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ananke-xiii · 1 month ago

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Sailing from Byzantium or Parents shouldn’t outlive their Children.

As you set out for Byzantium…

Okay so. I’ve been writing illegibly scribbling about resurrection in SPN for over a month now, so I think it’s finally time to talk about Jack’s (first) resurrection in “Byzantium”. Let’s goooo, I really hope it’ll make sense! As usual, it’s gonna be loooong, without images and with baaaaad paragraphing so just FYI. Here we gooooo.

I’ve described S13 Castiel’s forbidden resurrection (Chuck didn’t want him back, Billie couldn’t care less, no other entities were interested in him being back, like, at all) as a team effort: Dean, Jack, Cas and the Shadow all worked, consciously or not (but mostly not), to get Cas’ ass back on Earth. I’ve also compared it to the myth of Isis and Osiris because, to me, this specific resurrection has some very, veeeery strong romantic undertones to it. Of course, it bears repeating, it’s my interpretation that Cas got back because he was immensely loved and he loved hard in return. The show doesn’t outright say it, but it strongly implies it, and I’ve picked up on that vibe. However, his resurrection was possible in the first place because Jack willed it and he willed it because he missed his father. So another strong theme here is parental love and I loooooooove this stuff. Let me explain.

I’ve elsewhere said that Sam failed Jack the moment he didn’t tell him that he was missing Mary and he wanted her back. If he did, Jack would have latched onto that like I don’t know what, because he understands what it means to miss a mother. A similar thing applies to Dean, although he’s way more emotionally (and brutally) honest with Jack than Sam is. However, what Dean doesn’t outright say is that he blames Jack for Cas’ death (I’ve talked about I many times and I don’t want to repeat myself here, but basically I think that it’s not about Jack per se but about Cas’ choice to leave them and go away with Kelly. In other words, it’s complicated and I can’t always write the same things over and over again, lol, so sorry if I oversimplify sometimes). The moment he does, when he yells in Sam’s face while Jack is eavesdropping, an-already-attuned-to-his-moth-Dean Jack finally understands Dean because Dean’s pain, like Sam’s, is also his.

This is no moral judgement of the characters but an interpretation of the little tragedy that the first episodes of S13 are: three people, closed-off in themselves like monads, who are all grieving and don’t have the tools and/or the strength to really sort through their own emotions. A scene that stuck with me is when Jack is in front of his parents’ fucking pyre and he doesn’t know what to say. It’s a brief scene that tells a lot: Jack’s lost everything the moment he was born and, of course, he doesn’t know what to do with that. Because he’s just born. He’s left with…. The Big Empty. But this is also what Sam and Dean are feeling, in their own ways, so basically if they all knew how to communicate they would have found out that Jack was THE person who could have understood/helped them the most.

But, of course, if that happened, there wouldn’t be any tragedy in the first place so that was the whole point.

Back to Jack’s eavesdropping. I don’t think Jack picks up on the reason why Dean’s out of his mind over Cas’ death because he doesn’t have the same picture that we do. But what’s important is that he understands Dean’s pain because he also feels a similar pain but, of course, in his case he’s missing Castiel as his father. Just like the Quest for Mary isn’t solely due to Jack’s tendency to appease Sam and Dean, the Resurrection of Castiel happens because Jack is attuned to Dean, absolutely yes, but also because he wants it for himself. As in: Oh Dean’s not okay and one of the reasons why is Cas, but wait! I’m also not okay and one of the reasons why is Cas! Because I was supposed to have at least one parent looking out for me and he’s not here for me.

To sum it up: Cas’ resurrection is spurred by romantic love but it’s actualized because of filial love.

I’ve had to say all this because Jack’s resurrection in "Byzantium" follows the same path but in reverse: it’s about parental love but it’s actualized because of… (a-very-twisted-but-here-we-are, let’s-just-say-it-and-be-done-with-it) eroticism. Yes, ‘cause, sure, Chuck has his pervy thing for Dean but the Shadow surpasses even God when it comes to Castiel. Cas is “Of the Shadow”. Because it’s either that or I am the weirdo that instantly associates “I’ll come when you let the sun shine on your face” to la petite mort, the little death. Eros and Thanatos, the usual. I mean, it could be that I’m the weirdo. Let’s see!

If Dean, Jack, Cas and the Shadow were all needed to resurrect Cas, in Jack’s case…

Lily, Jack, Cas… and the Shadow again are needed.

(lol, when I write “and the Shadow” I have that song in my mind, the one that goes “and your friend Steve, tutututuruduuduuuu, Steeeveee, lol)

((also… Dean and Mother Figures… one day I’ll also have to expand on that))

(((also II… I’m super aware that Sam is a VITAL piece in both Cas’ and Jack’s stories and you can find a little bit about it here. I’m soooo sorry to do my little giant dude so dirty by erasing him, but if I add Sam to the picture as well this post becomes a behemoth or something and I can’t have it, I’ll make up to him I sweeeear)))

(((( I know it’s taking so long but we’re going to Byzantium which is pretty far away, be patient))))

All Aboard!

