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taff-ebrum · 6 days

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Taff Ebrum - The (almost) 20 year old Kirby OC

You did, in fact, read the title correctly! While Taff's real age may not be twenty, it's been almost twenty years since she was created. She was the first OC I ever created for ANYTHING. Her existence sparked my journey as a storyteller.

Let me start from the beginning.

Taff's creation:

It's December 2006 (I think). A younger me is sitting on the carpeted floor of my living room, it's in the middle of the afternoon, and Mom and I just got back from shopping at Walmart. I had turned on one of the episodes of Kirby: Right Back at Ya! that the DVR had recorded.

The episode playing was Masher 2.0. (which was my introduction to Knuckle Joe) I didn't fully understand what was going on in the episode, so I paid attention to the characters I had attachment to. Tiff and Kirby.

I must have tilted my head a bit, because I heard a light jingle on top of my head. I had deer antlers on, which my Mom had picked up for me at the store. I looked back at the screen.

It was this exact frame that the idea popped into my head. The jingle of the bells stuck with me. Younger me thought back to Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, which had stuck with me. I pictured a small little deer at Tiff's side, maybe helping her bring the tray in.

That's when the idea of Taff was born. A small little pet deer. This was, of course, absolutely not a projection of what pet I may have wanted at the time...

...Okay, well, maybe I did want a pet deer, but that's beside the point.

Younger me lost track of the rest of the episode after that, as I got lost into my own world. I pictured different scenarios where the deer could be interacting with Tiff and the other characters. I played some more of the episodes with this thought in mind.

Then, shortly after, I changed the idea around in my head. What if, instead of a deer character, Tiff had an older sister figure? I adored Meta Knight as a child, so I pictured this older sister fighting the monsters that appeared in Cappytown. That's the idea that stuck.

Early life & concepts

To those who may be on the older side, like me, you may remember an OC named "Petunia Ebrum". That was Taff's original name. At first, she didn't have much of a personality outside of "fight bad guy, love little siblings". But that didn't stop me from asking any fanfic author in the early 2000s to include her in their fics. :'D

No one ever did, if you're wondering!

So I decided to do it myself! I made my own fanfiction.net account and began publishing stories. Most of them stayed in my drafts, but some were lucky enough to make it out into the world. Unfortunately, I don't believe any of these stories still exist, as I deleted my fanfiction.net account after my mother discovered I had one. (I was not supposed to be online, you see.)

Unfortunately, I don't recall much of Petunia's early personality. I think I copied what other people were doing for their OCs personalities and placed that into her. Her personality kind of varied, heavily depended on what kind of story I was writing her for. She wouldn't truly become her own individual until 2011-2012, where I realized vaguely copying other fanfic creators wouldn't cut it.

Oh, and the forms floating beside them... well, I may have taken a bit of inspiration from Sonic the Hedgehog's super forms. I'm willing to elaborate on that further in the future! There are some fun plot elements to it ;D

Enough of the past! Let's talk about the current version of Taff!

Backstory & Lore

Taff was a welcome surprise to Sir Ebrum and Lady Like. Neither of them had moved into Cappytown yet around this time. Thus, the beginning years of Taff's life were relatively normal. She was incredibly outgoing from birth, waving hello to every person she made eye contact with. Since the small ocean village they lived in didn't have a school, Lady Like homeschooled her.

Every day after school was over, Taff would run outside to play games with her friends. They would draw shapes in the sand, play tic-tac-toe, build things out of sand, and splash each other with salt water. Sir Ebrum and Lady Like would watch over the children as they played from their porch.

Taff was the kind of child to make sure everyone could be included in their games. She didn't stand for any kind of bullying and spoke up whenever someone said something out of line. The other children followed her without question and she never took advantage of that.

When Sir Ebrum got his job with King Dedede, Taff was devastated to leave her home and friends behind. No amount of begging on Taff's end could convince her parents to stay in their village. They left. Taff's never heard from any of her childhood friends ever again.

Taff hated King Dedede from her very first interaction with him. While Lady Like and Sir Ebrum dressed to impress and acted the part, Taff refused to respect him. She would not bow to him, she would not call him King Dedede, and, she called him the worst insult she could think of at the time... "smelly".

Being the immature baby King Dedede is, he decided to "show that tiny spoiled brat who's boss". That's when Taff saw her very first monster.

She wanted to leave. She wanted to go home. She wailed and begged Sir Ebrum and Lady Like to move back. But they wouldn't. So long as they were in the castle, they were usually safe. They were safe, but the townspeople of Cappytown were not. Taff would watch in horror as monsters rampaged freely around Cappytown.

Sometimes, they would destroy property. Eat animals. Hurt the villagers. And no one did anything about it. Taff tried yelling at the King, she tried to encourage the townspeople of Cappytown to rebel against King Dedede, she begged her Dad to put a stop to it.

Nothing worked. The King acted on his own and no amount of pleading and sobbing would solve the problem.

They needed a hero.

Taff began to search around the castle for something she could use to fight back. To protect the people she cared about. No one else would do it, so it had to be her. Seeing the helpless state of everybody around her only inspired her to rise to an impossible task. To become Cappytown's savior.

After locating a sword in the Castle's basement, she began to practice with it in secret. Since both of her parents were occupied with meeting the King's every demand, they couldn't keep as close an eye on Taff as they'd like to, which left her with an abundance of free-time on her hands.

She got good. She was far from perfect, but she was good. She'd study at every opportunity, practice into the night, and never let her sword out of her sight. Taff thought out her plan as much as possible. She would practice on some smaller monsters, to learn what techniques worked and what didn't.

Taff was far from a master swordsman. But after a month of doing nothing but training, she decided to take on her first monster.

(...my drawing tablet stopped working after this doodle...)

She didn't come out of the fight unscathed. She got really hurt. Nevertheless, she had completed the task she set out to do. Taff had come out victorious. She had defeated the monster and protected Cappytown.

When Sir Ebrum and Lady Like discovered what Taff was doing, they were fully against it. But Taff wouldn't take their no for an answer. Regardless if they supported her decision or not, she would continue to go out every night to fight the monsters off.

She wasn't perfect. She didn't win every single one of her battles, but with each battle, with each injury, she improved. The King was infuriated. Taff's actions could inspire a rebellion in the cappies and that was not acceptable. But it wasn't like he could get a monster to "clobber" her, she'd become a martyr if he succeeded.

King Dedede presented Taff with a choice. Either she become captain of his royal guard or he'd fire her dad and make sure that her and her families lives are hell, for as long as they live. Mortified, Taff accepted the deal. From then on, Taff's free-time was spent serving and protecting King Dedede.

She was also tasked with protecting Cappytown from any outside threats. Taff would be expected to not only patrol the castle, but patrol the outskirts of Cappytown in search of anything suspicious. Years of this torture went by. Taff bided her time; spending her hours of mind-numbing patrol coming up with the perfect plan - one that could take the King down for good.

