#decided to go with veth first | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

courtofterrasen · 3 days

Text

I’m just about done with finals, so I decided to gather up a quick list of over 50+ different POC women characters with actual good stories and character development as well as what they’re in, since you guys seem to be complacent in accepting mediocrity🥰

I know there are A LOT more REALLY GOOD characters out there, like Firebird from Marvel for example, but these are all characters from media that I either have personally consumed or know a lot about that I can think about off the top of my head. So if anyone wants to keep the list going in the comments, please feel free to add on

Charlotte- Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story

Shuri- Black Panther (MY LOVE😭❤️)

Okoye- Black Panther

Nakia- Black Panther

Queen Ramonda- Black Panther

Katara- ATLA

Korra- LoK

Toph- ATLA

Azula- ATLA

Beauregard- Critical Role: Campaign 2

Fy’ra Rai- Critical Role: Exandria Unlimited

Opal- Critical Role: Exandria Unlimited

Deni$e- Critical Role: Campaign 3

Deanna- Critical Role: Campaign 3

Lady Kima: Critical Role: Campaign 1/ Legends of Vox Machina

Laerryn: Critical Role: Exandria Unlimited: Calamity

Veth Brenatto- Critical Role: Campaign 2

Mirko- My Hero Academia

Ahsoka (people refer to her as a POC character even though she’s a Togruta)

Moana

Mulan

Tiana- Princess and the Frog

Esmeralda- The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Nani- Lilo and Stitch

Raya- Raya and the Last Dragon

Mel- Arcane

Ambessa Medara- Arcane

Sevika- Arcane

(Special shout out to Ekko from Arcane because he’s SUCH A GOOD CHARACTER)

Storm- Marvel comics

Wonder Woman- DC comics (she is Mediterranean, which is located in the North Africa/ Europe/ West Asia region, for the incels who are going to try to fight me on that. Just because your skin has less melanin than people “think you should have” does not invalidate you being a POC)

Nubia- DC comics

Special shoutout to General Nanisca in The Woman King. I have not watched it yet, but I’ve heard a lot of great things

Valkyrie- Thor Ragnarok

Gamora: Guardians of the Galaxy (though, she’s not human, she’s a Zen-Whoberis, but her actress is Dominican and Puerto Rican)

Ava Silva- Warrior Nun

Sister Beatrice- Warrior Nun

Sister Lilith- Warrior Nun

Deyha- Genshin Impact

Candace- Genshin Impact

Xinyan- Genshin Impact

Janai- The Dragon Prince

Ursula- Once Upon A Time

Mulan- Once Upon a Time

Lucyna “Lucy” Kushinada- Cyberpunk: Edgerunners

Mermista- She-Ra and the Princesses of Power

Catra- She-Ra and the Princesses of Power

Lonnie- She-Ra and the Princesses of Power

Netossa- She-Ra and the Princesses of Power

Entrapta- She-Ra and the Princesses of Power

Perfuma- She-Ra and the Princesses of Power

Mara- She-Ra and the Princesses of Power

Frosta- She-Ra and the Princesses of Power

(All of whom are Etherian’s, not Terran’s, which would equivalate people from earth)

Mazikeen- Lucifer

Wednesday Addams- The Addam’s Family/ Wednesday

Calliope “Cal” Burns- First Kill

Talia Burns- First Kill

Yennefer- The Witcher (actress is of Indian descent.)

Triss- The Witcher (some debate can be had about this due to her character in the games being white and her actress in the show having South African heritage. I enjoy them both equally)

I would add Pocahontas to this list, but the Disney recreation of her story is an extremely incorrect and awful retelling, so I implore you to go and look up the story of Amonute/ Matoaka, which is the true name of Pocahontas. It’s not an easy story to hear, but I feel as though people need to know her true story instead of Disney’s romanticized one.

Also, if you guys REALLY want a good female POC pirate story, check out the story of the most successful pirate in the world named Ching Shih, aka Cheng I Sao. She was a woman born in Guangdong, China in the late 18th century and worked as a prostitute until she caught the eye of Cheng I, the notorious Commander of the Red Flag Fleet. After buying and marrying her, he noticed her intelligence, leadership skills, and determination, so he began to teach her about life in the high seas. She quickly adapted and helped him lead his fleet, and when he died she assumed full control over his fleet and amassed 1,800 ships and 80,000 pirates under her control and became the most feared pirate leader of her time. It’s a VERY cool story

35 notes · View notes

12pt-times-new-roman · 6 months

Text

IT'S MIGHTY NEIN DAY LET'S GOOOO

god, the SET, the COSTUMES, travis in full half-orc makeup — fucking gorgeous. but I do have the sneaking feeling that Matt is dressed as young Ludinus.......

The time: seven years after the peace treaty that ended the War of Ash and Light, immediately after the ignition of the Malleus Key. The level: 20. The setting: the Encanter's Rest, Blightshore, where Caleb and Beauregard have landed.

In the midst of this, Caleb has a terrifying realization: if his own collar has been disenchanted, what others have been, too? But Beau's priority is to get to Yasha, who was with Caduceus, and Caleb teleports them there with a chipped piece of gravestone.

The Blooming Grove is healthier than they've ever seen it, and the curse of the Savalirwood has been driven away slightly. Caduceus' hair is a vibrant pink again.

"We made it to the Malleus Key like we planned, but nothing ended as we planned. Da'leth brought down a champion of the Matron, into the heart of the dig site, and he did something — our vision went white, we woke up in a different part of the world —" "Long story short, everything's fucked. I think we need to rally the troupe."

Next stop: the deck of the Nein Heroez, docked in Nicodranas.

Fjord update: his level 20 multiclass is warlock 14/paladin 6, and holy fuck his new art—

Stone's Throw has acquired multiple new ships, including the Rumblecusp Express and the Sapphire of the Sea.

As they travel through Nicodranas toward Veth, they catch wind of something having spooked sea-beasts into the streets.

"I'm sorry, the place is a mess, the world has been turned upside down—" "Wait, something happened here too? What's wrong?" "I have a teenager!"

They sit down to have a conversation, alongside Yeza.

"Uh... Cerberus Assembly, global fuckery, the moon is not where it's supposed to be, Trent may not be imprisoned anymore — and we're getting the Nein back together to deal with it."

Jester update: she took flash recall as her 19th level feat.

Jester attempts to scry on Trent and it doesn't work. They immediately assume that he's broken out and has an amulet, but it could still be that the entire prison is warded against scrying.

"Caleb, do you need an amulet so he can't look in on you?" "Let him come." that's what we call character development!

The Nein, in true Nein fashion, decide to tackle the immediate problem first, rather than trying to push the moon back into space when they don't really know anything about it. Trent joined with Ludinus is far more dangerous than Ludinus on his own, so they'll take down Trent first and play whack-a-mole with the rest of the Assembly later.

Veth isn't sure if she should go with them, but Luc slams his door open — "mom, don't be a coward! You do this every time! You have to be an adventurer for everyone, that's our calling! You can ground me all you want, but I learned it from you!"

Caleb cuts in. "Young man, you do not take your mother's love for granted. Do you understand me?"

They start to leave, but Veth doesn't want to. Caleb draws the circle to the Cobalt Soul archive in Rexxentrum, he steps through, the last to go — and Luc, rogue 5/wizard 3, dashes through at the last second!!

The way the entirety of the Mighty Nein turns on Luc the second they realize he's there and are so protective of him is fucking adorable. Beau challenges him to hit her with a spell, but ol' uncle Caleb counters it and puts him in a wall of force. "We are dealing with people who could kill you with a blink. You are not ready. You are talented, and I'm proud of you, but you're not ready." Luc is out here using Sam's 22 charisma to convince everyone — including Caduecus — to let him stay. Caleb agrees, too, on one condition: that Luc will stay under his eye at every moment, and that he reserves the right to teleport Luc back home the second it becomes too dangerous.

On the upside, it appears that the teleportation circles in the Cobalt Soul are still working.

Since the solstice, the Cobalt Soul has closed its archive doors. They discovered that the master vault has had its wards interfered with and has actually been infiltrated and trapped from within — with Yudala Fon meeting with the king, they ask the Nein to investigate.

Caleb update: Fortune's Favor is his second-level spell mastery choice.

The hallway to the vault leads to a massive adamantine door covered in runes — though it would usually glow blue upon approach, the runes are cold and lifeless. It creaks open without issue.

Inside is a storage room filled with various chained crates, tomes, display cases, and other such things.

In the middle of the floor is a toothy mouth. "Welcome, Bren. You are nothing if not reliable. It feels good to be free — have had so much time to ponder. I can now see how solitude forged you, I now know the greatness that can come from endless quiet and conjecture. At the edges of my mind, many seek me in silence. I wonder If any partnership would meet my standards. I have much to thank you for, my exemplary pupil. It is only fitting you have now taught me, and I return renewed. I must confirm my theories, for they keep many secrets beneath this library. You are welcome to learn what I have, Bren." The magic mouth spell vanishes.

At the far end of the room is a figure, crouched — Aggy, a dwarvish monk (way of the drunken fist, presumably), level 5, played by Wembly Arena's announcer Daniel! The monk was sent into the archive ahead of them, but got caught in some kind of explosion. "Without being too rude, who the living fuck are you?"

Beau update: She got promoted to High Monk!

Fjord uses see invisibility, revealing a handle on the wall that was previously hidden. Aggy goes and headbutts it, inadvertently turning the lever and opening a secret door in the wall.

Through this new door, another mouth appears. "We have all done terrible things, Bren, and we all must be punished for them. I still pay the price, and so too shall he. The Shadowhand must step into his own might. I will tell the Bright Queen of his betrayal, and in this, he shall be made free to follow your path of pain. Only in suffering are we made paragon, and I will make you better; you will be my proudest achievement."

The passage leads to a series of terraced platforms that then lead to a room covered in lockboxes. Each is hidden with invisibility, and protected by various wards.

Aggy, brazenly running down the passageway and sticking his hand on one of the lockboxes, gets instantly killed by a disintegrate.

One of the lockboxes is slightly ajar, and no longer has a trap on it; the inside is empty except for a piece of paper, and another magic mouth appears. "To bleed is to scab, to break is to mend stronger, to hurt is to learn; but recklessness will only leave you dead and forgotten. I was called here to take of its blessing and release one of its forgotten nightmares; arrogance thinks it can use me, but I am the master here. I am he who feeds on ambition, he who drinks of promise and leaves nothing unearned." He tells Caleb to meet him at the ruins of his childhood home — "dinner will be waiting."

Beau comforts Caleb in the way that she does. "You've worked really hard to overcome this. You are above this." "You are right. I don't care that he taunts me. But he doesn't need to be breathing anymore."

With at nat20 plus true seeing, Beau can see the name of what each lockbox contains. The two that were ajar read "adrenus sap," a rare unholy ichor distilled for use in abyssal rituals to bind servants of the abyss or undeath to their domains, or to ensnare such creatures; and "afterimentahl," an arcane binding stone used to capture powerful beings for study, syphoning, or experimentation. The ones known typically contain an entity from the Calamity or before, but the process of creating them has been lost.

back from break and so ready to watch them finally kill this motherfucker—

They put up the tower to sleep for the night, and cast a heroes' feast preemptively.

Caleb uses wish to cast simulacrum on himself to create a copy. He then gives Luc his luck stone, re-attunes his ring of evasion, and casts mind blank on himself before going to bed.

And with a night's rest, Caleb can prepare another 9th level spell or can keep wish — he didn't even have to roll for it because he duplicated a spell! 20th level wizards are a hell of a thing.

With potions drank, fog clouds created, and a heroes' feast had, the Nein plus Luc teleport to Blumenthal.

As they approach, Caleb feels the ghost of his grief, but he has come to terms with it. The house that stands here looks exactly like his childhood home. "I have done what I have needed to do in this world. If I don't walk from this, I need you to get that boy to safety."

Inside, there is laughter — Una's, followed by Leofric's, mingled with Trent's. Caleb walks in, followed by Jester and Fjord. With divine sense, Fjord reads both Una and Leofric as undead. Caleb's simulacrum is polymorphed into a sabertooth to protect Luc. The rest flank the house and watch through the windows.

Breakfast is set at the table. There are seven empty chairs.

"Mother, don't you think it's strange, you haven't changed one iota?" "Not at all. He has given us a second chance." With an insight check, Caleb sees them for what they are: just bodies, reanimated.

Jester leans, says "I'm sorry" to Caleb — and casts turn undead. Both parents fail their saves, fall back. Trent's face falls. "Wery well, then. Perhaps the lesson should start with me." The entire house explodes, but their preparation reduces the damage significantly, and before them is Trent Ikithon, floating up in the air — and where Una and Leofric were are two ghoulish corpses.

time for initiative and combat updates!

Trent's spell save DC is 22. That's just about on-par for a 20th-level wizard with money; a 22 INT plus a robe of the archmagi gets him there, and an arcane grimoire can compensate for no robe or a 20 INT.

Trent can use 2 legendary actions to cast a spell.

Caleb Prime: *downed* Caleb 2: immediately turns into a fucking t-rex

Luc casts see invisibility and reveals that Trent's avatar is an illusory duplicate, and the real Trent is crouched behind a tree like a little fucking creep.

