#noodle watches critical role

[captainsupernoodle]

Imogen is walking. WALKING. straight!!! Into the middle of the Super Secret Camp. By looking every person who asks what she's doing there in the eye and telling them that what she's doing there is NONE OF THEIR BUSINESS!!!

[shorthaltsjester]

downfall has me thinking about the prime deities far more than is best for my mental health and so i’ve been rewatching c1 just because so many of the pcs have relationships with the gods — even percy and keyleth who hold lower opinions of the gods still have relationships with them — and good grief . you ever think about whitestone as this bastion of love that the gods still have for one another and the love that a party of idiots have for one another. that the centrepiece of the town is a tree from the dawnfather, one used for the builders of castle whitestone to take shelter from the tumultuous lands of the alabaster sierras. a mountain range that came about out of the conflict between the dawn father and the chained oblivion.

the fact that the family that whitestone’s lost son found and brought back with him amounted to two temples being erected, and how fitting that after defeating the briarwoods, the two gods that are given new houses of worship in whitestone are the gods of death and redemption, fate and compassion. do you ever think about how many of vox machina are champions but how much the ones who are not are still held in good faith by the gods, whether or not that is returned? do you ever think about the raven queen telling percy he is broken and reminding him that does not mean he is alone, that means he is mortal, as are all those whom he loves. do you ever think about percy’s death letter, read by vox machina in a tavern as he tells them that the raven queen calling him broken finally opened his eyes to the fact that he has chosen his life (and thus, he might choose better), writing “one the lie [that vengeance would bring my family back] was shattered, I scrambled to find a solution, to make a deal, to undo my mistakes and balance the scales. I now understand that there are no scales. There is no redemption, and no ledger that judges me good or evil. I am free to simply be myself and live with the terrible mistakes I’ve made. Tomorrow, I start upon a path beyond the gods and demons who have tormented me, and it’s your friendship that makes this possible. […] I will try and do my best for you all.” and signing it Percival, of Vox Machina - the family he found and chose, not the one he lost and buried himself in vengeance to avoid. and fucking, vex having just heard percy forgive ripley also hearing those words and having carved the word forgive on the weapon she carries who has a conversation with him to remind him (and herself) that committing to forgiveness over grudges and vengeance means also forgiving the person he’s been that prioritized vengeance. the fact that one of the main things they bond over is that they have similar dispositions to justice and a similar unwillingness to forgive but they both see that in themselves as something they wish to improve at, and that when they eventually marry, each time is by someone devoted to a god neither of them necessarily worship but each of which oversees a domain particularly relevant to that connection - keeper yennen is a worshipper of erathis, and thus the justice that both percy and vex care to honour; pike is a worshipper of raei, and thus the redemption that both vex and percy seek (and see in one another). do you get it.

and god the entirety of the final arc of vox machina is truly some of the most interesting cr content for me just because you get the silliness and depth of vox machina in the face of these Beings On High and they all gaze at these idiots trying to save the world with fondness and the realization with downfall that in many ways those gods were just as much idiots trying to save the world makes that so, so interesting. and i wonder what might’ve happened if one of the gods they’d gone to see had been the lawbearer or the wildmother, what might have been made of percy and keyleth. i wonder if the lawbearer might have taken an interest in a calculating and curious man who loves to strike a deal and stick to it, even if manipulating the contents of the deal made to better suit his ends - especially given that percy was rejected by ioun for his propensity not to share his knowledge, and especially given that whitestone has a historical precedent for worship of the lawbearer. and i wonder what the wildmother would make of an angry girl who is fated to watch the people and places she loves be irrevocably changed and die, who wields her vestige, and who favours the world and it’s people over the gods and their rules — something i’m willing to bet melora would find some common ground with.

there’s also some beautiful symmetry between the relationships of the gods to which vox machina become champions and their own relationships with one another. and i’ve made my post about vax and vex vs. the matron of ravens and the dawn father, but i also think quite a lot about vex and scanlan vs. pelor and ioun. vex and scanlan who can be quite antagonistic to one another but also understand each other as few others do; scanlan who tells the dawn father that vex is not perfect but she is the most perfect among them, vex who hears the knowing mistress tell scanlan that his stories give vox machina strength and genuinely tells him it’s true and that he is very powerful, even when he tries to joke about it. ioun and pelor were the ones to take on tharizdun, ioun nearly perishing and having to hide away to recover. when vox machina asks pelor for her location he doesn’t know it. and fuckin. dalen’s closet. should be a silly little wedding oneshot ends with fuckin. vex glowing with the light of the dawnfather as her and percy, the living son of whitestone, are married by pike who is a cleric and is also the champion of the god of redemption, where the champion of ioun turns into a. dinosaur to walk his friend down the aisle and then grants a wish so that she can see her brother again and the champion of the matron of ravens comes to visit - something that is explicitly stated to be allowed by the matron of ravens. where a twin glowing like the dawn and a twin darkened by raven feather embrace. do you get it . do you see it. the fact that the first story we all heard in exandria was one of a family threatened by fate who could not beat it but did their best with it and that now downfall, the newest story but with parts of the oldest story in exandria’s timeline, is the same. a family who is doing the best with what they have, and what they have isn’t always great.

[ravendruid]

"Come here, you limp noodle."

[breitweisergallery]

9 Fandom Peeps to Get to Know Better:

Tagged by the always wonderful @killerandhealerqueen

3 Ships You Like: Right now, let's go with Vax/Essek, Caleb/Jester, and Yohan/K

First Ship Ever: Hahahahaha tomarry from HP for sure

Last Song You Heard: LTNS by DK!

Favourite Childhood Book: The Ranger's Apprentice series by John Flanagan.

Currently Reading: I'm not reading much that isn't for school right now, so.... Engaging Ideas?

Currently watching: Critical Role C3, Dimension 20 Fantasy High, and various youtubes

Currently consuming: More caffeine because I'm still crashing from adrenaline after teaching today

Currently craving: I want a really fuckin nice chicken noodle soup right now.

Tagging: @highflyerwings @technitango @godotismissingx @k-s-morgan @thedeviljudges @clawbehavior and @stars-after-dark

[chibivesicle]

The sadness of Steven A. Starphase.

How Kekkai Sensen/Blood Blockade Battlefront is painfully realistic.  In the most banal adult ways possible.

