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currycurrie · 4 years

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Okay. Let's talk Ancient Rome.

First off, every bit as horrible as it was made out to be. No embellishment at all. Rome is the worst.

Next, world building thoughts. So my understanding thus far is such that the Romans had imprisoned these dragons and were exploiting them. The Cult of Mars decided to stage a coup and release them. And then the dragons went absolutely berserk. A repeat of Paris and Damascus but on an unfathomable scale. The Meritocrats can, and I cannot stress this enough, go fuck themselves. I sympathize with them being imprisoned I really do, but once again mass murder on that scale. Never acceptable.

But regardless, this certainly explains a couple things about the Cult of Mars. My corrupt cops metaphor from a while back? Incredibly apt. Their name being the only one still Roman? Wasn't just a weird detail I picked up on, was definitely a signal of special treatment. The way they interrogated the party? Suggested to me they have Cart Blanche permission to act in whatever manner they see fit. And when you literally worship the concept of war? Well. It's not gonna turn out great.

So an interesting little detail, Apophis was the dragon equivalent of a child when things in Rome went down. I feel like this might signal some sort of potential schism between Apophis and the other dragons. Also muddies my general EAT THE MERITOCRATS opinion on things a little bit. We'll see if I'm right. Opinion still on the extremely distrustful and seething with rage side of things.

So the half of the gang that didn't get a blast from the past (ahahahaowithurts) totally pulled an Interstellar and were gone about a year and a half. And in that time, the world has gone absolutely flipping bonkers. And the Meritocrats are doing nothing. I think I need to hear about what's going on from someone other than Einstein before I write out my thoughts on everything. But Einstein is literally the best ever and I love him so much. He's so kind and compassionate and just yes. Einstein forever. Viva la Einstein.

Another thought. Despite everything. Despite it all. I feel like they were able to get the hostages out too easily. There was no one in there guarding them. There wasn't a single locked door. It was just the one guy in there with the crystal ball who went down so easily. There's more bad coming, I can feel it in my bones.

And finally, let's talk about the massive elephant in the room. Because it's dead. And it's corpse is starting to rot. And it's making the children cry.

Was there a plan to get Grizzop and Sasha back? A convenient delorean parked in an alley, an anachronistic blue box, and absolutely wild looking bicycle gizmo? I'm desperate to know what Alex's plan here was. The plan wasn't to just write out those characters from the start, right? RIGHT?

And Grizzop. Really, genuinely one of the most tragic characters I've ever come across. He was so afraid of death. So afraid. And yet he was constantly running head first into life or death situations. Sacrificing himself for others. Getting so very very mad when those around him did the same. And there's so much I don't know about him. I wish I knew more. And I genuinely have no idea who Ben plays next. Good lord. Also he ripped up his flipping character sheet like immediately!! I totally get it. When I play ttrpgs I'm the one who finds it hilarious when my character goes down or dares the GM to hit me etc. I get it. But give me a chance to breathe Ben please! Anyway, Grizzop's epilogue was just beautiful. And after it ended I just laid in bed and stared at the ceiling for like a good ten minutes and had a nice long cry.

Sasha. She made the best of an utterly shit situation. I am surprised though that she just gave up? I guess? Maybe she didn't. There was probably some conversations the audience wasn't privy to. But in a way, I'm happy for her. I don't think she would have ever felt that she was truly free in a world where Barrett and his gang existed. But here she can know without a shadow of a doubt that, at the very least, she is free of him and all his plans and manipulation. And she can give so many kids the happiness she never got a chance at. Do some real good in the world. I am happy for her. I will miss her so much.

And I guess now we grit out teeth, put our heads down, get back to the present, and get on with things. On to season 4.

#rqg spoilers #rqg #currie's rqg sideshow spectacular #long post #sorry about the length i am on mobile and cant add the cut

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hellzyeahwebwielingessays · 4 years

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The Not-So-Amazing Mary Jane Part 17: MJ is LYING to Peter (when she knows she shouldn’t)

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One of the most egregious elements to AMJ is the incredible casualness in which the story treats MJ lying to Peter. In this post I will unpack just why this is seriously out of character.

Let’s be clear. Lying to your partner is in general just not a great thing to do, especially when you’ve only recently gotten back together. Lying to your partner about potential risks to your safety, other people’s safety and crimes that have been/are being committed, really, really not a great thing to do; and that’s when your partner’s job isn’t fighting crime.

Now in fairness MJ has lied to Peter about various things over the years. However these occasions (to my recollection anyway) have rarely included Mary Jane withholding information about out-and-out criminal activities from Peter. As I’ve exhaustively demonstrated, Mary Jane understands Peter’s ‘original sin’ and shares his sense of justice.

There were two notable exceptions though, the first occurring in ASM #286.

To fill the vacuum left by the departure of the Kingpin NYC’s mobsters engaged in a humungous gang war. The war involved various costumed types including Hammerhead, Jack Lantern, the Hobgoblin, Daredevil, the Falcon, the Punisher and of course Spider-Man.

Physically and mentally exhausted from putting out fires throughout the city (as well as his recent tussle with the Punisher), Peter returned to his apartment where Mary Jane helped him somewhat recover. As he slept Lance Bannon dropped by, intending to pass on a hot tip about a major gang meet that was to happen that night.