After a chain lightning, a meteor swarm that did higher-than-average damage, and a massive house explosion, everyone's back to full with a mass heal! So with two clerics in the party with a 9th level each, plus a guaranteed divine intervention that can duplicate a mass heal, these fuckers have a latent health pool of 2800 hit points.

Beau update: Her 19th level feat is mobile.

In an antimagic field, Trent is cowering — "but this is why the intelligent prepare. Omentis, be unleashed." The field doesn't suppress artifacts, and he breaks the afterimentahl against his chest. From where he stands, an orb of pitch darkness grows, and a 40-foot entity made of purplish and black shadow, with four arms and glowing purple orbs begins to stalk toward Blumenthal itself.

Seeing that, Caleb plants one palm, two palms on the ground — and uses shapechange to transform into Gelidon, the Nightmare in Ivory.

KAIJU FIGHT!!

and then, just to top it all off, Luc casts enlarge on the fucking t-rex!

"Arty, if there's ever a time we needed you—" Jester uses gate to pull Artagan out of the feywild and right into this fucking kaiju fight. "Don't worry, Jester, I've got y—oh, what have you brought me into?! Really?!"

An archfey, an ancient dragon, a giant t-rex, and the avatar of an abyssal archfiend tethered to the soul of a 20th-level archmage walk into a bar...

With holy weapon active, Yasha does 168 damage in a turn without a crit.

Its full name is Omentis, Scion of Ruin. Everyone within 60 feet gets hit with its "void hunger," automatically takes necrotic damage at the top of its turn. It also has "aura of oblivion," a beam that emits from its face and deals massive (as in, 150 points on a failed save) force damage. Its AC is 24, and it is considered undead.

With his passive perception, Caleb notices that the crystal that Trent shattered is still visible in its chest.

Luc notices and targets the artifact, which causes the shadow holding the creature together to flicker.

Caduceus uses divine intervention (which automatically succeeds) to cause the creature's shadow to become translucent, so that they can see the artifact clearly within it. In the center, with the crystal at his heart, is the shadowy echo of Trent, hanging like a puppet.

what is it with live shows and nat20s at crucial story moments???

With a nat20 strength check, Beau rips the heart from the creature. All the shadows swirl around it and get pulled back into the egg, and as it reforms, Trent himself gets pulled, screaming, into it — Beau tosses it up, Gelidon catches it and smashes it into the ground.

As the dust settles, the people of Blumenthal gather, and the sun begins to rise.

The heart remains intact, but sealed forever with Trent inside it.

Caleb uses demiplane — which opens into a familiar nine-sided tower — to seal the heart away for..... future use.

They decide that after all this, Luc deserves a party — not least of all to celebrate Fjord and Jester's engagement!

At the end of it all, Caleb uses the tower to cook a feast for all of Blumenthal.

"While this was a singular victory, it is still the beginning of much work to be done."

#critical role #critical role spoilers #critical role liveblog #note watches critrole #mighty nein #critical role c2 #critical role c2 spoilers #echoes of the solstice #long post #very long post

68 notes · View notes

utilitycaster · 1 year

Text

Something that I find misses the point so completely it is breathtaking is when people are like "this player hates engaging with their backstory" about the CR cast. It's pretty much never true, and what's worst is that I've seen it the most about Travis and Taliesin, two of the players who I think have the strongest grasp on how to create and engage with a backstory.

The choice to have a character who avoids elements of their past can be a valid, informed, and deliberate character choice. People run from their pasts! People decide not to pursue things for a number of reasons - because it hurts too much, because they're scared to know the answer, because they think the people around them don't care, and because their interests change. Caduceus very much is an avoidant character. He has access to Sending by the time we first meet him, and he never uses it to try to contact his family. That's not Taliesin being stupid or avoiding. That's Caduceus making a conscious choice to not ask the question "is my family dead" because he is terrified the answer is yes. He waits for a concrete sign to go after his family to the point of deep loneliness and self-harm out of this fear. That's a crucial trait that you need to understand him as a character! Ashton is also on some level similar in that he engages in no shortage of harmful, wallowing, and self-indulgent behaviors - and that is a choice. They also have obviously messy feelings about the Hishari and it's pretty plain to see they feel extremely conflicted about their growing bonds with Bells Hells because now they'll feel bad if Bells Hells leaves them. So of course he's hesitant to bring this to Orym, because then he's entrusted Orym with this information, and he has to care, and again, this is a major part of who Ashton is.

The same goes with Fjord and Vandran (and Sabian). One of the core themes of Fjord's story is deciding whether to run from or embrace your past, and which parts of that past you want to bring forward as you change, which means that to explore that, he has to do some running! He makes efforts to learn more about where they are (going to search for Vandran during the Zadash downtime; hiring a bounty hunter for Sabian) but those get interrupted by Fjord's shifting feelings about Vandran, and fact that this is an ensemble and the story naturally shifts.

Which brings us to the practical element. Fjord doesn't want to release Uk'otoa at the time, so it makes sense to return to the mainland and process next steps, and the focus of the story then turns to rescuing Yeza, and then finding Yasha, and rescuing Caduceus's family, and changing Veth back, and brokering peace, and TravelerCon, and Eiselcross. Through this, he still in fact does quite a lot of backstory work (changing patrons and taking a paladin oath, asking Jester to contact Vandran), as well as an immense amount of character growth and engagement with the ongoing story, but Travis doesn't wrench everything off its natural course just to check off every box on Fjord's list, because that would be selfish, obnoxious, and not fun to watch. And Caduceus achieves exactly what he set out to do! He found and rescued his family and found a way to hold off the corruption! Despite his avoidance, he covers all the bases! And as for Ashton...we've had precious little time to cover anyone's backstory in depth other than Imogen's, and we've actually seen a decent amount of Ashton's backstory regardless with their contacts in Bassuras and their interactions with Jiana. There simply was not time in Bassuras to stray from the main objectives and search for the Nobodies, and I think if we had people would be annoyed since that arc already took a very long time (and, for what it's worth, rather like Fjord, Ashton has explicitly asked after The Nobodies. Do not mistake lack of payoff for character disinterest).

It is, to me, incredibly telling this criticism is most commonly seen about the two players who I think also get the most "well they had an central arc/more focus than my fave" criticism.There's no way to make everyone in the fandom happy, and I think Travis and Taliesin are the players at the table who most understand that and give the least fucks about what the fandom thinks, and who (possibly relatedly) have some of the strongest grasps of narrative and what it means to play in an ensemble. Which is in my opinion a major factor in why their characters are so good - even the ones I do not vibe with are fully realized and well-crafted, because the players are not trying to make likeable characters, but rather interesting ones, and they're not trying to take center stage, but rather be generous at the table.

#critical role #meta #truly as a fan i say fuck fandom wishes. if you're a good enough creator you'll make me like something i didn't know i would.#also lbh the fjord criticism is like 99.9% from people salty that travis did NOT lose interest in the character and had fjord romance jeste #they're like yeah he was CLEARLY checked out but it's wishful thinking. they wish he had been and they're furious he wasn't.#this also reminds me of the accursed Suvi w/o the imperialism art i've mentioned #the character was designed to engage with the idea of empire and someone raised within it. you have given her an icepick lobotomy #it's also like. sometimes backstory is a hook. sometimes it's just there to inform the present. it's okay if it's the latter!

170 notes · View notes

nanierose · 9 months

Text

The funny thing about Laudna and Imogen's co-dependency is that we've seen similar relationships in the past and done well. Vex and Vax, Veth and Caleb to an extent. But in both there was at least one member trying to work on expanding their relationships with others and encouraging the other to do the same.

Here though neither Laudna or Imogen are truly attempting to go outside of the relationship. They've decided they're comfortable with each other and they don't need anyone else. Most of their conversations with others has either been instigated by someone else or happened because the other literally wasn't there to talk to.

And honestly it isn't very interesting to watch. I loved Vex and Vax's arc because of how they both travelled different roads to become more independent but still loved each other. And crucially they had conflict over it. Vex hated that Vax wanted a relationship with Keyleth, and wouldn't even discuss Vax moving to Zephrah until she was nearly dead on her feet. Vax tells Vex to watch out for Percy at first because he's still pissed about his role in her death. Moreover they constantly bicker, don't always agree and will call the other out if they do something stupid. But eventually they both realise their relationship is just as strong and important even with new people in their lives, it doesn't have to be one or the other.

Imogen and Laudna on the other hand are terrified of losing each other so won't even consider doing something that could jeopardise it, which honestly makes the relationship weaker as a result. They rarely disagree, to the point Laudna says she'll join Imogen if she sides with her literal murderer. (Like I'm sorry but that is just bonkers to me. I love my husband but if he sided with someone I hate we're gonna have issues) The closest we got was the gnarlock fight but since then nothing. I'm of the opinion they shouldn't even have gotten together until they worked through this, because now they've further entrenched a relationship that has not had the growth it sorely needs.

Like I'm not saying their relationship can't work, but it's one that is stuck with no signs of meaningful change and for a story that just doesn't cut it for me.

#i want to be more invested #but right now it's not doing it for me #critical role #if you ship them all power to you #but for me it hasn't evolved enough yet to be interesting #cr discourse #maybe?

105 notes · View notes

critter-rarepair-reccs · 2 months

Text

Hello all! Hope your Wednesday is going well. Today we have nine Pre-Relationship fics for you to enjoy! As always, you can find them below the cut and if you check any of them out, I encourage you to leave kudoes and comments to spread the rarepair love 🩷

gravity-bound by hanap (7,591 words, Teen) Pairing: Jester Lavorre/Essek Thelyss (Jessek) Warnings: None

Essek writes poetry under a pen name, Jester is a fan, she writes to him and they start to exchange letters over many years.

Reccer Says: I love epistolary fic, and also its so cute. There's a lot of background details of canon events we can fill in the background through the letters contents, which is very fun.

in the pieces of what's left or what we've found by SeaWitchDreams (14,620 words, Teen) Pairing: Astrid Beck/Eadwulf Grieve/Essek Thelyss/Caleb Widogast (Blumenshadow) Warnings: None

Post canon, Astrid decides what to do with Ikithon's tower, and her life.

Reccer Says: Its a nice long read, and the character beats are complex and nuanced, bc that's what Astrid deserves <3

That Lucidian Glow by fjorests_of_wildemount (455 words, General) Pairing: Kingsley Tealeaf/Essek Thelyss (Shadowking) Warnings: None

Essek needs to put on sunscreen, Kingsley volunteers.

Reccer Says: It's fun and cute moment <3

to be in someone else's coat by jaskofalltrades (1,369 words, General) Pairing: Mollymauk Tealeaf/Essek Thelyss/Caleb Widogast (Shadowidomauk) Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

After Essek's dinner with the Nein at the Xhorhaus, Molly and Caleb walk him home. Flirting, of course, ensues.

Reccer Says: It's so fun to see how Essek responds to Molly's relentless flirting, filtering through Caleb's observations on how new Essek is to friendship. And how he can tell that Essek wants that companionship so badly! It's very sweet.

though we're tethered to the story we must tell (when I saw you, well, I knew we'd tell it well). by exhaustedwerewolf (4,535 words, Teen) Pairing: Polymachina Warnings: Mentions of backstory typical violence and character death

On one wrist is your greatest love. On your other, your greatest adversary. And for a certain group of fated adventurers, one of these follows a pattern.

Reccer Says: I'm always a sucker for a good soulmate AU and I *love* ones of this flavor. The angst of not knowing which name is which is delicious and the way this fic plays with that for each member of VM is so good! Also love that the love-bonds don't Have to be romantic, I always appreciate that when it comes to soulmate AUs. And the way it all comes together in the end for VM is just... so good. Also the character voices in the narration? Spot on.

know no shame by hanap (4,453 words, Teen) Pairing: Adeen Tasithar/Essek Thelyss Warnings: None

What if Essek and Adeen had crushes on each other as teenagers and were adorable, messy disaster about it?

Reccer Says: It's so cute. Like oh-my-god so cute. They're adorable with each other and baby wizard Essek trying to join the Aurora Watch so he can spend more time with Adeen has my WHOLE heart. The messy teenage feelings! The circumstances keeping them apart! Deirta and Dad Thelyss's reactions to them!!! It's all so so good.

The Sunny Side by dracoqueen22 (1,767 words, General) Pairing: Jester Lavorre/Beauregard Lionett (Beaujes) Warnings: None

There’s nothing Beau won't do if it’ll make Jester smile, even if it means fixing something as minor as a sunburn.

Reccer Says: Cutteee <3 Beau is just so smitten. Plus Cad being his odd self in the first half <3

Today I Love You Even More by wtgw (5,687 words, Teen) Pairing: Yeza Brenatto/Veth Brenatto/Caleb Widogast Warnings: None

Yeza Brenatto is a creature of infinite anxiety, but he’s not blind. He can see how much Veth loves Caleb. He can see how much Caleb loves her back. And he can also see that Caleb is really attractive. But it’s not like he’s not going to do anything about that…

Reccer Says: Yeza Brenatto is just a perfect sweetheart always and there's this scene where the three of them are sitting around drunk complementing each other that is just too cute

Just Between Friends by biorusted (3,624 words, Explicit) Pairing: Ashton Greymoore/Orym/Dorian Storm (Dashrym) Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Aspec Dorian talks with Ashton and Orym about how sex has always felt to him and they share their feelings in return. Things escalate from there. Just as friends, of course.

Reccer Says: Aspec Dorian my beloved <3 always love the dynamics between these three, they fit together so well.

