Lup: Play loving refrain.

I cant believe Lup plays the violin!!! She just gets cooler and cooler every episode.

birdbath?

“Lucretia, what…what have you done?”

Tried a background! not totally happy w/ it but it’s done!

ta-da!!

front of devo’s new jacket says “i’m a luxury”

back of devo’s new jacket says “NERMAL’S PILE”

I’m contractually obligated to draw lup in pretty dresses or they’ll make me eat old food

here’s a quick taako doodle cuz I haven’t really done any finished adventure zone art yet

I just started listening to TAZ a week ago and I love these twins

when Taako was like this in the beginning I just imagined a reaction from Angus. 

Found family, guys. I can’t resist even if I tried.

I have more spoiler-y art from the most recent episode but I’ll be posting it tomorrow so hang tight!

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Like, the greatest violinist basically ever…

For @your-jellyfish-senpai

my first coloring of this image is getting popular again for some reason, so I checked to see if op had drawn anymore coloring pages. they hadn’t, so I just colored this one again

lineart by @mspainttaz (coloring page is here!). if you like my colors, maybe buy me a kofi?

[i.d.: Digital art of Lucretia, a black woman with white hair. She is facing away so that we see the back of her robe, which is blue with large white oval design surrounded by stars and a slit down the middle showing white layers inside the robe. Her arm is outstretched and is holding onto her staff, which is putting off seven white orbs that drift around her and give off a soft glow. Lucretia’s face is in profile but her eyes are covered by her short layered haircut. The image is very dark, and Lucretia’s figure is cast mainly in shadow. end i.d.]

i don't think taako's voice is really all that high most of the time. it's higher than justin's normal voice a little, but idk, the defining quality of it isn't its pitch to me, there's something else that i don't really have the words for. but anyway i do notice that his voice gets lower and less exaggerated when he's being serious. which is interesting bc it sort of implies that the usual "taako voice" is something he puts on.

i don't really think of taako as a habitual performer. his charisma modifier is a -1, he's not this ultra smooth charming actor, and although he does tend to hide behind humor and is slow to build connections, he's also very frank with what he's about and what he wants. he goes on an entire tirade about wanting to talk about his feelings (he's multidimensional!), he never acts embarrassed or hesitant about big moments of vulnerability and caring for others (arms outstretched, "i'm not going fucking anywhere," admitting a deep fear to kravitz on their first date, spilling his tragic backstory to angus, not to mention several serious moments with lup) (and not all of these can be chalked up to "forgotten connections," either. he does have a foundation of growth with magnus and merle, even forgotten, and his conversations with lup are of course all with memories intact, but he does not have that with kravitz and angus). he's just slow to reveal all of his hidden depths, because of (understandable) trust issues. but all in all he's not nearly as closed off as i think fandom tends to portray him (which is not to say he's open, either), nor is he someone who wears a lot of masks and obscures himself. i don't think he hides his "true self."

sizzle it up was successful because of his intelligence, not his charisma. he's a natural teacher who's knowledgeable and passionate, and that was what made the show great, not his personality or performance (though i don't think those were bad. just not the primary appeal of the show. the only fan we see is ren, and she loved sizzle it up because it inspired her and taught her to cook, not because she thought taako was awesome or whatever). bc that's the thing, he's not a performer, but he is extremely adaptable. so when he's set up with a stagecoach and a show lined up, sure, he'll have a TV persona, he'll learn to be charming, he'll learn to be showy, when he's on stage. when he gets famous, he learns to like being famous, but i don't think it was really a dream of his before then. or at least not in the way people think of it. i don't think he ever wanted to be a celebrity as much as a celebrity chef or celebrity wizard. he doesn't care if people think he's pretty. he doesn't want people to adore him (before the voidfish, anyway. afterwards is a different story. there's a void where love used to be that he's desperate to fill, and adoration almost feels like it works). really what he wants is for people to appreciate his skill and intelligence and depth (and he's also very afraid of actually displaying those things. he's multidimensional).

but most of the time, when he's not literally performing for an audience, i just don't think he's putting on a show, desperate for people to like him and think he's charming. he'll do what he needs to do, say what he needs to say, be who he needs to be in any given circumstance, with strangers and antagonists, but he also drops the act when it's not necessary. or at least his performance is subtler. he performs stupidity, he performs nonchalance, he makes efforts to be funny (because he is always funny, but that's something you have to work for and always be thinking about, even when the humor is dry), he carefully does just enough to be useful, but not enough to raise expectations. he's very aware of how other people view him, but he's also perfectly okay with people thinking negatively about him—as long as they're the negative traits he wants people to see. but, he only does all those things in the beginning of the show; after a little while with magnus and merle, after a little while with the bob, he drops the act. so i guess that's the difference to me. he's adaptable out of necessity, it doesn't bleed into his entire life. i don't even really think i'd qualify it as a performance. it's more of an invisibility. he's not performing charisma to get people to like him, he's trying to lay low. but then when he actually wants people to like him, he's himself, fairly unapologetically. with the people who matter, lup, magnus and merle, kravitz, the other bob members, the other ipre crew, he's pretty comfortable with himself.

one last interesting point is that while he doesn’t seem to hesitate when it comes to actions, he does shy away from verbal displays of affection, trust, vulnerability. and the best two scenes to show that play out almost exactly the same: lup’s best day ever dinner, and dropping his disguise self with kravitz. in each, taako does something meaningful for both npcs, who then verbalize their affection for him, which taako immediately deflects with a joke.

taako drops his disguise spell for kravitz, totally honest with him, (although… i don’t tend to think the beauty sacrifice was as meaningful to taako as fandom tends to portray, i think most of his vanity is an exaggeration he intentionally cultivates, but still, it’s a vulnerable moment, he clearly cares what kravitz thinks), and kravitz tells him he loves him. to which taako replies with a joke. he does not return the words.

taako doesn’t hesitate to construct the best day ever for lup, never even questions why she’d ask. he puts it all together, cooks for her, shows her he knows her, he loves her—and then when she bears her heart to him, tells him he is her heart, all he says is, “i know,” and pulls out a bottle of vodka. of course lup knows he loves her, the whole day was an elaborate demonstration of it, but he doesn’t say anything. to be fair, it’s not exactly a typical interaction between them, taako is textually scared shitless, lup did just tell him she’s going to turn herself into an undead abomination, so he’s not exactly at his best here. but anyway.

i don’t really have anything to add to this observation, it’s just very consistent and interesting to me. taako is fairly comfortable with grand gestures, but sidesteps around words. which ties in perfectly with his identity as a chef, to me. cooking is an action, work, intention, cooking for people is an act of love, an act of connection, an act of caring, and taako’s character doesn’t fit the bill for that—except, he kinda really does.

it’s the parley room…the parlor room? the parley parlor.

i did a drawing of lucretia a while ago and looking back on it i didn’t like how the colours worked so i fixed them… so here 

In like... episode 3 of balance, during here they be gerblins, Klarg apologizes for not having scones, and Merle goes, "nah i can't anyway, I'm diabetic," and I think he does a nod to blood sugar later in the season.

And yet... where are the diabetic Merle headcanons...? Please if I have missed them send me their way. Because I really like this idea that he's diabetic. (I think probably type 2 diabetic makes most sense because that one is like less ever-present in the way you have to monitor it as compared to type 1.)

I will die on this hill.

and she seethed in that black curtained place (gif / eye strain warning!)