MJ took the message but out of concern for Peter deliberately chose to not tell him about the meeting.

The meeting turned violent causing a distraught MJ to finally tell Peter about it. She was horrified by the extreme violence and placed the blame squarely upon herself.

At the end of the story an even more exhausted Peter once again returned to his apartment. MJ admitted that whilst she was frightened for his safety she also acknowledged that his heroic acts were wonderful. However as Peter collapses on the coach MJ tries to point out to him one person who did in fact die in the incident, a young rookie cop.

This incident, being unique even amidst MJ’s unique life, would stick out in her memory.

It’s a huge lesson for MJ about the horrible consequences of lying to him about potential criminal activities. Noticeably in this situation MJ knew criminals were simply going to meet up and talk to one another, which isn’t (to my knowledge) actually a crime unto itself. And yet in AMJ #1 Mysterio and his crew collectively are actively committing various crimes (evading the law, identity theft, fraud, etc.) but MJ still lies about them.

The other example where MJ lying had horrible consequences is admittedly much more contentious. During Howard Mackie and John Byrne’s run on both ASM v2 and Peter Parker: Spider-Man v2 they initiated two subplots regarding Peter and MJ lying to one another. In Peter’s case he lied to Mary Jane about resuming his role as Spider-Man following his seemingly permanent retirement.

In MJ’s case she lied to Peter about a mysterious stalker who had begun making threatening phone calls to her. The stalker aggressively professed ownership of her and also threatened Peter. MJ presumed (for some reason?????) that the stalker was one of Peter’s enemies and thus kept him in the dark in order to protect him and maintain the normal life she believed they had. I admit this doesn’t make much sense but that’s a discussion for another time.

These lies (from both parties) majorly contributed to a creating a big schism in Peter and MJ’s marriage. They also, obviously, harmed MJ’s mental and emotional health through scaring and upsetting her, rendering her terrified of the phone.

MJ’s upset and horror at the situation escalated when her stalker went from threatening phone calls to invading her workplace to leave similarly threatening written messages.

This was very quickly followed by more violent acts like the stalker triggering explosions in the road where MJ’s limo was driving. It is implied several cars are totalled in the explosions, potentially injuring or killing innocent people and leaving MJ’s friend Jill Stacy scared and potentially mentally traumatised.

By this time Peter and MJ had independently learned they were deceiving one another. Peter rescued MJ from the stalker’s attack prompting the couple to briefly argue over their deceptions. It was clear that during this argument they held one another in poor favour for never fessing up, further damaging their marriage.

Not long after MJ’s stalker escalated things again, this time by causing various bombings near MJ’s home and around the city. He even publicly announced he was doing it to ‘have’ Mary Jane and that more attacks would follow. The situation became so serious that the authorities became involved and confirmed that there were innocent casualties resulting from the bombings.

The stalker was so extreme though he even attacked the police station MJ was being kept at for her safety, injuring yet more people and prompting MJ to flee for her life.

Unbeknownst to her, the stalker, posing as a cab driver, picked her up. MJ realized the truth when the stalker took her to the Bugle and locked the doors. Revealing another bomb counting down, he began to ramble about ‘proving his love’ to her and made moves to touch her. MJ escaped and yelled for civilians to clear the area. She escaped just in time as the cab exploded, seemingly killing the stalker.

Obviously such an experience would be upsetting enough, but it got worse because the stalker wasn’t actually dead!

When MJ boarded a plane the stalker (posing as a civilian) drugged her, took her off the plane, then faked her death by causing the plane to explode mid-flight and murdering everyone on board.

The stalker then held Mary Jane prisoner for six months. It was implied that in that time she was confined to a singular room. Even if that wasn’t strictly speaking the case it was confirmed that in all that time MJ was totally denied human contact, the stalker not even talking to her.

She was driven to such desperation that she practically begged her captor to just speak to her. When he did she exclaimed her thanks to him in spite of the situation.

After this the stalker revealed the details of his origin, motivations and plan (which aren’t really relevant right now). These details horrified MJ, none more so than the revelation that he killed everyone on her plane and that Peter was the stalker’s real target.

When Peter showed up the stalker used his psychic abilities to place MJ into a coma, one that would’ve been permanent had he not died shortly thereafter.

MJ barely survived and was seemingly intent upon restarting her normal life. However, she was left (temporarily) traumatised by the experience. She was frightened of phones when they rang and practically had a panic attack when the door to the attic wouldn’t easily open.

In part due to this trauma MJ opted to separate from Peter, eventually heading out to L.A.

In a much later story MJ would reflect that the time they were separated was one of the worst in her life.

The entire saga of the stalker…well actually it doesn’t make sense.

For various reasons Peter and MJ simply would never have lied to one another in the first place. Even excusing this many of their actions within that context didn’t add up.

Nevertheless it provided the foundation that later (much better) Spider-Man stories built off of and nevertheless provides at least food for thought.

Those thoughts being how the experience clearly illustrated to MJ that she made a mistake in lying to Peter.

Innocent people, her friends, her family and her husband, were physically, mentally or emotionally harmed by her stalker and her 'death'. At the very least the passengers on her plane lost their lives, though other victims of the stalker’s bombings might also have died.