Thank you for joining us this week’s recc list! All the love to everyone who submitted a fic 🩷 All enclosed recommendations were submitted by the community via our submissions form, which you can find here. All fic information is as it was provided by the reccer, so it may not be accurate to the author’s intent or the precise contents of the fic itself. Please assume good intent from all parties 🩷

Submissions for next week’s list are already open! We’ll be featuring Canon Divergent fics. If you have any you’d like to highlight, you can send them in here. The week after that, the theme is Keyleth Rarepairs and the weeks after that we’re taking recommendations for Polyamorous Ships and Enemies to Lovers fic! Submissions for all of these themes are currently open.

If you want more rarepair fic, check out @cr-summer-wildflowers and their event collections on ao3! If you want some friendship after all this romance, take a look at @critter-genfic-events and their recc lists! And if you’re interested in everyone’s favorite wizards, you can’t go wrong with the lists at @aeor-is-for-reccing !

Thanks all and have a lovely day/night/timezone! 🩷

#critter rarepair recc lists #jessek #blumenshadow #shadowking #shadowidomauk #polymachina #adeen x essek #beaujes #yeza x veth x caleb #dashrym

21 notes · View notes

essektheylyss · 1 year

Text

World Wizard Entertainment: After Hours

I did want to write a little thing now that I am done making a vicious mockery of Vince McSam, because this was really a WILD week and I do love a debrief.

Honestly, when I sat down to make a bracket last week, I was not committed to posting it, I was not going to make any graphics, and I definitely was not planning to run a tournament.

....Obviously that changed, but you already know that.

Really I just wanted to figure out how hard it would be to properly seed a tournament in fandom. I've already talked about that elsewhere so I won't get into it, but when you're building a tournament, you want it seeded for intrigue in later rounds, even if round one match-ups are very lopsided.

But once I had it, I was thinking about how different polls have gone in the past. Specifically, I had written a post during some earlier polls with Laerryn and Essek competing that was commenting, you know, if we're talking duel, Essek loses, 100%. He'd have a prayer in hell of winning, and there are no gods here or whatever. And the poll in which Laerryn and Essek were matched up, which Aabria made a very funny joke about, wasn't even a wizard poll! It was just sexiest character or something. But the thing is, a lot of polls have been really vague about what criteria to vote on, and there's a reason for that! A lot of polls like that are going to have an obvious winner. And because of how these spread, you are going to have a lot of people voting purely on popularity or name recognition, including plenty of people who are not super engaged in fandom since there are lots of lurkers (and we love them! hi, lurkers!), and also random people outside the fandom who just vote on any poll, so you have to account for that.

But we have polls now, and fandom is fun and chaotic, so I wondered... could you game it for an unexpected result?

I cannot turn down a challenge once I've come up with it for myself, so at that point, I actually built a tournament.

For a lot of the week, in all but the most meaningless and random of situations, I thought the answer was no! We got Ludinus kicked in the first round, which I mostly did to stir up a little drama, because round one was pretty calm and quiet.

By the quarterfinals, it got tougher. At that point there were more folks engaging, but a lot of the tags were, "Didn't we already decide this?" and I was like, well, no one is watching March Madness year after year going, "Well, Gonzaga* is the best and that's decided I guess," (except maybe Gonzaga fans, but knowing some of them, they are really serious about their basketball). They're there because there's chance involved. A great team can lose to an underdog in an early upset. Also, there's always the bracket contest, which is another layer of gamification that adds some interest. (Sidebar, can you tell yet that I wrote a paper on gamification when applying to grad school? Lulz.) But like I've mentioned, fandom polls are highly stacked to be popularity contests. How do you introduce some chance and intrigue?

As it turns out, you call the Veth stans, which I sure wouldn't have guessed, so I'm glad they turned up anyway.

But in all seriousness, with a poll like this, it's really not about deciding who is The Wizard. (For the record, with my url fully visible, the answer is absolutely Laerryn Coramar-Seelie. She is seeded first for a reason!) It's about seeing if you can be weird and wacky enough, or maybe just heartfelt and sincere enough, to turn the tide of what's expected. But it's only fun if it's collaborative.

And here's where I say it all comes back to collaborative narrative and storytelling, because when does it not with me, but seriously—I seeded Veth pretty high because she was a PC, but wasn't sure if she was going to hold that far through the polls. By the time she was, I wasn't asking, "Why is Veth beating Yussa, the most no-brain cell wizard in the northern Exandrian hemisphere, with one wizard level?" It was clear that the Veth fans had decided to make this their mission.

So I do hope the takeaway, based on everyone making content and giving speeches and doing a fun kayfabe, is that you can make a really interesting and fun tournament by committing to the bit. You have to get ridiculous and you have to stick with it, but that's... really what fandom is. It's really not about "is my fave gonna win," and it's honestly not even about who wins (you may have noticed that the winner section of my results post is... small, which is intentional), it's about building a little story together.

And I'm really glad we all did that. I feel like I need to go around and do a virtual 'good game' high five to the Veth stans, and the Caleb stans, and Aabria herself, and everyone who wrote in defense of someone and put on a kayfabe and ran with a bit, because it really was a fun roller coaster of a tournament.

And if you didn't join in this week, but kind of wanted to, I hope the next time someone runs a tournament you just go for it! I was also a lot more timid about fandom participation as a teen, but honestly, if you are really excited about, I don't know, Realmseer Eskil (who is super cool by the way), don't take it too seriously and write an overwrought defense of them! Make a funny meme! Be sporting about it, come up with the most ridiculous reason you can name to vote for them, and run with it.

(Also, my other takeaway is that it is really easy to ape the overblown wrestling host voice. Please do it, it's literally so funny.)

#*please note I do not know if gonzaga is first seed this year but I do not care. I am not a basketball fan.#world wizard entertainment #this is when I take off my 'overblown bit' hat and put on my 'cheerful but tired TA' hat #unfortunately '17 bits in a trench coat' is more accurate of a commentary on myself than it has any right to be #this may not remain rebloggable but for now it will stay.

93 notes · View notes

waltwhitmansbeard · 6 months

Note

hi! i absolutely adore your CR drabble series on AO3. could you do a drabble where either yeza takes care of veth when she's overworking herself OR they both are tired and taking care of each other? I love any sort of domestic fluff. I know you don't usually write veth/yeza, so no worries if you decide not to write this one!

The baby is crying. There's smoke coming from the oven, thick and choking. The bell over the apothecary door downstairs jingles. In the storage room, somethings tips over, crashing to the stone floor. Yeza swears. The baby cries louder. The laundry has been sitting in its dirty water for two days.

Veth stands in the middle, eyes burning and mind buzzing. She doesn't know where to begin, which emergency to address first—the baby. The baby is crying.

She moves mechanically to his crib, scoops him up and does her best to wrangle his thrashing limbs. "Hey, my little button," she coos, half-delirious in her exhaustion. "There's no need to cry." Smoke continues to billow from the sides of the closed oven door. "Okay, we're about to suffocate to death, so maybe there is a need to cry."

She needs to address the smoke situation—baking bread for the first time is not the thing to try when there are a thousand other things going on, it turns out—but she doesn't want to bring Luc any closer. She's just about to call Yeza up to come take him when her husband's voice reaches her first. "VETH, A LITTLE HELP, PLEASE."

Yes, Veth thinks. I would love some. Better to bring the baby down, anyways; smoke rises. She scurries down the stairs, still failing to quiet Luc's squalls, and she's greeted by a line at the apothecary counter, four people with baskets that will take forever for Yeza to tally up. She was always better at math than he is. She slips beside him and passes him the baby. "Let me do this. You go put out the fire."

"Fire?" Yeza squeaks, but she shoos him off. She hasn't slept in two days, but somehow she adds up every order, takes the gold, pays back the coppers and silvers, until the line is gone and the smell of smoke is no longer so threatening. She slams the register closed, and Yeza appears at the top of the stairs, sans Luc. "Are we good?"

"We're good. I short-changed that human guy, he was being a dick." She slumps against the counter. "Is Luc okay?"

"Back asleep." Yeza comes down and begins massaging Veth's shoulders. She might just pass out right here, right now. "Veth, it looks like a war zone up there."

Just like that, she's wide awake and seething. "Yeah, well, I'm trying my fucking best—"

"No, no, no." He stops, spins her around, and takes her hands in his. "That's not what I meant. What I meant was I didn't know you needed help."

She fights the urge to roll her eyes. "Of course I need help, Yez. We have a baby and a home and we need to eat and as smart as you are, you can't do basic math."

"You're right, which is why I asked you for help. Maybe you could try it sometime?"

Okay, she gets his hint. "I just...you have a lot going on. With the store and your experiments. I love your alchemy, you know that."

"I do know that. I love it, too. I just love you and Luc more."

Veth leans forward so her head is tipped down onto his shoulder. "I'm sorry. I'm just...not used to having people I can count on."

His hand rubs up and down her back. "I know," he murmurs in her ear. "But you've got us now, and I'm never gonna let anything happen to you and Luc."

And she believes him, because Yeza is many things, but he is not a liar. She lets him hold her behind the counter of their store, beneath the floorboards of the home they made together, and she knows herself to be safe.

#ask #silverysongs #critical role #critical role fic #cr fic #mighty nein #mighty nein fic #the brenattos #the brenattos fic #my fic

22 notes · View notes

all-pacas · 2 months

Note

Got any widobrave in you? Been thinking about them lately.

You know, I don’t — but I also have a fic I never finished or posted anywhere! Actually I have a couple of them!

crooked kind

She expects it to feel different. Stepping onto a ship, now, after everything. And it does, kinda. The ship is darker, more shadowy. Quieter. The gunpowder smells different, less sharp, until she puts her nose up to it, enough that she gets a bit up her nose when she sniffs and then sneezes and then looks around to make sure no one is watching. Tugs at her hair anxiously. Back above decks.

She still doesn’t like the way the ship moves, rocking around, the water tossing it and pushing it and letting it know who is boss — the water, the ocean going hey now I can sink you any time I want — and she’d thought, for a second, about leaving her ring with Yeza since Luc insists on going swimming for some insane reason, but she twists it around her finger now and is glad she didn’t. Didn’t give it up. Didn’t think about it for long.

Fjord and Beau are running around yelling things about getting the ship ready to sail, Fjord yelling first and then Beau repeating him louder a second later. Caleb is over with Orly and Yasha, looking at a map or something, and she goes over to them. Weird looks from Marius and the crew as she passes. Not the same kind of weird looks as she used to get: a goblin! ahh! Something duller, more familiar: what are you doing here? I don’t know you. You don’t belong.

“An’ then we’ll be h… headin’ west, ‘round these, ah, shoals here,” Orly is saying as she approaches the little table they have set up on deck, near the ship’s wheel, a map held down with red weights. She picks one up, just to feel the heft of it. Orly clears his throat as the map curls. She puts it back.

“Veth,” says Caleb. He hesitates before he says her name. “Have you settled in?”

They haven’t even left port yet, the gangplank is still out: a few of the crew are rushing back and forth, loading last second supplies.

“Mm,” she says. “It’s basically the same as we left it.”

She thinks. It’s a lot harder to see in dark corners now.

Caleb smiles at her, and she puts her arms and chin up on the edge of the table as Orly resumes explaining their route, and Yasha nods along solemnly, tracing the path with her finger.

Yasha spends the first couple of days following everyone around. She’s not subtle about it, and also she’s gigantic. First she tries to build barrels and do carpenter things with Jester, but she’s unexpectedly clumsy with her hands. She follows Beau and Fjord around for a bit, which, because Beau also just follows Fjord around, ends up making him look like he has two bodyguards who are a lot tougher than he is. Next is Caduceus, and last is Caleb.

Veth also spends a lot of her free time around Caleb. So she watches Yasha try to learn to read maps, and watches Yasha and Caleb have quiet moments talking, and watches Yasha get really annoyed at the way Caleb will, whenever Yasha estimates a direction, immediately correct her with “actually it’s west-south-west” or whatever bullshit.

She loves Caleb. But he’s so full of it sometimes.

That’s what she says, out-loud, after Caleb spends ten minutes trying to explain to Yasha that actually she can tell that north is over behind his left shoulder, but two inches left of that, because he just knows, basically. She says: “Caleb, I love you, but you are so full of shit.” She turns to Yasha. “Want to play with explosives instead?”

And that’s how Yasha becomes junior assistant powder monkey.

It’s only until later she thinks about the way Caleb cut himself off, his startled expression, when she’d said that to him. Not hurt. It was something else. Surprise. Something different.

Here’s the problem.

The thing is, there’s lots of problems. The thing is, when she thinks about herself she thinks me, but she also thinks Nott more than she thinks Veth, and when the others all kind of decided on their own to call her Veth, she was glad but — she doesn’t know. Fjord yells Veth, you’re not supposed to play with explosives we’re on a ship, and she turns her head but her first thought is how does he know about Veth? and then she remembers that’s her now. The problem is that things taste different and look different and feel different. Some of it she remembers, from the last time, when she’d woken up to mud and jeering laughter and rope burns, to shadows being too bright and smells being too sharp and her mouth bleeding from the inside, from dozens of tiny tooth cuts. Some of it she’d forgotten. The way her fingers seem to just — feel more. The way she hears less. How her teeth feel in her mouth, how her ears don’t turn and swivel when she wants to listen. She’s a little taller now. She weighs more, she has tits and an ass and is frankly just incredibly hot. She’s still quick but it feels different, to run, to crouch. She gets an eyelash caught in one of her eyes and once she’s done rubbing it out she thinks: holy shit, I have eyelashes again, and runs to bum some mascara off of Beau. Her skin is softer and bruises easier. She doesn’t feel as hungry all the time. She’d never noticed how warm she always was when she was a goblin until she starts feeling chilly sometimes, out on the deck of the ship.

