor,” Tobias sing-songed.

Marco growled.

Ax squinted at his character sheet. “Tobias says when I get to Level Three, I will take the Oath of Vengeance and take a Vow of Enmity. I will know the spells Thunderous Smite, Command, and Detect Magic.”

Marco’s face was turning an interesting shade of red.

“Oh, and Eldrias the paladin is taking Great Weapon as her Fighting Style.”  Tobias wasn’t bothering to hide his smirk.  “It’s all perfectly legal.”

Ax frowned at Marco.  “Banging your head against the table with that level of force may have an adverse effect on your brain’s ability to function.” 

“I’m not rules-lawyering for selfish gain,” Tobias said loftily, looking over Marco’s prone form.  “And besides, Ax is new at this.  He needs all the help he can get.”

“You find yourselves in a magical land.”  Marco made a wild gesture in the air.  It was probably meant to look dramatic and mysterious.  “A land known as Falicornia.”

“Marco sucks at naming things,” Rachel whispered loudly.

“Rachel sucks at listening,” Marco whispered more loudly.

“You were saying?” Jake asked.

“This magical land is under threat from the dread god Cthulu!  You must stop him through using the Philosopher’s Stone, which is powerful but cannot be used except by those who do not wish to use it.  It contains many powerful temptations for the bearer.  You must journey across the land, facing many dangers, to bring it to the only magical mirror that can destroy it before Cthulu has the chance to rise from that mirror and take over the world.”

Cassie raised her hand.

“Yes?” Marco said.

“Why does Cthulu want to take over the world?” she asked.  “Does he need it for something?”

Marco sighed.  “He wants to take over because he’s Cthulu.  Any other questions?”

“First question: did you steal more of this plot from The Lord of the Rings, or Harry Potter?” Rachel said immediately.  “Second question—”  She turned to Ax.  “Have we showed you those movies?”

“He’s reading the books first,” Tobias said.

“I’m reading the books first,” Ax agreed.

“You were saying about Cthulu,” Jake said to Marco.

“Yes.  He wants to take over because he’s Cthulu,” Marco glared at Rachel.  “Just because.“

“Actually,” Tobias said, “the original version of Cthulu was kind of like the Silver Surfer of Norse Mythology, and his motivation—”

“He wants to take over because he’s Cthulu.”  Marco took a deep breath.  “Anyway.  Moving on.”

“Okay, you’re here.”  Marco pointed to the G.I. Joe figure sitting in the middle of their somewhat crudely drawn map.  “The goblins are…”  One after another, he set four white pawns from his mom’s chess set around the G.I. Joe that represented Jake, forming a half-circle that separated him from Ax’s Smurf, Cassie’s My Little Pony miniature, and Tobias’s Precious Moments angel figurine.  “Rachel is, uh…”  He set the teddy bear pencil topper several inches back, between two goblin-pawns.  “There.  So.”  Marco looked up at Jake.  “You’re under attack.  You’re up first in initiative order.  What’re you going to do?”

Jake frowned, surveying the scene in front of him.  “I have magic, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Okay, so I’ll use magic to turn myself into a bird, and then—”

“Yeah, no.”

“Then I’ll turn my teammates into birds, and they can—”

“You cannot turn yourself into a bird, you cannot turn anyone else into a bird, no one is turning into a bird or any other animal at any point in this game.”  Marco glanced over at Tobias.  “No offense.”

“Oh, I totally agree,” Tobias said.  “A Level One bard performing an animal shapes transmutation?  Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Anyway.”  Marco pointed at Jake’s G.I. Joe figurine.  “Assuming we’re sticking to handheld weapons, what else do you want to do?”

“I… shoot the goblin?” Jake suggested.  “With my…”  He flipped over his character sheet, squinting at his own handwriting.  “With my board-sword.”

“Pretty sure you meant ‘broadsword,’” Rachel said.  “Okay, Jake killed the goblin, now what?”

Cassie peered over Jake’s shoulder.  “It could just be a sword made out of boards, you don’t know.”

“Jake only has thirteen out of sixty odds of killing the goblin on one go,” Marco said.

Tobias flipped open his own manual to the entry on goblins.  “Where are you getting these numbers from?”

Marco selected two dice from the pile, handing them both to Jake.  “Oh, I just figure that if the goblin’s got an armor class of seven and five HP, then Jake’s got a thirteen-in-twenty chance of scoring a hit and then a two-in-six chance of it being deadly, given his hit dice.  So if you reduce twenty-six over one-twenty down it’s thirteen in sixty.  Like, point-two-one-seven out of one.  Simple math.”  He gestured at Jake.  “Roll those.”

“You and I have very different definitions of the word ‘simple.’”  Jake looked up.  “Uh, ten and the other one says four?”

“You grievously injured but did not kill the goblin,” Marco said graciously.  “Now it’s the turn for this leftmost goblin, who is going to run and stick a sword through Rachel…” He rolled, and winced.  “That’s fifteen to hit, and two damage?”

“What’s that mean for my little rogue?”  Rachel waved her pencil topper at him.

“You got stabbed,” Marco said.

“Uh-huh.”  Rachel picked up her pen and sheet.  “Where?”

Marco shrugged.  “The leg, let’s say.  Uh, upper thigh?”

“Mm-hmm.”  She wrote that down.

“Okay, then.”  Marco glanced at his sheet.  “Next in initiative order is—”

“I cast psionic blast as a Level One spell, which would cause additional damage to fiends or the undead.  Are they undead goblins?” Tobias asked.

Marco rolled his eyes.  “Nope.”

“Then they each suffer three points of damage and do not have the opportunity to make saving throws for the next minute and a half,” Tobias said.  “That’s my first spell slot today.”

“Okay.”  Marco tipped over one of the goblin pawns.  “That one’s dead.  Cassie?”

“That one’s threatening Ax?”  She pointed at the pawn within the same square as the Smurf figurine.

“Yep.”

She nodded.  “Then I smash its head in with my mace.”  She rolled.  “Eight to hit, eight damage?”

“Oh yeah, you just annihilated that one.”

“Good, good, so now can I mace the one that attacked Rachel?”

“Cool your jets.”  Marco held up both hands.  “You don’t get to do multiple hulk-smashes in one round until several levels up from here.”

Cassie wilted a little.  “Okay.  But I want to run over next to that one to be ready to mace it soon.”

“All right, center goblin is going to try and swing his big old greatsword at Cassie as an attack of opportunity…” Marco rolled.  “And that’s a miss.  Rachel, you’re up.”

“I’m unconscious,” Rachel said.

Marco gave her a blank look.  “No you’re not.”

“Yes she is,” Ax said.  “You just allowed that goblin— gob-blin? Goo-blin? —to stab her.”

“I did not allow— The dice—”  Marco took a deep breath.  “Rachel, you only took two points of damage.  Go ahead and make a turn.”

“Okay, you clearly said…” Rachel glanced at her own notes.  “That the goblin stuck its sword through my upper thigh.  And apparently these are pretty big swords.  No way in hell that misses the artery, not if I’m only about human-sized at the time.  You also said that the goblin has its sword back, which means it pulled the sword out, which means that by now I have definitely lost enough blood to be unconscious.  It’s just basic logic.”

Marco opened his mouth halfway.  “That’s not how damage functions in this game,” he said at last.

“No, she’s right,” Jake said.  “She wouldn’t necessarily be dead from blood loss by now, but on the super-narrow chance she’s still conscious, she’s not going to have the, like, grip strength to be shooting people with arrows or anything.  That’s just how getting stabbed works.”

“Actually…” Tobias looked up from where he was sorting his flash cards of wizard spells.  “In combat time, each turn is six seconds.  So it hasn’t been five minutes of game-time.  It’s been less than three seconds.”

“So this goblin managed to stick its sword all the way through me, pull it loose, and then get back into position to make a different attack in less than a second?” Rachel said.  “And I don’t need to take a second or two to react to having been stabbed?”

“Yes!” Tobias said.

“This game is not closely aligned with the timing and functions of real combat,” Ax pointed out.

Marco let out a noise somewhere between a sigh and a shriek.  “No shit, Sherlock!  Can we please just play by the rules?”

“I’m just saying it’s not realistic,” Rachel muttered.  “You get run through the leg with a sword, you bleed to death.  That’s how it goes.”

“Would you please shoot someone already?” Marco said.

“If you insist.”

At Level Two, Tobias’s gnome wizard joined the School of Divination for exactly one game.  “He’s rules-lawyering things that haven’t even happened yet,” Marco cried, throwing out his hands like this was the greatest injustice ever visited upon humanity.   At which point Tobias decided that discretion was the better part of valor and switched to the School of Evocation.  Marco’s eye stopped twitching.

“No, no, no.”  Marco leaned over to look at Jake’s roll.  “You add your charisma modifier to your attack roll, and then your strength modifier to your damage roll.”

“So he adds twelve to his roll?”  Cassie looked at her own sheet.  “I add seventeen to my roll?”

“Modifier.  Not the whole stat.  Mod-if-i-er.”  Marco groaned loudly.  “Is Tobias the only one who even tried to read the manual?”

“C’mon, man.”  Jake shrugged, grinning.  “When have you ever known me to do the assigned reading?”

“I have Tobias here to summarize the manual for me,” Rachel pointed out.  “Why bother?”

“I did attempt to read the manual.  Man.  Well.  It was not the most boring human book ever written, but it was very repetitive.”  Ax glanced around at all of them.  “Not to say that all human books are bad, even if they are all repetitive,” he added quickly.  “Take the books of Harry Potter, which are acceptable in addition to being repetitive.”

“‘Acceptable’?”  Tobias shook his head.  “‘Repetitive’?  You, sir, are wounding my entire species — one of my species — Just don’t diss the Potter.”

“There’s no need to call me ‘sir,’ professor,” Ax intoned.

Laughing, Tobias leaned over to bump their shoulders together.  “I take it back.  I love you, Ax-man.  Never change.”

“Anyway,” Cassie said, “we elected Tobias party leader, so he’s the only one who really needs to know how to play, right?”

“‘Elected’ is a pretty strong word for it.  The way I remember it, I was like…”  Marco put on a deeper voice, “‘Who wants to be party leader?’ and Jake yelled ‘NOT IT’ so loud that he probably startled pigeons in the next county over.  And then Tobias was the first one to recover from the shock long enough to volunteer.”

“I didn’t yell it, I said it,” Jake mumbled.  “Said it enthusiastically.”

“And you’re wrong.  We did nose-goes.”  Rachel tapped her own nose to demonstrate.  “Tobias lost.”

Ax’s eyes widened.  “So you and Cassie covering your noses was a primitive selection procedure in the manner of duck-duck-goose?  I thought we were all simply being polite by hiding our hideous human orifices from one another.”

“Anyway,” Tobias said, “as party leader, I’m declaring that we can whine about noses — and bipedalism — at a later time.  For now, let’s play.”

“Ah, yes.”  Ax looked down at the dice, and then back up at Marco.  “Who was attacking whom, again?”

Marco stared around the board, and then back at the dice.  “Like I remember that now!”

It was a small miracle that they all kept showing up after that first week.  Tobias and Marco were the only ones with both the skill and the enthusiasm to be any good at the game.  Cassie and Rachel lacked the necessary motivation: Cassie tended to get lost in long conversations with NPCs and never advanced the plot at all, whereas Rachel was likely to start climbing the walls with impatience after half an hour of sitting still.  Ax and Jake were both reasonably enthusiastic but terrible: Jake paid no attention at all to the math, and Ax paid too much.  They had one set of dice between the six of them, if one was generous and called rolling a d6 twice the same as rolling a d12.  (It wasn’t, but Marco’s and Ax’s attempts to explain this always made everyone else’s eyes glaze over.)

Seriously, though, Marco knew perfectly well why they kept showing up.  And it had nothing to do with everyone getting on board with Tobias’s super-geeky idea.  They’d tried Dungeons and Dragons, and they hadn’t actually started liking it.

It had nothing to do with the storyline.  Or the dice.  Or the characters.  They weren’t here for swords or goblins.  They didn’t drop everything to spend four hours a week in each other’s company because they liked the game.

Duh.

Of course, even their love for each other could be tested, at times, by their sheer incompetence as players.

“We’re still in the undercave?” Jake groaned, looking at the game board.  “We’ve been down here for like six weeks!”

“Yeah, ‘cause we’re stuck.”  Rachel glared around the table.  “Because we keep trying to fight the ooze monster and then almost dying.  Because we suck at this game.”

“Still say there should’ve been illithids,” Tobias muttered.  “We’re in the cave of the illithids, but instead we’ve got apocalyptic ooze where there isn’t supposed to be any.  That’s why we’re stuck.”

Marco sighed into his hands.  “For the last time, man, we’re not having any stupid mind flayers in this game.  There is a way out, I promise you, if you guys would just stop and figure it out.”

“I stab the ooze?” Cassie suggested.

“You take fourteen acid damage and permanently blunt your sword.”  Marco didn’t bother to look up.  “Just like last time.”

“Ugh.”  Cassie wrote down her new HP.  “At least I ruled out repeated stabbing as a way out?”

“Okay, okay.”  Jake stared at the game board, yet again failing to take the this map not to scale memo.  “We can figure this out.  Is it a cave kind of like those caves under Leeran?”

Marco lifted his head, tossing his hair out of his face.  “I got schlooped back to Earth before you guys got to see those, remember?”

“They were very beautiful,” Ax said, “and also full of toxic eels.  So perhaps Prince Jake’s comparison is apt.”

“The real toxic eel is the friends we made along the way.”  Rachel tilted her chair back, picking at her manicure.  “Think we should just call it a day?”

“No, no, Jake’s right.”  Cassie stared at the board.  “I believe in us.”

“It was kinda cool in the Leeran caves, so sorry you missed it,” Jake said to Marco.  “I was dead and missed the Battle of Trafalgar, though, so it all balances out?”

“The Battle of Trafalgar was not cool at all.”  Marco rolled his eyes.  “It was a battle.  It was gross and loud and bloody.  Is no one going to try anything else?”

“I pull out my rope and my flint, I set the rope on fire, we all die of smoke inhalation,” Rachel drawled.  “There, I got us out of the cave.”

“And into the afterlife,” Ax said solemnly.  “If, indeed, this game has an afterlife.  It was designed by humans, so I assume… Soom.  That it must.”

“Look, if we could just fight the mind flayer instead,” Tobias said, “there are clear strategies in place for how to fend off psychic attacks, and even if a few of us end up as mind-witnesses we could still use a handful of different spells—”  He swung his copy of the manual around to face Marco, pointing to a spot low on the open page.  “If you’ll just look at what the book says…”

Marco slammed the book shut, hard.

Tobias had to yank his hand back to avoid smashed fingers.  “Watch it!” he snapped.

“Guys,” Jake said.  “Let’s—”

“Rule.  Zero.”  Marco flattened a hand on top of the closed book.  “I’m the DM here, and I get to say that there are no mind flayers and definitely no mind witnesses, because I say so.  I’m the Ellimist of this little universe, and you don’t get a counter-argument.”

Rachel snorted loudly.  “Bad comparison.  Tobias argues with the real Ellimist all the time.”