With me going back to rewatch Trigun before Stampede began to air, I was itching for more work by Yasuhiro Nightow.  However, his follow up manga that started as a one-shot that became Kekkai Sensen/Blood Blockade Battlefront came out while I was in grad school and when the anime was briefly on Crunchyroll later, it didn’t ping me as a suggestion.  I’m very much a josei/seinen person with occasional forays into good sports or slice of life series, then shoujo and then shounen series if they have a good sense of humor.  Essentially, I need something like FLCL or Gintama to keep me amused.

With Stampede not meeting what I’m realizing were unrealistic expectations, I was curious and decided to follow up on Blood Blockade Battlefront (B3).  The title alone would be a turn off for me; I put faith in it that it would have that original Trigun quirky vibe.  Honestly, I wish they’d not have translated and told me it was Kekkai Sensen, I would have been easier to convince to watch it.  I watched the first episode and was already loving the style, the artwork and the OST. That OST man - so good.  And the VA cast - so many actors from Gintama and I was shocked no one was commenting that Femt, the King of Depravity, was voiced by one of my fav VAs, Akira Ishida!  What sealed the deal for me, besides the incredible graphic design, story boarding and attention to detail from studio Bones was the entire sequence in S1E3 - A Game Between Worlds when Klaus and K.K. go to the Alterworld following the former Soviet chess grandmaster to the Alterworld Mafia Don’s home. 

As the story unfolded in season one, I started to gravitate towards my usual character types; tough independent females and tall, dark, and handsome males.  Yeeeaaaaah; I love Chain Sumeragi, K.K. and Steven A. Starphase.  I also appreciate Leo with Sonic and Klaus Von Reinhertz is the best male tank character I have ever seen.  He’s so adorable!  And gentlemanly with his tie and oxford brogues.  B3 is a workplace drama/comedy that just happens to take place in a secret organization that handles weird supernatural stuff.  Seriously, that is a great summary and it is a great cast even if I’d likely kill Zapp and punch Brody & Hummer for being double ditzes.

I haven’t finished season two yet (I’ve watched through S2E7 - so no spoiler comments for the rest of season two or the manga please!).  But the character who ticks all my boxes is Nicholas D. Wolfwood - er - I mean, Steven A. Starphase.  Steven is the second in command of Libra, one of the oldest team members (over thirty), has a facial scar, dark hair, sarcastic, stylish and the team member; who gets shit done.  That peaking bit of a tattoo and his ruffly black hair . . .  Chain may have gotten Wolfwood’s outfit and is a werewolf, but Steven is the evolution of Wolfwood, balancing out Klaus’ unwavering principles, and willing to take on the role of doing the dirty work in the background which is necessary.  The body language of Steven is the same as Wolfwood, he’s a mix of straight lines, angles and noodle.

Steven is also paired with Vash - I mean - K.K. on missions.  Following the anime format he’s teamed up with her in S1E5 - Bloodline Fever where they have to fight a Blood Breed in a subway station.  Unlike, Vash and Wolfwood, K.K. is not keen on him all the time calling him black-hearted and giving him the mocking nickname of Steven-sensei (I guess since he is the logistics expert of Libra always coordinating the teams while K.K. is a lone sniper character).

However, despite their one-sided discord, the two of them work well together where he shows his noodle qualities saving K. K. and the young girl and her mother in S1E8 - Z’s Worst Day - Part 1.  Interestingly, Steven takes K.K.’s criticism rather seriously as he’s shaking as she scolds him . . . Steven takes K.K.’s words into account indicating that he does want work well with her.

Before, reverting to his oft “Now, now, now” line to de-escalate things.  The two also naturally balance each other out and communicate well with their options when trying to determine which of the two mysterious individuals is the Blood Breed from the India Gate.

They are also characters who are able to info dump quite naturally due to them being the most senior members of Libra in the main cast besides Lucky Abrams.   And the storytelling makes their info dumping flow with the story - sometimes they are trying to figure something out, sometimes Steven is pondering a situation. Either way it works well for the second in command to be the man with a bookmarked to hell reference text and even have a color swatch for a Blood Breed’s aura.  He also has lots of paper reports which indicates he’s the kind of guy who likes to read through physical items than scan a computer all the time.

By the end of season one, we know that Steven is for the most part, serious about work, a deadpan snarker, leans towards the more pessimistic side despite having hope for the future. e.g. he’d likely describe himself a realist as opposed to Klaus being a dreamer.

It gives us enough information that he’s been beaten down and is no longer an idealistic youth.  Take when he asked about why Leo wouldn’t accept higher pay despite struggling financially and comments that Leo is an upstanding young man.  He also originally was hesitant for them to even invite Leo to join Libra in the first place, despite knowing the value he brought to them, we know this is alleviated by S1E5 when he takes a literal beating to stall for time. Steven looks chronically burnt out - he is the only character who always has lines under his eyes.  His facial expression is rarely one of him smiling or laughing and he maintains a sort of meh or down turned expression when not dealing with serious work situations.  Even in the image below when he’s smiling it isn’t a happy smile, he’s thinking about the situation they are about to enter, looking back on the past three years.

His character is frequently shown with a cup of coffee - at the office, he has a blue mug with a red bottom that matches his shirt, frequently when he has papers in the other hand.  He will also drink tea with Klaus but it is clear he’s reached that working adult phase of life where coffee is fundamental to your day to day function.  Steven is also shown to down energy drinks in times of extreme deadlines as well.

Season two, B3 & Beyond appears to be a season of back filling manga chapters that were skipped in season one to have a tight story.  The one aspect that was a bummer in season one for me was how characters besides Leo, Klaus, Black and White got loads of development and growth everyone else was just in the background as support.  Season two likely pulled from manga chapters that were published earlier which lead to some confusing/unclear points for viewers aka, like why K.K. calls Steven black-hearted and the Steven-sensei nickname.  It is too bad they didn’t have these episodes earlier but I’ll take my character development background whenever, just give it to me.

We first get the explanation from Klaus and Steven at the hospital that reappeared about their personal experience of the Great Collapse to Leo and the introduction of Dr. Lucina Estavez (who should totally date Klaus) as well as defeating the Blood Breed that the two hand been training to fight.

The episode that really hit on my idea that there is a sadness to Steven wasn’t until S2E3 - Day In Day Out.  We get a few parallel story lines that show what happens in Leo, Zapp, Steven and Chain’s day where they are independent of each other but still cross paths by the end.