Here’s the other problem.

She feels things more. Not emotionally. If anything she feels it less, a little… slower, maybe calmer, like things aren’t always jumping up and starling her to death. It’s not emotions. Not exactly. It’s just — more.

She’d joked about it. Sunbreaker? Wow was he hot. But she hadn’t really… felt anything. Not like that. Yeza had never tried anything more than a chaste kiss or hug now and then, and she’d felt a guilty relief. How would it even work? Would it work? Or would it be painful and scraping and difficult? She might have tried if he really wanted to, but he didn’t and she was glad. And that was weird, because she had always thought of herself as really into that kind of thing. They’d been going at it since they were sixteen, you know?

So it’s Yeza’s fault, really.

She turns back into her true, hot self, and she feels things again, her body, you know, works again, and they fuck like gnomes for days, and then she goes onto a ship and the first night snuggles in with Caleb the way she always has, except he holds himself really stiff and she doesn’t notice at first until he accidentally brushes her boob and moves away and she thinks oh shit yeah I have tits now and starts thinking about other things, because Caleb is not bad looking now that he bathes sometimes and keeps his hair out of his face, and so the next day she talks loudly and often about her wonderful cannons belowdecks —

(“Veth, you are absolutely fucking forbidden from ever firing the cannons without express orders from me or—“ and Fjord had hesitated, looking over at a slightly-too-eager Beau, failing to stamp out her excitement in time, “Me. Just me. No explosives. Nada.”)

— and sets up a hammock there that evening.

And then three days later, she helps Yasha set up her own hammock, after giving a long speech to her about how half the job of the gunner or powder monkey was to, like, really understand your cannons, and how this was the best way. It’s a lot harder to set a hammock up for Yasha since she’s a giant, but they figure it out eventually, even if her butt ends up landing only an inch or two above the floor.

Here’s the problem.

After they figure out how to move shit around to set up Yasha’s hammock, they go to the galley for dinner with everyone. Night one, Veth jumped up on a table and gave the I used to be a goblin speech to everyone, so she gets less weird “why is there a smokin’ hot halfling hanging out with these idiots” looks now, and dinner is nice. She can actually eat Caduceus’s tofu without getting cramps now, which helps a lot. She jokes around with the others and sits next to Caleb, as always, because they’re not avoiding one another. They talk about the peace conference and have debate #582 about if Essek (codename: Kevin) is okay or not, if Kevin can be trusted. They talk about Yasha’s hammock. Invite Jester and Beau to join the girl’s only super cool cannon slumber party.

“I thought you two,” Beau says, gesturing at Veth and Caleb, “were like, joined at the hip or whatever.” And then she gives Veth a smirk that probably means Yeah I see you, and it takes Veth all she has to keep from turning to Jester and saying something awful like The Traveller is actually kinda hot, right? back. But she doesn’t, because she’s a good fucking friend.

“What are you talking about?” Veth says instead. “‘Lebby, are you mad because I want to sleep with my cannons?” She doesn’t look anywhere near him when she asks.

“Maybe this isn’t dinnertime conversation?” Fjord says.

“Of course not,” says Caleb, and she hopes he meant her thing and not Fjord’s.

And then they all start talking about Travelercon instead.

So now she has two options. Talk to Caleb, or never talk to him again.

No. Now she has three options. Those two, or…

She and Yeza weren’t, like, swingers. Not yet. They were too young for it, generally speaking: you were supposed to wait until your kids were out of the house and all that, focus on raising your family, and Luc was only five and that was assuming they didn’t have more kids. Once you get married, that’s supposed to be it until your kids were grown: it was supposed to be good for the family to turn insular like that. Nowadays some people Veth’s age did talk about open marriages like they should be part of the vows, but it’s not like she and Yeza ever really talked about it back in Felderwin. They both wanted kids. It made sense that they should focus on their family, and anyway, Yeza was the love of her life so it’s not like she really wanted to fuck anyone else.

Was the love of her life.

Still is.

Really.

But things are so weird now, and so after they’d fucked for the third to last time in Nicodranis, when they were talking about buying a house and investing in the timeshare market, Veth had added, as casual as she could: “And if you wanted to like, date around a little, as long as you don’t knock anyone up and go all family values on me…”

“Are you serious?” Yeza asked, and then sat up and pulled his glasses on from the side of the bed.

“What are you doing?”

“This is a conversation that I need to be able to see for. What are you saying?”

Veth had been briefly distracted, but then Yeza pulled the sheet back up. “I mean… are you mad?”

“No…” he’d let the word kinda trail there.

“I mean, you can knock someone up, I guess, it’s just no second families, so overall I’d prefer you didn’t,” she’d said, using this old-fashioned Halfling term that meant ‘the insular family,’ like they were supposed to be raising back home.

“I’m not going to knock anyone up.” Yeza hesitated, pushing his glasses up. “I didn’t think we’d have this conversation for another like, twenty years.”

“I didn’t think I’d be alive in twenty years, up until a couple of days ago,” she mentioned, and then winced when he’d looked hurt. “I mean, I’m okay with it. I keep running off on you and abandoning you and, and leaving, and dy — almost dying —“ because she hadn’t yet told him about that box, or even really about drowning, and planned to never, “and — and I mean, I know it can’t be fun, I would be like, what a selfish bitch, and so if you want to—“

“Veth,” he started saying, about halfway through. “Veth. I don’t think you’re a selfish anything.” He’d taken her hands.

Well, I do, she’d thought. Looking at their hands. The fine hairs on her arms that Nott had lacked. Weird, how even shit like body hair was somehow amazing now.

“I’m happy just — knowing you’re happy, and waiting for you.”

“But I’m not! I can’t just — look, I’m going to leave you money, so buy a house and get Luc into a really great school and then go party, or, or buy the _really fancy_ alchemy ingredients, or just… don’t just sit around waiting for me, because I don’t know when I’ll be back. I want you to fuck other people! Fuck everyone in Nicodranis! Fuck Jester’s mom!”

“I am pretty sure I can’t afford her.”

“I will leave you so much money.”

They both laughed, and Veth felt herself relaxing. A little.

“Okay,” he’d said. “I don’t know if I will or not, but—“ she’d been about to tell him to do it, and he’d raised a hand then, to shush her, “but if I meet someone I like, I’ll think about it very seriously. Okay?”

“Like, or find hot.”

“Like, or find hot,” he’d agreed. He’d hesitated, and then he’d smiled. “But… you too, okay? What’s an adventure on the high seas without a sexy sailor or two?” She’d smiled. He’d hesitated again, and then added: “Or… if there’s anyone else you have in mind. Whatever. It’s fine with me, okay? Screw insular families.”

And then they’d gone ahead and fucked for the second-to-last time.

And kind of, not in an asshole way, but she’d been thinking about that last thing he said as they did. Anyone else you have in mind. Just hanging out there. Unremarked on.

Look. Here’s the thing. Caleb is hot. In a disgusting, takes a bath but doesn’t do laundry kind of way. In a forgets to shave past the point where his stubble is attractive kind of way. In a too many ribs kind of way.

In a long fingers and very nice eyes and a handsome jawline kind of way.

And when she was Nott she knew it but it never really — she didn’t feel it, so it was pretty easy. He was both hot and completely unfuckable, even in her fantasies, and she was disgusting and a goblin and that made it all very neutral and safe. When she’d curl up next to him, sometimes he’d put an arm over her if it was cold out, and it would feel nice and comforting and she’d feel this warm tingling love all over, but there was never sexual tension, even in her head, even in her infrequent attempts at daydreaming.

Because there couldn’t be. She was ugly and disgusting even if he was kind and handsome. It was wonderful of him to even willingly touch her.

And then she and Yeza fucked for three days straight, and it was like, fuck, this is what that feeling is. Like a switch went off in her head: remember how great this is? How good it feels? How hot all your friends are?

And she’s pretty fine now herself. Curves for days. But —

It’s not like she’s a different person. Whoever she is. Even if she also is.

And it isn’t like just because she got laid, she’s not horny on main all the time, just looking for people to jump. It really isn’t. She’s not crazy, or Beau flirting with some temporary member of the party. Jester braids her hair up for her one morning and it’s all nice and Jessie’s hands in her hair, on her scalp, are very soothing but Veth doesn’t feel horny at all. She and Fjord fight over going swimming, and it’s not sexual tension.

“I love you, but you are so full of shit,” she says to Caleb, and he kind of half freezes, and she hears him say it to her with different ears and eyes and she is not stupid, okay? She’s not. She knows he did not mean it like that and will never mean it like that and that they are best friends and he probably thought she was dying, in a way she did die, and it was very sweet and does not mean—

She’s not in love with him. Not like that. She’s just…

Well, she isn’t. There’s no just.

She has a couple of ideas for spells in her head. They’re not fancy ones since she’s not great at magic, but she’s seen Caleb noodling around enough with his spells that she thinks it’s probably possible. If he does all the technical stuff for her. So she mentions it kind of in passing, and he gets really excited and she chickens out.

She’s not sure why. Only because immediately he looked so happy and she got scared, and because last time they’d done this she was different and — and it’s weird. The first time she’d used magic, just a little nugget of it, she’d figured it was probably him tricking her, the way he would sometimes use his light spell to make it seem like she was glowing, back when they were begging for coin. But he’d grabbed her and hugged her hard enough that she’d lost her breath, exclaiming, I’m so proud of you! You’ve done it!

And she’d been — well, at first she hadn’t believed him, obviously. But then she had and she’d felt herself smile and then laugh, from relief or fear or both, and he’d squeezed her hands and said, _now, we will work on a spell_.

And it was pretty stupid but it felt like it mattered. Like it was some big important moment. Not using magic, although that was cool. But the way he’d hugged her and her nose had squashed into him and he’d smelled like wet wool and she’d been happy. Really happy. For probably the first time since she’d died, you know?

So he gets excited when she says she wants to invent her own spell, and she’s not thinking about that until he demands they start practicing now, and then she is thinking about it and she gets scared.

So it’s avoid Caleb forever, talk to him, or knock on his door and say can you help me with magic?

And she wants so fucking bad to get drunk first, but she chooses the third option.

She knocks on his door. Which is super weird, because it used to be her door, and also she has basically never once knocked before going in to see Caleb, ever. There’s no reply, but she knows he’s in there — she _might_ have followed him and then spent half an hour getting up her nerve — so she thinks about leaving and instead just opens the door. “If you’re masturbating this is your two second warning!” she calls as she does.

Caleb is sitting on the bed, reading. He starts, kind of dropping the book, and even though he isn’t jacking it she kind of feels like she walked in on him anyway.

She tugs at her braid. “Hey! What’s up? What’s goin’ on?”

#widobrave #unfinished fanfic

9 notes · View notes

eldritchmochi · 28 days

Note

I am re reading coping skills and just needed to say thankyou for the food once again because omfg my lil cane user heart is so full, I cant stop imagining the rest of the nein meeting coping!essek and like how they all react to him both in kink and outside, and like how they react to caleb having a partner, many brainworms. Thanks for writing and sharing!!

okay listen, i am *also* excited for the rest of the nein to meet essek in coping skills. its going to be a ton of fun even if i really hate writing things with the full ensemble cast 🥲🥲

a lil teaser of THOTS on how it's gonna go for ur lov and patience:

- jester: absolutely decides shes esseks new bff (shes not wrong). does in fact offer to peg essek, but not the first time they meet she has manners caleb!! (its the second time they meet, and even tho essek expects it he still chokes on his spit and how forward she is). shes also incredibly nosey about esseks health, given she is in the medical field directly herself, which essek both hates and finds refreshing (its so much easier to explain his health to someone who has the bg knowledge)

- veth: immediately shovel talks essek, then basically adopts him when essek gets all prim and proper and politely mean "id like to see you try" and veth is like okay youve got teeth you can protect my boy too im counting on you heres a toddler (luc is delighted by esseks ability to make things float and essek is delighted by the fond looks he gets from caleb over veths shoulder)

- fjord: dubious at first but warms up to essek when essek relaxes enough to join razzing caleb. definitely warns essek about the impending pegging offer from jester, promises to distract her if shes overwhelming

- caduceus: is the one to spot essek flagging at the neins holiday party, sits with essek as caleb is distracted catching up with the rest of his friends as quiet company "its good to see him happy"

#mochi rambles #mochi presents coping skills #mochi fic #mochi asks #cannot promise thisll all be in there exactly as such but its roughly in the outline so #ya kno #these are the vibes #i am excited #pls enjoy

7 notes · View notes

mintywolf · 9 months

Text

A Long Road Home - Author Notes

Page 23

First “darling” sighted in the wild. :)

As I introduce and then immediately violate the sanctity of the “There Is Only One Bed” trope. Sorry Imogen, if you want to snuggle with Laudna you have to accept that there’s a dead rat in the bed too and he’s kind of a perv.