“Only when he’s doing something stupid.”  Tobias was looking at Marco, not at her.  “Or breaking the rules of his own game.”

“Tobias…”  Jake inhaled slowly, massaging the bridge of his nose.  “It’s just a game, okay?  Marco… We are kinda stuck, dude, no offense.  Couldn’t we at least try to fight whatever it is Tobias wants, see if that gets us out of here?”

Marco pushed to his feet, face flushed.  “I’m running this game, because you people decided I should.  And I don’t give a fuck how much Bird-Boy complains, this game is not going to involve anyone getting psychically mind-controlled.  It will not feature alien tadpoles that crawl inside people’s brains and take over their bodies.”  He swept a hand across the board.  “There will be no illithids, there will be no brain golems, there will be no controllers—”

Marco snapped his mouth shut.

There was a long silence.  Tobias stared at the floor.

“Mind-witnesses,” Marco said at last.  “I meant mind-witnesses.”

THUNK.

Figurines and dice scattered everywhere.  The play-dough lump of ooze flattened underneath the second game board Cassie had just dropped on top of the first.

“Anyway,” she said, giving everyone an embarrassed smile.  “How about we switch to Monopoly for a while?”

“I call being the little dog piece,” Rachel said, pulling the box open.

“I’m sorry,” Tobias whispered to Marco, as Ax began clattering through the pieces and asking Jake questions.  “I didn’t mean…”

“Yeah.”  Marco pulled the bank toward him and counting out notes.  “Same here, man.  Uh, y’know.  Sorry I…”

“We’re cool.  We’re cool?”

“Yeah.  Yeah.”

“Does this highly successful roll mean I have first chance to stab Income Tax with my—”  Ax squinted at his game piece “—car?  So I’ll be attempting to inflict damage on Income Tax by running it over?”

“Many have tried that strategy,” Rachel intoned.  “None have succeeded so far.”

“You know that your beloved manual lists exactly the same stats for hawks, eagles, and owls, right?” Marco asked, grinning evilly.

“What?  No.”  Tobias frantically flipped toward the back of the book.

“Anyway, is he right?” Cassie asked as Tobias searched.  “Are we all supposed to be dead right now?”

“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Marco said.  “Yes, the explosion would have done a lot of damage to all of you—”

“Thanks, Jake,” Rachel snarked.

Jake sighed loudly.  “How was I supposed to know you had to throw the hand grenade after you pulled the pin?”

“You mean the part where Ax and Tobias were both yelling ‘toss it, toss it,’ and you were like ‘no, I’m gonna do an investigation check first’?” she said.  “And then we all died?”

“Actually, I believe Cassie was raging at the time when the ceiling fell on us all,” Ax said.  “Therefore, her damage would be halved.”

“Hell yeah!”  Cassie laughed.  “So it’s just…”  She peered at Marco’s roll and winced.  “Everyone else… in the entire party… who automatically failed a death check.  Right, Tobias?”

“No,” Marco said loudly, “because Jake cast Teleportation Circle and got you all out of there before the ceiling fell.”

“But Tobias believes that that would be allowing too many actions on a single turn.  Uurn.  Earn,” Ax said.  “And that Jake wouldn’t have time to set up the circle even if he did have a bonus action left.”

“For fuck’s sake, do you want to end on a total party kill?” Marco demanded.

Rachel smiled sweetly.  “It’s not a TPK if Cassie’s still alive.”

Marco rolled his eyes.  “Oh, in that case—”

“Oh my god, you’re right!”  Tobias sounded outraged.

“Am I dead?”  Rachel pouted.  “Just when this stupid game was starting to grow on me.”

“No, not that.”  Tobias stabbed a finger on the page.  “It says right here.  ‘For hawk, see: eagle.’  It fucking classifies hawks as a fucking subspecies of eagle!”

“What were you just saying about us following the manual at the expense of our lives?” Marco said smugly.

Tobias stared in betrayed horror at the page for another second.  And then he tossed the entire book clear over his shoulder and out of the room.  It clattered loudly in the hall.

“So as I was saying, Jake cast Teleportation Circle,” Marco said.  “And teleported you all out of there.”

“So we’re… not dead?” Cassie asked.

“Given the nature of teleportation, perhaps we are both dead and not, existing in the gap between states,” Ax said.  “Like when our consciousness was trapped in z-space, and yet our matter remained on Earth.  Or we exist in multiple universes at once, some in which we have died and some in which we yet live.”

“Yeah, cool, Schrödinger’s party,” Rachel said.  “Blah, blah.  Anyway, I’m gonna punch Jake in the arm for being a dumbass.  In-game and out-of-game.”

“Good luck with that.”  Marco cackled his evil DM cackle.  “The only universe I care about is the one where the whole lot of you give me an initiative roll.  Because I didn’t say Jake teleported you to a safe location, just a different one.”

[skullrock]

a humble rant

on the romanticism of abuse and fetishization of gay men in the ST fandom.

H*rringrove is one of the most popular ships in this fandom, and for what? Because Steve and B*lly and deemed sexy?

It’s baffling to me how people rationalize this ship. 

On romanticism:

A lot of folks who ship this ship and are confronted about it use the excuse that “in another world” Steve could “change” B*lly. He could make him better and remove that dead outer layer to reveal a warm interior. He could take B*lly to therapy and they could be this happy little family where everyone gets along. 

I realize this is a very popular trope - the sweet character makes the cold character break and fixes them. This is fine for like... idk... characters that haven’t almost died at the other’s hands? This would work if Character A was a sweetheart and kind while Character B was crabby and distant. It doesn’t apply when Character B beats the shit out of Character A, to a degree where Character A would have died in real life. It also should not apply to characters where there was a sense of torment that was never confronted and closure never received. 

But, back to the romanticization of abusive relationships - it’s extremely unhealthy to ship to men and say “well Steve could change B*lly <3″. No, that doesn’t fall on Steve, who has been abused by B*lly in the past. It’s not anyone’s responsibility to fix someone. It’s like... wild to me that it’s widely known that entering a relationship on the basis of being able to fix someone, or staying in a relationship that’s abusive because someone has a mental illness, is not okay - but apparently it’s okay to popularize it because “two men hot”?

And these folks tag their shit that Steve needs a hug and love and you really think he’s gonna get it from B*lly, who in Runaway Max mutilated a cat? B*lly has way more issues than being an abuse survivor. 

You want Steve to be happy and in a loving and caring relationship and yet ship him with someone who has a canon history of violence, racism, misogyny, and who tried to kill him... ok!

Truly no way you can spin this ship will make it amount to anything other than two hot guys.

-You want Steve to relate to someone as an abuse/neglect survivor? Jonathan is right there

-Sexual tension (which is also made up by yall lol)? Jonathan 

-Someone to love and appreciate Steve for who he is? absolutely anyone else in his age group, holy shit

please send any other excuses my way and I will hit them like a baseball out of the ball park babey. complete home run. the ball will evaporate bc I hit it out so hard.

This leads me to:

On fetishization:

When every other reason is broken down, it leaves this - two men that are hot that shared one scene that can be slightly interpreted as homoerotic but is actually just B*lly emasculating Steve.

Look, I get it - I guess - many people ship cute men because they’re cute and that's it. Like. I understand that. 

But holy shit. Any time any other homosexual ships come up, these shippers swat it away, passionately, whole-heartedly, going so far as to call Stonathan toxic. It’s almost as if it’s unfathomable to ship anyone except two “sexy” boys and for what?? Ya’ll think B*lly is a rat boy while the Rat King, Jonathan, is standing right there. 

I know for a fact that if B*lly looked like Keith y’all would be so up in arms...! That it’s abusive and disgusting and ew Steve should be dating someone sexy </3 where’s our OC with Dacre as a face claim </3

I also can understand wanting gay representation in media but why would you headcanon and abusive, violent, misogynistic racist as gay?? Isn’t that counterproductive??

It’s really just about people thinking it’s hot for Steve and B*lly to be together because they’re deemed sexy and that’s it!! 

And there’s really nothing so and about that - it’s the fact that there are mental hoops that are jumped through to defend this ship. People will bend over backwards 15 times to make it make sense, including creating a completely new B*lly, one that is so OOC that it can genuinely be considered a completely new character. If you’re going to ship H*rringrove at least own it! Don’t create a whole new B*lly and say “no this is the same one and he’s a sweetheart remember when he tried to kill children and murder a black boy for talking to his sister who he physically and verbally abuses <3″

what it comes down to:

This ship is toxic and unintelligible and simply based purely on two men being “hot” and therefore shipped. The relationship is either written to be extremely out of character, romanticizing abuse, or is, literally, abusive. It’s also a great example of cis white teens on this hellsite who ship things that make no sense and are actually detrimental in the name of good fun.

And maybe that’s all this is - good fun. People will ship what they ship and no one really should say “hey you’re an asshole for liking this.” It just truly blows my mind, the mental gymnastics some folks go through, to rationalize this ship and apologize for B*lly and his ridiculously toxic, racist, abusive, misogynistic behavior. 

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S4 Ep1 Part 1: Yugi Ditches Algebra, Cards Become Real

Ah, a new season a new day. It’s Season 4. And we’re going to start of with:

A deep sea sub. Sure, why not?

So Yugi’s unofficial other grandpa, Arthur Hawkins, AKA one of the member’s of this show’s only really happening OTP has decided to kinda ditch his Granddaughter Rebecca and go to the bottom of the ocean. Don’t blame him. Down here is where, I guess, he will come across this very Grecian looking structure.

Like Yugioh nonchalantly passes a lot of bad history at me but like...he’s in the Atlantic Ocean and there’s Grecian style stuff everywhere?

Why? I mean at least he’s not in the Pacific but like...Yugioh. Anyways, we’re not in Greece but the show had very little time to invent a brand new ancient architecture style although I would be super down for that.

But like...here’s the thing about columns--you can go really deep into column lore and people are really freakin picky about columns and what they mean, and this could have been a low key hilarious place to make an entirely new column order just for Yugioh. They could’ve done it and they decided not to. It’s OK, I’ll save it for the Marik’s Boat Time spinoff they’ll never ever make.

But I just want to bring up just real super fast that Noah and Gozaburo must’ve known about this place for years right? Like they super lived underwater and had robots poised to attack mankind stationed all over the sea floor so...we can pretty much guarantee they already knew about this place?

Just gonna bring up what a shame it is Noah freakin died.

Also want to bring up what a shame it was that Arthur didn’t show up at the beginning of S3 and be like “hey Yugi, I was just in the neighborhood, noticed you got picked up by an undersea gang, what’s up?”

(read more under the cut)

Anyway, there he is, our 70 yo adventurer, who has more energy than I have at under half his age. Arthur Hawkins needs to take it down a few pegs.

Or is it Hawkings?

Wtv.

Anyways, I gave Hawkins this tweed colored font that I just realized is nearly the same as Joey’s so it’ll change if he ever comes back.

Thanks for that prologue, Yugioh. Anyway, apparently no one on this side of Japan freakin cares, because despite finding what looks exactly like Godzilla’s lair on the bottom of the sea, we’re gonna instead fixate on Rex and Weevil.

Y’all I was going to make a joke about “why does this show fixate so much on Rex and Weevil at the beginning of so many arcs?” when I remembered that Bakura basically murdered all the other mean mini bosses from S1 except for Bandit Keith, who probably got deported by now.

I had to think long and hard just now about whether or not I’ve used that joke before because it is S4 and y’all I just don’t even remember.

(I have a very long story about Warby Parker that I just deleted fyi)

Rex is a Christmas plaid now because there are too many characters in this show.

Now that Rex and Weevil have been reunited, which is surprising because I just assumed these two have been Bert and Ernie-ing it up in some condo in the NYC, They say:

I almost forgot about the secret side-plot of Yugioh, that everyone is a cheese monger and very open about it.

So anyway, they’re off to have a very simple storyline of “I will try and Challenge Yugi Muto for God Cards” which...good luck with that, it only took 2 seasons for Yugi to finally accept his challenge from Seto Kaiba. Have fun following around Yugi Muto for 2 seasons.

When there’s a...really bizarre twist that happens. Just a very weird turn of events. Like recall that it’s the middle of the day, and the sun is shining, and there’s people and cars everywhere, and it’s a good neighborhood, and then, like playing Pokemon in tall grass, this guy just appears in front of them.

And guys, I’m from the Bay Area and I have slipped and fallen right on top of my phone on Fillmore which was DEVASTATING so like...their unstoppable speed walk down this 12 degree slope is...

I think they wanted to run into them, I really think they did. I think people in this town are so desperate for any excuse to fall into a horrifying disaster that they are just magnetically attracted to anyone wearing an oversized blanket.

Also this guy’s look is...kind of forgettable. It’s somehow weird and also forgettable at the same time. Hit that sweet spot for me. I don’t even remember this guy’s name, it was so forgettable. I’ll look it up later. Maybe bro will do it. I dunno. He wears a Monocle so like...that’s all I can say about this guy.

OK so I just checked in with Bro and then Bro made a weird rant about this guy being called Gurimo and how bro had some strong opinions about Season 4. Then Bro said a statement that really stuck with me, although I only remember part of the statement which was: “...this guy can just go get more monocles from Forever 21 and Hot Topic...” which made me very quickly realize my adult brother has never entered either a Forever 21 or a Hot Topic if he thinks a cultist in a monocle would purchase monocles from there.

I learned a lot and now you have to know this too.

And in case you’re wondering “did Rex and Weevil deserve this?” No. He just immediately decided to steal their soul on the sidewalk in front of Women’s Foot Locker from what I assume is just down the street from Yugi Muto’s house/game shop.

(how did this storyboarder nail the 3/4 degree angle on Weevil here? Do you know how hard that is to do with not just glasses but weird ass chunky glasses?)

Ah, a duel disk that can stab yourself in the stomach with two very poorly laid out barbs.

Very nice rival to Kaiba’s duel disk that will behead you if you don’t fling your arm out just right.

So like...did he steal a duel disk from Kaiba and then mod it? Is that what they did? The whole point of duel disks is that you’re linked up to the Dueling Facebook or whatever...so did this Cultist buy a normal duel disk from Toy’s R Us and then say “ahahah I’m going to do so much card crime!” and then start modding it with help of a cosplay forum? Like what’s the story here of how this guy spent all of last year (and definitely all of last season) modding this duel disk over a computer desk, some metallic acrylic paint, and a sauntering iron, feverishly asking his forum if anyone can 3d print some sick ass runes for his soul-sucking duel disk?

And then I guess this guy dueled both Rex and Weevil at the same time? Like this was all off screen...but why didn’t Rex and Weevil just leave? Just don’t pull out your duel disk and you’re probably good?

Just so many ways to have avoided losing your soul in the first ten minutes of Yugioh.

Anyway, on the other side of town, Tea is worrying about Yugi which is basically her normal.

Joey and Tristan decided to meet up with her, not because she was clearly in distress, but because Yugi isn’t around, and why worry about Tea when instead your friend Yugi is probably going to destroy the world the moment you turn around (and he did. Yugi absolutely effed everything up the very moment these three took their eyes off of him)

And what was weird is that it took Yugi until, I dunno...several streets over to kind of come out of the ether and be like “heeey Pharaoh...um...what’s up?” Like it took him this long to say something. Probably so that by the time they would have walked back to school math would have been over.

