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I prayed he would be horrid and Mighty Mercer granted my wish

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-The Mighty Nein: Echoes of the Solstice

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"I still don't feel bad most of the time, but you've grown on me, you're not wrong." // "You see him smile at [Jester]."

-Critical Role Campaign 2, Episode 107, "Devoutness and Dicks" // The Mighty Nein: Echoes of the Solstice

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You got any bear Artagan headcanons 👉👈

of course i do, anon 💚 thanks for the ask

-hes skinny as a twig until post-travelercon days. he never really "watches his figure" (as matt scoffed at the notion he would in a m9 ep), but something about taking in exandria with new eyes, and escaping the stress of being the traveler (and going on mai tai benders it seems), softens him. like a man truly becoming middle aged rather than suspended in youth, his body cues a slower metabolism, i suppose.

-he doesnt really notice it til a random day he doesnt fit into an older outfit of his, and hes surprised as thats never happened before, but it's easy enough to accept with a shrug and relief he didnt split his best party gear just now before he could get it refitted. his good old green cloak is a very oversized thing; he'll never have to change it.

-i like to imagine he and many other fae (barring whatever type ira & sammanar are) have always been relatively furry. he's lionlike. he can canonically grow a shitty chinbeard as of tales of exandria. it makes sense. his body hair is like a fauns fur-pattern, with normal chest hair & a happy trail as well as fur on the elbows and a back stripe. but as i said, when he really just relaxes post-tc, his body thinks, hey, you're kind of a bit older now, in a way, so he gets even hairier. he grows out a bit of a beard, patchy (his mustache is hopeless) but extremely soft. it grows down to about his adams apple. with the beard adding to his lions mane look, he seems like more of a big cat by the day.

-he has incredible love handles & a sloping, wide paunch, and pretty nice man tits too (which hes more than happy to show off in his low cut outfits and i am more than happy to imagine). his frame is predisposed to being skinny & sharp and so he always carries that vague look, but his body fights that a bit and wins in less than a decades time. he still has absolutely 0 ass though. this is important

-jester notices and doesnt really say anything, but she thinks hes so handsome, and is happy for him. when she runs to hug him, it's not just his cloak that pads her embrace. hes always been a good hugger but was bony before. now, it's perfect.

-he has always had irritatingly high charisma & charm. however he lately finds himself courted more than he has been in a long while. when he was a beanpole, it was easy to just look like another tall skinny stereotypical elf, if a striking one. but exandrians & fae alike have become very, very fond of elves of a bearish nature. elves of the dwendallian empire & graying wildlands are especially enraptured by him (i like to think hair on an elf is vital in cold regions and some societies begrudgingly have begun to accept it), and the feygrove which he helped create of course is in love with his new appearance, even influencing many of them to indulge to the point of being bigger. i feel he would not know what to do in a bear bar, nervous with the knowledge he wasn't always like this and nowhere near the size of an orc or bugbear, but any elf unafraid to show their hair & girth is welcomed gladly.

-he in all his ancient wisdom likes to assume being fat & bearded will mean no ex or court official will recognize him. he is recognized by quite literally everyone and is shocked every time (this is coming from the man who disguises himself as a ginger without fail. every. time)

-i dont think the fae ascribe to fatphobia anywhere like we do, and every fae is so unique i think beauty standards are fruitless to uphold, but i do think other archfey who see arti are often disgusted at him for how mortal he seems, and how he accepts aging & body changes without deigning to seem dignified. morrigan however is happy the old boy settled into himself; she'll never say if she plucked a few threads of fate for his body to allow this transformation. he needed it, she thinks, like a grandmother who refuses to let you go til you've eaten 6 meals in 1.

-sprinkle is canonically a bit chunky nowadays. i like to imagine the m9 conjecturing for a surprisingly long time over whether arti & sprinkle are one entity whose bodies change together or not.