The first panel made me laugh while I was drawing this but it’s kind of sad. Laudna has had unpleasantness turn up at her door in the middle of the night before so she’s being extra cautious — Unsettling Presence plus has climbed up the shelves beside the door to open it.

(This is not, btw, the beloved Marquesian cotton nightgown that Imogen recalls with such fondness in Chapter 10 of Remember Us, this is probably someone else’s linen chemise that Laudna stole off a clothesline in Tal’Dorei. I did draw it here though.)

(Also, Sam, this is a chemise. I think the word for Veth’s fancy dressing-gown you were looking for was “peignoir.” :))

The original stage direction in panel 5 was that Laudna was comfortingly rubbing her back while she handed her the water, but I decided she’d consider it a priority to cover up her ears. :( Imogen hasn’t seen them close enough to notice what happened to them yet and she wouldn’t want to cause her further distress.

I imagine these strawberry print sheets came from Imogen’s house along with the rug and other things we saw being added to the house on page 15 and like the bed belonged to Imogen as a child. But the corn husk doll and the bobcat skull on the shelf are obviously Laudna’s additions. Good news, a rope bed like that tends to bow in the middle so they’re going to be sleeping very close. :)

When I first wrote this I had some hesitation about Imogen’s offering to share the bed rather than sleeping on the floor herself, afraid it might be a little out of character for her, but in light of the Revelations of Laura Bailey I am no longer concerned, haha.

#a long road home #author notes

14 notes · View notes

keyleth-clay · 9 months

Text

FMRB,FSG flowers masterpost

To go along with From My Rotting Body, Flowers Shall Grow, here's everybody's flowers in the Blooming Grove and what they mean in the language of flowers!

Vox Machina:

Vex'ahlia - Chicory (frugality)

Percy - Clematis (artifice and ingenuity)

Pike - White Heliotrope (devotion and faithfulness)

Grog - Black Tulips (strength and passion)

Tary - Alstroemeria (wealth, prosperity, and devotion)

Vax'ildan - Snowdrops (hope)

Tiberius - Tiger Lily (wealth and pride)

Scanlan - Naked Man Orchid (love, beauty, luxury, and sexuality) (and yes, these are in fact, a real flower)

Keyleth (not shown in the fic) - Cherry Blossom bonsai (endurance, hope for spring)

The Mighty Nein:

Caduceus - Sweet Peas (blissful pleasure, goodbye, departure)

Mollymauk - Snapdragons (presumption, deception, royalty, and passion) (as decided by Taliesin during Talks Machina after Molly died!)

Yasha - Star of Bethlehem (atonement, reconciliation)

Beau – Columbine (resolved to win)

Fjord – Gladiolus (strength of character and generosity)

Jester – Lupine (imagination) (bonus points for looking decidedly phallic)

Veth – Cowslip (rusticity, winning grace, healing, youth, and pensiveness)

Caleb – Marigold (grief, despair, and affection)

Essek (not in the fic) - Moonflower (beauty out of darkness, mysticism)

The Clay Family:

Cornelius - Allium (unity, humility, peace)

Constance – Iris (faith, valour, wisdom, and friendship)

Corrin – Cactus (endurance)

Colton – Hydrangea (boastfulness, thank you for understanding)

Nila - Moss (maternal love, charity) (half for the meaning, half because Nila tended the mosses in the Guiatao clan)

*Calanthe (minor OC, first ever Clay in the Blooming Grove) - Rhododendron (danger, I am dangerous, beware) (fully inspired by this post)

#kc speaks #regarding kc's fics #my fic #Critical Role #CR 1 #CR 2 #fanfic #Keyleth #Caduceus Clay #Vox Machina #The Mighty Nein #Cornelius Clay #Constance Clay #Corrin Clay #Colton Clay #Nila #long post

10 notes · View notes

utilitycaster · 10 months

Note

For the character ask meme: Jester.

Answering what’s in my inbox, not taking new questions - this is the last one from this meme!

First impression: ngl I found her slightly grating early on. Like, fun, but some of the unicorn hamster stuff had me like girl you've been accused of murder. girl there's a town on fire. can you focus.

Impression now: great. Laura excels in quiet, background character development and by the Pirates arc my issues with Jester were resolved; by late campaign she had fully shot up in my estimation.

Favorite moment: episode 2x72 you will always be perfect; she reads smut to ghosts, she decides she's going to rid him of Uk'otoa, she is like *loudest stage whisper possible* FJORD YOU FORGOT YOUR FAKE VOICE, genuinely iconic.

Idea for a story: mystery story set in Nicodranas in which a camp counselor/apothecary and an artist/gallery owner solve it. Nott the Best Detective Agency rides again.

Unpopular opinion: I mean, she's subject to the "aw a sweet baby who is also immensely powerful and can do no wrong and is too special to die and if you acknowledge or engage with her flaws beyond some quirky awkwardness/clumsiness a la a 90s romcom woman, I will claim you hate her" issues that plague Imogen and Keyleth, unfortunately. For some reason every campaign you get a young-ish female character that a bunch of people are like CLEARLY she is the most special and then proceed to treat her like a fucking toddler beauty queen of a person and it's very tiresome.

Favorite relationship: Fjord, and this includes the platonic and even distant stretch during the Xhorhas arc. That said Jester's friendships with Veth and Yasha are severely underrated.

Favorite headcanon: somewhere along the Menagerie Coast there is a feral horse wearing a dress. It becomes a legend.

#answered #Anonymous #character ask meme #cr tag

30 notes · View notes

mareastrorum · 7 months

Text

The Fool and the Soldier: Chapter Commentary

Chapter 5: Gift & Debt

On off weeks, I’ll be posting some commentary on the prior week’s chapter. Since this is a longfic, I expect that it will be helpful for keeping track of stuff, plus I might mention something you missed. Of course, this will include spoilers, so continue with that in mind.

These aren’t meant to be comprehensive! There is so much more going on that I’m not saying. Feel free to ask questions too, either in replies or asks. If it’s too spoilery, I’ll let you know. I’ll add them to the body at the bottom as I receive them.

See the directory for other meta posts.

Gift & Debt

What’s this?! We haven’t seen this card! But no worries, Jester makes the card about halfway through the chapter.

There’s a lot of toxic fandom discourse on what characters “deserve” and that eventually culminated into an intent to explore that in the story. This chapter juxtaposes a lot of the characters’ worldviews on what must to be earned/paid versus what should be given freely.

Luctus

The first thing I came up with for Luctus was the sensory perception: pain. It immediately came to mind when I looked up the latin word luctus, which means grief or sorrow. I didn’t feel that I needed to iron it out further for the emotion, so this was an easy fit.

Next was the school of magic. She wasn’t encountered in the stream, but her ability during the Lucien fight was a Slow spell with a dexterity save instead of the usual wisdom save. This wasn’t the only eye that had slightly different effects than a normal spell—Vigilan’s anti-magic cone dispelled magic rather than suppressed it until it passed out of the field (at least, sometimes).

Slow is an interesting spell. It’s transmutation, which is all about changing reality (and I had already decided on another Somnovem for that school). It affects a specific number of targets in a space. According to the PHB, wisdom is about being in tune with the world, particularly with perceiving it. Thus, a wisdom save for avoiding a Slow effect makes sense if the point is to resist a change to one’s own perception of the world. After all, if it was actually changing the space itself, then there wouldn’t be a limit on the number of targets, and it would be avoided or exited by leaving the area. So it changes the target, not the world. Makes sense for a level 3 spell.

But Luctus’s Slow required a dexterity save, which is the score for agility, reflexes, and balance. Dexterity saves are usually for dodging an ability, but not all the Somnovem’s abilities used that save, so it wasn’t about avoiding an eye’s gaze. There’s a couple ways to interpret that, like maybe it’s a stronger transmutation of the same effect, but it affects everything in that area, so it has to be dodged. However, Matt didn’t pull out any AOE measuring props to see who else he could get; Luctus looked directly at Fjord in episode 139, then Veth in 140. Matt also didn’t describe a beam or any projectile. They both felt a wave of grief and sadness, which imparted the effect. So I don’t think it was about dodging so much as it was about the character’s general speed and agility.

So I chewed on that for a while, until it suddenly clicked: dunamancy. Dunamancy has both chronomancy and graviturgy specialties. It would totally track to have either of those require a dexterity save rather than any other stat to resist a slowing effect. Once I had that, I came up with Luctus’s role.

And as I thought that over, I also had my fix for why Molly survived at Glory Run Road: Luctus used Cognouza to alter the timeline.

You might wanna check out those first two scenes in chapter 1.

Pieces

The first draft of this scene didn’t have the funky kerning and formatting. It was going to be very brief, only giving the reader a vague sense of what had happened to Lucien.

However, once I got used to testing out different types of formatting quirks, I decided to use that here to emphasize how disorienting it was for Lucien. Since this was third-person limited perspective, and his perception of the world would have been shattered, the text was as well.

Gems

I wanted to do a check-in with Nott because she spent so long in the early campaign keeping her backstory to herself, and she’s in the background for a lot of Fjord’s arc. Much of her dialogue makes more sense in a second watch of the campaign. She projected a lot of her issues onto other people, and she used that lens to decide what she should do for herself.

The actual events of the scene weren’t that important though. I almost cut it entirely and added a scene for Nott elsewhere, but I wanted Nott’s canon dialogue about not being good yet, but trying to do good. It’s such a big part of who the Nein are at every point in their story. Thus, I kept it.

Debts

This scene was so long originally. I think it was nearly 9,000 words at one point. Then I cut it, then it bloated again, then I cut it more, etc. I think this is the 5th or 6th major version of it.

I chose Fjord’s POV for this because his arc is coming into focus next and I wanted to lay some ground work about where his head is at. There’s also a lot of parallels between him and Molly that will come into play.

Gustav’s bail was always going to be a big scene in the early chapters because Molly would have been there to realize that Gustav knew about Kylre. However, then the origin comic came out, and I was like, wait, was Kylre the reason Lestera died? She wasn’t that old—no gray hair, no signs of illness, no weak constitution, etc. There’s no way to confirm it, but considering that nergaliids can passively feed off people, then Molly would have thought that was a possibility. No reason to be extra upset about it… unless Gustav knew all along.

Molly’s only really gotten angry a few times in canon, typically when other people are getting hurt. He didn’t show anger if people disagreed with him over plans or anything. In the comic, he dealt with his anger through choir practice, and that was honestly more fun for him than anything else, with his anger showing before he came up with an idea of what to do. He wasn’t even that angry at Kylre when he chased him down with the Nein.

But Gustav was supposed to take care of the carnival, he brought Kylre in, and he knew what was happening the whole time. Kylre’s betrayal was more straightforward, and it didn’t really harm anyone at the carnival (other than possibly Toya). It’d be like being angry at a wolf for hunting a person instead of a sheep. Instead, it seemed like Gustav put people in danger for coin, after all the lessons and mannerisms that Molly picked up from him.

So, yeah, Molly was pissed.

I also wanted to explore the Nein’s various moral leanings and perspectives of the world. Fjord and Caleb are more on the end of earning what you have—there’s an expectation of behaving a certain way under threat of punishment. Fjord would have gotten that from his time at the orphanage and as a sailor. Caleb learned that from growing up poor in a totalitarian regime and then training as a Volstrucker. It took a long time for both of them to shake out of that mindset in their respective arcs.

In comparison, Jester and Caduceus have kinder outlooks. They didn’t let outrage override their sense of fairness. It wasn’t like Gustav or the carnival had been rolling in funds, so it couldn’t have been just about money. So they stood up to the others and asked questions to get at the heart of why Gustav had done it in the first place.

Nott and Beau struck me as somewhere in the middle. Beau rebels against authority and has a powerful curiosity, so she’d be wary of the idea of meting out justice without knowing all the facts. Thus, I had her stop Molly (to protect him from getting arrested for murder) at the start, then hold him back until they got answers. Nott backed up Caleb, of course, but after the scene she just had about trying to do good, she’d feel uncertain about it while she does it. After all, how many people did she help torture and kill because she was scared of what the goblin tribe would do to her?

Taliesin said in a Talks that his concept of Molly was an unaligned character that broke traditional D&D alignment. Thus, Molly is not a good person. That doesn’t mean he’s evil, lawful, chaotic, nor neutral. He’s unaligned. He thinks he’s a good person and tries to do good—when he feels like it. He has a code that no one actually understands, but it makes sense to him, so who knows if he follows it? He likes mischief and causing chaos, but also wants things to make sense. He does what he feels like when he thinks he should, sometimes. Unless he doesn’t. But there’s rules to it. Maybe.

In short, he’s a two-year-old adult. Two. Years. That is not a lot of time to come up with a comprehensive, consistent view of what the world is, what it should be, nor how he should handle discrepancies. That doesn’t mean Molly isn’t capable of acting rationally or being persuaded to do something he doesn’t initially want to do. He listens to people, and even if he talks back, he’ll go with the flow.

That resulted in this scene, with half the group wanting to kill Gustav, and ending with them letting him go.

Easter egg: I had Molly’s swords get caught on the coat because it was Lestera’s. As discussed in the next scene, she wouldn’t have wanted him to kill Gustav, so that was added here as a symbolic show of her interference.

Stories

Molly drank alone to panic after he first got his Rite of the Dawn unlocked in Alfield, so I figured he’d try to isolate after what happened. Maybe he would have sought some comfort with Yasha because she’d trusted Gustav too, but she’s unfortunately not there.

