#he's got an audience

[zerolockfan]

Emeraldas on the edge of taking out her cosmodragoon to make this end

[sun-marie]

Post-canon, somewhere in a Rivaini inn, Lucanis sees more of "Rook" than he thought possible <3

Background/headcanons under the cut for context:

Background:

- Lydia Laidir, born into slavery in the Imperium, was inadvertently freed when the ship she was serving on was attacked by the Felicisma Armada, and eventually taken in by Isabela and the Lords of Fortune. Isabela gave her the affectionate nickname "Rook(ie)", and in a effort to cope with her upbringing she sought to reinvent herself under this new name. Overtime, the name Lydia became an extremely personal aspect to her, and by the time of Veilguard the only people who know her real name are Isabela and Anders (her magical mentor), and she goes by Rook exclusively to everyone else, even her partner Lucanis.

Headcanons:

- After the events of Veilguard, Spite stops reflecting Lucanis and instead takes the form of a cat (credit for this galaxy brained hc goes to @/ravioliage)

- As a mage growing up in Rivain and mentored by Anders and Justice, Lydia has learned to hear Spite in a similar way to Emmrich 💜 This makes many situations both more and less awkward.

- Shortly after the events of Veilguard, Lydia was able to pair Lucanis with a baby wyvern of his own, who he named Dolce (credit for the name goes to @/iisadiya), and when there isn't a pen outside or there's bad weather, she curls up on whatever furniture the inn provides in their room and absolutely destroys it with her claws and venom <3 Lydia and Lucanis have, on multiple occasions, had to soothe a very distressed innkeeper and pay a small fortune in damages 😔

[thebibliosphere]

I feel like I've complained about Tim's email situation in Gotham Knights before (edit: I have), but the truth of it is just so funny.

He's signed up for so many podcasts, video game streamers, and random news alerts; it's just a constant barrage of data going straight into his constantly whirring brain. Hell, he even floats the idea of the Batfamily having their own podcast as a way to correct misinformation about them (which Jason shoots down instantly), and it's made me realize something.

Timothy Drake would be a YouTuber.

In this universe specifically, Timothy Jackson Drake, the heir to Drake Industries and the foster son of the late Bruce Wayne would be a YouTuber.

Think about it. It'd be the perfect cover. Who would ever suspect that some 16-year-old nepo baby with a YouTube channel could ever be Red Robin? You'd have to be mad. I mean, look at him.

Red Robin just dropped out of literal thin air and garotted someone four times his size, and you expect anyone to believe that's the same kid who does 24-hour Minecraft charity streams and occasionally drops 6-hour video essays (his last one was on Lex Luthor's illegal bit mining operation on the moon)?

That kid?

You think that kid is Red Robin?

Ch'yah, okay, sure. And the Joker is funny 🤡.

[whosectype]

The Grind never stops

[deadpoetsandlivinglegends]

Todd doesn’t talk much in the beginning but I think one random night Todd would go on a sudden 35 minute rant while doing Latin homework about how poetic it is that the Latin word for love is amor cause it sounds like armor, and love makes you feel safe, and Neil would sit there and listen, occasionally adding in comments if it seems like Todd is winding down to get him started up again, and after that Neil tries to get Todd to go on rants whenever he can so he can just sit and listen to Todd go on, sometimes it works and sometimes, especially when they are out and Todd feels anxious, it doesn’t, but every time he does talk on for long bouts of time, Neil just thinks ‘love makes you feel safe’

[bqnnabreado]

[blorbologist]

Y'know, I think I figured out why the Hells still feel like a new low-level party to me, even though they're level 13 and almost 100 episodes in.

I don't quite think it's the lack of conversations, or the fact half the party's plot hooks are big ties to past campaigns - though that definitely plays a part.

... Bell's Hells still primarily rely on quest givers.

Most of their goals are given to them and do not feel organic to the party, and constantly remind us that the Hells are pretty much never the most powerful people in the room. Which is usually something you see with a low-level party.

NPCs offering jobs is not a bad thing; it's a very common plot hook. Matt has been extremely skilled with using NPC quest givers in those two campaigns. Not only do they provide an obvious plot thread, but they can put the party in the path of others (say, the Nein running into the Iron Shepherds while doing a job for the Gentleman and everything that came of that). And the Hells had a solid start with it too - Eshteross was an excellent quest giver!

The problem is that Bell's Hells have never really not had a quest giver.

Maybe it's a byproduct of the more plot-heavy structure of this campaign? But while prior parties have felt like they decided on their course of action and what they prioritized, Bell's Hells feels less like level 13 (13! Level 13!) experienced adventurers and more like an MMO group clicking on the exclamation point over an NPC's head. Where does the plot demand we go next? Who do we report back to?

