#pudding do not fucking lie about saving them..... or was she lying before..... well she was jealous so i don't trust her yet..

[bluejaytaco]

Shit, it’s more DND w/ Jay!

(So, things were once again a little retconned. Our DM had been drinking the session before and forgot to mention one detail to us. That being that Ticket Master was there the whole time. He also, apparently, told us he wouldn’t be able to send us back because, so long as Task Master was in existence, he only has half of his power.

He can teleport himself no problem, he just can’t bring anyone else. So, now our mission is to take out Task Master in order to return home. We also have to take down Nerve (The corrupted AI) because it’s been corrupted by Ticket Master’s power.

But, for the moment, we had to focus on Eltbalm and the old man he was holding up, screaming at.)

Art: Uh, hey, how about we don’t kill the old man?

Eltbalm: (sees them and drops Art’s father, who’s okay just a little shaken up. He storms up to Art.) You! You’re responsible! Tell me what the fuck is going on here? Where is Red?!

Reita: (waking up to the tension and seeing Eltbalm in her brother’s face. She bites down on his arm.)

Eltbalm: (shakes her off and turns to punch her. He misses as she ducks out of the way.)

Art: (gets punched in the face by the dragonborn paladin. Takes 7 damage.)

Ticket Master: (watching this all go down) Wow.... you all did very little to stop that from happening!

Art: (snapping around to his teammates and cradling his face) Yeah! Thanks for the help, guys!

(Wreybar just kinda shrugged it off. She’s a little insane right now. But it does get Koejin to jump in and help.)

Koejin: (Notches an arrow and points it at Eltbalm) How about you calm the fuck down? 

Eltbalm: (Sees this and glares at Koejin) You’re gonna shoot me? Do it!

Koejin: (Does just that)

(The arrow finds a home in Eltbalm’s breastplate. He pulls it off and snaps the arrow in half. Koejin finds this to be extremely hot as he pushes passed everyone and storms out.)

Ticket Master: Well, now that that’s handled, I can tell you about the other universe. Everyone sends their regards! Hennessy says (can’t remember for the life of me, I was drinking...), Alabaster says “I’m fine.” With a period. He wanted you to know it ended in a period. And Theodora says “Koejin, I will find you.” Would you like to say anything to them?

(We all think about what we’re going to say. Wreybar went first as Ticket Master pulled out a typewriter and put on glasses, kind of in the same fashion as The Mask.)

Wreybar: I say “Get money. Make bitches. Leave the fuckin haters.”

(Ticket Master reads it back to her so that he knows what he’s saying. We all laugh about it. Koejin wanted to go last so it was Art’s turn.)

Art: I don’t know, Wreybar kinda covered everything. (Koejin: Yeah, like, is there anything more to say here? lol)... I guess just... Sorry for running ahead without making sure you were following. We’ll find our way back.

Ticket Master: Alright. So! “sorry for running ahead without checking with you. I’m stupid. We’ll find our way back.”

Art:.... Did I do something to upset you?

Ticket Master: (now ignoring Art) Koejin?

Koejin: I wanna say to Theodora “Not if I find you first! Bleeeehhh!” (sticks out her tongue as airhorns sound. Watches Ticket Master write for a moment) I’m gonna need you to read that back to me.

Ticket Master: Okay. “Not if I find your first. Bleh, blah, brer bo.”

Koejin: I don’t know where that last part came from.

Ticket Master: (puts away the typewriter and glasses) So, I will send out these messages and return soon. By the way, your friends are in a jail cell with Mrs. Red at this moment. Farewell! (backs into the darkness and now he’s gone, leaving us stunned at this new bit of information.)

Koejin:.....I’m sure they’re fine....

Art: (checks on the two tieflings who just witnessed all of this.)

(Reita’s seen some shit so this is just another Tuesday for her. Art’s father, however, is clearly shaken and confused.)

Art:... so...uh.... remember the “Tentacle Monster” portion of the story? That was him.

Art’s Father: (throws up in his mouth a bit)

((Koejin’s player: Oh yeah, I forgot Art told him everything. DM being all “so you tell him everything? Okay, that includes the freaky tentacle sex!”

Me: Yeah, I just kind of imagine the conversation going like “then the two of us teleported away so I could get railed.”))

(We spend a while trying to figure out what to do next. Because the Ticket/Task information is new, we focused on that maybe a little too hard.)

Art: So, if we kill Task Master, Ticket Master gets all his power back and we can go home.

