#vm 1

[keyleth-clay]

Okay but the entire king & queen of jokers sculpture series by arsen avetisian is just Chess. I mean look at these:

[keyleth-clay]

(Second half of this ask from @fey-changeling)

Venture Maidens Ship Headcanons (one for each of my ships):

Arrnodel/Aaron: I like to headcanon Arrnodel as acespec, specifically demisexual (largely influenced by mild spite towards an offhand comment that Brittany made in one of the Q&A's from early on in Fate), and I think that that colours their relationship very heavily. Between her overall lack of experience, her only just now realizing that she can, in fact, experience sexual attraction, and Aaron being pulled between his love for Arrnodel and his loyalty to Mila and Rem, it's not surprising that their relationship got rocky towards the end of the campaign, though I like to think they end up working things out eventually (yes I am once again ignoring the legacy games 💙.)

Kara/Gidget: Chrysanthemums. Ever since the first date way back when, when Kara brought Gidget that bouquet of mums, I can't help but associate them with the flowers (and hey, you read Two Months, you already knew that, I wasn't subtle about it lol). In the language of flowers, they symbolize love, loyalty, and longevity, and I think that's really fitting for them. Kara has a mums-patterned shirt, Gidget makes Kara a bouquet of metal mums, Gidget's favourite perfume is chrysanthemum scented, etc etc.

(bonus Glitchhilde headcanon: you know that post about "rubber duck debugging"? Kara is Gidget's rubber duck.)

Fera/Chess: okay, so sneak preview for Two Weeks, but given that Chess is a demi-deity, I think we as fanfic authors get to break all the rules and let them do whatever the hell we (and they) want. Specifically, they can kinda... communicate telepathically/slightly share a body with Fera, even across long distances? If that makes sense? They can slip a little bit of their immortal consciousness alongside hers, since they're basically her patron, and whatever she sees, they can see, and whatever she feels, they can feel. This, of course, leads to some very fun and kinky sexual experiments. How strongly does Chess feel what Fera does? Do they feel it in their own body, or is their some kind of disconnect? Does the connection go both ways? Can Chess open up the connection a little bit more and (consensually) control Fera during these encounters? They have a lot of fun figuring it out.

Rem/Isolde: God, I'm not even sure what headcanons I have for them that you haven't given me... let me think............ actually, kind of inspired by you anyways, but since Isolde is connected to the Sisters of Sorrow (weavers), I think it would be cool if she was also a crafter - knitting being the obvious choice, but also a seamstress who creates her own dresses, too. I think she'd always wanted to use Rem as a muse/mannequin for some of her dresses, but wasn't able to until Rem ended up in her Wood Elf body (due to being gremlin sized™). After the gods fall and the two of them aren't the main leaders of the Sisters/Furies anymore, they'd have a lot more time to get to indulge in their hobbies, and Isolde gets to dress Rem up all pretty and then make a mess of her later ❤️🤍🖤.

Valerius/Dee: Okay first of all, not a headcanon, but I just want to yell about how much I appreciate their relationship. Valerius is quite overtly flamboyant, in a way that could easily be read as queer, and it's so rare to find m/f relationships where the man is a flamboyant guy but still genuinely attracted to women (rather than just a closeted gay man), and that the woman is genuinely attracted to that flamboyance. They just feel like everyone's cool queer aunt & uncle and I love it. As far as headcanons go, I think that Valerius is quite fastidious about his appearance and hates to (literally) get his claws dirty, but he'll always make an exception for helping Dee out in the kitchen. I think they're also both quite good with kids, and any time that the Sisters/Furies end up taking in any children, the two of them end up being the de facto caretakers (again, cool queer aunt & uncle).

Bonus: literally just this post. ship them with me 🥺.

[keyleth-clay]

Do you have any headcanons about your favourite venture maidens ships or characters that you'll never let go of?