What is Byzantium exactly? Well, “Sailing to Byzantium” and its following “Byzantium” are two poems by W.B. Yeats which constitute the foundation of… “Byzantium” in S14. I’ll be focusing mainly on the first poem because I think it’ll be enough but the two are strongly connected and should be considered together rather than separate.

That is no country for old men. The young In one another’s arms, birds in the trees, —Those dying generations—at their song,

As we can see, one of the main themes in “Sailing to Byzantium” is old age vs “the young” and mortality (of the body) vs immortality (of the soul). These are the same themes of this episode which are translated for the show’s sake into the old theme of the “it’s not natural for parents to bury their children”.

In the bunker, after Jack’s death, Sam, Dean and Cas are lost and don’t know what to do:

[Cas, Dean, and Sam linger in the hallway outside Jack’s room] CAS: Maybe we should… start thinking about next steps. DEAN: Wake and a bonfire, Hunter style. It's what Jack would've wanted. [Sam says nothing, but storms off. Cas tries to stop him, but Dean stops Cas with a hand on his arm] CAS: Sam. [to Dean] Your brother's in pain. DEAN: Just let him be. If he needs his space, we're gonna give it to him.

They need to “bury” Jack and this triggers Sam into running away. Dean and Cas find him defeated in a forest: Sam wanted to gather woods for the pyre and made a whole mess out of it because he’s not okay and he feels like he hasn’t done enough. Like he has failed Jack. To that this is what Cas has to say:

CAS: This doesn't feel right. It's just not how I thought Jack's story would end. SAM: Yeah. None of us did. CAS: The certainty… of death, even for angels, it's always felt natural, but this doesn't. Jack being taken before his time. I mean, taken before me.

This scene establishes that Cas, maybe for the first time, understands relativity… deeply, into his own heart. Death is certain, it’s natural so how come Jack’s death doesn’t feel right, doesn’t feel… natural? Jack’s being taken before his (Jack’s) time is not unnatural by definition, it’s unnatural by Cas’ relative notion of Time: Jack’s time (before HIS time) is defined by Cas’ time (before ME) and Cas, like all parents, simply logically refuses the idea or even the possibility of seeing his child being taken away before him. It’s not a law of nature but it’s a law of humanity: no parents should ever see their children die. If that happens, it means that something went wrong, that it wasn’t right. That is no country for old men and no country for parents outliving their children.

In “Ouroboros” when Cas is confronted with the finality of death again, he’ll try his best to reassure Jack and make him understand how time works differently for “things like them” compared to humans. He’s trying to be brave in front of Jack but he’s not reaching him because he doesn’t believe in his own words. He betrays himself when he says that “when Dean wakes up -- and he will wake up -- we just have to remember to appreciate the time that we all have together now”. Even if he’s telling Jack that he must accept Death, he’s not accepting it himself. WHEN Dean wakes up AND HE WILL wake up. PERIOD. This is thinking coming from the heart rather than the mind. And it’s… truer? More vulnerable? Honest?...Human? Maybe the greatest tragedy of humanity is not that we don’t accept our death but that we can’t even conceive of the death of our loved ones. When Death arrives and takes everything from you but… you. And Cas cannot accept either Dean’s not Jack’s death. He simply can’t.

Together with Sam, Cas contacts Lily Sunders, the same woman that wants to kill him to avenge her daughter’s death. Lily, we’re tactlessly reminded by Dean in case we hadn’t noticed lol, is… old.

SAM: Dean, you remember Lily Sunder. DEAN: L-- You got old. LILY: Did I? An unfortunate side effect of giving up magic, I suppose.

She’s old and almost soulless but she can, perhaps, “pull off a miracle” or… a trade. “Resurrection and a cure” in exchange for getting into Heaven… to see her daughter, May.

Old age and the soul is another theme in “Sailing to Byzantium”:

An aged man is but a paltry thing, A tattered coat upon a stick, unless Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing For every tatter in its mortal dress, Nor is there singing school but studying Monuments of its own magnificence;

The body decays but the soul lives and claps its hands and sings! Despite the “mortal dress” the soul can still be magnificent. In the character of an old(er) Lily Sunders the episode conflates all of its themes: parents and children, soul and mortality.

Yep, because there’s a little caveat in this trade and that’s Jack’s soul. Jack’s first resurrection doesn’t come for free, it has a price that he himself has to pay.

Now this is the point where I have issues with the episode and the series as a whole because “Byzantium” poses an interesting moral dilemma: your life or your soul? Sam, Dean and Cas all have their own take on the matter and the episode explores them. But what about Jack? Since, you know, it's his life and his soul.

Well, unfortunately I don’t think he’s given much of a choice and I think it was unfair.

When in Byzantium…

Yeah, okay, but WHAT is Byzantium? Well, Byzantium is, of course, Heaven. Crumbling empire under siege. Christian stronghold, holy city. Yeah, that’s Heaven right now in s14. So this means that people/entities will have to sail to Byzantium, aka Heaven, in this episode. Conversely, since Heaven is a place for the dead and the Angels, some other people will sail from Byzantium and back to life.

