#i get the joke of course

[nyancrimew]

So people once were calling me a terf, persecuting me just because I held some different opinion. After taking a break from social media, I've did some thinking, and I've came to accept this label as a part of who I am. I identify, inside and out, within the fibers if my soul, as a terf, and anyone who objects to this is being criticalphobic. After a while though, being so enshrined with terfness started exposing to me the many issues and hypocrisies terfs have, which I started rejecting. I just remembered I left my pizza in the oven, its burning uh

Eventually I realized that by rejecting trans people from society, I was arbitrarily drawing a line between what a person participating in society could be, completely discounting all the possible ways our biology I've so long revered could betray the labels our ancestors placed on ourselves. I stopped excluding trans people and started exclusively rejecting normal feminists, making me a ferf, until I walked outside and accidently talked to a guy and found they were normal. With no one familiar to belong to, I gave in and joined feminists and became a rfet.

Anyways do you want to hear about the time I almost drowned in a public water fountain

and the oscar for "best supporting anonymous bait" goes to....... whatever the fuck this is

[blorbologist]

Y'know, I think I figured out why the Hells still feel like a new low-level party to me, even though they're level 13 and almost 100 episodes in.

I don't quite think it's the lack of conversations, or the fact half the party's plot hooks are big ties to past campaigns - though that definitely plays a part.

... Bell's Hells still primarily rely on quest givers.

Most of their goals are given to them and do not feel organic to the party, and constantly remind us that the Hells are pretty much never the most powerful people in the room. Which is usually something you see with a low-level party.

NPCs offering jobs is not a bad thing; it's a very common plot hook. Matt has been extremely skilled with using NPC quest givers in those two campaigns. Not only do they provide an obvious plot thread, but they can put the party in the path of others (say, the Nein running into the Iron Shepherds while doing a job for the Gentleman and everything that came of that). And the Hells had a solid start with it too - Eshteross was an excellent quest giver!

The problem is that Bell's Hells have never really not had a quest giver.

Maybe it's a byproduct of the more plot-heavy structure of this campaign? But while prior parties have felt like they decided on their course of action and what they prioritized, Bell's Hells feels less like level 13 (13! Level 13!) experienced adventurers and more like an MMO group clicking on the exclamation point over an NPC's head. Where does the plot demand we go next? Who do we report back to?

They're level 13.

At level 13, Vox Machina had just defeated a necromantic city-state to clear their name and Percy's conscience. And, you know, the Conclave just destroyed Emon. No one was explicitly telling the group to gather Vestiges and save the world (though Matt guided them there), and they were usually among the most powerful people in the room. They chose which Vestiges to prioritize, which dragons to tackle when, even if the over-all plot was pretty clear.

At level 13, the Mighty Nein were celebrating Traveler Con (another PC goal, I'll note) after brokering peace between two nations, accidentally becoming pirates and heroes of the Dynasty. The Nein regularly chose what to do based on personal goals, not grand ones. Though definitely smaller fish than Vox Machina at this level, they were very independent and gaining solid political clout.

While we're at it: level 13 is one level lower than the Ring of Brass, who had a huge amount of sway over Avalir. They ended the world, and also saved it, while in the grand scheme of things being only a smidge more powerful than Bell's Hells are now.

Can you really see the Hells wielding that amount of influence, when they're constantly being told what to do next?

The god-eater might be unleashed, so Bell's Hells have no time to do anything but what is asked of them. No time for therapy unless stolen from Feywild time, no travel on foot and late-night watches. They haven't even had time to grieve FCG. Percy was grieved in the middle of the Conclave arc. Molly was grieved when half the party was still in irons.

Matt is in the very unfortunate spot of not being able to give the Hells the same agency as the other two parties. Not only because of the world-ending plot introduced so early on; they are surrounded by characters they know (and the cast knows) are stronger and wiser than them - the familiarity of the past PCs and NPCs is to their disadvantage.

Why would the party reasonably ignore Keyleth's task that will help save the world and go off on a romp? Why would the cast when they know well Keyleth has to be sensible and with the best intentions in mind? The stakes are just too high.

It means that the Hells still feel like they're running errands instead of pursuing their own destiny. Their accomplishments are diminished as just being parts of a to-do list, and any stakes feel padded by several level 20 PCs/NPCs standing 5 steps away ready to catch them.

