#she's a fighter because i wanted to explore martial classes
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Meet the Blorbos: Kire Dalca
today, it's Cerris's many greats aunt, Kire (pronounced "keer-reh") Dalca!
so apparently one Curse of Strahd campaign was not enough, because my husband decided to also write a prequel campaign! for this solo adventure in the world of Barovia 400 years earlier, i wanted to experiment with martial classes so i made her a solider. but evidently i wasn't feeling creative enough to invent a whole new hometown, so i decided, hey, why not just make her from the same town as Cerris? and then that very quickly morphed into what if she's his great-great-great etc. aunt? because i have no self control
when she first arrived in Barovia (as part of a massive army sent to keep Strahd from conquering the whole continent), Kire was idealistic, surrounded by friends and allies, certain that Strahd could be stopped and the war would be over soon. certain of her own heroics and fellow knights' survival. but time and hardship have worn her down: one can only watch a friend die so many times before developing self-sacrificial strategies to protect her allies, whatever the cost. one can only witness so many horrors before becoming constantly wary and hyper-alert. one can only be trapped in the Shadowfell for so long before giving into cynicism and gallows humor
she carries on in the name of those she's lost, but she's not the same person she was five years ago. embittered and wry and anxious, she can be cold and jumpy. and yet, a part of her still clings to the hope that with the right information, there's still some way to stop this. there must be—otherwise, what's the point of continuing to fight?
#meet the blorbos#Kire Dalca#curse of strahd prequel#dnd 5e#she's a fighter because i wanted to explore martial classes#but she's an eldritch knight because apparently i can only play spellcasters in dnd#cw: ptsd#implied ptsd#yeah no this poor woman is very much traumatized#as a variant human she gets a feat at first level and i gave her alert#so she quite literally has a symptom of pstd as a mechanical aspect of her character sheet#side note: i think i've mentioned everyone else's sexualities so#for the record#i actually haven't thought about hers just because her story is so far removed from romance#i do like to think she'll eventually settle down and have kids in Barovia#and then in the main campaign Cerris can meet his long-lost cousins and have a little family reunion emotional moment!#which would probably be excellent dramatic fodder for the DM#but ultimately i feel like Kire might be somewhere on the aro/ace spectrum?#like her attitude towards romance right now is just ¯\_(ಠ_ಠ)_/¯#anyway#next up:#a pc who doesn't actually technically exist yet!#dnd 5e oc#curse of strahd pc#curse of strahd#curse of strahd homebrew#edited to focus more on her personality and less on the backstory#cause ya know#the campaign intro post kinda makes that redundant
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The Morality of Mabel and Dipper Pines
Warning: Dipper Levels of Overanalysis Ahead
I’d like to make it clear at the start that I love both of these characters equally and they’re both good people, just in different ways. But I’ve seen a lot of criticism of Mabel’s flaws and less of Dipper’s, so I’d like to contribute to the discussion of their respective characters by exploring a divide between them I haven’t seen talked about much.
Mabel really wants to be a moral person. She places a lot of intrinsic worth in the concepts of ethics, like kindness and fairness and the wellbeing of others. Being a bad person could be considered her worst fear. It’s definitely up there with her other greatest fears of losing her relationship with Dipper and the inevitability of change, and those fears developed later largely in response to Ford and the baggage he brought with him.
Dipper just doesn’t care about that as much. That isn’t to say he’s a bad person! He's compassionate, selfless, brave and unquestionably heroic by the end of the show. They both are. But it sticks out to me how differently they think about ethics. For example, Dipper literally kills Wax Sherlock Holmes, while Mabel is so averse to hurting someone’s feelings that she can’t bear to break out of a false, one-sided relationship with Gideon until Dipper's life is at stake. You see what I’m getting at here? But I have more evidence! Buckle up, this is gonna get long.
Compare how they treat their rivals, Pacifica and Robbie. These are ordinary humans with no real authority over them who, age and class gaps aside, they're basically on even footing with in confrontations, so this is a good metric for how aggressive they are when upset and how much they hold grudges in mundane situations.
In “Irrational Treasure”, Mabel is deeply hurt by Pacifica’s mockery to the point of giving up her silly identity, and sets out to prove her wrong that she can be competent. But at the end, when presented with the opportunity to destroy the Northwest family’s fake prestigious legacy that they use to justify putting others down, she declares, “I’ve got nothing to prove” and lets it go. She’s secure in herself. Her motivation is satisfied. Why bother putting more pain and strife into the world? It’s Dipper, who has been only been hurt by proximity to Mabel, who insists on exposing the truth specifically to spite Pacifica and takes away that “Man, revenge is underrated. That felt awesome!” Revenge is arguably a form of justice, especially in this sense of revealing an unfair lie, but still, he takes great pleasure in bringing an enemy down for the sake of it, not to fix the damage they did.
In “Fight Fighters”, Dipper’s vindictive streak returns. He manipulates the ridiculously powerful Rumble McSkirmish into brutally beating up Robbie on the fraudulent charge of murder, threatening Robbie’s life. He didn’t realize Rumble would try to kill Robbie, but he was fine with him severely injuring him. Rumble is a fighting game character, a superpowered master martial artist. Robbie is a normal fifteen-year-old. This is not a sportsmanlike matchup. By the end Dipper learns his lesson and takes responsibility, but so does Mabel about hurting people to try to have a perfect life and people still complain about that!
In “The Golf War”, Mabel is again the twin with a bone to pick with Pacifica, but Dipper takes her rivalry more seriously than her and is more willing to be mean about it. He encourages her to cheat when she doesn’t want to, justifying it because Pacifica is “cheating at life”. Understandable, but still underhanded. While Mabel bonds and buries the hatchet with her rival by the end, outright declaring their rivalry to be stupid, Dipper holds onto it, refusing to forgive Pacifica at all and disapproving of Mabel's offer to give her a ride home afterward despite the pouring rain and her absent parents. He still wholeheartedly considers her “the worst” (and tells her so to her face) at the beginning of “Northwest Mansion Mystery”, even though he saw her and Mabel help and protect each other in their fight against the Lilliputtians and Pacifica thank Mabel and accept her apology.
In “The Love God”, Mabel’s compassion is on full display. She makes it apparent that she wants everyone she knows to be happy, to the point of making a chart to show her friends’ feelings with stickers, and goes out of her way to help Robbie just because she doesn’t think any human being should be so lonely and sad. Dipper initially has no sympathy for Robbie’s misery and sees the twins and his old friends leaving him to rot as a good thing.
Dipper just invests more emotionally into hating people and is more willing to play dirty. Mabel prefers to see the best in people, forgive, deescalate conflict and turn enemies into friends whenever possible, and has more respect for honour and sportsmanship.
Compare the insecurities they highlight in "Society of the Blind Eye". These could have been their last words spoken with their memories of the summer, so they are fully candid and vulnerable.
Mabel confesses, “I only love some of my stuffed animals and the guilt is killing me!” She reprimands herself for not having sincere affection for all the people in her life… who are inanimate objects, hence this being a joke about how immature and overly sentimental she is. But she’s telling the truth! Not being honest about your feelings toward someone who loves you (as toys are assumed to love their kids) is wrong. It’s something a bad, or at least flawed, person would do. We also know that it’s something Mabel can do with real consequences - she loves Dipper unconditionally, but her frequent teasing of him instead of letting this on damages his self-esteem more than she intends and often realizes - and when she does realize as in “Little Dipper”, she’s ashamed of herself. Her guilt is that she’s failing morally, that she hurts the people around her despite her good intentions.
Dipper admits, “Sometimes I use big words and don’t actually know what they mean. I mean, I’m supposed to be the smart guy! If I’m not the smart guy, then who am I?” He primarily thinks of his worth in terms of competence. Dipper is generally not that confident, at this point in time. He has an intense drive to prove his worth. He is acutely aware of his physical and social shortcomings. But the one thing he knows that he does well is analytical, deductive and strategic thinking, and so to always have value he’s built his entire identity around being particularly intelligent. He’s the planner, the mastermind, the guy with the specialized knowledge and important big words who people have no choice but to respect and listen to, because a lifetime of loneliness besides Mabel has taught him that given a choice, they probably won’t. Except just like Mabel’s all-loving attitude, there’s an element of performance. He doesn’t know everything; he’s inherently irrational to a degree like everyone else. So he tries to seem smarter than he is. His guilt is that he’s failing intellectually and practically, that he isn’t contributing enough to be worth something.
This is where Dipper diverges. He wants to be ethically good less than he wants to be good AT things, and respected for it. But they both beat themselves up when they don’t live up to their self-assigned archetypes of All-Loving Hero and The Smart Guy, when they aren’t good enough by their own unreasonably high standards.
"The Last Mabelcorn" deconstructs Mabel’s fixation on her moral perfection. Celestabellabethabelle, who I will henceforth call C-Beth for short, manipulates it to keep her out of the unicorns’ way. She makes manifest Mabel’s fear that she isn’t good enough no matter what she does. We see Mabel push herself further and further to try to prove herself, much like Dipper in episodes like “Dipper vs Manliness”, and emotionally unravel until she’s miserable, self-loathing and openly listing her vices in a way never seen before. But this isn’t productive! Wallowing in shame doesn’t motivate her to be better! She needs to learn that although she isn’t perfect, the virtues she has are good enough to work with to both get out and kick C-Beth out of her head. She decides to stop worrying about meeting an impossible ideal of goodness and just focus on doing good, by using efficient (if violent, and therefore immoral under certain paradigms) methods to protect her family. Her plot in this episode has its detractors and I understand the criticisms that the message wasn’t handled as well as it could have been. But I think it does okay. Mabel definitely reevaluates her need to feel like a good person here. She switches from prioritizing what’s important to her, the validation of being "pure of heart", to what’s important to others and in the bigger picture, simply getting the unicorn hair to keep Bill out of the Mystery Shack.
Finally, compare the twins’ disastrous errors in judgement in “Scary-Oke” and “Dipper and Mabel vs the Future”, when they both accidentally unleash terrible forces of evil upon the town and set in motion a local apocalypse.
Dipper recites an incantation from Journal 3 that causes the dead to rise as bloodthirsty zombies, desperate to prove to the government agents before they leave that the supernatural is real and warrants their help investigating, driven by both his desire for knowledge (his tool to feel secure in himself) and more immediately his fear of being dismissed as unworthy. He is emotionally vulnerable, but still creates the dangerous situation on his own initiative. Since he doesn’t need a blacklight to read the spell and the beginning of the episode established that he’s already familiar with all Journal 3’s visible entries, he knows what the spell would do. He doesn’t realize how many zombies will appear and how dangerous they’ll be. But he is aware that there are risks. Plus, the Shack is hosting a party full of innocent civilians and Mabel has explicitly asked him not to interfere with weirdness. The one thing she told him not to do that night was raise the dead! And what does he do? Raises the dead.
Mabel is actively deceived and manipulated into giving who she believes to be Blendin Blandin, an expert in time-altering technology, what she believes to be an item of such technology, with the intention of warping time to extend the summer for the town. This is a selfish choice. But on top of how emotionally compromised she is, sobbing in despair after “the worst day of [her] life”, consider her internal logic: the end of summer is going to mean the trials and tribulations of growing up for both her and Dipper, and they won’t even have each other if he gets his way; Wendy is already going through that and has told her how awful high school is; she overheard at least some of the Stans’ conversation at the end of “A Tale of Two Stans”, meaning she might know that Stan will have to give up his home and business once the summer is over; and she and Dipper both have true friends here who they will miss and be missed by, as opposed to their memories of Piedmont where we only see them supporting and comforting each other and never hear of any friends. And it isn’t like she’s the only one having fun! Stan is happier than ever, Ford is back home, Dipper’s come into his own more than she could ever have anticipated. He’ll still get to delve into the mysteries of this town that he loves so much. But she’ll be there too. If you want more Gravity Falls, you can see where she’s coming from. She genuinely thinks that “just a little more summer” would be a positive experience for everyone, with plenty of good reason. Yes, she’s recklessly messing with powerful forces that she doesn’t understand. Yes, she isn’t nearly as suspicious of this sudden miracle solution as she should be. But she has no evidence that this would harm anyone.
Their responses after making their mistake are also noteworthy. They’re both horrified and remorseful. But Dipper expresses no concern for the agents for the rest of the episode when it looks like they’ve been killed due to his actions. He even nonchalantly remarks that he thought they were dead when he sees them again. Mabel, however, reaches to stop Bill and begs him to “wait” before he knocks her unconscious. Then she’s imprisoned in Mabelland, which is designed to make her never want to leave and based on how it only occurs to her after she renounces it that the neon colours and repetitive background music are too much even for her, may additionally have a direct, if subtle, influence on her mind. So she’s a little distracted from her guilt. But by risking her life to fix the repercussions of her actions and save the town, she shows much more responsibility for the townspeople’s lives than Dipper showed for the agents he’d tried so hard to impress. He just happily went about his business for weeks believing he had two people’s deaths on his conscience. Never even looked into whether they survived.
These differences in their personal moral philosophies add another layer to the parallels between the two generations of Pines twins. Typically, Dipper parallels Ford and Mabel parallels Stan. But less so here! Like Mabel, Ford very staunchly believes in abstract moral theory, namely that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. He holds a grudge for weeks against Stan saving him from being lost in the dimensions through the portal, because it endangered the rest of the world by creating the Rift. It was a good deed with good intentions… but it didn’t only make life better for everyone. To Ford, that means it isn’t good enough. Hmm, which younger twin has a problem with judging anything short of ‘pure good’ to not be worthwhile? Also like Mabel, Ford’s self-righteousness is often hypocritical, considering his pride, selfishness and willingness to disregard the possible negative consequences of his actions, e.g. trusting Bill and building the portal in the first place.
Like Dipper, Stan is willing and ready to use underhanded methods to win against his enemies, to lie, cheat, steal and leverage assets he doesn’t really have the right to. He’s more inclined to be aggressive, spiteful and smug. As for holding grudges, even to an unreasonable extent, he personally despised a nine-year-old child even before he knew that the child was a bad person. He would absolutely summon Rumble McSkirmish to attack a rival for him. He prides himself on his cunning, another form of intelligence, and prioritises being good at what he does best over holding the moral high ground. He is shown to have lifelong insecurities about Ford being better than him in other fields (and thus explicitly valued more by their father); so his pragmatism is his way of trying to always be useful to the people he loves, and indeed a key way he shows them his love.
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The Korean Zombie
Pranav Rajashekar
The sport of martial arts has had a significant effect on the sports industry across many countries, including East Asian countries. The rise of professional combat sports has been stimulated by the talent and success of many fighters. One of these fighters is named Chan-sung Jung, a South Korean mixed martial artist that gained popularity throughout various fighting organizations.
Born in 1987 in Pohang, South Korea, Jung was not always accustomed to fighting or violence in general. Unfortunately, Jung was a victim of bullying in school. Furthermore, he has stated in numerous interviews that he was weak growing up and lacked confidence, which often allowed bigger kids to pick on him (Rondina). One of his aunts wanted Jung to become less reserved and stronger, so she enrolled him into Hapkaido classes and later a kickboxing gym when he was around 14 years old (Rondina). Even in college, Jung graduated from Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology with a major in martial arts studies (Rondina). He continued to learn other fighting styles, such as Brazilian jiu jitsu and judo, and was introduced to taekwondo when he joined the South Korean Navy at the age of 18 (Kumar). Jung has a 3rd degree black belt in Hapkaido, 2nd degree black belt in Taekwondo, and black belts in Brazilian jiu jitsu and judo (Wikipedia).
Jung has had great success throughout many professional fighting competitions. He mainly fought in the featherweight division (145 pounds). His debut occurred between the years 2007 and 2008, where he competed in Pancrase Korea, where he won the Lightweight Tournament (Nahta). He also competed in DEEP, a Japanese fighting promotion, and won two fights that bolstered his reputation as a fighter in Asia (Nahta). In 2009, Jung fought in a Sengoku tournament, another Japanese-based promotion, that he eventually lost to Masanori Kanehara (Rondina). Jung later moved to the American side of combat sports, including the WEC and UFC, where he truly made his mark as a fighter. In his time at the WEC, Jung is primarily remembered for his fight with Leonard Garcia and George Roop. Even though he lost both fights, his reputation and worth as a fighter ultimately increased, as he earned bonus checks and awards for winning the “Fight of the Night” award. Jung later fought Garcia again in the UFC in 2011, where he was able to win by submission, a move that was awarded “Submission of the Year” (UFC). After he started to gain traction, Jung earned the nickname “The Korean Zombie,” referencing his nature of not backing down and still moving forward in fights after receiving heavy punches and kicks (Nahta).
youtube
Jung’s main purpose while fighting, apart from winning a belt in the featherweight division, was to try to being mixed martial arts into Korea (Rondina). In one interview, Jung stated that it was hard to popularize any topic, including professional combat sports, into South Korea unless a Korean professional was doing it well (Rondina). Before Jung, the only fight that gained traction in Korea involved Hong-man Choi, who was known for his size more than anything. After his loss to Fedor Emilianenko, the MMA’s popularity had peaked, and only started to go downhill from there (Rondina). This interested me because I have watched UFC fights for some time, and Asian athletes have been steadily making their mark in the company. Influencing a country with a sport like mixed martial arts is extremely difficult, which is what made me want to explore more about Jung’s background and career.
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Making a 3rd Disney Princess DnD Party
KIDAGAKASH
LIFE DOMAIN CLERIC
I’m sure some will argue that she should be a Fighter of some kind, as Kidagakash is clearly an Atlantean warrior when we meet her, but the crystals all Atlanteans wear have healing energy, and the Heart of Atlantis is a very powerful and sacred relic that Kida herself is connected to. This is why I chose Cleric, as it lets her be a healer, using the life-giving energy of the crystal. If that doesn’t tickle your pickle, there are other options, like making her a Champion Fighter or an Ancestral Guardian Barbarian.
MOANA
HUNTER RANGER
I never realized until now that there’s no Ranger subclass for just being an explorer, navigator, or wanderer. Most are protectors against the wilderness. I made Moana a Ranger because finding your way and journeying to uncharted places is a balanced part of a ranger’s breakfast. Survival checks help people to navigate, and no class is more devoted to this skill than the ranger. So, it’s the best way to make Moana a wave finder. As such, I opted for Hunter because she has some fighting skills, and none of the other options were a better fit.
TIANA
GLORY PALADIN
This is probably the farthest stretch I’ve ever had to make for one of these characters, but Tiana is really hard to translate to DnD. The only three things we really learn about Tiana in the movie is that she can cook, she believes in hard work, and she wants to own her own business. While those are fine traits, a lack of abilities or anything we can assign to Tiana basically means we have to shoot for the closest target. Tiana values hard work and puts no stock in destiny or wishes. Well, the Paladin believes in holding themselves to codes and conducts, and the Glory Paladin specifically seeks fame, recognition, awards, or other forms of success. I know it’s meant in more of a grand scheme of life thing, but she’s not driven by a desire to uphold the law, serve her country, or protect those who can’t protect themselves. I don’t know what else to tell you, the Oath of Glory puts a lot of emphasis on the Paladin’s personal ambitions. It’s a loose and weak connection, but it’s about all we got. Otherwise, you’re just stretching to make a Druid because someone else Polymorphed her into a frog.
EILONWY OF THE HOUSE OF LYR
ARCHFEY WARLOCK / SEA SORCERER (Optional)
I had to cheat a little by looking at the Eilonwy from the books, and the books describe Eilonwy as being the daughter of a long line of enchantresses, but that her magical studies were interrupted when she was very young and inexperienced, leading to her being very unskilled in her magic. More importantly, her Bauble can only be summoned by her, and the Warlock not only has a very small pool of spell slots, but the Chain Pact Warlock gets unique familiars that nobody else can summon. This way, even mechanically, nobody can summon her Bauble except for herself. I went with Pact of the Archfey mostly... because there’s very little else to go on, but her Bauble seems like a Pixie to me. As she does come from a long line of magic-users, it’s not out of the question to multiclass into Sorcerer at higher levels once she’s had more training. Specifically, she is related to Lyr, the Welsh god of the Sea, so the Sea Sorcerer is an excellent subclass to Multiclass into.