Heaven-Byzantium, however, has a little bit of a problem in the form of the Shadow storming its gates to take Jack’s… soul? The ghost of his Grace? His essence as Nephilim? I mean, I don’t know exactly what the Shadow wants because Jack belongs to two realms at the same time so I guess it wants its half. What I know is that it wants him in some capacity. Although, to be fair, for a cosmic entity that wants to sleep forever, going to great lengths to take one “soul” or whatever seems… weird? I don’t know, what I’m trying to covertly say is that, I think, the show has never really explored the Shadow/Empty and I think it was a shame. It wants to sleep forever but it storms Heaven’s gates for Jack, it wants Cas to suffer BUT it wants him to be happy AND it also wants to stay awake to come to Cas when he’s happy… The Shadow is confused, lol. Or, maybe, in love?? (Okay, now I’m joking but you must admit that the Shadow wants a lot of things. *In Lucille Bluth’s voice*: Good for her!).

Jack’s in Kelly’s heaven but they don't share much screen-time together. As a matter of fact, Jack’s not given much choice to begin with. The “life or soul” dilemma is left unexplored because the plot takes precedence: it’s 46,750,000,000 human souls vs Jack’s soul now. I like that, at first, Cas downright says no to Naomi when she tells him that he must help her stop the Shadow by handig over Jack. But then, when he finds Jack, he seems to change his mind a little:

CAS: Sam and Dean and I-- we found a way to bring you home. JACK: So, I'll be alive again? CAS: Yeah. But to do so, we-- we need to use magic that will draw on your soul. JACK: W-What do you mean, my soul? CAS: It'll be just a small piece. And I know it's too much to ask, but it's the only way. KELLY: No. I-I don't know. CAS: It's not just Jack's life that's at stake. It-- The Empty has invaded Heaven because it wants you.

Kelly going "No" and then "I don't know"... I love her so much, Queen of Messes.

Although Cas told Dean that Jack should have a say in the matter, he eventually decides for Jack and asks “too much” of him. Again, I want to say that this is a judgement-free zone, if I had the possibility to resurrect my dead child I would burn cities and commit genocides, ngl. This kind of prevarication, a prevarication out of love, is something that I can see fit in this episode because it relates to its foundational themes. What I don’t like and think takes something away from Jack is the “It’s not just Jack’s life that’s at stake”. Mmmm it doesn’t sit well with me. Fuck Heaven, fuck cosmic balance and fuck the Empty: if the cosmos can't do its work properly it's not my problem. Overriding personal dilemmas with imminent apocalypse-level threat is something that cannot be overused every other episode or it'll get boring. The stakes cannot always be so high, I need to see characters make their own choices and Dabb era takes this away from me! *Clenched fist raised to the sky for emphasis*.

Since Anubis has been literally summoned in this episode (the Egyptian myths, man... I've been saying... I've been saying) I think I can safely say that on his scale Jack’s soul weighed less than all those billions of souls. In other words, the Greater Good prevails. But what about Jack? Leaving aside whether I like it or not, he still doesn’t get a vote because the whole point is that the Shadow wants what it wants and it wants Jack. So Cas has to interfere and cuts a deal with it. And then we totally forget about Jack’s choice. It’s a given now because it’s the billions of souls and, ON TOP OF THAT, his father’s sacrifice. Even before becoming God Jack was asked to take on his shoulders such impossible burdens and… I don’t know, I actually feel very sorry for him.

So “Byzantium Delivered” by our very Castiel and him and Jack are ready to sail away. For one people leaving, one must arrive. Cas wasn’t the only one who made the sacrifice: Lily pays with her life and we know that her sacrifice is selfless because she manages to enter Heaven’s Gate. As Dean puts it, she couldn’t let anyone go through what she did: outlive their children. There’s a part of me that’s sad that she paid the price and died but another one is happy because now I can speak about something that I adore: parents saving their children.

Once out of nature I shall never take My bodily form from any natural thing, But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make Of hammered gold and gold enamelling To keep a drowsy Emperor awake; Or set upon a golden bough to sing To lords and ladies of Byzantium Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

Here Yeats is saying that once he’ll be “out of nature”, aka dead, he’ll never take another bodily form but he’ll become a work of art made of “hammered gold and gold enameling” that will set upon a “golden bough” to sing the past, the present and the future.

I have to tip my hat to Meredith Glynn here because this was awesome. As I’ve said she has used Yeats' poem to talk about parents going to other dimensions and making sacrifices for their children. This is the meaning of the “Golden Bough”.

The “golden bough” refers to an episode in the Aeneid where Aeneas goes into the underworld to meet the shade of his deceased father Anchises. In order to do so this, he must give a gift to Proserpina, the Queen of the Underworld and the gift is the golden bough itself.

I said this was awesome because Aeneas is the son that goes to another dimension to meet his father but in “Byzantium” it's a father and a mother who go to Heaven for their children!!! Which first of all, I think it’s BEAUTIFUL, second of all we have, AGAIN!, a reversal of myths at play here!!!

When I say that Castiel and Jack are exploding myths from the inside I’m not saying it because I’m crazy but that’s because this is what the show was telling me up until a certain point!

