#tlovm thoughts

[curapicas]

It's so fucking funny that Orthax is on nickname basis with Percival ("we had a deal, Percy"), meanwhile Percy didn't even hear when Orthax said their name in season 1, lmao

[shorthaltsjester]

tlovm interviews with sam and travis constantly talking about wanting to shock campaign viewers. if you are shocking people who have spent 500 hours with the characters. maybe that isn't strong writing. it can be fun entertainment don't get me wrong. but not what i'd call strong writing. and i'm not saying that the audience knows the characters or the world better than the creators, but I am saying that the way the tlovm team talks about shock/surprise-based choices in the writers room isn't particularly heartening or indicative of character-focused writing. which yk i get the suspicion that writing isn't the top of the priority for tlovm and that's up to them. the animation is stunning, the score is beautiful, the voice acting is obviously phenomenal. this is just me being sad that tlovm is not something I would still have any interest in at all if i was not already in love with the characters.

[vethbrenatto]

it’s objectively hilarious that only vax and pike knew about kaylie being scanlan’s daughter and then pike is leaning over his “dead” body going “your daughter would be proud” the rest of vox machina is like hmmmst??????? the fuck?

[saddeerstudio]

The thought going through my mind as I’m bawling my eyes out after Keyleth transforms into her fire elemental form for the first time was, “she’s so beautiful.”

[ink-on-parxhment]

I passed a building that was a combination mechanic shop plus flower shop just split down the middle and that’s an AU I didn't know I needed until today.

[void-in-the-middle-of-nowhere]

scanlan is so moody in tlovm and i love it. also think it just has the chance to come out more in this format. getting to see more of him one on one w grog means we get to see even more of his internal monologue and that makes me so happy

[blorbologist]

[otterlyart]

From Table to Screen: Percy’s first act of love

[ohnohelpitsagain]

i need to talk about vex and percy and why their episode three arc made me cry genuine, real tears (not kidding, tears left my eyeballs and like, it made my tummy ache)

vex is a bad omen, she thinks. her love for anyone is ruinous for them and she genuinely views herself as unlovable. the closer someone gets to her heart, the more likely they are to see that there is something wrong with her and they will reap the negative consequences of that. there’s something sick in her and sooner or later it will rear its head, so she might as well beat it to that.

percy loves her regardless and he makes that clear to her. he doesn’t insist that she is wrong when she admits this because he wants her to understand that even if any of what she said was true? he would feel exactly the same.

he loves her intensely, deeply and he also sees that she is truly terrified and he respects her wishes. he doesn’t fault her for her inability to reciprocate the way he wants in that moment

vex is someone who thinks she is hard to love.

percy cannot think of anything easier.

like, there is nothing righter in this world than the woman he loves.

so yes she cannot say what he wants to hear. it hurts, it isn’t easy, it has every hallmark of a situation that would breed frustration but he still holds her.

percy does not ONCE get visibly or verbally frustrated with her even with the fact that she’s (in my opinion, very intentionally) pushing him away by being dismissive and a little bit of a jerk when they first set up camp and talk. because ultimately, despite vex’s insistence that she can’t love him (and that she cannot be loved), percy sees her and treats her as someone deserving of gentleness and understanding.

she deserves to feel safe, she deserves to feel heard and she deserves to be listened to and that would be true even if she didn’t reciprocate his feelings the way he wanted her to.

[sun-marie]

"Tempting, though."

[curapicas]

Lots to say about Vex's attachment issues. So instead I'll point out: THAT is indeed the face of a man who just found out the guardian angel that took a bullet for him won't put a ring on it

[shorthaltsjester]

cheers to continuing to maintain percy’s lines and give vax most of vex’s complicated and interesting moments i guess

[vethbrenatto]

I’ve let myself sit on it and think for a while and I do stand by my original opinion that I think Episode 8 felt rushed. Obviously, TLOVM is working on limited time and that’s totally understandable, but I actually thought the Saundor fight was masterfully done in a short period of time.

Where I think the ball was slightly dropped was in the handling of Syngorn. Despite the set-up from The Sunken Tomb with Vex & Vax’s backstory, the handling of the run-in with Syldor, interactions with Velora, and subsequent titling of Vex felt far too quick. Without having enough time to ruminate in Syngorn and what the city means to Vex & Vax and that relationship with Syldor, I feel like the Perc’ahlia moments in particular (not counting the “my heart is someone else’s” at the end of the episode) fall a bit flat. Percy’s lines in the Feywild are an obvious fan favorite, if I were to make a poll of Perc’ahlia moments, I’d bet “Lady Vex’ahlia” would come in first or second place and yet within the show it just didn’t connect with me as much and I have to think a lot of it is due to the pacing. (Also the live audience is a contributor within the campaign to the intensity of that moment and I’m not denying that.)

I think it would’ve been cool to have Episodes 7 & 8 span the Syngorn arc and then go into Saundor. Particularly in 7, I think it just felt like a rehashing of things established in 4-6: Vax is on a different path, his vestige and connection to the Raven Queen have separated him in some way from the group. While the Perc’ildan development was good, I think spending all that time on a message we’ve sort of already gotten could’ve been used better by emphasizing the Syldor stuff. Ideally, I would’ve liked maybe 5-6 minutes of “Look how weird the Feywild is! Oops, it’s Garmelie” and then being introduced to Syngorn in Episode 7, with Episode 8 also having a Syngornian focus. But that’s just my take.

[andi-o-geyser]

he is so so sexy with his bisexual swag, archangel raven wings, and tendency to throw daggers at peoples' throats

[dol--blathanna]

I have mixed feelings about Zerxus in season 3 of TLOVM, but I’ve gotta say hearing him give a Totally Unbiased Account of EXU: Calamity with Definitely No Omissions Whatsoever was kind of funny. Like “ooh I thought I could count on my friends….they condemned our civilisation….” Ok Zerxus. Buddy. Last time I checked, Nydas was actually the only one trying to stop Laerryn from blighting the tree. You sat there like a chump and did not help whatsoever. And uh. “They condemned our civilisation with their hubris” ummm pal I think you’re missing an important detail there. Like yes the point of EXU: Calamity is that everyone played a role in the disaster, everyone was responsible in some ways for that ship crashing into the iceberg, but uh. Zerxus I think some people were maybe a little more responsible than others. Like, for example, the certain someone who pulled the Lord of the Hells into Exandria. I think that individual’s hubris is maaaaaybe a little bit more important than some of the other hubris on the table here.

And like, this isn’t me bashing the writing, I think it is in-character for TLOVM!Zerxus to say this, since he’s been a jaded miserable devil for a thousand years. But omg when he had the CHEEK to be like “in the chaos I found myself face-to-face with the Lord of Torment himself” like EXCUSE ME??? Buddy you just happened to “find yourself” face-to-face with Asmodeus huh??? Just coincidentally, on accident??? You were just taking a stroll around Avalir and he ran into you without warning??

Zerxus. Please. Be serious for a moment. Would you like to explain to Pike the exact circumstances of HOW you found yourself face-to-face with Asmodeus, hmmmmm? A certain “pulling Asmodeus through the tree and unleashing him upon the world” situation?

Like, I know it was meant to be a serious moment with lots of Calamity-related hype but like, it was really giving “Girl what were YOU doing at the devil’s sacrament” energy. In the most literal way possible

[void-in-the-middle-of-nowhere]

honestly i feel the need to defend the insanity of anything i post when interacting with tlovm. they captured the vibe the livestream had for going from funny to serious in a heartbeat, and then condensed it. they went from showing off grogs beard into the og do not go far from me. how can i feel normal about that???