RAYA
KENSEI MONK
With a fine mixture of hand-to-hand and weapon training, as well as the Eastern influences of the film, Raya feels right at home as a weapon-skilled monk. You could absolutely multiclass her into a Fighter for more weapon proficiency, but she fights in relatively little armor, and her martial arts skills are better than Mulan’s which is why I lean more Monk than Fighter for her.
#disney#disney dnd#dnd#disney princess#disney princesses#dungeons & dragons#dungeons and dragons#kidagakash#queen kida#kida#atlantis#atlantis the lost empire#moana#tiana#the princess and the frog#eilonwy#the black cauldron#black cauldron#raya#raya and the last dragon
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Campaign 3
I’m locking in my final guesses for the Marquet Campaign. Presented in alphabetical order. It’s a few weird races, and no humans, which I didn’t do on purpose. (I’m gonna go 0/7 with these)
Ashley - Elf Bard. I’m not saying this is peer pressure, but many members of the audience want it, and frankly, I think the cast would love to see it too. And of all the cast, Ashley is probably the most content to sit back and just go along for the ride. But they also say that Ashley is very dark, perhaps best exemplified with Yasha and the Champion. I think Ashley would be inclined to make a bard who on the surface seems very much like another College of Lore, but perhaps without even other PCs knowing, slowly reveals themself to be a College of Whispers Bard.
Laura - Half-Orc Rogue. I’m not sold on Half-Orc. I wasn’t sure where she might go on race, so I thought “Maybe she’ll just follow Travis?” Maybe she’ll be the Human of this campaign? I do think Rogue is a decent bet. We know she wanted it campaign one, and Liam grabbed it. Then she lost her warlock in campaign two to Travis. I think she’ll likely go back to her original wish and finally run a Rogue. Perhaps Inquisitive or Scout.
Liam - Dwarf Barbarian. As great a wizard as Liam was, I think he enjoys his martial classes. Dwarf Barbarian sounds a little basic on paper, but I think Liam’s ready to set dark and broody aside for a while. I’d be very interested to see what happens when Liam just lets loose.
Marisha - Genasi Sorcerer. Apparently, Marisha has said she wants to do a high Charisma character. I don’t know if she’ll stick to it, but after Keyleth and Beau, I can understand the desire. Plus, she might miss the power of wielding crazy spells. Sorcerer does both those things. I picked Genasi because - regardless of element - Genasi are hot, and I feel any Genasi could fit the Marquet setting.
Sam - Minotaur Monk. We know Liam chose Sam’s character. Here’s how I think his thought process went. “Okay, so Sam’s played two smaller characters, so let’s go big. Veth was very taken by the minotaur we saw in Xhorhas, so we’ll go minotaur. Sam’s been a support caster. He’s been a ranged fighter. Let’s put Sam on the front line. How about Monk? Minotaur Monk - perfect alliteration. Minotaur Monk it is.”
Taliesin - Warforged Druid. I think the minute Matt said in the recap that the Warforged had been released into Exandria, Taliesin might have set aside anything else he had brewing. I know we just had Caduceus, but I just feel like it would be the most Taliesin thing in the world to explore the juxtaposition and the intermingling of nature and technology, especially through the lens of the “technology”.
Travis - Hobgoblin Fighter. Travis is the one that I just have no idea. We know he wanted to use spells in campaign two, so he chose... Warlock. I feel like I remember early campaign him lamenting only having two spells. Though I also think he likes hitting things. So I’m thinking perhaps he’ll go Eldritch Knight. But I could also see perhaps a Forge Cleric. Or maybe even a War Caster Wizard? As for race, I don’t know if anyone is still gun-shy when it comes to having another spell-casting Dragonborn. If so, Hobgoblin could be a really interesting choice.
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my theory inb4 the finale:
the mysterious cube at niirdal-sarqet was a pre-age of arcanum training tool for prospective spellcasters.
the design of the cube all points to an exceptionally ancient time. it echoes the same long-forgotten mystique as the age of arcanum. the language embedded in it is qoniira—a language older than celestial. some of the power inside hearkens back to dunamancy, the manipulation of time and space, which believers in the luxon allege existed before everything else along with their deity. it's covered in archaic versions of the gods' symbols—not just the prime deities, all of them (excepting the luxon). betrayer gods included, their iconography neutral and non-menacing, as if the people who created it... didn't recognize them as betrayer gods in the first place.
according to the story of the founding in the EGtW (explorer's guide to wildemount, ch. 1), the betrayer gods were only seen as betrayers after the war with the primordials. before then, the gods were just the gods—the creators. all of them together had created the peoples who formed families and cultures and nations. qoniira likely dates to this age.
mortals didn't know how to spellcast at this point beyond divine gifts. so when the primordials, who had claimed the realm for themselves too, eventually decided to wreak destruction and return the realm to elemental chaos, the mortals were nearly defenceless.
this was when the schism between the gods occurred: the ones who would become the betrayer gods fell apart to grief and rage and wanted to wipe the slate clean; let the primordials destroy it all. the ones who would become the prime deities wanted to wage war and save the world they'd created from the primordials. the prime deities ultimately accomplished this by teaching mortals arcane magic. (this was the factor that led the following era to become the age of arcanum.)
why i think the cube was a tool to teach arcane magic:
it's fairly clear that the cube was meant to be both dangerous and easy to access, the way we saw it in episode 7. the command phrases to open it were in qoniira—this would've been easy for anyone native to the tetrarchy to read. even anyone not native or fluent in qoniira would still be able to figure it out with some dedication, as the exu gang made pretty evident. the lack of barrier to activating the cube tells me that access was intended to be unrestricted.
the stone guardians appeared in response to people physically interacting with it. mechanically, each player had to make a wisdom saving throw every time they came in contact with a new face/platform while the cube was active; if they failed, they took 2 points of damage and had their max hp reduced by that amount as a guardian emerged from the stone, apparently fueled by the player's health.
each time this wisdom save was a success, aabria explicitly described the respective player seeing the stone roil before stopping at their attention, unable to form.
before the cube opened, it had begun to move. fearne deliberately forced her will into the cube to command it to stop moving, rolling a 23 spell attack. it listened to her and didn't move; it broke open in place.
recall the command phrases to activate the cube.
the universe above / the universe within / remember what came before / decide what happens next / provide for all / a shield to protect.
note "decide what happens next." this is a phrase meant to be a command to the reader too. in episode 6, tetrarch thrascuur told the party that power—and magic—was about choice. a person deciding and enacting their will on the world around them to realize their desires. if this is the tetrarchy's basic understanding of magic, this command phrase from the cube seems to be teaching that lesson from the get-go.
it ties into the behavior of the cube exactly. the other phenomenon the players experienced was a gift of a powerful boon from 'a mote of light, possibility.' dorian and dariax gained the ability to control the strength of gravity on their bodies; orym got an additional battle maneuver after viewing time as a path forward, like his future; opal, as a martial caster, had an epiphany on how all magic overlaps and got a pool of hit points to heal people with; and fearne was able to change time by willing a d20 roll to be rerolled after viewing time as a sprawling web that she could pluck apart to her liking.
mechanically, each player rolled a d6 on their first turn to determine their boon—except orym, who received a boon without rolling a d6. orym is also the only party member whose class, battle master fighter, doesn't have spellcasting as a feature. the energy of the cube may be limited for those that don't have a lot of experience with or capacity for magic. those who do, though, can get a variety of different powers. based on the others' results (opal: 1, dorian and fearne: 3, dariax: 4), the boons are likely split into three groups: 1–2 seems to correspond to divine-based powers like healing, while 3–4 seems to be dunamancy-adjacent and therefore possibly arcane. 5–6 is a mystery since no one rolled either number, but a probable hypothesis is elemental/nature-based magic.
so, the activated cube will create a hostile stone guardian derived from the person's relative strength, should they fail to use their will to prevent it. at the same time, they receive a gift of power with a random understanding of how to will it into use. the stone guardians challenge the person in combat—an appropriate context for learning magic to fight primordials. the stone guardians' main tactic is brutal too: aiming for what the person fears most. but an effective way, in a controlled situation, to make someone force their will on the world very hard to stop it.
with all that in mind, the rest of the command phrases begin to make a lot of sense too.
"the universe above / the universe within / remember what came before." the first phrase refers to the gods, echoing the story of the founding in the EGtW and its continual references to their origins "beyond the ashen skies." the second phrase likely refers to the primordials, who lived beneath and within the earth. so in the context of devastation brewing at the hands of the primordials, what would a call to "remember what came before" mean—except to remember that the gods had created all mortal life from the elemental chaos? simply by choosing to shape them into existence?
"decide what happens next" is the method by which the person takes control of the power and magic around them—on their own, like the gods themselves.
then: "provide for all / a shield to protect." these two phrases connect smoothly. they can refer to mortals learning magic in order to protect their communities and loved ones from the primordials. it can also refer to the cube itself and the intentions of the gods who would become the prime deities—providing mortals with the methods to protect each other.
TL;DR: i think the cube is a religious artifact that taught mortals arcane magic because of how old it is and how the cube made a really cool arena full of magically-granted epiphanies on the nature of magic and the universe.
thank you for reading my ted talk :-) hopefully you enjoyed it before aabria (maybe) dunks this post into the garbage on thursday.
#cr#critical role#exandria unlimited#cr meta#exu meta#exu theory#cr theories#exu spoilers#niirdal sarqet#prim post#prim says some things#long post#readmore
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Hello! So, something that always intrigued me is the concept of “reverse aus,” and I’ve been thinking about that in the context of Cobra Kai for a while now. How do you think it would go down if Demetri was the one to get roped into Cobra Kai? Obviously, I don’t think he would be as into as Eli canonically was (probably due to it becoming a special interest for him), but I’d be curious to hear your take on it. Would Eli end up going to Miyagi-Do like canon Demetri did, or would Demetri and Eli sort of become the new Evil Karate Husbands™️? And possibly, how do you think Demetri and Johnny’s dynamic would go? (I’m just going to awkwardly add that this is cc-tinslebee, coming to you live from my main blog because I don’t think Tumblr let’s sideblogs send asks-)
So this is actually the SECOND ask I’ve gotten about this scenario--Cherry sent in another one!--so I figured I’d give it a stab. Took me a while to work out how I think it would go and how everything would play out different if Demetri and Eli’s roles were reversed, but I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. I tried to make it more interesting than just “Demetri does all the stuff Eli does and Eli does all the stuff Demetri does.”
Also I lowkey LOVE the idea of Evil Karate Husbands and even though that isn’t the direction this particular AU goes in, I might do a divergent spin-off AU to explore that too??? Because man...the thought of Miguel desperately trying to save his two best friends who have fallen to the dark side...*cries*
Fair warning that this AU is gonna get dark as shit--I fully belive things would’ve gotten equally fucked up between them in a role reverse AU, just, ah...in slightly different ways. A lot of this will not be Happy Times later on, much like their canon relationship XD
OKAY TIME FOR PAIN, LET’S GOOOO
Longboi post so be warned!!!
Season 1
After getting his ass handed to him--for trying to stick up for Eli, no less--Demetri was pissed. Why the hell was he paying some guy to beat him up for daining to have a problem with him bullying his best friend? Going home in a rage, he nearly texted Miguel to tell him he was quitting--but something stopped him just before he hit Send.
He remembered the look on Eli’s face just after Kyler shoved him away. He remembered seeing Eli stiffen when Kyler grabbed him by the chin, practically feeling the terror emanate from his friend’s body. He remembered how completely and infuriatingly helpless he felt.
It certainly wasn’t the first time something like that had happened. But maybe if Miguel was onto something--maybe if karate really could protect him and Eli from the bullies--it could be the last.
Mr. Lawrence (or Sensei Lawrence, as he obnoxiously insisted on being called) hardly let up on bullying Eli. Even at Eli’s request not to call him “Lip” and the pleading of his star student Miguel Diaz himself, the man only seemed to crack down harder--in some sort of twisted effort to “toughen Eli up,” Demetri guessed. Demetri defended Eli every single time, not mincing any words mouthing off at Sensei Lawrence. It got Demetri punched in the face, flipped on the mat, saddled with much harder drills than the rest of the class, but he didn’t give a shit. He wasn’t about to let anyone treat Eli like that, no matter what pain he had to endure for it.
Johnny, meanwhile, is immensely annoyed by this obnoxious, sarcastic kid who just can’t stop running his mouth--but working him twice as hard as the rest of the class is proving to be fruitless in shutting him up. But, Johnny’s finding, Demetri constantly antagonizing him doesn’t have to be a hindrance. Anger like that can be weaponized--the more he provokes Demetri, the more he insults and belittles that Eli kid he’s so attached to, the harder Demetri punches. The quicker he moves when he fights. The stronger he kicks. Johnny sometimes comes home after training covered in nasty bruises, almost entirely from sparring Demetri--they’re enough to make Carmen and Rosa Diaz worry he’s getting jumped on the way home.
One day Johnny takes his ribbing of Eli just a little too far, hoping to get an especially vicious reaction out of Demetri. Eli, pushed to the end of his rope, runs out of the dojo, barely holding back tears. Demetri starts to go after him, but Miguel puts a hand on his arm and stops him, saying they can both check up on him later.
When Demetri finds Eli after practice, Eli’s sobbing. “I can’t do this anymore, Deme. No matter what you say to him, he just keeps picking on me. It never stops.” Demetri winces, because Eli isn’t wrong--Sensei Lawrence really hasn’t stopped bullying Eli at all, and while Demetri was busy letting himself get riled up by it, he didn’t actually think to see how it was affecting Eli. “Well, I know it sucks now, and Mr. Lawrence is a huge asshole, but we’re learning to be tough,” Demetri reasons. “We’re learning to be intimidating. A few more months here, and the bullies will never touch us again! Just like Miguel!” And Eli just scowls, uncharacteristically angry for his timid self, and says “Well, it’s not worth it if I have to feel like shit the whole time! If every time I step in here I get everything about me picked apart, over and over again! I’m done with this, Demetri.”
And just like that, Eli is out of the dojo. Demetri can’t help but be disappointed--he’d looked forward to them training together, and seeing Eli become a badass, fearless fighter who could hand Kyler’s ass to him after all those fucked up things he said to Eli. And to make matters worse, Sensei Lawrence doesn’t stop using Eli as fuel to rip out Demetri’s rage long after Eli’s gone. “Oooh, Loudmouth, feeling sad today? Missing Lip the Quitter?” “You keep throwing punches like that, and you could get beat up by that loser with the fucked lip you were so enamored with. Although knowing you, you’d let him win anyways.” And Demetri can’t help but hate the man, but damn, if it doesn’t feel good to land an especially good hit on him, or jab him in the thigh with a powerful kick.
But things aren’t bad--Demetri still has Miguel, and their new friend Aisha. Eli still hangs out with them outside of practice, and indulges Demetri in his ever-increasing ramblings about martial arts, no matter how nervous and uncomfortable karate tends to make Eli. If Demetri likes it that much, maybe he should make an effort to show interest in it. The four of them crash Yasmine’s birthday party, and Demetri even finds himself smooth-talking them into getting alcohol with his newfound confidence. After all, if he can land punches faster than a snake can strike, how difficult can it be to weasel his way into getting a little beer?
Meanwhile Moon, feeling understandably unfulfilled in her popular clique, takes an interest in the Cool New Karate Gang in town, and after apologizing to Aisha at the beach rager, the two strike up a friendship. She comes to hang out with their group more and more, and Eli finds her surprisingly easy to talk to. Moon constantly makes an effort to include him when the others get to wrapped up talking about karate, and he appreciates her kindness and sincerity. It’s odd, really, how easy it is to have a conversation with her, considering how nervous he tends to get around her. But Eli doesn’t think too much about it.
When it comes time for the tournament, Moon and Eli go together to support their friends. Eli finds his gaze flickering back and forth between Moon and Demetri, lingering on each of them longer than he would care to admit--and he can’t quite explain why. Something about Moon’s wide, excited smile, the smell of cherry shampoo in her hair...but also Demetri’s smug, triumphant smirk when he pulls off an especially impressive move, the way his wiry arm muscles ripple when he fights. They’re both just so...captivating.
Demetri, for his part, is ruthless. Much more so than Eli has ever seen him be. He’s always been sarcastic and cynical, but resigned to his fate--at the tournament, Demetri lashes out in vicious ways the old Demetri would never have had the courage to pull off. He talks shit to the other contestants far beyond what’s considered “sportsmanlike”--and Eli can tell he’s not holding back, with the theatrical body language channeling every awful thing he’s saying.
Demetri fights like lightning--he weaves and maneuvers and strikes at breakneck speed, a limber, flashing form hitting all across his opponent’s bodies before they have any idea what’s happening. He dodges hits and jumps aside like he has some cosmic sense of when and where they’re coming. And it scares Eli, seeing a viciousness and relentlessness in Demetri that he’s never encountered before--but somehow, he finds, he just can’t look away.
Season 2
After the tournament, Demetri’s life has never been better. At the summer’s start, he’s still riding the high of the Cobra Kai tournament win. He didn’t take home the trophy, but suffice to say he got much farther than anyone believed a scrawny, lanky nerd ever would, and he is incredibly smug about it. He realizes, at the end of the day, he’s gotten what he always wanted after all--the bullies don’t come near him and Eli at all, and he can rest easy, knowing Eli is finally safe. However, he’s so busy embracing his new skills that at times, he almost forgets that was ever even an issue. His newfound fighting prowess has caught the attention of Yasmine, of all people--maybe someone who can throw kicks that good isn’t as much of a loser as she originally thought.
She finds out after her family’s plans to go to France for the summer fall through, and she finally patches things up with Moon after their fallout at the beach party. Moon can’t stop gushing about how amazing Demetri was at the tournament--both she and her new friend Eli (who Yasmine definitely thinks seems like a weirdo, but hey--maybe if Moon thinks he’s worth her time, he can’t be that much of a loser) were so impressed with him. Interest piqued, Yasmine joins their little but ever-growing group. She finds herself quickly drawn in by Demetri’s ever-growing confidence, intelligence, and surprisingly enjoyable (if somewhat annoying) sense of humor, and before long, the two are dating.
Yasmine and Aisha are...cool. Kind of. Yasmine doesn’t quite apologize, and the two aren’t friends by any stretch of imagination, but they tolerate each other, and Yasmine refrains from making awful comments and picking on Aisha in front of their friends. Aisha, for her part, does her best not to lash out or be mean to Yasmine either, keeping the peace mainly for Demetri’s and Moon’s sakes.
Meanwhile, it would take an idiot not to notice the rather starstruck looks Eli’s been shooting in Moon’s direction. Moon, for her part, is either entirely oblivious or simply doesn’t even think to consider a shy, timid, nerdy kid as a romantic option, even if she does consider him a friend.
Oddly, Demetri finds himself extremely bothered by Eli’s doe-eyed crush on Moon. He really can’t place why--he has a girlfriend already, so it really shouldn’t bug him so much that Eli is finally growing noticably interested in girls too, now that they tend to be in closer proximity. And it’s not even like Moon seems to be at all interested in reciprocating. Maybe, he figures, it’s the fact that Moon never would have even looked their way if it weren’t for the fact that he and Miguel and Aisha were the “Cool Karate Gang.” The same karate gang, of course, that Eli quit. That Eli didn’t have it in him to fully be a part of. And yet here he is, reaping the benefits still.
Interestingly, Yasmine also seems bothered by Eli’s affections for her friend. Demetri feels her stiffen beside him and sees her shooting disapproving looks whenever she catches Eli staring at Moon. Demetri isn’t sure why she seems to take issue with this too--perhaps she thinks Moon is too good for Eli, and her friend deserves better than a shy, awkward nerd.
Something about this mindset very much rubs Demetri the wrong way, but he pushes the feeling aside. Maybe he should count his blessings instead of being so inwardly critical of his girlfriend. After all, not everyone gets to date the hottest girl in school.