MJ herself suffered a shitton of harm and emerged from the events with outright PTSD.

ALL of this likely would’ve been avoided if Mary Jane had simply told Peter or the authorities about the phone calls earlier than she did.

Whilst Mysterio and his crew might not do anything as bad to her as the stalker, it’s all too possible that they could harm someone if remained unchecked. And lying to her romantic partner is a HUGE part of enabling them to remain unchecked!

Not to mention on the most basic of levels, lying to your romantic partner is 9/10 simply bad for any healthy romantic relationship. Indeed, the stalker saga illustrated that in it’s own clumsy way but its just common sense. Outside of exceptional circumstances couples should be honest with one another. Peter has to routinely lie as a matter of practicality and yet even he knows that in general it’s something that should be avoided, as evidenced by ASM #310.

I’m not saying there aren’t times where withholding the truth is ultimately the best option for everyone involved but AMJ is obviously not one of those times. There is a huge difference between MJ deciding to not mention that she was briefly tempted to sleep with another man when nothing actually happened...

…verses not telling him the guy who faked his Aunt May’s death is walking free.

One avoids awkward or hurtful feelings in a romantic relationship. One potentially seriously endangers innocent people.

There is a counterargument to all this though. Couldn’t MJ be lying out of concern for Peter?

Answer: Definitely not. But that’s a topic big enough to justify it’s own instalment.

P.S. I am aware MJ has at times lied to Peter about other things. But my point is there is a huge difference between a little white lie or a lie that is intended to not rock their marital boat (e.g. not telling him about Jason Jerome) compared to potential life and death stuff like the above or AMJ #1.

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#Amazing Mary Jane #Leah Williams #Peter Parker #Spider-Man #mjwatsonedit #mary jane watson #Mary Jane Watson Parker #MJ Watson #Mysterio #Quentin Beck

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beatricebidelaire · 5 years

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[regarding beatrice & jacques]

tbh for the longest time i’ve been trying to grasp the dynamic between beatrice and jacques and then just kept drawing a blank like while i’ve never shipped them romantically it’d been really hard for me to capture their dynamic in general despite the fact that i was pretty sure they had to had at least a certain degrees of interaction they’re probably at least friends more than acquaintances and yet i’ve been trying long and hard and the only thing i’d come up with at that time was that post about jacques the only snicket not into goth girls which really isn’t even a description of them.

like, they were always a little, second degrees of separation in my mind. (like, not literally, of course, not in the sense that they don’t directly knew each other, but more like i have their separate dynamics with others clearly pictured but just not with each other).

1) jerome. they were both jerome’s friends, probably closest to him out of their friend group, jerome’s immediate connection to vfd. jacques wrote that letter begging him not to marry esme, hinting at vfd and yet not revealing anything, and beatrice and him (and some others) climbed mount frought together. “she and i were very good friends a way back”.

2) kit & lemony. jacques was brother to kit and lemony, and beatrice and lemony were together for quite a long time, and kit and beatrice were also good friends. and both B&L and B&K are partners in crime (sugar bowl theft and poison darts murder). B&L and J&L also both canonically exchanged letters.

3) olaf. beatrice and olaf grew up together, had known each other at least as early as he was seven, spent their apprenticeships together. she killed his parents and he pushed her over a balcony and he possibly maybe might have set her house on fire. best friends to worst enemies etc etc i have to avoid going into depth here or i’ll forget to stop. jacques’ friendship with olaf didn’t have as much as little details like beatrice’s did, but there were certain hints still. olaf dated jacques’ twin presumably in their teenage years. jacques tried to convince olaf to come back to vfd during tvv, in a way i’m sure neither kit nor lemony put in his situation would’ve done. like it’s partly because of who jacques and what he believed was but it kind of also meant they were friends once before everything went wrong. or, you know, what you’d call a history. so it’s in a way quite likely they were both olaf’s closest friends on the firefighting side, before they stopped being friends.

4) bertrand. B&B were friends to lovers they were partners in crime they were in love they were married they raised children together. they were on the same side in the schism within the schism. they were on an island together and forced to leave together. they loved each other and they worked well together. now, admittedly there’s no canon interaction between bertrand and jacques just like there was none between beatrice and jacques, i have concocted a set of very detailed headcanons in my head, which started out as me considering the possibility that their similar situations (being viewed as the perfect apprentice and the model volunteered by others) make them relate to each other, and then the fact that we didn’t see either of them on screen in the netflix!opera scene which gave me room to develop a backstory for that, and then eventually i ended up writing an elaborate breakup fic for them which is arguably canon compliant. so technically there’s no canon evidence but i have enough headcanons and they’re one of my otps so i’m going to list bertrand here anyway.

despite all their similar connections to various people i’d struggled to find the direct connection between them, trying to picture their dynamics. and after failing for a long time one day i was scrolling through my dash and saw liz’s quigley and carmelita friendship headcanons and then it suddenly struck me that .... there seemed to be some parallel here in a way. like i’ve already been thinking a lot about beatrice carmelita parallels and picturing young!beatrice to have similarities to carmelita, and then i realized that quigley, like jacques, might be the one sibling most deeply believed in vfd and that might potentially cause rift between them and their siblings. and taken into “odd friendship between a girl who loved performing and is the only child and the boy who potentially had different views towards vfd than his siblings and also for due to vfd complications didn’t see his siblings for a long time” and “she’s secretly jealous that he has siblings to argue with, to disagree with, even if she would never admit it out loud”, and suddenly this friendship and how they might interact started taking form in head.