So...did Yugi just not notice at first? Like it’s sort of amazing what these two don’t know what the other one is up to. Including this situation that little Yugi absolutely should have picked up on.

As it turns out, the cards are speaking very audibly to Pharaoh. This should have been somewhat of a...youknow...red flag...since Yugi can’t hear them but Pharaoh can. But, Yugi’s like “well...we’re so used to everyone just giving us the answer and that being the right call, I guess this must also be the right call.”

And...although he had quite the head start, These three are more than willing to drop the hell out of class and rack up those absences. I’m gonna assume they had to make up another wild excuse about Tea’s cat to that one teacher to get out of school just like last time, but they did all that offscreen.

And then Tea just kind of snapped, and she did so with a smile the entire time.

Her wording was somewhat different, but she did basically say something along the lines of “if you don’t remember me telling you this a million times, you are an idiot” and Pharaoh didn’t have an answer and so it was like he said without saying anything “yes, I am.”

Which he will further prove like five minutes from now.

Like Y’all, bless his cursed perfect ass, but Pharaoh is the biggest idiot in this show. Sometimes he’s brilliant, but if he’s ever left to his own devices, just the biggest idiot. He got duped by some guy pretending to throw his voice so that his cards looked like they were talking to him. Pharaoh thought cards can talk.

And so that’s how Pharaoh freakin caused the Apocalypse. The first of many.

He did so just so very easily.

His cards started wigging out, the tablet started icing over--it was like “hey remember what took 2 seasons to build up to? Well screw it.”

Also this happened, apropos of absolutely nothing.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand cards are real.

I mean they’ve been real for a few seasons but now the cards are officially real and they’re not cute like Pokemon. They’re all really gross and roided out and they probably have a funky smell. All of them.

I knew we’d get here eventually I just didn’t know it would be SO fast.

When no one was paying absolutely any attention--when my entire focus was inside of this museum, that was when cards became real.

Well...

...time to shove em into little balls I guess. Anyways, that’s it for this update because this episode was a lot of stuff so I’m gonna split it so y’all have it easier and so I have it easier too.

And if you just got there this is S4, if you want to start reading these from S1, here’s a link to the collection in chrono order, it’s basically like reading a Victor Hugo length of book except its just me ranting about WTF is going on in OG Yugioh for 100+ episodes, knock yourself out.

[xpastelwingzx]

Arranged Marriage pt 2

////More to come eventually~ Remember If you donate to my Ko-fi you get priority on your drabble request////

Keith’s father nodded back to the Altean as he reached out to shake the mans hand "I will send some things for him soon, I should head back" Lance's dad shook the others hand with a warm smile. "You can visit any time."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Keith caught up to lance and huffed "You could have waited for me you know, since you are the one who is supposed to be leading me and all" Lance grimaced a bit and kept his hands clasped tightly together. "I um. . . Sorry," he mumbled, still not looking at Keith. Things felt so different between them already and he had no clue what to say to Keith now. . . "Just. . . yeah. . ."

Keith raised a brow as he looked over at Lance not sure why he's suddenly acting differently, did the announcement of their sudden engagement really get to the Altean that badly "Lance I know you're not happy about this and all but....As our dad's said we cant fight against it" Lance sighed as he reached his room, opening the door and standing aside so Keith could come in and look around, which the galra did step in and looked around the room to get a feel of what would be his home for the moment. Lance looked down at the ground, finally responding. "I don't plan on fighting it. . . If- If you don't plan to anyway. I just don't. . . don't know how to react. I don't know how I feel about this yet." He looked up at Keith, studying him. "And for the record I'm not. . . Not happy. Just surprised."

The Galra was a bit shocked to hear that especially from someone he thought didn’t care much for him. "Oh...I just...you know I just thought you weren't happy about it especially since we really don't know each other and all" he messed with his own hands a bit nervous. "No! I'm not angry or upset. . . we don't know each other well but it doesn't mean we can't get to know each other eventually. . ." he said as he looked at the man noticing how he fussed with his hands finding it a bit strange. "Why aren’t you angry or upset?....wouldn’t you want to marry someone else? " Keith mumbled as he awkwardly stood there not sure what else to do at the moment. Lance smiled, even though it was probably a bit awkward, shrugging. "Arranged marriages are kind of a tradition in this family. I'm just glad it's somebody I kind of know rather than a complete stranger. And c'mon, you're not that bad."

Keith bit the inside of his cheek as he looked around the room not sure how to respond to Lance’s last statement just then. He noticed there was really only one bed in the room and looked back at the altean "Do you think they expect us to share a bed?....its just....again we really don't know each other outside of the meetings and dinner..." Lance glanced back at his bed. "And, yeah. . . Um, we can talk to my dad about that if you want. I'm sure once we explain that we don't plan to do anything wild he can get you you're own room if you'd like."

“Well if our parents announce it we'd have to act like we really are to be married don’t we?....it would be weird if I had my own room and didn't stay in yours....isn’t that how marriages go?" Keith really wasn’t sure if that was something in every marriage or not, but he knew it was apart of his father and mothers. Lance thought about it for a moment, looking around his room. "Well, it isn't announced yet so my father would probably be fine with it. And if he for some reason isn't then one of us can take the floor or something. I don't want to force you to sleep in the same bed as me if you don't want to. . . I'm sure we can come up with something. . ." Keith shook his head some "I mean I am fine with it....i have shared beds before with family so...it shouldn’t be to different right?" He looked around the room a bit more taking it in "...didn’t expect you to have a room like this...its a bit plan and you're so...loud all the time"

Lance blinked in surprise when Keith just accepted sleeping in the same bed, was that normal for their culture. He looked around his room while the Keith did, for some reason worried about whether or not he would like it. He blushed a bit at the comment, not sure why, and frowning. "It's not plain," he argued, looking around again. "I just. . . don't have a lot of stuff. . ." He looked back at Keith, smiling a bit. "What were you expecting?"

"A room full of something....flowers or something bright and flashy" he shrugged crossing his arms over his chest "its not what I expected especially from someone like you..." He turned his hands over in the fabric at his sides as he  peeked at Lance not sure what else he should say "so...um...what now?" Lance looked around again, suddenly thinking that flowers would look nice. He thought for a few moments before sighing and shrugging. "I have no idea. . . um. . . we could go on a walk?" he asked, looking down at his hands. He had never had so much free time with Keith before, what would a Galran like to do for fun. "I guess so....probably best i get to learn this place seeing how I am going to be here now" he sighed a bit. Keith had no idea what to do or say he's never been alone like this with Lance especially for this long. He barely knew what to say to just anyone besides his family he isn’t someone who knows how to make friends.

"Yeah. . . it's not too hard to get the hang of though," Lance said, hesitating for a moment before awkwardly holding his arm out for Keith to take if he wanted. He'd seen his father do it for his mother, so maybe he was supposed to do it. Keith blinked as he looked at Lance's arm and then back up at Lance confused as to what he was supposed to do here "Um...I guess it isn’t hard to get the hang of the place...but doesn't hurt to be shown around either, You okay?...is this some...strange handshake for you guys?" Lance stared at him for a moment and then laughed a bit, dropping his arm. "No, it's not. I guess it's a something you do to be polite or something. It's like holding hands but. . . you're holding onto my arm." he said, trying to explain but probably failing. He smiled anyway, stepping outside of his room and waiting for Keith this time.

"If that is the case why not just hold hands instead wouldn’t it be a bit more comfortable?" he asked as he stepped past lance and waited for him to start showing him around "just seems like your arm would get tired with having to hold it up for that long or something..." Lance couldn't help but smile at the comment, shrugging as he closed his door. "I don't know. I never thought about it." He gestured down one end of the long hallway, looking at Keith. "You have seen the dining room and conference room," he said, leading Keith the opposite way. "This way is the throne room, some extra bedrooms, the maids quarters and whatnot. We also have a pretty big library this way, which is where I spend most of my time, actually."

"You like to read?...I wouldn't take you for someone to like read" he mumbled as he followed the man down the hall. Keith brightened slightly when he heard of the library he liked to read and this would probably be the one place he spends all his time at, he found it was easier to escape with books then trying to escape his home. Lance smiled a bit, looking over at Keith and leading him toward the library.  "I guess I'm pretty surprising then," he joked, opening the door for him once they got there. "I've read quite a few of these. My father has a pretty large collection. All kinds of different things."

Keith's eyes light up at the library, it was so big and seemed to have so many different books around a smile formed on his face "wow...this is up for anyone to read?...I.I’d love to get a look at everything" Lance couldn't help but smile when Keith did,finding his excitement contagious. "Yes! It's for everyone. We can come here whenever we want to" Keith turned to look at Lance ignoring his joke "what is it you like reading the most?" The question made Lance's grin even bigger. He lightly grabbed a hold of Keith's hand, pulling him toward the back of the library where the fantasy books were. "My favorites are the stories about adventure. . ." he said, letting go of Keith's hand to run his finger over the spines of each book. "This is my favorite one. . ." he pulled the book out, handing it to Keith. If Lance had known Keith was a reader, he would have been much nicer before now.

Keith’s smile grew when he learned the room was for anyone to join. He blinked when Lances hand touched his own and followed him with a small blush he wasn’t to use to normal touch like this. Looking over the books Keith hummed softly "I...like those stories as well... It always makes me want to go out and have a adventure....though dad would never let me" Lance sighed happily. "Yeah. My dad won't let me do that either. Sometimes I do manage to get to the town though. I've made friends with a man who works at the inn on the outside of town and he is very good at cooking. And then there's siblings that build things. Some time you'll have to meet them." Keith smiled. "You were able to get out?..... I'd like to meet them...maybe...sneak out with you to...see the town have a adventure of our own" he chuckled softly taking the book he was handed. Lance blinked in surprise when Keith called it their adventure but pretended it didn't effect him. "Yeah. . . I would like that. . ."

Keith smiled a little and opened the book reading a bit "d....do the books have to...um stay in here?" Lace smiled. "of course not, Bring it with you if you want." Keith brought the book to his chest "I'd like to read this.... I might end up here a lot" Lance smiled a little "You can come here whenever you want to." He looked around the room in wonder before glancing back to Lance "you always seemed like a bit of a jerk to me...at times" Lance’s cheeks grew a bit warmer when Keith pointed out his rudeness, and he rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. "Oh. . . um. I was just. . . pretending, I guess. You never seemed interested in friendship or whatever so I just. . . Yeah. Sorry. . ." he stammered, clearing his throat. "Didn't actually mean it."

Keith looked over at Lance as he spoke and shifted from foot to foot "I didn't seem interested? You have to be interested in a friendship?" Keith mumbled a little confused. "I...have never had friends before so I guess... I didn’t know I have to look interested. Sorry I didn't seem interested....the only friend i have I guess would be my father. It's part of why he has always brought me to the meetings he wanted me to try and make friends with someone" He looked back down at his book "I mostly spend my time at home reading or sword training with my uncle's” Lance shrugged. "I guess this is one way to make a friend," he joked. "I'm not super close to my dad. . . So I guess if I didn't sneak out all the time then I wouldn't have friends. Unless book characters count as friends. . ." His face lit up and he turned away from the books to look at Keith in excitement. "Sword training?" he hissed. "That's so cool! Much cooler than archery!"

Keith blushed a little as he looked up at Lance "it is fun, I have been learning it since i could hold one. Dad says it helps sooth some of my anger to when I get to worked up" Keith messed with the book in his arms looking at the floor for a second before looking back up to the Altean "you do archery?....why archery? Not that its a bad thing to learn its just....isn’t it safer to learn up close combat in case someone is to get close enough to you?" Lance shrugged, looking to the side shyly. "I don't know. My father doesn't let me leave the palace grounds so he didn't think I would need that." Keith frowned a little "Just because you don't leave palace grounds doesn’t mean someone cant just somehow get in here to attack you....archery is good but close combat would help you out more in that case"

Keith flushed a little more "um if you'd really like to learn swords....i could teach you while I am here" Lance looked back at him with wide eyes, excited again. "R-Really?" he asked eagerly, clasping his hands together and leaning forward slightly. "That would be so cool!!"  Keith looked away from Lance a small blush on his cheeks "Well...yeah I mean...its the least I can do since I am sort of taking up space here and all" Lance frowned a bit, stepping forward in concern. "You're not just taking up space here. We do want you here. .  " he said, adding a soft and warm smile. "You don't have to do anything to pay us. If that's what you mean. If you want to teach me, then you can. But you don't have to feel obligated." Keith frowned a little "I am offering because I want to...if I felt I had to I would think of something better then giving lessons" He looked back to lance "I think it's best you know close combat. It could possible save you for when you sneak out of the castle and no ones with you"

[hailqiqi]

The Future in Snippets

AO3 - Chapter One - Chapter Two - Chapter Three - Chapter Four

Chapter Five: ...Must Come Down Somewhere

Words: 4902

So it turns out that the ghosts of actions past bite. And not in the way you’d want them to.

---

@blue-hawkeye A Lannister always pays her debts.  Shout out to @mistyhollowpro for reading this through for me like ten times over the last week, and the lovely people on the Pidgance Positivity Server for listening to me whinge about the writing process!

This chapter is SFW

---

For the fourth time in three days, Pidge woke up wondering how the fuck she was going to face Lance.

Especially since the last thing in her face had been his—

She cut her thoughts off with a squeak and buried her face back in the pillow, cheeks burning.

Frustrated irritation washed over her a moment later. Why was she still so embarrassed about this? Last night she’d been rubbing against it. (‘It’. His dick. D-I-C-K. She was at least going to think the damn word, even if she couldn’t say it.)

It was definitely too late to play the shy card, so if her cheeks and morals and whatever the hell kept making her want to run away giggling like a grade-schooler could just get with the damn programme that’d be great. Whatever the programme was.

She was still blushing when she forced herself to the sink, but she ignored it to frown at her half-undone braid instead. Sighing, she began work on undoing the other one, making a mental note to check her bedsheets later for the missing hairband.

Being shy about it didn’t have to be a bad thing, she reasoned. Maybe she just wasn’t the type of girl who could be straightforward about things like that. Then again, Pidge had never thought she was the type of girl to lose her virginity against a wall, but...

Her fingers stilled, eyes going wide. Was that where it had been heading last night? If Lance hadn't said her name and freaked her out, would they have gone all the way?

Yes, a little voice whispered. Just thinking back to his touch was making shivers dance across her flesh, her breath catching in her throat and heat curling in her belly at the ghost of the sensation. The way his fingertips had roved over her skin, leaving fire in their wake. The strength of his body pressed against hers. The passion in his lips.

...The clumsy sweetness of those first kisses. The way he'd blushed when she kissed his cheek, as if that had meant more than the frantic making out (foreplay, she forcefully corrected herself) just minutes before. The way he'd given her space the picosecond she'd said she was uncomfortable.

Those memories stirred up a very different kind of warmth, and a smile tugged at her lips.

She used her fingers to comb her hair out into messy waves, still smiling as she studied her reflection in the mirror. If Lance had been the one to yell stop, would she have had the self-control to back off that quickly?  Somehow, she doubted it — all she’d wanted was to be closer.