When Taff was a teenager, she stumbled upon a light purple star-shaped ship; this was how she met Meta Knight, Sword Knight, and Blade Knight. She did not trust them, particularly after Meta Knight voiced his intentions on serving King Dedede. Meta Knight, Sword, and Blade were new factors she had to account for moving forward. It made doing anything against King Dedede more difficult.

She despised them. Later on, she would come to realize that their goals were aligned. But I'll save the details on how that came to be for now. ;D

King Dedede didn't fully trust Meta Knight at first, hence why he kept Taff as the head of the guard. Taff was grateful for this as well at first; she believed Meta Knight to be unpredictable and wasn't sure what he'd do with King Dedede.

Not too long after Meta Knight appeared, so did Escargoon, the Waddle Dees, and Waddle Doo. While that meant these new people would take on the responsibilities she previously carried, which allowed her more free-time, this also meant more people would be keeping a close watch on the King.

Doing anything she had planned was now impossible with all the Waddle Dees. Taff had run out of time.

Then Lady Like announced to Taff that she was pregnant again.

Taff was horrified. After all, Cappytown was not a safe environment to raise children in. She was terrified her younger sibling would grow up and force themselves into similar roles that she had. She desperately wanted them to grow up with a normal childhood, to feel safe, to be able to play outside without looking over their shoulder.

She attempted once more to sway her parents into moving elsewhere. Both of them had grown comfortable with their luxurious lifestyles, and believed the King would not bring harm to their children. Taff came to the realization that there was nothing she could do to stop this and broke.

She could do nothing... except take out the poison at its source. Taff would be sacrificing her own life to protect her sibling. She would take out the King and go on the run. But before she could put her plan into action, King Dedede brought Taff into his throne room and told her that Meta Knight would be replacing her as the captain - but she could still act as a guard.

Taff's plan relied on her authority as a captain, so this ultimately foiled it, and ripped away her last shred of hope. This would be around the time Taff realizes her goals align with Meta Knight's.

Years go by: Tiff is born, Fololo and Falala are adopted into the family, then Tuff is born. Monster attacks become warnings instead of disciplinary measures against Cappytown. They rarely damage property or cause injury. They merely serve to scare the villagers of Cappytown into compliance.

Taff, while working with Meta Knight, does her best to make sure Tiff and Tuff are kept out of harms way. While she's expected to keep a low-profile and obey the King's commands as to not upset him, she WILL attack a monster if that monster is directly placing her siblings in danger.

Younger Tiff and Tuff got along fine with Taff. As the two grew older, Tiff realized how messed up their situation was, and came to resent Taff for obediently going along with the King.

Which would roughly bring us to the beginning of Kirby: Right Back at Ya!

Personality:

Around strangers, Taff can come across as distant and stand-offish. She's purposefully a bit rude to people she meets, although her behavior is subject to change depending on how the stranger treats her. If she deems them to be a threat, she will close herself off entirely. But if the stranger is in need of her help, she'll be willing to show a more gentle side to them.

She does not trust easily and has high walls that surround her heart. Because of this, she is almost impossible to befriend. Even when someone has proven themselves trustworthy, Taff values consistency and will judge the individual for repeated actions.

Taff is a very good judge of character and can often tell when someone carries bad intentions.

Around people she deeply cares about, Taff is a lot more laid-back. Her old outgoing nature truly shines through when she's speaking to them. She enjoys joking around with Sword, Blade, and other friends she has in the castle. She's often the one to carry conversations. Taff goes out of her way to stay on top of her family and friends lives.

She is intensely protective of Tiff and Tuff, so much so to the point where she gets angry at Lady Like and Sir Ebrum for not keeping a better eye on them. She adamantly refuses to let either of them help out in bigger fights and becomes infuriated if others attempt to involve them.

If either of her siblings need her for anything, Taff will be there for them in an instant. Taff is decent at giving advice, but difficult at explaining it in a way that consistently makes sense to Tiff and Tuff. She also enjoys assisting them with their homework; this often just leads to her doing it for them, which she's aware of but doesn't mind.

Taff has lost a lot of her sense of self due to her childhood. She is incapable of picturing a world of peace anymore. Without her title as a protector of Cappytown, she is unsure of who she is. Taff's made peace with the idea of dying for Cappytown and fully believes that she will likely die in battle someday.

Conclusion

There is so, so much I excluded from this post. Almost two decades of brainstorming will do that to a character. I'm willing to reveal more lore for Taff (example: how she changes some of the episodes of Kirby: Right Back at Ya) the further she gets in the tournament.

I'm really excited to have this opportunity to share Taff with the world!!! I don't talk much about my OCs with anyone, so I'm super happy I discovered this tournament. Thank you to the hosts for the opportunity and good luck to all!

If you, the reader, have any questions about Taff, please feel free to send asks to this blog. Who knows, Taff might even answer some questions... ;D If I can get my drawing tablet working...

Thanks again to @kirbyoctournament !

#kirby oc tournament #taff lore #kirby right back at ya #hoshii no kaabii #kirby of the stars #kirby oc

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thewritewolf · 3 years

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After the End Chapter 1: Rain

Summary: Ladybug and Chat Noir are triumphant! The big bad Hawkmoth goes down to roaring applause! People are crying in the streets, feeling emotions without fear for the first time in years! Everyone got everything they could have wanted...

...But the story doesn't stop just because the storyteller stops talking. So what happens when victory leaves unanswered questions and loose threads? Can they really let their guard down after so long spent struggling? What happens after the end?

Hello and welcome to my Marichat May 2021 story - After the End! We're gonna have some angst, some fluff, and hopefully a good ol' emotional time.

First | Previous | Next | Last

@marichatmay

Enjoy!

Read on Ao3

The sun had set hours ago, but the City of Lights was never dark, not completely. The warm yellow glow of street lamps and the cold, white light pouring out from late night stores made sure of that, but they were small oases huddled against the heavy rain and howling wind. Tucked underneath the cover of a balcony canopy with his legs hanging over the side, Chat Noir watched the city get drenched but saw none of it. His mind was somewhere else entirely.

How long had it been now since that final battle? Four months, maybe? The moment that one parent that he thought was gone forever was returned to him, at the cost of losing the other completely. In the end, it was probably a fair trade, but even now it was too much for his heart to handle sometimes. But everyday it got a little better. He just needed to occupy himself while he got a grip on it.

And what better way than pursuing the quest that was keeping him in Paris? Although odds were good that the people he was looking for weren’t here any more now that their puppet was gone.

Chat was sure that his father would have kept some sort of record about them - if only in case he needed to blackmail them later. The problem was that the mansion was huge. Even with him spending most of his daylight hours thoroughly checking for secrets, there was a lot of ground to cover and plenty of places to hide things.

A plan of attack got put on the backburner when he finally registered what he had been unconsciously following. Someone was teetering down the street, one hand struggling to keep their umbrella over their head despite the strong winds, the other just barely holding a large package off the drenched ground. Even from where he was sitting he could tell that it was a losing fight.

