#robin liveblogs: critical role

[hazardsoflove]

genuinely i’m obsessed with all of them

[aplpaca]

im rose tyler trapped on one side of the universe wall except the doctor on the other side is the critical role tags i have blacklisted to avoid spoilers

[trickfoots]

Hi! I’m Robin. (They/Them)

I liveblog Critical Role episodes every Thursday. I will tag all posts I make and reblog that are related to the episode as #cr spoilers and #critical role spoilers until Tuesday.

I also write stuff, occasionally! I’ll be posting anything related that on my side blog robbin. When I’m finished with a fic I’ll post a link here as well.

My AO3 is imogentemult. It’s linked up above c:

Inbox is always open for anything, including fic requests!

And feel free to message me if you’d like. I’m a little awkward and often busy but making friends is fun. I’ll show you a picture of my dog.

So, anyway, with that out of the way… Is it Thursday yet?

[gascon-en-exil]

FE15 Liveblogging: Rise of the Gay Entourage...er, Deliverance

Because it really does warrant its own post. So. Much. Gay. (and also other things)

The actual maps:

Meh. I enjoyed having maps with fixed characters like some of Fates’s DLC for basically the same reason I liked it then (less RPG, more tactics - a good break from all the grinding I’ve been doing). Having all but one of the four be reused maps from the main game felt a little lazy though. Also, the NPCs in the first two are either idiots or so fatalistic that they’ll just stand in one place and get killed.

Clair and Mathilda:

No F/F vibes here I’m sorry to say. Most of Clair’s development centers around her role as Lachesis 4.0 or something like that. At least she displays genuine development in the Mathilda supports and elsewhere without needing to see her brother get tragically offed, but then you remember she ends by marrying Gray and it gets kind of stupid again.

Mathilda meanwhile is still being her usual lowkey Domme self. I would have appreciated more commentary on gender dynamics from the two of them or at least some hint that she wouldn’t really mind her stay-in-the-kitchen ending, but no luck. Incidentally, it’s so random that Clive and Mathilda are the only characters aside from the Ram kids and Conrad to get younger portraits for flashback scenes.

Fernard:

Even the memory of him and Mathilda can’t shake the strong romantic/erotic vibes I’m getting from his relationship with Clive. Actually that memory just makes my triangulation of desire even stronger since Mathilda herself admits (very strangely) that she almost thinks of Clive and Fernand as the same person. Then there’s the Fernand x Clair memory which outright proclaims that there’s something unusual about Fernard’s devotion - at least as unusual as Clair wanting to marry a man identical to her brother in every way. Also interesting is that we see the beginnings of the catfight fallout between Fernand and Lukas over the latter’s surprising display of pragmatism in the fourth map. Fernand actually sounds jealous that Lukas might have become Clive’s new “confidant” (ahem). There’s also another mention of ripping out tongues, so I suppose this is just a thing with these two.

Forsyth:

Is gay for Clive and probably more than a little gay for Lukas too, and Python seems fully aware of it and has the innuendo all ready to go. He compares Forsyth’s reaction to Lukas praising him to a maid who’d just been asked for her hand in marriage, for heaven’s sake. That said, Clive/Forsyth is clearly the more imbalanced relationship; his “I WANT to put you on my pedestal!” may deserve to replace Inigo’s “I want to be manhandled!” in the annals of memetic queerbait-y FE lines, but he doesn’t seem comfortable negotiating the class divide. The exchange does however offer the image of an amusing offscreen incident involving Forsyth trying and failing to treat Python as he does Clive and Lukas having to break up the resulting fight. Oh, and the ending to the Clive x Forsyth B support, wherein Forsyth stumbles over Clive asking him to treat him exactly as he does Python, is hilariously suggestive.

Lukas x Forsyth is less humorous overall but more revealing about both characters, and it’s easy to see the two of them finding common ground in reading and other pursuits and letting things develop from there.