If you scratch and scratch and scratch, “Byzantium” is a retelling of the myth of Demeter and Proserpina, the mother going to the underworld to save her daughter (it's waaaay more than this but bear with me or this post'll never end). I mean, isn’t that awesome??? I fucking love it!

I swear I could go on and on (and I will!It's a threat!) but I think it’s high time we left Byzantium…

Goodbye stranger, it's been nice!

I hope I’ve made clear how Jack’s resurrection involved Lily, Cas and Jack himself (although he didn’t have much choice in the matter and that’s regrettable). I have to talk about the Shadow before I let you go of the insanity that is this post. So let’s end it with more insanity, shall we?

O sages standing in God's holy fire As in the gold mosaic of a wall, Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre, And be the singing-masters of my soul. Consume my heart away; sick with desire And fastened to a dying animal It knows not what it is; and gather me Into the artifice of eternity.

Now this is where my weirdness potentially shows: here Yeats is talking about his desire to meet the “sages standing in God’s holy fire… and be the singing-masters of [his]soul”. He wants his heart to be consumed and freed from the chains of the material body (“dying animal”) and be gathered “into the artifice of eternity”. Now Yeats, to me, is talking about a sort of transcendental and mystical experiences which, as we all know, have very clear sexual undertones. And, I don’t know, I guess I see these (much darker) undertones in this episodes too? The Shadown is the master of Cas’ “soul”, it owns him, to it “years and eons” (the time of the heart for Cas) are nothing. Now or a billion years from now means nothing to something like the Empty. It wants to take Cas when he’s outside of time, in the moment of “happiness” which is the moment when things “happen” (“the artifice of eternity”), which, in turn, is a moment outside of the deterministic world of SPN.

It’s just like when, in “The Big Empty”, the Shadow tries to seduce Cas and persuade him to go back to sleep because, out there, there's nobody who loves him but here with it? There’ll be peace. Only, this time, the Shadow is pretty pissed and it’s like: I don’t want you now because you don’t want me so I want you to suffer now. Go back, live your life, one year, one thousand, it means NOTHING to me. You’re already mine. No, I want to own you to the point that I’ll come to take you the moment you will be happy, when you’ll be outside of time, I’ll come then and take you away with me. Because you’re mine in time and outside of it. Beyond eternity.

I mean, this is perverse and insane but also very erotic :D And, to be honest, it kinda makes sense because the energy of the “Eros” (not sex, "eros" in the psychoanalytical sense) must be involved in a process so delicate as the resurrection. One needs to want life to go back and make people go back to life, you know? And since we’re talking about resurrecting souls, Psyche if you will, you sort of have to have Eros? The two go together.

So to really sum it up this time: Jack’s first resurrection was another team effort. It required a lot of love as usual and this time it was the parental love for their children that pierced the veil and saved the day. But it also needed a bit of erotic sparkle to ignite it, the final, unseen ingredient of the spell. The Shadow provides this sparkle in a capricious way just like only very ancient cosmic entities can do. However, the price that they’ve all paid is very, very high: Lily’s life, Cas’ happiness and Jack’s soul. It’s a bittersweet victory that announces catastrophe.

Okay, I can’t believe I’ve made it but I’ve made it. If you’ve been with me until the end, I thank you and hug you <3. I hope you enjoyed it!

#I went a little overboard hahaha (keeping on with the metaphors)#I'm just very passionate about resurrection (ihihih another joke!)#I don't know. I think it's a cool theme? And I mean. very genre-related.#i mean. Isis was an ante-litteram Doctor Frankenstein #and Osiris was her Creature #yeah. sure. ofc.context. time and place. culture. etc. but collectively speaking. as in “collective” = western culture #alchemy and hermeticism and all that. that stuff has been circulating for centuries and it still is thank god #myths keep repeating and repeating and changing as well #oh wait a sec. is this the reason why Jack likes zombies?#that kid was BORN to resurrect the dead LOOOL #Okay i'll stop #these tags... i feel like i'm soliloquizing here but people read them #anyway. hope you enjoy this!#supernatural #spn #castiel #sam winchester #dean winchester #jack kline #on resurrection #jack the puer #myths we live by #the shadow spn #spn s14 #byzantium #s14e08 #meredith glynn

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justlous-art · 2 months ago

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a happy sam wilson for @soliloquent-stark! thanks for the support ♡

just had to throw redwing here because my boy deserved to have a telepathic link with his big chicken like in the comics

buy me a ko-fi and get a sketch!

#ko-fi sketch #sam wilson #falcon #captain america #marvel #mcu #redwing #the falcon

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omenarchive · 5 months ago

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Braius Doomseed Analysis

Sam Riegel is back, and he’s brought with him—forgive us—a real beefy boy!

How many levels does Braius have in Bard vs. Paladin? What are his subclasses? Exactly how big a punch does this minotaur pack?

While we wait to learn more, there's a lot we're able to infer from Episode 98.

