Welcome to my Bullshit

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C'Mon, You Know You Wanna...

like, he’s entitled to sick leave, he really ought to take a couple months to break the curse and come to terms with whatever the fuck just happened to him, but instead of embarking on a journey of self-discovery and healing he just keeps showing up to work. no one can get captain maximus to go on his fucking voyage of self actualization and fix the curse because he’s obsessed with catching flinn ryder. everyone really fucking hopes that when he finally catches this guy the curse might be broken anyway, but it isn’t.

he just keeps showing up to work. he glares at the stablehands until they saddle him up. everyone’s gone over the regulations a dozen times but there’s nothing there saying you’re not allowed to saddle and ride the captain of the guard if he makes you do it. his former second in command rides him around like ‘sir i really don’t know about this’ and he’s just like ‘are we going to catch some criminals or what.’

you can see in the movie that everyone in the royal guard defers to this horse. it’s absolutely because that’s their boss. and secondarily because now he’s two thousand pounds of percheron.

If you accept the events of Tangled: The Series as canon, they all happen. Eugene becomes the new official (human) captain of the guard. The acting captain went over his suggested replacement with Maximus beforehand, of course. Maximus gave the call his blessing to go ahead. The man formerly known as Flynn Rider has come a long way, and while he’s glad that he is both physically unable and not socially oblivious to say it out loud, Maximus is… proud of him.

In the final battle against Zhan Tiri, Maximus is Eugene’s mount. On Eugene’s wedding day, Maximus is entrusted with the duty of being ring bearer.

More years pass. Rapunzel is crowned queen. Both men come ever further, and over their service grow as close as Rapunzel and Pascal. They move on the job like they share a mind. They protect the innocent and see that the criminals are given justice, whether that’s a life sentence or housing, a job and an adult education program. Eugene has a lot of big ideas about community infrastructure prison reform and a more rehabilitative than punitive legal system and other things Maximus never could have imagined a career criminal pulled off the streets talking about so confidently and articulately. Although he has logistical doubts at first, the prince consort pulls them off. Corona is safer and fairer than ever. Never has a duo of a rider and his horse been so widely and greatly respected, either. The curse and the sorcerer who placed it all but fade from Maximus’s memory.

One evening after a long day, when Eugene offers him a sugar cube with a gentle “Here, Max. You’ve earned it” and Maximus for once allows himself the indulgence, he reflects on just how wrong he was. What a fool he was, to believe that having lived a life of privilege and plenty where moral and immoral acts were always rewarded or punished as such somehow made him innately superior to those whose experiences had taught them different lessons and pushed them down different paths. The man he called his and society’s eternal enemy is now one of the most virtuous people he knows. His best friend. Almost - no, truly as good a captain as Maximus himself was. No. A better one. A kinder, wiser, more empathetic one. And all it took was being given unconditional love and support to improve.

That’s all it takes, apparently. Because suddenly Maximus is human again. The same age he was in his last moment in this body, wearing the same sweaty uniform from chasing down the sorcerer and everything.

Eugene stares at him.

Maximus, movements stilted and slow, raises his hands in an attempt to be reassuring.

“I can explain -”

Eugene starts screaming.

The stablehands and the guards are all informed by word of mouth. After all if Maximus wants to continue doing his job as a horse that’s fine, but heaven forbid that someone treat this man in a horse body like he’s some ordinary horse.

Rapunzel never encountered a horse before Maximus, so she had nothing to compare him to and never considered there was something unusual about him.

To Flynn, the guards were all faceless mooks so he didn’t notice that the captain was a different person, or that Maximus the horse had a very similar personality to the former captain Maximus who is nowhere to be found.

So while everyone is congratulating Maximus for breaking his curse, Flynn and Rapunzel are just dumbfounded because “Maximus is a man??? And no one told us????”

“We thought you knew.”

Edit: not that he was intending to keep it a secret or anything, he just had to explain why he, a full-grown horse, was surprised he could talk to other animals. If it weren’t for that he’d just never have bothered bringing it up and Pascal would’ve found out at the same time as the other two.

having been talking and thinking about Actual Play podcasts for a few days, I think it's worth noting that the idea of the always-prepared always-witty DM who comes up with these things on the fly is as much a performance as the dragon he's voicing; these are professional products, generally with a team of people to help write scenarios, a lot of off-screen discussion with the players, and also EDITING so when something flops or they play through a scene and it doesn't work out, they can fix it.

Here we are! I'm a bit late today, was not happy with my first result. I really wished I had a shot with one hand extended, as I had an idea for a butterfly interaction, but decided to go for a contrast driven image instead.

A bit of a retro mood for this one, i arrived to the party and was really surprised by Ionaa like first thing. Hope you like the edit Doe!

As usual, tysm to [VS] for hosting!

Character: Firstborn Ionaa @doedolly64

Landscape: Comosus Isle Homestead

I fully understand some people aren't excited by the announcement of Guild Wars 3 for various reasons (I've seen accessibility concerns about the focus on movement that was a very good point) but even today I am seeing new posts worried about some things Anet has already clarified, so here is a list of things they have revealed about all 3 games below the cut, but also here is their video about the 'Future of Guild Wars'