The first thing we learn is that Steven has an amazing loft apartment with a balcony and cool artwork and an Alterworld/Beyondian housekeeper, Mrs. Veded.  He emerges from a bedroom with a cup of coffee in one hand and the newspaper as he greets her.  With a genuine smile too.

I can look beyond his choice to put milk in his coffee - however, that goes against K.K.’s comment that he’s got a black heart.  I’ll excuse his milk in coffee for his stress and soothing his tummy.  The phone rings and he goes to pick it up.

We can still see the lines under his eyes so again, he is either always exhausted or we are to read them as actual wrinkles.  Maybe both - he’s older and tired due to working hard.  A rather playful female on the phone jokes with him about waking up early - at 11AM and it is clear that he hasn’t been up that long either.

There is a conversation about how much alcohol to bring tonight, cluing us into the fact that he’s having a dinner party at his place.  Which again, is freakkin’ swanky as all hell.  I want Steven’s place.

He’s got a carefree attitude as he talks to two different people on the phone about arrangements for the evening. These are not Steven at the office looks, these are Steven potentially having an outside life facial expressions!

When he gets off the phone, Mrs. Veded comments that he looks happy and Steven seems shocked.  She also noted that he seemed very stressed out and tense all the time and she is glad to see him not in such a state.

Since we know that Steven keeps a straight face for the most time at work, he can’t help but reply that he’s shocked at her observation.  Which is true, I’m sure Klaus can read him pretty well in work situations, but it is his thing to keep his cards close to his chest.  In season one, he is frequently the go between for Libra and the government whether it is the FBI, HLPD, the League of Casters and so forth.  Angelica’s comment of Klaus-san and Steven-shi shows that she knows Klaus from previous interactions, but the -shi on Steven implies that she’s never met him, but knows of him and speaks to him respectfully.  The English equivalent would be like staying, “Oh, you’re the well-known organizer at Libra, Steven Starphase.”  The point is, Steven is well known in certain circles and is respected professionally.

In season one, he was only happy when they were successful at work or his plans went well.  For example, his delight at how Leo was able to spot the Ghost Wagon and how he told Klaus that he needed to work on his management skills of others.  He additionally has a mix of a dark and offbeat sense of humor, able to laugh while Leo is wrapped up in bandages.

This is not a relevant image other than that it shows time has passed and I still want Steven’s loft.

Mrs. Veded has been helping him all afternoon to prep for his party and we see that he even gets in on the action cooking and wearing an apron of course.  He goes with his more casual dress shirt with no tie.  There is an almost excited look on his face.  I’d guess he hasn’t had people over in sometime.

He goes to let people in and he hands the flowers to Mrs. Veded (who adorably inhales their scent looking happy) and after greeting them, trips over.  Of course the friends comment that he’s been working too hard.  Steven, adulting hardcore.

The gifted flowers are placed on the table in a vase by Mrs. Veded and he thanks her for all of her help.  However, it is clear that he doesn’t need her for the rest of the evening and she takes her leave.

Again, we see another nice subtle smile from him here but something about it lingers, like he’d like to say more but can’t.  After she departs, he talks to himself about getting things started, grabbing a bottle of champagne from a bucket of ice and commenting they should get started.

The next time we return to his place, all of the party guests are eating, drinking and chatting up a storm.  There is chill music on, everyone looks fashionably dressed, wealthy - and human.  All of this gives us the indication that outside of work, Steven has the most ‘normal’ social group.  Look at his swanky place, the nice artwork, stainless steel fridge, kitchen island . . . yet while everyone is chatting merrily in groups we get a framing shot of him silently standing alone leaning into a column in his living room.  You can tell that every single individual except for him is talking with another person or two based on their body language.  This is such an excellent image and it lingers just long enough before it zooms into him looking off in to the distance with a wineglass of course.

Steven has such an interesting expression here, he’s got what appears to be his usual poor posture, leaning against the wall, holding the wine glass and has a soft but almost sad smile.  Wistful is the best I can think of.

The fact that his left hand is across his chest and under his right is unusual for him.  He rarely displays this type of conservative closed off body language, think of how frequently he’s got at least one if not both hands in his pockets.  Steven speaks rather casually and bluntly; I like to call his overall posture, noodle, which is relaxed and confident.  Yet, here, he appears much more stiff and is alone at his own party as you look more closely. Something is definitely off.

He goes off to get more beer and leaves the living room when all of his guests raise their arms to reveal biological weapons and tell him to remain in place, Steven Alan Starphase of Libra.  Love the use of his middle name for emphasis as well.  Of course he denies any knowledge of Libra at first before turning back towards them slightly.  Another great part of this scene is how when he walks the few steps up to his kitchen we get a glimpse of his shoes he’s wearing at his house party. 

They aren’t some sort of relaxed shoes, the few short steps allow us to see that they are his modified shoes for Esmeralda Blood Freeze techniques.  We didn’t get this when he tripped in the foyer, but this is now giving the viewers a hint that he’s prepared for a serious fight.

The first sign that things are about to go south is that when he calls out two guests for only just meeting this evening but appeared to actually know each other.

As they continue to threaten him, he concludes that they need to capture him alive; likely due to his role as the second in command at Libra.  This allows him to stall for time as he teases them to give him more information, by stating their bosses are idiots for wanting to capture him alive - as it implied he was expecting them to shoot him.

The framing for this entire sequence is top notch.  He never turns to face them directly while continuing the conversation with Ellen. She tries to threaten him to stop being all pretentious and that they’d have no choice but to attack him.  Of course he replies mocking them by throwing the question about it back at them.  The resignation in his body language that this is what is happening.  I don’t think that at this point that he can even look them in the eye.  He’s too upset and is keeping it calm and collected.

The shading over his eyes as he looks down, the slack shoulders, this is not how he wanted his evening to go down.  Yet, here he is inside his kitchen in a tight spot.  Or so it seems.

However, Steven is anal retentive when it comes to organization and details, and he faked tripping at his front door to use his Needles of Absolute Zero move on them.  Obviously, he likely did this at the beginning of the party for the rest of the guests being a good host circulating himself.  This also explains why he sent Mrs. Veded home, he didn’t want her to witness him doing something this ruthless.  Plus, she likely doesn’t know what he does for a living anyways.

