Vesper Elaina De Rolo

~call me ves~ | 23

[gamechangershow]

Make your voice heard on who should be the Honorary President of Dropout!

Vote here 👉

Cast Your Vote | Game Changer

Cast Your Vote, from Game Changer S07E10 "Outvoted"

[quiddie]

Hey y'all. We have a chance to do something *very* fun here. WHAT DO I NEED TO DO TO GET YOUR VOTE?

[vesd20]

WE DID IT!!!! We have been fed like a cute little truffle pig.

And DAMNNNNNNNNN can bards tell a good story.

[quiddie]

You know what? Fuck it. It's demon hours. If you get Jon to describe - in detail - how he thinks the 8 months between Garavellir and Decima went down, I'll join the BoNY Discord.

But let's add some pressure points:

You've got 'til the end of tomorrow's stream to get it done.

If he asks me about it, game over.

Good luck. 😈

[vesd20]

It’s on discord. All you gotta do is join. 😄 https://discord.gg/6ba6MhJH

Join the Bards of New York Discord Server!

Check out the Bards of New York community on Discord - hang out with 2093 other members and enjoy free voice and text chat.

[quiddie]

You know what? Fuck it. It's demon hours. If you get Jon to describe - in detail - how he thinks the 8 months between Garavellir and Decima went down, I'll join the BoNY Discord.

But let's add some pressure points:

You've got 'til the end of tomorrow's stream to get it done.

If he asks me about it, game over.

Good luck. 😈

[vesd20]

Harmony’s Call

play me like a fiddle

second rate to violin

use me til im broken

with a bridge already bent

sharpen every liar

make me, dear, your instrument

play me like a riddle

pray this game will never end

take my every movement

like you took my breathe away

watch my every gambit

as I'm begging you to stay

might I take this capture?

just this once I ask the lead

take my hand and follow

burn the world until we're freed

[quiddie]

Anatomy of a Spell

Okay, I just had a lovely Bards of New York fan that does not play DnD herself ask about the Detect Thoughts that Decima cast on Katari in episode 35. Since there are specific mechanics I was leveraging to twist the narrative knife, let me explain here rq! 

What Decima knows: 

Having been warned by Valor (and then briefly speaking on it with Katari too,) Dec knows Katari is particularly bothered by psychic magic. 

How Detect Thoughts (2024 version) works:

Once the spell is up and running, you have this as an option: “If you probe deeper, the target makes a Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, you discern the target’s reasoning, emotions, and something that looms large in its mind (such as a worry, love, or hate). On a successful save, the spell ends. Either way, the target knows that you are probing into its mind,” 

So the spell never actually was about knowing Katari’s thoughts (though that would have been nice both as Decima’s player and a Synntari fan) — it was always just to disrupt their moment. In Decima’s calculus, Katari remaining off-balance between herself and Synnove keeps her more firmly in the camp of accepting Beatrix’s mission. She can’t risk Katari moving back into alignment with the party and potentially being dissuaded by JB, so the plan was to use the DT and tearfully run off, hoping Katari would follow her into the lift. That would have been a much more overtly manipulative scene, and who knows if it would have worked given Katari’s insanely high Insight. 

I actually ADORE how things shook out instead: Garavellir’s counterspell, Synnove following, and the later conversation between those two? INCREDIBLE. 

I love that Decima’s best path to achieving her goals as Lord Inquisitor was to stir up drama in the group. If they weren’t going to trust her, she had to make sure they didn’t trust each other too much either. It’s a fun double-fake: her change in tone outside of the throne room suggests that she is the good cop to Beatrix’s bad cop, but in actuality she knows she’s the bad cop to Garavellir’s good cop (hence her eagerness to take off with Katari and leave the rest of the group alone with him to consider the offer, knowing full well that both the bar and penthouse were well-surveilled.)

What a FUN episode! That chess scene has lived rent-free in my mind since Wednesday, and I’m so happy to have finally met the rest of the Bards! 

[vesd20]

My mechanical brain was dying all night. So calculating and icy and particular. Someone was waaaay too attractive and doesn’t know how to make a plain pc.

What was the metal skeleton about?

Also skull/20 for each stat was a nice touch.

Also also, I am building a chess game that fits the board you both explained and broke my heart with.