The day of Valley Fest arrives, and Yasmine goes to support her boyfriend. Moon and Eli tag along, eager to support their friends as well. Caught up in the thrill of the blaring music, the bright, flashing lights, the audience cheering, Demetri feels a wave of pride as he looks at his little group of friends that came for him, yelling and whooping and jumping up and down. For some reason, he finds his gaze drawn specifically to Eli, wearing a grin bigger than Demetri’s seen in months and eyes absolutely glowing.
Suddenly Demetri feels an overpowering urge to wrap Eli up in this world he’s fallen in love with, immerse him entirely in the karate that’s made Demetri feel so much more happy and free in the past several months. Grinning, he strides forward and reaches down, using the absurd upper body strength he’s built up since he’s started karate to yank Eli up onto the stage. He hands his best friend a wooden board and steps back, racing forward and snapping it in half with a jumping roundhouse kick. For a few seconds, Eli can do nothing but stare at the broken board, something shifting inside of him.
After that, Eli decides maybe it’s time to give karate another go. Something about the way Demetri positively shone onstage--how genuinely happy all of it seemed to make him--makes him thing it can’t be so bad, even if he does get taunted for his lip again.
He stops by the dojo the following week, gathering up every ounce of courage he has to ask that mean blonde man how he goes about joining the dojo again. He’s hoping against hope that maybe, after all these months of teaching students and a tournament win under his belt, the edge of his pathetic cruelty will at least have been taken off.
No such luck. Upon seeing Eli walk into the dojo, Johnny greets him with “Hey, Lip is back! Real world not treat you as nicely as you thought?” The two are, regrettably, completely alone in the dojo. Eli sucks in his breath--Demetri isn’t around, so if anyone is going to defend him, it’ll have to be him himself.
“Could you please not call me that?” His voice shakes as he says it, but nonetheless, he finishes the statement. It occurs to him that not once in his (admittedly brief) stay in Cobra Kai did he simply...request that Sensei Lawrence not call him Lip. Demetri’s approach was always to get angry about it, go off on the sensei about how wrong it was to mock someone’s appearance, but Eli himself had never been the one to make a case for Sensei Lawrence to treat him better.
It hardly helped. Sensei Lawrence just claimed that if he didn’t want him to call him Lip, he shouldn’t have a freaky lip, and then went on to claim whoever did his cleft lip surgery must have done an awful job. Eli attempted to move away from the topic, but Sensei Lawrence didn’t let up. “It’s hard to when it’s right in front of me. Hard to believe Demetri was so willing to defend you like some knight in shining armor or some shit. You’re pathetic.” Having heard enough, Eli storms out, anger overtaking him. How could he have been so stupid, to think this was going to go any better? Why did he think that just because this man had been willing to help Miguel and Demetri (who were normal) become badass meant he would extend the same treatment to the freak with the lip scar?
Eli calls Demetri in tears. “I don’t know how you can train with someone like him,” Eli spits out. “He’s a shit person, Demetri. I--I don’t know what you and Miguel are thinking. It’s like he gets some kind of...I don’t know, sadistic pleasure out of bullying people. He’s not any better than the people he claims he’s trying to help you fight.”
Demetri, to his horror, reacts only with scorn, scoffing and rolling his eyes. “God, all this drama because he was mean about your lip again? Jesus christ, grow a backbone, Eli. I hate to say it, but I think Mr. Lawrence was right--if you can’t even handle someone making some insensitive comments about your scar, how are you going to handle an elbow to the teeth? Or any training more intensive than a slap on the wrist, anyway?”
Eli can do nothing but just stare at him through the screen. Demetri, the one person who he has always been able to count on to not comment on his scar, the one person who has always comforted him or talked him through it when he cried, is brushing him completely off--being an asshole about the one thing Eli was certain he never would be. Why is Demetri, of all people, not taking his side on this?
All Eli knows for sure is that he doesn’t like this new version of Demetri one bit. What happened to the best friend who was always willing to fight for him, no matter what it took? Now, he seems more concerned with looking cool and tough and upkeeping some kind of ridiculous reputation than Eli’s own well-being.
Over the next few days, a rage he didn’t know he even had in him bubbles up inside Eli. He decides if Demetri’s going to play dirty, so is he. And maybe, if Eli plays his cards right, the old Demetri will come back.
Despite his long-standing frustration with the way adults treat him--delicately, condescendingly, like a Thing of Pity--Eli figures he can get some use out of it for once. If this is the only way they’re going to see him regardless, he might as well use it to his advantage. And so he goes crying to his mom, who he knows for a fact other adults talk about being a “valued member of the community” and probably has some influence and some strings she can pull. He bawls to her about how his best friend has turned into an unrecognizable jerk, all because he’s training with a middle-aged man with the mindset of a high school bully who has no issue verbally abusing his students. Sure enough, discussions are had with the Neighborhood Committee, phone calls are placed, and Eli overhears his mother vowing to shut down that degenerate karate place if it’s the last thing she ever does.
Meanwhile, back at the dojo, Kreese makes an announcement. The elderly, intimidating man has recently teamed up with Johnny to teach--and he gives Demetri the creeps, if he’s honest, but he seems to know his stuff when it comes to karate, so Demetri goes along with this new addition to the sensei roster. However, when Johnny goes off to visit his high school friends and leaves the kids alone with the new Sensei, Demetri can’t help but feel uneasy.
“Now, the dojo’s been getting some concerned phone calls,” Kreese says, arms crossed and expression difficult to read. He doesn’t seem to be angry--if anything, he looks faintly amused. “Parents of the local teenagers are worried. They think Cobra Kai is full of bullies. Think our methods are...abusive, even. They want to shut us down.” Worried murmurs start to echo around the room, but Kreese silences them as he goes on. “Oh, don’t worry. It won’t be a problem. I have my ways of talking people down. We know better, anyhow. They’re just...intimidated by us, because we’ve honed skills here they couldn’t even dream of having. But nonetheless...” Kreese smirks in a way that makes Demetri feels ever-so-slightly unnerved. “If you run into one of your little peers whining to your parents about getting rid of us, well...show them Cobra Kai can’t be messed with so easily.”
And suddenly Demetri’s seething, because he knows exactly who made sure those phone calls got made.
Eli, for all his timidness, is notoriously smart. Demetri knows this intimately. He’d hardly put it past Eli to be this cunning, to manipulate the pitying adults around him to get what he wants.
When the Cobra Kai kids take a trip to the mall later that day, Demetri knows exactly where Eli will be. Every Wednesday, a new issue of Dungeon Lord comes out--they used to go get it together, but since getting into karate, Demetri hasn’t been keeping up. Demetri would figure someone like Eli wouldn’t have the balls to go out in public alone, if not for the fact that he knew how invested Eli was in the current plot.
And so Demetri heads to the comic book store, a group of reluctant Cobra Kai “pledges” in tow. Maybe it’s a bit sadistic, but he likes having someone to be able to boss around--it feels nice to be at the top of the food chain for once. Lord knows it’s the first time that’s happened. And if he isn’t going to milk that tournament win for all it’s worth, then what even is the point?
When Demetri arrives, Eli turns to look at him in confusion. “What are you doing here?” he says, lip curling slightly. “I figured you were too tough for this kind of stuff now.”
Demetri just scoffs and crosses his arms. “Well, Mr. Kreese said the dojo’s been getting some calls from weepy parents concerned we’re bullying their poor kids. Saying our Senseis must be some evil, abusive monsters twisting and corrupting the neighborhood teenagers. So I think you know exactly why I’m here.”
Eli just looks at him with a doe-eyed innocence that makes his blood boil. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Demetri advances on him, eyes flashing. “Don’t bullshit me, Eli. I know you’ve been meddling.”
To his surprise, Eli looks up to meet his gaze evenly, pretense of naiveté completely gone. “And what if I have? I don’t like the influence they’re having on you.”
Well, Demetri doesn’t know what that’s supposed to mean, but he doesn’t like it. “What is it about Cobra Kai that’s got you in such a tiffy, huh? You’re jealous I found a way to fight back and actually protect us? You don’t like that I’m not a pathetic loser you can look down your nose at anymore?”
Eli just looks at him in bewilderment. “Jesus, no, that’s not it at all, dude. Just...do you even hear yourself? You’ve turned into such an asshole since you started all that karate shit. It’s like I don’t even know you anymore. You walk around thinking you’re hot shit and everyone has to bow down to you all because your dojo won some stupid tournament. Well, news flash, Demetri--nobody cares.”
The callous way Eli, of all people, says it can’t help but throw him off. Is that really what his best friend thinks about him now--that he’s just some arrogant prick strutting around flaunting his success?
And then Demetri remembers how he got here--what it was that pushed him to be such a hard-assed fighter in the first place--and he feels a wave of venom coarse through him so powerful that he nearly chokes on it. Before he knows it he’s grabbing Eli by the shoulders and shoving him up against the wall.
“You fucking ungrateful brat,” he spits out, his words poison. “I did it all for you, you know. Everything I did was so that I could finally protect you. And this is how you thank me? After I’ve been getting my ass kicked over and over again so you wouldn’t have to worry about bullies anymore?”
Eli is surprisingly unfazed. “And where was I when you were learning to be such a good protector, Demetri? Getting shit on as a tool to motivate you? Nobody bothering to check how I felt about that? A real good bodyguard you turned out to be.”
“And yet Kyler and his little posse haven’t bothered you once. Who do you think that’s thanks to?”
“Miguel too. You don’t get all the credit. And anyhow, not like it matters when your Senseis would just as soon take the same cheap shots.”
Demetri just curls his lip. “Don’t get mad at me because you were too weak to survive Cobra Kai. Because...what, a middle-aged karate teacher hurt your feelings? I’d like to see how you go about taking a real fist to the jaw.”
Demetri raises a fist as if to demonstrate. Eli flinches, anger and defiance suddenly completely gone as his eyes widen in horror.
“You’d actually hurt me?” he asks softly.
Demetri slowly lowers his fist, realizing the answer as soon as he sees the terrified look in his friend’s eyes.
“Consider this your warning, Eli,” he spits out, with as much venom as he can manage. “Don’t mess around with Cobra Kai, or things are going to get ugly.” He smirks--a little sadistically, he has to admit. “You saw the tournament. Well...you’d better believe that’s the least of what I can do.”
When a downtrodden Eli shows up at Daniel LaRusso’s front door, timidly requesting to learn karate, far be it from Daniel to turn away a new student. Eli’s sob story about how he’s being bullied and threatened by his best friend only makes the new sensei more determined to take him under his wing--Daniel is no stranger to bullying, after all.
The next time Cobra Kai goes on an outing to the mall, Demetri catches Eli in the food court, eating with Samantha LaRusso and that kid whose ass he kicked at the tournament--Robby Keene, was his name? Mr. Lawrence’s kid. This seems...odd. How would Eli have met them?
An unexpected wave of jealousy rips through him. How did shy little Eli manage to make other friends? Let alone with an ex popular girl, of all people. Nonetheless, he figures this might be a good time to make sure his ex-friend isn’t trying to start any more shit with Cobra Kai.
He catches Eli in the deli line, sliding up behind him and purring, “Oh, I hope you haven’t been poking your nose where it doesn’t belong, have you, Eli?”
Eli turns and glares at him with a venom Demetri didn’t know the other boy had in him. “Why, Demetri? Scared your precious Cobra Kai is going to lose all its coolness cred if it gets out how shitty you all are?”
Demetri seethes with anger again, and before he knows it, he’s shoving Eli out of the line and ramming him up against one of the pillars on the edge of the food court. The crowd of eaters around them “Oooooh”s, but Demetri ignores them. He raises a fist again, fully prepared to follow through this time. “I’d watch your mouth, if I were you.”
Eli just curls his lip, more defiant than Demetri’s ever seen him. “You don’t scare me, Demetri. I know who you really are.”
The Cobra Kai pledges start to loom behind them, ready to provide Demetri with backup if needed. Eli notices and scoffs. “Wow, siccing your goons on me too? Way to set up a fair fight, Demetri. You’re so badass.”
Struck by a sudden desire to prove him wrong, Demetri socks Eli in the jaw before he can think better of it. He pauses afterwards, momentarily shaken by what he’s done.
To his dismay, Eli’s horrified shock is short lived before he laughs darkly. “Well, you’re not the only one who knows karate now. I joined Miyagi-Do.”
Demetri just scoffs. Ah yes, a little karate training and Eli, of all people, is going to kick some major ass. “All right then. Let’s see what you got.” He takes a step back, allowing Eli to try and get a hit in.
When the fight breaks out in full force, it’s vicious. Eli throws the first hit, but it’s weak--he’s out of practice since abandoning Cobra Kai. Demetri has him on the ground in seconds, throwing punches and kicks with a speed and rage he had no idea he had. Eli barely has time to get up before he’s getting his ass handed to him.
What Demetri doesn’t count on is Eli’s new dojomates coming to his rescue, getting the smaller boy behind them and executing a near-perfect synchronized fighting routine. Even with his lackeys helping him, Demetri is completely annihilated--nearly unconscious on the food court floor within minutes. The last thing he sees before he passes out is Eli staring down at him, blue eyes wide with horror.
When word of the incident at the mall gets back to Moon, shit hits the fan--to put it lightly. Yasmine is with Moon when she confronts Demetri, but she doesn’t say anything--just stands glaring with her arms crossed while Moon goes off at him. “How could you treat Eli like that? He’s your friend!”
“Not anymore.” Demetri curls his lip. “He joined Miyagi-Do. He’s made it pretty clear where his loyalties lie now, and it’s not with me.”
“Who cares about Miyagi-Do?” She retorts. “He’s still your friend! Our friend! And I don’t like the way you’re bullying him.”
Demetri scoffs. “Don’t you get it? He’s just a pathetic nerd who can’t handle the fact that I’m cooler than him now. All he wants to do is drag me down to his level again, I guarantee it.”
Moon’s gaze is more poisonous than he’s ever seen it. She turns to Yasmine. “Tell him, Yas,” she says, her tone dangerously quiet.
Yasmine sighs. She says--with notable hesitation, Demetri notices--“If you don’t stop bullying Eli, we’re through.”
Thrown off, Demetri laughs harshly. “What do you care? You don’t even like Eli! I see those...disgusted looks you shoot in his direction, when you think we won’t notice.”
Yasmine bites her lip. “That doesn’t matter. Moon is my best friend. If she’s not okay with this whole...thing, then neither am I.”
“You’re not fucking serious. You’re dumping me because your bleeding-hearted friend told you I wasn’t being nice enough to a guy you can’t stand?”
Yasmine pauses, but ultimately stands her ground. “I’m sorry, but if it’s between you and Moon, it’s going to be Moon. So her word goes. So either stop with this whole stupid feud with Eli, or we’re finished.”
“I...” Demetri can only stare at her, shocked. He never could have imagined getting this ultimatum...and yet here he is.
He must have hesitated a second too long, because Moon grabs Yasmine’s arm and starts to pull her away. “I think that’s all the answer we need,” Moon hisses.
“Wait!” he called helplessly after them. Yasmine turns around once as she walks away, but only to spit “It’s over!” over her shoulder. As if for good measure.
Kreese finds Demetri circling a punching bag in the back of the dojo, spinning around it and throwing kicks and punches faster than cobra strikes. Seizing his opportunity, he advances. “What’s wrong, son?”
Demetri turns, tensing. He’s still wary of the man, but to hell with it--it’s not like he has anyone else to talk to. “Fight broke out with Miyagi-Do, and we lost. Pathetic, I know. Please don’t rub it in.”
“Cheer up.” Kreese smirks. “The fight isn’t over until you say it is.”
Demetri just sighs. “No use going in for a rematch. They’re strong. I couldn’t take them again on my own.”
Kreese’s smirk widens. “You’re a smart kid. There are other ways to fight back, you know. You don’t always have to beat them into the ground.”
As he leaves, Demetri lets that sink in.
Well, Demetri is nothing if not tech-savvy. May as well make some use of that Yelp Elite status. He spends hours setting up dozens of sock puppet accounts, programming them to post terrible review after terrible review blasting everything he can think of about Miyagi-Do. The encouragement of violence in youth (Eli had technically punched first, hadn’t he?). The weak, subpar fighting style that broke down as soon as it was challenged by serious fighters. The pretentious, culture-appropriating sensei. Daniel LaRacist indeed.
During the Coyote Creek excursion, Demetri finds himself pitted against Miguel, fighting in the world’s most intense game of what essentially boils down to Capture the Flag. Demetri, about to get the better of Miguel, finds that he can’t help but gloat about his little online attack. Can’t be long before a one-star dojo goes out of business.
When Miguel seems to take issue with it, saying the whole thing is mean-spirited and over the top, Demetri can’t help but scoff. Miyagi-Do has been plenty clear in declaring war--their little battalion at the mall proved that. Demetri wishes Miguel wasn’t still too caught up in pining over Sam LaRusso to realize that.
Miguel, meanwhile, decides this dojo war of sorts is getting out of hand. It turns out Demetri isn’t the only tech-savvy student in Cobra Kai--Miguel designed their website, after all. With a little bit of basic internet coding and some rudimentary hacking, he manages to access the sock puppet accounts Demetri made and take the bad reviews down. He even goes so far as to go over to the Miyagi-Do dojo and personally apologize for how Cobra Kai has been acting, telling Robby Keene that he found out who blasted the bad reviews and took them all down. “We’re not all assholes.”
Come Moon’s end-of-summer party, Demetri is surprised to get an invitation. He hasn’t seen her or Yasmine since they both chewed him out, and Yasmine ended things. But perhaps this is a show of good faith. Maybe Moon wants to be friends again--and maybe that means Yasmine’s come to her senses too, and might be willing to talk things out.
Moon welcomes him when he arrives, previous animosity gone for the moment. “Hey, thank you for inviting me. I’m...sorry,” he starts. “Of how we left things off. I was an ass to you and Yas.” “It’s alright,” Moon replies cheerily. “I invited you because...well, I’m hoping that before school starts, we can stop all the fighting and be friends again.”
His heart sinks as he sees Sam LaRusso lead a stream of kids through the door, Eli trailing at the end, and he realizes exactly what she means. The Miyagi-Dos are here.
He sits forlornly on a couch with Mitch and Aisha, thinking about how much worse this night just got. He brightens, however, when he sees a shock of blonde hair at the door not long after. So Yasmine came after all.
Moon grins in delight, calling over to her. Taking a breath, Demetri stands up and approaches the two girls, determined to smooth things over with them both.
He’s not surprised to see Yasmine make a beeline for Moon, not noticing him for the moment. What he isn’t expecting is for Moon to sweep Yasmine into her arms, kissing her full on the mouth.
Demetri stops in his tracks. The girls turn to him a few seconds later, seeming to notice him for the first time. They look at him expectantly, as though waiting for him to finish walking over to them. Or say something, and not just stand there gawking stupidly.
“Uh...are you two...um...like...uh...” All he can do is shuffle closer and gesture abstractly, not able to find words. Yasmine blushes and looks away, while Moon tucks a hair behind her ear, her smile strained.
“Yeah. It’s new,” she admits, laughing nervously. “We’re, um...”
“Girlfriends?” Yasmine offers, looking up and smiling at Moon with uncharacteristic shyness. Demetri can’t help but bristle--shyness she never showed him.
Well, far be it from him to be judgmental. Even if Yasmine broke his damn heart just now, Moon is still his friend. He gives them a strained smile. “That’s...that’s great! Happy for you two. No shame in uh...trying out something like that.”
Demetri excuses himself and sulks back to the now-empty couch, mind racing as he sits down. Is that why Moon was trying to encourage Yasmine to break up with him? Was it even about Eli at all? Did Moon just want Yasmine for herself? It seemed unlike Moon, but who could say?
And Yasmine...had she always wanted Moon, too? Is that why she seethed every time she saw Eli shooting lovestruck glances at her friend?
...had she even ever liked Demetri at all, or was he just a cover-up for the fact that she was...lesbian? How was someone as feminine and fashionable as Yasmine a lesbian, anyways? All the lesbians Demetri saw on tv cut their hair boyishly short and had about 5 nose rings and walked around in leather jackets and combat boots.
His thoughts are interrupted by the last sweatered boy he wants to see taking a seat at the other side of the couch, glancing nervously at him with darting eyes. What did Eli want? And why was he so nervous? He’d been unduly bold as of late.
