#undoing everything the mcelroys have done

[tyrannoshirt-moved]

now no one in taz is white, not a single person. everyone is a poc now. sorry becky :)

[thedragonagelesbian]

is it likely that the balance characters are ever going to level-up again? no.

does taako even meet the stats requirements for multiclassing into ranger? no.

would that stop the mcelroys?? probably not.

but even if he were to actually take a level in ranger, is it likely that we would ever see him take the two additional levels necessary to gain a subclass? HELL no.

however. what is the point of fandom if not to speculate wildly. here are my off the cuff opinions on what ranger subclass would be most appropriate for taako.

beast master, drakewarden, and swarmkeeper. i’m grouping all three of these together because i think they’d be least appropriate for taako. taako has shown no particular proclivity toward animals and seems way more interested in the ‘killing stuff’ part of rangers than the ‘creature friendship’ part.

fey wanderer. this one actually seems like a super fun choice for taako. we haven’t seen that much of fey magic in balance (i’m so glad we’re seeing some of it in imbalance!!) but elves are already fey-lite. dreadful strikes would give his crossbow bolts a bit of a damage boost. he already has access to charm person but he’s not using magic anymore, so that doesn’t matter. finally, otherworldly glamour wouldn’t give him much of a bonus given his low wisdom, but it would probably narratively undo losing his beauty during the suffering game.

gloom stalker. way too edgy for taako narratively but umbral sight is great, especially for a squishy wizard. let taako take potshots from 80 feet* away while invisible to creatures with darkvision. dread ambusher is good for granting a damage boost and an extra attack but only at the start of combat, and obviously the wisdom bonus to initiative isn’t going to help much.

*technically taako would get up to 90 feet of darkvision but the normal range of a light crossbow is 80 feet, so

horizon walker. i’m personally biased toward this subclass, but i think it makes a lot of narrative sense for a post-stolen century taako who has already done a lot of plane-hopping! i’m really compelled by the idea of taako having developed like an innate sense for planar disturbances. finally, planar warrior would give him something to do with his bonus action in exchange for a modest damage boost. not that mechanical efficiency is super important (or even possible given how fucking buckwild a level 16 wizard/level 3 ranger who doesn’t cast spells is) but, y’know, 2d8 is better than 1d8, and if you cared about things like enemies being resistant to non-magical slashing/bludgeoning/piercing, everything being force damage is a really easy way to overcome that.

hunter. taako did call himself a hunter, but this is a super meh subclass. there’s no flavor. no panache. nothing so narratively satisfying or appropriate as otherworldly glamour or detect portal. colossus slayer gives him something similar to planar warrior without needing the bonus action but doesn’t convert the damage to force, and it’s not like taako would be using his bonus action to cast spells, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ giant killer is a bad idea. it’s such a bad idea. pls a large or larger creature should never been within 5 feet of a wizard. horde breaker is the only one that’s kind of compelling mechanically because it would give taako a conditional multiattack, but if those conditions aren’t met, it’s useless.

monster slayer. this is probably closer to what taako meant by being a hunter but is also meh flavor-wise. hunter’s sense taking a whole action hurts me, and i can’t for the life of me remember a time when the mcelroys cared about damage resistances and vulnerabilities. slayer’s prey is a no-concentration hunter’s mark that only fires on the first attack and, in fairness, taako is only going to be attacking once each round anyway. still, given that he won’t be using his bonus action to cast those classic bonus action ranger spells, i think slayer’s prey comes out looking like a worse planar warrior.

tl;dr. fey wanderer or horizon walker would be the most narratively appropriate. each offer a very modest damage boost; fey wanderer does less damage but triggers automatically, while horizon walker requires a bonus action BUT taako likely wouldn’t be doing anything with that bonus action anyway.

thank you for joining me in thinking too much about something that does not and never will matter.

