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i love it when a piece of media is like: is there anything more painful than knowing your sibling? is there anything more tragic than knowing they are the only person who will ever share the same experience as you? they were the only constant in your life. they were there since birth and now, no matter how they betray you, you will still love them. you will always feel the need to protect them even if you can no longer bring yourself to talk to them. will anyone else be able to understand? will anybody be able to love you and hate you and fear you the same way a sibling loves you and hates you and fears you? no, probably not

#the way this coincides perfectly with the idea of like. vax died before he turned 30 and i think his maturity is probably in that stasis #so like. WILL he and vex ever know each other like they used to? of course not. they CAN'T. im eating it #ishkabibble

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🏳️‍🌈🧡

🏳️‍🌈: Which character who is commonly headcanoned as queer doesn’t seem queer to you?

I'm gonna talk Fire Emblem. YOU DIDN'T SPECIFY SO HA.

I do happen to think more characters in Three Houses are mlm/wlw than a number of people are willing to acknowledge (I don't consider "can be romanced by either gender Byleth" to be the only metric when some of them kids got gayass endings); like, Dimitri is absolutely bisexual. Claude, though...?

So this isn't really "I don't think Claude is queer at all"—I personally headcanon him as aspec—but I think he's exclusively attracted to women. Like, compare his supports and paired endings with Lorenz (where "diplomatic relations" is the furthest thing from a euphemism) and Balthus (where Balthus straight-up just marries an unnamed woman) to Dimitri's endings with Dedue (fellas is it gay to take up vigil at your liege's graveside and then be buried alongside him) or Felix (I'm grieving for him harder than his unnamed wife did because we're PLATONIC FRIENDS obviously). As I just said, a character's relationship to Byleth isn't the only metric for this, but I think it's pretty telling that nothing about Dimitri's interactions with or about Byleth change based on their gender, while some of Claude's dialogue adds in lines specifically about finding female Byleth attractive.

I mean, both Claude and Dimitri have paired endings with female characters that are giving contractually obligated (I can't imagine Dimitri/Ingrid or Claude/Leonie are terribly popular), but I feel like people interpret Claude as bisexual because he's charming and Dimitri as straight because...I guess his route has the most traditional Fire Emblem elements? Meanwhile, the actual situation is the complete opposite in terms of like, raw homoeroticism.

(As far as Critical Role is concerned, while I don't have a preference either way, I do see where @revvethasmythh is coming from that Jester has some ally energy. I do like bi4bi Fjorester too though!)

🧡: What is a popular (serious) theory you disagree with?

For FE3H, I think Teacher Theory is still very stupid and hasn't been ridiculed enough*. Like Edelgard works with a mole man death cult that does human experimentation and kidnapping and she personally has a secret pet serial killer and starts a war, but hiring bandits to kill her political rivals is suddenly beyond the pale and El Would Never**? And the obviously smarter 4d chess play would be to...get the church to hire the aforementioned secret pet serial killer (who already works there) to be the head teacher of her house, thus putting him under increased scrutiny? lmao ok

For Critical Role...okay, this is retroactive, but I gotta admit that the "'did she know' was actually Rashinna!" theory was not good, at all, and would have been incredibly boring if it had been true. (Also, just logically, why would Rashinna have ONLY sent that message to the two Ruidusborn?) If my understanding is correct people didn't want to say anything on the slim chance it was right, but once the episode aired the general consensus was "C'mon man, seriously? We gave airtime to that?".

*I'd address the fanon coming out of the hardcore "genocide is okay" Edelstans (straight up just "source: I made it up"), but like, the question specifies 'popular' and that portion of the fandom has only gone more insane because they know everyone thinks they're all absolutely corncobs.

**If in an attempt at media analysis you call fictional characters by nicknames, cutesy or otherwise, you have waived the right to be taken seriously.

unpopular opinions asks

#asks #also not to be like this but 'did she know was rashinna' is giving imidna twitter

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🤍, 🖤?

🤍: Which character is not as morally bad as everyone else seems to think?

So this is gonna seem contradictory to my reblog of blorb's post; this is not intended to be read as a counter to it, but as a complement: Percy.

If I'm being honest, one of the things that kinda bothers me about C1 group fanart is when I see everyone else in the party at their fully developed state, maybe even with their Vestiges, and then Percy's out here...with Orthax. Whom he expelled from himself with a natural 20 wisdom save, for the record, in episode 35. He spent more time without Orthax than with him!