“You seen the new Doctor Who trailer?” Eli mutters.
Something about the nonchalant way he says it--like this is the olden days, when Demetri always felt like shit about himself and had no one who tolerated him but Eli--makes Demetri’s blood boil. He scoffs. “I have better things to do than watch nerd crap like that.”
A short silence. “Capaldi regenerated,” Eli offers finally. “I know you weren’t big on 12.”
No more Capaldi? Demetri turns to look at Eli, interest suddenly piqued.
“What’s the new doctor like?” he asks before he can stop himself.
Eli grins. “She’s a badass.”
“She?” Demetri finds himself grinning back. “How progressive of them. Welcome to the 21st century, Doctor Who.”
A sudden giggling catches his attention, and Demetri looks to where Yasmine and Moon are sharing a chair across the room, tangled up in each other’s arms and trading soft kisses like they don’t have a care in the world. He tenses.
Eli seems to sense his discomfort, and sighs. “Hey, I’m sorry, man. If it helps at all, I liked Moon a lot, too.”
Demetri just scoffs. “Yeah, but I guess it doesn’t matter now. They just have to be gay, right?”
Eli gives him a strange look. Demetri shuffles uncomfortably, realizing what he’s probably thinking about. The...incident, 4 years ago. Demetri glares at him, hoping to banish the thought before it arrives. None of that meant anything--they were just dumb kids. Dumb kids doing dumb shit that didn’t matter.
“I don’t know, I mean...if they’re happy together, shouldn’t we just be happy for them?”
Eli reaches out and squeezes his shoulder, and Demetri hesitates. Their special touch. Eli still remembers, even after everything that’s happened.
For a moment he’s overcome with longing, wishing things with Eli could just go back to how they used to be. Back when he knew no matter what hell he went through at school, Eli would always be there to pick him back up again. But then it sinks in what Eli’s really trying to say.
Be happy for them. What a bunch of Miyagi-Do bullshit. Just accept his sad little lot in life, just like he used to do. Go back to nerdy little Eli at the bottom of the food chain, doomed to spend the rest of his youth admiring pretty girls from a vast distance.
He never wants that to be him again.
“Oh, fuck you, Eli,” he spits, grabbing Eli’s hand and yanking it off of his shoulder. Eli freezes, looking like he’s just been slapped.
“What, so I’m supposed to do like you, moping and pining and hoping a pretty girl will look my way if I wish hard enough and just sucking it up when she doesn’t? Well, I’ve had plenty enough of that--I’ve been on the top. And I’m going to be on the top again. But you? You’ll always be pathetic--you and your entire sorry excuse for a dojo.”
He gets up and walks away, bristling with an anger he can’t even fully place anymore.
As Eli watches Demetri go, he realizes he’s finally had enough. Demetri doesn’t want to patch things up? He just wants to keep being an arrogant shithead? Fine. But Eli’s not about to take his prodding and insults anymore.
Eli makes his way over to Moon--still his friend, despite the unreciprocated feelings--and Yasmine, strikes up a conversation with them. Yasmine, he notices, is being notably nicer to him--probably at Moon’s request. They get to talking about sexualities, and Eli accidentally lets a little something slip about Demetri.
When they were 12 years old, they had kissed. It was Eli who suggested they practiced kissing, to get ready for all the girls they would inevitably date. However, a bit of choice wording and it sounded like Demetri had planted one on Eli out of nowhere...and Eli, of course, hadn’t liked it one bit, because he was totally straight. “You can’t tell anyone, though,” he pleaded the girls, big sad eyes every bit as convincing as he had hoped. “Demetri doesn’t want it to get out that he’s...you know. Gay. He’s worried it’ll ruin his reputation.”
Moon nods sincerely, but Eli can tell from the almost imperceptible smirk on Yasmine’s face that she has other plans. If there’s one thing he’s learned about Demetri’s ex over the last few months, it’s that even trying to be a better person, she can’t resist a good bit of juicy gossip.
And from what Eli gathers...two girls dating? No problem, as long as they’re hot and popular. At least creepy guys can fetishize it. But guys liking other guys? Now that...Eli has a feeling that won’t go over well.
As soon as Eli excuses himself, Yasmine gets to work. A few whispers at the snack table when Moon isn’t looking, and news of Demetri’s supposed orientation spread like wildfire.
Demetri, meanwhile, is determined to prove Eli wrong. So what if Yas doesn’t want him anymore (or never did, the mean voice in his head keeps prodding)? He’ll find another hot girl to have on his arm. He’s a top Cobra Kai fighter, after all--it’s not like it’ll be difficult.
He saunters over to a group of girls, leaning up against the wall in what he thinks has to be a very suave way. “Hey ladies,” he says. “Name’s Demetri. I’m sure you’ve heard about me--seasoned Cobra Kai fighter, finalist in the All-Valley tournament. But no need to be intimidated--if any of you beautiful ladies ever need a hand with anything, I’ll--”
“Take it off of the nearest dick to help us out?” one of the girls cuts him off. They all break out in snickers. “No thanks.”
Demetri freezes. Why would they think...?
Then he realizes there’s only one person who could have made them think he was into that sort of thing.
He tenses. “I don’t know what you’ve heard, but--”
“We’ve heard all we need to,” another girl says, eyeing him up in disgust. “Not interested in getting it on with someone who’s probably had his cock up another guy’s ass, to be blunt. Gross.” Before Demetri can say another word, the girls are gone, turning and slinking hurriedly off into the crowd.
Every time Demetri tries his luck with another girl, he gets similar rebuffs. And every time, he seethes a little more. Fucking figured--timid little Eli couldn’t take the fact that Demetri had worked up the confidence to win over a girl and he hadn’t, so he had to ruin Demetri’s chances with every other girl so he’d feel better.
Besides, Demetri remembers that day from 4 years ago. He remembers that Eli was just as into...all the stuff they did.
Unfortunately, before Demetri has a chance to go over and confront Eli about the whole business, the cops show up. He’ll just have to wait until school, he figures.
Meanwhile, word gets back to Sam that Miguel showed up at her door, apologizing and promising he took all the bad reviews down--apparently Robby didn’t relay any of this to her. When Miguel admits to Demetri about the drunken kiss, Demetri chuckles, slapping him on the back. “My man! Trying to build up a whole harem here, are we?”
Miguel sighs, looking sullen. “I cheated, dude. That’s shitty.”
And then comes the PA announcement. Tory Nichols is starting shit, and Demetri can’t pretend he’s not intrigued to see where this goes.
As soon as the fight breaks out, Demetri is overcome with adrenaline. He whips through the crowd, spinning and throwing kicks and punches like explosive flashes. All he can think of is Eli, Eli, little Eli...oh, when he finds him, there’s going to be hell to pay.
And it doesn’t take long--of course Eli is the one who tries to pull a teacher in to stop the fight. The fucking wimp.
When Eli makes a run for it, Demetri can’t help but smirk when he leads him straight to the computer lab. How very typical, for someone whose hero is Steve Jobs. He grins, something frighteningly sadistic bubbling up inside of him.
For a second it almost scares him, how badly he wants to drive his foot into Eli’s chest.
“Little Eli Moskowitz!” he taunts, before he can stop himself. “Cowering away in the computer lab, just like the little nerd he is. Can’t hide forever, outer. I know damn well what you told them about me.”
He tries door after door, continuing in a singsong voice as he goes. “Oh dear me, what would they say if they knew you enjoyed it too, Eli? Well, I guess they won’t believe me now. But I know. I know you’re no better than me.”
Ever since they were kids, Demetri has been the speedier one. They used to race across the playground at recess, pretending to be Quicksilver and the Flash, but Demetri always came out ahead. Long, gangly legs tended to do that. So when Eli turns to see Demetri in the doorway, and he makes a run for it, he doesn’t get far.
Demetri grabs Eli around the waist and throws him against the wall, whipping kicks and hits into his stomach and thighs faster than he can block. Demetri hardly notices the bruises forming, or the bleeding cuts.
It’s then that Eli does something Demetri doesn’t expect--flips the script, as it were. As Demetri reaches out to strike again, Eli surges forward and grabs him by the shoulders, flipping him around and pinning him against the wall. Maybe Miyagi-Do specializes in defense, but they still taught him how to throw a good hit or two. He throws defense to the wayside and starts raining punches down on Demetri--sloppy, uncoordinated, but something the “Strike First” Cobra Kai student is entirely unprepared to defend.
When his chest is stinging and his head throbbing, Demetri can’t take anymore. Eli was a lot more...well, powerful than he expected. At his first opportunity, he turns and books it. Maybe this isn’t a fight he can win after all.
Eli doesn’t chase. As angry as he still is at Demetri, he can’t stop thinking about the mars and bruises and cuts that appeared across Demetri’s face and skin as he punched him, mirroring his own, and he feels sick. He can’t hurt Demetri anymore, no matter what Demetri thinks of him now.
Demetri just makes it to the staircase when he sees Miguel motionless on the floor, Robby Keene looking over the railing. Sam LaRusson hovering over him. He runs to Miguel’s side, world crumbling around him.
Turns out he showed mercy, just like Mr. Lawrence always said to. And look where it got him. When John Kreese offers him a place in a new Cobra Kai, determined to make the Miyagi-Dos pay for hurting Miguel, Demetri isn’t about to say no.
In his grief, it seems like the only option.
Season 3
On the first day back at school, Mitch is quick to remind Demetri that there are other girls in the world besides Yasmine. Surely it won’t be too hard to work his charms on some of the freshmen--after all, word about that little incident with Eli when they were 12 can’t have gotten across the entire school, can it?
“Well, hello, ladies!” he purrs to a passing group, leaning against the wall in the most nonchalant way possible. “Welcome to West Valley High. I know freshman year can be intimidating, high school classes and new people and all, but if you ever need help with anything, I’m--”
“--the scrawny little gay kid who ran his pussy ass away from the world’s easiest fight?” one of the girls finishes scornfully. “Yeah, we know.”
As they walk away, he notices one shoot a flirty smile at a passing Eli, surrounded by his squad of Miyagi-Do losers. “Ooooh, you’re famous now, E!” he hears Chris say, and his blood boils all over again.
Ah. So everyone knew about Eli’s little triumph.
Mitch saunters over, and Demetri follows his lead. “Got something to say?!” he snaps.
Demetri’s eyes lock with Eli’s, and he glowers down at him. Eli’s face is tight, expression almost...sad.
Not like he’d expect anything less from that little crybaby.
“Oh, little Eli,” he chides. “I’d like to see you try and hide behind security.”
“I don’t need to,” Eli mutters, not breaking eye contact.
“Everything all right here?”
At the sound of the counselor’s voice, Eli does something unexpectedly bold. He sidles up to Demetri’s side and presses into it, throwing an arm around his shoulder. “No, Counselor Blatt, we’re all friends here!” he says, offering that shy little Eli smile that made every adult in a nearby vicinity go mad with protectiveness.
Eli’s arm is tight around his neck--like a chokehold. But, Demetri notices after a few moments, it’s shaking--the grip almost frantic. Like he’s scared of when he’ll have to let go.
Odd.
Demetri turns, and his and Eli’s eyes lock. He tries to give the shorter boy the most intense, seething glare he can under his forced smile, but Eli returns the look with equal intensity. Demetri jostles his backpack his backpack and thumps him on the chest, feeling an odd compulsion to touch his old friend right back.
Maybe he missed feeling Eli’s body underneath him. But that wasn’t a thought he could afford to spend a lot of brainpower on right now. “Yeah!” he says. Of course we’re still friends! Of course you didn’t fuck up my love life and humiliate me to the entire school because you couldn’t handle the fact that I was getting some and you weren’t!
When the counselor chides them about having somewhere to be, Eli just nods, murmuring, “Yeah, of course, Counselor Blatt. Sorry.”
As Eli pulls away, he pats Demetri’s shoulder a couple times. Small, almost imperceptible, but there.
Demetri can’t tell if it’s serious--if Eli still cares--or if it’s just a cruel mockery of their old touch. He’s not sure he wants to know.
When Demetri runs into Samantha LaRusso in the hospital and she insists she wants to help, he hardly expects a whole fucking fundraiser gleefully using Miguel as their poster child. As though the Miyagi-Dos weren’t the ones who put him in the hospital in the first place. When he catches a glimpse of the carwash while driving Mitch to practice, he decides he’s going to do something about it.
Beating up the kid is an easy fight, getting the money with Mitch and the others a sinch. Maybe at some point he would’ve felt bad for this--pummeling some short kid and then taking his charity money. But all he can think of is Miguel, his best friend, lying in a white gown and hooked up to wires. Because of this kid and his stupid “peaceful” dojo.
Peaceful, Demetri’s ass.
When Demetri walks into the cafeteria the following Monday, he’s not sure what he expects to see at Yasmine and Moon’s table, the place where he would be sitting, under different circumstances--but it definitely is not Eli Moskowitz with his hair dyed bright blue and spiked up. Miyagi-Do blue. Apparently all that coolness cred he felt he got from “scaring” Demetri off in the school brawl has gotten to his head, and he’s playing out his new “badassery” up to 11. He’s showing something to Yasmine and Moon, and they’re smiling and giggling. Yasmine, of all people, is smiling at nerdy little Eli’s antics.
Demetri squints, and sees that Eli’s showing the two girls a comic book--he recognizes the copy. It’s Eli’s limited edition Captain Marvel comic book, signed by Kelly Sue DeConnick herself. Demetri remembers standing in line with him at a con to get it a few years back--he’s pretty protective of the thing.
And now he’s using it to impress girls? Because apparently Yasmine and Moon are into that kind of thing? Oh, but of course Yasmine couldn’t be into nerd shit when DEMETRI was dating her, could she?
And those gooey eyes Moon is giving Eli, her little giggles--Demetri doesn’t like them one bit. What, now Eli’s worth her affections--now that his “nerdiness” is cool? Aren’t she and Yasmine a stupid item, anyways?
Deciding he’s going to put a stop to this, Demetri saunters over, lunch tray clutched so hard his knuckles are turning white. Before the group can react to his presence, Demetri picks up his chocolate milk carton and dumps it all over Eli’s stupid blue hair, making sure to get plenty on the rare comic book in front of him.
“Oh, I hope that wasn’t important, was it Eli?” he taunts, voice thick with mock sympathy. “That sure would be a shame.”
Eli turns to look at him, eyes wide with heartbroken shock. For a moment, the anger doesn’t set in.
“I had to wait in line 5 hours to get that,” he says quietly. “You know that.”
“Sure do.” Demetri smirks. “And it took all of 5 seconds to completely ruin. How tragic.”
Eli tenses, eyes darting around for a couple seconds. Demetri starts to walk away, his point made, when he feels an iron grip on his wrist. He turns to see Eli smirking at him, clutching his arm with more force than he ever thought possible from the once-timid boy.
“Careful there, Demetri,” Eli sneers. “Coming all the way across the cafeteria to bother me when you’ve got your cool Cobra Kai friends to hang out with? People might think you’re a little...obsessed with me.” Yasmine and Moon snicker, and Demetri bristles as he realizes the implication.
“Although I shouldn’t be surprised since you love obsessing over other boys, don’t you?” Eli goes on, like his point isn’t clear enough. “Y’know, I feel bad for Yasmine. I mean, any idiot could tell she used you as a beard, but I had no idea it was a mutual thing.”
Demetri tenses, willing himself not to lose his cool. “Really letting that little victory get to your head, aren’t you, Eli? Honestly, I was going easy on you. Now I know not to next time.”
It’s at that moment that Sam LaRusso decides to show up, sliding up next to Eli and glowering up at Demetri. “There won’t be a next time if I have anything to say about it,” she retorts.
Demetri can’t help but scoff. Of course Sam LaRusso would be all too eager to defend her little pet nerd now, even though she was all too happy to laugh at him with her mean girl friends a year ago. “I’m not scared of you,” he says. “Like you’d start any fight daddy couldn’t bail you out of. Or that doesn’t end with your ex boyfriend getting thrown over a railing because you couldn’t keep your hands to yourself.”
It’s a low blow, but Demetri doesn’t care. It’s hard not to look at this girl and see part of the reason Miguel might never be able to walk again.
Sam LaRusso shoves him just as the godawful counselor is sauntering over, but to hell with it--maybe Demetri could spin this to his advantage.
“She hit me, Counselor Blatt!” he cries out, pointing at Sam. “Attacked and physically assaulted me, completely unprovoked!”
“That’s not true,” Eli mumbles, eyes darting. Flawlessly slipping back into the poor little Eli role in a way that never fails to make Demetri seethe. “It wasn’t unprovoked. He started all this by destroying my limited-edition comic book for no reason.”
Demetri puts on his most convincing remorseful face and sighs. “Look, that was an accident. I just tripped while I was walking and my milk spilled. Anyhow, if your book’s that valuable, you probably shouldn’t bring it into a school cafeteria where people are more than likely going to spill food on it.”
He’d like to see the dumb counselor argue with that.
“Look, I don’t want excuses. I just want you all to respect each other.”
“Oh, absolutely.” Demetri turns to give Eli a forced smile. “Nothing but 100% respect in this environment going forward, I assure you. Sorry if we caused any problems.”
Please, just anything to make her leave.
With one last warning to Sam LaRusso, the counselor is gone. Demetri turns to the two Miyagi-Dos and smirks.
“To hell with respect,” he sneers. “Your lot hardly deserve it.”
It doesn’t surprise Demetri when Eli and his little gang of Miyagi-Do losers decide to start shit in gym class. What he isn’t expecting is for Eli and his stupid blue hair to start running next to him--right after he’s tried and failed to catch Yasmine’s attention after scoring a goal.
He’s been thinking about her all morning--was Eli right about her? Did she only use him as a cover-up?
...would no one ever want to date him for him?
Well, maybe if he won Yasmine back, he could disprove that. If Moon was going to be hanging off of Eli’s arm before too long, chances were her and Yasmine’s relationship’s days were numbered.
Whatever Eli is about to say, Demetri can already tell it’s not going to help.
And it doesn’t. “Wow, Demetri. Few guys are so bad in a relationship that they manage to turn their girlfriend gay. I hope you feel accomplished.”
Demetri balls his fists. “Say that again. I dare you.”
“You really did have a good thing going with her,” Eli sighed, voice laced with condescending pity. “It’s a shame she decided she could do better than some belligerent Cobra Kai douchebag.”
And then suddenly Eli lunges for him and tackles him, knocking him to the ground just as easily as Demetri once did to Eli at the mall.
Not that it ended up mattering all that much--Demetri was able to talk the Cobra Kai’s way out of trouble in the principal’s office, just as he so often could. Nonetheless, it seemed Eli was hardly turning out to be as much of a pushover as he thought.
When Mitch and the guys invited Demetri to go to Golf N Stuff--fuck around for a bit, cause some mayhem--he wasn’t about to say no. The thrill took over, running around, snatching tickets and prizes away, throwing them in the trash--he almost felt as powerful as Kyler must have, all those months ago when he tossed the lesser kids’ backpacks in the garbage. Is this how it felt, to be on top? To have everyone else too scared to mess with you?
Because Demetri loved it.
What he wasn’t counting on was Sam LaRusso and her little posse arriving to confront them in the laser tag arena--including Eli, face hardened and ready to fight.
Things seemed to be going pretty poorly--that was, until Tory Nichols and the backup arrived. That reduced Sam LaRusso to a sniveling mess, and finally it looked like this would be an easy finish.
Demetri found himself only stalling for a second when the way cleared for him to go at Eli. Something about the sudden terror on the other boy’s face made him hesitate, but not for long. Eli threw a weak punch, and Demetri quickly flipped him onto the ground, pulling his arm up behind him.
“No, please, stop, Deme, stop! It’s me!”
Deme...
Eli’s old nickname for him.
Demetri pauses, and suddenly he feels sick. Deme...Eli’s nickname. Eli.
Wasn’t all of this for Eli? To protect Eli?
And now here he was, about to hurt him. The one thing he swore he was going to stop everyone else from doing.
And then comes the goading cries from Tory, Mitch, and the others. Do it! Finish him! He deserves it!
He deserves it.