Haida: (someone else who’s been there pretty much the whole time) Okay, so how are you going to get him?

Koejin:... Will he still show up if I lie?

Art: Try lying.

Koejin: Okay. Art, You’re very talented and I really appreciate your company.

Task Master: (pops into existence with his signature groan)

Art: (looks at Task Master then back to Koejin) That’s hurtful....

(Koejin takes the lead here. She starts talking about how it would be really nice if Task Master could just die. He offers to drink some poison at which point Vincent pulls out battery acid and hands it to the god. Of course, drinking it does nothing.

In the end, Task Master simply disappears and we have to rethink things.)

Art: Guys, we were at full power and couldn’t take out a dragon. We’re not gonna be able to take out a god like this.

Koejin: Then we just need to get stronger! I’m gonna get swol! 

(Cue Rocky Montage! It goes on for long enough for Art and Wreybar to have a long rest. By the end of it, Koejin goes again to summon Task Master by complimenting Wreybar’s mental stability.

Nothing happens.)

Koejin: Okay... maybe deep down, I believed it? Uhm... (Turns to Art’s father) You have a really nice place here!

(Again, nothing happens)

Art’s father: Thank you!

Koejin:.... Art, you’re very talented.

(Nothing happens.)

Art: Guess he’s not coming back. 

Koejin: Wait! One more! .... I hate alcohol (pause. Still nothing.)

Wreybar: Yeah, he ain’t coming back.

(We think about it for a moment when I suggest using Spaghetti Kid, a tool we haven’t used in a while. (He’s a jinn that Art befriended and is meant to act as a guide whenever we’re stuck. He’s summoned whenever Art eats a bit of “spaghetti” from a jar he carries around.) Koejin’s player laughs and says “oh, yeah. Remember when that was the weirdest thing about this campaign?”

The DM also asked “are you sure?” For anyone who plays DND, you know that’s never really a good ask.)

Art: (eats some spaghetti)

(After eating it, Spaghetti Kid begins to materialize and looks at us. After a moment, he says “H-” and then starts to scream in agony as he melts away and dies.)

Art:... (Watches this in horror) I’m sorry!!(Rolls high on Arcana and learns that it’s because he doesn’t belong in this reality. Also, because it was such a high roll, Art realizes everyone that actually belongs here is also back. Despite not going through the portal.)

(Haida’s the one who makes the focus obvious. We need to find Nerve to redistribute the Ticket Master power it’s carrying. Nerve’s place of opperations is the spire that, in our timeline, belonged to General Green. (It also happens to be where Ticket Master seduced Art.) So, we go with her to the front gate only to see thousands of blob monsters swarming in. She screams “shit!” and runs back to the house.

We all follow. Koejin’s throwing her hands in the air and sighing at the whole ordeal.)

Art’s Father: (in the house, opening a hatch that leads into a basement) We’ll be safe in here!

Art:... Basement hatch...

Art’s Father: Yes, clearly this isn’t the first time this has happened!

(Meanwhile, Wreybar rolls high enough on perception to notice Reita staring out the window and salivating over the sea of black ooze right outside the house. She looks at Wreybar and they both have a similar thought.)

Wreybar:...black pudding.

Reita: (smiles and holds out her hand for Wreybar to come with her.)

Koejin and Art: (Preparing to go into the bunker only to see two of their companions missing)

Wreybar and Reita: (already out in the sea of black ooze. Reita is shovelling it in her mouth.)

Art: (Dives for Reita through the window) Reita, get back here! And don’t eat that! (drags her back through the window.)

Koejin: (walks out the front door which lets the ooze into the house, but walks through it to get to Wreybar.)

(once the two more sane members of the party drag down the insane ones, the hatch is closed and they’re all safe.)

Reita: (pouting because she was stopped from eating the black pudding.) Hungry...

Koejin and Wreybar: (start feeding Reita their rations)

Reita: (After devouring them, she hugs Wreybar. She and Wreybar are now besties because they dove into the “black pudding” together. She’s also more comfortable with Koejin considering Koejin fed her.)

(The area below is dark, which leaves Koejin blind to it. But there is furniture and things pushed up against a corridor. Vincent explains that the corridor leads all over Acentria as an underground system, but only Eltbalm knows how to go through it.)

Koejin: I could probably navigate it.

Art: You can’t see.

Koejin: But you guys can!

Art: And you’re gonna take everything we say at face value and absolute truth?

Wreybar: Yeah! 

Koejin: Okay, well, the way I see it we have three options; wait here and die, go out there and look for Eltbalm, or figure out the path on our own.