in my head jacques was, one of the few people who weren’t in love with / crushing on beatrice. and sometimes he’d find her too theatrical, but very very occasionally he’d also see her quieter, more vulnerable side hidden underneath the dramatic persona. she’s lemony’s girlfriend, and most of the time he’s somewhat fond of her and she’s like a little sister in a way. when she and olaf teamed up together to cause chaos it gives him a headache, but he considered them friends anyway.

fun fact: when i was writing poisonous fungi can break hearts, i considered making beatrice and jacques penpals, though i didn’t manage to fit this subplot into the story, though i do really like the idea. it probably started sometime after b&b got back from the island. and at first jacques thought beatrice was reaching out because maybe she was feeling guilty about getting together with bertrand after jacques and his break up, though he quickly realized that it wasn’t the case, which made sense because to beatrice they did break up and she wasn’t the type to feel guilty about this. instead, they mostly talked about lemony and remembered lemony together. also, beatrice started writing him because she thought he might be lonely these days - particularly after she realized that both kit and bertrand were avoiding jacques and she knew how they all used to be really close - and could use a friend. beatrice was observant in these kind of things. she also suspected that neither kit or bertrand actually considered how both their distancing might affect jacques because they still got each other as friends (and even planning vfd stuff together) and kind of had each other to fall back on and wasn’t completely lonely (and also he had beatrice and she had ellington). so beatrice wrote letters to jacques talking about this music lemony used to like, talking about violet’s invention, and asking jacques about what he’s doing and how’s jerome. jacques was actually quite grateful for her letters because it was nice to have someone to write to. it’s nice to have a friend who cared and who also wasn’t skillfully avoiding him like his ex or his twin. it made things less lonely.

#asoue #beatrice baudelaire #jacques snicket #vera.txt #its 3am plz excuse any grammar mistakes or whatsoever #brotp: bitter tea and root beer float

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quantumfizz · 6 years

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My Thoughts on ASOUE Season 2

If you don’t want spoilers for the show and the books, LOOK AWAY!

-I understand why a lot of people disliked the romance with Jacques and Olivia, but I thought it was fine. Not extremely necessary, but it was sweet.

-Larry Your-Waiter is amazing in every scene he is in, how can one man be so perfect. Also I loved the line about his moms, and the fact that he grew up in the Village of Fowl Devotees.

-Lucy Punch is perfectly cast. I never had an idea for who I personally wantedd to play her, but she absolutely nails it. Esme is a vain character that at times is comedic and hard to take seriously with her obsession with what is in, her ridiculous outfits, etc. BUT there are plenty of scenes where she needs to be intimidating. That chase in the Library of Records was AMAZING.

-On a similar note, NPH continues to perfectly portray Olaf. I like Jim Carrey’s performance, but the film adaptation didn’t show how threatening Olaf can be and he’s more comedic than intimidating. NPH is incredibly entertaining, and has some of the funniest lines in the show, but he really brings out the serious/threatening side of Olaf. His speech to Violet about how an animal acts when cornered was so disturbing, and I loved it.

-And the cameo with his husband and kids was so cute!

-Olivia Caliban’s change from a neutral agent in VFD to someone completely devoted to the “noble” side and the Baudelaires was a bit disappointing. Her character in the novels was not on either side of the schism, and it was an important part of her identity.

-The flashback to the masquerade ball. Oh my God. Seeing Monty and Josephine and everyone else was so cool! The novels only focused on events related to the Baudelaires, and characters like Gustav and Ike were only mentioned. Seeing them was so strange, but I loved it. And Patrick Warburton’s performance in that scene broke my heart; a lot of his scenes are lengthy monologues where he can’t emote to a large degree (and when he does it is very subtle, like the scenes with him and Jacques--which were also heartbreaking). But him dropping his drink in shock, tearing out to the balcony, and desperately screaming to Beatrice really hurt.

-There’s a bit more expansion on Olaf and Beatrice’s relationship (in the platonic sense) from before the events of book 1. Beatrice continued to see the good in Olaf, despite everything that happened.

-”You never approve of my love life” Handler I love you but please, I can only take so much foreshadowed sadness in one sitting, you’re killing me

-Sunny’s CGI looks a lot better. Maybe they’ve had more experience with the editing in those scenes, and Presley Smith is able to walk so it looked better as a result?

-Presley Smith is one of the best child actors I’ve scene in a long time. Her facial expressions were some of my favorite parts of every episode.

-This show/book series is still a shining example of how to write a boring character that is still interesting. Poe is literally the most boring man on earth, but his boring nature is weirdly interesting and engaging: he loves hospitals, paperwork, procedure, and bureaucracy. It’s just nice to have a boring character who is actually still a character. Also “fire of my loins”. WEW MAN

-Carmelita is a horrid delight. Another case of perfect casting.