And then Demetri remembers what happened to Miguel when he didn’t take his chance to finish the fight with Robby Keene. Suddenly Demetri’s running out of the end of a hallway again, seeing Miguel’s motionless body lying on the stairs, and the rage and horror and mind-numbing devastation hit him all over again.
“Demetri, finish him!”
In a split second, Demetri makes his decision. Eli’s arm snaps in half.
All it takes is one terrible, pained scream from Eli for Demetri’s entire world to come crashing down on him. What the fuck did he just do?
He can’t even hear the other Cobras, gleefully congratulating him and sneering at the “pussy” on the floor. All he can hear are Eli’s pained sobs.
He’d seen Eli cry before, but never like this. Never thanks to him.
When everyone congratulates him next practice, Demetri barely hears. He’s just numb. All he can see is Eli, curled up and crying on the dirty cement floor. When Tory tells him she didn’t think he was going to do it, all he can manage out is that Miyagi-Do had it coming for hurting Miguel.
And as if his week can’t get any worse, here come Kyler and his goons sauntering into the dojo like they own the damn place. Demetri does his best to convince Mr. Kreese this is by no means a wise idea, but the sensei will not hear of it.
When Kyler and Brucks realize who he is, it only makes Demetri more livid. “Oh shit, it’s the yogurt backpack kid! Lip’s little friend! I thought he moved away!” When a fighting ring is formed, giving the new recruits a chance to “earn their spot,” Demetri is all too ready for combat.
He’s horrified at how quickly Brucks takes down Mitch, how quickly his friend is ushered out the door. It was bad enough to see Bert go, but this...this is different.
He can’t remember the last time he’s felt more alone.
When Kyler steps forward, looking for an opponent, Demetri volunteers before anyone else can. Mr. Kreese shoots him a surprised look, but he doesn’t care. This fucko has been making his life hell for years--he can already tell this is going to be therapeutic.
Demetri doesn’t hold back. The fight has barely started before Kyler’s had enough. A few fast hits and his lip’s already bloody, and he’s backing away. “No...please stop...”
And suddenly Demetri’s back in the library, on that afternoon that seems like an eternity ago, watching Kyler grip Eli by the throat. Hearing him sneer “who would ever want to kiss THAT shit?” like Eli was the most disgusting thing he’d ever seen. Feeling absolutely powerless, hand clutching the back of a chair as he burned with rage that had nowhere to go.
Well, he wasn’t powerless now.
And before he knows it Demetri has Kyler pinned to the ground, landing punch after punch to his face. Because, he realizes, at the end of the day, who gives a fuck if Eli’s on the other side?
That’s still his Eli, even after everything. The same Eli he stood by for over 10 years, the same Eli who he wished so long that he could protect from everything, the same Eli who felt like he had to constantly hide a tiny red line on his face because his peers collectively decided--for no good reason at all--that it was ugly.
And maybe he couldn’t make those people hurt the way he wanted to then, but right now...well, he could hurt at least one. And that was enough.
He doesn’t stop until Kyler is practically pulverized and his hands are drenched in blood. After throwing his last punch, he smirks, leaning down to whisper into Kyler’s ear.
“Now who’d want to kiss THAT shit? That’s right, asshole--I remember.”
Demetri kicks Kyler’s limp form as he walks away. He shoots Brucks a glare as he falls back in line--just for good measure.
When Miguel comes back to school, Demetri’s one of the first to greet him at the door. “Cobra Kai’s still going strong! It’s going to be great to have you back!” He’s a little confused as to why Miguel seems so hesitant, but he doesn’t worry too much about it--they can sort through all that later.
Miguel’s certainly taken aback by the clunky cast he sees on Eli’s arm when he runs into him in the hall--but perhaps even moreso by the fact that he has both shamelessly dyed his hair blue and spiked it up in a mohawk and is currently walking the school hallways with Moon on his (unbroken) arm. As it turns out, once word got back to Moon that Yasmine was the one who had shamelessly whispered around the school about Demetri being gay, she had broken things off with her. And, with his new “coolness” upgrade, she’d taken quite a liking to Eli.
Not like she had any way of knowing he’d been planning on Yasmine’s cruel gossip, after all.
But the cast, Miguel quickly learns, has a much darker backstory than anything he could have expected.
He wastes no time confronting Demetri about it in the lunchroom. “I heard what happened with Eli. How could you do that?”
Demetri’s stomach clutches. He scowls, determined not to show his discomfort.
“Wow!” He scoffs. “We go to all the trouble of getting payback on those assholes for getting you thrown over that railing, and this is the thanks we get?”
Miguel shakes his head, horrified. “Dude, who cares what dojo Eli’s in? He’s our friend! And in any case, it’s not his fault what happened to me. What the hell were you thinking?”
I don’t know. I don’t know. Demetri’s face hardens. He can only imagine how angry Mr. Kreese would be with him if he caught him showing any kind of weakness. Any kind of second-guessing.
But he can’t help it. Glimpsing Eli in that cast for the first time...
“Look, the Miyagi-Dos were the ones who picked a fight with us,” Demetri retorts. “We just had to do what we had to so they’d back off and leave us alone. We had to finish the fight.”
Miguel pauses, looking pained. “This isn’t...this isn’t you, Demetri. You’re letting Kreese get in your head. He’s trying to manipulate you, get you to...obsess over revenge so you’ll hurt people. But I know you, and I know you don’t want to. Eli, or anyone else.”
Demetri clenches his fists. “What would you know about how I feel about Eli?”
“Look, I can’t claim I know what’s going on between you two,” Miguel amends. “But you have to believe me--Kreese is dangerous. He’s using you. He doesn’t care about you, Demetri. Just...come to Sensei Lawrence’s new dojo. Please. Things can be like they used to. You don’t have to be in this...this war.”
This gives Demetri pause. “He...made a new dojo?”
Okay, so he’s still not Mr. Lawrence’s biggest fan--the man is an asshole at the best of times. But to be able to train with Miguel again...to be able to be badass without being expected to be some soldier...
He can’t finish speaking before Brucks’s voice rings out through the cafeteria. “Look everyone, Lip’s got a dick in his hand!”
Demetri looks up to see Eli being held by the cast, eyes darting around as the entire cafeteria bursts into laughter. Involuntarily, Demetri bristles.
And there it is again, that feeling of being the helpless kid in the library as Eli’s taunted. And even after all this time...he still hates it.
Miguel turns to him, shaking his head. “So these are your friends now? I thought you were better than that.”
And just like that, Miguel’s gone. Gone from the Cobra Kai table, gone from Demetri’s life.
It makes him wonder if he’s making a huge mistake. But he knows he can’t back out now--not when he’s this far in. Who would even want to take him back? Probably not Miguel and Mr. Lawrence--despite what Miguel said, Demetri knows there’s no way he’s going to forgive him so easily for hurting their other friend. And certainly not Eli.
What makes it even worse is seeing Eli later that day, curled up against some lockers with Moon. Moon is tracing over his cast in colored sharpie, slowly transforming the dick pic into a beautiful landscape and night sky. Eli is bragging about how the arm-breaking didn’t hurt that bad.
Demetri remembers when that soft little smile was reserved only for him, and a pit starts to form in his stomach.
Well, no use bitching. You did this to yourself.
It seems like the world is out to just make Demetri’s existence in Cobra Kai as shitty as possible these days. Mitch and Bert are gone, Miguel isn’t coming back, Brucks is being a royal douchebag like always, and perhaps worst of all, Robby Keene shows up at the dojo. Demetri tries his damndest to appeal to Mr. Kreese about how outrageous this is--this is the kid who paralyzed Miguel in the fucking first place, what’s the point of dojo-wide revenge if they just take in the main culprit like an old buddy? But of course Mr. Kreese spouts some nonsense about how they need all the help they can get for the All-Valley, and sometimes you have to be allies with people you aren’t the biggest fans of, blah blah blah. To make matters worse, Tory--not a friend exactly, but probably the closest thing Demetri’s got to one left--is getting far too chummy with Robby for Demetri’s taste.
Maybe Demetri’s insane, but it seems like more and more ridiculous shit is being handwaved in the name of...what? Winning a karate tournament? Getting revenge for a kid who’s already recovered, and doesn’t even seem to want it?
When word gets back to Cobra Kai that Miyagi-Do and Eagle Fang are teaming up, Kreese sends the students on a special mission: Show the other dojos that even with their combined forces, they’re no match for Cobra Kai. It seems like a waste of time to Demetri--why antagonize other dojos just minding their business? It’s not like there was anything worth fighting for in this dumb war anymore, considering Miguel was on his feet again (literally AND figuratively). Nonetheless, Demetri finds he’s itching for a good fight--it’s been way too long since he’s charged into a full-fledged battle.
Maybe this will help him get it out of his system, if nothing else.
When the fight breaks out at the LaRussos, it doesn’t take long for Demetri to be overtaken by the thrill of it. Just like he was at the school fight. Just like he was at the tournament. He’s zipping through the house, landing kicks and punches left and right. And it feels good. With everything having been so awful lately, he can’t remember the last time he’s felt more alive.
And then he lands a fierce kick, and Brucks chest-bumps him. “Hell yeah! kick some ass! Dumb losers never had a chance.”
Brucks. The same kid who laughed when he saw Eli starting to cry about the comments he made on his lip. The same kid claiming Kyler tossing his backpack into a yogurt-filled trash can was “brute.” And now here he was trying to be buddy-buddy with him.
Everything comes crashing down on Demetri at once.
Miguel’s speech, saying Kreese is manipulating him. Saying Kreese doesn’t care about him. Kreese cherry-picking what does and doesn’t count as vengeance--hurting Eli, someone who had nothing to do with Miguel’s fall, does, but teaming up with the kid responsible for said fall apparently does not. Demetri’s friends being booted from Cobra Kai one by one, just for not being strong enough.
The sound of Eli’s screams and sobs in a dark laser tag room.
Miguel was right, wasn’t he? Kreese never cared about getting payback for him. He only cared about starting a war for his own sadistic pleasures.
Demetri hears grunting and whimpering, and he looks up to see two of the other Cobras kneeing Eli in the chest over and over. Pinning him into an arm bar.
“Yo, ‘Mete!” one calls out. “Free shot!”
Eli looks up, gaze full of fear and pain. Bright blue irises glinting with welling tears.
Once upon a time, Demetri made a promise to himself that he would stick with karate, aggravating as it may be, so he would never have to see that look on Eli’s face again. It’s time, he figures, that he finally made good on that.
His face contorts into a snarl, and he runs to Eli. Eli closes his eyes and scrunches his face, bracing for a pain that never comes.
Demetri kicks one Cobra to the wayside and smashes the other into a glass table with perhaps more force and adrenaline than he’s used all night.
When he turns to Eli, the other boy backs away, eyes still wide with terror. Demetri feels sick to his stomach, and the tears come before he can stop them.
“God, Eli, I’m so sorry,” he splutters. “I’m so fucking sorry, for everything. I don’t know what I was thinking, and it was all so fucked up, and--”
“Demetri.”
“--I’ll never hurt you like that again, but if you don’t want anything to do with me now, I totally understand, and--”
“Demetri.”
“--I was so awful to you, and I didn’t listen to you, and I should’ve been there for you, and I’m such a piece of shit friend and--”
“DEMETRI!”
Finally Eli raises his voice enough that Demetri pauses. “...yeah, Eli?”
“Please stop talking. I forgive you. Now are you going to shut up and help me finish this?” He raises a hand, as if to initiate their old handshake. An olive branch.
Demetri grins so wide he thinks his face is going to break, and he grips Eli’s hand like a lifeline. Something to finally pull him out of the darkness. “Yeah.”
They’re a lethal fighting team. Between Demetri landing speedy hits and Eli protecting him and shielding them both with his bulked-up form (where did he get all that muscle? Demetri wonders), they dispatch half the Cobras in minutes. Whatever rush Demetri was feeling fighting when he first got here is nothing compared to fighting with Eli.
When they stop the fight between Tory and Sam, Tory wastes no time voicing her disdain for the ex-Cobras. “You’d better watch your back,” she spits at Demetri, and he feels a chill run through him. Turns out this girl is terrifying when she’s not fighting on your side.
Eli intercepts her as she leaves, staring her down defiantly in a very un-Eli-like manner. “You’d better watch yours,” he growls. “Touch him, and I’ll end you.”
Demetri glances over in surprise. When did Eli get so bold?
Well...he thinks he could grow to like it.
Season 4 (because fuck it)
Demetri is hardly expecting Mr. LaRusso and Mr. Lawrence to forgive him, never mind let him into their new dojo. But life has a lot of pleasant surprises in store for him, it seems, after the shitshow it recently put him through. It’s also possible Eli (and maybe Miguel too) but in a good word for him.
Demetri can’t stop apologizing to Eli. Seemingly every day, he finds a new thing to apologize for. Eli gets aggravated with it before long, having to reassure Demetri at least 50 separate times that he forgives him for everything. Nonetheless, Demetri refuses to stop--because he’ll never stop being sorry.
Or trying to find new ways to make it up to Eli. Going easy on him during sparring. Buying him lunch after practice. Helping him perfect some of the most badass Cobra moves.
Things end between Eli and Moon. Eli can’t fully elaborate on why--he just tells Demetri something didn’t feel quite right. The spark died out, like Demetri’s adrenaline rush slowly seeping away toward the end of a fight. That, and, Demetri gathers, something seems to have been distracting Eli from his girlfriend as of late.
Most likely the approaching, high stakes All-Valley. Karate is Serious Business, as they’ve both embraced now.
Rumor has it Yasmine and Moon are trying again, Yasmine realizing for seemingly the first time how awful she’s really been and making an effort to be better. Moon makes her want to be better--more than Demetri ever did, he realizes. And maybe that’s okay--he and Yasmine probably just weren’t right for each other.
Then one day, after yet another one of Demetri’s long-winded apologies, Eli offers something other than an exasperated. “It’s okay. Seriously.” There’s a pause before Eli quietly says “I’m sorry too.”
“For what?” Demetri blurts out, baffled. Everything Eli’s done has paled in comparison to his own atrocities.
“For outing you,” Eli says simply. “That was fucked. And it wasn’t my place, even if I was mad at you.”
“It’s all right.” Demetri shrugs. “You were right, anyways.”
Eli gives him a strange look. “I was?”
“Yeah, I mean...” Demetri laughs dryly. “I don’t...like girls. I pretended I did, because I felt like I was supposed to. That’s what people expect you to do when you’re a top athlete and all that. But dating Yasmine, chasing other girls, it always felt...empty. Like I was just acting out a role in a play or something. And at the end of the day, I think...” He pauses. “I think I was always looking at you.”
Because the last few months have made him realize something. Training with Eli, teaching Eli how to protect himself, watching Eli step up and defend him from the mistrusting stares and the scornful whispers...
Just how much of the person he’s become is thanks to wanting to protect Eli. The fact that that was always how all this started.
“I love you,” he blurts out, before he can stop himself. “I know I did a shitty job of showing it, and I know you were with Moon and you’re not like that, but I need you to know, and I understand if you don’t feel--”
Eli cuts him off with a fierce kiss, pinning him up against the dojo wall with unexpected aggressiveness.
When Eli pulls away, he’s smiling softly. The same smile he gave Moon in the hall as she drew on his cast--the smile that’s once again all Demetri’s.
“I love you too,” he murmurs. “Why do you think I broke up with Moon? Every time I was with her...I couldn’t stop wishing it was you. She’ll never know me like you do.”
And Kreese had better look out because Miyagi Fang’s next big power couple is a force to be reckoned with--the snarky, frighteningly fast-attacking ex-Cobra, and the buff, blue-mohawked Miyagi-Do with more inner peace than anyone would expect.
SOME RANDOM SIDENOTES ABOUT THIS BECAUSE I DIDN’T FEEL LIKE PUTTING THIS ALL IN THE TAGS
~I’m sorry if anyone is OOC in this--I know Johnny is kind of a fuck, but he genuinely WAS pretty crappy to Eli at first and who knows if he would’ve treated him any better if he didn’t “flip the script”???
~Dark/Evil Demetri is so fun but also so awful to write--I hope you like him being an absolute fuck because the Corruption Arc is REAL
~Yes, I DO in fact fully believe Demetri would go on a crazed revenge quest just like Eli/Hawk did out of his grief for Miguel--the boy absolutely loves Miguel and arguably would want vengeance as much as Eli if their roles were swapped!!! Because Demetri cares about Miguel SO FUCKING MUCH even if it’s not as obvious as it is with Eli but that’s a rant for another post
~I included YasMoon because fuck it, I thought it’d be interesting. That and, unlike the Cobra Kai writers, I am not at all afraid of what conservative audiences will say, so I am not afraid to make things as gay as possible.
~There’s a good chance I swapped Kyler and Brucks’ places near the end solely so I could have Demetri beat the fuck out of Kyler because I just really need that
~Yes, even without formally becoming “Hawk,” Eli could learn how to be a conniving manipulative little shit if he wanted to be. Look at some of the shit he pulls with the counselor in canon Season 3!!! Boy sure as hell knows how to play the victim.
~Honestly not sure if being outed as gay is better or worse than being outed as a bed-wetter, but I had to think of something that would pack the same kind of emotional punch. In Eli’s feeble defense, the West Valley High kids don’t seem like the types to be like...especially violent against queer kids (otherwise NO WAY would Moon and Piper have been able to be that open about their relationship), they’d just be assholes about it. So Eli wasn’t putting Demetri in legit danger here so much as just opening him up to a lot of ridicule. Which is still fucked, but hey, I DID warn you this would be kind of fucked up XD
~Maybe short, concise apologies work for Eli, bUT NOT FOR DEMETRI THE RAMBLER
~Dark Demetri chasing Eli through the school like a goddamn serial killer = 10/10 gave myself a big Spook writing
~Yes, Eli does still have (and always had) his “Hawk” traits, even without the formal “transformation.” I just think his “Hawk” side would be a little more subtle and subdued if he were in Miyagi-Do, but it’s still there for sure.
#tw: outing#tw: internalized homophobia#tw: very dark stuff in general#tw: toxic relationships#tw: violence#tw: kinda sadistic characters tbh#tw: just generally some dark shit thematically in here yo#hawk x demetri#demetri x eli#binary boyfriends#hawkmeat#eli x demetri#demetri x hawk#elimetri#yasmoon#yasmine x moon#moon x yasmine#cobra kai#demetri cobra kai#eli moskowitz#miguel diaz#aisha robinson#moon cobra kai#yasmine cobra kai#sam larusso#kyler cobra kai#brucks cobra kai#role swap au#alternate universe#my askbox
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I’m stuck with Ireena, actually. She severed her soul from Tatyana’s and she should continue having a (or even have an increased!) zest for life and she’s been... quiet. I forgot she was there for an encounter the other day.
I hate to ask for advice on R/e/ddit because so many of the DMs get negative or at least unhelpful about my plans... but... I need to do something with her.
I guess the thing is that in my game, both she and Ismark have been horribly traumatized by Strahd and even though Ireena has learned to face her trauma and fight the forces of evil, Ismark is behind the learning curve and it’s brought Ireena’s mood down. Her exuberance has been dimmed as she’s stepping into taking care of her brother... right before her own wedding to the party Fighter, Dorinn, who she wholeheartedly loves and wants to start a life with and explore the world with.
If Ismark stays in Vallaki, Ireena will be forced to choose between going to see “the world” with her new husband or staying in Vallaki to get her brother onto stable ground. I already know the Cleric’s new husband will be staying behind (which is the plan) but I’m just thinking about whether the party is at a level where they don’t need an extra sword-slinger around.
The party itself is actually really well balanced with an OP ally in Rahadin. I’m wondering what would be most narratively interesting:
Ireena stays in Vallaki to tend to her brother, which will make Dorinn’s fated encounter impactful af, but which will also mean Dorinn won’t have his wife with him.
Ireena and Ismark go to Krezk with the party and the two Krezkovas that are in Vallaki, swelling the party size to 4 PCs and 5-7 NPCs for two days of travel. Ireena then leaves Ismark in Krezk and the party returns to 4 PCs and 2-3 NPCs again.