The look on his face as he freezes them is so lonely, his eyes are closed and he’s hunched forward.  He may not regret his actions honestly; he had no choice but to follow through with this course of actions but that feeling of disappointment, sadness, loss, betrayal. It hurts.  Only after he’s frozen them all in place does he even glance back to them as his breath is visible in the air.

Once everyone has been subdued, he gets a moment to gloat over them and their mistakes.  He notes that Larry was smart to select weapons that could get into his building undetected implying that he lives in a pretty secure building and that Larry was carrying his weight funny for the past ten days.  He also tells Ellen that she tried too hard to cover the scent of the weapons with her usual perfume - by adding more.  However, she should have changed the scent and he wouldn’t have noticed.  After telling them how he figured out things were off, he steps back and looks at the group, his entire expression tired and blank.  More stress lines under those eyes.

His own personal clean-up crew is there to take them all away.  And since this isn’t under the guidance of Klaus, he’ll likely let those masked individuals use questionable methods to interrogate everyone for the information he needs to know.  Who or what is targeting him?  Why?  What do they want from him?  These are the sorts of things Steven has to know, but the type of things that Klaus wouldn’t be involved with due to his stricter moral code.  In this instance, Klaus is Vash, holding an almost impossible level of hope and goals while it is clear that Steven is pragmatic and realizes sometimes you gotta slog through the shit to get things done and protect others like Wolfwood.  Though, Steven would have been very upset if Mrs. Veded’s roast were damaged in anyway so he clearly loves her cooking and the love she puts into it.

The likely immediate reaction for a lot of viewers at the end of this scene when he goes out for some air is; Holy shit!  Steven is a total badass.  He just froze his entire dinner party and turned them over to shady underlings to pump them for information.  Badass indeed!

Yet, when I saw the end of that scene, I felt so sad.  When it goes to him alone along the road, he’s chastising himself for his own behaviors.  He’s leaning on the railing looking out into the night giving himself criticism for letting his guard down and enjoying himself too much.  He tried to meet ‘normal’ people who didn’t work for Libra and look what it got him?!?!

He thinks back to how he met various individuals like Ellen and Larry.  And that is when it really sinks in and all of its subtlety.  You think back to his comments and realize he had to likely know these people for a few years as he met them and slowly thought about having them meet.  To realize what type of perfume Ellen wore all the time.  To notice that Larry started walking oddly with in the past ten days meant he saw him walk a lot more for a decent amount of time prior to the recent days.

And then it sinks in - all of those people might have went out of their way to befriend him over the period of several years - for the purpose to kidnap him for their boss.  The level of deception, of effort.  If that was how he met all of them, it sucks so much that it could break someone down.  I almost felt like crying the more that I thought about the entire situation.  Even if they’d met him first to just be friends, it still shows they were convinced to join this plot to capture him.

Thinking about that hurts; it would make him absolutely paranoid to befriend anyone who isn’t associated with Libra and socialize with them outside of work.  But you don’t want to hang out with your work friends outside of work do you?  

The entire mood of this image captures his feelings of sadness, isolation and loneliness.  He’s the darkest figure in the image as the car headlights, apartment windows and orange construction barrels are more illuminated than he is.

The car turns out to pull over and stop as it is Mrs. Veded and she’s got her two children with her who meet him.  Steven smiles at them and they have a pleasant conversation.

The icing on the cake is when he thanks her for everything - she likely thinks it is about her help prepping for the party and cleaning his place.  But Steven is speaking from his heart.  She’s likely one of the most normal people he knows.  Oh, that smile and his smiling eyes.  Steven, you’re a good guy even though you have to do some not so great things.  You care about normal people, you know how to talk to normal people and you are not biased based on species.

Her daughter shows him the cat they found and he knees down to see them eye to eye and comment on how the cat is so cute.  Note, he’s totally channeling Wolfwood, by talking to the children like they are normal and then comes down to their level to continue to chat with them.

The bonus is that he properly pets that cat which shows it is happy.  Aaaahhhh my heart is melting.  I love it when someone knows how to properly interact with cats.

The episode then ends with Leo, Sonic and Zapp riding by, Zapp having a total meltdown about his eminent loss of his most important body part.  Steven laughs how his friends are having a wild night out on the town - revealing that for better or for worse - his closest friends are his colleagues at Libra and Mrs. Veded.

I’m sure that when Leo stops by to chat with Steven, they likely notice the heads of the two goons in the car and figure out that cat is the missing purebred and all’s well that ends well.

The entire episode was a wild ride as the different characters navigate challenges for the current stages of their lives.  The one though that stuck with me the most was how realistic Steven’s entire situation is, besides being a key member of a secret organization who can freeze stuff with his blood.  I mean more along the lines of what it is like to be a hardworking professional over the age of thirty. Trying to navigate a work-life balance and meet people outside of a school context.  It is really difficult and it makes his situation in this episode sadder.  He likely put a ton of effort into meeting all those people as adult friendships are bloody hard.  Steven’s actions were not out of revenge nor malice; it boiled to either something bad happening to him or to them.  He outsmarted them and won the contest but at the loss of likely a bunch of people he socialized with outside of work and clearly never told them who he was - with the whole working for a secret organization.

We can also guess that with his multilingual skills, like Klaus, he’s not a native of NYC originally and moved there to be a part of Libra.  Which makes his story even sadder and more lonely.

We don’t have enough information if he’s a native speaker of Spanish or that he knows it for his Blood techniques.  Zapp and Zed have to do theirs in Japanese (with very Buddhist undertones as opposed to Christian for Steven and Klaus) and they were taught by a mysterious ‘otherwordly’ man with a dark skin tone and wears a skull sooooo one can’t correlate Blood technique language with ones own racial/ethnic background.  All that it has revealed is that between Steven and Klaus, besides English, they can speak a total of nine languages knowing that Spanish and German are two of those nine.

I’ve gone off track, but getting back to my main point.  The entire episode fills in a few gaps from season one.

Steven does have a black heart - sort of.  K.K. isn’t incorrect, but he isn’t doing this all for fun.  He’s the guy who has to choose between two terrible options.  He is the character who makes decisions - very deeply thought out decisions for the overall good of the many as opposed to the few.  Unlike Wolfwood, he does not charge into situations and instead, does his research, assembles teams and will work himself to utter exhaustion to prevent disaster.  He commands others with a strong presence and organizes almost all of their coordinated plans as well as making sure they are executed properly.