A faint smile tugged at his lips and he rose to a crouch on the balcony bars, ready to pounce. Just because there weren’t akumas or amoks to fight any more didn’t mean he couldn’t still be someone’s hero.

-------------

“Stupid Professor Leclair,” Marinette grumbled to herself, stopping for the fourth time in six steps to readjust her grip on the project that would be worth a quarter of her grade. In an unflattering impersonation of him, she added, “Wah work on that cross stitching wah.”

Marinette scrambled to hold onto her things as a powerful gust of wind buffeted her, but it was no use. She’d have to drop one thing or another. Realizing that being sick for a few days would be better than losing the last few weeks of progress on her dress, she let the umbrella be wrenched out of her hands to get a better grip on her dress.

Clutching it tight to her chest to keep it dry, she braced herself for the first cold drops of the early fall rain to hit her.

She kept waiting for a few long seconds before tentatively opening an eye and looking up. To her surprise, the umbrella was still there, held in place by a hand covered in a familiar black leather suit.

“Oh! Chat Noir.” She gave him a sidelong look, eyes slightly narrowed. “What are you doing out this late? And in this bad of a storm, too!”

“No need to fall over yourself thanking me,” Chat Noir replied with a teasing smirk. “Just doing my best to help the citizens of Paris.”

Marinette gave a faint smile. “Right, sorry. Thanks, Chat Noir.”

“No problem. Care to switch?” Chat Noir held out the umbrella, his free hand reaching for the bundled up dress.

“Well… Alright, but just because I’m getting really tired of carrying it.” She gladly took the umbrella and cautiously passed the dress to him. “Just be careful with those claws, okay? That’s a huge part of my grade you’re holding.”

“Oh, no need to worry about me.” Chat Noir grinned, the white of his smile standing out against the glistening black of his suit. “These claws can be very gentle when they want to be.”

The two of them began to walk side by side at a brisk pace, with Chat crouching slightly so she didn’t need to hold the umbrella quite so high. Puberty had been kind to him and he’d grown like a weed during their teenage years. Plagg had no doubt been grumbling about how often he’d had to change the suit to keep up with it.

“I’ll take your word for it then.” But Marinette felt instantly reassured - her partner had always been true to his word, from their first fight all the way through the defeat of Hawkmoth.

Hawkmoth… The name brought a frown to her face. Not just because of the memories of a campaign against him lasting the better part of a decade, but because of how it all ended.

There were some things that even the miraculous cure couldn’t heal.

Before she had even realized it, they were back at her apartment. She had one foot in the doorway, her umbrella closed at her side and reaching for the dress as Chat Noir passed it carefully back to her. He took a step back, that same smile on his face but now she noticed something else.

“You take care now, okay?”

She realized that the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. Instead, there was an exhaustion there, a weariness.

And loneliness.

“Chat Noir, wait!”

He hadn’t even made it down the three stairs that lead to the apartment’s door before he froze in place. His tail stood to attention as he half turned back to her.

“Something wrong?”

“Well, its just, um… I usually make way too much for dinner so if you ever want to come over to my place around this time to help me finish my leftovers, well…” She pointed at the balcony right above them. “...Feel free to pay me a visit sometime.”

Another teasing smirk found its way to his face. “You know what they say about feeding strays, don’t you? They might just keep coming back.”

“I don’t think I’d mind,” she replied with a smirk of her own.

“Then maybe I’ll take you up on your offer sometime.” He gave her a two finger salute and a wink. “See you later, then.”

He pulled out his baton and in a moment was out of view.

“See you later…” she repeated to the empty air.

#Miraculous Ladybug #Chat Noir #Marinette Dupain-Cheng #Marichat #MarichatMay2021 #ml fanfiction #my writing #After the End

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incarnateirony · 4 years

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i think there’s a distinction that needs to be made. i think those with power over dabb & co are the ones who are exuding more habits of queerbaiting, while dabb and co aren’t. and because those execs are more or less invisible, the blame/fault is put on dabb as he’s the perceived figurehead of everything in the show when he’s not. anything he may want to put in the show can be easily vetoed by a higher exec so

Okay so I said I wouldn’t touch related issues facing wanky-side, but while this runs the line this is such a genuine, and valid thought process it feels worth addressing.

So in short: Yes. But no. But yes. But no. But we’ll see.

What do I mean by that? I’m going to put this behind a cut. But first of all I want to thank this Nonnie for at least trying to critically think about where the problems lead to. This is FAR BETTER CRITICAL THINKING than I see in this discussion most of the time and this. More like this. Nuance, discussion, idea trade, history. Let’s do it.

Okay, so.

How can it be yes no yes no maybe eenie meenie miney mo?

Because it really depends on what part of this 15 year legacy show we’re talking about.

What I’m about to say isn’t going to be popular, but I’ve said it before, I just can’t find the ancient ass post discussing it.

We’re going to rewind. Like, a fucking lot. A lot, a lot. This is going to be a history ride, and you’re probably going to wonder how it connects to the conversation at first, but bear with me.

Ignoring any personal frustrations I have with the casting of season 4 – frankly a chapter of this FUCKING show that haunts me somewhere in the ballpark of, “If my friend wasn’t dismissed as not white enough and got the role, would we have Misha, Destiel, any of this, would the show be on, would she have been chased off as the other actresses?” – and frankly these are the things people don’t even fucking *think* about.

TLDR a bajillion years ago CW made a casting call and we got this super cute character named Anna that Dean was slated to bend over in two seconds flat, as old canon used to be before modernly growing. The actress expressed discomfort, and frankly went over with the audience about as well as wet cardboard. And like, while I agree that a lot of women were hated for misogynistic reasons in this show, she really was about as interesting as a plank of plywood to me once she got past her first performance or two.

At the same time, this handsome bastard named Misha Collins auditioned for a bit role originally intended for 3 episodes and quickly extended to 6. But, identified as lightning in a bottle and with on-fire chemistry, while Anna waffled for *several* reasons, summarily, their story ends swapped. That’s… not like *exactly* what happened but it’s *basically* what happened. Anna became the herald and contagonist instead of Cas, and Cas quite frankly took on the role of the goddess.

With Lisa already entered before Anna, there’s no evidence whatsoever she was intended as endgame. Story flip. Thank you for everything last night on earth fall by angel banishing almost like this was foreshadowed woohoo! But… don’t lend towards a relationship. No point. Given, they made a few jokes on set at that point, but it wasn’t really an idea *they thought anyone took seriously*.

Coming from a phase where most of the leads were introduced to “slash fandom” by Wincest, which they literally used to torture and prank each other, the idea of this being anything serious really wasn’t on their radar. The one I remember most was Misha choosing to sit on Dean’s side of the bed as Cas in the famous “What were you dreaming about?” and Sgriccia being like “that’s kinda gay” “nah keep it”

I mean, is that… queerbait at that point? I don’t think it’s fair to really call it that. They respectfully tried to scrub out the leading romantic edges from what would have been Anna’s story, but ultimately, the human psyche kind of recognizes 8000 years of storytelling history subconsciously when using the Hero’s Journey narrative, so it was resonant. Nobody was crazy for seeing it. That didn’t mean it was right, that didn’t mean it’s what they were consciously leading anyone for.