It is objectively true that Percy invented the gun knowing what harm it could do but did it anyway. He once permanently maimed an innocent boy because he wasn't giving the answers he wanted. He gave Grog a cursed sword and didn't tell anyone because he didn't want it to be his responsibility and he thought Grog could handle it. It is also objectively true that he expressed doubts about what he was doing even during the Briarwood arc and admitted he was scared of who he was becoming and outright asked the group to stop him if they thought they should. He publicly apologized to Desmond and admitted his wrong and assured him recompense in both money and job security. He participated in a resurrection ritual for a child he didn't know who got caught in the crossfire of a battle. He fought to provide the people of Westruun a safe haven in their city, while still encouraging people to leave if they wished, because he wanted to honor the fact that what they had built there was important to them.

I think Percy is one of those characters that people view as either a silly little Human Disaster™ or as Vox Machina's Token Evil Teammate (the audience who projected onto him as the Facts and Logic guy seems to have dissipated after it became clear that he was. very much not doing that), and neither of those things are true. When Laura remarked that she looked at Percy and said "I can fix him", it was very clearly a joke, but I think people take that seriously and think Vex is the only reason he's not Lawful Evil or something. (Taliesin once said that without Vex's influence Percy could potentially have turned out Lawful Good—Laura's reaction was "eugh".) Percy didn't believe he could EVER be worthy of Vex and never once intended to act on his feelings; the change in him between episodes 35 and 68 was because he personally chose to be better, over and over again—even through several instances of him having Fucked Up Big Time—for its own sake. His forgiveness of Ripley is what inspired Vex, and I don't think people acknowledge that enough.

🖤: Which character is not as morally good as everyone else seems to think?

I kind of alluded to this in the ship question but to be clear at the outset, I think Vax is a good person*, but I also think his flaws tend to be overlooked. He gets Soft Boy'd a lot, and while I don't think characters who operate on emotion are bad or stupid by default (my favorite superhero is Starfire), I think fandom tends to assume people who operate on emotion are good by default. Vax does a lot of reckless things that he's repeatedly called out for by everyone in the group, and he generally lets it roll off him because his metric for success is "but did you die". He saw a kid that he thought needed some tough love, and his first response was "bludgeon him over the back of the head and instantly knock him unconscious". He ran into a trap that nearly got Cassandra killed and never once apologized to her. He ran after Raishan and attacked, an action that actually did get Vex and Scanlan killed, and not only did he never apologize to them, he openly said in front of them that he didn't regret doing it (after being rightfully angry with Percy for getting Vex killed and having seen some proof that Scanlan might not be doing great!).

Like, to be clear, again, none of those things make him a bad person; I think overall he's a good person, and I think they're good character choices! What I'm saying is that he has some genuine rough edges to him, and I think a lot of that gets ignored or sanded down in fanon to make him "the nice twin" or a perfect YA Hero love interest for a Keyleth who is being projected onto, and that simply isn't the character Liam played.

*I wouldn't normally put in that kind of good-person caveat—I don't think the end-all be-all is whether or not a fictional character is a good person—but a) this is a question about morality and b) some folks are weird about Liam.

unpopular opinions asks

#percy is someone who falls down over and over again because of HIS OWN flaws and bad choices and still gets back up to do the right thing #and i don't think i quite realized how much that resonated with me until now #cr meta #asks #also STAN STARFIRE YOU DONT HAVE A CHOICE

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💛💜 for CritRole

💛: What is a popular ship you just can’t get behind, and why?

I've talked at length about the purple heart and black heart in the room, so instead of choosing violence (for now), I'm gonna go with Vax/Keyleth. It's not that I dislike it; I've read C1-era Percy/Vex fics that went for Kash/Keyleth or Grog/Keyleth or something else in the background instead, and those didn't really sit right with me. Vax/Keyleth does make sense for both characters, and it's not like, toxic or abusive or portrayed especially poorly. It's just not very interesting to me; it's mostly just fine with some nice conversations sometimes.