I always love getting VM asks from you, even when it's been long enough since I've watched Fate that I'm a bit fuzzy on the details 💜💜💜. (That means that if canon contradicts any of these headcanons, I genuinely don't remember, so therefore no it doesn't 💙.)

I'm sure I've made it clear by now that Sawyeh Noor is my most favouritest gorl, so I'll stick with her for the character headcanons, but I'll jump around a bit for the ship headcanons. (Now that I've finished typing this out, this got way longer than expected so I'll be putting the ship headcanons in their own post.)

Character Sawyeh headcanons:

I like to think that with Sawyeh's background growing up in the monastery, she developed a unique perspective on community that the other Maidens don't necessarily have - every member of the monastery would need to contribute to the upkeep and care of not just the building(s) and grounds, but the other people within it as well. This does come through a fair bit throughout the campaign, most notably post-Bastard's Breach and her consistent commitment to helping rebuild and train and help anyone in the Sisters of Sorrow that she can, but she's also just like that in her day to day life, to the point of occasionally being almost naggy towards the other Maidens to clean up after themselves or to keep their gear repaired and stuff like that.

I also think she would have learned how to cook while in the monastery (part of taking care of the people and not just the place is making sure everyone is fed), and I think she'd both be quite good at and genuinely love cooking, and find the process almost meditative.

Alistar Fritz Patrick occasionally joins her during her early morning yoga sessions - instead of cat yoga, it's pseudodragon yoga!

As a Way of the Four Elements monk, she obviously ends up having a connection to the elements, but I find it interesting which elements she ends up gravitating towards. She starts the campaign using fire the most, and then uses it and water (bc of her connection to Olhydra/Persana) fairly evenly throughout the campaign. She also uses air a decent amount, and that connection gets stronger once she gets her dragonfly wings...

...but she doesn't use earth all that much, if at all. Which I think is incredibly fitting for her, as a big part of her motivation in leaving the monastery was her desire to travel and experience new things - and if A:TLA taught us anything, that freedom and curiosity is essentially the opposite of earth as an element. I think she genuinely struggles with that kind of rooted-ness.

Building off of both of the above, I like connecting her to Ranna and Chidi once she starts studying from/training with the Carillons, and as such, she has someone who has influenced her life that is directly connected to one of the elements: her mother Maheen is water, her father Aram is fire, Ranna is air (bc air genasi), and Chidi is earth (bc of The Tree).

We already know that she's a big tea-drinker and avoids alcohol (I am considering late-campaign Sawyeh drinking an exception to the rule due to. y'know. the potential unravelling of the fabric of reality), but since I am also a big tea drinker, I have Thoughts. and by that I mean I am projecting my own taste in tea on Sawyeh.

She tends to favour black teas, but also really enjoys rooibos and herbal (especially anything with ginger or chamomile), and doesn't particularly like green teas. Properly brewed masala chai is her absolute favourite, and when she was growing up it was a treat for special occasions.

I know that Naseem is Iranian-American, and I know that Sawyeh Noor and Maheen and Aram are all Arabic names (or at least from neighbouring regions/languages), but in the very first stream that the Venture Maidens made on their channel, Naseem describes Sawyeh as Filipino, and that idea has stuck with me since then. However, I am Incredibly White and know next to nothing about Filipino culture - but I can definitely look up traditional & popular Filipino food, tie that back into my earlier headcanon about Sawyeh and cooking, and say that her favourite food is tinolang manok.

Also she can fucking DESTROY some minatamis na saging and lumpiang saging.

In the time-honoured tradition of the one ace/aroace friend in the group, she's somehow the person all the rest of the Maidens come to for relationship advice. Maybe she just seems wise beyond her years. Maybe she's able to keep a clearer, more rational viewpoint that isn't distracted by attraction. Maybe she's just the least likely to deliberately give them bad advice as a joke. Who knows.

(It's all three.)