Though his interactions with Veded and her kids as well as his concern for protecting normal people or other staff; he cares a lot about others. 

Older characters are more reserved. Steven frequently interacts with all sorts of people and is the contact point for Libra.  Everyone has his number.  He does not show his emotions easily and takes much effort to be convinced.  Detective Daniel Law is the one who talks directly to Steven while Klaus listens silently.  Though, as obvious as it is that Law is manipulating Klaus, Steven doesn’t say anything aloud and instead sighs and groans at the expected outcome. When Master Raju Jugei Shizuyoshi appears, it is Steven who quickly determines his identity, implying he’s done his research though it was still after the Blood Battle God utterly mocked both K.K. and him, the two most senior members of Libra. Yet, he holds his own and keeps his cool - interestingly, Klaus does not speak until addressed by Shizuyoshi, instead allowing Steven to carefully question him without being intrusive. A character like Steven also hits differently.  The antics of say Chain or Zapp aren’t as interesting or realistic as watching Steven lose it over making sure his computers aren’t destroyed.

He’s realistic even in the context of something like B3.  The burnt out vibes, the snarky comments, the confidence in regular work situations.  Steven is an easy older character to connect with.  And he’s got that twinge of adult isolation and loneliness where you wonder how you got to this point professionally successful, yet, somehow are still alone? What did you sacrifice to reach this point?  Was it worth it? I still have a few more episodes to go, but I’m curious to see how things pan out.  Annoyingly, the print version of the manga is out of print (throws serious shade at Darkhorse) AND they don’t even have it digitally for me to legally support.  That’s pretty annoying there Darkhorse . . . Yet so far, hands down, I love Steven’s character and all of his banal realistic flaws.  As life gets older, you have to compromise on things and his character is a great example of that along with the grind of working and being successful

[blorbologist]

People I'd Like to Know Better Meme

Tagged by @angry-velociraptor! :D

Last Song I Listened To: The Adventure Begins by CR and Colm McGuiness; if you want something with lyrics, I gave Repeat Until Death by Novo Amor a shot. Probably going straight into my sad muse playlist <3

Currently Watching: I'm coding some snake videos ATM, so I've been watching/listening to @ohnoitstbskyen's Arcane analyses

Sweet/Savory/Spicy?: Sweet 100%

Relationship Status: Single pringle. Was going to re-download Bumble, but the hubub about its potential AI implementation has me uh Uneasy.

Current Obsession: Still Critical Role, no surprises there. Especially my longfic. Working on getting my buffer back up so I can post my next chapter.

Tagging: I *should* be focusing on the noodles and @ ing people defeats that I think, so anyone who wants to be tagged: consider yourself tagged <3 and Mention me so I can get to know you too :D

[bayalexison]

Tag Game- Current

Yo, so I got tagged by both @bunana-pancakes and @noodle-artist, thanks so much the both of you! Both of them have great artwork, do check those out!

Current time: 9:56pm Pacific Standard Time when I started this

Current activity: Watching a friend streaming the game Chameleon Twist 2

Currently thinking about: Oh gosh so many fandom events in the fall how I'll balance them all lol

Current favorite song: Bishop Briggs, Jekyll and Hyde.

Currently reading: Haven't been reading anything as of late, though the last thing I read were some fics from Dimileth Garden Gala and FE Engage Ship Exchange.

Currently Watching: Critical Role, which I'm a couple episodes behind and probably will switch to podcast version instead. I also recently finished watching Persona 5: The Animation.

Current Favorite Character:  Alfred from FE Engage, he's been taking my brain space atm lol. Having finished Persona 5 Royal and watching a friend streaming Strikers, Yusuke comes a close second lol.

Current work in progress: My Lord of the Rings AU for Dimileth Goggles. Also plan to get back to The Azure Queen now that it has been announced Dimileth Trick or  Treat is coming back. I have the draft of the rest of The Azure Queen finished, just need to make time for editing (got distracted with other fics and Persona 5 Royal lol).

Tagging: (no pressure!) @slam-dunkrai, @sweet-suzume, @write-the-stars, @silversdragonemporium, and anyone else that wants to do this!

[venndaai]

Poor Little Meow Meow Poll Round 1, Critical Role Edition

I couldn't narrow it down to 2, for this one.

On the left: Essek Thelyss (former Shadowhand, current fugitive and gardener)

Qualifications:

committed treason and heresy and started a war over lack of grant funding

neutral evil grad student

redeemed by the power of Friendship and hot wizards

wracked by guilt

noodle arms

QUOTE: “I am but a humble, selfish creature.”

On the center: Sir Zerxus Ilerez (Former First Knight of Avalir, current Champion of Asmodeus, Patron Saint of Paladin Hubris)

Qualifications:

tragic dead husband

shitty dad

ended the world rather than admit he couldn't personally fix everything

sonzoned Satan

QUOTE: "I can't bear it if you were to touch me right now. What have I done?"

On the right: ASTRID BECKE (Archmage of Civil Influence of the Cerberus Assembly of the Dwendalian Empire)

Qualifications:

spends most of her screen time either crying or attempting to murder or both

wasn't even the top student at assassin high school

still girlbossed her way to the top of the cycle of state sponsored abuse

Cool Gender

QUOTE: “To be gifted in a world filled with hardship like this is to do things we're not proud of and to question the choices we make and to regret the things we wish we could change. Do I agree with everything that I've been asked to do? No. Do I think about it, do I lament? Do I see the faces of the people I've watched expire at my own hand? All the time."

(Feel free to vote even if you don’t know the canons! Which one has bigger wet cat vibes?)