Ireena and Ismark go to Krezk with the party and the two Krezkovas that are in Vallaki, swelling the party size to 4 PCs and 5-6 NPCs for a while. Ireena brings Ismark with the party, which puts the party at 4 PCs and 3-5 NPCs.
Ireena leaves Ismark in Vallaki and has Lucian tend to him (because Lucian is clearly not busy enough) and joins the party. This means the party is 4 PCs and 5-6 NPCs for travel, returning to 2-3 NPCs when all is said and done.
The problem is that we are martial heavy AF with the NPCs that are going with the party at any given time. The party contains a fighter, a rogue, a paladin, and a cleric. I statted Ireena and Ismark both as fighters. Sometimes Ez is with them. Vallakovich will no longer be traveling with them. I know the rogue has plans to multiclass into sorcerer, but... It balances fights weirdly when your only full caster is your cleric. It will be especially weird if/when the party fights Strahd or one of the remaining consorts. So far, he’s been content to let his minions fight for him... Last game they showed they struggled against casters. He would possibly seize the opportunity (if they hadn’t given him a lot to sink his fangs into about self-reflection) or Ludmilla would.
I need to figure out what the plan with Ireena is so she doesn’t become a useless NPC or if she has become useless, I can give her a satisfying reason and place to stay out of the way.
Should I:
Reclass Ireena and send her with the party?
Leave Ireena’s class alone and take her send her with the party?
Leave Ireena’s class alone and leave her behind?
Make Ireena’s fighter subclass Eldritch Knight and send her with the party?
Should Strahd:
No longer care about Ireena since she is no longer Tatyana and he’s looking for Alek Gwilym now?
Care about Ireena as a consolation prize or thing to revenge himself on Dorinn with, while continuing to search for Alek?
Stop fighting the party (lmao no)?
Personally try to annihilate everyone except Scout and Rahadin because they’re family?
Hmm. I feel like if I put this out as needing advice, a bunch of people will whine at me about “Why is Rahadin traveling with the party?” and “What do you mean Ireena and Tatyana aren’t the same soul?” and “Why is Strahd looking for Alek Gwilym?” and a bunch of insults to how I run my table.
But if you are gonna be kind about it, I’ll happily hear ideas!
#player: DM#cos#curse of strahd#ch: ireena kolyana#ch: ismark kolyanavich#ch: strahd von zarovich#I feel like a 2004 fanfic writer when I say 'no flames!'#but seriously.... I've been burned so badly by the r.e.d.dit bunch#that i'm scared to ask other DMs for help#... help?#g: saturday
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Luz the Seeker (Owl House/Huntik: Secrets & Seekers Crossover Idea)
I want to ask, has anyone thought of a Crossover fic between the Owl House and Huntik: Secrets & Seekers? If not, I will discuss my own!! Everybody clap your hands!!!
To help with people who don't know it, I shall now info-dump some of the lore!! And by some I mean a lot.
In the World of Huntik, spirits of incredible power, known as Titans, are native to a separate Dimension, also known as Huntik. For generations, the Titans have been summoned to Earth to aid humanity, with the most famous being the Legendary Titans of Casterwill, an ancient sorcerer who saved the world from the Nullifiers, another species native to Huntik, but are instead pure evil, consumed with nothing less than the desire to see all of reality destroyed and subsumed into them. After their defeat, Titans have been scattered throughout human history, lending their immense power and potential to those people who can bond with the Talismans that act as their method of summoning and anchor in our world; these individuals are known as Seekers.
Titans are principally divided into Eight core categories: Draco-Titans, Gaia-Titans, Hecto-Titans, Krono-Titans, Litho-Titans, Meso-Titans, Swara-Titans, and Yama-Titans. Each corresponds to a region of the world in terms of design, though some can seem off theme to some extent, and each has some form of connection to historical myth, legend, and even historical facts. Draco-Titans are a type of Titans featured prominently in European legends, particularly those of Medieval England. The fighting style and noble, chivalrous nature that most of them possess, inspired people to act the same and developed into the code of chivalry followed by knights. Draco-Titans' amulets are usually steel-blue with a grayish-pink gem in the center.
Gaia-Titans are a type of Titan which tend to be protective and helpful. Gaia-Titans are strongly tied to nature, particularly wood or plants. Because of these ties, most of them are green or greenish-brown. Some may be covered in bark or leaves, with some even looking like walking trees, such as Dark Dryad. Gaia means Earth in Greek, so these Titans are essentially Earth-Titans or Nature-Titans. Gaia-Titan amulets tend to be a pale silver white with a light green gem. A notable exception is the Amulet of Will for Overlos. Many Gaia Titans are found mainly in Ireland. Hecto-Titans are Titans based upon Egyptian legends. Many Hecto-Titans appear like mummies with a monstrous appearance, earning them a place as the monsters residing in Egyptian tombs. Their terrible nature and taking enjoyment from chaos and destruction means that bonding Seekers need to possess a similar attitude. Their amulets tend to be yellow with blue and green highlights and a pale silver gem in the center.
Krono-Titans are Titans that are based off of Greek or Roman mythology. These Titans tend to be warriors, a fitting position considering the war-like nature of the Greeks during ancient history. The word 'Krono-Titan' may be based on Kronos of mythology, the imprisoned Greek Titan and father of Zeus. Krono-Titan Amulets tend to be orange and yellow with an aqua gem. Litho-Titans are a very durable type of Titan because most of them are composed of rocks or ice. Litho-Titans usually carve themselves a place in history, even among humans who know nothing about Seekers or magic. Metagolem became the famous Golem of Prague. Gar-Ghoul inspired the gargoyle statues on the rooftops across Europe. Fenris and Ymir are famous among Norse mythology, being responsible for the birth and death of the world. Litho-Titans act almost as if they want to be known for their power. Lithosphere is the ground part of Earth. Litho-Titan Amulets tend to be stone grey, with occasional light blue highlights for ice-based Titans, and have a purple gem in the center with yellow outline around the gem.
Meso-Titans are powerful Titans that are difficult to control. They tend to be aggressive and may cause collateral damage if not watched carefully. Some Meso-Titans control powerful natural forces, such as earthquakes, hurricanes, and tornadoes. Others use combat attacks based on stomping, jumping, and spinning. Meso-Titans often resemble creatures of Native American and Central American stories, such as fierce warriors and totem like monsters. Mesosphere is the middle part of the Earth's atmosphere. Only a Seeker with a very strong will can bond with, let alone control, a Meso-Titan. Meso-Titan Amulets are typically grey with black or yellow highlights and a blue gem. Swara-Titans
are a type of Titan, most often used by villains, and are based upon African legends and insects. Like Araknos, a large number of Swara-Titans tend to lean toward arthropods such as arachnids and insects. Swara-Titan Amulets tend to be brown with a darker brown or gold trim and a red gem.
Yama-Titans are clever and often overly independent. They often think that their way of doing something is better than their bonded Seeker; because of this, successfully controlling a Yama-Titan can require concentrating exactly on what one wants them to do. Human-like Yama-Titans often have features common to Asian myths, such as clothing or weaponry. Yama-Titans were appropriately common in ancient Asia. People told stories about them, and these stories eventually became myths. Yama-Titan amulets tend to be black with silver highlights with a pale green gem. A notable exception is the ring of Tao since the amulets of Legendary Titans are gold with a gem that matches the Titan. The Legendary Titans are an incredibly rare, powerful type of Titan which were originally controlled by Lord Casterwill and his family and whose Rings and Amulets were later hidden with greater safeguards than the Amulets of any other Titans. The Legendary Titans find their places in the legends of many ancient civilizations and were sometimes considered gods. If a Seeker attempts to use a Legendary Titan without the Amulet of Will or without passing the proper Casterwill test, they may be put under a powerful curse. Three Legendary Titans, Tao, Behemoth, and Araknos, are involved in a ritual to summon Overlos from the Amulet of Will.
Because they could technically be considered a sibling species to Titans, I'll include some info on Nullifiers, especially as they can be summoned like Titans. Their isn't a whole lot to say about them, but Nullifiers are often ludicrously powerful, with a bevy of mind-bending abilities as a whole, they largely draw inspiration from the Cthulhu Mythos when it comes to appearance. Nullifiers do not have the standard Classes.
In addition to their type, Titans can also be identified by their Class, that is to say, if they are Blasters, Enchanters, Explorers, Scouts, Sentinels, Sharpshooters, Sorcerers, or Warriors. Blasters are those whose specialty lies in high-power blasts as their combat method of choice, and are surprisingly rare. Enchanters are, like Sorcerers, those with principally mystical powers, but are usually geared more towards indirect combat or support, or are associated with more "good" legends as a whole. Explorer Titans are those that excel in espionage, information retrieval, and stealth, distinguishing themselves from Scouts by being larger, more humanoid, and often having more direct combat options. Scouts are often small, with a higher emphasis on information retrieval, spying, and so on, than combat. Sentinels are those which are typically used to guard or watch over something or someone, with a bigger emphasis on durability and defense than the other martial Classes, and are as rare as true Blasters. Sharpshooters are high flying ranged-attackers, with a big emphasis on movement and speed, and while pretty rare in terms of variety, are not as rare as those of Sentinels or Blasters. Sorcerer Class Titans are associated with magical abilities, but often of a darker bent than Enchanters, they are often more likely to be direct attackers as well. Warriors, the absolute MOST common Class, are straight up melee fighters, with the occasional esoteric power thrown in, often wielding swords and shields, or more odd weaponry on occasion.
All Seekers, by virtue of the connection they have gained to the Titans, can wield magic. The forms of magical spells Seekers can wield are rather varied, and rather than being marked by specific schools, are instead based on how they are used. It's not something I'd go to much into right now. The nature of the connection that the Titans and their Seekers have is known as the Bond; Titans fresh from Huntik are essentially blank slates when it comes to bonding, and while certain personality types might bond easier, the first bond they gain will always color them when it comes to bonding later. Titans lack true personality when they are first summoned and bonded in our world, communicating mentally with their Seeker through Intuition, feelings, etcetera as opposed to words, and finding the language based thoughts of humans, and Witches, unnatural, not that it will prevent them from obeying. The mentality, thought process, and beliefs of their initial bonded will permanently influence who that Titan can later bond with, as they will invariably bond easiest with those that have a similar personality and attitude to their initial bonded, though the bond can sever if the Seeker's personality changes too much from the mindset that allowed them to bond in the first place. Seekers who've established a particularly strong bond with their Titans are capable of Powerbond, initiating an incredibly powerful transformation that greatly augments the powers and fighting abilities of their Titans and themselves.
Anyway, now that the info dump is out of the way, my basis for this crossover is for Luz to be a young Seeker with a reputation for causing havoc. She basically enters the Boiling Isles the same way, but that is when the divergences start. In this AU, I would like to think that the Titan that composes the Isles is a Titan in the Huntik sense, that transported to the Demon Realm and died. As it perished, its essence merged with that of the Demon Realm, and gave rise to the Witches, who are analogous to a hybrid between Titan and Human, though not quite all the way. Titans summoned on the Isles often display heightened intellect and learning ability, and are capable of staying summoned functionally indefinitely so long as they are there, though sufficient injury can dispel them and send them back. Due to her background as a Seeker, however young and inexperienced she may be, Luz is even more used to insanity and danger than her canon self is, and is extremely curious as to the nature of the Isles and its magic (Eda: Can't you cast your own spells already, kid? Luz: Yeah, but not THIS KIND!!!).
My biggest issue is finding a way to expand the idea beyond just having Luz use Seeker powers and Titans in the Owl House, with the appropriate butterflies and shenanigans as a result of course, so I've composed a couple of possibilities. My first idea is that Belos is unknowingly connected to the Nullifiers, partially to explain his incredible strength and extremely bizarre abilities compared to the already strange nature of the Isles, and that all his efforts have been unknowingly orchestrated by the Nullifiers to grant them a foothold in the Isles to destroy it and the rest of the Demon Realm, and then move on to Earth. My second idea is a new faction of Seekers, not so much evil as morally grey and with a mixed roster of good and bad, has stationed themselves on the Isles, and are conducting experiments on Titans there; the nature of the experiments is to find new ways of modifying Titans to possess new and interesting abilities for their goals, as well as the creation of genuinely artificial Titans entirely, dubbed Neo-Titans, which, if I got that far, would differ from the rest of their kind in having themes closer to Science Fiction and Alien-life than the mythological basis of their peers, being sleek and technological and possessing powerful abilities beyond the standard.
Anyway, this is mostly me ranting, sorry, but if anyone is interested in this or wants to talk or has questions about it, let me, okay? Thank you.
#the owl house#huntik#owl house crossover#luz noceda#emperor belos#huntik: secrets and seekers#huntik: secrets and seekers crossover#huntik: secrets and seekers au#owl house au#alternate history#boiling isles alternate history
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Whenever CR starts their next campaign, what types of DND classes would you find fun or enjoy to see the cast explore?
Ooh, anon, this is a fun question! Let’s see what I can come up with. Travis is the only one that I have an immediate answer for. Listen this has exposed me as a cleric stan, I’m sorry.
Travis: He’s the easiest for me. I’ve known this forever. I want to see him play a Cleric (outside of a oneshot). I want to see him play fullblown spellcaster (not that Warlocks aren’t, but Hexblade, you know?). I also really want to see him play a support class. Travis has put a lot of focus on protecting his friends in both campaigns and it would also be fun to see him play a high Wisdom character. However, since Travis also likes doing massive amounts of damage, I think my second choice for him would be Druid. He’d be a delight with Wild Shape and he would still have the option of being somewhat of a tank, while also having some healing abilities to continue protecting his friends. Oh yeah. For Cleric, I’d pick Light Domain or Order Domain for him. And then Druid, I’d go Unearthed Acana and say he should do the Wildfire circle.
Marisha: She’s played a spellcasting class and a martial class. I think she’s great with spellcasting, but I understand how relaxing it is to know exactly what you’re doing every turn. Ideally, for Marisha, I’d like to see her go either Paladin or Ranger. That way, she could remain mostly melee, but she would also be able to heal (if she wanted) and have access to a little magic. Also, if she were a Ranger, she could pick a Horizon Walker, which would make me so jealous. Horizon Walkers are sick.
Liam: I think it would be pretty fun to see him play a Cleric, too, actually. I’m not sure if it would feel too tedious to play spellcasters that have to prepare their spells two campaigns in a row, but I think he’d be a good Cleric. Second choice... I think he’d also have a good time playing a Fighter. Eldritch Knight, specifically. Or an Echo Knight, actually. Echo Knight would be cool.
Sam: Again. I’m apparently obsessed with Clerics. But I think about how much he also likes protecting his friends. Sam would be a really interesting Cleric, I think. However, I think that he would also be an incredibly chaotic Sorcerer, which would be really fun. I want to say he should do Storm Sorcery, because I love that subclass, but it might feel a little similar to Yasha.
Laura: I know the popular opinion for her is Bard and I do think she’d be great at it. But I’d actually love to see her get directly into melee and just cause constant damage as a Barbarian. Path of the Totem Warrior. It would be ‘nature’ oriented enough that I think she could continue the trend of having a pet into the third campaign and get away with calling it a character choice instead of admitting she just loves pets.
Taliesin: ARTIFICER! I want to watch someone play an Artificer from level 1 (or 2, I guess). And Taliesin would be perfect for it. He could go back to a high Int class, which I think is his comfort zone, but there is also so much intricacy to this class that maybe he would still feel challenged. I kind of want to say Artillerist, but that might be too close to Percy. I’m actually kind of worried Artificer would feel too close to Percy in general. Alchemist would be pretty funny. He could go a Victor route.
Ashley: ROGUE! Let. Ashley. Roll. A. Decent. Stealth. Check. That’s all I want. Give her Reliable Talent and Expertise, please. Also, sneak attack damage is so freaking satisfying. And the Soulknife subclass is Unearthed Arcana currently, but it sounds really amazing.
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Campaign 3 predictions/desires
Alright this will be totally self indulgent so here we go.
Travis: druid or rogue. I feel like he might try a more dexterous character this time. Also it would be cool to see him be really sneaky, he's very good at shifty characters isn't he? Yes I want to see him perhaps be evil/dark because he would be great at that characterization.
Laura: barbarian would be fun. blood hunter would be awesome. warlock perhaps?? If she still wants to play it. At any rate, whatever class she wants to play, she better get the first dibs on it. third times a charm!!
Marisha: paladin!! warlock!!! Any kind of high charisma character would be neat. I do hope to see paladin or warlock for her though. I think she fits well for those.
Ashley: bard. honestly really any kind of spellcaster class. bard is my secret wish because I know she will make it awesome, and put her own unique twist on it. If she prefers martial classes I hope she goes rogue.
Taliesin: this one is really hard tbh. I can see him going warlock or sorcerer, but he might also go back to one of Matt's homebrews. I also wouldn't mind seeing him play a ranger (gloom stalker ofc for goth vibes). His characters always fascinate me so I won't complain either way.
Liam: bard or druid for sure. I could also see him going fighter. Druid is a special hope of mine. We know he loves the animal roleplay so maybe??? I would love to see what he does as a druid or bard.
Sam: now we know Liam is making Sam's character so this does make it trickier... I have a hope for a wizard, sorcerer or cleric. Sam seems to enjoy spells a lot and is fantastic at it. Sorcerer (especially wild magic) would be appealing to Sam’s penchant for chaos. Also, as a cleric I think Sam could make it a very hilarious role.
this is getting long but there are some things (like race, party dynamic or characterization) that would be awesome to see imo:
bonus points for....
if someone plays an elf, which I imagine is likely at this point. (Extra points if it's a drow!)
tabaxi or aarakocra (or both) are played. Both of these are neat and I would love to see more races that are outside the PHB.
no clerics, I love the class but it'd be cool to see how the party handles not having any around. No I don't absolutely want character deaths but I wouldn't mind some high stakes.
having two characters be exes. I really want to see that dynamic tbh. Give me that drama!
an evil character being in the party. Or maybe someone who turns evil throughout the campaign.
exploring the moon (ruidus) somehow.
Liam playing a woman because hello have you seen the women he plays? Jayne and Lieve'tel? I told you all this was self indulgent! I realize it is unlikely but I can hope haha.
#critical role#cr campaign 3#campaign 3 predictions#not going to bother predicting the area or time of the setting#the moon will come back... im sure of it#a character like jayne coming up again would be like a cherry on a sundae
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5e Xayah, the Rebel build (League of Legends)
(Artwork by Riot Games)
Holy shit they actually just flip the artwork. No this is genuinely Xayah’s “official” artwork it’s just a flip of Rakan’s...
So uh I had this build prepared back in August... and then I forgot it. Luckily I did write it down! See? I’m smarter than Rakan!
Honestly I’m quite thankful for Tasha’s coming out because it made my Xayah build a lot better. So I’m happy that I’m publishing it now in February instead of back in August when I made the first draft. A lot of things get better with age and love’s also one of them~ 💓
GOALS
Dodging seems to be a weak spot of yours - Sick of only hitting one enemy at a time? Make some Clean Cuts to strike behind your enemy. That’s what’s known as efficiency!
Move your feet, or lose some toes - Ever tripped on a feather? How about having your heels slashed?
A thousand cuts is only the beginning - In case of emergency push R button to dodge damage, and send a ton of feathers at your foes!
RACE
Xayah is half bird, but her taunt flat out shows she can’t fly which leaves Aarakocra out of the picture. She’s also very chatty (holy shit have you seen how many voice lines Xayah and Rakan have?) so Kenku is definitely not an option. So when in Rome as a furry look no further than a Shifter.
All Shifters have Darkvision and their Shifting ability to gain temporary hitpoints, but everything else is determined by their subrace: you’re the girl with the plan for the hunt. The Wildhunt that is! Your Wisdom increases by 2 and your Dexterity increases by 1. You’re a Natural Tracker with proficiency in Survival. And your Shifting Feature will let you become one with nature for advantage on Wisdom checks, and you can up your dodging game so no enemy can hit you with advantage.
ABILITY SCORES
15; DEXTERITY - You’re a marksman. That means attacking with a ranged weapon, which takes nimbleness.