They're level 13.

At level 13, Vox Machina had just defeated a necromantic city-state to clear their name and Percy's conscience. And, you know, the Conclave just destroyed Emon. No one was explicitly telling the group to gather Vestiges and save the world (though Matt guided them there), and they were usually among the most powerful people in the room. They chose which Vestiges to prioritize, which dragons to tackle when, even if the over-all plot was pretty clear.

At level 13, the Mighty Nein were celebrating Traveler Con (another PC goal, I'll note) after brokering peace between two nations, accidentally becoming pirates and heroes of the Dynasty. The Nein regularly chose what to do based on personal goals, not grand ones. Though definitely smaller fish than Vox Machina at this level, they were very independent and gaining solid political clout.

While we're at it: level 13 is one level lower than the Ring of Brass, who had a huge amount of sway over Avalir. They ended the world, and also saved it, while in the grand scheme of things being only a smidge more powerful than Bell's Hells are now.

Can you really see the Hells wielding that amount of influence, when they're constantly being told what to do next?

The god-eater might be unleashed, so Bell's Hells have no time to do anything but what is asked of them. No time for therapy unless stolen from Feywild time, no travel on foot and late-night watches. They haven't even had time to grieve FCG. Percy was grieved in the middle of the Conclave arc. Molly was grieved when half the party was still in irons.

Matt is in the very unfortunate spot of not being able to give the Hells the same agency as the other two parties. Not only because of the world-ending plot introduced so early on; they are surrounded by characters they know (and the cast knows) are stronger and wiser than them - the familiarity of the past PCs and NPCs is to their disadvantage.

Why would the party reasonably ignore Keyleth's task that will help save the world and go off on a romp? Why would the cast when they know well Keyleth has to be sensible and with the best intentions in mind? The stakes are just too high.

It means that the Hells still feel like they're running errands instead of pursuing their own destiny. Their accomplishments are diminished as just being parts of a to-do list, and any stakes feel padded by several level 20 PCs/NPCs standing 5 steps away ready to catch them.

This isn't Bell's Hell's fault, nor is it Matt's. It could be amended, I think, if the Hells are really left to their own devices for a long period of time without support and shortcuts (like during the party split)... which would be really tricky to pull off at this point in the campaign.

They're level 13. They're big fish, but they're stuck in a pond full of friendly sharks, so they don't feel big at all.

[mlobsters]

person of interest s1e16 risk

well, okay

first time watch liveblogging via gifs part 15 of ?

[sinnbaddie]

Naruto as a series is perfect if I ignore the lack of change to the systematic oppression and the victim blaming and the child cruelty and the oppressors being forgiven and the clear classism and the regression of character development and the-

[demigods-posts]

i really think the fandom kind of glosses over the trauma annabeth endured in ttc. like, the poor girl fell off the side of a cliff, was manipulated into holding the literal weight of the sky on her shoulders for hours, and (if i remember correctly) was tied up at one point. but this is all we can be certain happened because that's all of what percy saw. but what about what we didn't see? the poor girl probably spent the first few days immobilized and in so much physical pain once artemis took the sky from her. she was probably starved, or at the very least, not getting the amount of food and water she needed consistently. she probably spent most of her nights in an endless cycle of torment knowing that her friends were coming for her, but not knowing how long it would take them to find her. she probably quietly cried herself to sleep knowing the reason she was even in this mess was because of luke. i could go on and on, but you get my point.

[phlondsbian]

thinking about the crew along on these excursions is really funny to me because imagine working with two guys on their homoerotic horny stage performance every night then on your days off you’re third wheeling them on their dates

[kristiliqua]

CHUNSIK MY BELOVEDDDDDD

[hadestownhistory]

Yesterday was Robinson Morse’s last show. You may recognize his name from Our Lady of the Underground (“Robinson Morse on the bass!”), but a lesser known fact is that he’s been with the show since its inception. He was a part of Michael Chorney’s band, Magic City, in Vermont, and has played in nearly every version of the show since. He was brought (or perhaps dragged) into the spotlight yesterday so everyone could give him a proper send off. Here’s the speech he was given:

[fisheito]

portable friend (magic)

[itadooori]

yea i rewatched the s1 finale. did a lil doodle about it

[nenoname]

it really does seem like bill's version of possessing bodies requires the host soul to be either unconscious (ie ford and blendin) or gone (him kicking dipper out of his own body, possessing silas and other corpses), but honestly the type of possession that has the victim aware and trapped in their own body is probably the scariest to me