[bitchletmeyearninpeace]

wonka review: i enjoyed it way more than i thought i would! it’s fun to watch a movie where everything works out just because. maybe i saw the trailer too many times but i felt like the moments from the trailer didn’t entirely jive with the rest of the movie lol. timothy chalamet was a deeply bland wonka.. not near crazy enough, but i liked a lot of the other characters! there’s one in the villain trio whos my absolute favourite. says things like “and we’ll kill them… to DEATH”. there were a lot of big names and most did well at their roles.. mr bean’s and olivia coleman’s roles i thought were well done. there are a few misc romance storylines that are cute. and there’s a VERY sweet storyline with the other main protagonist, the little girl named noodle, which i will admit to crying at.

i interpreted them using eating chocolate as a metaphor for corruption… or currency for corruption. which was interesting. and there was a very funny poke at christianity/the coming of christ related to eating chocolate. it’s vaguely referred to as a sinful thing to eat but the london/paris mishmash “town” they were in also had chocolatiers as the main thing… maybe like how we all drink alcohol but it’s still central? idk.

i also loved that the city/town it was set in did not make that much sense.. like yes there are only three main places in this town. evil inn, zoo and chocolatier square. obviously criticizing children’s movie for lack of worldbuilding is idiot behaviour.

they had a very “”wholesome”” message at the end about the important thing about chocolate being those you share it with… which is nice but like. i want to know how this man became someone to put children in squirrel attacks. the real answer is probably ‘oh loneliness and time blah blah’ but idc.

[morrigan-sims]

Tag Game:

I was tagged by @simarcana. Thank you!!! <3

Three Ships: Kanej from Six of Crows, Fallon x [redacted] from my own story, Maggie x Luca from Regal by @simgerale. (yes, I'm cheating and using sims stories. My mind is blank and I don't really ship that many characters.)

First Ship: Percabeth from PJO

Last Song: Ship In A Bottle by fin

Last Movie: Glass Onion (for the 2nd time in 8 days, this time with my dad)

Currently Reading: To Sleep In A Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini. (it's okay, but I'm not really loving it.)

Currently Consuming: Nothing, but I just are some noodles for dinner, and I'm going to have goldfish while I watch Critical Role later.

Currently Craving: Less homework.

Tagging: Anyone who wants to do this. I have no idea who has and hasn't done this yet.

[neinofthem]

I posted 290 times in 2022

That's 263 more posts than 2021!

208 posts created (72%)

82 posts reblogged (28%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@neinofthem

@viciousmollymaukery

@quinn-of-aebradore

@essektheylyss

@andgently

I tagged 166 of my posts in 2022

Only 43% of my posts had no tags

#essek thelyss - 99 posts

#critical role - 98 posts

#the mighty nein - 89 posts

#cr - 88 posts

#mighty nein - 83 posts

#tm9 - 81 posts

#cr2 - 74 posts

#shadowgast - 68 posts

#cr shitpost - 53 posts

#critical role essek - 50 posts

Longest Tag: 137 characters

#imagine waking up one day and remembering that the disgraced former shadowhand is a. 4’10 on a good day and b. definitely without a doubt

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

literally the best thing about essek is that it’s so hard to have a bad take about him because he is so many things. yes he is a virgin librarian yes he is a suave sexy politician yes he is a brilliant wizard prodigy yes he has the warcaster feat no he has never seen conflict. it’s literally yes he’s world weary and has lived for over a hundred years yes he’s said the word ‘fuck’ once and once only. yes he carries around a frilly pink parasol yes he was the head of arcane intelligence for the fucking queen of the kryn dynasty and no one has asked his favorite food before. what is WITH this guy I LOVE him.

2,493 notes - Posted February 28, 2022

#4

as much as essek is a genius wizard and schemer and intimidating and aloof he is also Just Some Guy. he stole the most important items in his country’s culture not because of a desire to start war but because he’s a huge nerd. he’s being chased by assassins and the people who exposed his crimes led the worst man of all existence to his doorstep and he wants to get drunk off of boozy hot chocolate. he tried to fistfight a giant with his twink wizard noodle arms. he gardens. he can crush a man with one hand. he has little teefies. his dad got so angry at him he died. he’s dating the worlds most traumatized man. he’s my best friend. he’s gay. easily the most character of all time.

2,535 notes - Posted February 21, 2022

#3

essek: caleb did you fight a demigod. caleb answer me did you fight the fucking ocean.

caleb, tenderly cradling his face: you’re so hot.

2,577 notes - Posted December 2, 2022

#2

bells hells merrily traipsing their way into aeor sometime in the near future: who are you guys lmao. anyways we think we’re swinging by that little bitch moon next to take care of the Moon Haunting that has been Plaguing us with Visions.

caleb and essek on their fifth aeorian honeymoon: what are the words that you are saying. why does that stalactite have a beacon in his head. what do you mean you ran into ludinus da’leth. why do you have a fucking robot. what was that about the fucking moon.

2,899 notes - Posted September 2, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

imagine you are the director of the magic cia and you betrayed your home country because they denied your grad thesis and you thought everything was chill but then a group of people in bdsm gear burst into the room holding the god that you stole and you now have to babysit them and watch while they ruin the house your family gave them and you are also in a honeypot4honeypot situationship with their resident ginger and you teach him forbidden magics because he has nice eyes and you keep having to ferry them to fight dragons or some shit and they keep fucking inviting you to dinner so you go to dinner and they trap you, the traitor they’re looking for, in a truth spell and instead of asking any damning question they want to know which of them you find the hottest and what your moms name is and then they disappear for like two months and then you’re in disguise at the negotiation which undermines your past decades work and they fucking show up and they find out about your crimes so they paralyze you and drag you to their ship and instead of killing you the ginger kisses you on the forehead and they tell you that you’re family now and then they disappear for a long fucking time so you leave and go chill in the north and then they show up chased by a purple man with horns and a dead member of the fucking cerberus assembly and then they fucking dip and when you come back they take you to a flesh city to fight the purple man but they get really sad when they murder him so they revive him? and also you find evidence that the god that you stole is not a god and is some kind of hyper advanced magic computer maybe and then you just sort of fucking go home? and chill in a garden? every day essek thelyss wakes up.

4,733 notes - Posted March 24, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[captainsupernoodle]

Kingsley saw he'd be permanently third wheeling if he wanted to fulfill his pirate dreams and decided actually, he's not stuck on a boat with them, they're stuck on a boat with him

[saybiwithme]

Get to know me better tag, thank you @eddiediaaz! ❤️

3 ships: Buddie, Destiel & Bonenzo (my beloved who deserved better 🥲)

First ever ship: Rose/Ten from Doctor Who

Last song: In the kitchen by Renee Rapp. @swiftiediaz introduced me and now I’m just like ooh with her music.