Python:

Sure, Python talks about women for the first and only time ever, and while it may just be my bias talking it rang a little false for me. Since when has Python ever seemed like the kind of guy who’d want to be the center of attention? At any rate, he comes off as very queer-friendly with Lukas and an “outsider” by his own description. I also can’t help but hear the VA’s enunciation of “sir” as both sardonic and slightly erotic, so the sub headcanons just write themselves. The end of Lukas x Python also serves as a callback to the Shinon x Gatrie supports in FE9, which also end with an archer offering to take a knight out on the town to distract him from his issues with women. Past FE precedent*, yay.

Covering Clive x Python under Clive’s heading.

*And since FE15 is overall more open about discussing its queer issues in explicit terms than Tellius is, Lukas/Python feels both healthier and more self-aware than sexual Shinon/Gatrie.

Lukas:

Now the second-most explicitly queer character in FE15 after Leon, with only the nature of his queerness subject for debate. Is he gay or asexual? I’d say he’s definitely homoromantic since he’s clearly seeking emotional validation from Clive that he’s mostly not getting - to say nothing of his hatred of Fernand. Fortunately for him he does acknowledge at the end of their supports that Python would treat him well, and as mentioned earlier he bonds well with Forsyth too.

Perhaps more surprising though are his actions that secure the Deliverance’s escape from Zofia Castle. He displays a willingness to commit war crimes that is only selectively deployed among FE’s good guys (Micaiah, Robin, Conquest!Corrin indirectly), and while it does save them he gets called out for it by Fernand. Strangely this event is also germane to discussion of Lukas’s sexuality, because he states that Clive has a sense of “rightetousness” that he himself lacks. Between this, the lack of fire in the loins, and the “cold observer” business in his supports with Clive I think we’re to take it that Lukas doesn’t feel much of anything, or that if he does it’s severely repressed. And not for the same reason that Fernand is repressing his feelings for Clive - clearly a social thing - but possibly as a remnant of his father forcing him to abandon his interests in favor of military training and his brother forcing him to join the Deliverance and possibly die in it. He’s just sadder and more screwed up the more we learn about him.

There’s a silver lining, though; Lukas tells Clive that he doesn’t really have a home anymore, meaning he now considers the Deliverance his home and his family. Clive is just bound to disappoint him, but there’s always Forsyth and Python....

Clive:

Still has far too many people angling to get in his pants. His supports with Python continue FE15′s trend of presenting what may be the series’s most nuanced take on classism and the true value of the setting’s quasi-medieval political and social system. As a quasi-aristocrat myself I’m inclined to side more with Clive and sympathize with Fernand, but Python makes his case with substantially more grace (go figure) than a certain blue-haired commoner lord. It’s also nice to see this line of criticism picked up by someone who isn’t Alm, since some of the fanbase seems to think that his being secretly royalty invalidates his takedowns of classist nobles.

So yeah, great DLC content on the whole. It’s just a shame that we probably won’t be getting any more other than the Cipher characters. This stuff’s way more illuminating and entertaining than nostalgic rehashes of older games or AUs starring eugenics babies.

[hazardsoflove]

CLERIC SAM

[hazardsoflove]

maybe it’s just me as an essek stan but it honestly pisses me off that they hold essek to this high standard of suspicion but they’re just. jumping right into this heist not even questioning that it could very well be a trap

[hazardsoflove]

ESSEK MINI!!!!

[hazardsoflove]

LET’S GO MIGHTY NEIN

[hazardsoflove]

if the final arc doesn’t answer the question of if esseks alignment changed i will be so upset

[hazardsoflove]

RUNECHILD. I GOT MY WISH WE’RE GONNA SEE GILMORE

[hazardsoflove]

namedrop keyleth and vox machina liam come on

[hazardsoflove]

NOT TRAVIS PLAYING AN OLD MANSNJSSJJS

[hazardsoflove]

ASHLEY AND LIAM ARE PLAYING THEIR EXU CHARACTERS AAAAAAA

[hazardsoflove]

HE’S MARRIED 🥺

[hazardsoflove]

NOT ESSEK

[hazardsoflove]

he’s his fucking abuser this shouldn’t even be a question like why even suggest this