But Lance had, and she'd always heard it was meant to be harder for guys. That had to mean something, right?

She reached for the toothbrush almost absently. That had to mean something might be a redundant question when he'd flat-out admitted to liking her in the lounge.

A memory flashed in her mind: his jacket around her shoulders, and the gentle hands that had put it there. When she closed her eyes, she could almost feel its warmth again, and that realisation gave her pause.

The girl in the mirror had wide eyes, pale skin and messy hair, and for once Pidge didn't think she looked like a boy.

But did she look like a girl in love?

 ------

 Pidge was still dwelling on the answer when she tripped over Lance on the way to breakfast.

"Woah!" He reacted quickly, abandoning his shoelaces to whirl around and catch her before she faceplanted. "What the cheese, Pidge, look where you're— ah, Pidge! Uh..."

His hands were still on her shoulders, helping to steady her even as his cheeks rapidly darkened. Pidge could feel her own cheeks heat up to match as the memories of the night before -- both the dreams and the reality -- came flooding back.

Shit. He stared at her, wild-eyed, looking as lost as she felt. She had to say something to break the tension. Anything. Anything— "Uh, hi."

Lance nodded, releasing a breath she hadn’t realised he’d been holding. "Yeah. Uh, hi."

"Well, now I know what you two were dreaming about last night," Hunk said, grinning, and they leapt apart.

Lance let go of Pidge (she wasn’t disappointed she wasn’t), punched Hunk on the arm, then shoved his hands in his pockets and started stalking down the hallway towards the dining room. "Shut up, buddy."

Hunk waggled his eyebrows. "Just sayin'." Turning to Pidge with a laugh, he gestured for her to walk with him as Lance disappeared through the doorway. "Seriously, my dreams aren't nearly as interesting. Last night I was talking to Coran about upgrading the castle's system."

“That is interesting, though!” Pidge protested, immediately interested in the word ‘upgrade’. “Do you remember what you were doing with them?”

“No idea. Just something about Planck’s Constant,” he replied with a shrug.

“6.62607004 × 10-34 m2 kg / s?” She frowned. “What do photons have to do with the castle’s systems? The particle barrier?”

Hunk froze, his hand inches away from the door panel. “Okay, look, I’m smart and I’ve known you for about two years now but it’s still scary how you can just rattle things like that off.” Pidge smirked, and he wiggled a finger at her. “Also, the particle barrier would make sense, but I didn’t see that much.”

The door whooshed open. “Okay, but the only thing in this castle that utilises that much electromagnetism is the particle barrier, so—”

“Are you kidding? I leave you guys alone for five seconds and you’re already talking nerd stuff?”

Pidge made a face and flipped him off without even looking, instead edging around the table towards the kitchen. “As I was saying, it’s—”

“—nice knowing some things haven’t changed.”

Both members of Team Punk froze, turning towards the source of the voice as one. Keith sat at the table next to Lance, a grin on his face and one hand held up in greeting. “Morning.”

“Keith!”

The flood of emotion that threatened to overwhelm her caught her off-guard, but the next moment Pidge practically ran at him, tackling him in a hug so exuberant it almost knocked him off his chair. Keith grunted with the impact and tensed up, but a moment later she felt his arms wind around her back as he returned the embrace, murmuring “Are you okay?” against her hair.

Pidge nodded, tightening her grip and breathing in. Keith was the one who’d spent hours teaching her how to fight, who offered her his silent company when she was up late working on difficult programs and always helped her work out her frustrations when she needed to hit things but didn’t want to talk about why.

She’d missed him.

A second later they both yelped as Hunk got in on the action and lifted them into the air, though Pidge’s laughter quickly turned into wheezing when she found her air supply cut off. She wriggled out of the group hug, landing on her feet ungracefully but saved from a meeting with the floor by a hand on her back again.  Surprised, she turned to see Lance watching them, his other elbow on the table propping up his chin.

He returned her grateful smile with a raised eyebrow. “How come I never get greeted like that?”

“Disappear for four months and you might,” she replied, rolling her eyes.

“Okay, one,” Hunk chimed in, releasing a grateful Keith from his hold and wiping his cheeks, “nobody is stopping you from getting in on this action, you just think you’re too cool for hugs. Two, you got a giant quiznaking hug from Pidge yesterday, and I think that counts.”

Pidge froze.

“She was crying! That’s not the same!” Lance protested, and Pidge let out a breath she hadn’t realised she was holding. Right. The morning thing. That dream, and not the...other thing.

Hunk hummed non-commitantly, gesturing for Pidge to follow him to grab some food goo, while Keith frowned at Lance. “Pidge was crying? Why?”

“Uhh…”

“Those two have been having a bunch of dreams about each other,” Hunk offered, saving him from having to think of a reply. “You know, the prophecy ones? From the quintessence on this planet? But trust me, you really don’t wanna know the details.”

“I don’t even wanna know the details,” Lance muttered as Pidge slid into the empty seat next to him.

Pidge shrugged and scooped up some of her breakfast, pausing with the spork halfway to her mouth as she felt eyes on her. She looked up to see Keith studying her. “What?”

He frowned. “Are you sure you’re okay? You’re not normally that...happy to see me.”

The question made her think. Was she okay? She glanced sideways for a cue but Lance’s attention was focused on his breakfast, so instead she turned back to Keith and forced a half-smile. “I guess? Life is just really weird right now.”

That must have been the right answer, because Keith chuckled in response, his shoulders relaxing. “When isn’t it?”

Breakfast proceeded fairly normally after that, the sound of sporks scraping plates interspersed with idle chatter as they caught Keith up on all that had happened with Team Voltron and he shared some anecdotes about his time with the Blade until the door whooshed open, admitting Coran.

“Ah, there you are! Lance, I’ve input those designs and the measurements from your armour into the fabricator so we should have those outfits for the ball in two quintants!” He stood at the head of the table, his hands on his hips as he surveyed them, expression brightening even further when his gaze landed on Pidge. “Number Five, I daresay you’ll look like a Groggorian beauty in that dress!”

Her spork landed on the table with a clatter as panic seized in her throat. “Dress?! What dress?!”

“It’s a different dress!” Lance yelled, eyes wide and face pale. “A totally different dress!”

Pidge stared at him, her heart pounding a mile a minute, trying desperately to calm the panic in her mind. Lance stared back, equally flustered.

Wheezing laughter broke the tension — “O.M.G., was Pidge wearing a dress in the last one?!” — and embarrassment hit Pidge like an ion cannon.

“Oh no!” she squeaked, hiding her face in her hands and slamming her head on the table. “Why is this even happening?!”

She heard Lance groan beside her, and the sound of Keith smacking Hunk on the back as his laughter turned into choking (good, maybe then he’d shut up). Her face felt so hot part of her was afraid the table would melt through, but — whatever. Pidge was staying there even if it did. In fact, this was where she was going to live out the rest of her life now, face buried in a hard table until someone developed a cure for abject mortification.

“Did Pidge and Lance dream about each other again?” Coran sounded confused.

“Are you kidding? Pidge is all I’ve been dreaming about! Seriously, I thought I was gonna get all these cool dreams about cool things I’m gonna be doing but no, it’s all Pidge—”

“To be fair, Pidge is pretty cool, Lance.”

—Hunk was gonna die. She’d have to do it when he was asleep, because there was no way she could overpower him, but if she tied him up first and woke him then she’d at least get to see the fear in his eyes—

“They’re together a lot in their free time, so it’s not that strange, is it?” Keith pointed out.

“No, it’s still unusual…” Coran said, slowly, and Pidge looked up from her homicidal fantasies to watch him twirl his moustache. “Normally the dreams are cyclical in nature; we should be ‘taking it in turns’, so to speak…”

“Are all of our dreams these prophecy dreams? And do we only have one a night, or do we have a bunch and just can’t remember most of them? Like how normal dreams work?” Lance asked, his spork pointed towards Coran as he waited for an answer.

Pidge frowned. “Are you talking about REM and non-REM cycles?”

Lance blinked. “I dunno. Am I?”

“I’m not sure what a remming cycle is, but Number Three is right in that you typically only remember the last dream you had before you wake up. And since we’re all new to Miskira, we should each be having three to six prophetic dreams a night, even though we only remember one or two.” Coran studied them, obviously thinking carefully before choosing his next words. “Still, it’s rather strange that you’ve only dreamt of each other. I’ve shared dreams with a different person every night.”

“Come to think of it, I haven’t had a dream with either of them in it,” said Hunk. “Guess they’re too busy—”

“Don’t finish that thought, buddy,” Lance growled, leaning across Keith to brandish his spork at him.

Before anyone could react, Allura’s voice echoed over the PA.

“Paladins to the bridge. Immediately.”

Everyone in the room exchanged a glance, then shuffled to their feet as Coran began herding them out the door, clapping his hands like a kindergarten teacher. “Up, up! Let’s go! You too, Keith, you’re still a paladin!”

 ——-

 Lance caught her just outside the kitchen, tugging gently on her wrist while waving the others ahead. “Uh, about last night…”

Pidge’s thoughts abruptly screeched to a halt.

Last night. The changing room. The kisses, the touching, the everything. Her cheeks were burning when she squeaked out, “Um, yeah?”

He chuckled, a smile briefly gracing his lips, before glancing away and scratching the back of his neck. Dark red dusted his cheeks, his fingers were warm on her wrist, and Pidge suddenly found his proximity very distracting.

Distracting enough that she was thrown for a loop when he pinned her with a look and asked: “What are we?”

“Uh… What?” Shit. “Um. Friends? We’re friends.” Right?

“I… Friends?”

“I guess…?” Pidge blinked. “I don’t—”

“Pidge, I don’t do that kind of stuff with friends.” He let go of her wrist to gesture between them, and Pidge resisted the urge to grab his hand. “We’re not…?”

Wrapping her arms around herself, she dropped her gaze to his shoes, breathing through her mouth in an effort to ignore his scent and regain some semblance of clarity. “Look, Lance, I’m just—” Breathe, Pidge. “ — I’m confused, I don’t know what I want or—”

“I know what I want,” he said, and the conviction in his voice made her gaze snap up to his.

“What?”

“I do know what I want,” he repeated, voice firm. He lifted his chin, straightened up and squared his shoulders, hands held sharply at his sides as he said, “I want you.”

The breath left her lungs in a rush. “I—”

She what, exactly?

Blank. Her mind was blank.

Lance held her gaze steadily, his entire attention focused on her, and she suddenly felt very, very small.

He was waiting for an answer, but she didn’t have one. Panic began to set in and her thoughts started tumbling over each other in a never-ending waterfall of useless fragments as she searched for something to tell him. Did she—? Yes? No? She had, but, she did—?

“Okay you two, are you coming or not? Cause Allura won’t be happy if you’re late.”

They both spun around at the intrusion, and the tension snapped.

Maybe she’d forgive Hunk for earlier after all.

 ——-

 The walls were made of space bamboo, and it was making it very difficult for Pidge to keep denying that the Miskirans did kinda look like pandas.

Lance, of course, had been fucking delighted the moment they’d pulled up an image of the hideout. It was probably only the facts that Shiro and Allura were running on zero sleep and already wanted to kill him that kept him silent, but Pidge hadn’t missed the way his features lit up when Hunk said: “Is that...bamboo?”

It turned out there was a healthy chunk of metal in here too, but the middle of a mission wasn’t really the time to dwell on it.

“Two bio-signatures coming up on the right.”

They ducked into an alcove, pressing themselves against the sides as the guards — probably some of the Miskiran rebels — walked past the end of the hallway. Hunk gave the all-clear on the comms and Keith signalled for them to get moving.

She saw Lance moving to bring up the rear with his rifle as she skulked back out into the hallway, following Keith’s lead. The three of them moved swiftly and silently through the dim halls, pausing to avoid patrols before setting off again.

The mission itself was simple. Infiltrate the collaborators’ hideout, find their server room, and steal all their intel. The hideout was dimly lit and heavily guarded, but that was nothing the Paladins hadn’t faced before. It was almost routine by now.

The formation was new. Shiro and Allura were strictly off the mission as they hadn’t slept in over 24 hours; though Allura was waiting in Blue in case they needed an extraction. Hunk was on the comms, providing back-up from a stake-out spot a hundred feet or so away.

“You’re gonna be caught between two patrols if you go that way. Wait where you are.”

Pidge grit her teeth. Lance should have been on the comms, really. His rifle was much more reliable than the BLIP sensors they were using, but the Miskirans had insisted that Lance be in the ground team with her, so here he was. Insisted, as in, threatened to withdraw their support for the Coalition if he wasn’t.

These were the same Miskirans who had point-blank refused to entertain the idea of joining the infiltration, claiming it was ‘too dangerous’. They’d even wanted to pull Keith off the ground team; he was only with them because Shiro was adamant that Pidge have some close-quarters back-up and had sworn to pull the plug on the entire alliance if they tried to send her in with only Lance.

Of course, the Miskirans didn’t really care if Pidge died on the mission. That was probably the point, as Keith had cynically pointed out.

The Minister was dead. Pidge and Lance were the chief suspects.

Though why that made the Miskirans think they were the best choice for this mission, Pidge had no idea. If they really were working with the rebels, infiltrating rebel HQ wouldn’t have been hard for them. Allura said it was likely a test of their loyalty. The idea made Pidge want to punch something.

Preferably a panda-alien.

“Once you turn this corner your target’s straight ahead. No hostiles currently within range.”

“Roger that,” Lance replied softly, and they exchanged a glance as Keith gave the signal again.

The code on the server room door was easy to hack. They quickly ensconced themselves inside, Lance wriggling up into the rafters by the door while Keith took up a defensive position at her back.

Pidge always secretly hated this part. Hacking into the mainframe, finding the data and downloading it was never a problem, but data transfers always took time. And Pidge, as the resident computer genius, had to monitor the download — lives often depended on the download going smoothly — which meant she needed to rely on the others to watch her back.

And they would — this she knew without a doubt. Right now, Keith stood beside her and Lance was watching over them both, and both of them would throw themselves in the line of fire for her without a moment’s hesitation — as she would for them. But there was always this tiny part of her that hated it, repressed animal instincts that flat-out rebelled at the thought of being deliberately vulnerable in a dangerous situation. Of giving up control over her own defence.

Sixty-seven percent. Ten minutes remaining.

“One bio-signature heading towards the entrance.”

A sharp intake of breath from Lance. Keith glanced at her. “How long will that lock hold?”

“Five minutes, max,” she replied, eyes fixed on the screen.

“How long left on the download?”

“Nine.”

A thick silence fell over the room.

Hunk’s voice was quiet. “Guys, they’re at the door.”

The faint beeps of the keypad floated through the door, followed by the sound of familiar cursing and thuds against the metal.

Eight minutes left.

“Second hostile approaching. I think he’s called for back-up.”

“They probably think the lock’s broken,” Lance said, armour rustling as he shifted in the rafters. “How long, Pidge?”

Seventy-four percent. “Almost Seven.”

“Maybe they won’t figure it out and we’ll get out scott-free.”

“Unfortunately, that’s our only exit,” Keith said.

“Unless there’s another way out. Hunk?”