-i think all the m9 would agree living to a time in life where you can get old & fat & content is a beautiful achievement. while not everyone thinks arti has exactly earned the right to be content, he seems very happy post travelercon, and the look suits him well. (though beau, veth, & yasha hold private discourse over if he should shave that terrible scruffy beard of his - obviously veth who married yeza sideburns brenatto finds it charming on him, beau finds it disgusting and makes him look half-feral, and yasha oscillates between the two as if in pain, not wanting to hurt either's or arti's feelings)

-in general i think he wouldn't mind this new look at all. he's canonically the type to sigh at his youth and how he peaked then, but when jester nuzzles under his scruffy chin he knows it's all worth it. he knows in some way his skinniest points were his most miserable, pacing around his domain of the feywild like a wild cat in a circus wagon, desperate for enrichment while laughed at under a panopticon of court eyes. now he's a big fat tomcat who rules the lavorre-stone household (especially when only fjord is home and he can terrorize him) and can get all the food & drink & experience all across exandria that he could ever want. life is good. if the man in the mirror is getting shaggier & softer & maybe, he thinks as he sees wrinkles and a gray in his hair, older, he's doing it in the best way possible.

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i thought i wanted to draw artagan but it turns out i just wanted to draw artagans hair 

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im honestly very happy ira is one of if not the most beloved npc of campaign 3. and while i know most of his surface level appeal is the sheer unhinged faeishness of him, i think it fundamentally comes down to ira, despite his most un-human everything, being the most Man in his struggles as a fae can get.

as early as his intro he was set apart by past established fae, by working on technology, wearing a tattered suit. he was kicked out of the courts and the vanguard after they asked him to create their war weapons. he is a veteran of a mortal war, and got no accolades. he has spent 3 decades living in caves, taking the shittiest jobs imagineable just to get by, even torturing folk for his shit bosses again (the treshi job) because cash is cash. he knows folk will Just Die if they cant keep up and accepts it bluntly. his voice creaks with age & experience in the dust. it is easy to pin his pettiness & need for vengeance solely on the intensity of a fae til you see that he approaches even those goals with the rusty, tired caution of a man who was a spy, who understands the gravity of war, whose bosses have screwed him over so badly they made he, the nightmare king, scared.

he is a victim of the greed of the rich, easily isolated and made a scapegoat as a sole evil by them. he has lived a life with absolutely no lavish design. even artagan, whom i love with all my heart and find deep relateability in, is so disconnected with mortality at first, in large part because he was a literal fae lord. when vox machina adjusted the leylines to let artagan into exandria, ira was locked out of his home at the same time. ira has lived in the grime of the worst the fae courts and humanity has to offer, wanting to make a mark but always being a pawn hurt by a grand design. and so, while he clearly & obviously knows the difference between mortal & fae, he also knows there's really no defined line between who can hurt you worse... and how it shapes you. does your callousness begin with your fae nature, with everyone deeming you a monstrosity, or with your experience at the bottom rung? it all ends the same, regardless. i think it is fascinating to see the classism & even capitalism choking exandria and its sister realms, and ira is so fascinating because he is the primary example we have of that happening to a fae, and we get to see how that has gruffly shaped someone who could have been as utterly unphased & whimsical as a flower in the breeze.

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this one time in the Feywild…

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casts a spell on everyone to draw artagan hairy & fat as fuck with a beard & big furry tits forever & ever

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You wanna play?

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Is anyone on the moon serving cunt like Ira Wendagoth is?

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Do I miss him? Yes, I do. 💚

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i was tasked with drawing Artagan hanging out with some faries for the Tourist's Guide to Tal'dorei with @artists-guild-of-exandria !

definitely underestimated the amount of time a full scene would need and rushed a little, but still a ton of fun!

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"I am terrified of the world, and terrified of what it could do to you, even now. But I don't want that for you. And I know you will never be satisfied to stay in one spot. So, just promise me this. Promise me you will find people you trust. People who love you just as much as I do, okay?"

"I will. I promise."

The Mighty Nein Origins: Jester Lavorre

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I’m not sorry.

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ep 108 was neat (x)

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-Critical Role Campaign 2, Episode 126, "Worth Fighting For"