#anyway stream Under the Water by The Pretty Reckless it's a fucking great veth&fjord song

[revvethasmythh]

Veth and Fjord make a really entertaining duo because of the way that they butt heads and argue most of the time, but I’m also so interested in all the compelling ways that they are very similar people. Obviously, their personalities are fairly different on the surface level, but many of their underlying issues are the same, as they were formed by bizarrely similar backstories. They were both severely bullied in their childhoods, causing serious self-worth/self-esteem issues that have lasted their whole lives, and they specifically both grew up being told they were ugly and strange by the kids (and adults) around them. They then escaped those damaging environments in the best ways they could—Fjord by ending up on the Tide’s Breath, coming into his own under Vandran's guidance, and Veth by marrying Yeza and having Luc, presumably establishing her own household and getting her out of her childhood home, where her brothers were a main source of the bullying she suffered from. Both instances have them reaching for independence from those who had harmed them, struggling to step into a semblance of better futures, though neither quite manage it in its entirety.

Then tragedy to strikes them both (Sabian’s betrayal; the goblin incursion). And though the circumstances of these tragedies were quite different, they both end the same way: water in their lungs. Both of them utterly changed in the act of drowning, neither of them in control of the outcome. They both become something new and other, something more dangerous than they once were. For Fjord, this is something of a gift, an opportunity to remake himself as he searches for answers. Veth, in a roundabout way, wants the same thing he does. But she doesn't want to remake herself into something new--she wants to remake herself into what she used to be.

This renders Veth and Fjord as something of mirrors to each other. Two people who should not have so much in common, but can see those similarities in the other anyway. Their backgrounds leave them with such similar issues that it's practically inevitable that they butt heads and argue and don't get along half the time, even though they do care about each other. We're talking about two people raised on self-hatred--they probably have some mixed feelings about seeing so much of themselves in each other. And I just think the way their stories are so symmetrical really deepens both of their narratives once you zoom out enough to see the way that their lives reflect each others'

#holds them like marge's potato: ''I just think they're neat'' #anyway stream Under the Water by The Pretty Reckless it's a fucking great veth&fjord song #I mean okay but ALSO a lot fjord's story is about asking what it is to be a good man #and a lot of veth's is asking what it means to be a good woman #their stories are SUCH reflections of each others it's a little insane actually #veth brenatto #fjord #fjord stone #critical role #the mighty nein #is this well written? no. but that's what I get for trying to write so late in the night