Jester to the rescue! This provided exposition about Molly’s thought process through the prior scene, and it showed just how much it rocked Molly’s view of a few things. Even so, he’s not angry at any of the Nein, nor did he hold what they did against them. His emotions were just running high and he’s having trouble keeping a grip.

I wanted to explore Molly’s and Jester’s relationship a bit. In all honesty, their personalities are very well suited to each other: they like having fun, they understand each other well, they’ve got each other’s backs, and they both prioritize helping people at their own expense. They also enable each other to their detriment, and their maturity is a bit stunted because of that. That said, Jester’s a romantic and Molly’s a hedonist. They have very different views of what relationships should be and what they’d want out of it, so the scene doesn’t stray from a platonic feel. Thus, I had them order different drinks, and neither would ever order the other’s for themselves. Despite that they showed some physical affection and even got caught on each other’s horns, it’s all in silly fun.

This scene also gives a lampshade to the naming convention to for the fanfic (which was discussed in a prior meta post): each of the chapters is named after one of the cards, and the reason is that they’re conveying a theme through a story rather than saying something outright. However, it’s not just for the readers. The characters also refuse to acknowledge certain truths, so they cope by telling stories (Caleb’s book, Molly’s cards, Cad asking Gustav for his story, etc.). Heck, even Molly does it, by telling stories about his time at the carnival instead of answering Jester’s questions outright—but it’s not Jester who doesn’t want to hear the answer.

Worries

Time for the terrible spellcasters to be terrible together. At this point in their arcs, Caleb and Fjord are also enablers for each other. The worst thing is, they rationalize their decisions as being best for the Nein or the world generally, not just themselves. Yes, they’re worried about Molly, but there’s also that tempting blood magic that might be useful somehow, plus whatever happens to Molly might affect their aspirations, etc.

I went with Caleb’s POV because he would be having a rough time with the events of the day. This was basically sandpaper on an old wound. He betrayed his parents and murdered them for the Empire. He betrayed Astrid and Eadwulf by attacking them and then by fleeing the Sanatorium without seeking them out to tell them the truth. Ikithon betrayed them by altering their memories and warping them into weapons for the Empire. Caleb’s only just started to truly grasp that he’s been fed Imperial propaganda his whole life. He’s been wrestling with the idea of whether his own judgment can be trusted and whether he can or should try to do anything about Ikithon or the Volstrucker. Then the group decided to let Gustav go when he wanted to kill Gustav, and it hit him fairly quickly that he’d made a rash decision that was rightfully overruled.

He’s a mess.

Then, along comes Molly (also a mess) to ask for a silly favor to borrow Frumpkin because he can’t sleep. That manages to pull Caleb’s head out of his own butt long enough so that he can get to sleep too.

It’s almost like they feel better about their own bullshit when they help other people…

Zoran Kluthidol

The first part of this scene about the hounds was in one of my earliest sets of notes from August 2022. It was one of the first scenes I wrote for the Tombtakers. I’ll discuss more of Zoran’s backstory in a separate meta post, but the key thing for this scene is that goliaths travel in herds and are fairly isolated from other communities. A lot of this scene came from my brainstorming about what sort of goliath would leave his tribe and wind up at the Claret Orders.

Once I came up with the basics for both backstories, I considered what Zoran would have thought about Lucien. Timing wise, I figured that Zoran would have already been at the Orders for a while when Lucien joined, and Zoran would have joined as an adult (because that’s when he would have left his tribe). Lucien would have joined as a pre-teen. Thus, Lucien would have been a tiny brat compared to Zoran, a fully-grown goliath.

Then I thought, what sort of person would Lucien need to be for Zoran to respect him enough to take up an offer to form a mercenary group and leave the Orders? (Reminder: Lucien died at 23, after the Tombtakers were active for at least 5 years—so he led them away when he was no older than 18!)

A fucking brawler, that’s what. Someone who could kick his ass when he had no right doing it. This scene helped me flesh out both of their personalities in that respect.

Thing is, an introductory scene can’t just be about the character getting his ass beat by a mostly-dead antagonist if the point is to show he’s not a pushover. Thus, there’s some bits to show that Zoran specifically enjoys hunts, not just fights, and he doesn’t care as much about the outcome as Lucien did. It also shows that he’s still someone to be feared and does as he pleases because of it.

(And captainsparklefingers nailed that Zoran snagged a bottle of Lionett wine from the storage room!)

Zoran is the other Ghostslayer of the Tombtakers, so his POV gives insight into that as well. He immediately clocked how fucked up it was for Cree to make Lucien an undead, and he’s intuitive enough to recognize several implications that stem from that. He also doesn’t take what Cree and Otis say at face value; he recognizes their biases and takes that into account. Finally, he’s got some reservations about the Somnovem and the Pattern, even if he enjoyed how it felt at the time.

But Zoran’s not the schemer. As fucked as the situation is, he’s more comfortable following the others’ leads. So, for now, he’s settling in for whatever insanity Lucien’s going to lead them into, and he’s well aware it’s going to be messy. That’s what’s fun, after all.

Senses

Another check-in with Lucien. There’s some subtle hints of what the Somnovem are up to. I also included a demonstration of Luctus’s ability to warp time. As she mentioned in her later scene, she had to “undo” some things, so the reader gets to see an example of that here.

Dream: Bait

The introductory poem is “To a Squirrel at Kyle-Na-No” by William Butler Yeats, an Irish poet and politician. He’s a fascinating historical figure that turned to some seriously questionable views about how the world should work in his later years, and I thought that was perfect for including here. I’m being vague about it because I think you should read it up yourself—and you’ll hopefully get a sense of why I thought, of all the poems I could have chosen, his poem about trying to pet a squirrel was appropriate here.

It’s fairly obvious that the overarching theme of this dream is bait. I had considered including scenes where Lucien hunted for small animals, but honestly, that would be a terrible idea for kids in the Savalirwood. Fishing would have been safer, and it gave an opportunity for some exposition from an adult.

Every other scene in the dream includes an example of using bait to lure someone to or from something. First was Cree distracting guards while Lucien snuck out of a house he robbed. (There’s a clue as to whose house it was…) Second was Lucien trying to bait the goliath into harassing Cree instead of him, but it’s too tempting to bother the tiefling that’s already so close to the water. Third was Lucien distracting vendors so Cree could nab wares at the market, plus acting as lookout for Greytraders that might have caught her otherwise.

Fourth was an unfortunate example of Lucien leading some thugs to his group when they were looking to snatch orphans and sell them off to the Mardoons or Jagentoths—slavers. The fisherman mentioned three sets of three are extra special: Lucien’s red eyes, purple skin, and horns (as noted when he spooked the baker); Cree’s a “half-beast” girl with gold eyes; and the half-orc is also a “half-beast” girl, but with blue eyes. Being good bait isn’t always a boon.

And now, look back at that poem. Hmmm. HMMMM…

The rhyme in the market scene is the last verse of a popular Irish song, “Molly Malone.” Cockles are a relatively easily-foraged shellfish that are a common street food in coastal towns, and they’re often used as bait for fishing. Mussels are another shellfish, found both at sea and in freshwater. While Shadycreek Run is a fair distance inland, it’s also a trade point between the rest of the Greying Wildlands and the Empire. While I doubt there would actually be hawkers wheeling barrows of shellfish to sell in the Run, there’s some obvious puns and references to prostitution in the song, which was also a thriving business in town. Plus it’s totally the kind of place that would have rumors of a ghost trying to sell wares.

Gifts

Then we go to Molly, who, as expected, is doing his best to not deal with what happened and is instead fixating on his name. Identity was a big thing for him, so it makes sense that he’d focus on that rather than process his feelings about Gustav or mourn Lestera a second time.

I figured Fjord would be optimal for that conversation because Fjord was the one who wavered about his last name, Stone. Vandran had argued to him that it was a good name, which tempered his distaste for it. However, once Fjord learned about Vandran in the stream, that threw it all into question again. Thus, of all the people in the Nein who would understand, Fjord’s best suited.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a heart to heart with Molly without a +0 to Charisma moment like him insinuating that Fjord should have seen Sabian’s betrayal coming. That said, Fjord is dense sometimes, and even then, he’d be used to Molly’s brand of arrogance to know better than to take it at face value.

I can’t recall the exact context (I’ll update this if I ever find the quote), but Taliesin once mentioned that he expected a party pet to “make an alligator so happy.” I immediately thought of that while outlining this stretch of time and saw that the pet vendor would be dealt with here. I planned to include it as Molly’s dialogue for one of Jester’s pets, then realized that she would probably goad him to buy the peacock, which he would definitely decline. Molly had also mentioned that the carnival had named a horse Winter’s Crest because that was when they planned to eat it if it lasted that long. That evolved into this section where Jester bought him the peacock and he suggested the Nein eat it instead.

Jester had more gold to spend at this point because Molly pitched in to buy Nott’s cloak and for Gustav’s bail. The Nein also had more coin overall because more guards had been killed at the Sour Nest. Thus, while Jester is still pretty broke, she’s doing a little better than she had been in the stream.

Bruises

Caduceus is still taking it easy, but he’s learning to enjoy the trip. I wanted to include a POV for him because I thought he would do a half-apology to Molly, and it’s fun to explore their relationship since it was a blank slate. We also got to see that Molly’s doing better after a few days.

More cards for Molly’s deck! These will absolutely be chapter titles in the future.

Tyffial Wase

Tyffial was the last of the Tombtakers that I fleshed out. It took a while to come up with her backstory, but once it clicked, everything fell into place rather easily.

In the Critical Role artbook “The Chronicles of Exandria - The Mighty Nein” there is a blurb about the Tombtakers based on Beau’s notes that were submitted to the Cobalt Soul, and Adon Zeenoth personally crossed out Tyffial’s name. I took that to mean that Zeenoth must have known Tyffial somehow. They’re both elves, but there was no indication about their ages in canon. But why would he personally censor records naming her? There had to be something he didn’t want people to know about her, but I had to come up with what that would be and why he would do it unprompted.

First, I tried to come up with what Tyffial would have been doing before she joined the Claret Orders. Nothing really came to mind, so I thought instead, why would an elf with a long lifespan join the Order of the Mutant and then defect to follow an 18-year-old (or so) to form a mercenary band? I had considered the route grayintogreen took where Tyffial was also from Shadycreek Run and grew up with Lucien and Cree, but I wanted to do something new. There’s not a lot of takes on the Tombtakers, so there’s a lot of possibilities that hadn’t been done yet.

Then I thought, well, what if she was bored? Elves live a long time. What if she joined the Orders out of boredom? Then she’d leave once she was bored of that, too. That would make sense, especially if Lucien comes up with exciting jobs, and we (the audience) knew that eventually took the Tombtakers to Molaesmyr. But a young elf wouldn’t get bored that quickly. Their sense of time passing would be about the same as a younger race until they started getting up there in years.

So Tyffial is fucking old. The Order of the Mutant makes sense because then she can adjust her abilities and her looks using mutagens. And that gave me a reason for her to know Zeenoth, an Archivist at the Soul: he’s covering up her tracks when she comes up with a new identity. He’s taken bribes before, so a bribe mixed with threat of violence would certainly keep him acting on Tyffial’s behalf.

Tyffial’s backstory will be explored over time in TF&TS, but there will be hints aplenty about just how long she’s been around. For example: what names does she use to refer to certain places?

I’ll note that I came up with this before it was revealed that Ludinus Da’leth was artificially extending his lifespan. I was so hyped when C3 started exploring that. More things to chew on.

Lucien & Luctus

Yet another look into Lucien’s relationship with the Somnovem. I don’t want to point out too many hints, but there were several. Is he needlessly paranoid or rightly distrustful? Time will tell.

Now Lucien has a body! Kind of. Curious that the Somnovem did that after he was defeated on the Material Plane…

#TF&TS #TF&TS meta #chapter commentary

4 notes · View notes

essektheylyss · 1 year

Text

WWE Methodology Rundown

Because if there's one thing no one can accuse me of, it's sure not a lack of thoroughness.

As you may have noticed in our wizard bracket, there isn't really a mandate on how to vote—this comes down to how I built the rankings. I decided that a purely popularity-based ranking system was not going to be as interesting, because it was probably going to fall precisely the way it was ranked, and why play a game where you already know the outcome? So I weighed, in order, popularity as well as name recognition, and then a bit of power level (hence why wizards who are very powerful for reasons other than their class were not included, such as Raishan and Vecna and a few assorted fey wizards from c1). Which means that if you're voting for Trent over Eadwulf because you're like, "There's no chance Eadwulf wins in a fight," that's valid! But since it's not specified, you can vote based on whatever you feel like, which also means that a larger voter pool who aren't necessarily paying attention to methodology won't drastically wreck the bracket.

This ranking was done mostly based on vibes, and a lot of the lower half of the bracket could've been in varying orders. Lilith and Lyra are higher though they're not particularly strong because they're guest PCs, and Eskil and Vera, who are recurring PCs in main campaigns, are higher than, say, Doolan or Micah, who were present very briefly in content other than main campaigns. Tuldus is last despite having been on screen within the last couple of weeks, because, let's be honest, he's kind of established more as "that weird cultist" rather than Tuldus, actual wizard. (Maybe he's got stans though, idk all of your lives.)

