#kc speaks

[keyleth-clay]

Once again hijacking my own comment from Reddit:

I think one of the problems with C3 is structural. Matt seems to be wanting to tell a story with themes about Gods, Divinity and Religion, which, great. But if you're going with those themes one of the worldbuilding questions that should at least be thought about is "in a world where the Gods are real, what does that mean for culture, society and community?" and the answer seems to be "it doesn't". It's like the religion parts are worldbuilding-adjacent, like, "I guess they're religious too." And this was fine for the previous campaigns and literally any other story, but for what C3 is doing, it should at least have been minimally addressed.

Part of it was that Matt could have gone in pre-campaign-prep, "For reasons, your character needs to have an opinion on the Gods that is rooted in your background." Something like, "the orphanage that Ashton grew up in was run by Lawbearer people and they came down hard on even minimal rule breaking, which made it a miserable place for a kid like Aston to grow up in, so he's understandably bitter." Or, "of course Chetney prays to the All-Hammer, he's a craftsman, he tries to go to the temple on his holy day, but he hasn't managed it for the last 20 years, and he feels vaguely guilty about it." That would have at least given the PCs some connection to the larger narrative.

It's also that in the whole first arc the Gods weren't relevant unless the BHs specifically needed a priest for something. And themes of religion could have been there from the beginning, which could have connected with the overall Predathos narrative. I think something really interesting could have been done with Jrusar, and worship of the Lawbearer and the Wildmother, and civilization rising from the wilds. It needn't have been particularly invasive, just there in the background, the same way the governmental structure was explained but not particularly relevant for what the BHs were doing there.

And it's such a shame, because Matt is really good with personal faith, and individual interaction with the Gods, but it seems to break down with organized religion. And I don't know if it's a blindspot, or if he was so busy during pre-campaign-prep that he just went with what he had, which, again, would have been perfectly fine for literally any other story, just not this one. It's just that this whole campaign feels like missed opportunities, and the feeling like it could have been so much better. 

(Like, for example, a personal frustration is that the Vasselheim parts could have shown diversity in forms of worship for different parts of Exandria, and diversity in ritual from priests of different Prime Deities, and show that despite their differences they are all working together towards a common goal. Instead in communal situations, we get fantasy-Protestantism, with a sprinkle of fantasy-Catholicism ritual on top. (And don't get me started on the alcohol ban, don't the fruits come from the Wildmother's bounty, grown and harvested under the Dawnfather's aegis? Isn't the All-Hammer the God of all craftsmen, including the vintner and the brewer?) It could have still been a bleak and hard place, just rooted specifically in the religions and Gods of Exandria.)

[keyleth-clay]

Since I couldn't find a version that didn't require you to go to Instagram - here's the Critical Role cast seeing their Daggerheart character's minis for the first time! (Source)

[newdejavuu]

fall out boy should really be tested for addictive chemicals

[hear-feel-think]

I'm an Amaurotine and Little Spark is a land shark for our post-Halloween party!

[kcloveswrestling]

before 2023 ends where i live, i want to thank a few people for always being amazing:

@unoficialy-married-to-ace-austin

@missihart23

@mjfsupremacy

you three are some of the best people that I’ve met on here, and i’m super thankful to have met y’all.

[sugoi-writes]

OH WOW, ITS A FACE!!! ...Sorta

(Yes, the eyebags match my hair 💀💀💀)

I just felt semi cute and glum; just wanted to share. Today is kind of a hard day, since this will be my final day running escape rooms for a company I work for. I'm being laid off, and there are parts of me that are THRILLED to not be on-call all the time, but parts that are sad because the customers/friends I made on the way are so nice

;;_;; On the bright side, after today, I will be a 1-job pal, at least until October, which is a bonus 🖤💀💗 yippee

[kcdragons]

Might try using bluesky again I just have a hard time juggling more than one social media

[keyleth-clay]

I'm really curious about your Kryn dynasty hair headcanons 💜💜

Okay so like, full disclosure, the vast majority of this comes from the brilliant minds of @quinn-of-aebradore and her fic What is left behind, and hanap (who I don't think is on tumblr?) and their fic Unbinding. Bullet points for simplicity's sake:

The only headcanon on this list that isn't directly inspired by a fanfic lol. Elves in fantasy media are so frequently portrayed with long, flowing hair - just take your pick of any elven character from Lord of the Rings, for example. As such, whenever elves show up in any other fictional media, I always just assume that they have the same long, elegant hair (unless described otherwise). At some indeterminate point in the past, I ended up learning how the Han Chinese had (at least for a very long time, if not in present day) traditionally stopped cutting their hair once they reached adulthood - @ziseviolet has a great post about that over here - and the two points of information neatly dovetailed into a headcanon for the Kryn Dynasty.