Art: Or we can have Eltbalm come to us.

Koejin: How?

Art: I can send a message.

Koejin:....why didn’t you do that earlier?!

Art: Because.... as we’ve already established.... I’m a fucking idiot!

((Koejin’s player: We’re not just the chaos group; we’re the dumbass group! Chaotic Dumbass!))

(Art asks what he’s sending to Eltbalm. Koejin then says something along the lines off “Hey, you wanna see Koejin’s nudes? Come and find them!”)

Art:.... (Gives Koejin a thumbs up but sends something completely different) If you want to see “her” again and possibly save this world, come back to the house.

Eltbalm: ...You better not be lying.

(We have some time to spare so we get to know our companions a bit. Art asks Haida about what the other Generals did and gets an earful about how they “protected the people of the city” but were really just arresting anyone who stepped out of line. Including Haida. She eventually fled the city and ended up dying. That’s when Ticket Master found her and offered to either keep her alive or let her die and reincarnate.)

Art:... and you chose life.

Haida: Well, yeah. It’s the better way.

Art:.... is it? You could have just reincarnated and been okay.

Haida: yeah, and be useless for a thousand years!

Art: A thousand ye- how old are you?!

Haida: Ugh, don’t you know anything about the gods?

Art: Considering the “gods” I’m closest with are a narcissistic dragon and a very horny tentacle monster, no. I don’t.

(Haida then explains that reincarnation isn’t instant. It would take time to be of any help because gods don’t exist in a place where time is necessary.)

Haida: Is there anything else you’d like to know, Oh Great One?

Art:... there is never going to be a version of you that likes me, is there?

Haida: (seems thrown off by this) I don’t know...

Koejin: To be fair... no one likes you.

Art:... Thanks, Koejin. That’s helpful.

Art’s Father: I like you.

Art:... Thanks, Dad.

Reita: (waves her hands around frantically as a way of going “I like you!”)

Art: Love you too, Reita.

Vincent: I... don’t really know you so I guess I’m kinda indifferent.

Art: It’s a better relationship than the other timeline.

(No one else really has anything to say so we wait until there’s banging at the hatch. Koejin calls up to see who it is, but the banging just continues. Eventually, she cracks it and sees someone slashing at the ooze. When she opens it, she’s pushed in and falls as something runs through the bunker.

Art can see it’s this universe’s Reita. She is torn apart and looks like she’s seen better days. He goes to follow her down the corridor but is ultimately stopped by his Reita, who grips him by the arm and frantically shakes her head.)

Art: I just want to go check on her. I’m not going far.

Reita: (still not letting go and shaking her head)

Art: Reita, it’s okay! Just let me... (still struggling to get out of her grip. When she doesn’t let up he frowns at her) What’s wrong? Why won’t you let me go?

Reita: (Trying to speak) ....you....f-ear....

Art: (trying to piece it together) I mean, maybe a little... but that can’t stop me from going.

Reita: (clearly frustrated by her lack of being able to communicate)

Art: (Seeing this and knowing getting free is useless right now) okay.... It’s okay.

Koejin: (Tries to go only to be stopped as well)

(We fight with Reita over this for a moment before there’s some more knocking at this hatch, this time with Eltbalm’s voice demanding to be let in.)

Art: (looks at Koejin) Your boyfriend’s here.

Koejin: (looks at Reita) can I go open the hatch for him)

(Reita agrees to let go so that Eltbalm can be let in. He jumps in and brushes off some of the remaining ooze in a fashion that makes Koejin swoon. But it’s also clear he’s horribly depressed. Eltbalm is then filled in on the situation and makes it clear he doesn’t really care about the state of the world. But he does want his wife back. Using Ticket Master’s powers.)

Art:... I don’t know if that’s the best idea. She could come back different. She might not even be your wife anymore...

Koejin: Yeah, I mean, Look at Art’s hand!

Eltbalm: I don’t care. I just want her back; In any form. You told me you could do it and I will go to the ends of the worlds to get her back.

Art: ....I can appreciate that. (Thinks for a second then nods) okay. You help us, we’ll do what we can to bring her back.

((DM: Is he being genuine?

Me: Yeah. Completely))

(After saying this, Eltbalm agrees to help. He goes to lead us through.

Then Reita grabs him and stops him from going. He tries to muscle through but Reita has a very tight grip on him and is holding him by the back.)

Eltbalm: ...this isn’t going to work if she keeps doing this.

