#tal please bring my silly little tief home

[dent-de-leon]

Hey!!! I just wanted to throw some Kingsley positivity your way because I love that tief so much. I hope we get to see him in liveshow! I want to hear about his adventures as Pirate King. I want to see how his relationship with Fjord and Jester has evolved over the years! I bet they visit him all the time. Getting up to all kinds of Darktow shenanigans. And if Beau and Yasha have kids now, I bet they think he’s the COOLEST uncle!! And he probably loves those kids soooo much because they’re Yasha’s kids and Yasha is his bestie. <3 Anyways ah I am always always thinking about Kingsley. Love him.

Aw thank you for this it made my day ;; MAN I DIDN'T EVEN THINK OF KING MEETING BEAU AND YASHA'S KIDS!! THAT WOULD JUST BE!! THE SWEETEST THING!! Thinking of how King gave Beau and Yasha flowers on that day he first woke up, how as Molly he tried to do a little magic trick to cheer up that one firbolg child and gave him one of his moon charms. Molly taking such good care of Toya...

Yeah, he'd definitely look after their kids for them. He absolutely brings them gifts whenever he visits--interesting little flowers and seashells and shiny trinkets that catch his eye. ALSO LUCIEN BEING SO SOFT AND HIS HEART MELTING AT THE SIGHT OF HIS NIECE FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME?? Yeah. Kingsley would be so good with kids actually and I can see Yasha and Beau making him really feel a part of their family. I need to see King in the Reunion just for him hugging Yasha and telling his Love how much he missed her alone--

And you're right it would be just so fun to see King with Jester and Fjord again! I can't get over the fact that they all sailed together for years, have spent longer together at sea than the whole of campaign 2 lasted?? That's wild to me?? They definitely have some stories to share-- AND HIS REIGN AS THE PIRATE KING! Would do anything to watch Tal play as King Kingsley, I just feel in my heart that he would portray this dashing royal rogue exactly the same as Molly pretending to be Duke. That alone would be just so good.

And then...god. The fact that it's a oneshot to rescue Caleb and Beau, how Molly specifically had such an important bond with both of them, couldn't help growing so attached to them so quickly. Getting himself killed in the Lorenzo fight because it was Beau he was trying to save, because getting cut down when all he desperately wanted was to live, be happy, be loved--it was all still worth it as long as he made sure Beau specifically got away.

Seeing her and Caleb getting attacked in the Lucien novel causes him an agonizing physical pain, because he just can't bear to lose them. The moments when his Magician reaches out to him over and over and briefly shatters Lucien's control, reaches back to Molly's tormented soul. Lucien taunting Molly over and over, gloating to him, "I've won" as the Eyes start to brand Rumor and Magician. "Your Caleb and Beauregard," he says. Threatening to take away two of the people Mollymauk cares about most.

Molly holding onto the memory of a forehead kiss in his most painful moments, seeing Caleb as "Softness and light." Still flirting with him as Kingsley. He held onto the journal Beau gave him, afraid to open it at first, but--he still kept it. For the day when he's finally ready "to visit and learn," to slip away to Beau and Yasha in the middle of the night and ask them about Molly, because he's scared he might never get the opportunity. Beau and Caleb just mean so much to him, even though he's not quite ready to admit it.

But still, for them, for the Nein--he wants to be good to them. Do right by them. Be a better person for them:

"I've been told that the best thing you can do is do just slightly better than them. And that's...Honest to the gods, that is actually what I'm trying to do. I don't necessarily know what it's going to look like. I have thoughts. Some that I think that either one of them might approve of, that you might approve of, and I want to make sure that you know that if nothing but out of respect for my family, for my parents, we always have a fair deal."

"Well, I've been thinking about it, and I've been trying to figure out where the other two went wrong..."

"I've realized, at the beginning, that I was running from everything that had happened before, and that's something that the other two had done and so it was probably something I didn't want to do again, which is why I'm asking..."

"I try and be a good person, or whatever I think that is."

I can't see King confessing all that to Beau and then not immediately running to her rescue. I can't see him not rushing to Caleb's side when he hears the man he saw as "softness and light," the one he called out to right after Yasha, the one first cast the spell to bring him back to life--I could never see Molly/King abandoning him either, in any life.