With one slight alteration, that is - in addition to new souls and unconsecuted souls no longer cutting their hair upon reaching adulthood, consecuted souls would stop cutting their hair once the returning soul becomes apparent and anamnesis is completed, as a signifier of the once-adult soul returning to the world. The long, uncut hair represents the long life they've lived, and the even longer succession of experiences of the soul.

Building off of the idea that not cutting your hair would leave it fairly unwieldy in the day-to-day, and the incredibly detailed elven-inspired braid hairstyles you can find all over social media (especially Pinterest), the idea of braids being the main traditional hairstyle(s) of the Kryn Dynasty sprung up. This would predominantly apply to the Drow of the Dynasty, along with any other consecuted souls who ended up in non-Drow bodies, with more freedom of hairstyle choice being afforded to non-consecuted citizens.

Inspired by What is left behind: the idea of different styles of braids being worn for different occasions. Like, there's a difference between their everyday braids, their standard ceremonial braids, braids for weddings, braids for funerals, etc. I am also totally in love with the idea of having ribbons or other similar materials woven into the braids, and especially with the Den colours that @quinn-of-aebradore came up with (Den Thelyss teal and silver, my beloved 💙🤍). Wearing the wrong style of braid to the wrong occasion would be a major social faux pas, and the correct colours and the right amounts of each colour are also important, though perhaps slightly less so than the braids style itself.

Also inspired by What is left behind: the idea of a mourning braid, which must be worn for a certain amount of time. Quinn made the period of mourning be a week in their fic, but I could easily see some people choosing to wear theirs longer, especially if the deceased was someone they were particularly close to, or if they were an unconsecuted soul, and as such the mourner would not be able to reunite with them.

Last one from What is left behind: building off of the Den colours woven into the braid, ceremonial braids will also use specific combinations of the Den's colours to mark the relationship the wearer has with the person the ceremony is for. For example, in the fic, Verin wears a mourning braid with "one silver, two teal, marking the deceased as his sibling." Deirta wears one silver and one teal, for her child. Further extrapolation should be pretty simple from there.

Inspired by Unbinding: the number of braids. I adore the idea of an additional braid being added for each major accomplishment and milestone of a person's life, because it already merges so well with the spiritual ideas of the unbroken strand of hair representing the long life and rebirth of the soul, and the cultural/societal significance to the style of braids and the colours woven into them. Now, the hair becomes a status symbol - the more braids, the more intricate the patterns and more impressive the person looks, as a direct reflection of what they've accomplished in their lives. The Umavi's , for example, would have incredibly complicated patterns of braids, while lower-ranked members of the Dens would probably only have one to three braids.

Inspired by Unbinding - and by "inspired", I mean that's straight up what happens in the fic: Essek cutting his hair off. That's a big deal, and by that I mean an enormous social taboo to the point of scandal. Hair signifies the Den, the soul's accomplishments, the journey of the soul through many lives as guided by the Luxon. Cutting that off could easily represent cutting the life short (which isn't totally inaccurate in this case, given that Essek isn't consecuted), could represent spurning the Den (again, not necessarily inaccurate in Essek's case), so on and so forth.

That being said, I think it's quite thematically appropriate for the Shadowhand (which according to Matt Mercer, is "those who focus on the dark mysteries of Exandria for the Bright Queen") to keep his hair cut short - it prevents people from learning too much about him at a glance, without Den colours or length or number of braids to tell them what he's done or who he's associated with. That being said, I don't imagine Essek cut his hair with any of that in mind - instead, it was one of the few, small ways that he could quietly rebel against a culture that he never fully believed in.

With all of that, I genuinely cannot picture Essek with longer hair. That's not a knock to Matt's depiction of him - he's his character, after all. And that's not a knock to the fanartists, either. My brain just refuses to make the mental connection of "Drow with shoulder length hair = Essek Thelyss". But, of course, none of this is canon anyways and I just like playing in this sandbox.

[newdejavuu]

alright joe, you win. i’ll read rpf tonight.

[keyleth-clay]

Oh!

Wait just a second! These are the images of the gods in that hidden temple, aren't they? These are their reliefs on the walls!

@agarthanguide Did I do a smart?

the Arch Heart (arcane magic, the fey)

the Everlight (redemption, healing, temperance)

the Dawnfather (sun, summer, agriculture)

the Wildmother (wilderness, the sea)

the Raven Queen (death, fate, winter)

all art is official art by @agarthanguide and @kingcael!