Which brings us to our bracket itself. I did a straight reverse order, matching up the upper bracket with the lower bracket, with a little bit of altering within a couple of rankings to build the most interesting or funniest pairings—i.e. Laerryn against Micah, even though she is ranked first and in a strict lineup, would've been against Tuldus. Similarly, Veth got Doolan instead of Vera, because she's got that handkerchief. I won't go into every bracket I switched a bit, but there was a general method to my madness.

And as a general bracket note, a popularity-based 32-ranking bracket is gonna have a lot of easy sweeps in round 1, because usually you want the ones with lower name recognition to get cut in the first round, but you also want to give the opportunity for upsets. Someone like Athesias Uludan getting to the final because of an upset is fun as hell, but him getting to the final because the heavy-hitters were paired up in round two is not interesting.

Plus it's fun to see how the lower-ranked folks are doing! I am personally hoping for a Jenna Iresor upset but I'm not holding my breath. I'm also surprised to see that Micah Cormorant or Loras have gotten enough votes to hold any percentage, which is hilarious and exactly why the rankings are the way that they are.

#world wizard entertainment #I will put this one in the tag for anyone interested

35 notes · View notes

grigori77 · 1 year

Text

The Mighty Nein Reunited, Part 2: U'kotoa Unleashed

Matt: "What the fuck happened at this table?" We're with you Matt. What the fuck is Travis wearing? Most of the others have lucked out but Travis, poor Travis ... oh dear ... Sam this plug is abysmal. It's hilarious it's so bad, but ... it's still BAD.

Sam: "This one's a normal!" Oh boy ... and Laura's adorable enthusiasm at the mention of Backblaze is so sweet ...

Okay, here we go, and once again the return of that wonderful intro! :3

Man this makes me so nervous, I mean the fact that we had happy endings for everybody at the end of Campaign 2 but now anything could happen ... I mean if anybody dies tonight? Oh fuck I'm not ready for this ...

Oh shit that giant is WAY too big and oh fuck it's STRAIGHT INTO INITIATIVE!!! Help!

Kingsley up first and WHAT THE HELL is going on with that sword? I mean I know Bloodhunter but still ... oooh, 5 temporary hit points! Stealthing ... sneaky sneaky ...

Sam: "Boy oh boy, Taliesin, this is a lot of words." No shit. Wow, Taliesin struggling with character mechanics is such a novelty it's kind of fascinating.

Marisha is STRAIGHT INTO perching on her chair and it's adorable. XD Matt: "The bob-bobs?" Marisha: "The bob-bobs at those two little pissants."

Sam doing a Caleb impression as he's describing Veth doing magic ... :3 oh, and that spell is NICE, beautiful results. Veth tries to stealth and Sam rolls balls, but due to advantages STILL manages to score 27. XD

FOUR ELDRITCH BLASTS?!!! Holy fuck ... Hahaha I love Hexblade's Curse. XD

Storm Giant's turn ... uh-oh ... I'm sorry, 29 STRENGTH?!!! The temple is FUCKED. Definitely.

Ashley: "Okay, I'd like to rage." Cue appreciative barbarian noises from Travis ... the Scaldsaber? Oooh ... oh, and it's SHINY!!! That is sweet.

Jester is casting Earthquake? With Veth right behind the temple? Please be careful ... and Veth is just flicking through her camp guidebook in panic. Lots of nonsense talk about mushrooms ...

Dexterity throws and EVERYBODY HAS TO BEAT 19?!!! Veth and Kingsley succeed but Yasha fails ... oops! 12 damage halved to 6 across the board because Yasha's raging so it's the same ... oh dhit and now the giant has FALLEN ON TOP OF YASHA?!!! Massive ouch now ... O.O

Mage is diving in the hole ... Fjord Counterspells! Nice! He still goes in the hole but faceplants with a Wile E. Coyote noise! XD

Caleb's Stormrider boots ... he scorches that arse with lightning! Nice! The party are duly appreciative. Ooh, AND Disintegration damage? 76 points of damage? Ashley: "Oooh!" Laura: "That's wizard shit!" Caleb: "Wild out!"

Creature misses it's attack on Beau, Marisha decides to use her crazy cool monk shit to react and she KICKS HIS ARSE!!! Nice!

Natural 20 for Kingsley! Double damage so he deals plus sneaky attack so he deals out 51 POINTS OF DAMAGE IN ONE HIT!!! Meanwhile SNACKS!!! Yum! XD Secong hit another 16 points of damage and HOW IS IT NOT ALREADY DEAD?!!!

Beau goes for the mage and jumps in the hole? Ballsy ... Slow Fall! Nice! Matt: "Go monk shit!"

Oh shit yeah I forgot about the sun sigils! Watch out for that shit!

15 feet away? Nuts ... no cool monk attack, then. Oh, here we go ... cool sonic attack from the staff! 13 points of damage! Sweet!

Sam enquires if Yasha being pinned under the giant means she's in melee with it ... AND IT DOES?!!! Hilarious!

Brenatto's Voltaic Bolt? Whoa ... and because she's hidden it hits despite the giant being prone ... oh boy, and Veth just ANNIHILATED its balls ... >.<

Veth jumps in yhe hole to back Beau up ... oh shit, there's SNAKES!!! EEEEEEEEEE!!!

Fjord casts Fly on himself ... Relentless Hex! Nice! And now he's used his action already so he can't attack?

Jester rolls a Nat 20 on request and somehow that mean the ground doesn't just give out under her ... but it gives out under everybody else? Seriously?

And now everybody but Jester and Kingsley is in the hole along with Beau and Veth and the mage ...

Laura (in Jester voice): "Uh, DM, I'm still up here next to the tree, please don't forget about me!"

New battle map ... Travis: "Oooh, he's got extra pieces!" And there's snakes raining from stove too! Shit!

Yasha bamfs out her wings and pounces on the giant ... or not because bamfing her wings us sn ACTION!!! Oops! So she unleashes a Battle Cry to give everybody advantage instead!

Jester is STUCK now because she doesn't see what's going on ... okay she goes to Kingsley instead and holds her spell until his turn do they can jump in! Smart in a really clumsy way! XD

Caleb is PRONE. Oof ...

Mage is going to Dimension Door and Fjord sacrifices another Counterspell to beat him! So the mage just starts RUNNING instead ...

Travis: "This area of the map seems different ... it's made of PUDDING!!!"

Caleb is doing Wizard stuff but holding it for Beau to hit the mage ... no fancy name this time znd Sam takes issue with the lack of flare. Liam (in Caleb voice): "EFFICIENCY!!!"

Jester jumps in with Kingsley ONTO THE GIANT'S HEAD!!!

Kingsley attacks the mage and gets foiled! Nuts!

Marisha attacks the giant and gets 13 points of damage in! Spends 3 ki points to open up a vulnerability on him, then moves onto the mage and opens up another csn if whoopass on him too ... Flurry of Beaus? Ooooooooh ... 14 points of damage? Nice ... but the Stunning Strike misses. Nuts ...

Caleb incinerates the already dead creature but gets 17 fire damage on the giant. Okay ...

Sam: "This is more action I've had since ... I don't know, Insert Joke Here!"

40 points of damage from Veth's crossbow on the giant and she gets the HDYWTDT right between its eyes! Nice!

Bonus she shoots the mage in the buttocks too!

Fjord gets 30 points on the mage on his first hit! Oooh ... then he lands another ... fuck, I can't even ADD UP all that, it's just a ridiculous amount of damage ...

Yasha takes up Sentinel on the mage and JUST gets past its Shield ... Ashley does damage maths ... 49 on the first attack? Ouch ... then another 23 ... another HDYWTDT?!!! Noice! She just DECAPITATES that fucker ...

Just one fish guy left ... and a FUCKLOAD of snakes ...

Jester gets 19 points of damage on that last fish guy ...

Veth: "In an earthquake you're supposed to get in a bathtub." Jester: "I thought it was supposed to be in a fire." Veth: "Well I wrote the guidebook, so ..."

Caleb misses his attack ... and all the other incapacitated fish guys jump in? What?

One of them's got the crystal! Shit! Something's lighting up in the temple ... it's a temple to Zehir, U'kotoa's creator and ultimate jailer!

The final seal is broken! Oh shit! Something's coming ... all the snakes are now converging on them!

Fjord creates a gate to help them escape ... and Matt uses the malevolent power in the place to veto it and shuts the spell down IMMEDIATELY?!!! Not cool!

Okay, how the hell do they get out now?

Fjord tries to communicate with the effigy of Zehir ... and the god talks back? Oh, and it REALLY don't like Fjord ...

Matt (chuckling): "Make an intimidation check ... against a Betrayer God!"

Zehir demands a pact ... oh, that can't be good. One of them must bear his mark ... for as long as he has interest in them? Oh, and Kingsley's just gonna go for it? Really? After Lucien?

Fjord decides he won't let anyone else do this ... oh no, this is so bad ...

Oh, now this whole process is just DEEPLY unpleasant ... choose what to do? What are the choices? Oh shit, there's a sword now ... not this again ...

Ooooooh, a rapier, nice ... The Fang of the Spire King? That I'd frickin HARDCORE, man ...

Wait, he's giving it to Kingsley? What the hell? What does this even mean?

The sense of dread is gone ... somewhere south in the Lucidian, U'kotoa is loose ... of course he is. That's, like, par for the course ...

Fjord: "Snakes! Aud us in our ascension!" Yeah, they're not having it ...

Oooh ... Darktow ... go to Darktow ...

Jester's overly excited by the idea of the Plank King ... Fjord: "Let me see your DMs!"

She sends a message to the Plank King ... oh, he's having none of it either. He REALLY doesn't like her, does he?

Okay, back to Nicodranas, then. Caleb ports them all back.

There's rumours of a dark storm brewing ... oh no, that's not good at all. Lots of dark prophetic visions too ... ugh ... trouble's coming, then.

Set up the ship tonight, then. Best do that, then.

Drensala Vis. Nice shit, sounds like ... Captain Adella? Oh yeah! Yeah, we remember her. Oh, and apparently she's totally up for this too. Well this is gonna be EASY then.

Go now or a night's rest?

Caleb goes to see Yussa, looking for aid or supplies, whatever might be available. What on earth has he even got ... whoa, that's A LOT of Potions!

Bluud furnishes them with a charcuterie board ... or a "meat plate" as he puts it. It's a bit of a weird situation. But he forgot the wine ... oh, never mind, Veth and Beau have booze ...

Jester wants milk ... Veth: "You could milk me!" The group is suitably grossed out ...

Jester messages her mother ... tells her to go stay with The Gentleman to be safe. She turns down the idea if the Gentleman, but goes to friends instead. Veth gets her to message Yeza with a warning too, sends him off on a camping trip with the campers for safety.

Kingsley asks Yasha and Beau about Molly ... oh boy ... yeah, this is getting heavy again and this music is NOT HELPING ... now THAT is interesting, Kingsley considers Molly snd Lucien to be his parents and so he's determined to do BETTER than either of them did. Yeah, this sounds smart.

Everybody gets a ling night's rest ... and then they wake up to chaos, it seems. Oof, this is looking MESSY. U'kotoa is definitely fucking things up out there ...

Setting sail into hell, then ... yeah, that sounds like a proper bloody battle out there ... and there's something BIG out there ...

And now we're on the break. Of course we are ...

Second half, then ... and they're on the way ... a triangular ocean battle map? Okay then, this ain't foreboding at all ...

Fjord casts Underwater Breathing on everyone. Nice ...

Oh gods ... Veth has fashioned a pretty decent Fluffernutter ... yeah, that can't be a good thing at all, can it?

IS THAT music copywritable? Isn't it old timey?

Oh shit, giant sea serpent! Not good! Not good!

Jester is trying to Control Weather against a demigod monster that can control the weather ... Nat 20? Hmmmmmm ... okay, so it KIND OF works pretty well considering ...

Veth casts INTELLECT FORTRESS on Fjord? WTF?

Matt's having superglue problems ...

Fjord is flying again, it would seem. Yasha wants to use effects to pep everybody up but none of them last very long ... hmmmm ...

Uh oh ... U'kotoa's talking now. ALSO not good ...

And now there are THINGS in the water ... whoa, those ate just ... AAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!! That headpiece is TERRIFYING!!!

Roll initiative!

Bollocks ... U'kotoa goes first. That's so very bad ... and he has Lair Actions apparently ... oof ...

Tidal Wave? Crap ... 250 feet tall? SERIOUSLY?!!! Fjord is knocked prone as he's FLYING?!!! How does yhat even work? EVERYBODY is getting knocked prone and taking 45 points of bludgeoning damage! Not good at all! Oh wait, Yasha DOESN'T get knocked prone! All righty then ...

Anger of the Storm? And it's electric-based ... wait, what did that even DO?!!!

Fjord tries to hit one of the coils in the eye ... and MAKES IT!!! 22 points if slashing damage and Hexblade's Curse! Noice ...

Travis: "Daddy got a tattoo! Daddy got a tattoo and a midlife crisis!"

Fjord takes 19 points if bludgeoning damage and 5 points of acid damage ... and he's GRAPPLED by the tentacle on the coil. Ugh ...

Kingsley has to STAND UP in order to do anything ... Blood Maladict for Fire? Hmmm ... and with the new sword, too ... 20 points if piercing damage and 6 points of fire damage, then another 18 on the second strike and Brand of Castigation? Ooooooooh ...