Lance sounded optimistic, but Pidge knew the answer before it came. They’d all studied the blueprints. “That’s the only entrance. I think they know something’s up, there are a lot of hostiles moving in your direction very quickly.”

“Six,” she chanted, answering the question before Keith could ask it.

Nerves threatened at the back of her throat, but she forced them back down as Keith dropped into a defensive stance, his voice steady as he said, “Allura.”

“Yes?”

“Be ready. We might need that extraction.”

“Standing by.”

The sound of metal and wood clashing reverberated throughout the room. Pidge curled in on herself, trying to make herself as small a target as possible without losing the connection. They needed this intel. At the very minimum, it would exonerate her and Lance and save the alliance.

Eighty-five percent.

“Don’t worry Pidge, we’ve got your back.”

There was confidence in Lance’s voice, and Pidge felt a fleeting desire to see him. “I know. Four minutes.”

“How many outside, Hunk?”

“I’m counting ten, with more incoming.”

Keith swore and moved out of her field of vision entirely as the noises through the door grew louder, likely taking up a position at her back. “Get ready.”

Not much I can really do. Fighting the urge to grab her bayard, she inhaled deeply and focused on the screen. Eighty-nine percent. Three minutes.

The pounding grew louder. A single bead of sweat dripped down her brow.

“Allura, get in the air. How long, Pidge?”

“Two minutes.”

She briefly heard Allura’s confirmation, and then all hell broke loose. The door gave way with the sound of splintering wood and an almighty crash, then a roar filled the room as footsteps pounded towards them and Keith yelled, “Get down!”

Hunkering down further, she forced herself to focus on the download. Ninety-four percent. Less than two minutes.

A pop, a heavy thud, and she knew Lance had just taken down someone who got too close. The body didn’t move again. Must be Galran.

“Don’t kill the Miskirans!” Keith yelled, and Pidge found herself hysterically wondering why the fuck they’d sent a sniper and a swordsman in with the instructions to ‘wound, not kill, under any circumstances’. Miskiran lives were precious.

More precious than theirs, apparently.

One minute left.

“C’mon c’mon c’mon…” she chanted. Groans of pain reverberated in her ears, so more than a few of the too-precious-to-die Miskirans must have been littering the floor. Keith was still fighting, Allura was in her ears reporting that she was less than two minutes out, and the bar kept ticking upwards…

Ninety-eight… Ninety-nine…

“Yes! Done!” She slammed the gauntlet down and spun, hand flying to her holster and ready to join the fray.

She didn’t get the chance. Her bayard flew from her grip as she was hoisted into the air, sharp claws slowly digging through her suit and into the flesh of her neck. Pain exploded in her throat and she gasped, struggling to breathe, hands coming up to scrabble at the armoured hand of the Miskiran who held her.

Shit.

Glittering gold eyes glared from a black-and-white patched face, sharp teeth far too close for comfort as her captor hissed: “You won’t get out of here alive. We’ll have—”

The world exploded in red.

 —-

 Later that night, Pidge tossed and turned, unable to sleep.

The blood had taken forever to wash off. Her armour was in the steriliser — the last time she’d seen it, it had been more pink than white. At least her helmet had stopped any from getting in her hair. They’d had to check her blood for contaminants, though, as her suit had been compromised.

She shuddered as she brought a hand to her throat. Her windpipe had been crushed, but a quick stint in a pod and now there weren’t even marks.

Somehow that felt wrong.

Pidge was the lucky one, though. She remembered all-too-well the helpless frustration of seeing your teammate lying injured on death’s doorstep. All Pidge remembered was everything going red, and then she was waking up to her brother’s waiting arms.

The pods always made her sleepy, so after that it had been food, a shower and then bed, in quick succession. She’d woken up sometime after dinner, refreshed after her blessedly dreamless sleep, only to be accosted and dragged into a tight, lingering hug by absolutely everybody she came across.

Even Keith had grabbed her and held on tight, raising the number of Keith-initiated hugs she’d experienced to one. She must have looked like death when they got back.

Lance had been conspicuously absent, though, and as Pidge reshaped her pillow for the third time in five minutes she couldn’t help but wonder if that was why she couldn’t sleep.

Sure, she was probably going to see him in her dreams again, but she kind of wanted to see him now. At the very least, she owed him a thank you for saving her life.

Pushing herself out of bed before she could think too much, she slipped on her lion slippers and started gathering supplies. Lance was probably awake as well, and she had a hard drive with 200TB of movies on it. A movie night sounded like a good distraction.

She took a step and paused, computer in hands, as the cool air of the hallway hit her bare shoulders.

First, she had to get changed.

 ------

 Less than ten minutes later she was settled on Lance’s bed in her Altean pyjamas, leaning back against the wall as she watched him try to hook her laptop up to the screen in his room. Something about the way his brow furrowed as he glared at the wires was endlessly entertaining: she could watch him do that for hours and not get bored.

“You know, I could do that in two ticks, right?” she offered, eyebrow raised, inwardly wincing when the effect was ruined by a jaw-cracking yawn.

“You sure you won’t fall asleep?” he replied, shooting her a smirk over his shoulder before going back to it. “Besides I think I’ve...aha!”

The screen flickered to life and Pidge cheered when he returned to her, grinning proudly as he handed her the laptop. “Check it out, the cable’s even long enough!”

“Of course it is, I brought it,” she said, rolling her eyes. “What do you want to watch?”

“Something light. Family-friendly.” He paused. “Nothing with blood in it.”

The implication hung heavy in the air. Pidge hesitated, then clicked on the folder labelled ‘Disney’. “Have you seen Frozen?”

“I have a niece, Pidge, I’ve seen it a million times.”

“How do you feel about seeing it a million and one?”

Lance laughed, and the tension vanished. “Yeah. Good.”

When they settled back against the wall — laptop safely on the floor and out of accidental kicking range — Lance startled her by wrapping an arm around her waist, his expression sheepish but his eyes haunted when she glanced at him for answers. “Look, I know we still have to talk and you said you were confused, but is this okay? Just...for now?”

She hesitated for only a second before snuggling into the embrace, flopping one of her legs over his as she curled up against his chest. Lance quickly drew her closer, pressing a kiss against her hair, and Pidge couldn’t stop the giggle from slipping out. “Okay. Now watch the movie.”

“Yes, Katie,” he chanted, sitting up a little straighter. “I’m pretty sure I can recite this movie word-for-word, though.”

“Just don’t sing,” she said with a laugh. The ice men were finishing their manly chorus on screen, and as the shot panned out to the stars Pidge was irrepressibly reminded of the view from the baths the night before.

Which reminded her of something else. “By the way,” she said, “it’s Caterina.”

“Huh?”

“My name. It’s Caterina,” she repeated softly, suddenly feeling shy. “That’s what Katie’s short for.”

“Caterina?!”

His shoulders began to shake, and she smacked her palm against his chest, eyes narrowed. “Don’t call me that though. Seriously. The only person who calls me that is my nonna, and even then I only tolerate it.”

“Really? Your mom doesn’t say something like Caterina Maria Holt, get down here when you’re in trouble?” Lance pitched a falsetto on the name, eyes overflowing with mirth as he pushed her bangs back off her face.

“Oh my god, Lance.” She buried her face in his chest to hide from him. “I am not telling you my middle name.”

Laughter spilled from his lips, making his entire body vibrate. “Is it really Maria?!”

“No!”

[storiesbeyondthestars]

Alright it’s time for some wild speculation! Here we go! Keep in mind, a lot of this is just theories and interpretation. And this is honestly just for fun to speculate on things while we still can.

I decided to take a closer look at the ships in S7, even though I know it’s only a small part of the show. It does mean something to a lot of people, and you shouldn’t try to take that away from them. True, hyper fixation and allowing it to impact your real life is taking it a bit too far, as is going as far as to threaten real-life people over it, but there’s nothing wrong with wanting to focus on romantic love between characters. None at all.

I went into this wanting  to look at things a little more objectively, since I do ship Keith/Lance and I still think they’re going to end up together in the end, but I also wanted to look at others too. Specifically Allura/Lance and Keith/Acxa.

Especially since, if I want them to end up together, I want the ladies to have super awesome endings of their own and not just be tossed aside. I am not here for that.

And honestly, as a klance shipper who thinks they’re going to end up together, I can now genuinely see the justification for saying allurance and kacxa could happen. I don’t have to like it to understand it. 

That being said, I realized something while I flicked through the scenes with Acxa specifically. She actually has a lot in common with Allura. 

There’s no way to go into this lightly, so here it is: BOTH Lance AND Keith are ‘rebounds’, and from the same goddamn guy.

Note: I am aware that it’s been three years for Acxa, and by the time Allura starts  blushing it’s been one for her, so it wouldn’t technically be a rebound at all. Just lemme use the easy terminology, okay?

Hear me out. 

This scene where it kind of hit me. “I realize now that Lotor wasn’t the man I thought he was.” and then Allura saying how she understands and was fooled too? This sounds exactly like two women who have the same terribly ex complaining about him.

They both loved Lotor and were both spurned by him in the end. Lotor had romantic feelings for Allura, not Acxa, but I get the feeling that a lot of Acxa’s loyalty came from a similar place to how he built up and drew Allura in.

Look at her. She admires Lotor to no end. She’s devoted to him. She loves him. There’s not a doubt in my mind that if he wouldn’t have killed Narti, and then wouldn’t have lost his mind to quintessence and rage, she would have been firmly on his side until the end. 

Lotor knows that Acxa is loyal above all of his other generals. The fact that she was IN on his plan the entire time hints that, while she may not have been expecting him to kill Narti (because there’s no way he expected it), she still chose to believe in him. I think that as definitely what made her waver a bit. It’s what started shattering her perception of him. 

Here she genuinely had NO clue that Haggar was Lotor’s mother. Which is odd since he mentioned ‘his mother Honerva’ before, and I’m pretty sure they call Haggar, Honerva before this, but whatever. She’s shocked. It wouldn’t surprise me if she knew exactly how much he looked up to Honerva. She didn’t expect this. Maybe Lotor’s not who she thought.

Pure shock here. She did NOT expect Lotor to be willing to kill them too. She should have, he did Narti in, but she was grasping for straws, and I don’t think Keith was helping much, since by this point, she would have known that he was half-Galra too (if she didn’t from the beginning) that had somehow managed to catch her attention and instil some form of loyalty in her. Maybe Lotor saved her to begin with. Who nows? We know nothing about her. 

Anyway, look at when she realizes that she made a mistake. Look at her when she realizes what he really is.

She looked heartbroken. She looks like she’s going to cry. Lotor was willing to kill all the Galra to reach his end goal. Lotor had been arming the remaining Alteans to reach his end goal.

Both Acxa and Allura felt a deeply personal impact from him. 

Technically speaking, both were ‘trapped’ and the first thing they saw when they were let out of said traps were Lance (for Allura), and Keith (for Acxa). Both situations ended up with one person ‘attacking’ the other before working together over all. Obviously that’s where their stories parted with similarities for a long time.

They were both fooled by Lotor on a deeply personal level, and I think that both gravitated towards people that they knew were kind, that had helped them before in different ways. 

Hell, if we go back to the image where they’re talking about Lotor again...

...who’s in the frame with Acxa? Keith. Who’s in the fame with Allura? Lance (and Shiro’s arm but you know what I mean). 

Yeah, this very well could be a hint towards ‘endgames’, but I don’t think so. I already made a theory about where I think Allura’s story is going to go. Maybe Acxa’s is going to mirror that.

Firstly, I genuinely don’t think Keith has feelings for Acxa. Even looking back, there’s some caring, but it’s not the same as the stares he uses when he’s either attracted to people (the flirty looks at Rolo, Lance, and even Hunk during the weblum episode...when Acxa was first introduced), or he truly cares about them (like how he looks at his mom and Shiro). 

A few people are saying that maybe Acxa wants Keith to try and take Lotor’s role. Be an Emperor of sorts. I don’t think Keith would do that. Yes, his story is about leadership, but it’s also about love and family. I don’t think they’re going to go that route with him. Wouldn’t it be badass if Acxa ended up in a role of power with the Galra though? As a representative even?

That’s how she could parallel Allura. Both of them actually grow beyond Lance and Keith in a sense, Allura for the Alteans that are left, Acxa for the Galra that are left. 

Wouldn’t that be badass?

Keep in mind, this is largely just wild speculation, since we now nothing about Acxa’s past or her current goal beyond helping Voltron. I am very much certain that she loved Lotor once. That moment between her and Allura wasn’t for nothing. That meant something.

Isn’t that interesting about how the two ships that were ‘suddenly’ introduced have that in common?

Take that how you will.

[poseidonwife]

-GROUPIES and GRETA VAN FLEET and PEOPLE WHO JUST DON’T RESPECT MUSIC- [my own opinion]

So, these days I've been reading a lot of things about Greta Van Fleet and what the fans are doing at their concerts. Apparently some girls flashed the boys and some of them threw their bras on stage. I’d like to point out that I think there’s nothing wrong with this, things like that have always happened at concerts and it’s certainly not a matter of different "eras" or “times”. But some other fans expressed their dissent over those behaviors stating that such ways of doing do nothing but change the attitude of the members of the band towards their audience, distancing them more and more from the fans. Some of them claimed not to endure this kind of behavior and they immediately labeled those girls as "groupies" underlining that those girls are just seeking for attention, at the expense of those fans who really love the band and support it.

Faced with this kind of statements I felt involved because I’ve always defined myself as a "groupie" and I’ve always been proud of it. I struggled and I'm still struggling to make people understand the REAL meaning of the word "groupie" making clear that it’s just a cliché that groupies are nothing more than "girls seeking for fame" or even worse "backstage whores".

I read someone saying that groupies “are usually known as women who follow bands they want to sleep with and that’s exactly what groupies were known for back in the days”. This thing really made me super mad. So now I’d like to explain some concepts and reflections on this.

I want to start saying that it is true, the component of sex and physical attraction was a very strong thing "back in the days" especially in the 60s and 70s (remember that at the time there were the so-called "sexual revolution" and the "free love”, very important elements in what is known to all as counterculture of the 1960s). Many girls enjoyed going to bed with the band members and there’s nothing wrong with that, there’s nothing wrong with free sex, even if it’s a woman who practices it. In support of this I’d like to ask somthing to you: which of you isn’t somehow physically or emotionally attracted by one/or more of the Greta Van Fleet boys? Which of you wouldn’t be happy to date one of them and maybe become their girlfriend? Probably none;

another thing is about fame. Just like it happens nowadays some people just wanted to take advantage of the fame of famous people in order to shine with reflected light and become important. Therefore some girls did nothing but date the band to get in some pictures or some scoops of magazines. But THOSE WERE NOT GROUPIES.

Summarizing these points, it is a common opinion that groupies are nothing more than women seeking for fame and party time with musicians. Even Wikipedia says “The term is almost universally used to describe young women who follow these individuals [musicians] in hopes of establishing a sexual relationship with them or offering themselves for sex”. THIS IS THE POPULAR OPINION, A COMMON PLACE and nothing else. Just a cliché.