Last movie: God the last movie I saw was a while ago but I think it was Rush Hour, I was just killing time lmao

Currently reading: The Witcher - the lost wish. I’m also like jumping between that and fics, I can’t decide okay 😭

Currently watching: I’m sorta watching like four things at once (I don’t recommend doing this lmao) I’m watching New Amsterdam season 3, Smallville season 1, Station 19 season 3 & Critical Role Campaign 1

Currently consuming: I just made noodles so I’m gonna be eating those

Currently craving: Popcorn

tagging: @swiftiediaz, @singlethread, @lucydonato, @anewrecipeh, @thequeerlibrarian, @buckleyobsessed & @shortsighted-owl you don’t have to do it 🥹❤️

[julandran]

get to know me meme

​[Haven’t done one of these in a dog’s age. Let’s go!]

tagged by @anonsally

last song: “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” cover by VoicePlay feat. Ashley Diane. I have fallen down quite the YouTube rabbit hole with this acapella group lately. They’re super talented and creative.

last show: This week’s episode of Star Trek: Picard & the accompanying Ready Room aftershow.

currently watching: Bryan and Amelia (DechartGames on Twitch & YouTube) noodling their way through Portal 2 for the first time.

currently reading: Slowly savoring the latest Critical Role novel, The Nine Eyes of Lucien, in audiobook form. Haven’t been reading much print stuff lately, but still occasionally picking away at the fifth Song of Ice and Fire book.

current obsession: The Last of Us video games & TV series ; the Uncharted video games ; VoicePlay (see above), and the meta-entertainment of professional singers / vocal coaches reacting to their awesomeness ; and, of course, my enduring devotion to Critical Role.

.

In theory, I’m supposed to tag people, but I don’t have the spoons for that particular task today. If you feel inclined, consider yourself tagged.

[gothprentiss]

hi sona! i'm sending this as an ask so you can ignore it as long as you want. i have been noodling on this and wonder if you have thoughts too: emily and strauss. in "book of the dead" you wrote that convo between derek and emily about strauss' drinking and derek's issues with hotch when they were stuck in traffic with that very funny christmas truck. in hit/run we see erin strauss thank derek for calling her out on her drinking. do you think strauss ever tried to make amends to emily? i like to think so, and i like to think about how poorly that conversation might have gone, given what strauss did to emily and perhaps colored by emily's experiences with matthew. i went back and looked at some of strauss's episodes, and it appears that any lingering animosity between them was gone by season 7, i guess put to rest(?) by emily's death. so maybe an amends conversation wouldn't have gone as poorly as it would have in say season 5. follow up, do you think CME section chief emily ever thinks about strauss? because i sure found strauss haunting me as i watched.

first off: thank you so much for sending this as an ask because i did have to watch a couple of cm eps about it! and many other things in the interim. so my initial instinct re amends— in the style of strauss reaching out to derek— was not really, kind of, maybe and i don’t think that’s changed, but i do have a lot to say now. unfortunately. nb and disclaimer i didn’t watch back every strauss ep so whatever’s dumb here is 50/50 just me being dumb / i don’t remember what happened. tldr i don’t think strauss would have seen herself as having anything to apologize for or remedy without prompting from prentiss, and i don’t see prentiss in a position to do that without either a) strauss surviving until the later seasons or b) reimagining how much was going on behind the scenes of prentiss exit s7.

so first (yuck fic talk sorry) — i’d meant to write something longer about strauss in “book of the dead”. when derek’s trying to decide how far he thinks hotch was willing to see strauss fall, i’d been meaning to write prentiss more overtly wondering how far she’d have been willing to see it go, examining the conditions of her own resentment and compassion, etc. something more about reid, too, whose struggles with addiction i think would have weighed on her mind more in that context, and more, too, after matthew’s death. [more on this below. if i remember.] i’d thought about whether she’d then tell him about strauss’ role in hiring her; it strikes me as the primal scene for emily leaving, even though it’s never brought up in that context, because it’s unimaginable to me that a profound sense of you weren’t supposed to be here hasn’t dogged her ever since. a lot of the s6-7 prentiss arc works because she is fundamentally a different kind of person than the rest of the team, and she’s aware of that. the conditions of her hire, i imagine, might be part of how she names that difference for herself. at the same time, though, i can see her really wanting to say something about it— wanting it as a clean breaking point, easier than everything in the wake of the doyle case— and deciding not to, knowing she’d regret it and hate what she’d expose herself to by opening that door. so i just left it. point here isn’t just something i didn’t bother to write, it’s that i really do think of early season strauss as pretty critical to prentiss as a character, even if that’s kind of reading against the grain of the show. the show, after all, thinks of prentiss as having earned her place on the team through the events of 3x02, which i assume is why we don’t really see her processing this moment. 

as for making amends. i say not really because i think not overtly— in part because i do not think strauss would consider her actions worth amending. i think strauss would largely see herself as having operated in good faith albeit without the right big-picture mentality, but also as having handed prentiss a really good job which she wouldn’t have gotten anyway. her whole speech to prentiss is basically like, i am your benefactor who got you what you wanted, i see this unit as a huge problem, i want you to help me fix it. sneaky, cloak and dagger shit, sure, but a kind of office politicking i don’t know that strauss would have totally reneged on by later seasons, and likely not something she’d see as anything other than typical quid-pro-quo. it leads to some initial awkwardness and a sense of a lingering liability (prentiss could make things more difficult between hotch and strauss, which could presumably go up the chain of command and get strauss in trouble?), but i don’t know if this would have translated to guilt for strauss. (i was sort of wavering on how much i’m overreading this, because i know i read against the show’s grain a lot.) 

one way strauss was thinking of her relationship with prentiss was as one of potential protégée: she was, after all, pretty honest about her intentions, and pretty clear that, while she was holding the job as a cudgel over prentiss’ head, she effectively expected prentiss to work for her. you’d choose this person carefully; i don’t think strauss saw herself delivering the kind of verdict on prentiss’ merit and place on the team that i think prentiss received. i do kind of wonder if she saw a younger agent who had a bit of a reputation for ambition and hotheadedness and saw someone she could shape— probably a career she could build too (lots of upward job mobility if hotch goes, after all). i think ‘saw her younger self’ would be pushing it too far, but i think there are some parallels between the recklessness and ambition that strauss throws at prentiss and the recklessness and ambition we see from strauss in her villain arc. in some ways, i can see strauss thinking of prentiss as an unfortunate lost cause, impressed and exasperated in equal measure by her display of hard-headed devotion to the bau. 