This isn't Bell's Hell's fault, nor is it Matt's. It could be amended, I think, if the Hells are really left to their own devices for a long period of time without support and shortcuts (like during the party split)... which would be really tricky to pull off at this point in the campaign.

They're level 13. They're big fish, but they're stuck in a pond full of friendly sharks, so they don't feel big at all.

[otto-doctavius]

wade wilson body worship. can anyone hear me

[crabsnpersimmons]

a little wip for a little thing i'm working on!

[itscherryterry-again]

yea

[buggachat]

sorry guys i gotta leave the fandom. had a dream last night that chat noir's secret identity was MY DAD all along. need time to recover

[leverage-ot3]

I’ve talked about this before but imagine what it’s like for someone in a country/place where eliot is Top Most Wanted and then your tech guy finds a breakout star baseball player on their visual scanner that looks EXACTLY like spencer. but…there’s no way that’s him, right???

and then the next year it happens again but this time it’s some one hit wonder country singer kenneth crane that has like 78 tween-run fangirl blogs dedicated to him. you see a grainy video of him being chased by a horde of screaming teenage girls and ??? no way Eliot Last Thing You’ll Ever See Spencer is a country singer star just. signing pictures of his face right…?

a few months later your intern shows you footage of an eliot lookalike who is in san lorenzo talking about how there is dog fighting in the presidential palace and you just. sigh. because of course. a scant few days later the political geography of the country changes drastically and damien moreau is imprisoned. …interesting

and then a year of silence goes by. he still shows up as blips on the radar but he must have a good hacker working for him because his tracks on the internet are expertly erased.

every time you ask through interagency channels some random interpol guy talks in (condescending?) riddles at you and it also somehow feels like he’s threatening you

and then your friend who recently got into foreign hockey teams sends you a dropyourgloves video of someone called jacques the bear. you immediately get a headache (and watch some more videos because even you can admit this guy is a good hockey player)

and you know he’s a Bad Guy but it’s been admittedly a bit entertaining seeing what claim to fame he will come upon next. and his most recent actions over the few years make you wonder.

a few months later your phone pings because multiple heads of state evacuated from DC. the reason? eliot spencer was in town. you hear two days later a bioterrorist was taken down by… the report was redacted. your hacker tells you spencer and two teammates were behind the successful operation. which, huh.

not even a full year later it is released that spencer is dead and… you don’t know how to feel.

[bisexuallsokka]

whenever i see people claim that zukkas don’t actually want their ship to become canon i have to disagree. you don’t understand the insane things i would be okay with as long as it had the end result of making zootaras mad. sure there is no way they could canonize it in a way that would actually make me happy. but you don’t understand the lengths i’ve gone to, the truly crazy things i’ve done, the sleep i have lost, and the war crimes i’ve committed just to piss z*taras off.

[skunkes]

[prefer-to-be-vilified]

Enid, discussing whether or not her parents know she’s gay: I mean it’s not like it matters, I’m going to die alone anyway.

Wednesday, without hesitation: You’re right. You’re incredibly annoying.

Enid:

Enid: That was uncalled for.

Wednesday: I apologise. Would it help if I married you?

Enid: You know what? Yes. Yes it would.

Wednesday: Well if I must.

[Later that evening]

Wednesday: And you said I’d have to tell Enid how I felt to convince her to marry me.

Thing: YOU’RE-A-MENACE-TO-SOCIETY.

Wednesday: Why thank you Thing.

Thing: TELL-ENID-YOU-LOVE-HER.

Wednesday: I’d sooner kill us both. Now focus, we have a wedding to plan.

[trustymikh]

Seeing how powerful Emmet’s Archeops is in Pokemas I like to think that he saw the potential of the sad little chicken and was determined to train Archen in spite of the unfortunate ability

[stoat-party]

[kidvoodoo]

Dutch Bookie Joost Klein and his temporary hired gun, Nordic Crime Boss Käärijä

History will call them coworkers….

[benevolenterrancy]

i really do love that lan wangji is secretly an enormous bitch to jiang cheng specifically it's seriously too funny

[imaybe5tupid]

Why bother? (Why bother?) It's gonna hurt me. (It's gonna hurt me.) It's gonna kill when- (Why bother!) -You desert me! (Gonna hurt me!)

Set after Nightmare. Laios is reminiscing and contemplating.

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

it's polite to maintain eye contact!!!!