As I said in the tags on one of your art posts that I reblogged, I love the idea of Sawyeh and Persana ending up as queerplatonic partners. I'm always a sucker for ships where one half is human or essentially human-like, and the other is just so inherently alien that their relationship fundamentally can't be put into the typical framework that we usually put relationships in.

Also that one scene from The Shape of Water. You know the one.

[keyleth-clay]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: The Venture Maidens (Podcast) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Kara Brynehilde/Gidget Glitch Characters: Kara Brynehilde, Gidget Glitch Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Canon Compliant, (up to the end of campaign 1), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, (and by that I mean the legacy games aren't real and can't hurt me), Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Getting Back Together, Fix-It Series: Part 2 of We Ripped Up the Pages and Wrote Our Own Ending Summary:

Two months. Two fucking months since the gods fell, and it still felt like absolutely no progress had been made.

---------------------------------

Heyyyyyy, my post-canon Kara/Gidget fix-it is (finally) done! The biggest of shout-outs and internet hugs to @sketchy-fey for being an awesome cheerleader for the final stretch of writing 💚💗.

[keyleth-clay]

Venture Maidens Ship Moodboards: Rem/Isolde Tristane

[keyleth-clay]

Hii, I was wondering if you had any thoughts on a critical role/venture maidens crossover? 💖💖💖

Oooooooooh, well, I have a few ideas, but not much in terms of, like, specific plot stuff:

If I Had A Nickel For Every Time I Watched An Actual Play Group's First Online Campaign Where The Goth Elf Ends Up A Champion Of The Raven Queen, I'd Have Two Nickels - Which Isn't A Lot, But It's Weird That It's Happened Twice. (and by that I mean I would love for Arrnodel and Vax to meet.) EDIT: also a Two Nickels moment with Arrnodel and Fjord both being unwitting warlocks in pacts with a fuck-off giant snake patron and then end up changing patrons as a major part of their character arc.

Just... the insanity (and destruction) that would happen as a result of the Fate Maidens meeting The Mighty Nein, given that one of the M9's bffs is a Drow, and. Y'know. Everything with Kara.

Building off of this - adding Valerius and/or Gidget to Caleb and Essek and Veth's magic experiments and Wizard Hubris™.

I've only watched one episode of Favour so far, but I know for a fact that Aoife and Fearne would adore each other. Also maybe low-key distant relatives? 👀👀👀

(Okay full disclosure this is just me taking my faves from each campaign and smooshing them together) But like I think that Keyleth and Sawyeh would have so much to talk about?? Like both of them being the youngest in their respective groups and having these expectations placed on their shoulders, and their respective elemental ties and how they feel about using those powers and their relationships with each particular element (Sawyeh generally being more drawn to fire on her own and water because of Persana [I still don't know how to spell the water elemental's name lol], and Keyleth being drawn more to air and earth [plus fire when she's pissed]). Plus throw Caduceus into the mix for some tea and meditation and growing up in an isolated religious/spiritual centre, and.... I'm gonna cut myself off here. 😅

HANG ON I JUST THOUGHT OF. PARALLELS. Rem/Isolde vs Allura/Kima???? Powerful WLW political leaders who are supporters of the party, one of whom is stabby and take-action and the other is a spell-caster and more cautious???? Is this something???? (I vote yes 🖤❤️🤍 💙💛🤎)

Also speaking of parallels - Ranna and Dorian? Enough said.

[keyleth-clay]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: The Venture Maidens (Podcast) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Rem/Isolde Tristane Characters: Rem (The Venture Maidens), Isolde Tristane Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Post-Campaign 1 (The Venture Maidens), Fix-It of Sorts, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Getting Back Together, does it count as getting back together if they never technically broke up in the first place?, Bittersweet Series: Part 1 of We Ripped Up the Pages and Wrote Our Own Ending Summary:

Almost exactly two hours after the gods fell, Rem found her.

[keyleth-clay]

Venture Maidens Ship Moodboards: Fera Velen/Chess