Braius Doomseed is a minotaur Bard/Paladin multiclass, wielding a drippy black double flail. We have not yet been made aware explicitly how his 14 levels are distributed between the two classes. We can, however, extrapolate a fair bit of information about his build from the gameplay in his debut, Episode 98: The Nox Engine.

Let’s start with the easy stuff. We know that he is at least a 3rd level College of Tragedy Bard, as Braius used the Sorrowful Fate feature to change the save Dominox had to make against Dorian’s Otto’s Irresistible Dance spell to a Charisma save (03:09:43) (confirmed by Sam to be this feature at 03:11:57).

Sorrowful Fate does the following:

When you or an ally you can see forces a creature to make a saving throw, you can expend one use of your Bardic Inspiration to change the type of saving throw to a Charisma save instead.

Sam did, however, forget to use the secondary part of that feature, which would allow him to do psychic damage equal to the value of a Bardic Inspiration die roll when a creature fails the associated save. Also, if Dominox had reached 0 hit points within 1 minute of failing the save, he would have been magically compelled to “utter darkly poetic words before succumbing to their injuries.”

Level 3 in College of Tragedy also confers the following feature, called Poetry in Misery:

Whenever you or an ally within 30 feet of you rolls a 1 on the d20 for an attack roll, an ability check, or a saving throw, you can use your reaction to soliloquize and regain one expended use of your Bardic Inspiration feature.

Information on this subclass can be found on page 167 of Tal’Dorei Reborn. This particular subclass does not confer any additional spells beyond the standard Bard fare, so cannot account for any spells Braius has that fall outside of the Bard or Paladin spell lists.

That brings us to the next thing we can suss out: Braius’ possible Paladin Oaths. We know that Braius has both the Misty Step (03:12:47) and Moonbeam (03:13:07) spells. There are only two known Paladin Oaths that give access to Moonbeam: Oath of the Ancients and Oath of the Watchers. Oath of the Ancients seems like a likely option, as it also gives access to Misty Step at paladin level 5; however, that on its own cannot act as definitive proof as to Braius’ Paladin subclass, as we don’t yet know what feats Braius may have on board and—as Imogen , Chetney, and Orym know well—Misty Step can also come from the Fey Touched feat. Another point in favor of Oath of the Ancients is the fact that Braius did not make use of the Aura of the Sentinel initiative bonus conferred by Oath of the Watchers at paladin level 7. However, since this is a new character with quite a lot of features to juggle, it is entirely possible that Sam simply forgot this feature. We know, however, that he must have whatever features are associated with level 7 in his Oath because of his use of Blinding Smite (02:37:12), a 3rd level Paladin spell. Paladins do not get access to 3rd level spells until they reach level 9 in the class.

All of this points to Braius having at least three levels in Bard and at least nine levels in Paladin, which leaves two levels unaccounted for (as Braius, unlike the rest of the party, is already at level 14). This is where things get a little tricky.

Unfortunately, Sam did not give out any Inspiration during Episode 98, so we can’t use his Bardic Inspiration die as an indicator. This moves from a d6 to a d8 at Bard level 5, so if in future episodes Braius’ inspiration die is revealed to be a d8, we’ll know he is a level 5 Bard. For now, though, we’ll instead take a look at his use of Lay on Hands to inform our speculation.

Braius used this Paladin class feature twice during Episode 98: once on himself, and once on Orym. A Paladin has points in their Lay on Hands pool equal to 5 times their Paladin level. Based on our previous analysis that he is at least Paladin level 9 and Bard level 3, that means Braius has a minimum of 45 and a maximum of 55 points in his pool. Orym’s healing was stated outright to be 30 points (03:40:10), leaving Braius between 15 and 25 points to have used on himself previously. In another bit of poor luck for our analysis, however, Sam did not state the exact amount of healing Braius did to himself. Since he said that Dorian’s 24 points of Cure Wounds healing got him “halfway” (01:05:07), it seems reasonable to assume that it was more than 15 points, since calling 24 and 15 approximately equivalent halves seems like a bit of a stretch. 20 and 25, indicating Paladin levels 10 and 11, are much closer. If we were to take Braius’ comment about Dorian getting him halfway completely literally, then we could definitively call him a level 11 Paladin. However, there’s one more wrinkle.

When Braius used his Blinding Smite spell on his melee weapon attack, he rolled 4d8 (02:38:11). The base damage for a flail is 1d8, and Blinding Smite adds 3d8 radiant damage. However, a level 11 Paladin has the feature Improved Divine Smite, which means that all melee weapon attacks gain an additional 1d8 radiant damage. That means that if Braius were a level 11 Paladin, he should have rolled 5d8 damage on the attack (02:37:46), as initially stated before Matt let Sam know that Dominox would be immune to the additional poison damage granted by Braius’ weapon (02:37:59).

This leaves us with two possible options: either Braius is a level 4 Bard/level 10 Paladin and Sam rounded up when saying 24 damage got him halfway there, with Braius healing himself for 20 points of Lay on Hands, or Braius is a level 3 Bard/level 11 Paladin and Sam either misunderstood Matt’s reminder not to add Poison Pen’s extra poison damage or forgot about the level 11 Improved Divine Smite. Either mistake would make quite a bit of sense with a new character in a high stakes situation! However, because of the uncertainty here, we cannot say definitively which it may be. We also do not yet know what Braius’s Paladin Fighting Style is. We’re looking forward to seeing more of him and finding out for sure.