[sassy-cass-16]

look man. look

essek saying "bren" out loud, claiming a position on caleb's side as the mouthpiece of his regards to astrid, did something to me. i can't tell if it opened a wound or punched me or gave me a hug. all i know is that i am feeling so many emotions right now

more under the cut because i'm about to get rambly:

"bren aldric ermendrud" is a separate character from caleb widogast. he's a young boy learning how to make magic. he's a deeply traumatized and indoctrinated teenager. he's the boy who curled up with astrid and eadwulf in a freezing tower for warmth all night.

essek never met bren. he met caleb and he's never known him as anyone else. if i'm remembering correctly, caleb never even said the name "bren" to him during the campaign, and neither did any of the nein.

essek knows caleb widogast. he knows the man who held up the object of his worst crime and then kissed him in the bowels of a ship and made a floor of infinite stars for them to walk through together. he knows the person who healed over bren's wounds—thinly, but enough. he knows the man that the boy has become.

astrid knows bren. she barely knows who caleb is. she still calls him bren after hearing him referred to as caleb repeatedly. she can't know him as the man he is, she only knows the boy. there's some of bren in caleb, but there is no caleb in bren.

essek saying "bren sends his regards" is him gauging astrid's reaction, on one level—if she freaks out, which she did, she's in opposition to caleb's cause and thus a threat. on another level, it's essek delivering a very different subtextual message from caleb: "the boy who loved you is giving you one final warning."

because essek is a threat to astrid. their last meaningful interaction was slinging spells at each other in the blooming grove. and that's funny in a "current boyfriend vs ex girlfriend exclusively fight each other" kind of way, but it's also deeply tied to caleb's recurring theme of transformation. "bren sends his regards" also means "i have healed enough to love enough for someone else to know this name and use it with my consent. and this someone else is your enemy. what does that make you think i've become?"

it also does a fantastic job of communicating subtle offscreen discussions that have happened over the years since the end of c2. we don't have the details of when or how caleb told essek his birth name, but we know that he did, and we know from all of c2 that the name bren occupies a place of immense emotional weight for caleb. it functions similarly to a deadname in terms of who uses it and for what purpose. trent exclusively calls caleb bren to wound him and place himself in a position of power. astrid calls him bren to remind both him and herself of who they used to be—same with eadwulf, though obviously he's not here.

the first time we hear essek say "bren" is on caleb's behalf and confronting one of the narrative representations of caleb's trauma. it's four words that manage to communicate "i, your enemy on a hundred levels, can speak for both the man i love and the boy who loved you, because i know him in his entirety."

astrid knows bren and essek knows caleb, but only essek can speak for both. because at some point, caleb gave bren to essek. and we know this from four words. four IMPROVISED words.

god. this moment is just so fucking good

[vesd20]

Should I follow (subscribe to) the Beacon?

[vesd20]

Can someone please explain Chetney and Ashton’s relationship to me? I can’t tell what’s up with these two anymore

[dsadwdasdadawdwad-deactivated20]

Fearne and Ashton just need to be held and to hold someone

[vesd20]

I wonder if Sam and Tal spoke at all outside game of what this death prompts Ash to do regarding Fearnie

[acebabecd]

The fact Ashton finally reached out for comfort after their best friend died doing the exact thing they were afraid of him doing since the beginning 😭😭😭

[vesd20]

How dare you cause me so much heartbreak/melancholy

[unicyclehippo]

if you LIKE something REBLOG it. give your friends reblogs, give the artists you like reblogs for the holidays, give the up & coming artists reblogs, support people, love art, make art & show it around. making art is HARD. reblog it.

[unicyclehippo]

it’s just. it’s not CONTENT. it’s ART. it’s art it’s art it’s love it’s ART. someone MADE that, do you get it?? someone painted that, sung that, sculpted that, wrote that, made that gifset, stitched that, danced that. did you enjoy it? did it make you feel something? SHARE it. it’s literally the easiest thing in the world. “i only have ten followers” holy shit! that’s ten more people who can see this incredible thing!! that’s awesome!!

people talk about fandoms dying out—get AWAY from the passive language. PEOPLE are leaving fandoms. people aren’t ENGAGING with other people & artists. people aren’t reblogging or sharing or complimenting or talking to artists & the unfortunate truth is that artists aren’t machines, they’re people & they deserve love & compliments & attention & they’re starving & there is no reward for their effort. this isn’t a guilt trip. this is a reminder. this is information. reblog art. If you can, comment on it. if you want fandoms that last, we have to be the change because corps aren’t gonna stop dumping binge worthy seasons before moving on the second that well runs dry. grab your shovels & dig. fuck the corps. find your friends, find your fandoms, & make some art, reblog some art. get messy get weird feel deeply.

[vesd20]

Thank you for telling me how to use tumblr, kind stranger

[vesd20]

6 years and I finally caved and got tumblr all b/c of callowmoore