14; WISDOM - Wisdom will let you connect with the natural magic of the world. Most literally as you’re going to be using Wisdom to cast spells!
13; INTELLIGENCE - You’re the one with the plan.
12; CONSTITUTION - Ha ha ADC health bar go brrrr, but even if Xay is squishy in LoL that doesn’t mean we can’t grab Grasp for a bit more health.
10; CHARISMA - Xayah has a degree of rough charm to her. But I mean hey: you got Rakan to fall for you?
8; STRENGTH - As much muscle as dancing takes you don’t need it to cut through your foes.
BACKGROUND
You’re a freedom fighter. A rebel with a cause fighting as a Faction Agent for the Vastayan cause. You get proficiency in Insight along with any Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma ability. For a dance under the moonlight with Rakan get Performance proficiency: it takes two to tango after all! You also get proficiency in two languages: unfortunately Aarakocra isn’t an option but Auran (or rather Primordial) will serve well to speak the Vastayan-bird language. And to learn the ancient language of Ionia I’d recommend Sylvan.
As a vastayan rebel you can gain access to a Safe Haven for you and your allies. By using secret signs and passwords you can identify other rebels who can bring you to a safe house, give you a free place to stay, or assist you in finding information. They won’t risk their lives for you but as long as you remember the password they’ll be willing to help. Be sure to remember the password by the way. Because Rakan definitely won’t.
(Artwork by XhiliaJP on DeviantArt)
THE BUILD
LEVEL 1 - FIGHTER 1
Starting off as a Fighter for a few things known as saving throws, but also for skills like Acrobatics and Perception to see incoming skill shots and dodge them with grace. You also get Second Wind to heal for a d10 plus your Fighter level for some health pots in lane.
Your main choice as a Fighter at early levels is your Fighting Style and we’ll be grabbing a Bladecaller root very early thanks to Superior Technique from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything. You learn a Battle Master Maneuver from the Battle Master subclass: we’ll be going for Trip Attack to hinder enemy movement. You then get a d6 Maneuver die to use on Trip Attack, and nothing else because spoilers: we won’t be getting other maneuvers.
LEVEL 2 - FIGHTER 2
Second level Fighters get their Action Surge, allowing them to take two actions in a turn instead of 1. For now that only means two attacks. For now.
LEVEL 3 - FIGHTER 3
Third level Fighters get to choose their Martial Archetype and to channel some magic into your “blades” (read: arrows, because you should be using a longbow) go for the magic of the Arcane Archer. Arcane Archer Lore will give you proficiency in Arcana or Nature (we’re actually going to be going for Arcana) as well as either the Prestigiation or Druidcraft cantrip (naturally as a naturalist we’ll be going for Druidcraft.)
"How can humans not hear the magic?"
"They're too busy building things."
"Why?"
"Because... they're afraid."
Of course the main feature of the Arcane Archer is their Arcane Shot. Once per turn when you fire an arrow from a bow, you can apply one of your Arcane Shots to that arrow. You decide to use the option when the arrow hits a creature, unless the option doesn’t involve an attack roll. You have two uses of Arcane Shot that come back after a Short or Long rest.
Let’s talk about your Arcane Shots then, hm? To root your foe (sorta) Grasping Arrow does an extra 2d6 Poison damage and lowers the target’s movement speed by 10. Additionally if they try to move without Flash (or other means of teleportation) they’ll take an extra 2d6 slashing damage. The target can use its action to remove the brambles with a successful Athletics check against your Arcane Shot save DC, or ask their support to do it for them. Otherwise, the brambles last for 1 minute or until you use this option again.
Piercing Arrow meanwhile doesn’t require an attack roll. Instead you target all enemies in a 30 foot line and force them to make a Dexterity save. On a failed save they take damage as if they were shot by the bow, along with an extra d6 of piercing. On a successful save however they only take half, but realistically if you’re hitting 3 or more people with this arrow it’s still worth it even if you miss.
(Artist unknown. Made for Riot Games.)
LEVEL 4 - RANGER 1
Feel free to take one more level in Fighter for an ASI but I’m going to go to Ranger now and grab Nature proficiency from the class, which is why we took Arcana earlier!
Also thank god Tasha’s is out because instead of the meme known as Natural Explorer we get Deft Explorer. Canny gives you Expertise in one of your skills (I personally opted for Acrobatics to evade any Shadow Assassins who may try to kill you, but honestly any one of your skills make sense for Expertise so feel free to pick whatever you think will be useful) and two language proficiencies of your choice. (Choose whatever you think will help your cause.)
But the more interesting feature is Favored Foe. When you hit an enemy you can choose to mark them to make your feathers just a little more sharp. The first time on each of your turns that you hit the marked target and deal damage to it (including when you first mark it) you can do an extra d4 of damage to them.
The bond lasts for 1 minute unless you get hit hard enough to lose your concentration because yes: this feature takes your concentration for some reason which is why we went into Fighter first for proficiency in Constitution saves. You can use the mark a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.
LEVEL 5 - RANGER 2
Second level Rangers get their Fighting Style, and since we didn’t take Archery from Fighter we’ll instead be taking it here.
But more importantly you get Spellcasting. You can learn two spells from the Ranger list: to keep enemies in place with Bladecaller take Ensnaring Strike. Alternatively if you want to increase your evasion with your Deadly Plumage Zephyr Strike will make it so enemies can’t make attacks of opportunity against you, and you can end the spell’s effects to do more damage with an attack and then increase your movement speed afterwards.
LEVEL 6 - RANGER 3
Third level Rangers get to choose their Ranger Archetype, and with Tasha’s Cauldron out we have an explanation for Xayah’s Deadly Plumage. Why, it’s a swarm of feathers of course! Xayah’s a Swarmkeeper! After hitting an enemy you can use your Gathered Swarm for a variety of different effects. You can do an extra d6 of piercing damage, force a Strength save or be pushed up to 15 feet horizontally in a direction of your choice, or you can move yourself 5 feet horizontally in a direction of your choice.
You also get Swarmkeeper Magic for a variety of spells. For one you get Mage Hand, and you also get Faerie Fire to light up all your enemies’ weak points. You can also learn another spell like Hail of Thorns for Clean Cuts through any foes who may be bunched up.
And to top it off you get Primal Awareness for a few extra spells. You learn the Speak with Animals spell, and cast it once per Long Rest without spending a spell slot.
LEVEL 7 - RANGER 4
4th level Rangers get an Ability Score Improvement. Increase your Intelligence by 1 and your Dexterity by 1, because why not replace one uneven ability score with another? "And an F, for effort."
LEVEL 8 - RANGER 5
5th level Rangers get an Extra Attack. Two attacks per round for a bit more attack speed.
You also get access to second level spells, and from your Swarmkeeper Magic you get the Web spell, which perhaps isn’t too fitting but you shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Additionally Primal Awareness adds Beast Sense to your spell list, and lets you cast it without spending a spell slot. Perhaps not the most useful spell, but as Xayah would say: "Spiders are my spirit animal." And finally you can learn another spell too like Lesser Restoration for some QSS in case of emergency.
(Artwork by Riot Games)
LEVEL 9 - RANGER 6
6th level Rangers see their Favored Foe damage increase to a d6. Additionally they get Roving from Deft Explorer for 5 additional moving speed and some help with swimming and climbing.
LEVEL 10 - RANGER 7
7th level Rangers can at least try to fly thanks to Writhing Tide. As a bonus action you gain a flying speed of 10 feet and can hover. The effect lasts for 1 minute or until you are incapacitated. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest. It perhaps isn’t the most useful thing for mobility but it’s good to use your feathers to get the perfect angle on your foes, or to keep away from melee bruisers looking to slice your chicken.
You can also learn another spell at this level like Enhance Ability, for a boost to give 120% when you need it.
LEVEL 11 - RANGER 8
8th level Rangers get another Ability Score Improvement: to maximize the deadliness of your plumage take the Piercer feat from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything. Along with a +1 increase to your Dexterity you can also reroll one attack roll that did piercing damage (your longbow does piercing damage) to hopefully turn a low roll into a high roll. But to top it off when you score a critical hit (that deals piercing damage) you can roll one additional damage die when determining the extra piercing damage the target takes. Any ADC can attack an enemy but Clean Cuts is what lets Xayah stand out from the crowd.
LEVEL 12 - RANGER 9
9th level Rangers get more spells. From Primal Awareness you get Speak with Plants, to understand why the land of Ionia is upset at the humans. You can also grab Conjure Barrage for a Featherstorm to cut down a full crowd. But if you want to evade with Featherstorm your Swarmkeeper Magic grants you the Gaseous Form spell, to become untargetable (to an extent) and still be able to move and dodge (to an extent.)
(Artwork by SplashBrush on DeviantArt. It’s considerably easier to find artwork of Xayah than it is to find artwork of Rakan :c)
LEVEL 13 - FIGHTER 4
Back to good ol’ Fighter to pick up that ASI I ignored. +2 to Dexterity? That’ll max out your hit chance and attack damage!
LEVEL 14 - FIGHTER 5
5th level Fighters get an Extra Attack... which you already have. "I can't even... I don't know where to begin."
LEVEL 15 - FIGHTER 6
6th level Fighters get more Ability Score Improvements! Since your Dexterity is maxed out you can choose to increase either your Wisdom for better Ranger spells or your Intelligence for better Fighter Arcane Shots. Pick whatever suits your fancy but remember that your Arcane Shots come back on a Short Rest while your Ranger spells are restricted by Long Rests.
LEVEL 16 - FIGHTER 7
Do you have a Magic Weapon? Well you do now! 7th level Rangers get Magic Arrow, which makes their shots magical for the sake of overcoming resistances and immunity. Is total level 16 way too late to be getting this? Yeah probably.
Good thing you also get Curving Shot! If you miss an attack you can redirect it with Clean Cuts, spending a Bonus Action to roll an attack on a different enemy within 60 feet of the original target. And to top it off you get another Arcane Shot option: Seeking Arrow is a good way to target backline enemies, but it’s also really useful to deal with any invisible foes. "Did they deserve it?" "They deserved it."
(Artwork by Riot Games)
LEVEL 17 - FIGHTER 8
8 is the magic number for more ASIs. Intelligence is nice; so is Wisdom. Increase what you want.
LEVEL 18 - FIGHTER 9
9th level Rangers can pick up Mercurial Scimitar and get out of CC with Indomitable. If you fail a saving throw, you can reroll it! But it’s only once per Long Rest. Note that you can reroll death saves, so don’t die or that would make Rakan sad.
LEVEL 19 - FIGHTER 10
10th level Fighters get another Arcane Shot option. Yup that’s literally it. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, I guess. Regardless this late into the game some CC would probably be good, so take Banishing Arrow.
LEVEL 20 - FIGHTER 11
Our capstone is the 11th level of Fighter for an Extra Attack that does stack, giving us three total! Cap off that attack speed to slice through foes like butter! "I love watching you kill." "I love killing for you." "Let's make out."
FINAL BUILD
PROS
Hurray; they all died - You’re really good at Fighting, almost like you multiclassed Fighter with a half-Fighter. You’re incredibly precise with a +13 to hit with your longbow and have plenty of tools to increase your overall DPS.
What? They were in my way - You’ve also got plenty of tricks up your sleeve. Arcane Shots, one use of Trip Attack, Gathered Swarm shenanigans, and plenty of dangerous utility spells.
Oops, your bad! - You’ve got quite a few aces up your sleeve to stop you from being blown up. Higher than average movement thanks to being a Ranger, and your Swarmkeeper abilities lets you increase your movement. Not to mention utility spells like Gaseous Form. And you also have two different ways to boost your health (Second Wind + Shifting), 17 AC with Studded Leather... oh and did I mention you have +17 in Acrobatics?
CONS
Can I just hate you to death? - You’ve got limited resources on top of limited resources on top of limited resources. Two Arcane Shots per Short Rest, spell slots that are limited by Long Rests, healing and temp HP that’s tied to a Short Rest... Be sure to ration out your abilities so you don’t run out when you need them most.
Chaos is the preferred state of nature - All your saving throws are rather mediocre, notably your Charisma which is a nice flat +0. Rakan’s the talker, but a beautiful smile will keep you out of any banishing spells.
Magic is not some river - So it turns out multiclassing two sorta-casters means that you can’t focus on either stat. If you can easily get a 19 in Intelligence (such as with a Hextech Headband) perhaps focus on Wisdom. If not? Well Point Buy is an option.
But if you were perfect why would you need Rakan? He’s there to pick up your slack, and you’re there to make sure he doesn’t screw up. Dance along with him and cut down anyone who stands in your way. There’s nothing you can’t defeat with the power of love... But a good plan is also helpful, so make sure Rakan actually remembers it this time.
"Hey, I have a plan."
"You... have a plan?"
"Yeah! I'll go on instinct!"
"That's the opposite of a plan."
(Artwork by Riot Games)
#valentine's day#love#xayah and rakan#dnd#dnd build#dnd guid#League of Legends#League of Legends Xayah#dnd 5e#dnd fighter#dnd ranger
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Writing Fight Scenes
I’ve had a lot of readers mention that they don’t feel comfortable with fight scenes. Well, that’s understandable. It’s challenging writing about experiences you’ve never had. But with some perspective and practice, you can most certainly work toward writing those fast-paced, heart-pounding scenes with ease.
To give you some background, I practiced competitive martial arts for six years. I competed in tournaments and trained hard to perform well in the ring. It was a contact sport, and even if I wasn’t sparring, training often left me with bruises, usually of the physical nature, sometimes of the emotional persuasion.
This experience gave me a lot of perspective when it comes to writing fight scenes.
Whenever I step into the ring, I have a flexible strategy in mind that combines what I know about myself, my opponent, and what I’m going to learn about them in the next two minutes. I’d like to share some of these thoughts and perspectives with you, and how your character may think before and during a match of their own. Of course, my fighting experience is limited to a contact sport. Your story may very well be far more violent with higher stakes, but strategies may be of similar foundation. Once you take a fight into deeper consideration, aside from the depiction of two fighters merely exchanging blows, you can begin to enrich your writing experience.
I’m including examples from Yu Yu Hakusho because that’s the fandom I write the most for, and as you know, there’s a lot of fighting involved! But remember — anime and writing are two completely different mediums. There's no one narrating everything that our beloved characters are doing on screen. You just see it. That is why you, as a writer, must paint those scenes through words for your readers.
Nevertheless, this advice really stands for any sort of writing, so do with this information what you will.
A well-written fight scene is never about just trading blows. There are other conflicts at play, whether between the fighters or even in the heads of your protagonists.
Allow me to elaborate:
1. Who is your protagonist?
Whenever I am preparing for a sparring match, the first thing I worry about is me. I must be self-aware.
I think about my own fitness. How am I doing? Do I have any existing injuries or ailments? How is my weight? My body type? What are my strengths and weaknesses? What do I have in my toolbox? What techniques do I know? What techniques am I most versed and confident in?
I also think about my overall wellness. Have I been eating well? Drinking water? Sleeping? How is my emotional state of mind? What are the stakes?
Is my uniform clean and pressed? What about my equipment? Headgear? Mouth guard? Shin guard? Did I replace that torn lace?
I recommend using these questions to bring your character’s own reflection to the forefront in whatever way makes most sense for them. How is your character’s fitness? Is she in good fighting condition? Has she been injured previously? What has happened since the last fight that might impact her state of mind?
It’s possible that she’s recovering from an illness or injury. Perhaps her mentor died a gruesome death. Maybe she’s frustrated because she lost use of her right hand, temporarily or permanently, and has had to compensate with her non-dominant hand. Or perhaps she’s lost the will to fight, having experienced something traumatic.
Hiei had to constantly think about his own state of health throughout the Dark Tournament after his fight with Zeru. His arm had been sacrificed to his Dragon of the Darkness Flame, rendered useless, and he was in terrible pain. He never let it impact him, of course, being the stoic warrior he is. His personality allows for little inner dialogue to be shared with the audience, but as a fighter, he was most certainly considering what options he had with his handicap. And, as a writer, perhaps you would like to elaborate on his thoughts for your readers.
What has your character been practicing lately? Is her weapon of choice the same? Has it been upgraded? Has she been training with a different weapon or technique? Is she perhaps nervous about using something new?
Maybe she just repaired her sword, and she’s unsure if it’s as strong as it was before. Perhaps she’s been studying a new technique, and she knows she’ll need to use it in this battle.
Remember when Kuwabara first introduced his spirit sword in Maze Castle? He was so proud of himself, and that whole battle was an introduction to his newfound technique, how he manipulated his sword, and how he was able to harness his spirit energy. It’s far more interesting to see this development and exploration than to just watch him stab at Byakko a dozen times.
My point is that while your character probably should keep her emotions out of the ring, she may not be able to. There are so many things that could be on her mind, plaguing her thoughts, especially if there’s a lot riding on this battle. I think it’s really important to not only acknowledge the physical part of fighting but the emotional toll it can take a fighter, too.
Think about the fight between Yusuke and Toguro. Toguro had just killed Genkai, and Yusuke took that very personally. This was not a simple battle of strength or wits. This was a battle of emotions, and it wasn’t until Yusuke was able to master his feelings and reach beyond that “six foot wall of crap” as Genkai so affectionately calls it that he was able to finally defeat Toguro.
And the catharsis that came from defeating Toguro? It was made all the more powerful because Yusuke went through that emotional journey. It wasnʼt just a fight — it was a calling, a purpose, and a lesson. It was painful and potent, and it made him realize just how much these experiences shaped him as a person.
2. Who is the opponent?
Before I participate in a tournament, I do my research.�� Who is likely to be competing? Who is in my weight class? What do I know about these competitors? If I don’t have answers, I would find them. I’d chat with my instructor, my fellow martial artists. Has anyone else from my school fought these people before? What were they like? Are there videos online of their performance?
I find as much information as possible. I make calls, send texts, take people out to lunch, scour the internet for information. Even if your character lives in a less technologically dependent world, I would imagine that he might talk with friends, look through old records, listen to gossip and hearsay. He might watch battles leading up to his own fight in an effort to learn more.
And if this pre-work isn’t possible, that’s okay. Fights in your story may be entirely unpredictable, but your character can also learn things about his opponent during the match.
When I step into the ring and ready myself to compete, one of the first things I want to find out is on which side my opponent is dominant. In other words, are they right-handed? Or left-handed? Right-footed? Or left-footed? Maybe they only focus on one side during training (which is silly, but that’s another conversation). But there could be an underlying reason why as well. Perhaps they injured themselves in the previous round or maybe they just don’t like exposing one particular side of their body for whatever reason.
This information is critical because this tells me what I need to watch out for, which side of my own body I should be guarding, how I may penetrate my opponent’s defenses. How can I catch them when they least suspect it? Where can I knock them off balance? My instructor always told me to watch the shoulders — shoulders move before the rest of the body. You can tell what your opponent is about to do by watching their shoulders.
Your character may wish to discover the same thing. Maybe his opponent uses a two-handed sword and is very clearly right-handed. This may give him some information on where his blind spot is — or maybe he just needs to disable his opponent’s right arm. The possibilities are endless, and understanding his opponent will give him leverage, offering him many options.
Understanding an opponent’s technique is also important. In martial arts, practitioners often favor a strategy or skill. This seems obvious, but it’s vital that you understand what it is — only then you can combat it.
Consider Kurama’s matches with Gama and Toya during the events of the Dark Tournament. The English dub did a wonderful job voicing Kurama’s inner conflict during these fights, struggling with first his inability to move and then his imprisoned spirit energy — if you were to put these scenes into writing, explaining his thought process would be fascinating. How does Kurama overcome these obstacles? He seeks to understand his opponents before he defeats them, which, unfortunately, also means he risks injury to himself until then.
Your character’s thoughts about the fight, interpreting for your audience what he feels he might need to do to secure victory, is just as important as detailing the fight itself.
3. What about the writing?
The writing will come once you begin to dissect your characters and their motivations for fighting. Your characters aren’t one-dimensional, or, at least, they shouldn’t be!
Your fight scenes shouldn’t be, either. It’s not about two fighters trading blows. It’s about an artfully curated dance. Two opponents are engaged in a craft that they both know well, and whether they’re fighting to win a tournament or for their very lives, they have reasons and complex thought processes that should make their fight interesting.