All told, here is what we know beyond a shadow of a doubt, barring any homebrew changes:

Braius’s race is Minotaur, which (assuming the class is drawn from its most recent iteration in Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse) conveys the following racial traits and bonuses:

His walking speed is 30 feet

Using his horns to make an unarmed strike does 1d6 + 5 piercing damage

Goring Rush: After taking the Dash action and moving at least 20 feet, he can make an unarmed strike with his horns as a bonus action

Hammering Horns: After hitting a creature with an attack, he can use his bonus action to attempt to push the target 10 feet; the target must make a DC 18 strength check

Labyrinthine Recall: He always knows what direction is north, and has advantage on any Survival check he makes to navigate or track

It’s hard to imagine Sam won’t use this internal compass to poke fun at Liam for Caleb’s Keen Mind feat at least once

He is a paladin of Asmodeus, Lord of the Nine Hells

He is at least a level 3 College of Tragedy Bard, which grants him at least the following:

Two Bard cantrips and six Bard spells, with four level 1 slots and two level 2 slots

Bardic Inspiration using 1d6, with a total of 4 uses per long rest

Jack of All Trades, which adds half his proficiency bonus, rounded down, to any ability check he makes that doesn’t already include his proficiency bonus

Song of Rest, conferring an additional 1d6 of healing to the party on a short rest

Expertise in two skill proficiencies

The Sorrowful Fate feature, which can be used once per short/long rest

The Poetry in Misery Feature, which can be used any number of times as a reaction

He is at least a level 9 Paladin, of either the Oath of the Ancients, Oath of the Watchers, or a homebrew Oath subclass, which grants him:

Divine Sense, which allows him to sense any celestial, fiend, or undead within 60 feet of him that is not behind total cover, a total of 5 times per long rest

At least 45 points in his Lay on Hands healing pool

Divine Smite, allowing him to expend a spell slot to pump up to an additional 4d8 damage (circumstantially 5d8) into a melee attack—that is, 2d8 for a 1st-level spell slot, plus 1d8 for each spell level higher than 1st, to a maximum of 4d8 given that his highest spell slots are 3rd level. The damage increases by 1d8 if the target is an undead or a fiend.

An unknown Fighting Style

Immunity to disease due to Divine Health

Two attacks per round

Aura of Protection, granting any ally within 10 feet of him a +4 bonus on saving throws

Sacred Oath features from levels 3 and 7 in either the Oath of the Ancients, Oath of the Watchers, or a custom Oath subclass

He has a Battering Shield, which confers a +3 bonus to AC (an additional +1 over the base shield bonus of +2), and has 3 charges that can be expended when a target is pushed 5 feet to push that creature an additional 10 feet, knock it prone, or both. It regains 1d3 charges at dawn (03:16:16, with details from page 266 in Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount)

His signature weapon, the dual flail “Poison Pen,” confers additional poison damage when it strikes a target (02:37:59)

He really, really wants to date somebody and he’s not real choosy about who

#braius doomseed #cr3 #critical role #omen archive #critical role analysis

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fiprobably · 10 months ago

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Doing some requests (paper this time bc I don't have the energy to get out of bed today lmao)

(Bucky is a sock wearer and Sam prefers bare-footed, I don't make the rule)

Morning shower 🥺 for @soliloquent-stark

There are more requests and I'll try to finish them all later. Forgive me for my morbid handwriting as well lol

#sambucky #buckysam #winterfalcon #sam wilson #captain america #falcon #bucky barnes #winter soldier #the falcon and the winter soldier #falcon and the winter soldier #tfatws #marvel #marvel cinematic universe #mcu #fi probably draws #request for fi

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cobrafantasies · 2 months ago

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Rules: Share a snippet from whatever you’re currently working on, and then tag 5 people.

Thank you for tagging me @sunsetmaidenwrites!

I currently only have two wips and one is a Halloween fic, which would be my first :)

No pressure, tagging @heyitsyav, @sambambucky, @ateerys-punctuationpanic, @soliloquent-stark, @bastianfruit

Since becoming Captain America, this may be the dumbest shit Sam has ever done. But he wanted a night out. One where he didn’t have to pose for thirty selfies and sign people’s sneakers or forearms with whatever shitty pen they could find. Where he didn’t have to fake-smile through an elderly man’s proclamation about history changing right before his eyes.

He just wanted a normal night out and Halloween seemed like the perfect pick when he found a bar hosting a costume party. So, yeah, Sam decided to wear a full-concealing, goblin mask that hides every inch of his face. It’s quite ugly. The rest of him is decked out in dark green. Suede, forest green suit pants and a long-sleeve, green turtle neck. A goblin has got to dress up sometime.

He’s not going to win the costume contest and he doesn’t want to. His whole goal tonight is to relax in the glorious anonymity. Maybe dance a little dirty with a guy and if he’s lucky, find a dark enough room for him to take his mask off and make out with someone.