-FIONA AND WIDDERSHINS ARE MENTIONED, HOLY SHIT. I knew they probably would be, but it’s still a shock to hear them mentioned.

-I’m glad the Henchperson of Indeterminate Gender survived in this version, I’m so attached to the Netflix troupe of Olaf’s actors and I was afraid they wouldn’t make it

-”Why did I have to steal that sugar bowl from Esme Squalor?” and “I want to steal from you the way Beatrice stole from ME!” both had me SCREAMING.

-I’m still a bit muddled over the timeline in the Netflix version. Beatrice survived the Duchess of Winnipeg’s ball by flying away in her costume, but iirc she died in the burning of the castle that same night in the books. And in the books the masquerade took place AFTER the Baudelaire fire, according to the Unauthorized Autobiography. So is this true in the Netflix version too?

-I liked the musical numbers. I’ve seen a few complaints that there were too many and they went on for a while, but this is from the same dude who filled two pages with the word ‘very’. If a musical number could be put into a novel, there would be one in the novels.

-Sidenote: I watched this season/the entire show with my mom,who a) has never read the books and b) is a librarian. She thinks it’s cool how the series praises the work of librarians and hails them as heroic and noble keepers of knowledge. I just wanted to share some of her thoughts. She also loves Sunny, and could not get enough of her scenes, especially with Fernald.

-She also enjoyed the Austere Academy episodes, since she worked in public education for twenty years and knew exactly what Snicket was making fun of when it came to standardized testing. And her favorite disguise this season was Coach Ghengis (we’re Southern and that accent was too much).

-Does that heart carving mean that Olaf dated Georgina first, then...Josephine??? (when tf did THAT happen), then Kit? Was it him documenting crushes and not actual relationships? idk

-Jacques was such a cool, hip-happening smooth talker! Like that is NOT what I imagined him to be in the books but I like this interpretation.

-Ten years later and I still don’t know why Poe a) has that cough b) if it came from smoke inhalation, and c) why he doesn’t notice it. The show has not helped me, and has only reinforced this confusion (”You should get that cough checked out.” “What cough?”)

-Handler added more references to Judaism than what was in the books, which I think is cool. (Hector’s mom being fined for wearing white after Yom Kippur, Poe being singled out in school for not having a bar mitzvah, etc.)

-THAT (LITERAL) CLIFFHANGER THO

-I knew it was coming but it still got me. Can’t wait for Sunny to show off her cooking skills and hang out with Fernald. Also I can’t wait for the WMHBNB and the MWBBNH, and their scariness. Anyone who disturbs Olaf and Esme are not to be trifled with.

#asoue #asoue stuff #asoue netflix #a series of unfortunate events

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awaragainstboredom · 7 years

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Writer’s Block: The RPG Method Part 1

I role play a lot. Like I’m currently a player character in 4 games, and I run my own campaign, and working on the world for my own homebrew campaign. This is also done in regularity on a weekly basis, which is completely different from back in the day we were lucky to get a few weekly sessions, and reconvene months later in the same campaign, only to never get back to the game again.

Things like family, work, depression, etc. would end up putting those games on the back-burner, which was really a death flag for a campaign. I’ve made so many characters for so many role playing systems, just to never play as them ever again.

I honestly never thought I would become one of those guys who plays tabletop rpgs as much as I do. I mean, in the past when someone would share with me that they were in two D&D campaigns, and was part of a LARP over the weekend I would think it was ridiculous and laugh at their fervor for wanting to be in that many games. Well, the joke’s on me now.

However to my defense, this isn’t mostly about escapism. Okay, not to say that it isn’t, but I took on this many games to help out with my writer’s block. I see role playing games as a different way to explore narrative.

You not only act out your characters, but you have to overcome challenges with a game of chance. And even though the person who is running the game and helping direct you through the story, that dice roll, whether it passes or fails the challenge (or check, if your nasty), effects the tale that is being woven, and you played an active part in it. That’s really amazing!

I’ve also read that a good number of fantasy novels that have originated from role playing campaigns. George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones series, and Scott Lynch’s Gentleman Bastard books are couple of examples. Game of Thrones was born from a Roman rpg, and Gentleman Bastard’s main character Locke Lamora was based upon a character Lynch made for D&D (which to my delight, I learned was also based on the “treasure hunter”, Locke Cole from Final Fantasy VI).

This was enough to influence me to try and do the same. Universe building is hard for those who prefer to write in such a manner, because it’s hard to balance out how much detail do I want to write about said world and not get obsessed with it and never actually finish it, or at least that has been my experience.

My goal here is to document as much as I can about things that I have made for my games in the way of world creation, and characters for other peoples games. I know some Dungeon Masters don’t want a novel for character backgrounds, so give them a short and concise one, and you can go and expand on it more on your own.

Or maybe you can just make it as you go along in the game that you are playing in currently. As an example for character background here is mine for my D&D character Rota.