Art: (now trying to persuade her) Reita, we have to keep moving forward if we want to get home. I know you’re scared. But we can’t just stay here. 

Reita: (listens to Art and relucantly lets go of Eltbalm and moves back over to Art.)

(He gives her a hug and she returns to practically clinging to him without stopping him from moving.)

( We start to head down the corridor with Reita at our side as well. Art’s father, Vincent, and Haida all stay behind. As he’s reminded that Koejin doesn’t have dark vision like the rest of us, Eltbalm lights a torch which also makes Koejin swoon a bit. But, she can see that his scales don’t have the same luster and, despite being a white dragonborn, he somehow looks paler.)

Koejin: Hey, Art? You have some sort of spell that can help out Eltbalm and make him feel better? Maybe Calm Emotions?

Art: Yeah, I can do that.

(The caverns fill with a calming melody for a while as we begin out journey. We walk for a very long time through the trail, following Eltbalm. As we continue to walk and find we can’t even really tell where we are anymore. We see a light flickering up ahead.)

Koejin: (carefully notches an arrow as she walks up to investigate this.)

(She finds a fairy who looks at her in confusion.)

Fairy: oh! Hello. Are you friendly?

Koejin: I mean, personality-wise, no. But I don’t mean you any harm. What’re you doing down here?

Fairy: Living... (she looks around as the rest of the party walks up) there sure are a lot of you... What are you doing down here?

Koejin: Well, we’re looking to get to the desert.

Fairy: The desert? Oh, I know a shortcut!

(Koejin rolled to find out if she was really a fairy. It was a low roll but the DM said “yeah, she seems pretty real.” But she does remember that fairies went extinct thousands of years ago during the Great War.

Art and Koejin switch places as Koejin goes to talk to Eltbalm.)

Art: Soooo.... where you from?

Fairy: Here.

Art: And you’ve just been hiding down here? 

Fairy: Yes, from the different mechanical creatures that come and try and eat us.

Art: Is one of them.... a giant hawk?

Fairy: Oh no. Nerve is far too big to make it down here!

Art:... how do you know about Nerve then?

Fairy: Oh, I read about it.

(We talk about how cute it is the idea of a fairy attempting to read a normal sized book.

But while Art is talking to the fairy, Koejin and Eltbalm have a conversation.)

Eltbalm: I don’t really trust her but... if you want to take her up on her offer...

Koejin: Wouldn’t we just be safer going your way?

Eltbalm: .... I have no fucking clue where we are. The paths changed.

Koejin: (glares at Eltbalm but then looks at the caverns to see there are some clear indication of fallen debris. She turns back to the fairy) Are there often collapses in the caverns?

Fairy: Over time, yes. You have the ocassional cave in and such...

Art: When was the last one?

Fairy: It could have happened at anytime and anywhere. The caverns go all over the world, you know!

Koejin: But then, how do we know your shortcut is even still there?

Fairy: Oh, I know it is!

Koejin: (Rolls another insight check and finds she isn’t lying. She knows her way around.) Okay! I think we should follow her.

(We all begin to do this and head on our way.)

Wreybar: (notices Reita staring at the fairy. Once again, she’s salivating)... is it the wings?

Reita: All... so tasty...

Wreybar: Mmm, like chicken... you should get it.

Reita: (nods and goes after the fairy)

Art: (catches Reita mid attack as she was still hanging onto him. Pulls her back) you’re not eating our guide.

Reita: So hungry...

Art: (Gives her another ration which she then devours)

Koejin: So... it’s funny that I’m only seeing one fairy here. Where...?

Fairy: Oh, you mean my brothers and sisters?

Koejin: I mean, I didn’t want to assume you were all related. Seems racist.

Fairy: Well... either way, they’re here. They’re just...shy. If you want to meet them, just turn around!

(All of us freeze at that and slowly turn around to see dead, lifeless fairy bodies hanging on string and following us.)

Art: (not looking away from the horror show)... you have a lovely family...

Wreybar: (sees the wire is also on our guide. She follows it up to see mechanical spiders using them as puppets.)

Fairy: (smiles) You’ve fallen for our trap.

(Next time, we roll for initiative.)

[todisturbtheuniverse]

FIC: Reparations

Fandom: Critical Role Characters: Grog Strongjaw & Scanlan Shorthalt Rating: T Word Count: 2,000 Summary: While hunkering down in the mansion on their first night in the Shadowfell, Scanlan and Grog start to repair their friendship. Also on: AO3 Notes: I’m sure (rather, I hope) that we’ll get lots of these little moments of friendships being repaired between Scanlan and the group, and they’ll be excellent, but I wanted to sneak my own idea in before tomorrow’s episode airs.