#writer ask game #ask game #sambucky #sambucky fanfiction #wip game

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glacier-shrimp · 6 months ago

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My first fanart! I want to do a series in this style with an item belonging to each Avenger 😄

Dedicating this to @soliloquent-stark for actually making me care about Steve (and Sam! but I want to do something specifically for him at some point) >.>

Avengers paper cutout 1/?

#marvel #mcu #captain america #art #I hope it looks paper-cutout-y enough? kind of hard to do w circles lol #but I like how it came out!!!#now if only hipaint would implement snapping to center... pls i am suffering #avengers paper cutout project

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irrealisms · 2 years ago

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so like the thing is. in many ways the dsmp seems like it ought to be more similar to film acting than it is to theatre-- you've got a close-up camera on you! a lot of the differences are often boiled down to that: theatre is more exaggerated, more full-body, because you're performing to an audience that is far away. film has a camera close on you so it tends more realistic and subtle. BUT the dsmp is actually!! way more like theatre in a lot of ways!!! to the point of REINVENTING theatrical devices that have largely fallen by the wayside in film

the dsmp has soliloquies. it's got asides. you see the same actors playing different characters. you have the tacit understanding that what you see on stage is not always what is literally happening in the story's world, but a symbolic representation. it's aware of audience, it interacts with and talks to the live-reacting audience!!

which i am. obsessed with, tbh! when tommy mutes in conversation with sapnap to say to chat "we're not going to team with him, chat, obviously we're not" before unmuting and saying "yeah, okay, let's team"--when wilbur on the 16th looks at the camera and holds up his hand when they're asking who the traitor is--when technoblade types and deletes "INVIS POTS DONT LAST THAT LONG" in in-game chat while talking to dream--these are all giving information to the audience abt the characters' internal thoughts, in ways that are much more typical of stage theatre than film! it's unusual for a character in a movie or tv show to say things (or take actions) in a conversation that are inaudible to the other characters in that conversation and intended for the audience. film tends to convey information about the characters' thoughts in other ways! it's a very Stage sort of thing, and i doubt they were thinking of it that way, it just sort of naturally emerges from having a live audience that they're entertaining + the ability with livestream technology to communicate things to the audience while being actually imperceptible to the other characters

and ofc whenever they are alone they are not silent, nor do they rely on voiceover or framing devices such as a diary to communicate their inner thoughts--they narrate their thoughts aloud, to the audience. they walk around and sometimes they have conversations with their donos but just as often they soliloquize! i'd include examples here as well but it's so ubiquitous, tbh, tommy does this, sam does this, ranboo does this, techno does this, wilbur does this, jack manifold does this, niki does this, everyone does this constantly. and it makes sense given the medium but that's also so fascinating to me! because again i really doubt they were thinking of it that way, it's just the obvious thing to do, the obvious extension of streaming commentary!

point is. dsmp stage show. I'm Normal About It

#the thing i mean wrt symbolic representation and it being Nonliteral #is like.... stage acting is very Representational #you pretend that an obviously-toy gun is (for the purposes of the story) real; you pretend that the stage crew is not there;#in musicals you often accept that they are not in-story breaking into song and dance; etc #and while i think there is definitely A Range of interpretations in terms of how literally vs representationally to view the dsmp #it's definitely more representational than most modern film and tv!#therapists dni #any british ants in the chat?

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stevetonyweekly · 10 months ago

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SteveTony Weekly - Feb 4 th - Week 5

I’m in the middle of a 8hr class for work today, so I’m doing this quick and dirty, with no rec notes. I’m sorry. Enjoy the list and kudos/comment for your authors!

~*~

Method Refinements (subtype C, designation Capsicle) by galwednesday

"It's not hate sex," Steve objected. "I don't hate you."

That actually made Tony feel a little warm and fuzzy inside, which he knew was pathetic. He talked louder and faster to cover it. "Angry sex, then, whatever. I should just walk up to you and say 'Hey, Rogers, I was looking to blow off some steam, wanna have loud, animalistic sex all over the Tower?' That's what does it for you?"

A flush was creeping up his neck--God, Tony loved Steve's blushes, the Victorian-maiden-modesty veneer over the built-like-a-brick-shithouse physique drove him wild--but Steve's eyes were steady on his. "Try it and see."

Subtle Clues and Context Cues by galwednesday

“Cosplay,” Sam repeated. He and Steve were jogging through Central Park. Steve had just lapped him for a fourth time before slowing to match his pace, and the bastard didn’t even have the decency to sound winded. “As what?”

“You ever see the Pride and Prejudice movie, the really long one?”

“Dude. I have three sisters. It was required viewing.”

“I need a Mr. Darcy outfit.”

Sam slowed to a walk, holding one hand up in a time-out gesture until he caught his breath enough to form full sentences. “You’re going to cosplay as Mr. Darcy? The Colin Firth, look-how-wet-and-clinging-my-shirt-is Mr. Darcy?”

Steve looked down and shuffled his feet. It was amazing to watch over six feet of pure muscle somehow telegraph bashful. “Yeah. Tony’s birthday is coming up, and, well. It’s sort of an inside joke.”