what i can see, though, is strauss catching animus off prentiss and either going after her about it or really examining the situation. i haven’t rewatched every strauss episode, so i don’t remember how much the strauss redemption arc they go for coincides with the period of time in which that would be possible or reasonable— after all, i imagine strauss knew very well how unpopular she was among the bau team. i don’t think something like the extremely bad vibes she caught off prentiss in 5x09 would have done it, precisely because it arises from that more generalized hostility— and, as i said above, i think strauss probably had an impression of prentiss as, by nature, obstinately loyal to the team and hostile to her authority in the wake of 3x02. 

so that’s what i think about strauss’ character. i did really like her as a villain, and in general i love a careerist woman character who is just so driven by her own ambition that she doesn’t really know how to do anything other than aim upwards. my fondness for that kind of character does shape the above thoughts, too, since i see her as a kind of character who is pretty limited in her capacity for guilt, or her capacity to act on guilt. shame, sure, and i think that underlies her conversation with derek. like, bottom line TLDR etc— i think strauss would have regrets about prentiss but would put the onus on prentiss falling in line with the unruly BAU and its practices. there’s an element of the moral (administratively so) crusader to strauss in her anti-hotch agenda, one which i think would largely lead to her seeing prentiss as a bit of a letdown whose resentments were immature and poorly conceived.

i also said not really— i do think if we imagine more going on behind the scenes of prentiss’ departure, there’s space for there to have been some kind of confrontation during s7, as you say. like blah blah the show’s short memory and inconsistent commitment to totally smoothing out issues jars oddly with the way that we see prentiss often really holding onto resentments (e.g. 4x17). i think in some ways, the only person prentiss would have brought up the ‘i wasn’t supposed to be assigned to this unit’ thing to would have been strauss, because she’d see it as established knowledge between them— it wouldn’t require the same measure of vulnerability or confession. (or, like, impossibly, when prentiss becomes unit chief. if she hadn’t died and had remained in the fbi after the uhhh… replicator? storyline, then 100 percent i can see prentiss bringing it up in later seasons.)

as for prentiss— like i said, i think she would have a MASSIVE chip in her shoulder about all this. but one thing i find interesting is whether or not that would translate to hating strauss. i declined to say that strauss would see prentiss as a younger version of herself, but i do think one thought that was VERY loud in prentiss’ head as she stared up into the far distance at the end of season 2 was the realization that not letting her mother get her a job didn’t disentangle her from getting politicked upwards. this is because of my family, even. here, more overthinking: i think the extent to which strauss is not just one person who fucked with her but also emblematic of everything she didn’t want for herself is less than the extent to which that is true of her mother, and in a way that i think she would have sat down and reckoned with. it’s not a resentment and anger she can necessarily get rid of (cf. 5x09), but it’s not one she can meaningfully act on. 

in the same way that i think prentiss is a letdown for strauss, strauss strikes me as a letdown for prentiss. i was thinking about how in limelight prentiss jumps to agent morris’ defense in this moment of the show doing lil babby feminist politics— if she were a man you’d say she had balls, or something like that. there’s the obvious angle of responding to what she sees as chauvinism from her peers, but i think it also bespeaks a level of admiration for ambitious women. you know, growing up around ambassador prentiss, i’m sure she had her fair share of women in power that she admired even as she came to resent the kind of power-politicking that came with said positions. the show leans into a particular kind of incompetence (i.e., bad in the field) for strauss as it progresses— i kind of imagine prentiss watching, cataloguing, and feeling more angry and let down the more she saw. i guess (circling back to yuck fic talk) that’s another reason i wanted to write prentiss thinking about strauss— i see her as unable to figure out how she feels about the possibility of the woman’s professional downfall. i think she might think, at some point, there’s no use really holding a grudge (which she nevertheless holds) after strauss no longer is a threat to the team— like i think she is aware that her life’s path has been eased (/her agency over her life has been limited) in equally significant ways which were simply not made so apparent to her, and the grudge against strauss is really just a grudge against the condition of her existence. i think of when she tells reid, worried about failing to live up to his potential, that she thought she’d be a bored socialite at this point: i got the sense that prentiss thinks, despite it all, that this is probably one of the better ways her life could have gone. 

blah blah my sense of how prentiss works and ticks is very much hinged on me being like She’s Just Like Clarice Starling and the self-examining steely* control that starling has is very much central to how i think prentiss thinks as well. (*steely isn’t impermeable. but i think prentiss has learned to compartmentalize well partially by just having to when she was growing up and developing individuality which was antagonistic to her environment, and partially by sheer force of will. i feel like i am always beating this drum in fic lol.) so other TLDR bottom line— i don’t think she would have let herself bring it up except under extreme duress.

OH I ALMOST FORGOT THE LAST PART. yeah for sure i think she thinks about her. i do kind of imagine her desire to not be like her mother has a far more complex echo in strauss, who is presumably the imprint for prentiss’ sense of what misuse of power looks like in behavioral science. i assume she thought a great deal about strauss, who thought what she was doing was right, and that the agents caught up in her desire to roust hotch should either bend or break. i’m cutting this off here. this is long. i just think the show should actually try to write prentiss as good at her job so i can more fully commit to like, oh yeah i also think that the way she wasn’t (imo) ever fully able to respect or not respect strauss really dogs her and her capacity to evaluate her actions as leader. 

[rachaellawrites]

Tag Game - 9 People You Want to Get to Know Better

thanks to @human-still-developing for tagging me!

Rules: Answer all the questions, then tag 9 people you want to get to know better!

No pressure and apologies if you've already been tagged: @peggy-sue-reads-a-book @saintedseraph @gracehosborn @k--havok @ashen-crest @authorlaurawinter @moondust-bard @artcoffeecats @writeintrees

Three Ships: Fjorester (Critical Role), Callowmoore (Critical Role), and, for a throwback (and something non-CR), Zutara (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

First Ship: the first ship I remember reading fanfic for was Sakura/Syaoran from Cardcaptor Sakura

Last Song I Listened To: probably a children's song lol

Last Movie I Watched: I genuinely can't remember; I don't tend to watch a lot of movies

Currently Reading: Sisters in Arms by Kaia Alderson, The Witchery by S. Isabelle, and I'm doing Frankenstein Weekly

Currently Watching: at this exact moment? My child on the baby monitor. In general? The Legend of Vox Machina and Critical Role

Currently Consuming: some very mediocre cup noodles

Currently Craving: better noodles lol