I understand why Decues would be an interesting choice too--and honestly I would be down for seeing Tal play them both if that's possible--but. I feel like he could also be very involved in the solstice in his own way, whereas King running back to the Nein makes more sense to me? From a meta standpoint, Cad has a whole arc of growth and a family that loves him, a reason to stay. An entire story. And King? Absolutely breaks my heart when he looks at the Nein and says things like, "I hope I deserve to have woken up surrounded by such people." "Maybe those chains will find some quiet in piracy." And perhaps the most damning, "What else do I have?"

He loves the Nein. Died twice over for them and wholeheartedly believes in cannon, "It was worth it. It was worth it--" Even as he tries to cope with all these painful memories and messy feelings, tries to keep a bit of distance and tells himself he has nothing to lose like the rest of them. That's not a character that's in a good place, a happy place. Tal specified at the end of C2 that he throws himself right into piracy as an escape, a way to quiet the nightmares of screams and chains. (King also visits Deuces! Because it seems like he has these little doubts. Fears. A pain that haunts him, that he tries to forget--)

He never had the chance to really grow, or change--but he's starting to. And it's so fascinating, it would be such a shame if that got cut off when there's really the perfect chance for him to finally do what he always struggled with as Mollymauk--not run away from the past, no matter how terrifying and painful it is. Yes, Kingsley is born from a Divine Intervention. Yes, Lucien is fate touched, and Molly was born under a Ruidus flare in the Savalirwood. All of that makes him such a narratively fitting choice for the Reunion to me.

But I still think the most compelling reason of all is that King finally has the chance to own up to the past and realize what he did in his final moments as Molly, as Lucien--he loves the Nein too much to keep running away. He has them, not nothing--and they're worth all the pain and grief of his haunting memories.

Also!! King literally being born in a dream of the Moonweaver, Sehanine saving both Molly and Lucien's souls?? Tell me this isn't the perfect chance to explore everything Tal had planned for Molly's relationship with the Moonweaver. Taliesin barely got to scrape the surface with Molly/King, and I get so sad whenever he expresses that he wishes he had more time with this tief: "I've been working on this [comic] so long. It's all that backstory that I didn't get to tell because I am bad at rolling." "Kingsley's different. Kingsley's a different thing, a different vibe. And I was sad that I didn't get to really get into...a lot of that last time. In two games--"

And again, I think Deuces could be doing fascinating stuff in the solstice, and it would be cool to see his side of it. But I would just love to see King spend that time with the Nein--and I honestly think Cad could have just as fascinating an adventure with his family back at the grove. Some Clay stuff from an Episode of 4 Sided Dive that I keep thinking back on in light of the Reunion (this was after the Uk'otoa):

"'Look I'm kinda stuck here working on a spell. And my house. That needs to be fixed. I wish I could help...' Caduceus is dealing with the fact that. Well. His house burned down 6 months ago, and--thank you all for helping--you did [help a little.] It was great. But Cad is actually in the middle of...Caduceus was tired. He's--he's in the middle of resetting the Blooming Grove, which also requires casting of Temple of the Gods, which takes every day for a year. You gotta sit. And do it. So getting away would have been a little tricky. And yeah. Getting him out of his house six months later would have been...[He's in the] same place. Every day. for a year."

"[It takes] the type of effort that someone who was originally going to live in this place for their entire life can do. But...getting away is possible, but it's very very hard, because then you have to have somebody cover. Somebody who can do that cover. And not fuck it up. So I was like...I cannot justify him buggering out of home 6 months later. He had already--well. He put in his time. He'll be back out again."

And right now Ruidus is shattering enchantments that have held for years, decades, eons. And I feel like that probably knocked out...all those wards Deuces painstakingly reset in the Blooming Grove...And there's going to be some fascinating new friends and enemies--like the ancient spirit Umudara--that'll be released from the chains that bound them for centuries. Creatures who are all going to flock right back to the site of Molaesmyr, and likely stumble right into Deuces' home.

My ideal personally very self indulgent dream: King in the Nein Reunion, and then another oneshot of the Clays confronting all the spooky things that crawl out of the haunted woods on a red moon night--