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Rota Grendelstadt

Rota, the magic academy drop-out turned sellsword, ventures forth to find knowledge in all things, and the true path of a warrior. Hailing from the cold north in the fishing town of Grendelstadt (located close to Neverwinter), she stands at 6 foot 5, with a lean muscular build, moonlight-pale skin, with silver hair in a fringe style cut and silver eyes to match. And if that doesn’t make her stand out, then perhaps the fact that she is a tiefling without a tail (Her mother and her father were the same, as well as most tieflings of Grendelstadt). Though tall, and muscular she is surprisingly bookish and introverted. She is brash, quick-tempered, prone to violence, fiery, socially challenged, but has a good heart, quick on her feet, tenacious, dependable, and has an weird natural charisma that draws people to her.

She is highly knowledgeable in magic theory and formulae, however she cannot connect to mana in order to cast spells. She has spent a lot her time honing her physical skills and researching why she in not able to use magic. She is working with a theory that she heard about when one exceeds their mental and physical limits, perhaps they can open a channel that can connect to the magical tapestry.

Growing up in a family of adventurers definitely was not the most normal of upbringings. Even with the simple life on a farm, Rota’s mother Herja wanted her to be as strong as she is and would put her through rigorous training that even the militia of Grendelstadt wouldn’t go through. And her father Beolf, a skald, would be off travelling to do research for his book of races and culture of the world. Because of this she hardly saw her father, but Beolf would make sure that when he was home he would bring her back books.

Beolf was rather awkward when he would see his daughter, and the only things that would break the silence between the two were to talk about books, and her mother’s crazy training routine. Though Beolf loved her, and tried his best (that he could muster) to be a parent to Rota, his trips back were too short and very infrequent, which caused their relationship to be a distant one.

The dramatic change that shaped Rota into who she is now begins with the death of her father, Beolf. She spent the rest of her life being raised by her mother, uncle and various friends of the family. It wasn’t a normal childhood, being that she had to flee for her safety and train to become a warrior to be strong enough to defend herself and help others. It was a kind of splintered family unit with a bunch of troubled, dysfunctional adventurers. And though they all mean well in their way of bringing Rota up, they struggle with their own egos and misconceptions of what makes one a hero, and is there really such a thing?

Rota’s father was killed in a fight with his cousin, over the spoils from an adventure that her father had owed to the cousin. And it was within the laws of their country for those who have been wronged by their neighbor or kinsmen, by settling things out in a physical challenge. Her father, Beolf and their cousin, Thorfinn chose to have a wrestling match as their way of settling their differences, while the Jarl, Falken was to oversee the fight and uphold the law.

Of course it was all an act to misdirect the Falken, to make him think that he and Thorfinn were on the outs. And by with Beolf creating a schism in the Grendelstadt family, the gamble was to perhaps draw the attention of the jarl to try pull Thorfinn on his side, allowing him to gain Falken’s trust and be the inside man. The jarl was pursuing Beolf and his comrades who had found the underground site for the earl’s humanoid smuggling ring that was being overseen by The Order of the Unspoken Rhyme (which Falken is a member of).

The Order of the Unspoken Rhyme is connected to the Cult of the Dragon, and handles underworld business for them making them an enemy of Beolf and his friends, who have vowed to take down the Order and their allies at any turn. Upon dismantling the slave trade, they also came upon treasure that Falken thought would be well hidden from anyone but himself. However the quick eyes of the bard Beolf found it. And within the cache of treasure was an ancient tome most dangerous, and Beolf knew he had to find a safe place for it.

He took all of the treasure and sent it to three different locations and had cut a map into 6 pieces to be found in order to find the treasure, and secretly sent the tome to his wizard friend and adventuring partner, Touchstone, who keeps it locked away hidden in the wizards’ academy, Hippocampus Scale, that the earl would focus on searching for the other treasures. Foolishly, death was the last thing that Beolf was prepared for in his plan. Thorfinn broke Beolf’s ribs which went directly into his lungs. He could have been healed, but Falken didn’t allow any outside potions, and only his healers at the fight. It was said he also might have had some responsibility in the “accident”.

At the age of 9, Rota saw her father die before her eyes, but did not shed a tear for him. Not because she was trying to make herself seem strong in front of the jarl and his men - she just didn’t know how.

Rota’s mother Herja, uncle Sigurd, and cousin Thorfinn were devastated by these events and knew that things would become tough for them in Grendelstadt. Though being the tough battle-hardened adventurers they were, they knew that they would be alright. However, as the years went by the concern was growing that Rota would be used as some sort of bargaining chip to find the treasure. the Grendelstadt family knew they had to send Rota off before things would get really dire.

At the age 12 it was decided that she were to be sent away from her town of Grendelstadt to attend a wizard’s academy, Hippocampus Scale and learn to become a wizard like she always wanted to be (Thorfinn pays for her tuition to account for the death of a kinsmen, as per the law of their country), while being under the watchful eye of her godfather, the human wizard Touchstone (who’s equally sassy as he is powerful).

She learns that she does have amazing aptitude for understanding magic formulas and theory. However when it comes to practice, she is terrible at actually manifesting the spell. Not because she doesn’t understand it, but because her connection to the source of mana is weak. All the spells would just fizzle right in front of her.

And although her grades were high in every other course of study except for spell casting, she became the object of ridicule among her peers (which would end in episodes of violence, mostly by her). Whenever there were spell casting exercises she would spend most of her time reading, and doing physical training that she learned from her warrior mother, who pushed her not only in farm work, but also learning how to fight with weapons.