Hell, Jensen didn’t even know what the fuck Destiel WAS until season 7 (”Deathstiel?”) due to the way cons, circuits, and fansites kept the conversation force-muted at that point. Anything they had floated somewhere in the area of “hah that is kinda gay I guess”, and even that there’s no evidence of being frequent.

Kripke left, the show petered, social media was new, and summarily, Sera Gamble was a dumbass and listened to the wrong crowd that seemed super big back when big accounts were a whole 10K followers and you had 50 asshats screaming as a coordinated group about Ruining The Show™. Ratings tanked, somewhere between Misha being fired and the show turning into a parody of itself with dick jokes that made it seem like Gamble was trying to target 11 year old boys for her audience, and like, that’s it, that was the season.

Until that nosedive spiral essentially turned into a shorthand apology reversal, a panicked and roughly written script that was *SO GAY* that *EVEN MISHA FUCKING COLLINS* couldn’t seriously choke out the dialogue. It was cheap, it was out of character, and as Jensen put it, the dialogue might as well have had him petting and sobbing into Castiel’s coat while essentially being like I SLEEP WITH YOUR COAT EVERY NIGHT TO REMEMBER YOUR SCENT UWU and shit that just LITERALLY vaulted from alien fascinated staring into desperate teenage gay drama in the body of a 30 year old man.

So yeah. Did I consider it reasonable to change that? Fuck yes I did.

Was what Sera Gamble did queerbait? Yes, actually. And she did it again in the Magicians. You see, Gamble had fucked over an audience, and then tried to exploit that audience in reverse when she realized she fucked over the *wrong* audience, but had zero intent of fulfillment.

And then magically, Sera Gamble didn’t fucking work there anymore after a whole like, year and a half as showrunner.

Now, at the same time, Dawn Ostroff was leaving the CW. Jensen’s had some pretty fierce words about Dawn Ostroff not understanding the show and how to manage it, but whatever. Bye, Dawn. Hello… MARK FUCKING PEDOWITZ. But at the same time, WELCOME BACK CARVER and most of all HOWDY DO NETFLIX, so nice to make a guaranteed deal with you (that ended as of this year due to a CBS merchandising meltdown).

When Carver came back, he said a lot of things. He… very tactfully called Gamble’s era trash by phasing it like “:) Watching the show :) since I left :) I realized :) a lot of our mythology :) has been difficult to follow :) so I went :) back to basics :) please help”, and others, like mentioning he had a three year plan on his desk. So 3. Season 8, 9, 10. He had notes for his S10 finale in mind and everything! Great stuff.

Now the fandom, at this point, generally didn’t pay attention to the network or production. In fact, the actor worship around here is some other kind of wild and I don’t know how after 15 years people haven’t figured out that it isn’t how to go about paying attention. Either way – plot switches, showrunner switches, author switches, and NETWORK LEADERSHIP SWITCHES.

Now, this little part here is speculation – but I am 99% sure that when Carver was pulling SPN out of the cancellation toilet, he had bigger things to inform the new execs about than “btw I might make it gay.” Like “Hey, since CW just got its netflix deal, if you give us another year we can import fresh demographic while bringing back Collins’ old fanbase by setting him back as a regular.” SURE, SOUND GREAT, MAKE MONEY, THX.

Cool. Cool. Make sense so far, you still with me?

Because at this point, S8 into early S9, fandom had gotten itself into all kinds of a stir. It was about to go canon, rite nao, said a bunch of bloggers, who at that point WERE pretty much chasing wallpapers and Tshirts and making the most bizarre uncorroborated parallel interpretations like “IF U PARALLEL IT TO MOBY DICK-” WHAT WHY WHERE– ??? BUT cAS = fISH

Okay, my fucking annoyance at what counted as lit crit in those days aside, we’ll get back on track. Everybody started vibrating for this shit because, you know what, S8 did resonate pretty strong, almost like authors were toying with ideas. I’m not gonna get into stuff about Robbie, I THINK fandom knows the statements he’s made and I don’t just mean the whole Destiel being canon tweet both antis and bitters descended on him to eviscerate him about. About what? Calling it queerbait!

So here we go, the great advent. About a year after a dramatic network shift, a CW exec was like :))))))))) I’D LIKE TO LEARN ABOUT THIS FANDOM THAT IS SUDDENLY MAKING ME MONEY!! WHAT SHOULD I DO??? TO TWITTER! HASHTAG TALK TO THEM!

[logs in]

Beep boop. “Destiel?” “Destiel?” “Destiel?” “Destiel?” “Destiel?” “Destiel?” “Destiel?” “Destiel?” “Destiel?” “Destiel?” “Destiel?” “Destiel?” “Destiel?” “Destiel?” “Destiel?” the FUCK is a Destiel? Wait what no I don’t know what you’re talking about representation isn’t our intention with these characters. “QUEERBAIT” “QUEERBAIT” “QUEERBAIT” “QUEERBAIT” “QUEERBAIT” “QUEERBAIT” “QUEERBAIT” “QUEERBAIT” “QUEERBAIT” “QUEERBAIT” “QUEERBAIT”

And then the network exec got so slammed he deleted twitter entirely and everybody popped confetti and felt accomplished and did NOT realize how fucking BAD that was. And frankly, anyone that did kinda didn’t want to admit it, because taking responsibility for that tire fire was… not… attractive. In fact, several folks are still around to this day, bitter blogging or making weirdass meta or accusing other people of wallpapers and Tshirts because that’s what they did so *YAY, PROJECTION!*

My own frustrated bitterness aside, I’m going to place some questions down, and not so much answer them as, now that the reader has really taken history in, let them decide:

At this point… is this queerbait?

Because this is when the queerbait yelling began. It’s when every fan with even a moderate platform or site blasted it out there.

It’s when the fandom made DeanCas a big problem.

And it’s also literally the same time Carver left his very first recorded, known direction with a romantic tilt, “The note I got from Jeremy Carver was to play it like a jilted lover, so that’s what we played there,” on LGBT author Bobo berens’ very first episode. Everyone runs circles around that modernly, or goes “SEE??? QUEERBAIT!” without realizing what the FUCK just happened here.

So, SPN went from cancel rating line to their most successful show between 7 and 9. Suddenly corporate sees their successful product *ON FUCKING FIRE* so do you know what happens?