Now I’d like to discuss what it really means to be a groupie and what I do and believe as a groupie.

being a groupie goes beyond sex, goes beyond fame and goes beyond the thirst of attention. Being a groupie means, and I quote, “to truly love some silly little piece of music, or some band, so much that it hurts”. Groupies are there for the MUSIC, they’re there for LOVE and GRATITUDE towards music and those who create it and groupies don’t care about becoming famous or going backstage and get noticed. As a groupie I go to concerts and I show respect to the band and musician’s work and support them every day and I love them for the emotions they make me feel. That's it. Of course, it would be amazing to be the girlfriend of one of them and to go on tour with them and live a life like that but THAT’S NOT THE PURPOSE OF A GROUPIE. The purpose of a groupie is to SUPPORT the band, IDOLATE the band, and NOT to go to bed with them;

being a groupie means RESPECTING the band and its members and their choices. This is a very important point especially for all the stuffs going on here on Tumblr over Greta Van Fleet. There are bands that love crazy and promiscuous fans willing to go backstage and "having fun" but NOT GRETA VAN FLEET. The Greta Van Fleet boys have specifically stated that they don’t want to get into that kind of things. Josh said to Rolling Stone: “All of those wild, absurd things that you would like to romanticize about are very honest truth. The amount of excess always around. The amount of women that always want to hang out. It really is all there. It’s tempting, and crazy stuff. But we don’t seem to have too much interest”. And he is not only talking about sex but also about everything else: wild parties, drugs, alcohol... everything. That said, a true fan and consequently a real groupie RESPECTS the decisions of the band and doesn’t try to behave exactly the opposite of what the band wants. Do you understand what I’m trying to explain here? RESPECT is the first important thing. This is what a groupie does: SHE RESPECTS THE BAND.

I summarize these points too: being a groupie means respecting the band in all its decisions, it means to love music and those who create it, it means to support them for what they do and above all it means to go to a concert and enjoy the show because that feeling of being there in the front row is indescribable and it’s the best thing ever. This is what it means to be a groupie.

I want to close this thing saying that as a groupie and proud to call me one I think: those girls who know the intentions of the band [in this specific case Greta Van Fleet] but continue to behave in such a rude way, stripping in front of the band and throwing underwear on stage, THEY’RE NOT GROUPIES but they’re just trying to get visibility from the band without respecting the band itself. They’re not “bad girls” but if they really love and respect Greta Van Fleet and if they really are fans then they should avoid certain behaviors, trying to respect the artists and their work.

Now I ask you, please stop to juxtapose groupies to girls who are just seeking for attention but please know that you too can be a groupie. If you respect the band, if you love musician’s work, if you want to support them in every choice and if you are polite when you approach them, both at concerts and when you ask for an autograph or a photo, then you are also groupies and there’s nothing wrong with feeling that way. Being a groupie is beautiful, it means to love music with all your being and with all your soul.

🌻 Thank you 🌻

[Of course the discussion is open for those who want to express their opinion and same will be my asks. Feel free to say what you think about the subject]

[Down here I’ll leave some interesting links for those who want to deepen the  "groupies" topic or those who are simply curious and interested]:

“Almost Famous” dir. Cameron Crowe, is a beautiful movie about groupies and it depicts very well all the things I just said in this post. I recommend the vision;

“I’m with the band” a book from the most famous groupie Pamela Des Barres. She asserts that a groupie is to a rock band as Mary Magdalene was to Jesus and that’s a strong statement but if you know the real story of Mary Magdalene [this is a very good movie about her] then you’ll understand the meaning of Pamela’s sentence;

Some quotes about groupies: “The altar was rock n’ roll, the guys were the gods, and the women were the high priestesses.“ (Gail Zappa) // “Girls get their hearts broken all the time. I figured, if I was going to get my heart broken, I’d rather it be broken by someone like Mick Jagger or Keith Moon.” (Pamela Des Barres) // "Sexual? Sometimes yes, but also friends, helpers, assistants, guides…we wanted to uplift and enhance these people who moved us so much. That’s all a groupie is. They are music-loving muses." (Pamela Des Barres) // “The sex angle is important. But not more important than girls who are also good friends and make you feel like family.” (Jimmy Page) // “You do actually fall in love with them because that’s the only love you can have. It’s not always the physical thing. They actually tell you something.They release different things inside themselves.” (Jimi Hendrix) // “They’re like our alter egos. They’re doing the same thing we are.” (Steven Tyler) // “Being a groupie doesn’t mean you’re backstage doing something sleazy. Being a groupie is like worshipping at the church of rock and roll—and you’re the high priestess." (Pleasant Gehman) // "Real groupies are people who love the music, want to be with people who make it, and that’s it." (Pamela Des Barres) // “We wanted to be a part of this incredible musical brilliance that was lighting up the world. It’s really all about love, you know. People would say, ‘Why did you want to meet these guys?’ Why not? Why not? Why not want to be a part of something so important?" (Pamela Des Barres) // “I dig musicians, I feel they have the most to offer me mentally and emotionally because they think basically along the same lines that I do; extremely creative people. Music is Life.” (Pamela Des Barres) // "For me, it was always the music. I wanted to be in on the cosmic secret. I wanted to get so close to the music I could taste it- and nothing was going to stop me." (Pamela Des Barres) // “They were devotees of the band and would literally service those bands. It was a religious experience for most of those girls.” (Gail Zappa) // “Freedom fighters at the avant garde of the sexual revolution.” (Frank Zappa) // “Most of the girls who come backstage simply want to say ‘thank you’ to us for giving a good concert. Outsiders who think that all sorts of other stuff is going on just don’t know us.” (Robert Plant);

and of course my personal link about groupies

[tgrbild]

                      WILDSUIT’S   200+   BIAS   LIST !!!

ooc.   hey guuuuys!! i’m proud to say that i finally hit 200 followers on kotetsu! i sure wish i knew why or how you’re all here. regardless, it’s nice to have this many people! && i feel like it’d only be right to thank the many people i follow that helped me get here. before i go into this list, though, i want everyone to know that JUST because you may not be on this list doesn’t mean that i don’t like you, i’m just a forgetful person! you’re still very special to me, even if i don’t mention you on here.  ( also.........excuse the. very grainy look of the gif. i hate gifs.) alright, let’s get into it!

THOSE WHO ARE NEAR MY HEART. ❤

@bopnty​: jimjam, when i first thought of making this promo, you were, admittedly, the first that popped into my head. you have been nothing but sweet and kind to me, you have given me your utmost support, and you and i have both given each other mile long replies about our characters. to me, you are a very special friend that deserves and has sufficiently earned their place on this list. i have no idea where i’d probably be on kotetsu’s character if it weren’t for you. talking deeply with you about the anime we watch and how deep kotetsu and spike’s relationship is has always been fun with you? like. i don’t know how to put it into words, but talking with you about everything and anything is so much fun. you get me, and i think that that’s what truly makes me see the warmth that resonates within you. you’re no longer just “that one spike spiegel blog,” you’ve become “the ONLY spike spiegel blog” for me. beyond your writing abilities, you’re a lovely person that i’m so glad to have met and gotten to know. i hope that, no matter what, we’re still able to talk even when we’re dying. thank you so much for introducing me to CBBB, because it was the wildest ride i’ve ever had, and i love seeing you talk about spike and the bebop crew. hope you have an amazing day!

@icesuit​: kat! you have been with me since my fire emblem days, and if i remember correctly, that was like legit a year and a half ago. we’re still friends, in spite of everything! it really just comes to show how powerful our friendship is. anyway, look, i really want you to know that i love the way you write blue rose. i love the fact that, in spite of watching only a portion of T&B, you’ve managed to capture her character so accurately, i almost call you blue rose or karina from time to time! your writing is very inspirational and elegant, and i always take a read at it to get inspired. every character you play, you’ve played amazingly, and i hope we can continue to interact. i want you to know that if there’s absolutely anything i could do for you, never hesitate to ask. i’d be more than happy to help!

@bunsuit​: QUIN!!! you’re honestly my... #1 bunny? you’ve constantly talked w/ me abt T&B and you honestly write barnaby so well im so impressed all of the time? we just recently met, but talking to you feels like i’ve spoken with you for ages. i enjoy any time i’m able to talk to you, because no matter what, each conversation is lovelier than the last. i love listening to what you have to say? and i love talking about kotetsu and barnaby with you? watching the T&B movie with you and cole was the start of our friendship, and truth be told, i’ve come to cherish it. you’re very kind, and your writing abilities are beyond incredible. i hope that we can talk a lot more in the future! i love you a whole lots, quin!!

@skysuit​: if it isn’t what the kids call...................cole ;) ; J;DKLF ;DLJ HI COLE!!! I REALLY LOVE YOU A LOT TOO every conversation with you is so wild like. holy shit? we’ve talked about kotetsu and keith and kotetsu’s like drunk and keith wants to die like. truly? we know what the fuck is going on. FUCK I KNOW YOU SINCE LIKE the fire emblem fandom too, and then i went on to ace attorney and saw you there too?? i love you like, you’re really funny and great to interact with. also, you enabled me to make my retinz blog what the fuck? like damn what an enabler :/ LISTEN BABE DF G;FJ;D I LOVE U UR TOO KIND TO ME HONESTLY?? you were the one who helped me choose the right gif and who else can i thank but you for that?

@bisonsuit​: OH SHIT IT’S SHIGURE!!! shig when you made rock bison i was honestly? crytyping because i never thought that someone would make kotetsu’s best friend. i never thought that i’d have this entire squad to begin with!! talking with you is very fun, and i love both of the threads that we have going on. i always feel like you’re doing a great job at writing antonio, and i love our rps on discord bc they’re fun too?? i really have to reply now that i think about it oops /// but hey, forget that for now! the point is, i love you and i love your writing! thank you so much for making a lot of fun for me, you’re another quintessential part of my life here!

@copysuit​: DESSIIIIIII AAAAAAAAA YOU WERE ONE OF THE FIRST T&B RPERS I HAD CONTACT WITH ON HERE!! we don’t talk as much as we used to, but talking to you, when possible, is so great! i really love the way you write kaede. i feel like you capture her perfectly while also managing to keep things as unique as possible. i hope that you have an amazing day, and that we’re able to rp soon!

@wiildfan​: QUEENIEEEEE YOU’RE THE TIGER WIFE THAT I LOVE SO MUCH! when you made tomoe, i, admittedly, was so afraid because Lord it’s kotetsu’s wife? that he loves oh so very much? fjk dl;fjk you’ve done an amazing job w/ tomoe, and im so glad that it’s you who’s writing her and not anyone else? your tomoe has been very inspiring and cute, and i hope to see more of her in the future!! even if there’s small content for her, i love the fact that you manage to keep the essence of her character intact like please.......step on me?

@heroproduced​: KOKO??? FUCK. PLEASE STEP ON ME. i’ve known you from danganronpa but god i can’t lie when i say that like. i love your passion for agnes and her character? i love how you manage to go deeper than what is presented to us in the series, and give a more rich and developed understanding of her. you manage to show that she’s not just some bitch, but she’s a woman in the 1970s trying to fucking do a good job because that was a time where women having this type of position was rare. i love the way you talk about her, and i love the way you treat others? you’re literally THE mom friend, koko. im so glad that we’re friends!!

@homosinger​: GOD...IT’S ANTHONY. you’re probably the guy that made me make a crack tag on this blog. but tbh? THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING!! you’ve made rping a really fun experience, and talking to you OOC is always really great and fun. I DON’T HAVE MUCH TO SAY HERE BC U KNOW HOW I FEEL ABT YOU??? I LOVE YOU SO MUCH DUDE PLZ NEVER CHANGE!!

@wildsuit​: literally who the fuck are you

THOSE WILD ROARS I LOVE JUST AS MUCH. ✫

this section is for all the people who i don’t really speak to as much (or at all), but you are still just as important in my heart. i love all of you very much, and i will continue to follow you all for your amazing blogs and writing!!

@kyoukokiwigiri​ / @kigajesuta​ / @shushc​ / @diamondkaito​ / @inviai​ / @military-shop-untouchable​ / @insurpasse​ / @pantherdyne​ / @beautiihurts​ / @godschose​ / @thievinggentleman​ / @gravitiprince​ / @samurai-esquire​ / @vitiicsus​ / @bluerrxse​ / @pyoniumyankee​ / @yosuru​ / @yamiisha​ / @divinecock​ / @qrowned​ / @rosalithe​ / @pescaprincipessa​ / @shogekiha​ / @ideaofjustice​ / @naruthot​ / @softgenius​ / @thornsong​ / @redriict​ / @vocaead​ / @licnelle​ / @warriorcrown​ / @froghopped​ / @intercosmiic​ / @blackdogbeat​ / @4thhacker​ / @dadmighty​ / @slitends​ / @sweaterquccn​ / @starbooms​ / @edbopped​ / @bludcmon​ / @hardluckfaye​ / @greenroar​ / @vcngful​ / @empowcred​ / @emperorled​ / @freedomfallen / @mightyfrail / @prevvasilyevna / @501di3r76 / @rockinriot

thank you all for being here!!!

[wineanddinosaur]

Wine 101: Sangiovese/Chianti

This episode of “Wine 101” is sponsored by Brancaia. At Brancaia, we perceive the work in the vineyard as a flow of energy that must be respected to the highest degree. Rooted in the bold super Tuscan movement that forever changed Italy’s winemaking culture, the wines of Brancaia blend local grapes with international varieties, bringing a decidedly modern touch to a centuries-old wine region. Today, Brancaia embodies a passion for terroir and dedication to artisan techniques, producing elegant, complex wines with a strong Tuscan identity. Brancaia Winery: Resist the usual.

Click the link below to discover and purchase wine brands discussed on the Wine101 podcast series. Get 15% OFF when you purchase $75 or more. Use coupon code “wine15” at checkout: www.thebarrelroom.com/discover.

In this episode of “Wine 101,” VinePair tastings director Keith Beavers discusses the origins of Sangiovese and Chianti. Beavers discusses the history of Sangiovese from its origins in Tuscany, as well as its many nicknames. However, what listeners will learn most about is Chianti, the popular wine made from the Sangiovese grape.

Beaver explains how Chianti came to be a central winegrowing region in Italy, dating back to the 18th century, and how it rose to popularity in the 1970s — appearing in popular films such as “Shaft” and “Silence of the Lambs.” Further, Beavers explains the emergence of the Chianti Classico DOCG in the late ‘80s.

Tune in to learn more and become an expert on Sangiovese and Chianti.

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Or Check out the Conversation Here

Keith Beavers: My name is Keith Beavers, and I think I’ve watched all of HGTV. Like, all of it. I need something else.

What’s going on, wine lovers? Welcome to Episode 19 of VinePair’s “Wine 101” podcast, Season 2. My name is Keith Beavers. I’m the tastings director of VinePair. Sup?

Chianti and Sangiovese. Oh my gosh. You know it from a movie, from life as an American, and from loving Italian wine. Let’s talk about it.

OK, so we did an episode on Tuscany last season. It was to get a nice, rounded idea about Tuscany, and in that episode, we talked about Sangiovese and we talked about how it’s different. It produces different styles of wine, depending on where it’s growing in Tuscany. It’s a very interesting variety, but it’s not an interesting variety in that it mutates and it clones itself and all this stuff. No. What’s unique about Sangiovese is that there are really two kinds of Sangiovese. There’s Sangiovese Grosso, a big fat grape. Then, there’s Sangiovese Piccolo, a little grape.