[hear-feel-think]

I sat down to write today's FFXIVWrite piece and I had a concept but couldn't decide who to pair River with to make it happen. So then I was like, I'm the one writing this, I can do whatever I want. Why limit myself?

[kcloveswrestling]

Anyone that has actually talked to me on here knows that the biggest priority to me is health and safety. I have friends that own and run independent wrestling shows, I understand every aspect of the business, but I see beyond operating a wrestling show, I see the real injuries and health issues. While sports medicine isn’t my main focus or goal in life anymore, first aid and healthcare is still very much a big part of my life. You don’t get to call me a “smark” or any other name because I GENUINELY CARE about people. This is actually very hard for me to post because of my anxiety, but I won’t be walked all over on here. I may not like being around a bunch of people at a time, but I care about people and I like helping people.

To the wrestling side of things, first and foremost, these wrestlers are PEOPLE. They get hurt and sick too. This goes back to my post about Tyson Smith, known to the wrestling world as Kenny Omega, he is genuinely sick, and with the condition that he had LIFE SAVING SURGERY for, it worries me about his well being. Therefore, I made the post and said the things that I did, because I genuinely care. I’m looking past him as the wrestler and seeing the person.

If anyone actually reads this, let this be your take away, about all athletes, celebrities, public figures, and political figures: They are people too.

[sugoi-writes]

Oh-- so yall were HORNY horny. 🦌🎙Got it.

In all

seriousness, thank you!!! I can't promise that part 2 will be out in a flash (with my inconsistent ass), but I can say that it's already WELL in the works! A sleepless night makes for a happy writer.

Anyone else in the mood for more Hazbin works? Alastor centric works? 👀👀👀

[keyleth-clay]

One the one hand: I 100% agree with you about how nuanced and complex Pelor is.

On the other hand: when you say "just because YOU cannot handle nuance does not mean the story of exandria has not contained it and done so consistently. in fact the first in depth interaction that any party had with pelor [...] was a portrayal of him that was explicit in his complexity." -

I think a little more benefit of the doubt could go a long way. The thing is, not everyone has watched Campaign 1. There's a HUGE amount of people who jumped in with Campaign 2, and a large number of people who jumped in with Campaign 3, and many of them haven't watched C1 for a variety of reasons (tried but just couldn't get into it, don't have time to watch it, only just got caught up but intend to watch it in the future, etc.). On top of that, for some of the people who did watch Campaign 1, it's been long enough that they didn't remember those details. I know I sure didn't!

In comparison, the two most recent depictions we've had of the Dawnfather in CR canon was Calamity (striking down Asmodeus with the full intensity of the sun and his foot on his brother's throat), and C3 (the very tense conversation with Deanna, all of the stuff from Vasselheim with Team Issylra). It doesn't at all surprise me that people either didn't know or forgot that he could be soft.

if i keep seeing so many people refer to ayden as an indication of an unknown softness in pelor i will start setting things on fire. just because YOU cannot handle nuance does not mean the story of exandria has not contained it and done so consistently. in fact the first in depth interaction that any party had with pelor (vex becoming his champion) was a portrayal of him that was explicit in his complexity. taken straight from the transcript for 1x104 elysium, “[vex you] spin and look, whereas there once was a burning star-- and to the rest of [vox machina], you see the painful, endless light that averts your gaze-- it doesn't hurt your eyes as much, and you can see the faint features, the soft cheeks, the hairless head, and the bright warm eyes of he who brings the dawn. And you can see the smile there, behind the light. “there is hope.”” sunlight can warm you and burn you in equal measure.

that burning image of the sun has much in common with a teenage boy who steps into a dark room, and reminds the dm that it’s not dark. the same way that a teenage boy who stands by as a woman who will not give up her worship of pelor is punished because he has more important responsibilities he must honour has much in common with a seemingly benevolent lord of the dawn might respond harshly to a cleric who asks if he is worth saving while he is trying to find a way to survive so he might keep helping to provide light. the gods aren’t simple and they never have been. i am as psyched about the particular angle that downfall is taking as anybody but it is already frustrating watching people act like the gods are suddenly more nuanced because they’re in literally mortal bodies when the entire Point of the gods in exandria in the various stories we’ve seen so far is that the only difference they have with mortals is the bounds of their power. they carry all the same flaws and the same profundity. just because so much of the fandom has reduced that to black and white flatness or faulty mapping onto real world religions (or the various traumas those might have caused individuals) doesn’t mean that complexity has been missing at all from the story.

[l0svers]

give me little fork or give me death

[kcdragons]

I miss doodling, I find it so hard to do now and I have no idea why, it's like my brain just refuses to let me

I have something I need to finish for an art server, but after that maybe I'll open up doodle requests, get the brain juices flowing