Tango makes a terrible, terrible face as he walks into Grian's new creation. Bit rude, he thinks that is, but whatever. Grian waves his arms out, getting ready to show Tango more than he'd shown him when the practice room was still in-progress, when Tango says:
"What did you do to it?"
"Huh?"
Tango shudders. He folds his arms over himself and looks at Jellie the ravager. "What did you do to it. To this place. Why is it... warm?"
"I mean, it's not really warm, see it's all white so it actually doesn't retain heat very well, even with the froglamps, so I had to do some work to make sure the temperature was appropriate for heavy physical activity while not risking frostbite the way the actual dungeon does, and..."
Grian trails off.
"The point is that it's mostly just, I don't know, mild temperature? Unnoticeable temperature? The fact you commented on it is weird."
There's a strangely echoing quality to Tango's voice as he steps back again, against the door to the practice room. "It's clean."
"Yeah. I mean, that's the aesthetic, isn't it? Wiped clean of everything but the ravager, the water, and the drowned. None of the distractions. Good for practicing, you know?" Grian squints. "You should like it. You said you'd like it. Wanted people to be able to practice so they'd do better at the dungeon."
Tango shudders again. "You've wiped clean the ravagers, too. I can't... touch her."
"What?" Grian says, baffled.
"What have you done to this place," Tango says.
"Listen, I won't have you insulting my clean room," Grian says. "I cleaned it of all the dungeon bits. It's nice and easy and white and understandable. I won't have you corrupting it."
Hm. Not sure where that one came from, he realizes. Probably a bad sign. He'd certainly guess as much from Tango, who is staring at him with something akin to horror.
In a voice that echoes like a card readout, Tango says: "You won't do this in the dungeon. You'll feed us what's left from this. Or I'll have to ask you to move it."
Grian rolls his eyes. "Geez, yeah, I won't touch the actual dungeon! I already broke the sound test room, I'm not breaking any really important redstone. Now, do you want to see the drowned dodging room or not?"
"I'm horrified to find out what happened to the drowned, if this is your ravager."
Grian looks between Jellie's blank stare and Tango and throws up his hands. "Nothing! I did nothing to her! I have no idea what you're on about!"
"It's like you bleached their insides," mutters Tango. "Bleached everything. It's not natural."
"Not natural? Like you're one to talk!"
"I need to know. Show me," Tango says.
"Right then. Take off your armor first, I don't want Jellie getting thorned or something, then let's practice some dodging and get in there. Then you'll see this is a perfectly normal set of eerie white rooms and leave me alone, right?"
Tango makes a face.
"I don't know why I bother. Honestly. You'd think I'd done something weird," Grian says, and then neither of them talk much, on account of the ravager trying to chew their faces.
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Ok life cycle of a jelly mer is a GO. I’ll stick it under the cut in case anyone doesn’t want to see the lil development/newborn stuff
BUT before that since I know at least a few people are going to ask; yes, you can hold tiny baby medusa Neil, it can’t even sting you yet. Just a lil tingle
(Shout out to @the-tortoise-lady for the idea of baby Neil with no common sense or self awareness being very certain it both can and will eat that thing it found wading in the water near the beach (fisherman Andrew))
So normal jellyfish polyps grow into what looks like little stacked saucers or plates and when one breaks off it grows into the actual medusa we all know. So like. I’m just imagining the upper body/human part of the mer grows inside more like two cups stacked together, and there’s only one per polyp (i don’t even know if regular polyps have multiple discs break off tbh).
But according to some v quick research and not being able to find specifically Sea Nettle reproductive cycle, I am declaring their polyps the average size of Small (about an inch/3cm or something close) and their baby medusae have A LOT of growing to do :D
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i do not want to dig a hole but i am too much of a laura bailey pc enjoyer to not make this post so:
selfishness ≠ a lack of kindness
selfishness is a theme that has come up with all of laura's main campaign pcs. that doesn't mean that her characters are always making selfish choices or that they don't care about the rest of the people they're with or that they're not good. it's just that, for the most part, the first thing they're thinking of when they take action or make choices is themselves.
in jester and vex both it is more typical and obvious selfishness. vex's developed because she needed it to keep herself and vax alive and as safe as possible and it grew into a behaviour that she had to actively work to avoid. it's evident in her greed, her theft of the broom, her reaction to her own death which relied heavily on i'm okay/i survived to which keyleth reminded her that she wasn't the only one who had to witness and reckon with her death. in jester's case, she grew up in an environment that literally trained her to make every decision based on two things - her mother's opinion and her own. so, when she's out in the world without marion for the first time, her choices are those that will benefit her and her actions are those that consider her own thoughts and not really many others' (aside from the traveler's).