The majority of the wines that we drink come from Sangiovese Grosso, the big fat grape. But the thing is, Sangiovese Grosso grows throughout Tuscany, but the people who produce wines from that grape call it something different, even just in Tuscany itself. In Montalcino in Tuscany, they call Sangiovese Grosso, Brunello. In the town of Montepulciano, where they make Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, they call it Prugnolo Gentile. And in the Tuscan region of Morellino di Scansano, they call it Morellino. It can be confusing. I know I say it a lot in wine. It can be confusing. Why is wine so confusing?

Well, the thing is, wine is ancient. Oh my gosh, it’s so ancient in so many cultures, townships, and communes throughout Italy, throughout the world. All the synonyms for the grapes, it’s just insane. The thing is, during feudal systems and sharecropping, there is pride in all these towns. It seems to me that they name the grape, and they could care less whether another town calls it something else. This is what they’re going to call it. And that’s just how this works throughout the history of wine in general. In Tuscany, it’s a little bit crazy because it went from one town to the next. Sometimes the variety that’s being used is the same variety but has a different name. And it can be crazy.

Just like other old varieties like Pinot Noir, Sangiovese is thought to be ancient. The first documentation of Sangiovese is from a treatise on the viticulture of Tuscany in 1600 by a dude named Giovan Vettorio Soderini. In it, he says, “il sangiogheto, aspro a mangiare, ma sugoso e pienissimo di vino” which generally means “the Sangiogheto, bitter to eat but juicy and venous.” This is the first documentation of Sangiovese but it’s really the first documentation of the synonym of Sangiovese.

The story goes that, in the region of Emilia-Romagna, which is north and east of Tuscany, there is a town called Rimini. Just outside of that town is a mountain called Montegiove. And in the foothills of that mountain was a — wait for it — monastery! Yep, the monks. And here, the monks were making wine. And the wine they made, they called vino, which basically just means wine in Italian. When asked what this wine was, they thought for a second and they said “sanguis Jovis”, which means the blood of Jupiter. Sangiovese came from that.

Eventually, it’s thought to be also a reference to the blood of Jove. Sangiogheto is a synonym of whatever happened there. Sangiovese isn’t only important in Tuscany. This whole story happened in a region just outside of Tuscany. Sangiovese is really the workhorse of central Italy in general. In Umbria, it is blended in a DOC or a wine region called Montefalco. It’s often blended with a grape called Sagrantino, a very big, powerful variety that softens it a little bit.

In the region of Le Marche, there are two very well-known red wines there, Rosso Piceno and Rosso Conero, and they are also Sangiovese, blending with a grape called Montepulciano. Not the town, but the grape. It’s also being used more and in Lazio, which is where Rome is. And here’s a fun little fact, if you guys ever come across Corsican wine — yeah, we should sometime do an episode on Corsican wine. It’s pretty cool. They make wine from Sangiovese there. But there they call it Nielluccio. Yeah, it’s crazy. It’s good and it’s awesome. They do great rosés with it, too.

Now every town, every region that produces wine from Sangiovese is awesome. Everyone has their own unique spin on this variety. It’s beautiful, and that’s all in the Tuscan episode. Yet, what you and I know more than any other wine made from Sangiovese in Italy is Chianti. This wine has had a presence in our culture for a long time. I remember as a kid, in the early ‘80s, going to this Italian restaurant with my parents. They loved it so much, it was called Mom and Pop. They had basket wine bottles. They’re called fiaschi. There were Chianti bottles with the baskets on them, and that was the candleholder.

Even as far back as the ‘70s, it made it into film. You have “Shaft,” an amazing film. When Shaft goes in to talk to the local Italian crime boss, the dude is sitting there sipping on a nice Chianti. I mean it was a basket wine, but in the ‘70s, it was considered good stuff. Of course, we had to get this out of the way: “A census taker once tried to test me. *I ate his liver with fava beans in a nice Chianti” — creepy murder doctor Hannibal Lecter, “Silence of the Lambs.”

Yeah. I don’t know where you are in age or pop culture, but that scene is one of the most famous scenes from the movie and one of the most famous scenes in film history. And what’s really interesting is in the book, he has this fava beans with the liver, with an Amarone, which is actually a red wine from the northern part of Italy. But because Chianti was so ingrained in our minds, the people writing the script decided to put Chianti in there instead of Amarone so we would be familiar with it. Sure enough, that line is basically timeless.

And even though we, in the United States, have had an intimate relationship with Chianti for such a long time, it still confuses us. It’s confusing because, guys, Chianti is complicated. It’s really complicated. If I had an entire episode to tell you the history of this place, it would blow your mind.

The city of Florence, which is very close to the Chianti wine region — which we’re going to get into in a second — I think between the 14th and the 16th century was the center of the world. This is where the birth of the Renaissance happened, some of the most famous glassmakers in the world were in Florence. The stories, the history, and the documentation are pretty immense. Just the story of Florence and its history with its rival city just to the south, Siena, includes Chianti and the wines from this region. These are awesome stories for another time because we’re here to talk about wine. Let’s get deep in the hills of Chianti and understand this place.

In the center part of Tuscany, there is a major town called Florence, which you guys all know. And then south of that city is a city called Siena. Between the town of Florence and the town of Siena, are these mountainous hills there called the Chianti or the Chianti Hills or the Chianti Mountains. It’s thought that viticulture goes all the way back to the Etruscans, which came before the Greeks. Actually, the Greeks came to Italy, and they saw the Etruscans. The Etruscans freaked out the Greeks because of their hedonism. It’s wild. I just wanted to tell you about that.

I mention the Etruscans because I’ve always been so fascinated with the word Chianti, in that I don’t know what it means and it’s very hard to figure out what it means. The only thing I could really find is that the Etruscans are thought to name this area, Clante. I don’t know what that means, but Clante? Chianti? It makes sense. If anybody knows any Italian etymologists that can help me out, would be awesome. However, the word Chianti first shows up in documents in the late 1330s. That seals the deal for Chianti. Well, the name at least because this document doesn’t name wine so much, it just calls this area the Chianti Hills.

By the 18th century, this area was known for wine. There are three townships in the Chianti Hills: Castellina, Radda, and Gaiole. At this time, Chianti was applied to these three townships. Also what’s interesting is these three townships are under the jurisdiction of Florence, and they formed what was called the League of Chianti, which was a guard against the town or city of Siena at the time. There was a rivalry, and a pretty storied rivalry at that. If you remember in the Portugal episode, we talked about the Douro Valley and how it was one of the first attempts at demarcating or creating some controlled appellation because of the popularity of the wine to combat fraud and to maintain the authenticity of the wines coming out of that region because of all the money that was being made there.

This is the same thing that happened in 1716 in the Chianti Hills. The three initial townships — Radda, Castellina, and Gaiole — were demarcated as Chianti, the wine-growing and winemaking region, by Cosimo III, the Grand Duke of Tuscany. In these hills with high-ish elevation in this very well-known famous soil called galestro with some limestone and clay, there’s a short list of native varieties that are being used to make wine around this time — most of them red, some of them white, often blended together for red. You had Sangiovese, there was a grape called Ciliegiolo, which is actually related to Sangiovese. Also, there is a grape called Mammolo and a grape called Canaiolo. Those are the red wine grapes. For white wine, there’s a group called Trebbiano, which is all over central Italy, and a grape called Malvasia, which we’ve mentioned before in other previous episodes.

There wasn’t a rhyme or reason and there weren’t any rules or regulations. Toward the end of the 19th century, there was this dude named Baron Bettino Ricasoli. In 1872, he wrote a letter saying that he had synthesized 10 years of experimentation. And what he’s found is that the Sangiovese grape is the best grape to use as the base of the Chianti blend. For aging wines, he found that Sangiovese’s aroma profile and its vigorous acidity, blended with a little bit of Canaiolo, was the best way to make age-worthy Chianti. For younger wines, he kept that little formula going, but he thought, “You know what? Add a little bit of Malvasia. Add a little bit of white wine. It really is nice.”

This formula or this idea caught on. And basically, this guy — and his family still makes wine to this day — is the inventor of modern Chianti. From the 18th century to the 1930s, this is what Chianti was: three townships basically carrying the Chianti name, but it’s spreading out more and more. People started to adhere to this new Chianti formula. The identity of Chianti was coming into itself. By the 1930s, this wine was becoming very popular, so the Italian government decided they were going to extend the Chianti zone. They’re going to name different subzones to capitalize on what was happening here. And to the dismay of the original townships, the government extended these subzones to basically surround the original area.

To this day, there are seven of them. Chianti is the prefix, and then the geographical location comes after that. I’m not going to get into all of them, but I’m going to name some of them right now so you can get a sense of them. Colli Fiorentini, Rufina, Montalbano, Colli Aretini, Colline Pisane, and Montespertoli. And you’ll often see it on the wine label. It’ll say Chianti in big letters, and underneath it it’ll have the geographical location. This extends the Chianti zone to about 40,000 acres, give or take. It’s a very large area.

In the 1960s, when Italy was creating its own appellation-controlled system that was based on the French appellations system, they went to Chianti and they saw how popular the ricasoli formula was. When they gave Chianti its DOC, that is the blend that became a regulation for Chianti: Sangiovese, Canaiolo, and Malvasia. They also added other varieties in there: Mammolo, Ciliegiolo, and also Trebbiano. With such a large area and with some economic troubles in the region, the trend of Chianti wines went towards quantity, not quality. Of course, there was quality being made during this time, but until the early 1980s, it got pretty bad as far as people taking advantage of a good thing. The famous Fiaschi basket wine we see in “Shaft” was eventually seen as just not very good wine. It was very thin. There was a lot of white wine in it, and it was giving Chianti a bad rap. To this day, Chianti basket wine is mainly known as a candle holder. Am I right?

And it wasn’t only basket wine that was compromised. There was a lot of wine coming into the United States and just being distributed throughout the world in which the quality wasn’t there.

In 1984, the government said “OK, we’re going to elevate the Chianti region from a DOC to a DOCG. We’re going to have stricter rules put in place. Now, we’re restricting the amount of white wine you can use and doing all these things to make sure the quality of Sangiovese is sound.” And I gotta say, they made some good decisions.

From 1984 on, Chianti really began to improve. But we have to think about that original township area. Remember I said, to the dismay of that area, all these other little sub-zones were created? Well, they’re still pretty mad. Or should I say, the quality-minded winemakers in the area were mad. This initiated what was called the Chianti Classico 2000 Project, which was a project of studying the soils and all the things in that center heartland, that area that started it all.

In 1996, that area of Chianti became Chianti Classico — its own DOCG, its own autonomous wine-growing region, not a subregion of Chianti. For the longest time, it was just a subzone. It was called Chianti Classico as in, this is where it all began. It was part of the seven subzones that were created in the 1930s, but it was considered Chianti Classico. It didn’t really have a geographical name to it. Now, Chianti Classico is its own thing. It’s made up of about nine communes. I’m not going to list the communes here because it’s not that important. I mean, the communes are important, absolutely. But for you as a wine buyer and consumer in the United States, the communes are not something that’s going to help you find wine, because the Chianti Classico region does not allow for the communes to be put on the label. You’re just going to see Chianti Classico. I’m sure the communes are somewhere in the small print on the back label. Also, something to know is that Castellina, Radda, and Gaiole are still part of the center of Chianti Classico.

Wine-wise, what is Chianti? Chianti is basically two appellations. You have the heartland of it all where it all began, the Chianti Classico zone. It’s its own zone. It has its own rules. They tend to be a little more strict than the larger Chianti area. Then you have the larger Chianti DOCG. That Chianti has seven subzones that have actual geographical names attached to the Chianti word. Outside of that area is just Chianti proper. If you see a wine that just says Chianti on it, it’s coming from anywhere outside of these zones, but it’s still in Chianti. And whether you’re in Chianti proper, geographical Chianti, or Chianti Classico, Sangiovese is the primary variety used in the blends.

In international varieties, which are basically French varieties — Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot — they’ve always been allowed in the Chianti region. And for a long time, they were being used not heavily, but they were used to attract the American palate. In addition to that, using significant oak exposure to get that vanilla spice thing going. That trend is starting to dip a little bit. We’re starting to see more older varieties being used in the blend and less Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, even in the smaller amounts. We’re starting to see wines with less oak influence coming out of Chianti. That’s really where Chianti began. The wines of Chianti are red with a medium-bodied perception. They are tangy with great acidity, and that’s what Sangiovese wants to give you. Then, you put a little Canaiolo and Mammulo in there, and it gets a little bit earthy. It makes for an amazing food wine. Steak Florentine with Chianti? Just forget about it!

In Chianti proper, they still blend a little bit of white wine into their wine sometimes. It’s winemaker to winemaker, whatever they want to do. You won’t see white wine being blended into Chianti Classico anymore. They outlawed that stuff.

And even though there’s so much more to talk about — diving into the Classico communes, diving into the geographical areas, getting a little more history going, getting a little more context of things — this is just your roundabout Chianti 101. Now you can get a good sense of what you’re drinking, what you’re looking at, and not feeling too overwhelmed. Because man, Chianti is complicated.

@VinePairKeith is my Insta. Rate and review this podcast, wherever you get your podcasts from. It really helps get the word out there. And now for some totally awesome credits.

“Wine 101” was produced, recorded, and edited by yours truly, Keith Beavers, at the VinePair headquarters in New York City. I want to give a big ol’ shoutout to co-founders Adam Teeter and Josh Malin for creating VinePair. And I mean, a big shoutout to Danielle Grinberg, the art director of VinePair, for creating the most awesome logo for this podcast. Also, Darbi Cicci for the theme song. Listen to this. And I want to thank the entire VinePair staff for helping me learn something new everyday. See you next week.

Ed. note: This episode has been edited for length and clarity.

The article Wine 101: Sangiovese/Chianti appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/wine-101-sangiovese-chianti/

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Wine 101: Sangiovese/Chianti

This episode of “Wine 101” is sponsored by Brancaia. At Brancaia, we perceive the work in the vineyard as a flow of energy that must be respected to the highest degree. Rooted in the bold super Tuscan movement that forever changed Italy’s winemaking culture, the wines of Brancaia blend local grapes with international varieties, bringing a decidedly modern touch to a centuries-old wine region. Today, Brancaia embodies a passion for terroir and dedication to artisan techniques, producing elegant, complex wines with a strong Tuscan identity. Brancaia Winery: Resist the usual.

Click the link below to discover and purchase wine brands discussed on the Wine101 podcast series. Get 15% OFF when you purchase $75 or more. Use coupon code “wine15” at checkout: www.thebarrelroom.com/discover.

In this episode of “Wine 101,” VinePair tastings director Keith Beavers discusses the origins of Sangiovese and Chianti. Beavers discusses the history of Sangiovese from its origins in Tuscany, as well as its many nicknames. However, what listeners will learn most about is Chianti, the popular wine made from the Sangiovese grape.