Even in the Shadowfell, Grog has to practice.

At least he has a Lionel-free sandpit to practice in. No one to watch him all keen while he sounds out words and spells them out loud and traces their letters out on the parchment. And he found a nice flat shield in the corner to put his parchment on, too, so it doesn't get sand on it.

Reading's easier than the writing part. He can kind of guess at the reading, especially if he says it out loud. But even though Percy and Tary put together a special quill for him after he broke a dozen ordinary ones, even though he goes slow and careful to make the shapes, he's just bad at the writing. Pike says that it'll get easier with time, and he believes her, but in the middle of practicing, he's always angry and frustrated that so many things take time.

He's angry and frustrated about lots of things. He needs to find something to squish. Hopefully tomorrow.

We killed, he's written so far. He adjusts the quill in his fingers—fingers better-suited to holding swords and hammers and things that are the correct size, that match him—and puts it back to the parchment. The ink comes out of the quill itself, another smart thing that smart people like Percy and Tary can come up with. Easier than dipping it in an ink pot, which probably wouldn't survive the bag of holding, anyway.

some, he continues. He likes the letter o best. Easy to make. He admires the way it looks on the parchment, like some school-fresh kid wrote it.

"What's that, Grog?"

He doesn't smash the carefully-constructed quill, just barely. The hand holding down the left side of the parchment nearly crumples the whole thing, though. He hastily smooths out the corner. He only has so much parchment. He doesn't know how long they'll be in this…place.

Maybe Scanlan's gotten quieter while he was away. Or maybe Grog's gotten dumber, or deafer, or something, so that Scanlan can sneak up on him easy-peasy and judge the shape of his letters, which, aside from the os, still look like something scratched out in the mud by a chicken.

"Nothing," he grunts. He imagines, though, that piece of parchment that Pike read so smoothly while he was too nervous to. If the fight hadn't thrown him off so bad, he'd have taken it, easy as anything, and read it out right there. That would've showed Scanlan.

In worse moments, he thinks that maybe he'd have ripped it up to pieces without reading it once, instead. Doesn't need to prove himself to anybody.

He starts to fold the parchment. Scanlan sits down beside him in the sand, digging his feet into it.

"Shouldn't you be resting up for tomorrow?" Grog says, because he can't read that smoothly and that well, and his letters do look awful, and he spent that imaginary moment cowering behind Pike, hating Scanlan as much as he missed him.

"Oh, you know me, can't sleep a damn with a place like that outside my front door. Were you writing?"

Grog glances around, hoping that someone might appear to take Scanlan off his hands. Like Vax. Vax seems pleased to have him around. But Vax—the dick—is nowhere to be found when you want to find him. Probably off looking for shit to get into, outside the safety of the mansion door. Almost fervently, Grog hopes that he will find some shit. Then Grog can go save his ass, and not have to sit here and talk to Scanlan.

"You don't have to show me," Scanlan goes on. "I'm just impressed, is all." His eyes drift over to the salt lick rock, still holding down the other side of the parchment, the part that isn't folded.

Anger is familiar to Grog, an old friend. He knows it well enough to keep it from hurting him, or anyone else he doesn't want to hurt. But the flame of it licks up inside his ribs, and he nearly embraces it. He nearly wants to hurt Scanlan. He's been fighting the confusion of that impulse ever since the disguise dissolved, revealing a man that stood about as small as Grog feels.

"Don't talk down to me," he says instead, which Pike says is a plainer way to say condespend—condestand? Well, that's why he knows talk down, because he can never remember the con-whatever one.

Scanlan peers up at him. "I'm not."

He says it earnestly, like a truth, but Scanlan says all things like that, even when he's lying. Maybe especially when he's lying. When Grog tries to name all the times Scanlan might've been lying, he gets a headache trying to keep track. It's a lot. Grog is aware that it's not so hard to fool him.

"Grog, do you know how many people can't read and write? It's not a common skill." Scanlan pauses, frowning. "You know, I was a poor kid. I didn't learn to read and write very early on, either."

Grog leans forward a little, despite himself. Despite his anger. "You're always good with words, though. That's your thing."

Scanlan gives a little shrug. "I learned to talk first, that's all. And I had help. I wasn't all that good before Dr. Dranzel picked me up. I was just performing to make money, you know? To take care of my mother. Lots of people will toss a coin to a poor kid."