it isn't a criticism of either vex or jester to say that they are characters who act selfishly. in fact, i'd argue that to claim otherwise does a great disservice to exactly how immense both of their character arcs are. because the nuance of both jester and vex is that they are selfish, and they also hold extreme room for self-sacrifice and empathy. vex is much more brash than jester is, and jester is much more trusting than vex, but both of them are characters who begin with selfish impulses who grow with them. neither ever truly shed those impulses, but they use them in new ways, typically transforming them into impulses towards things that are in the best interest of the party.
you may have noticed the lack of imogen in this post about laura bailey pcs and that's because of two reasons. one, we are an unknown amount of time into her story, i can't analyse her development the same way i can vex and jester's. two, imogen's selfishness isn't the blatant quasi-self-aware selfishness that we see in things like jester complaining about her lack of money to caleb or vex stealing a broom. instead, imogen's is very internal, like a lot of laura's character work with imogen. it is a bit similar to jester’s in the sense that it comes from a lack of awareness moreso than vex’s practiced behaviour, but imogen’s is a lot more tied to inherent beliefs she has about the world and the people in it.
as a consequence of her powers, imogen sees people's thoughts as their entirety, she holds it above their actions to be the truth of who they are - to act against what they think or to say something that doesn’t cohere with what they’ve thought is akin to lying, so for her to act empathetically is to act in tandem with what someone else’s thoughts are, not how they act, which is typically not all that wanted. the same as vex’s greed and jester’s naivety, this is a trait that makes narrative sense and it’s one i find quite compelling, especially when read in the vein of someone struggling through trauma that has made them assume that the world is against them. imogen’s cynicism is coherent cynicism, i can’t say that in a similar situation i wouldn’t have the same predisposition towards the world.
the part that is particularly self-interested comes in if you look at how imogen has actually been treated in the campaign (quite well) in comparison to the cynicism that she’s developed from her past (something that speaks to a world out to get her). certainly, a bunch of shitty things have happened to imogen in the time we’ve known her, but the same can be said for everyone in bell’s hells and pretty much everyone in exandria at this point in time. but, in a fight to save the aforementioned world, imogen’s focus was getting her mother back on her side. which, while very consistent with her character and a choice that i enjoy, is a very selfish one. the fun thing (to me, obviously) about imogen is that she has, more than most, an insight into the opinions of others and she also tends to seek others’ opinions out and genuinely engages with them and supports their choices. but she still very much acts towards what she thinks is best. it’s one reason i enjoy looking at the dynamic between her and orym as one between foils, as orym tends to be stalwart in his beliefs and doesn’t care too much for other’s opinions if he’s already sure of his own, but his actions tend to favour collaboration and protecting others.
as i mentioned earlier, imogen is a harder case to look at because she is still in the process of her story. however, the circlet is clearly influencing how she interacts with the world and in the wake of the solstice, the hostile reaction towards ruidusborn people has started to become more and more apparent and i’m interested to see what route that ends up leading imogen down and how it will influence her relationship with the rest of bell’s hells. (for better, i think, based on recent conversations, but if it's for worse i will be just as seated and excited).
all of this is just to say, please stop assuming that claiming a character has a trait you think is a bad one is criticism or a hate post. in light of the fact that i know that people who don’t believe this will continue to not believe this, i’ll encourage anyone confused about the ability of a character to be good and kind and selfish all at once to look to what the text itself says, specifically scanlan’s words to pelor when asked what vex means to him:
“Her name is Vex, and she is greedy and mean sometimes, and she can steal a lot. She’s a little bit not the greatest person, but her flaws highlight everything that is right about her, which is she does all these things to protect her friends and her family. She would give her life for any of us and for anyone who was truly in need. And she’s not perfect but she’s the most perfect of all of us.”
would you look at that... an ability to be a multitude of things, some in conflict with one another. i know that's hard for fandoms to believe, especially about female characters with agency, but i promise its true!
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One thing I love about Fig's school arc is that it counters a lot of the utopic teen ideas about how high school and being a teenager "should" work.
Teachers trust your abilities enough to let you do whatever you want? Swaps classes mid-way through the semester in JUNIOR YEAR, pretty much ensuring that she won't be able to get the full benefits of any of the classes she is taking/has taken.
Parents/Guardians that don't prioritize or even really care about academics? If no one cares she has very little reason to actually try, let alone learn good study habits or try to plan for the future.
Get to pursue your passion and live your dream life as a rockstar? That's a full-time job hun, people build their entire lives around something you're trying to squeeze between night classes and solving mysteries. I hope you aren't feeling too tired, you need to write that album we already paid you for.
Idk, I just think it's fun to see all the ways having no rules or supervision can be just as detrimental to a child as having too many.
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