There are two players here, and unless the fight is grossly one-sided, they’re both thinking and acting independently of one another. My advice is to thread their actions and consequences together — weave the fight scene as if it’s a stream of conscious thought, separated into paragraphs, each with a shift in perspective, for clarity.
Instead of writing:
Yusuke charged at Kuwabara and punched him in the face. Kuwabara punched him in the mouth. Yusuke then kicked him in the stomach.
Try this:
Yusuke had little patience for Kuwabara’s bad jokes, and he rushed toward him, landing a blow square in the side of his head.
Kuwabara flew backward with a grunt, stabilizing himself before launching himself at Yusuke, returning the favor. His fist collided with Yusuke’s jaw, a blow hard enough to knock the teeth out of any regular human.
Yusuke expected him to retaliate, and although he was nearly knocked off balance, he swung his leg around, making full contact with Kuwabara’s stomach.
You may also find it useful to deviate from the fighting itself. You can speak to a character’s inner dialogue or thoughts, whether about the fight or something else. You may choose to have them begin a brief conversation. Or you may describe what other characters are feeling about the fight as onlookers.
There are many ways to make these fight scenes seamless and interesting — take some time to explore your options!
Just a few more general tips that might help:
If you’re going to use a thesaurus, be mindful about it. I use a thesaurus when I write because I suffer all day, every day from tip-the-tongue syndrome. But words, even if they generally fit the same definition, can have vastly different connotations, so before selecting a word from the thesaurus, do some digging. Look at the exact definition and perhaps Google some common usage. Punch, slap, and stroke do not mean the same thing, even if a thesaurus might say otherwise.
Read your writing out loud. If you’re unsure, this is the best way to understand your cadence, the flow of the battle. Use your best Morgan Freeman or Jorge the Ogre voice.
Consider a beta reader. Sometimes having a second opinion is immensely helpful.
Remember that there are no strict writing rules. You write whatever your heart desires in whatever manner your heart desires. Experiment and explore with different styles and techniques to find whatever works for you.
I hope you find this information useful! Please feel free to suggestion additional blog posts you would like to see from me in the future. ^_^ Of course, please reblog this if you found it helpful!
Pictures are, of course, not mine. They are shots from the anime or other official derivatives.
#YYH#Yu Yu Hakusho#YYH tutorial#YYH fight scenes#Writing fight scenes#Fight scenes#Writing#Writing tips#Writing help#Writing tutorial#YYH resource#YYH fanfic#YYH fanfiction#Writing fighting#Writing how-to#Fanfiction#Fanfiction writing#YYH headcanon
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Scott Fuller
Scott Fuller
Why I like them: Oh Scott, He’s probably the character that breaks my heart the most, to be honest. He’s just so young and angry and lost, and he starts off the series clearly feeling powerless against all the bullies out there. Then he gets this incredible amount of power, and loses his family because of what he does with it. I believe he really was trying to protect them too, he viewed it as a gift and a way to survive in the world. Then he falls in with people he thinks can help him become strong and powerful, makes a bunch of terrible choices that end with his sister getting shot and killed while trying to help him. But is capable from learning from his mistakes, he just needs some time to work through things and think, not react or follow along.
Why I don’t: I love all his flaws, and I really loved the darker parts of his character growth, so the only thing I'd change is we’d get more of what was going on with him throughout the show. We get all the major pieces to follow along with what happens to him, but he has a ton of stuff happen off screen that I would have liked to see. He has an really interesting relationship with power , both in how he craves it as something to protect and prove himself, that I personally find much more relatable than Richie’s very similar storyline.
Favorite episode (scene if movie) Fanglorious - I loved his Culebra Christian Rock band so much. I loved that he was really trying to build something positive after Season 2, and find a way to live with it all. He has a ton of guilt, but he also tried to turn it into something good by stopping the predators and bullies of the world from preying on others. Plus, we got a tiny bit of him interacting with the Geckos, and that Amaru fight was so intense and impressive looking.
Favorite season/movie: Season 2 - I know! He was a gigantic mess throughout the whole thing, but Brandon did a phenomenal job exploring it all, and I think it was all really important to get him where he ended up. It was hard to watch (the whole season is pretty hard to watch) but as the saying goes, it’s always darkest before the dawn lol.
Favorite line:
It’s the first real glimpse into how he views the world, and it’s a great little jolt.
Favorite outfit:
His long coat and twin swords is such a great look for him, I love that he’s styled himself like something out of a comic book.
OTP: No one at the moment, he doesn’t really have a love interest during the show, and for most of it he’s in a pretty bad headspace to be thinking about romance. Maybe Scott/Crossing the Ocean to Find Himself (metaphorically and literally)
Brotp:
Kate Fuller - I love their relationship, they just felt like real siblings to me. They had a shared history and had a huge impact in who they are as people, but they were also still two distinct people who had different views of the world, and reacted differently to the same trauma. It didn’t mean they loved each other any less though, and they will always have a unique bond with each other. And I’d love to see them renegotiate and figure out how they work best together going forward now that they aren’t kids anymore.
Head Canon: That he took some kind of martial arts classes as a kid, which would explain why he can do all the cool moves. I imagine he was always a bit of a loner, and I think Jacob and Jennifer could have tried to encourage him to get out there more by enrolling him in something he already had an interest in (his canon love of comic books and lucha wrestling and action movies) I can see him really throwing himself into learning all sorts of cool and flashy moves. I don’t think he was was fighting back in school though, I see him more simmering angrily than actually engaging back at that point.
Unpopular opinion: I’m not sure how unpopular it is, but I really think it was best for him that Kate turned him down on his offer to go off together at the end of season 3. I'm sure it stung a bit that she didn’t want to fall back into something close to what they were/maybe would have been, but he really needs some time to actually figure out what he wants to do and who he wants to be, and adding in a bunch of guilt and trying to be normal with her would have been a real distraction to that. And I think Kate really needed some space to adjust and heal without worrying about managing his feelings about what happened, which would have just been so hard for both of them to navigate in close quarters while everything was still so raw.
A wish: I would love to see Scott partnered up with Freddie! I think Scott could learn a lot from the Earl McGraw School of right and wrong, and he always gravitates towards mentors, so I think having someone who is also half in half out of the culebra world and has experience with feeling like an outsider would be really good for him. And the idea of a Culebra Peacekeeper in training makes me so happy, and I think would fit really well with Scott’s personality. (I know Peacekeepers have a whole bloodline component to them, but 1. Scott’s adopted, so we don’t actually know his bloodline, and 2. I’m not sure it should really matter anyway, since they’ve already thrown the whole culebra world order upside down. He can hold his own in a fight and wants to protect others)
An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen: Die, I don’t want him to die if the show ever does come back (knock on wood)
5 words to best describe them: Angry, Loner, Fighter, Geeky, Badass
My nickname for them: none
Thanks so much for asking about Scott @astarkey, and for giving me the opportunity to ramble on about him! You know me too well. 💖
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freckledmccree
replied to your post
“Cumulus Rocks reminds me that once I made a list of the most goth...”
okay, but i'm gonna need to see that list
Oh believe me I wrote this with this list on hand just in case. I split it by class and to an extent alignment and I’ve updated the commentary (and in the case of the rogue, the subclass itself). I had forgotten about Yasha, Fig (kind of), Vax (kind of) and Liam (Wilhemina, not O’Brien). Liam W. is not quite as pastel but he is a very pink boy and Fig ended up changing to college of lore but she is more of a punk goth. I posit that as soft lovers of flowers who also happen to be very good at killing, while Vax and Yasha are more classic goth in their aesthetic they could be swayed into the romantic goth category, if not full pastel. Oh and also I believe Emily’s character on NADDPod’s recently finished campaign, which I will start listening to very soon as I’m almost caught up on RQG, is Circle of Spores but in a very not goth way, but don’t @ me or spoil me on that.
Barbarian:
Inherent gothness of the class: unless you want to make easy jokes regarding the Germanic tribe, low, usually. You get angry and you fight things.
Path of Zealot. In addition to the necrotic damage option, you get the most goth ability of all, the ability to keep fighting while raging even when you are technically speaking, dead. You are also very hard to kill and easy to bring back from the dead.
Bard:
Inherent gothness of the class: very low in the classic interpretation although between the spell list as is, magical secrets, and RP you can do a pretty good job. I’m of the opinion, however, that it’s best to lean into the glam influences here, since bards are pretty glam. Think Lovecats Cure, not A Forest Cure.
College of Whispers. You can capture the shadow of a fucking dead person and cause all kinds of fear effects.
Cleric:
Inherent gothness of the class: medium to high. D&D is rife with religious imagery and having a cleric in the party is an opportunity for the DM to put you up against all kinds of undead, have you explore catacombs, etc, etc. Plus, all clerics get plenty of necrotic and radiant damage access plus resurrection spells and similar.
Grave Domain, in which you respect death as a part of the life cycle and hate undeath. (note: Death Domain is only in the DMG so usually players can’t pick it and it’s also pretty explicitly Evil Only).
Druid:
Inherent gothness of the class: as in the PHB pretty low - you turn into animals, and you can’t even turn into a bat until like, 8th level. Outside of the PHB it gets a little more Fey and a lot more goth.
Circle of Spores, which is into death and decay and okay with undeath to an extent, so a good way to be sort of neutral on vampires without going full evil. Circle of Twilight is a very close second.
Fighter:
Inherent gothness of the class: I would have said super low back in the day before I saw the continuum of Goth v. Prep rather than Goth v. Jock. For truly, these are the jocks of D&D. As such I’ll still say low, but not unheard of.
Monster Hunter. It is literally in the Unearthed Arcana: Gothic Heroes, and it lets you slay monsters, plus engage in some light mysticism. It also provides the ability to improve your arcana skill. Do you want to play John Constantine in D&D? Yes you do.
Monk:
Inherent gothness of the class: low. You’re sort of too busy being both a nerd and a jock (martial artist) to get really deep into Cocteau Twins.
Way of the Long Death. You study death extensively (goth nerd with jock tendencies?) such that you can drain the life from others (but only after you already brought them to 0 HP, so it’s not vampiric), scare people, avoid death yourself (but not in an undead way), and do necrotic damage.
Paladin:
Inherent gothness of the class: medium. Despite the fighting nature, it’s one of the more aggressively medieval classes, plus we again get that religious imagery/catacombs option.
Oath of Vengeance. It’s also a bit more dramatic and definitely dark, and they get the Bane spell which is pretty goth. (note: the Treachery option is also pretty goth but again it’s more geared towards villainy and evil alignments only).
Ranger:
Inherent gothness of the class: medium. You live in the forest alone and have weird nature magic. Whereas Druids are a little too hippie to be goth, Rangers fit the bill.
Either gloom stalker or horizon walker. Gloom Stalker is a little more industrial and gritty; Horizon Walker is a little more ethereal. Both go into dangerous and arcane places and tend towards shadowy evasive maneuvers. I think Gloom Stalker wins, but only just.
Rogue:
Inherent gothness of the class: high. You skulk in the shadows in black leathers like, as a class.
The Revived. Not sure why this is explicitly a rogue class because presumably anyone could be revived...unless maybe the process of being brought back makes you want to be a rogue? But anyway you slowly realize that you are not on your first life and sort of channel your past life and also are sort of undead and can talk with corpses.
Sorcerer:
Inherent gothness of the class: high. The arcane casters, bar the Bards, are all pretty goth as a concept, and the innate ability of the sorcerer is a nice touch.
Shadow Sorcerer. You literally are said to exist between life and death. You can get a hound of ill omen. You can teleport between shadows. You have ties to the Shadowfell, aka the plane of gloom. It’s very extra.
Warlock:
Inherent gothness of the class: literally as high as possible without fucking Pretty much all of them. I’d argue in fact that Celestial and Archfey are the least goth, but you could get Archfey to work what with the planar magics and scaring people. As written, Hexblade has Shadowfell elements although everyone kind of ignores that piece of lore; also per mostly ignored lore the Raven Queen is the queen of the Shadowfell. Undying involves a pact with an immortal who gives you basically the top hits of the necromancy spell list, the Seeker sends you into the astral plane, the fiend is literally a being from hell, the Great Old One is all Lovecraftian and eldritch, and while I’m not a huge fan of the modern setting idea, the Ghost in the Machine sounds pretty fucking cybergoth too. I think Undying probably wins (especially since most disregard the Hexblade lore) but all can get there.
Wizard:
Inherent gothness of the class: medium. Robes and a wizard hat aren’t as fashionable as you’d think, and that nerdiness can end up being a little too cheery, but still as an arcane caster they’re naturally pretty goth.
Necromancer, obviously
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Just ‘cause we can, does that mean we should? - An Altered Carbon (S1&S2) Review
Stories of immortality, the fountain of youth, and shapeshifting are throughout our stories. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde explores the idea of staying young and the corruption of the soul. From Bram Stoker's Dracula to every other vampire story told we see those ideas played out repeatedly. These ideas even come up in folklore from around the world. So needless to say, humanity has always wondered about immortality, youth, and shapeshifting.
Before we start, I have some questions for you. You don't need to answer them, instead, think about them. I mean really consider what it would mean.
What if we could live forever?
If death is a part of life, and death is removed, is that really life?
But what if there was still a possibility of death, but could technically (under the right circumstances) live forever, would birth and eventual death even matter?
What if we could change our faces? Our bodies?
If we can change our bodies, should we still worry about illness and disease?
If we can change what we look like and we can live forever, does money and power still dictate us?
What would humanity be like?
How would we change with time as a species? As individuals?
Would it be worth it?
Does anything matter if our physical does not matter?
Just because we can, does that mean we should?
This is Altered Carbon's universe. Humanity has moved beyond Earth (in fact, I think Earth is mentioned only once... and it's pretty far into the series) and we have found a way to become basically immortal. Cool, right?
There are spoilers approaching. Get Ready.
You're immortal, as long as you don't get your stack busted. The stack holds everything that makes up a person (experiences, memories, feelings, thoughts... everything). Stacks can be moved from sleeve (body) to sleeve with very little consequence. Well... That is if you're a Met, a rich person. And the poor... Well... If your stack is intact, you're still a live, but not physically there. Sometimes the poor can afford to rent a sleeve, but the series hints that even renting is a luxury.
So what now? We don't die unless our stacks are destroyed, and we can look like anybody we want to look like. What do we do as a species?
Do we socially evolve?
Yes and no.
Yes: No longer is skin color a factor in a person's worth. Which, honestly, is really fucking awesome. You can go from being born Japanese/Russian to being a Caucasian guy to being a black guy. Since anybody can look like anybody, racism isn't a problem. Yay! Since racism isn't a problem, we see diverse families and relationships. So, point for AC!
However, I did wonder what that means in reality. I'm sure there were people complaining about changing the main character's race from Asian descent to Caucasian. I understand why it is a problem when this does occur in other stories, but the changing of race is part of the series. It again, shows that in AC's universe you can look like anybody! I wouldn't have been upset if they stayed with an Asian actor for the whole series, but the dramatic change just drives home that race isn't important in AC.
No: Humans have not socially evolved as far as the economic classes are concerned. There is still a "1%" which holds all power and all the money and they still only care about themselves. The poor are nothing to them. There is no problem, unless it threatens them or their way of life.
I'm glad this was in the series because it makes AC's idea of a future more realistic as a possibility for us. Granted, it's more than likely not going to happen, especially with the fact that we haven’t even been to Mars... Mars is 106 million miles away, but C'MON! In the 60s they thought we would have colonies all across the galaxy! Or at least on the Moon. In all honesty, I'm disappointed that we aren't even living on the moon in this day 'n' age. That's beside the point. The point is, the idea some people have that they are better than other people persist even in a universe where none of that should matter. Maybe the creator was hinting at the idea that greed and lust of/for power is a part of the human condition.
Has the human condition changed?
No, besides the fact that in the previous paragraph I basically said it does not, there's another example. In AC, as humanity spread out in the galaxy seeking new home planets, we did what humanity historically does... We assumed we were more important beings. Killed indigenous life. And stole their secrets and their lands.
Humanity might not be a lot of things, but we are damn predictable. Woo!
Oh. And by the way, just in case you were wondering, sex still sells. In fact, I'm pretty sure it’s one of the main industries on many planets in AC. And it's actually a large part of the first season's story line. Without it, there would have been no motivations for certain characters to do the things they did and the whole season would be like three episodes.
With that being said, in season 2 there is less sex. So, at multiple times while watching season 2 I had to wonder, just for a hot minute, if the show's writers and creator added all the sex and nudity just to get their show sold on Netflix. Upon reflection, I decided that yes, some of the sex and nudity (seriously halfway through the first season you see multiple breasts, butts, vaginas, and 1 penis) but I also really think it was an important aspect to the story.
Are you guys ready for my opinion about the show?
If you haven't guessed it, I really enjoyed it!
I didn't think I would like it at first. Sex and nude bodies within minutes of the first episode of shows usually don't grab my attention. Like, I came here for a story! Not soft porn! (Which is why I never got into True Blood despite the fact I love vampiric stories!) However, I love stories that are intricate webs. Almost like spiderwebs. If you touch one thread, the whole web vibrates. And that is what Altered Carbon is. It is a complicated web of mystery, interesting characters, and emotions.
For some, it could be hard to get into because it is so complicated and honestly a bit weird, but if something isn't complicated and weird is it really worth the time?
I also really liked this show because the cast is very diverse!
So all those hypothetical questions I asked at the beginning are questions that I feel like Altered Carbon is trying to answer through the story of Takeshi Kovacs. He's been away from the world for more than two centuries. Hired by a Met to solve the Met's death, which is the main mystery and even though it seems like an obvious whodunit, it is more complicated than it seems. And so is Takeshi.
He's not just a fantastic martial artist and weapon's expert. He is a brother, a friend, and a lover. (And let’s be honest, crazy attractive no matter the sleeve!)
Thinking back, none of the characters are one dimensional. Each one has their own motivations, past, and does the one thing that is important in storytelling, each one grows (whether good or bad). I’ll do a bit about some of the characters, but not all.
Takeshi Kovacs
When we first meet him, he’s a dick that hallucinates. I mean, he’s always a dick, but we don’t know why he’s such a dick or why he hallucinates (my money had been on the drugs…). He just wants to find a place to lay his head, maybe get his rocks off, and drink. That’s all he is in most of the first episode. By the end of the first episode you’re left wondering who the hell this guy is! And why the hell is he such a good fighter even though he hadn’t been in the physical plain for more than two centuries!
As the series progresses you learn bits and pieces here and there. By the end of season 1, you know who he is. He is Takeshi Kovacs, The Last Envoy.
Kristin Ortega
My first thought was either she needed to hop on that dick or go fly a kite. Honestly, I don’t like that that was my first impression of her. She grew on me a lot. In fact, her storyline brought the religious aspect into the story. If we can live forever, would God be okay with that? It was really interesting to me to think about that. Anywho, back to Kristin… There are times that I think her character gets away with more than she should, but again, it fits in well with the whole plotline of the show.
Quellcrist Falconer
THIS BITCH RIGHT HERE. HBIC! UGH!!!! She is so cool!!!! I love this character so much! A little less in season 2 because she doesn’t come off as strong as she does in season 1, but it is explained why she’s not as boss bitch. Aaaannd, it’s understandable. But seriously! She is really really awesome! Leader of a rebel cause, extraordinary fighter, master of her world… SO GREAT. And honestly she has some of the best philosophical one liners.
Poe
Probably the most human out of all of them. I really enjoy the character. He’s sweet, kind, and smart.
Reileen Kawahara
I’m going to let you decide. I haven’t decided for myself yet.
Jaeger
A fucking asshat. I’m just going to leave it at that.
So, this is where I will stop (partially because I've been working on this for days and I just want it posted!)
The main takeaway is that IF YOU LIKE STORIES THAT ARE DEEP, COMPLICATED, AND WEIRD WATCH THIS SHOW!! YOU WILL BE SO GLAD YOU DID! And please let me know what you thought of it! I would really love to talk about this show more! If I think of anything else to add I shall post again! Thank you!
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