Grog digests that a little. Scanlan hasn't talked about his mother, except that one conversation in a room smeared with old pudding, the one Grog sometimes remembers when he's trying to fall asleep and can't.

"Could she read?" Grog asks, despite himself—despite his anger—trying to do what Scanlan had both wanted them all to do, all that time, but also not let them do. It's not fair. But Grog learned early that life isn't fair at all. He paid that lesson in blood.

Scanlan shakes his head. "She never learned."

They both stay quiet for a little while, after that. Grog—big, clumsy, dumb Grog—is afraid to say the wrong thing. Pissed as he still is at Scanlan, he doesn't want him to go away again. Maybe that means the anger's wearing off.

"I want to ask you something," he says instead, eventually.

It's funny, and also not really funny—not at all—the little flicker Scanlan gets in his eyeballs when Grog says that. It's funny because it's the look just-about-dead-people get sometimes, when Grog's bearing down on them. It's not funny because Scanlan is better at lying than that, so is this a lie, too? Trying to practice writing has already given Grog a headache. This is just driving the nail deeper, trying to look all smart at Scanlan's words and actions like he might see the truth in there, under there, somewhere.

"Okay," Scanlan says, drawing out the os.

"Are you going to tell me the truth?" Just to check.

He puffs up a little. Angry, ashamed? Both? "I swear I will."

Grog twitches the parchment open again. It's just one line, every day. Pike says to go slow. He puts the salt lick rock down on one corner and turns the whole thing, slowly, toward Scanlan. After a bit of squinting, he finds the part he's looking for and jabs a finger at the word.

"Is this how you spell your name?"

Scanlan slumps a little, more of his fine clothes getting all full of sand. "Fucking hell, Grog."

"What?" Grog starts to regret this attempt at friendliness. "Is it wrong?"

"No, you just scared the piss out of me. I forgot how intimidating you are."

Grog sits up a little straighter, pleased by this. "Thanks."

Scanlan exhales loudly—a sound of relief—and looks at where Grog's pointing. "It's pretty close. S-c-a-n-l-a-n, not S-c-a-n-l-e-n. You didn't ask Pike?"

"She's mad at you," Grog says, telling it straight. "I didn't want to bring it up."

"You're mad at me, too. You practically dug a hole through the parchment on my name. Scanlan came back today," he reads aloud.

"I'm supposed to write a sentence," Grog explains. "Every day. I almost didn't, that day."

Scanlan's not the same since he came back. He used to never stop smiling. After everything that happened, after all the dragons were dead, Grog understands that that, too, was a lie. But without the constant smile, Scanlan looks much older, more serious. Kind of sad and faraway. It's a look Grog sees more on Percy and Vax. He gets it, right, because Grog gets sad and messed up sometimes, too. Everybody has to. He just misses Scanlan. He doesn't have to have him all the time. Scanlan has Kaylie now. Things have changed a little. But just sometimes, it'd be good to have his buddy back.

"Well, I'm glad you did," Scanlan says. "I would've hated to mess up your streak. That's a lot of sentences."

Grog takes the quill, which miraculously still hasn't broken, and draws over the e in Scanlan's name to make it an a. "There's a lot more, in the bag of holding. I still can't really count that high, so I don't know how many."

"That's great, Grog."

When Grog looks up from correcting the spelling, Scanlan's smiling. It's not the face-splitting grin of a year ago, but it looks…real. For the first time, this entire conversation, Grog believes that it's not a lie.

"Thanks," he says, kind of awkwardly, and to cover emotions he's uncomfortable with, he rushes on, "I'm trying to finish the sentence for today, but I can't think of the right word. I was going to say people?"

Scanlan reads along the last line. "We killed some…right, they didn't really seem like people, did they? More like assholes."

"Assholes," Grog repeats. "Yeah. That's better." He bends back over the parchment. "A," he mutters, half-forgetting Scanlan's there. "s, s, h, o…"

He finishes the sentence, waves the parchment to dry the ink, and folds it up to tuck it back in the bag of holding.

"Hey," Scanlan says, "you hungry? Want to get a drink?"

Grog considers the hopeful look on Scanlan's face.

"Look," he says, "I don't really like that…green leafy crap you eat now, you know? I've got some jerky in the bag of holding," he adds, "if you want any. And ale."

Scanlan leans toward him. "I was kind of fucking with everyone. You can order whatever food you want. You don't have to eat the salad." He sighs, a little pinched around the eyes. "I know, I know. I lied. It's a force of habit."