[jortsman]

Cw depression, anxiety

If I may, I’d like to get real sappy for a hot minute about TAZ and, by extension, the role that the McElroys have played in my life

The reason I am so super over-the-top excited about this fic I’ve been writing is because I haven’t been able to write, like at all, for years. Like, damn near a decade with the exception of a couple short stories and handful of poems. More importantly, I haven’t been able to find enjoyment in writing for even longer, and I used to write for fun constantly. As a child/teenager/early 20-something, I was absolutely sure that my future was going to revolve around writing. But then, trauma snuck up on me, like trauma does… I thought I was fine just because I had gotten away from it all, but I wasn’t fine.

There was 20 years worth of trauma to process, negative and harmful thinking patterns to sort through and try to undo. And basically, I stopped enjoying a lot of the things that I used to live for. I tried to force myself to write and draw because I knew that I was supposed to love those things, but everything was foggy and frustrating.

And then there was the worst year of depression of my life. I wasn’t even sad, I just felt like nothing… thankfully things have been exponentially better since then and so far it seems it’s going to stay that way, or at least never get that bad again. I was in a fog when I first listened to TAZ. I barely caught anything. I wasn’t able to care about things or follow a plot at that time. I listened because I knew it was something that I would normally like, something that I was supposed to like. And I was trying so hard to just be myself, to access me.

When I listened to it again after I was feeling better, it was like listening to it for the first time. All I had really been able to process when I listened to it in my depression were some of the jokes, the small things that actually made me laugh a bit… and two specific lines. Two lines that made me feel emotions that I didn’t have access to for the longest time. Two lines that gave me this weird sensation of hope, and I say weird because it was literally such an alien feeling to me at that time. I was fighting so hard to be even slightly happy and hope seemed like a sensation so much further out of my grasp than the scraps I was fighting for. Those lines that gave me chills and instantly brought me to tears when crying wasn’t something I had been able to do, were...

You’re going to have to fight, and you’re gonna win.

You’re going to be amazing.

It’s hard for me to accurately express how much those words meant to me, how much they still mean to me. I had no motivation. I had no self worth. I needed to hear those words. I know I’m taking them completely out of context of the story and of their original intent and purpose, but they were words that I didn’t know how badly I needed to hear.

They didn’t miraculously fix anything and I had to work really hard to change things, of course. I had to make appointments at a time when talking on the phone made me anxious enough to feel sick all day, when leaving the house was sometimes impossible because of having no energy or feeling convinced that something bad would happen if I left. But I did it and I got a therapist and a doctor and meds, I moved, I got closer to friends, created a support network, started going out, finally talked to someone about my gender stuff and started T. But my creative muscles were still atrophied from years of disuse and I was afraid to even try anything, because I was convinced I would hate it and that I would fail at it.

And then, I re-fell in love with TAZ hard, for I think about the fourth time now. And I started reading other people’s creative works. And I thought maybe I would try something short, just a little blurb, and probably keep it to myself. But it started flowing, it was just happening so much, and you guys... I have been elated about getting to be creative in a way that I haven’t felt since I was a kid. I’ve written about 100,000 words since December 26th and I’m still so motivated and constantly coming up with ideas. I feel in touch and engaged with myself; I’m getting to do something that used to mean the world to me and it is the best feeling.

Making changes and getting better is not something that’s ever completely done; it’s an ongoing process that requires constant maintenance, patience, and there will be pitfalls, ups and downs. It’s fucking hard, and you’ll need help from others, you’ll need support and love, you’ll need moments of bravery even if it’s something that wouldn’t seem “brave” to other people, like just leaving the house or picking up the phone. And you’ll need things that make you happy, little indulgences... and the McElroys gave me something that made me really happy and, maybe most importantly, were proof to me that there are good people out there and that it’s worth going outside and meeting them. That there are people out there who don’t know you, but care about you anyways.

So, for every person going through something similar or going through hard times in general, I believe in you. Life can be fucking tough sometimes...

You’re going to have to fight.

And you’re gonna win.  

And then

You’re going to be amazing.