#villainous tactics

[enchantingepics]

Story Prompt 58

There lived a clever prince. Tasked with a mission, an agent of the crown set out to end the prince's schemes once and for all.

The agent's footsteps echoed softly in the grand halls of the palace as they made their way to the prince's chambers. Sword at the ready, they steeled themselves for the confrontation ahead. Bursting into the room, they found the prince lounging lazily upon a velvet chaise, a book of poetry in hand.

"What is the meaning of this intrusion?" the prince drawled, his gaze flicking up to meet the agent's with a mixture of curiosity and amusement.

"I am here to put an end to your devious schemes, once and for all," the agent declared, brandishing their sword with a flourish.

The prince merely chuckled, setting aside his book with a graceful motion. "Ah, another misguided soul sent to do the bidding of those who fear my intellect," he mused, rising to his feet and circling the agent like a predator assessing its prey.

"You underestimate me," the agent retorted, their grip tightening on the hilt of their sword. "I have seen through your facade, and I will not allow you to continue your machinations unchecked."

But as the prince spoke, weaving words like a master craftsman spinning gold from straw, doubt began to creep into the agent's mind. Was this truly a villain they faced, or merely a man misunderstood?

[utilitycaster]

I said this late last night but actually, I was serious: I really do feel like the stasis bubbles are ultimately at the core of Ludinus's attitude towards Aeor, and the fact that he doesn't seem to have focused on them at all is the key to understanding his agenda.

I don't believe the stasis bubbles are a lost cause. I think there's certainly failure points, ie, I think if one does not go about this with utmost care then yes, the people within will rapidly age or wither to dust and be lost. But I don't think a successful release of the Aeorians in these bubbles is impossible within the canon of Critical Role. I think it is very, very difficult, but I think it could be done.

Ludinus doesn't seem to have focused on this at all - not even a half-assed attempt. He's gone for a literal moonshot, connecting with something he didn't even know existed and destroying Molaesmyr in the process. To his limited credit I think it's entirely likely he didn't know about these stasis bubbles until Aeor excavations began about 60 years ago, but I don't think Aeor became his focus until he realized he could strip it for parts: both for its technology, and as part of his propaganda machine.

Ludinus's grudge against the gods began with the end of the Calamity, in his own youth, in those final battles, and we know that he was already studying mages like Laerryn and using the harness to extend his lifespan while he lived in Molaesmyr. He may very well have known about Aeor, but his goal was to kill the gods. He only just saw what was in the Occultus Thalamus now.

Aeor is a useful tool to him, and it's a better tool to him if he can act like it's lost forever and everyone is dead. Aeorians only help him if they're doomed corpses. If he cared about the deaths of the people of Aeor and the culture of the city, why let his general repeatedly target FCG, one of its only current survivors? Why shut down the researchers from Uthodurn and the Dynasty in the past 7 years? Why push towards this Thalamus even as his army falls to Dominox when the stasis bubbles are just outside? Are those collapses Essek noted just the ravages of time, or was he destroying the city even further?

He doesn't really care about Aeorians in the slightest. He wants to kill the gods, and treats this mass slaughter and cultural destruction of Aeor as a boon that fell into his lap so that he can say "look what they took from you" to the world that he's been ravaging and slaughtering his way through himself for the past few months (and, on a slower but no less violent scale, the last millennium). The second he lets one of the Aeormatons brought back by D speak? Or brings back one of the thousands of Aeorians who could, perhaps, survive and come back and even revive that lost knowledge? Well, then it's not lost forever at the hands of the gods now, is it, and that makes for bad press, and we can't have that now, can we, not when we're about to crack open the moon and eat the gods! Sorry that a phoenix killed your family and no one could resurrect them, but you know how it is. Let bygones be bygones, unless they're his trauma and his trauma alone.

Any claim that he cares about Aeor is a lie. He cares for himself and no one else. He loves that Aeor is gone because it's always been gone to him and, like any fossil, is only good as fuel for his own agenda. And we and Bells Hells are about to see a glimpse of life in the city that's more convenient to him when it's dead, and he thinks that's going to help his cause.

[hijinxinprogress]

Yj takes to mocking their mentors behavior after being lectured for being irresponsible and the public’s perception of YJ

Bart is going on about science that no one would understand even if he wasn’t talking at Mach 3 and popping out of no where going ‘flash fact-’ or starting a fight with a villain while eating an entire large pizza

Tim’s whaling on some fucking rogue and dude is 🤏🏾 close to being unconscious and tim goes “😡 now talk” (it doesn’t make it better that the rest of yj is in hysterics)

Anita mimicks the powers of whichever magic user she’s seen or heard most recently unless she gets bored and decides to act out horror movies which just leads to a villain cutting the power but they realize Anita showed up and they’re frantically trying to turn the power back on bc everyone thinks she’s actually possessed

Kon goes full on ‘Fear not, citizen! For I have arrived, a lone kryptonian with naught but justice in his heart’ along with saving one specific reporter first in every disaster (it’s linda and she thinks this is hilarious) he does hero landings and he says all the cheesy hero lines just bc he knows sometimes the medias perception of Clark annoys him (there’s a clip of a fan confessing and Kon goes on about how his only love is justice)

Greta before retirement is saying the lanterns oath before every attack and clowning Tim any chance she gets but Greta after retirement occasionally does crowd control which is just Greta doing finger guns and saying shit like totally tubular and gnarly while leading civilians away from danger or going on long winded rants about planes

Cissie is telling every person she saves that’s at least five years younger than her that she’s adopting them and then paying off some random debt and never speaking to them again or flirting with whichever member of yj is closest/has already taken down their opponent this doesn’t change much when Cissie retires, she just starts filing paperwork to adopt whoever gets second place and she will tell everyone that she’s married to the yj member on the news no matter where she is or what she’s doing

Cassie has a battle axe, a shield, and a lasso and somehow manages to use all three every fight while mimicking Diana’s speech patterns and demolishing anyone that gets a hit on yj (the only thing ww takes offense to is Cassie’s over the top feigned ineptness when it came to technology ‘Suffering Sappho! What is this strange contraption?!’ ‘🤨 my fucking phone??’)