Grog doesn't know what that means, exactly, but he barks a laugh, so sudden that Scanlan jumps, and says, "That's funny."

Scanlan's eyebrows quirk up. "Really?"

"Yeah, like, that's a funny lie, right? Especially now that you're telling me. Because the others are just going to keep eating leaves." Grog laughs again. Scanlan cracks a tentative smile. "So they'll bring meat? Not chicken," he adds hastily. "Because the cooks at Whitestone made this great thing, it's like a bowl of meat, like cow and pig and all that, and I've got kind of a hankering for it."

Scanlan gets up, brushing the sand off his clothes. "I'm sure the servants can make something like that. And, true to my word, I will have the salad." He winces a little.

Grog gets up, too, and nudges Scanlan with his boot. "Hey, you can have a bite when the servants aren't looking. I won't tell Kaylie."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

Scanlan grins, a wide smile from ages past, reminiscent of a long night at the bar, when the rest of Vox Machina have dropped off around them but they're nursing the dregs of their ale, trying to draw the night out to last forever. Grog remembers.

"Well then," Scanlan says. "Let's see what trouble we can get into."

[scarlethaki-archived]

There is hope for Pudding’s character to be salvaged yet!

This chapter has given me some hope that Oda does have something more in store for Pudding than just being the Crazy Evil Bride Set to Destroy Fiance™ trope. While I still think the whole ‘personality switch’ thing is a disappointing development, this week’s chapter is reinforcing my previous analyses I’ve made on her. Everything pieces together except the scene with Reiju, which was the result of lazy exposition on Oda’s part. (The scene is absolutely pointless. Pudding tells Reiju EVERYTHING and then wipes her memory of it?? What purpose did that entire interaction serve other than to show Conveniently-Placed-Sanji and the readers Pudding’s devil fruit and how Evil™ she is?? What did Pudding gain from that scene at all after it was over? It made no sense and shouldn’t have been written.)

From everything I’ve gathered, Pudding’s main goal in all of this is to have freedom from her mother and the wedding. Pudding is opportunistic, so when the situation changes she acts accordingly to achieve her goal.

Please note that this line of dialogue is significant to her character. The panel does that whole ‘background goes white with leaves in the back’ thing.

To start this off, Pudding isn’t a chaotic evil character. She’s a chaotic neutral. 

Here’s a briefing on chaotic neutral characters if you’re not familiar. [x]

A chaotic neutral character follows his whims. He is an individualist first and last. He values his own liberty but doesn't strive to protect others' freedom. He avoids authority, resents restrictions, and challenges traditions. A chaotic neutral character does not intentionally disrupt organizations as part of a campaign of anarchy. To do so, he would have to be motivated either by good (and a desire to liberate others) or evil (and a desire to make those different from himself suffer). A chaotic neutral character may be unpredictable, but his behavior is not totally random. He is not as likely to jump off a bridge as to cross it.

Chaotic neutral characters believe that there is no order to anything, including their own actions. With this as a guiding principle, they tend to follow whatever whim strikes them at the moment. Good and evil are irrelevant when making a decision. Chaotic neutral characters are extremely difficult to deal with. Such characters have been known to cheerfully and for no apparent purpose gamble away everything they have on the roll of a single die. They are almost totally unreliable. In fact, the only reliable thing about them is that they cannot be relied upon!

Chaotic neutrals can also be completely random and unpredictable. They may shift allegiances at a moment's notice, or remain with a leader for years... They don't care what happens to others, yet will not necessarily go out of their way to harm others. If someone stands in the way of their happiness, they may kill that individual or move on to something else. Their priorities tend to change as they experience new things in life. They may even appear to adhere to another alignment for some length of time, only to switch at an inappropriate moment. They can be the worst tricksters, conning people, not for gain, but for sheer amusement. The chaotic neutral may not be driven by fame or wealth, but may only take actions just to see what happens.

In direct opposition to the lawful neutral being, this character views ultimate freedom and disorder as most desirable...Whether the individual chooses to do good or evil is of no concern. Violence is not a chaotic neutral trait, but adherents will often not hesitate to use intimidation and non-lethal violence to achieve their goals. These characters will almost always seek some selfish goal (such as acquiring wealth) in addition to the promotion of universal disorder, and are thus seen as "greedy" by others. Naturally, the chaotic neutral being won't see this as greed, but rather as "self-fulfillment." Thus, respect for others does not stand in the way of the pursuit of individuality. Since death is inevitable anyway, the chaotic neutral being isn't averse to speeding certain creatures on their ways if it's deemed necessary, although he won't go out of his way to inflict pain and suffering like an evil being would. Life can only be justified as a tool by which order is combated.