Later on the headmaster of the Hippocampus Scale, upon Touchstone’s suggestion, wanted her help out with what they called “Battle Training”, or “Real Life Combat”, in which she would be the physical combat participant for her peers, so they would learn how to use spells effectively in combat. Normally they have hired swords stand in for this, but they thought it would be interesting to have someone who could understand spellcraft, formulas, and theory, and apply them to fighting against a mage, and see how they would react to it. Her popularity rose in both positive and negative ways after this, but she was known not to be a simple challenge to her rivals anymore.

She was going take the job of becoming a researcher in Hippocampus Scale, and then maybe some way she could find out how to connect with the source of mana. Touchstone, though proud of her accomplishments, saw that she was only making things harder on herself in her pursuit learning how to cast spells and felt that she need to find another path to become what she wanted.

And sent her off to become an apprentice to one of he and her father’s other adventuring comrades, the master swordsman, Dragnar Fafnirson. He thought perhaps that her connection to mana will come from a battle-borne soul. However before he sent her off from Hippocampus Scale, he gave her the ancient tome that her father had found to protect it (He was beginning to see the Order’s shadow reach out to his academy).

After her training with Dragnar, she was pitted against Herja, to test her strength. Her mother quickly dispatched Rota, and sent her back to continue her training, but not after scolding Dragnar first. And though she won’t tell Rota this, she did get some good hits on her mother, which excited her blood to see what potential her daughter has in the way of battle. With a few more years of learning under Dragnar, her master sent her out to get some experience, by sending her out in the world to test her mettle.

Other notes:

She would get in trouble with her mother, Herja when she was reading instead of doing farm work, or physical training. She learned how to workout and read at the same time because of this. And when she is not fighting, she is never without a book. She also likes to visit libraries of each city she comes across. Rota also cannot stand wizards who have semi-useful spells, and thinks it is a waste. She is also very arrogant when it comes to talking with spell casters.

She was estranged with her father Beolf, and spent most of her early years being raised by her mother and uncle. Beolf was thought to be a gallivanting bard, getting caught in women and wine, and was just a deadbeat father (or at least how those in Grendelstadt saw him), he really did care about his daughter and would bring her books whenever he came back to town.

She really didn’t know how to react after his death, because she felt she didn’t know him really well, except for the fact that he was the nice guy that gave her books and would share his love of them with her. It was after his death that she learned he was actually trying to save the world from evil. And it was only years later did her tears come after reading a poem that he dedicated to her in the signed copy of the book that he wrote.

#Dungeons and Dragons #Role Playing #Writer's block #d&d character #writing exercise #d&d 5e

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seekingnomad-blog · 5 years

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Homo Mathematicus

The soul as a sphere in equilibrium: not grasping at things beyond it or retreating inward. Not fragmenting outward, not sinking back in itself, but ablaze with light and looking at the truth, without and within.

-Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 11.12 The world is how it´s always has been: neverending, everchanging, and yet oddly static. Whether it is the essence or the manifestation that changes, I do not know. It doesn´t matter right now. To me, at least. Tonight I don´t care about the specifics of change and stasis, but about how the way we look at the world is evolving.

The world used to be a place full of magic. Or rather, people used to see the world as a place full of magic. A magical place, even, created by gods, corrupted by demons, inhabited by spirits. A world in which apotropaic magic kept us safe from the horrors that lurked in the night, in the forests, in the waters, in the air itself.

But today we look at the world and we see something different. We see things. Numbers. Everything around us is being explored, analized, tested, catalogued and carefully archived. This effort began very, very long ago, even though it´s been accelerating at an absurd rate since the Age of Enlightenment. A trip to nowhere and everywhere at the same time. And it´s changing us. The world isn´t a magical place anymore. It is a roughly 4.5 billion years old planet with a circumference of roughly 40.000 kilometers that revolves around this one particular star 365.256 times per year. The walls of the city aren´t sacred anymore, but a X kilometers long ruin made of stone and mortar. The night isn´t dark anymore. We light up the world and forced the darkness to retreat away, into the sky. When was the last time you saw the stars? It´s been a while since I spotted any. And what happened to the horrors that lurked in the night? And those in the forests and waters? They´re gone too. There´s no space for them anymore, because now the light fills everything, and no shadow can stand against the encompassing light. They must retreat farther away, deeper into the heart of the 20.163 hectare forest of whitebeams and oaks and pine trees and conifers, located 1919 meters over sea level on ground created during the Cenozoic and Paleozoic periods and populated by a sadly decreasing list of specific animals species that I won´t develop now because I think you already got the point.

Is this good? I´d argue that people no longer being scared of demons eating their souls if they go outside at night is a good thing. As is medicine, technology, knowledge in general - pitfalls aside.

But it wasn´t that long ago (at least on a historic scale) that two friends who went for a walk in the park could suddenly stop to improvise some poems about this or that old tree. Nowadays there´s this perception that poetry is something that comes from deep in the soul of an inspired poet - but poetry has always been a rather public thing. Something to be shared. Educated people in Ancient times used to compose and recite poetry when meeting their friends. Still in the XVIII And XIX centuries we find plenty of public poetry and literature and sharing in general.