[crocrubies]

Can't wait to find out what his deal is

[gornackeaterofworlds]

One of four bay vampires

@avery73 @luckycharms1701

Runs and hides-

[greensaplinggrace]

the darkling says “fine, make me your villain” because he is. what’s not clicking

[g0nta-g0kuhara]

you can't be a good leader, let alone an ultimate-level one, if you can't work with people or connect with them on a personal level? DICE are referred to as 'friends bordering on family' for a reason. just because he doesn't do that in game doesn't mean it's like 'oil and water'/something he's fundamentally incapable of

I meant that he's like that *in the game specifically*. Of course he's close to DICE, or else they wouldn't've been in his motive video. Hell, outside of the killing game he probably would've worked just the same with the other v3s. Its just the situation that he's in that has him acting on edge and paranoid, pushing the others away do better do what he wants in what he thinks is for their own good. And so he eschews collaboration in favour of trying to pull the strings from outside to best "lead" the others through the killing game as much as possible.

[bamboo-bees]

How’s my favorite married couple doing, hm? ✨

[hazelkjt]

What Type of Villain Are You?

"Come on, get up! Our FUN isn't over yet!"

Sportsmanlike- "You may be a villain with selfish goals, but you recognize that there are rules to this back and forth between heroes and villains. You have honor. Morals. Some may call you old fashioned, but there's tradition to this whole evil business and you'll be damned if you let yourself break it. You offer hospitality to the heroes when you recognize you must, even when it gets in the way of your plans. You play dirty only when absolutely necessary. You honor your word and if you lose, it is with grace and dignity. You consider yourself classy, respectable, and while you realize you may be evil, you're not gonna let that make you an asshole."

Quiz can be found here

Tagged By: @nolanel-corbeaux, tyty!!!

Tagging: YOU, reading this!

Boop

[sometipsygnostalgic]

If Entrapta's character is like a feral shonen protagonist (Goku or Luffy) became a scientist instead of a fighter, then what is her opposite?

What character in fiction is like if a calculated mad scientist type (think Princess Bubblegum or Bulma) became a fighter instead?

[clonerightsagenda]

Lucy’s friends worry about her talent because they think getting close to ghosts is too dangerous, but they miss the real problem for her specifically which is that it’s too safe. She’s afraid of the people she cares about dying. Ghosts got that out of the way already. She’s worried about always being other people’s second choice. The dead don’t have other options. She’s not great at parsing emotions. Her talent gives her a psychic/empathic link with visitors. And there’s nothing wrong with any of that, but it ends up interacting badly with her insecurities because it's so tempting. Lucy demands justice for Annie Ward and freedom for the souls trapped in the bone glass, but she pushes those morals aside when given the chance to have a person all to herself who she can deny the choice to ever hurt or abandon her while claiming it's in self-defense. Bad End Lucy doesn’t get mauled by ghosts or become the next undead CEO of London. Bad End Lucy has all her friends in jars.

[aroacettorney]

my pkm hc for ludger & casey:

half of them are self-explanatory, and the other half are just the vibes lmfao

i heavily associate luxray with ludger because it's the only "fake" dark type pkm in his team, implying the truth about his self-proclaimed villainy. it holds a flame orb that occasionally inflicts a burn status and a portion of damage to itself in exchange for a massive boost of power when using Facade and especially with its Guts ability — which is just in line with how emotionally motivated he actually is under his mask and how much he willingly destroys himself in order to achieve his goals.

meanwhile, one of caseys primarinas moves is sparkling aria, which could eliminate the burn status of its targets on contact, signifying her wish to help ludger heal but the cost would be standing in his way of achieving his true desires as well as ruining ludger himself and whats left of their current relationship.

caseys water/fairy dual type primarina can easily wipe out most of ludgers dark type pkms due to type effectiveness but chose not to because... reasons.

ludgers luxray is an electric type pkm that can annihilate half of caseys team but also chose not to because... reasons.

[harmonysanreads]

This post was a massive self insert, don't feed my delusions like this

If he turns out to be an INFJ I'll actually lose it

LOL

Our delusions are like little plants, we need to routinely water and fertilize them to ensure they can continue thriving ;D

Now, I'm not lucky like Aventurine to bet stuff carelessly and end up being the winner but, BUT, I feel it in my heart that he's an INFJ — just a very very very unhealthy one. Going through the reasonings would require a long character analysis now so I'll spare you that. Though I wonder how people will view him as now, Yandere or not 🤔

[pebblezone]

🦭

[mozart-the-meerkitten]

Mmm, yes, the Phineas and Ferb Marvel crossover episodes were better than Infinity War and Endgame.

[space-spring]