Fuck it this IS one line I’ll break: Corporate panicked. They changed their press packets. If you noticed a bunch of media-adjacent people and their friends suddenly get bitter as FUCK in season 10 after still surviving the S9 mess, here’s fucking why. Because now that everybody spent the last YEAR trying to burn down the product yelling about shit that corporate had been literally blindsided by, they added temporarily a new section to the packet that included sexuality. They were, at that moment, suddenly listed collectively as heterosexual men. SEE, WE AREN’T QUEERBAITING IF WE TELL YOU THEY’RE STRAIGHT *will smith pose*

Congrats fandom, you have now officially made Destiel A Huge Problem™ to the corporate behemoth behind the shiny pictures. The iron curtain dropped. This is what you could call “Protect the Product Mode” if you will.

Now again, at this point: Is it queerbait?

Because at this point, S9-10 was rolling out. We all know it, Cain, Collette, *gestures off into infinity* But let’s fall back to Carver’s statement. 3 years. 8, 9, 10. You know what else happened season 10?

A bunch of shit, including shit Carver *wrote himself for the season 10 finale* got filmed, then cut. Coincidentally, it was all very gay shit. Things that pulled forward the Crowley/Abaddon Cas/Colette Sam/Abel parallels, arguing over who was who’s boyfriend, Rowena mentioning about them both being shattered at the Altar of Winchester (15.3 is calling), the secret admirer dream, I could go on. I mean, this shit literally would have shifted the entire storytelling arc to full-frontal taking that parallel and addressing it right up in your face. First you’ll kill your mistress but you’ll get it done, and then you’ll kill your wife. He’s your boyfriend no he’s YOUR boyfriend. You’ve BOTH been shattered at the Altar of Winchester. Really, this is what you dream about? Your secret admirer Cas?

K? K. K?

Is it queerbait for Carver to have entered with a plan? Is it queerbait for Carver to have been interrupted on that plan despite attempting to pursue it? And is it queerbait for the network to still lock down on that plan so close after the event?

You see why this conversation gets increasingly complex.

S11 rolled around, Carver was half in half out, Dabb was stepping in, big gay heart songs, take what you will out of that entire mess, and by S12 Dabb entirely took over and we started entering the era we are in today.

So let’s address where we’re at today.

Now :) I can’t say anything for sure :) because anybody that’s been to or worked on marketing stuff definitely has an NDA :) but let’s play for a minute. Let’s say with the stone wall up, a set of creators still wanted to actually *go somewhere* with this story.

“But!” remembered the network, “Remember the tire fire?! And all the people that hated the gay?! What about our profit?!”

“No,” a creator might say, “Tides have changed.”

“We’ll see,” a network might say, “Take it to market testing.” At which point, one would enter a few years of polling how the general audience reacts to this.

Now, if they were seeing promising numbers, they might be given a bit of rope. Why, let’s … just pretend. Totally. Totally pretending. That Dabb pitched this idea to take up Carver’s mantle. Let’s say that started S12ish when he took over. Let’s say they ran through hiatus. And then… authors might be given a little bit of a line. “Looks good, but we’re not sure,” said a network quite fond of its split conservative/liberal demographic, “Try it out a bit and see how it goes.”

And so an author room that would be full of LGBT creators fed out good faith groundwork. They might even be like YALL ITS NEVER TOO LAAAAAATE TO START ALL OVER AGAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN and just throw their whole boy howdy cowboy into that shit and get great ratings.

What if even if the results came back positive leaning, the network ho’ed and hummed and stayed noncommital? Might the creators scale it back while still writing it lowkey just in case they got flashed a greenlight? I know I sure would, woudn’t you?! Or I guess would you prefer we drop the whole thing cold and stop writing anything vaguely in the direction?

Difficult question, in reality, isn’t it?

So in this TOTALLY HYPOTHETICAL SITUATION, this leaves the authors holding the bag, waiting for a sign, and being held with limitations. And just in case anybody thinks “BUT AUTHORS CAN DO WHATEVER THEY WANT!! AND!! OTHER SHOWS!!!”

K have we come down to reality yet? So, sure kids, try the gay, we’re interested, but you can’t like, go Full Gay Frontal with it. You gotta imply the gay. Wouldn’t want to offend conservative america! Besides! We’re totally exploiting marketing making this LGBT content for you over here! *jingles a carrot on a stick* LOOK AT HOW MUCH WE’RE FLEECING ADVERTISING PROMOTING ALL THIS GAY STUFF FOR YOU AREN’T THE RAINBOWS GREAT?

Some creator of limited LGBT content: How’s the marketing looking?

Some network: EH! We’ll see!

Some creator of limited LGBT content: K guys we’ll scale it back to not upset them but don’t drop it.maybe we can have them hold hands at the end or if we’re lucky maybe they’ll say we can do the whole thing

Some LGBT creators: K

Making sense still? STILL WITH ME?

So at this point… is this queerbait, or is this business?

Put aside the emotional reaction. Realize this really only hit scale in S9, hit front line S10, and hit potential corporate discussion in this TOTALLY theoretic universe around S11-12. We’re talking 3-4 years. Not 10. And we’re talking only a few of it really being tested.

So again I ask, history minded: Is this queerbait, or is this business?

That’s where the nuance and complication comes in, and let it be said I am in no way defending the CW. I fucking hate the network. They have literally personally screwed over real friends of mine and I hope they choke on a whole bag of dicks with their bullshit, but honestly, the shit I have seen and heard would make people stick their heads in the sand like scared and ashamed ostriches for every time they trumpet “BUT OTHER SHOWS” – you don’t know what’s going on in those shows. You don’t know how they’re getting hardballed on budget decisions, you don’t know what that show’s marketed demographic is about, you don’t know what they demand cast how, you literally don’t have a fucking idea unless you’re up in that disaster zone.

And even IF you’re in that disaster zone, unless you’re truly in the upper echelon, you only know so much.

Now let’s pretend, again, totally metaphorically, and absolutely not inspired by a real person at all, that someone worked with the crew for a while and, because they saw support inside creeping upward siiiiince mmmm gosh we’ll say season 12 since that’s our advent and totally not when anybody specific started working there and telling fandom ladder fans what they thought they saw going on, only to get sad and bitter and angry and eventually leave, and all those friends, still abiding old bitterness from S9~, now get angrier because of somebody else’s burnout on their ITK level and perspective, even if that was *probably* aggravated by other work stress conditions as well, but hey! WHO KNOWS!?!?! :)))) What a weird hypothetical though and I’m getting weirdly super specific on it aren’t I so LET’S MOVE ON.

We’re in S12-13 discussion category now.

So my question is, from this perspective… when do you call queerbait? When not swept up in misguided hysteria… at what point do you say “Yeah, you know what, yup, that’s all queerbait”?

So we’re gonna take a bit of a break here for a second and really process all of that hypothetical world, where a creator pitched going for it, and got it put into market testing, and was given enough rope to hang themselves on if the network changed its mind.

After only a few years of conscious thought on it… do you even think the network is truly consciously misguiding specifically those fans, or do they see it as giving the fans something they want while testing the idea of possibly truly giving it to them?