Beaver explains how Chianti came to be a central winegrowing region in Italy, dating back to the 18th century, and how it rose to popularity in the 1970s — appearing in popular films such as “Shaft” and “Silence of the Lambs.” Further, Beavers explains the emergence of the Chianti Classico DOCG in the late ‘80s.

Tune in to learn more and become an expert on Sangiovese and Chianti.

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Keith Beavers: My name is Keith Beavers, and I think I’ve watched all of HGTV. Like, all of it. I need something else.

What’s going on, wine lovers? Welcome to Episode 19 of VinePair’s “Wine 101” podcast, Season 2. My name is Keith Beavers. I’m the tastings director of VinePair. Sup?

Chianti and Sangiovese. Oh my gosh. You know it from a movie, from life as an American, and from loving Italian wine. Let’s talk about it.

OK, so we did an episode on Tuscany last season. It was to get a nice, rounded idea about Tuscany, and in that episode, we talked about Sangiovese and we talked about how it’s different. It produces different styles of wine, depending on where it’s growing in Tuscany. It’s a very interesting variety, but it’s not an interesting variety in that it mutates and it clones itself and all this stuff. No. What’s unique about Sangiovese is that there are really two kinds of Sangiovese. There’s Sangiovese Grosso, a big fat grape. Then, there’s Sangiovese Piccolo, a little grape.

The majority of the wines that we drink come from Sangiovese Grosso, the big fat grape. But the thing is, Sangiovese Grosso grows throughout Tuscany, but the people who produce wines from that grape call it something different, even just in Tuscany itself. In Montalcino in Tuscany, they call Sangiovese Grosso, Brunello. In the town of Montepulciano, where they make Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, they call it Prugnolo Gentile. And in the Tuscan region of Morellino di Scansano, they call it Morellino. It can be confusing. I know I say it a lot in wine. It can be confusing. Why is wine so confusing?

Well, the thing is, wine is ancient. Oh my gosh, it’s so ancient in so many cultures, townships, and communes throughout Italy, throughout the world. All the synonyms for the grapes, it’s just insane. The thing is, during feudal systems and sharecropping, there is pride in all these towns. It seems to me that they name the grape, and they could care less whether another town calls it something else. This is what they’re going to call it. And that’s just how this works throughout the history of wine in general. In Tuscany, it’s a little bit crazy because it went from one town to the next. Sometimes the variety that’s being used is the same variety but has a different name. And it can be crazy.

Just like other old varieties like Pinot Noir, Sangiovese is thought to be ancient. The first documentation of Sangiovese is from a treatise on the viticulture of Tuscany in 1600 by a dude named Giovan Vettorio Soderini. In it, he says, “il sangiogheto, aspro a mangiare, ma sugoso e pienissimo di vino” which generally means “the Sangiogheto, bitter to eat but juicy and venous.” This is the first documentation of Sangiovese but it’s really the first documentation of the synonym of Sangiovese.

The story goes that, in the region of Emilia-Romagna, which is north and east of Tuscany, there is a town called Rimini. Just outside of that town is a mountain called Montegiove. And in the foothills of that mountain was a — wait for it — monastery! Yep, the monks. And here, the monks were making wine. And the wine they made, they called vino, which basically just means wine in Italian. When asked what this wine was, they thought for a second and they said “sanguis Jovis”, which means the blood of Jupiter. Sangiovese came from that.

Eventually, it’s thought to be also a reference to the blood of Jove. Sangiogheto is a synonym of whatever happened there. Sangiovese isn’t only important in Tuscany. This whole story happened in a region just outside of Tuscany. Sangiovese is really the workhorse of central Italy in general. In Umbria, it is blended in a DOC or a wine region called Montefalco. It’s often blended with a grape called Sagrantino, a very big, powerful variety that softens it a little bit.

In the region of Le Marche, there are two very well-known red wines there, Rosso Piceno and Rosso Conero, and they are also Sangiovese, blending with a grape called Montepulciano. Not the town, but the grape. It’s also being used more and in Lazio, which is where Rome is. And here’s a fun little fact, if you guys ever come across Corsican wine — yeah, we should sometime do an episode on Corsican wine. It’s pretty cool. They make wine from Sangiovese there. But there they call it Nielluccio. Yeah, it’s crazy. It’s good and it’s awesome. They do great rosés with it, too.

Now every town, every region that produces wine from Sangiovese is awesome. Everyone has their own unique spin on this variety. It’s beautiful, and that’s all in the Tuscan episode. Yet, what you and I know more than any other wine made from Sangiovese in Italy is Chianti. This wine has had a presence in our culture for a long time. I remember as a kid, in the early ‘80s, going to this Italian restaurant with my parents. They loved it so much, it was called Mom and Pop. They had basket wine bottles. They’re called fiaschi. There were Chianti bottles with the baskets on them, and that was the candleholder.

Even as far back as the ‘70s, it made it into film. You have “Shaft,” an amazing film. When Shaft goes in to talk to the local Italian crime boss, the dude is sitting there sipping on a nice Chianti. I mean it was a basket wine, but in the ‘70s, it was considered good stuff. Of course, we had to get this out of the way: “A census taker once tried to test me. *I ate his liver with fava beans in a nice Chianti” — creepy murder doctor Hannibal Lecter, “Silence of the Lambs.”

Yeah. I don’t know where you are in age or pop culture, but that scene is one of the most famous scenes from the movie and one of the most famous scenes in film history. And what’s really interesting is in the book, he has this fava beans with the liver, with an Amarone, which is actually a red wine from the northern part of Italy. But because Chianti was so ingrained in our minds, the people writing the script decided to put Chianti in there instead of Amarone so we would be familiar with it. Sure enough, that line is basically timeless.

And even though we, in the United States, have had an intimate relationship with Chianti for such a long time, it still confuses us. It’s confusing because, guys, Chianti is complicated. It’s really complicated. If I had an entire episode to tell you the history of this place, it would blow your mind.

The city of Florence, which is very close to the Chianti wine region — which we’re going to get into in a second — I think between the 14th and the 16th century was the center of the world. This is where the birth of the Renaissance happened, some of the most famous glassmakers in the world were in Florence. The stories, the history, and the documentation are pretty immense. Just the story of Florence and its history with its rival city just to the south, Siena, includes Chianti and the wines from this region. These are awesome stories for another time because we’re here to talk about wine. Let’s get deep in the hills of Chianti and understand this place.

In the center part of Tuscany, there is a major town called Florence, which you guys all know. And then south of that city is a city called Siena. Between the town of Florence and the town of Siena, are these mountainous hills there called the Chianti or the Chianti Hills or the Chianti Mountains. It’s thought that viticulture goes all the way back to the Etruscans, which came before the Greeks. Actually, the Greeks came to Italy, and they saw the Etruscans. The Etruscans freaked out the Greeks because of their hedonism. It’s wild. I just wanted to tell you about that.

I mention the Etruscans because I’ve always been so fascinated with the word Chianti, in that I don’t know what it means and it’s very hard to figure out what it means. The only thing I could really find is that the Etruscans are thought to name this area, Clante. I don’t know what that means, but Clante? Chianti? It makes sense. If anybody knows any Italian etymologists that can help me out, would be awesome. However, the word Chianti first shows up in documents in the late 1330s. That seals the deal for Chianti. Well, the name at least because this document doesn’t name wine so much, it just calls this area the Chianti Hills.

By the 18th century, this area was known for wine. There are three townships in the Chianti Hills: Castellina, Radda, and Gaiole. At this time, Chianti was applied to these three townships. Also what’s interesting is these three townships are under the jurisdiction of Florence, and they formed what was called the League of Chianti, which was a guard against the town or city of Siena at the time. There was a rivalry, and a pretty storied rivalry at that. If you remember in the Portugal episode, we talked about the Douro Valley and how it was one of the first attempts at demarcating or creating some controlled appellation because of the popularity of the wine to combat fraud and to maintain the authenticity of the wines coming out of that region because of all the money that was being made there.

This is the same thing that happened in 1716 in the Chianti Hills. The three initial townships — Radda, Castellina, and Gaiole — were demarcated as Chianti, the wine-growing and winemaking region, by Cosimo III, the Grand Duke of Tuscany. In these hills with high-ish elevation in this very well-known famous soil called galestro with some limestone and clay, there’s a short list of native varieties that are being used to make wine around this time — most of them red, some of them white, often blended together for red. You had Sangiovese, there was a grape called Ciliegiolo, which is actually related to Sangiovese. Also, there is a grape called Mammolo and a grape called Canaiolo. Those are the red wine grapes. For white wine, there’s a group called Trebbiano, which is all over central Italy, and a grape called Malvasia, which we’ve mentioned before in other previous episodes.

There wasn’t a rhyme or reason and there weren’t any rules or regulations. Toward the end of the 19th century, there was this dude named Baron Bettino Ricasoli. In 1872, he wrote a letter saying that he had synthesized 10 years of experimentation. And what he’s found is that the Sangiovese grape is the best grape to use as the base of the Chianti blend. For aging wines, he found that Sangiovese’s aroma profile and its vigorous acidity, blended with a little bit of Canaiolo, was the best way to make age-worthy Chianti. For younger wines, he kept that little formula going, but he thought, “You know what? Add a little bit of Malvasia. Add a little bit of white wine. It really is nice.”

This formula or this idea caught on. And basically, this guy — and his family still makes wine to this day — is the inventor of modern Chianti. From the 18th century to the 1930s, this is what Chianti was: three townships basically carrying the Chianti name, but it’s spreading out more and more. People started to adhere to this new Chianti formula. The identity of Chianti was coming into itself. By the 1930s, this wine was becoming very popular, so the Italian government decided they were going to extend the Chianti zone. They’re going to name different subzones to capitalize on what was happening here. And to the dismay of the original townships, the government extended these subzones to basically surround the original area.

To this day, there are seven of them. Chianti is the prefix, and then the geographical location comes after that. I’m not going to get into all of them, but I’m going to name some of them right now so you can get a sense of them. Colli Fiorentini, Rufina, Montalbano, Colli Aretini, Colline Pisane, and Montespertoli. And you’ll often see it on the wine label. It’ll say Chianti in big letters, and underneath it it’ll have the geographical location. This extends the Chianti zone to about 40,000 acres, give or take. It’s a very large area.

In the 1960s, when Italy was creating its own appellation-controlled system that was based on the French appellations system, they went to Chianti and they saw how popular the ricasoli formula was. When they gave Chianti its DOC, that is the blend that became a regulation for Chianti: Sangiovese, Canaiolo, and Malvasia. They also added other varieties in there: Mammolo, Ciliegiolo, and also Trebbiano. With such a large area and with some economic troubles in the region, the trend of Chianti wines went towards quantity, not quality. Of course, there was quality being made during this time, but until the early 1980s, it got pretty bad as far as people taking advantage of a good thing. The famous Fiaschi basket wine we see in “Shaft” was eventually seen as just not very good wine. It was very thin. There was a lot of white wine in it, and it was giving Chianti a bad rap. To this day, Chianti basket wine is mainly known as a candle holder. Am I right?

And it wasn’t only basket wine that was compromised. There was a lot of wine coming into the United States and just being distributed throughout the world in which the quality wasn’t there.

In 1984, the government said “OK, we’re going to elevate the Chianti region from a DOC to a DOCG. We’re going to have stricter rules put in place. Now, we’re restricting the amount of white wine you can use and doing all these things to make sure the quality of Sangiovese is sound.” And I gotta say, they made some good decisions.

From 1984 on, Chianti really began to improve. But we have to think about that original township area. Remember I said, to the dismay of that area, all these other little sub-zones were created? Well, they’re still pretty mad. Or should I say, the quality-minded winemakers in the area were mad. This initiated what was called the Chianti Classico 2000 Project, which was a project of studying the soils and all the things in that center heartland, that area that started it all.

In 1996, that area of Chianti became Chianti Classico — its own DOCG, its own autonomous wine-growing region, not a subregion of Chianti. For the longest time, it was just a subzone. It was called Chianti Classico as in, this is where it all began. It was part of the seven subzones that were created in the 1930s, but it was considered Chianti Classico. It didn’t really have a geographical name to it. Now, Chianti Classico is its own thing. It’s made up of about nine communes. I’m not going to list the communes here because it’s not that important. I mean, the communes are important, absolutely. But for you as a wine buyer and consumer in the United States, the communes are not something that’s going to help you find wine, because the Chianti Classico region does not allow for the communes to be put on the label. You’re just going to see Chianti Classico. I’m sure the communes are somewhere in the small print on the back label. Also, something to know is that Castellina, Radda, and Gaiole are still part of the center of Chianti Classico.

Wine-wise, what is Chianti? Chianti is basically two appellations. You have the heartland of it all where it all began, the Chianti Classico zone. It’s its own zone. It has its own rules. They tend to be a little more strict than the larger Chianti area. Then you have the larger Chianti DOCG. That Chianti has seven subzones that have actual geographical names attached to the Chianti word. Outside of that area is just Chianti proper. If you see a wine that just says Chianti on it, it’s coming from anywhere outside of these zones, but it’s still in Chianti. And whether you’re in Chianti proper, geographical Chianti, or Chianti Classico, Sangiovese is the primary variety used in the blends.

In international varieties, which are basically French varieties — Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot — they’ve always been allowed in the Chianti region. And for a long time, they were being used not heavily, but they were used to attract the American palate. In addition to that, using significant oak exposure to get that vanilla spice thing going. That trend is starting to dip a little bit. We’re starting to see more older varieties being used in the blend and less Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, even in the smaller amounts. We’re starting to see wines with less oak influence coming out of Chianti. That’s really where Chianti began. The wines of Chianti are red with a medium-bodied perception. They are tangy with great acidity, and that’s what Sangiovese wants to give you. Then, you put a little Canaiolo and Mammulo in there, and it gets a little bit earthy. It makes for an amazing food wine. Steak Florentine with Chianti? Just forget about it!

In Chianti proper, they still blend a little bit of white wine into their wine sometimes. It’s winemaker to winemaker, whatever they want to do. You won’t see white wine being blended into Chianti Classico anymore. They outlawed that stuff.

And even though there’s so much more to talk about — diving into the Classico communes, diving into the geographical areas, getting a little more history going, getting a little more context of things — this is just your roundabout Chianti 101. Now you can get a good sense of what you’re drinking, what you’re looking at, and not feeling too overwhelmed. Because man, Chianti is complicated.

@VinePairKeith is my Insta. Rate and review this podcast, wherever you get your podcasts from. It really helps get the word out there. And now for some totally awesome credits.

“Wine 101” was produced, recorded, and edited by yours truly, Keith Beavers, at the VinePair headquarters in New York City. I want to give a big ol’ shoutout to co-founders Adam Teeter and Josh Malin for creating VinePair. And I mean, a big shoutout to Danielle Grinberg, the art director of VinePair, for creating the most awesome logo for this podcast. Also, Darbi Cicci for the theme song. Listen to this. And I want to thank the entire VinePair staff for helping me learn something new everyday. See you next week.

Ed. note: This episode has been edited for length and clarity.

The article Wine 101: Sangiovese/Chianti appeared first on VinePair.

Via https://vinepair.com/articles/wine-101-sangiovese-chianti/

source https://vinology1.weebly.com/blog/wine-101-sangiovesechianti