Okay, so now onto Pudding’s character throughout this arc. I really wished I had saved my old metas on this but they were unfortunately lost when I deleted my Pudding rp blog. I do still have one post though which can be found here, so please check it out before continuing reading. (It was written before she changed Reiju’s memories, but the rest of the post still stands.)

So with this thought in mind let’s take a look of all of Pudding’s actions from the beginning.

She is:

opportunistic 

good at acting (good and evil)

good at lying (for both harmless and significant things i.e. she lied to help protect Luffy and Chopper when they ate the shop before she even knew who they were)

has the main goal of ruining her wedding with Sanji because she wants freedom to choose her husband

Things to note: once Nami empathizes with Pudding’s situation and understands that Pudding is scared of her mom, Pudding decides to help them. She feels she can trust them with the task for retrieving Sanji. She 'edits’ her previous lie about meeting him, saying that in the end he didn’t want to marry her. She did this to encourage the Strawhats further.

The route she gave them to Sanji was also the most accurate and the safest. If she was out to destroy them at this point she could have led them down a path that would destroy them before they got that far.

Things to note: There is no reason for Pudding to be distressed in this scene if she had it out for the Strawhats. She doesn’t know she’s being watched by Brook and Pedro, so why is she behaving like this? Why is she insisting she has to leave for prior arrangements (meeting the Strawhats) if she didn’t intend to actually help them at this point? 

P.S. She also never told them to go into the forest. From what I recall and what Nami is saying, Pudding told them to wait by the coast, safe from her sisters and mom’s intervening. Everything that happens in the forest onward is beyond Pudding’s control and she can’t be blamed for her family’s actions.

--I don’t have the manga panels for this (and I’m lazy af) but the scene where she talks to Sanji is to be noted as well. Sanji can TELL when a lady’s tears are real or not, as shown with Viola. He can tell when a lady is lying or not, as shown with Robin way back. Either Oda has forgotten Sanji has these intuitions, or Pudding’s tears were genuine when she told him she wouldn’t let their marriage become a hell for him. She doesn’t want to be married just as much as Sanji doesn’t, so her vow to him there was most likely from the heart. There is even a panel when he pulls her in to a hug and her eyes widen in shock. He wouldn’t be able to see her expression here, so why would she be acting in that moment?

Things to note: She casually notes she’s getting sick of her mother. While this could just be a passing comment, considering the previous scenes where she thought of Mom in a negative light, there is probably a lot of truth in this statement. Another thing is that Pudding says ‘her family knows her true nature’ yet we’ve seen that she still acts like a sweetie around them! Especially her mother! She was even acting kind/sweet in front of her brother when she went to visit Luffy and Nami in the jail! If her true nature was this evil behaviour we see in her interaction with Reiju, she would act like this in front of her family.

And lastly: These are from the newest update, solidifying she is not siding with her mother in all of this. She’s acting like a pouty child, but the words she’s speaking seem to be deep-rooted. Pudding’s third-eye is supposedly capable of understanding the ‘voice of all things’ and this seems to be the only reason why Mom has interest in her daughter. Pudding isn’t stupid about this. She knows, and she’s upset.

Then there’s the moment shared between her and Brook which is questionable and what sparked my interest for her character again enough to write this post. There’s genuine surprise on her face there, her mask gone. No sweet or cute expression and no evil one either. Then in a second her ‘sweet’ mask comes on when she speaks to her mother, proving that she’s really just playing her mom as much as everybody else in all of this. Why would she need to act in front of Brook anymore? She already ‘revealed’ her true self to Luffy and Nami so it wouldn’t make sense for her to continue the facade anymore.

Either Pudding’s character is one of the best written characters in this arc or Oda just doesn’t give a fuck and is making an entire mess he doesn’t care to fix because she’s a side character.

I can’t say for certain what will happen in the coming chapters, but I do know that this page is one of the most important in regards to her character. She isn’t putting up an act (good or evil), she remembers negative things about her mother, and lastly she recalls Lola once again-- her one sister that left to find her own love.

While I still think Oda has made many mistakes with her character and a lot of potential was wasted, if he gives her a well written resolution I’ll be happy. I think the fans that are glorifying her as some sort of ‘crazy villain’ are missing the point, and it’s frustrating to see her character being transformed into a cardboard cutout by the fandom.