The problem is that it's a relationship that's very easy to flanderize and turn into the Disney Channel romance of your dreams, now with cuss words, where Keyleth is the flawless Not-Like-Other-Girls Her-Only-Flaw-Is-She-Works-Too-Hard protagonist getting swept off her feet by a brooding, sensitive pretty boy with a tragic past. There's also a weird desire among some to just straight up compare Vax and Keyleth to the Briarwoods or to bring the Briarwoods into their story, which is...simply not the move. Like, Raishan and Thordak are right there and are also DRAGONS. If you want less evil and more ambiguity, the Raven Queen is right there; Vax and Keyleth canonically disagreed over his relationship with her and whether or not his fate was fair. You can even talk about how Vax has an unhealthy possessiveness over her and isn't allowing her to move on, but as a Celestial being who effectively died before the age of 30, he's arguably in a stasis where he can't grow as a person and understand these things and let her move on. There are interesting things you can do with their relationship, but as of now I haven't seen anything other than canon, which didn't grab me until after it started to fall apart.

💜: Which character is way hotter than everyone else seems to think?

This isn't really about my personal preference, but I think it's so easy to make jokes about Scanlan as kind of a Casanova Wannabe that people forget that he has a CHA score of 22 and has that high of a body count for a reason. Like, he's not just a cartoonishly exaggerated horndog; he's objectively attractive in-universe, and I feel like I don't see that explored a lot!

unpopular opinions asks

#asks

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💜 & 💔 for Critical Role

💜: Which character is way hotter than everyone else seems to think?

I feel like all the characters I like are generally agreed upon to be hot (Vex and Fjord famously, Percy and Laerryn are also canonically hot), but with one exception.

Look. More than any male character on this show, Grog is a HIMBO. He's canonically hung like a draft horse and normally that would be a turnoff, but he is a woman respecter and he has enough experience and intuitiveness to know how to treat 👏 you 👏 RIGHT 👏 and that moment when Percy had just died and Grog made Vex and Keyleth drink themselves to sleep because he knew they wouldn't otherwise, only to threaten to slice Kynan in half if he moped around feeling sorry for himself a single second longer? DAMN.

💔: If you had to remove one major character from the series, who would you choose?

Laudna. I mean, we been knew, I feel like, but Laudna. Like, look, I am a card-carrying Whitestone girlie, y'all know, but she has spent over 50 episodes failing to convince me that it wouldn't have been a better story if the resurrection ritual had failed. She's just not bringing anything to the table that someone else isn't already doing better, and when she DOES gain momentum and do something interesting, it's ground to a screeching halt so she and Imogen can have the same I Support You No Matter What conversation for the 30th time. Marisha has repeatedly alluded to her potentially meeting a tragic end or otherwise having more tension and conflict, and at this point there needs to be either a massive overhaul of the character or she needs to cut line.

unpopular opinions asks

#asks

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Koriand’r/Starfire II Ororo Munroe/Storm

The Uncanny X-Men and The New Teen Titans (1982)

#KORY AND STORM SUPREMACY #dcu

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Ask game: unpopular opinion edition <3

❤: Which character do you think is the most egregiously mischaracterized by the fandom?

🧡: What is a popular (serious) theory you disagree with?

💛: What is a popular ship you just can't get behind, and why?

💚: What does everyone else get wrong about your favorite character?

💙: Which character is not as hot as everyone else seems to think?

💜: Which character is way hotter than everyone else seems to think?

🤍: Which character is not as morally bad as everyone else seems to think?

🖤: Which character is not as morally good as everyone else seems to think?

💖: What is your biggest unpopular opinion about the series?

💔: If you had to remove one major character from the series, who would you choose?

💕: What is an unpopular ship that you like?

📖: If you had to remove one book from the series, which would you choose?

🏳️‍🌈: Which character who is commonly headcanoned as queer doesn't seem queer to you?

💀: If you had to choose one major character to die, who would you choose?

#send me some cr/fire emblem stuff!

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I hate to say it, but none of the characters are leftiepilled marxistmaxxers. None of them are socialist, or communist, or whatever else. Additionally, very few of them support a meritocracy, much less a real democracy.

The series doesn't actually focus on the political and economic structures, instead it focuses on interpersonal struggles and also kill the big evil world ending dragon.

If you're going to get mad about the social and economic gaps that are inherent in empires and monarchies, you're not going to like the series. Most characters are complacent or supportive of the oppressive systems because the leading lords in each game are presented as benevolent rulers.

If that annoys you, maybe you just don't like knight kill dragon games. Play Disco Elysium or something else that's actually politically charged.

(Before anyone says anything, I'm a communist, I am just also able to suspend disbelief when playing a game about olden knights and wizards and dragons)

.