Because here’s what fandom misses – the corporate perspective. And again, I’m utterly not fucking justifying the CW as a whole, but people look at this from the angle of fans, and then argue what they think is representative dialogue from the angle of fans, often while missing all of this history. All that history up till S9? That’s all very real. But looking at history in perspective… who are you going to blame for that? Is it fair to hold S4-9 to that five year stretch of queerbait when that was… pretty much fandom manufactured from blissful ignorance to begin with? I mean if you want to go yell at Sera Gamble Specifically okay (please don’t) but beyond that like– that shit? Is that anybody’s fault? Do you blame a company for actually shutting DOWN the talk of it on a press angle? Can we call that and S10 queerbait then? Was Carver’s attempt at writing through it queerbait? Was trying to continue the story in S11 after theoretic shutdown queerbait? These are all genuine questions that are not asked enough. Most people don’t even realize they need to be asked.

So back to Totally Theoretic Land, where S12ish market testing would have been going on to see if people really thought it was Gay N Shit. Like a lot of people in an overwhelming majority after the amount of apprehension the straight old dude running the network has ever since the goddamn tornado of horse shit that happened like a year after he took over. Probably not the fondest fucking memory for him either. Probably also why he dismissively called most of that demographic “casual fans”, because in Smug White Guy Brain, “tru” fans would have all known, I guess, exactly the shit I’m telling you in history backtrack so, look at the silly girls wanting the gay shit :) Ahhhh girlllllls

Okay so, my impression of douchebags aside, let’s give it 12-13 hiatus to give the first test rope lead and 13-14 hiatus for the next, only to have at best noncommital and uncertain numbers and authors, theoretically, cautiously pulling back while writing it as generally established and implicit, as if it might, I don’t know, go from BIG GAY DRAMA to DEADASS DOMESTIC all of a sudden despite ITS NEVER TOO LATE TO START ALL OVER AGAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN cuz get it, they started over, after he came in his room and played him. *elbows* You all get it right?

K. So maybe numbers changed. Maybe they don’t. Maybe I’m not comfortable talking in this hypothetical, maybe I don’t have access to this hypothetical AU’s current marketing data as of this year, I just don’t know! We don’t know where those cards fell.

But if, at this point, after 2-3 years of market testing, and leading authors on, and giving them enough rope to hang themselves with to get themselves accused of queerbait just for trying to lay good faith groundwork for a cohesive narrative, because fans don’t care that 2 open closet LGBT authors are on deck or that there’s totally theoretically probably and in no way fingering anyone at least one closeted author on deck, or at least publicly so, their coworkers would probably know. But I mean. That’s just. :) statistics. Right?

K whatever moving on. If at this point they’ve been boggley bounced around… you know, I gotta say. At this point… I might actually call queerbait if the network stonewalls it. At this point, they’ve had a few years to really get their shit together, and if they’ve just used it to play yo yo with LGBT creators trying to make content then yeah, go suck a whole bag of dicks.

The problem being with the lack of nuance in this conversation, you’re right, Dabb and co would catch it rather than the guilty party, which is why I HATE faux activism culture. If you’re going to be an activist pay the fuck attention to what you’re being an activist in, don’t bite the hand that’s feeding you just because it was a PBJ and not filet mignon, go after the bastard 1%’er that’s eating all the goddamn filet mignon. But nobody will. It never works like that. And then everybody wonders why this continues – be it in this show, or on other networks.

But hey. Maybe this theoretic network got enough material to change their mind. Maybe another executive got promoted that might help one of the other creators argue it to corporate with their new shiny title. Maybe they can convince someone. Convince them of what and to what level, who knows. Maybe just continue telling the established story, give them a divorce, mention marriage, divorce, dead wives, breakups every 0.2 seconds while they go through a classically framed dark point in the romance everybody with brains and eyes understands because, again, historic storytelling we literally all recognize, but pretend we don’t when stomping about personal representation lines? Or hey! Maybe it’ll go further. (Don’t hold your breath.) Throw in some other shit that even a straight guy would look at and be like “two dicks one chick that shit’s gay bro” because WE LITERALLY ALL FUCKING KNOW WHAT IT MEANS EVEN IF IT’S IMPLIED BECAUSE THE NETWORK IS A BUNCH OF PUSSIES.

…*stops, breathes*

If you can’t tell this is a very long term topic of frustration to me, because nobody, absolutely nobody, wants to introspect and think, you know, maybe it wasn’t queerbait back then, maybe we SHOULDN’T have set a corporate exec on fire about it, that might have been fucking bad.

There are other ways to be an activist than to scream queerbait into the void at whoever is unfortunate enough to cross your paths. One of the best examples I can remember is Exorcising Emily collecting demographics on fandom, and testimonials from LGBT fans about resonating with the content – no fanfic, no fanart, no attacks – and sent copies of this to several powerful creative names.

Now… if with this history… if, from season 9 to 12… one of those names became a creator. If, by some FLUKE of imagination… he still had that book around… and even gave it to his freshly joined new employees like 2 weeks after they started working there–

oh wait and i oop

The mentions would be much as you expect, antis screaming and demanding her job (QUICK, somebody tell Andrew Dabb that she’s READING ANDREW DABB’S OWN BOOKS THAT HE CHOSE TO KEEP AROUND FOR THREE YEARS).

Has Dabb’s era seemed… more plugged in? More resonant? Better and stronger in its storytelling? More hooked into fandom?

See, that’s what well thought activism can do. Well thought activism can structure an entire movement. Poorly thought rioting thinking itself as activism can cause the literal opposite effect of what it wanted. That is how these things contrast each other. And that is something fandom needs to DEEPLY consider.

…but is it queerbait for him to try to continue the story? Even if, say, we drop the marketing talk, because TOTALLY nobody can ACTUALLY know because AGAIN anyone that DOES would have an NDA so we DEFINITELY can’t say anybody knows anything for sure, because anyone that said jack shit would probably get sued so hard their descendents down in whatever homo superior evolution 1000 years into the future would feel it, so you know. We’ll put aside this totes theoretical shit and ask

…If he just was told no– would you prefer to just drop the storyline entirely at this point?

Again. Genuine question. And difficult. And something poorly thought queerbait screaming can actually cause, too.

So here we are in the land of the final season. Whether you consider it network queerbait or not – again, they can choke on the whole bag of dicks at a network level for all I care for ANY number of reasons, even well beyond the domain of Supernatural, and may all their bacon burn from here into the next life – it’s a lot more complicated than fandom has ever let it on to be, because letting it on to be what it really is, in full perspective, also demands a lot of introspection and acceptance, and we all know nobody in this fandom can ever make a mistake ever and they’re all fucking perfect darlings.

It’s a complicated answer to a simple idea… and unfortunately I don’t think this fandom will ever really sit here. They’ll yell “VICTIM BLAMING” because it’s buzzy, they’ll yell “HIDING YOUR GAYS” which I mean, yeah, but let’s talk about what led us here. They’ll yell a lot of things. But they will rarely quietly think, and study, and hone down to what’s going on in the world out there beyond what they have, at this point, become obsessively hotlocked on.