(Five times everyone but Tony knew he was dating Steve, and one time Tony figured it out.)

'Cause It's a Beautiful Night by galwednesday

“Holy shit,” Clint’s eyes were huge and round. “Did you get Steve pregnant?”

Tony choked on his coffee. “What? How--why--what? How would that even happen?”

“Hey, you’re the one planning to ambush him with a shotgun wedding.” Clint moved his bowl of Lucky Charms out of the range of Tony’s coffee spray. “It’s a reasonable question.”

“Steve’s not pregnant!” Tony shouted. Was he? He couldn’t be. They hadn’t been gender-swapped lately. What about that alien fertility ray? No, that had been at least seven months ago.

Steve wasn’t pregnant.

Probably.

“I’m not ready to be a father,” Tony blurted, clutching his hair with both hands.

“I’m not drunk enough for this conversation.” Clint opened the liquor cabinet and examined its contents with a critical eye. “What kind of booze goes best with marshmallows?”

(Tony plans a wedding. The wedding is in ten hours and he hasn’t exactly proposed yet, but he’s used to compressed project cycles. What could possibly go wrong?)

annex 11 by soliloquent

“This annex document, filed by SHIELD operatives under the designation SR-NR-CB-AS/000008-11, contains a verbatim transcript of a conversation between Anthony E. Stark (callsign Iron Man) and Steven G. Rogers (callsign Captain America) as recorded by Iron Man’s advanced artificial intelligence, J.A.R.V.I.S.”

—⎊—

or: Trapped together during a snowstorm in the middle of a mission, Steve attempts to soothe Tony’s growing anxiety, only to discover that Tony had the solution all along. 📄

Exit Wounds (The No Exit Remix) by sheron

Tony gets trapped together with Steve in a collapsed HYDRA facility, which makes it hard to avoid him.

Like Hell and Heaven by ChocolateCapCookie

“I feel great now, though,” said Steve, lifting the sheets up to peer at his leg, which looked almost normal. “Can I leave?”

“Steve, we watched you almost die. Just… listen to the doctors, okay? Just this once.”

This Simple Feeling by inukagome15

When are two good friends not good friends? Sounds like the setup for a brilliant joke, right? Except when the joke mirrors real life. Tony and Steve are just very good friends. So why is it everyone thinks they're dating?

Pinky Promise by Tahlruil

Steve wasn't looking for a relationship not really - dating was fun and he was busy learning how to adult properly. A chance encounter with Tony, who's even worse at grocery shopping than he is, has the potential to change all that. The meeting feels significant, even if he could never imagine where it would end up taking him.

Tony, meanwhile, was pretty happy with his string of one night stands and no feelings involved relationships. Despite being pushed of of the nest - he suspects Jarvis of giving his mother ideas - he's really not interested in becoming a real adult. Steve makes him want more for the first time ever, and even if it terrifies him, he's willing to see where it goes.

When I Think (Oh, it Terrifies Me) by celli

Look, some mornings you wake up and little green men are invading New York City; some mornings you wake up and you can hear Captain America's voice in your head. Tony has been an Avenger long enough that he saves his freakout for important things.

Unexpected Thaw by Neverever

Steve has a rough ride through the multiverse and ends up questioning his relationship with Tony.

alone (together) by Thahire

"Will you tell me what’s wrong or do I have to -" Tony went on, motioning down Steve’s body, "make you?"

Steve raised his eyebrows. "Make me? I’d like to see you try." Except he didn’t. After a moment, in which Tony did nothing but give him a flat stare, Steve awkwardly added, "Lower left rib cage. I think maybe, uh, a sprained rib or something."

"Thank you. That wasn’t so bad, was it?" Tony replied slowly, the way one would to an unruly child.

Steve narrowed his eyes. "I’m not a child."

"No, you aren’t," Tony replied, lips twitching. "As the parent of one, I can tell you, you are way worse."

Or: Steve is really bad at letting people take care of him. Tony is really bad at minding his business. Things happen.

I'll Give You Gifts Until You Know My Name by Amuly

Mr. Stark is an extravagant gift-giver: he has the money for it, after all. As Iron Man, Tony has the opportunity to gift Steve even more presents that, while less expensive, are more heartfelt. Having a secret identity means Tony gets to have his cake and eat it too when it comes to showering Steve with presents.

Until Steve starts developing feelings for his armored companion, and all the benefits of living a double life are turned on their head for Tony Stark.

The Love Song of a Pair of Awkward Weirdos by MusicalLuna

Tony flirts with Steve and then the strangest possible thing happens:

Steve starts to flirt back.

the slightest touch (and I feel weak) by SailorChibi

“When you’re really tired or out of it, you show the underside of your wings to Steve,” Natasha says to Tony, ignoring Clint, who is doing an excellent impression of a fish. “We’ve all noticed it, but no one ever said anything because we didn’t think you knew. And judging from the look on your face, you didn’t.”

#stevetony weekly #steve rogers #tony stark #stevetony #stony #iron man #captain america #stevetony fic #stony fic #fic rec

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