#this is just the fire emblem version of 'when i watch the lord of the rings i become a monarchist for twelve hours' #which is the correct take #fire emblem

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obsessed with this lore

#canon in my heart #fe3h

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With the hbomberguy plagiarism video on fire right now I want to share my favorite example of egregious plagiarism.

I’m a marine biologist. Currently getting my PhD. I’ve done a lot of scholarly writing. Many classes I took as an undergraduate had big writing components. I took limnology at one point as an elective. This course had one such big writing assignment.

The professor told us a story. He said he once got a student paper that absolutely blew him away. It was way beyond what he’d expected from the class. This was before we had online tools to check for plagiarism. The paper impressed him so much that he brought it home to show it to his wife. She began reading it and then set it down, looked at him, and said, “Dan, you wrote this.”

This student was dumb enough to not only copy a published paper verbatim, but to copy a paper published by the professor of the class.

AND HE NEARLY GOT AWAY WITH IT.

#rampant hooliganism

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i compare potential faves to two criteria: did you invent the gun knowing full well what it could do before shooting a kid's fingers off, and did you cast blight on the tree of names after committing Magic Tax Fraud

#also considering adding 'did you absorb a nuclear bomb' #critical role #percy de rolo #laerryn coramar-seelie #to be clear this is with all the affection in my heart. my only problem with vex and fjord is that they aren't nasty ENOUGH #'i think i was going to be a clockmaker once' and 'my best. finally' are like. The Same #also percy and laerryn would HATE each other. which is awesome

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🖤💚

for the unpopular opinions asks

:DD Thank you! You get Percy rambles because that's where the brain goes past midnight <3

🖤: Which character is not as morally good as everyone else seems to think?

Very, very quietly: my yearly reminder to everyone that Percy knew what he was doing when he invented Gun. The entire character concept, per Taliesin, is 'what the fuck could motivate someone to make something this awful'. He did not invent Gun to free Whitestone, he did not invent Gun to rid the world of terrible evil, he invented Gun because he was a terrified and hurt and furious teenager who did not care what consequences there were to his actions so long as he maybe, possibly, might be able to kill some of the people responsible for his family's deaths. Once it does hit him that he will have to live with the consequences, that others will live with this same pain because of the havoc firearms can sow, he definitely feels awful! And wants to undo it as best he can! But it remains that he was a deeply selfish character.

And still is! No Mercy Percy is a fun meme and all, but he really leans into a lot of needless cruelty when he's scrambling for control. Which pops up again even after the Briarwoods arc is all done with - he is absolutely furious at Scanlan and some of what he mildly brings up to Vex is horrifying shit to say you'd do to a friend.

Anyways he's perfectly in character in C3 and I will die on this hill. And get raised as an undead by Delilah because PERCY WAS FUCKING RIGHT ABOUT THE WHOLE THING -

💚: What does everyone else get wrong about your favorite character?

OK, so I know we (by we I mean me) all love to point at Percy and go 'this man is autistic please let him infodump about the Feywild/clocks/engineering stupid dragon traps'. But there is a really good reason why everyone was shocked by his backstory reveal in C1, and why he's got so few lines in the first two episodes of TLOVM, and that's because he's pretty fucking quiet. And it's something I didn't fully appreciate until recently, so it's really understandable how often it trips people up!

The main thing is that while Lord de Rolo is usually a man of few words, those words are fucking bangers. While a lot of Vax's famous lines tend to be part of a long Shakespearian ramble (which I love), Percy, as a Taliesin character, is a master of the one-liner. Which tends to get over-represented in our memory compared to how often he says very little at all!

Percy often gets wordy when he has a space to do so (a debate with Keyleth, a bit of Whitestone lore Taliesin wants to yell about, nerding out with Tary who is importantly nerding out right back)... and when he's talking to Vex. God he will not shut up when he's one-on-one with Vex. In his conversations with other characters (Vax and Keyleth namely) he usually keeps his input short unless he's doing some arguing. But with Vex? Just won't stop.

So while I do think infodumping can be compliant with canon Percy, he needs to either be doing it in tandem with someone else (he and Keyleth or Tary being little weirdos), he has to have a solid excuse to indulge in it and feel justified, or he and Vex are alone. (Cass can probably get him to infodump, but given her nature as an NPC there isn't much textual evidence alas.)

Ask me about my unpopular opinions!