Supernatural, as of 15.7, has already taken several steps further than it ever is before. No, that’s not a signal of me saying [Your Personal Goalpost] is going to happen. But it’s a sign that if they have a line, they’re testing it with every strength they have.

Going back onto the Fateful Advent: Cain. The mentor– who was never going to stop; I can’t stop samuel; he was never going to stop; I will never stop; Rowena, the mentor, never going to stop, shattered, at the altar of Winchester. Long ago, when Cas was human, Dean sealed him away, and now, he’s doing the same to him. So Shirt Of Bad Decisions Deanmon basically karaokes with his friend like the Crowley days, REPEATING the Crowley dialogue but infinitely harder to dodge, as if some sort of calculated method of cat’s cradle of How To Write The Gay was discussed. Man, whoever wrote that kind of shit would probably even publicly thank whatever big gay mastermind helped them map out THAT level of stuff. Wouldn’t it be funny if most of that shit had been written by a gay dude that’s still around and it’s still popping back up in the show louder and harder to dodge than before? That’d be fuckin’ wild, man. Oh, fucking WAIT.

And this is why I hate the way shipping culture thinks it’s doing activism. Most of the time it’s cosplaying as an activist and at this point it’s become more of a furry convention than it has any kind of organized rights movement. Nobody’s out here fighting for the rights of these LGBT authors this year, nobody’s helping them get a voice, and in fact, often scream at them or bury what voice they’ve had as not enough.

And I want to fix it.

Desperately.

And frankly, I don’t know how anymore.

But what we’re not talking about is some 3-5 year show that came in early and started intentionally fucking at you. We’re looking at happy coincidences, so let’s check with our gay king, the father of Wayward that everybody coincidentally accepted as canon with far less because of a (meaningful) third party line DeanCas had elsewhere but hey it didn’t have antis so suddenly it counts; let’s check with him about that.

That’s my king. That’s my king that wrote the first recorded episode to be intentionally directed as jilted lovers. My king that gav eus Colette. My king that gave us the mixtape. My king that gave us the PR framed breakup. My king that gave us Cas leaving Dean. That’s my King. That’s my gay king who has been fighting his ass off, only to be hung out to dry by a fandom that doesn’t even care to look where or how to scream, or maybe consider that perhaps screaming isn’t the option.

Is he yours yet? Have I broken through to a single soul on this?

That’s my king who wrote about the necessary evils in 2003, before the youngest in this fandom were born and while many were still in diapers or kindergarten; about the unfortunate necessary evils that he loathes and acknowledges about moderate queer content gaining exponential amounts of platform compared to whatever is considered hardline aggressive at the time, about how that incrementalization is what helped our media landscape evolve to this day.

And he isn’t wrong.

And he’s getting roasted for doing just that.

And I really wish I could just psychically make everyone fucking stop.

But I will say one thing.

“It’s network queerbait!” I mean

Yeah

That

Because… realistically? like 99% of modern queer content is queerbait, even stuff with canon queer content.

ESPECIALLY on the CW.

If you’ve noticed CW panicking the last year and trying to slap rainbows and DARE TO DEFY on everything, it’s because their entire fucking ecosystem just got fucked over by CBS wanting 100% merchandising profit like it already took 100% digital profit and Netflix was basically like “miss us with your bullshit” and broke the CW contract which was *HOW PEDOWITZ BANKROLLED MOST OF HIS NETWORK*. Now? Now CW has to carve a niche. So LOOK AT ALL THE FUCKING PRIDE COLORS ON– OUR– STRAIGHT–CHARACTERS??? BUT WE HAVE GAY ONES LIKE LEGENDS OF TOMORROW AND *flips notes* THAT SIDE CHARACTER LESBIAN ON SPN.

*gets a whisper* What they killed her? Shit. Maybe bring her back. AND THERE’S THIS PERSON OVER ON JANE THE VIRGIN oh that just got cancelled uhhh VAMPIRE DI-wait fuck. Well we’ll just make one of the chicks in this shitty charmed reboot CBS just forced down our throat and killed Wayward over, that’ll fix it *jazz hands*

TV is a business. Businesses make money. The entire LGBT battle is basically us industriously proving we can make money. It’s about rights and visibility on our end, but on their end it is *always* about money and I really don’t think anybody really groks what that really means.

So “it’s the network! Queerbait!”

…yeahhhhh.

…welcome to working in television. Now you just have to sit and think about how many other times this has completely missed your radar.

The network will never get a shit about you, they give a shit about your money, and that’s just the reality of capitalist america whether we like it or not. When it’s 2143 and bernie sanders’ floating head in a jar is president and andrew yang’s base income shit is in effect and we’re all a socialist country and the world has figured out how to run high cost businesses like TV on the power of unicorn farts, they might actually give a shit. But they don’t. There may be a few advocates WITHIN the company that do, but as a whole body, the network will never give a shit. They don’t care if you’re black, white, straight, gay, disabled, male, female, beyond what, explicitly, that totals to in dollar signs depending how they feed you, when and where.

So it’s not like... *just* a queer rights issue, it’s an “Anything Trump’s America may consider offensive on their television” issue. It’s businesses weighing who they think pays their bills while making it and beyond that who they think is the safest investment to make the most money.

As a side note: Personally, I’d consider it dumb as fuck to not do it. SPN will taper within a few years down to just trekkie-esque addicts unless they find a way to get a new burst of viewership and boy howdie do I hope so, but how much Pedowitz overvalues the conservative US demographic, or certain international markets, I don’t know. I’m not in his head and I don’t have this year’s marketing numbers beyond basic live, +3 and +7 ratings, and digital calls. And just general nielsen released demo. But how he’s added that all up? Can’t say. And I sure ain’t gonna bank on him not being a dumbass, when he’s famous for it, so don’t go get your hopes up either.

#supernatural #representation #queerbait #intersectionality #business #corporate #marketing

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eponymous-rose · 7 years

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Talks Machina Highlights: Critical Role Episode 111

Guests are Liam O’Brien and Matt Mercer. Full video on Project Alpha!

Brian: “Hello, welcome to Talks Machina. I am... dressed for success.” Liam: “You are very cute today.” Matt: “I call this look Saturday Darin De Paul.”

Matt is doing much better than he was on Thursday.

Digital copy of the Critical Role comic is out!

There’s now a Talks Machina shirt in the store.

Episode 111 is tied for the most natural ones in an episode.

The show has now surpassed 10,000 d20 rolls. Brian suggests buying @critrolestats a yacht for keeping track of all this.

The comic takes place before the game. At the first session, because it was meant to be a one-shot, Matt just had everyone assume they all knew each other and were used to working together as a party. The comic explores how they actually met and started working together as an adventuring party.

Moments they’d like to see from the pre-stream game if the comic continues: meeting Gilmore, finding Percy in Jorenn Village, going after Grog’s dad, the birth of Burt Reynolds, early interactions with the Clasp, the one time Pike and Vax had a solo adventure together. Brian: “Do you think we would have to get rights from Burt Reynolds’ estate to... oh, wait, he’s still alive.”