But not anymore. I believe that the World Wars are partially at fault. The world was too busy for poetry and songs - even though I´d argue that´s when they were needed the most. There´s plenty of poetry from that time, but it is of a more private sort. Sad, harsh, painful. I knew a simple soldier boy Who grinned at life in empty joy. Slept soundly through the lonesome dark, And whistled early with the lark.

In Winter trenches, cowed and glum, With crumps and lice and lack of rum, He put a bullet through his brain. No one spoke of him again.

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye Who cheer when soldier lads march by, Sneak home and pray you´ll never know The hell where youth and laughter go.

-Siegfried Sassoon, Suicide in the Trenches Not the kind of stuff you´d just start reciting out of the blue in a park.

But still, there´s more to that than a couple generations being mutilated, traumatized, and generally kept busy rebuilding their world. During the last century, coupled with the turn towards materialism, globalization, industry, and the absolutely BRUTAL acceleration of progress and technological development*, our culture has taken a sharp turn towards Mathematics. *(Someone could have been a cheeky teenager or early in their 20s during 1903 and laughed at those fools who claimed they could build a machine to fly in, and still be alive to watch the retransmission of the first men walking on the Moon. Take a second to think how they must have felt remembering their childhood, in which the idea of flying at all was something between a dream and a joke) And this is where I wanted to get. This is not about poetry. It´s about math. The world is crazy about math. Everything is quantified. And while we can light a lamp at night and find comfort in its light and warmth, when a whole city, a whole country, the whole world turn on their lights… The darkness is vanquished, yes, but at what price? I miss the stars.

There is one big problem with the human nature, and that is that we´re not good at sticking to the middle path. People tend to stay still and never move, no matter how unhappy they are being stuck in old, harmful traditions; or they rush forwards with an unstoppable thirst for more knowledge, for new ideas and new traditions, no matter how many good things they leave behind of break in the way. What drives us to explore the world is that we don´t know it. And the more we know it, the more we find that we don´t know - but those unknown parts are deeper and deeper every time. For the average person, most of the world has already been explored. They don´t have neither the formative background neither the interest required to care about WHY does this very specific aspect of this or that field behave the way it does. As far as they can see, things make sense. The mystery of the world is gone. All there´s left to do is to wait until the next breakthrough so there´s something to be amused about, even if just for a little while.

And the explorer go on and on, always looking for those new breakthroughs. Because that´s what explorers do: they keep going, always hoping to find more. And with their rain of information they desensitize themselves, desensitize everyone else to the beauty that´s already there, because all the eyes are already placed on the next thing. There´s two trends I see here that I like, though. The first one is that the new generation seems to be back to the old roots. Most of them are removed enough from the great wars that none of their living relatives were directly involved. There´s been time for wounds to heal. Internet memes, often quickly disregarded as the lowest tier of… whatever, are actually a form of expression. They are a new birth of the old habit of spontaneously breaking out in poetry. Different on the surface, definitely, but ultimately the same thing: an act of personal creativeness that combines something from the world with your own vision, and is shared freely with others. The comparison might seem odd, or even absurd. You might be tempted to say that the old poetry was valuable and memes are quick fading crap. But cut them some slack, will you? They´re recovering a very important part of our culture that has been forgotten for generations. People three centuries ago grew up watching other people, who had grew up watching other people, etc. The craft improves with time and through generations. Kids nowadays are rebuilding the habit from the ground up. And covering it with a layer of absurdism and cynicism that´s very fitting to the current world climate. It must be quite confusing to be 15 nowadays. Politics made little sense to me when I was 15, and back then they DID make some sense. Trying to puzzle the pieces together to understand how the world works nowadays must be a maddening challenge.

The second one is that the world seems to be recovering a bit of that wonder. We´re turning everything into math, but we are using that math to find more beauty. While the world is speeding up, it is also slowing down, in a way.

And while the schism with the old world -the old customs, old traditions, old values- maybe be more and more inevitable as capitalism and marketing replace everything we used to hold dear, I see that a new world is formed. A new old world. Different. With its own customs, traditions, values. Not the ones we´ve had for centuries, but new ones. When 1 and 1 meet and combine themselves, they become 11. And no 1 knows which 1 it is anymore, but they´re both the same, although different. And with time, they merge into a single entity: 2. New. Different. A global world in which individual traditions are forgotten. And while some might call that chaotic mix a mess (and they´re not wrong), I think there´s also beauty in the amalgam of cultures that will, if everything goes right, last a very long time. Until the next major schism between past and future which, like the one we´re going through right now, will likely be caused by technological advancement, and hopefully not but maybe also war, or some other major catastrophe. Maybe it´ll come when we spread through the stars, if we ever reach that point. And the world goes on. Neverending, ever-changing, and oddly static.

Isn´t it beautiful? Our inward power, when it obeys nature, reacts to events by accommodating itself to what it faces – to what is possible. It needs no specific material. It pursues its own aims as circumstances allow; it turns obstacles into fuel. As a fire overwhelms what would have quenched a lamp. What´s thrown on top of the conflagration is absorbed, consumed by it – and makes it burn still higher.

-Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 5.1

#writing #rambling #future

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