#YES TO BOTH #percy becoming a noble and altruistic and good person only holds weight if you understand what he was and COULD have been #the anger with scanlan still works bc he's going out of his way NOT to indulge those things and wants to avoid it...but it's still there! #also seconded the audience was plenty shocked at no mercy percy bc he'd been around for 23 episodes and was pretty quiet #(the briarwood arc hits as hard as it does in part bc at that point tiberius actually had a more substantial fanbase than percy) #(he has some great moments in those early eps but he's still not very chatty and taliesin wasn't as recognizable in fandom spaces) #the cast was even MORE shocked because he'd been quiet for TWO YEARS #critical role #cr meta

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Sorry it’s early but you really can’t use fanfiction terms in a non fanfiction context like if someone is trying to sell me a book to read and they tell me there’s an enemy to lovers I would be annoyed because why are you spoiling the story lol

#crit tag

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As Mona's campaign nears completion I'm preparing for you this list so we can show these families the same amazing and unbelievable support we showed Mona and her family. The invasion of Rafah grows nearer everyday. Please understand the urgency of this campaign.

Version date: April 25th 2024.

#important

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❤ give me ur hottest fanon personality takes

yessir

❤: Which character do you think is the most egregiously mischaracterized by the fandom?

Good fucking GOD does fanon do Keyleth so dirty!

She isn't my favorite member of VM, and my least favorite of Marisha's PCs, but it's not for any fault of her own. This is a very inexperienced character whose arc is about gaining that confidence and growing into it! Her heart is incredible and imo she is probably second to Percy as a creative-ideas-person which is really underrated (when Travis is not stepping in Grog's place; Vex has very practical ideas usually which are their own thing). She's enthusiastic and silly and a huge awkward mess, and often giggling in the background or repeating what's happened out of delight. But she's also got a stubborn streak to her, and develops a lot of anger she can't quite handle, and sometimes her naïve impulsiveness can cause more harm than the good she intends. And just how all that inexperience and heart-first living makes her early romance with Vax a fucking mess! And then it's a sweet little fluff-fest, with some pretty soft demi and bi rep too, until it becomes deliciously tragic and brings out the best and worst in them both and literally becomes a key plot point. Seeing how she's matured in C3 - and how some of that same girl still lives in her - awkwardness and all - is such a treat! Now she's the noble ruler we all hoped she'd be... with a long future still ahead of her and all the joys and hurts that implies.

See all I crossed out? That doesn't exist in fanon Keyleth. At all. Bye! Congratulations, you get a girl-next-door redhead walking Taylor Swift song with just as much depth. Cursory bit of spice or sad included, because She's Just Like Me You Guys! Totally unrelated that she's (one of) the canon love interest of this broody, hot, emotional guy (or his sister, if you want Vex to step on you and decide she wouldn't go batty with Keyleth).

As soon as fanon gets its hands on Keyleth, she becomes a reader stand-in with flaws filed off. Guys Marisha confirmed she was this close to multiclassing Barbarian for a reason. Perfectly sweet boring people do not multiclass into Barbarian!

Ask me about my unpopular opinions!

#GO OFF GIRL GET THEY ASS #critical role

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always trying not to think about her too much or i’d start crying,,

#op i LOVE how you draw her hair it's so keyleth! #critical role

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warlock, barbarian, halfling :)

warlock: what is your favorite critical role merch

I love all my CR merch! I guess one thing I really like is the Sideshow statues of Percy and Vex. I draw them the most often and usually post-canon, so it's nice to basically have a big maquette to turn around and examine. Plus my Anya noodle stopper figure looks SO cute sitting on Percy's statue base :D

barbarian: who is your favorite villain

I've already talked about what I love about Vespin Chloras, Original Leather Daddy, so I'm gonna spend a minute on Asmodeus, because Brennan gave us an absolutely bone-chilling portrayal of a manipulator. The way he knows exactly what buttons to press to get under Zerxus's skin and play him like a flute, only to crush him over and over out of pure gleeful spite the second he has him where he wants him, is everything I'd expect from the Father of Lies and more. The fact that parts of the FANDOM fell for it, because they were just as predisposed as Zerxus was to believe that maybe the bad guys are just misunderstood, is the icing on the cake.

halfling: who is your favorite dm

I gotta gush about Brennan, man. The way he describes what the characters would know and how they'd know it, even on low rolls, is really good and helps keep me invested even in what little they do glean from a check, and he has this way of giving them enough information to allow them to continue thinking around the situation and look for all the angles without holding their hands.

critical role ask game

#critical role #asks #i have loid and yor figures; i might get a damian noodle stopper one of these days to go with anya