The pacing of this arc was always going to be different, since it’s epic-level stuff and many of the character-centric arcs have been closed; it’s a lot harder to draw in character backstory the way the previous arcs could. The time-crunch aspect of this particular plot (the villain is actively moving through his to-do list whether or not Vox Machina intervenes) is a careful balance to make sure the players don’t feel too rushed but can still maintain that sense of urgency. Liam: “I am consistently surprised and shocked by everything that’s happened, so no complaints from me.”

If it were just Liam’s decision, he’d want everyone to take a long rest before facing Vecna. He thinks losing Vasselheim might be the cost of actually having a slim chance of defeating Vecna.

Matt’s been slowly been building this last dungeon over the last six months. It’s right up there with Opash’s necromantic lair as his favorite dungeon he’s made. Liam wants to see the dungeon mapped out and described in PDF format at some point, and Matt mentions that, depending on what state it’s in at the end of this campaign, it might be a location in a future Issylra campaign guide.

Matt and Liam talk about how early adventuring in D&D is generally a selfish endeavor, and then later on there are considerably higher stakes. Matt mentions that even in high-level D&D, you want to include obstacles in a dungeon that characters can bypass easily as a reward for quick thinking or just being awesome at high levels. The dungeon is also fundamentally a power-sink where you have to prioritize where you put your resources before the final battle you know is coming.

GIF of the week. Matt: “It’s funny the effect painkillers have on running a D&D game...”

Once the oven had closed, once a round, everyone in the room would’ve taken 1d6 fire damage, then 2d6, then 3d6, and so on. Solving it was meant to be a little more high-stakes, but the party avoided getting trapped in the room themselves.

Matt had half a page of information, a voice, and a name prepared for the nothic that Vax just annihilated. Could’ve ended up being a small encounter or a temporary alliance with a Gollum-type character or an uneasy alliance that could’ve gone wrong. Matt: “What you did was quintessential D&D, and I loved it.”

Liam recently ran a D&D game for his whole family in which his son rolled a d20 on opening a door he wasn’t supposed to go through, forcing him to improvise.

Matt’s been working with Travis to build his next character, and he keeps having to remind him that most characters only have a movement speed of 25 or 30 feet.

Brian: “Like Matt and I, you too can be not in terrible debt and situationally famous without going to college!” Matt: “I cannot support any of these statements at all.”

Vax would be willing to sacrifice even Emon or Whitestone if it meant stopping Vecna, because the alternative is Vecna reigning supreme over the Material Plane... or the Divine Gate coming down and armageddon ensuing.

Fanart of the week.

In-universe flashbulb memory of the campaign: Chroma Conclave attack. Liam: “The goldfish dive will be remembered for millennia.” Matt: “Young druids will be taught from a very young age...”

Matt gave the party the ring to give them a level of comfort in a near-impossible situation, but the risk of fucking it up is what makes it fun.

Liam: “Matthew Mercer is one of the sweetest men I’ve met in my life, but I know within the boundaries of this game that you have this really devilish streak, like an inclination to fuck with us... fucking rakshasa.”

Vax has made peace with everything, but he thinks about the Tomb all the time, especially since the Raven Queen is the goddess of fate. Liam: “As Liam, I loved every dumbfuck thing that I chose to do in this game, ‘cause I’m sitting with my best friends making each other laugh every week, we love each other, we get a fucking kick out of each other every week, and the mistakes are some of the greatest memories of all time.”

Liam’s top priority even way back in the home game has always been that Vax will do whatever it takes to keep Vex alive; Vax still thinks that the Raven Queen will only keep her side of the deal if he does as well. It’s made things extremely complicated, but that’s the fundamental backbone of his character and he isn’t going to mess with that.

Matt has never had players embrace the sibling aspect of their characters to the extent that Laura and Liam have. Matt: “It’s been a gift from a storyteller’s standpoint to play in that space.”

Matt thinks Sam did a fantastic job on his one-shot, and encourages other new DMs to just commit and jump in and see how well it turns out. Liam: “It’s not a religion and it’s not appellate court, it’s just the world’s best game. Just fuckin’ have fun with it.”

Matt was expecting the undead titan reveal to happen in early or mid-July, but it just worked out to happen at Gen Con. Stressful as it was, Matt was excited that he could have such a big reveal at the live show.

Liam wasn’t worried about Simon because he knew it would take more than fire to destroy a magical item.

If the game had continued as a home game, Matt probably would’ve truncated elements of the narrative because they got to play so seldom. Both he and Liam agree that getting to play weekly was the best part of starting to stream the game.

Vax’s "this could be the last time” moments this week had less to do with his imminent death and more to do with Liam processing that in the next few weeks they’re going to be ending this game that they’ve been playing together for four years.

Brian is very sad about the end of the game as a fan of the show; he remembers Ashley coming home after the home game and giving him multi-hour summaries of everything that had happened. The game started around the same time as he and Ashley started their relationship, and he’s really delighted by how close they’ve all gotten since then. Brian: “I mean, we’re practically... I plan on sleeping with both of you on After Dark.” Liam: “I’m open to it.”

Talks Machina After Dark: Liam hosts for the first time!

Liam: “The only reason I agreed to do this Dungeons and Dragons show is so I could sit here, now, and I have you both right where I want you. Undress.”

If Matt could forget everything he knew and join VM as one of his NPCs for the final fight, from a personality standpoint, he’d want to play as Allura or Gilmore, but from a functionally helpful standpoint, probably Kima.

Matt once LARPed World of Darkness and had a very stressful experience where he was thrown into the midst of an extremely political game with no knowledge of what was going on.

Matt’s never had to ban particular items or spells, but there are aspects of the game that require discussion. In a primarily good/neutral campaign, he won’t ban evil characters per se, but he’ll require a discussion to figure out how not to ruin the experience for the rest of the characters. Liam points out that Jayne (an evil character) could easily have killed Clothesline in Sam’s oneshot, but he decided against it because it’d make Ashly’s game less fun and would mess with Sam’s having established that they all survived. It turned out to be more fun having to come up with a reason for that.

Worst possible person for Vax to face as part of Vecna’s undead army: his mother. Liam: “That would fuck his shit up.” Or Vex, if she were killed and then immediately brought back by Vecna.

On the theoretical possibility of a new campaign starting in a post-apocalyptic Tal’Dorei if Vecna wins, Brian: “It would be hard to Transport via Plants.” Matt thinks it’s an exciting prospect, and he has things in his mind if it goes that direction, but he thinks it would be really sad to culminate a five-year campaign with a loss, although planting seeds for the next story could make it retroactively pretty hopeful.

Liam: “Story-wise, I know that everything’s gonna hurt and everything’s gonna be amazing, and I also trust you to flip my expectations somehow. We just love discovering the story together.”

#critical role #critical role spoilers #talks machina #talks machina spoilers #long text post

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