Beau is pulling a Naruto and she's GETTING ON THE HEAD!!! Bloody hell ... she goes straight for the eyeball ... Stunning Strike? No, it's immune to Stun. Of course it is. Still, 10 damage. Second hit, another 13 damage. FLURRY OF BLOWS and Extract Aspects! Oh, so this thing is ... whoa, that's A LOT of immunities ...

Yasha would like to rage again (cue Travis grunting in appreciation again). Whoa ... and she is swinging nothing but misses right now. Ouch ...

U'kotoa tries to grab her and fails MISERABLY ...

Czleb chugs a healing Potions to get 26 hit points back ... hits thd boots znd shoots up in the dky, appears to turn into a crazy big blue fucking DRAGON!!! Travis: "Damn!" And Mstt has just the mini for the job, too! XD

Veth stays prone but shoots one of the eyes ... Nat 20! Ooof! 81 POINTS of piercing damage? Holy fuck! And apparently that REALLY HURT too ...

Jester casts Dawn to summon a 30 radius cylinder of radiant light, fries U'kotoa's tail with 22 radiant damage. Halved though, apparently ...

U'kotoa tries to whip its tail at Kingsley, misses and instead takes damage itself! Ah Haha ...

Yasha gets 17 points if damage plus 4 offire damage! Nice! Getting better!

"It DOES get its Tidal Wave back." XD

Beau takes a bite attack and is dealt 30 points of piercing damage? Oooooh ... but somehow she manages to NOT get swallowed too at least ...

Fjord takes 21 points of bludgeoning damage and 13 points of acid damage from the head attack. Travis: "Yeah, my ANCESTORS took that damage."

Yasha takes 31 points of bludgeoning damage reduced to 15 from the tail plus 11 points of acid damage ... oof ...

Jester: "Fjord, help me I fell down the stairs!"

Fjord fires Cone of Cold on U'kotoa ... oooh, that is gonna do some SERIOUS damage! 46 points of cold damage ... low roll to save to 94 points ... argh, no, not Legendary Resistance! Just regular damage then ... oh and now there are ICEBERGS out here? Is that not a BAD THING right now?

Kingsley can't actually reach anything right now ... yeah ...

Beau is going for another eyeball ... and DEFINITELY hits, but misses the second. Still, 10 damage and thd eyes dim again ... Patient Defence!

Oh, so apparently the ship will have DRIFTED, so Kingsley CAN make an attack. Sooooo ... more maths ... 26 damage with 9 extra fire! Then 15 normal with 5 fire, and BOTH on the eyes!

Legendary Action! But Kingsley can nullify it ... all his attacks are now at disadvantage, apparently. NOICE!!! Oh but Kingsley takes a hit ...

Cannonade! Here we go ... 2 hits! Okay, time for MAJOR damage dice antics ...

Yasha has a new tattoo? Chain Breaker ... it flares up ... ooh, Thunderclap! And it doesn't work ... nollovks. Just hits the water instead ... bonus for another Battle Cry instead, so everybody but Fjord gets one round advantage.

Dragleb comes down and ALL THREE of them flare so apparently When he uses Frightful Presence U'kotoa becomes FRIGHTENED?!!! Wow ... oh, and there's MORE? Wait, this is NOT gonna work? I'm so confused now ... and so is Liam, it seems ... okay ... oh, Gravity Fissure? That'll do. 39 points of damage, but halved.

Travis and Sam discuss the possibility of taking U'kotoa out with Hideous Laughter ...

Oh, and now Czleb is getting CRUSHED ...

Oh, so they're actually gonna TRY this Hideous Laughter thing? Now they're workshopping the bad joke ... Holy fuck this is ACTUALLY gonna work? Seriously? 54 POINTS OF DAMAGE?!!! Bloody hell ...

Jester moves the Cylinder and it burn him more, but also hits Yasha. Fair trade, I guess ... Invoke Duplicity! Whoa ... FOUR Jesters? Holy fuck ... and Matt DOESN'T HAVE four extra Jester minis! XD He uses Otohans instead ... hmmm ...

U'kotoa tries to get in Fjord's head ... but the Wildmother keeps it out! Nice!

Instead U'kotoa gets ITSELF in a Tidal Wave in order to hit everybody else. Oof ... Fjord, Beau, Jester and Kingsley take 38 points of bludgeoning damage and they're knocked prone again! AAAAAAARGH!!! The others take half but at least they keep their feet ...

Fjord aims the Cone of Cold for the back if its head, but zlso has to try not to hit Beau with it too ... hmm ... 66 points of cold damage and THE HEAD IS ESSENTIALLY FROZEN IN PLACE in the water! Okay!

Ooooh ... and the eyes are BLAZING bright yellow now ... wait, LIGHTNING now? Seriously? Shit ...

Beau manages to DODGE it and Dragleb is immune, but everybody else takes half damage ... 18 points of lightning damage! Oof!

Kingsley gets proper bitchslapped by the Legendary Action, but then when he gets up he deals 8 points of sneak attack, 11 points regular and 5 points if FIRE damage on a single hit, then more on the next ... then pulls back for cover. Okay ...

POP POP!!! Beau deals 10 damage on the first, then 15 from a CRIT on the second! Sweet! Flurry of BLOWS, I love it ... oooh, she's using its own lightning damage against it? Nice one ...

Yasha's going for an eyeball! Yes! Oooh, what's this? 21 points of regular, 6 points of fire damage! Okay! Second hit is 18 points plus 8 pounds of fire damage! Oooooooh ... but no, she CAN'T do Sentinel with Jester's duplicates ...

Dragleb grabs U'kotoa by the face and just BELCHES Lightning Breath into it! Whoa ... I'm sorry 12 D10 of lightning damage? Hmmmm ... so that's 62 points of damage! Fuck ... on 2 chunks that's 124 points ... sweet fuck that's a lot of damage ...

Yasha gets a reaction through Sentinel, do she lands 30 plus 5 points of fire damage! Oof! She GRABS ITS TAIL SND JUST SHOCKS IT!!! Travis: "Aww, that's some BOSS SHIT!!!"

Veth tries Voltaic Bolt again but not on an eye ... then Sam rolls MASSIVE and Laura chastised him fir trying to play it safe. Still, Veth gets 56 points of damage! So it's still good ... thrn he trll her the worst joke ever ... urgh ... c'mon Sam! Have mercy!

U'kotoa tries to get into Fjord's head again ... and this time it WORKS?!!! Oh shit ... and now it's PUPPETTING HIM?!!! So OF COURSE he goes after Jester. 25 points of slashing damage! FUUUUUUUCK!!! But at least he snaps right back out of it. But it's BAD ... Jester is HURT, but clearly she's PISSED too.

Holy fuck, she's casting Mass Heal through her duplicates ... 700 POINTS DISTRIBUTED BACK among everybody in ONE MOVE!!! Holy fuck! Liam: "This is more than she healed us throughout the ENTIRE CAMPAIGN!!! Cue a whole lit of divvying up throughout the party! This is like her finest hour since that fucking cupcake! :3

Another cannonade! More crazy dice damage math! It's half damage but it still counts for a lot!

Alright SERIOUSLY, how many more hit points does it even have left?

DRAGONS CAN USE SHIELD?!!! Oh that's BEAUTIFUL. Travis is in FITS of laughter!

Nope, instead U'kotoa just rolls shit and just wipes out one of the dragon duplicates instead.

It bites Beau again! 56 points of piercing damage! AND SHE'S SWALLOWED!!! Fuuuuuuuck!

Yes, 30 hits Yasha ... oooh, Absorb Elements? Oh no, that doesn't work. So it still hurts.

Fjord casts Arcane Gate from the boat and jumps through to the other side of the battlefield.

Oh man, that's a NASTY hit on Jester ... it's so bad she slurs as Kingsley asks if she's okay ...

Kingsley's jumping in again and ... oh, CRITICAL HIT!!! Nice! 14 fire, 15 regular, 10 force damage! NOICE!!! Andnow there's FEAR in those yellow eyes! Second hit's just as sweet ... now he's diving in snd swimming crazy fast for the head.

Beau has the Cape of Montebanc! That's 1 Dimension Door! Yes! She gets out and it's gross as she lands back on the deck! Phew ...

Gods this is EXHAUSTING ...

Yasha's going RECKLESS now and ... OH FUCK DHE HOT THE HOW DO YOU WANT TO DO THIS!!! She grapples U'kotoa and let's Fjord tske the hit, so he funnels Dragleb Turtle's lightning into the serpent's face! Four Eldritch Blasts! AND Kingsley gets stabby! Jester Inflicts Wounds! Beau augments the lightning damage! And Veth swings down the rigging into the Portal and ...

OH!!! I FORGOT about the Fluffernutter! That's so perfect! XD

The serpent sinks like a fucking STONE ... but no, the beast is STILL not dead ... just brought low.

Dragon Turtle takes Fjord down into the deep ... IT'S HEALING!!! SHIT!!! DIVE DIVE DIVE!!!

Fjord grabs hold and summons Zehir through the mark ... ooooooh, this hurts, this sounds AWFUL!!! Fuuuuuuuuck ...

Gods, is Fjord REALLY just gonna go ALL THE WAY DOWN?!!!

Three crystals? Oh shit, that's not good ... Far Step! Phew ...

Okay, so THAT'S finally done with ...

Jester's relieved and more than a little aroused seeing Fjord alive and very naked ...

Shit, the mark's still on him ... and also the crystals are still active. But the Wildmother's still with him, so ... maybe it's gonna be alright ... whoa, SHE HEALED HIM!!! Sweet!

Oh dear, not Stone's Throw Shipping again ...

Aaaaaah, denouements ...

Yasha footrubs sounds GORGEOUS ...

Hahahaha ... the return of Martina Stewart ...

Only ONE of the kids dies in the camp this year. But they got better ...

Jester becomes Exandria's answer to Banksy. With dicks.

Oh! Kingsley gets their banishment from Darktow rescinded ... ah, by becoming THE NEW Plank King. Of course.

D'awwwwwwwww ... Essek comes back at last ... he can't get enough of that sexy scruffy wizard, clearly ...

#critical role #the mighty nein reunited spoilers #the mighty nein reunited part 2 #matt mercer #marisha ray #beauregard lionett #travis willingham #fjord stone #laura bailey #jester lavorre #liam o'brien #caleb widogast #ashley johnson #yasha nydoorin #taliesin jaffe #kingsley tealeaf #sam riegel #veth brenatto

22 notes · View notes

quantummindclassicalheart · 1 year

Text

Master post of quantum's Critical Role fic

You can now find me on AO3 as FiveCamellia! I will be gradually archiving older fic there. Various other things I’ve written including scicomm stuff and poetry live in my general #writing tag, feel free to check it out! For scicomm specifically, check out my #quantum talks quantum tag.

(This is a repost of my old pinned post, but with the new post format.)

a dream within a dream (AO3, Tumblr. New! Completed 2023/01/21.) > When the fog of Rumblecusp steals away Caleb’s memories, Jester must help him remember. But this time, it’s going to take a little more than a fifth-level spell slot. For Widojest Secret Santa 2022.

The Lovers’ Lie (original song) > There is an old folk song that is sung in Exandria. It goes by a lot of titles–In Marquet it’s commonly known as The Liar’s Love, while natives of Xhorhas would know it as The Fey Groom, and the elves of Syngorn’s version has a title that translates to “The Sacrifice of Truth for Love.” This is one bard’s rendition of the song in Common, as accompanied by ukulele.

verbal and somatic (AO3) > In which Jester has a creative idea for how to use the Polymorph spell, and with a truly heroic effort (and the benefit of War Caster), Caleb succeeds on a series of concentration checks with increasingly high DC. (AKA: Widojest body swap sexy times.) (Post-campaign, established relationship AU.)

a soft place to land (AO3) > A few years after their travels with the Mighty Nein, Caleb and Jester reunite for the summer and kinda sorta fall in love all over again. (Post-campaign, as the summary suggests, but more or less canon-compliant)

a dream of flight (AO3) > My first Loquaerryn fic, about their first dance (and what comes after). Laerryn is used to taking the lead, but when she meets Loquatius Seelie, he challenges everything she knows about following.

rainy days and twisting braids > Yasha braids Beau’s hair, and softness follows. For Beauyasha Week 2022 Day 2: Hair. (Takes place post-campaign.)

like it’s the last time > A Widojest epilogue “missing scene,” i.e. the final conversation Caleb and Jester never got in canon. It’s the night before Fjord and Jester leave Nicodranas, and the Nein are throwing a party. Everything should be great. Except Caleb’s been distant lately, and Jester wants to know why. (Takes place during the Campaign 2 finale, roughly.)

waves of memory > A short Shadowgast piece based on some merperson!Essek AU art.

we must all tend our gardens > A character study of everyone's favorite drow hotboi and his complicated relationship with faith, as told through gardening. (Takes place during the Campaign 2 finale.)

[podfic] Die Smaragdwelle (Jade_Sabre) > A reading of Die Smaragdwelle, a fairy tale about a princess swallowed up by an emerald wave and the wizard who had to find her. (Featuring my vocal impressions of all the Mighty Nein.)

und andere Zemnische Volksmärchen > What if things had gone just a little differently post-Katzenprinz? (Fluff. Fluff is what happens.) For Widojest Week 2021 Day 6: Der Katzenprinz.

four-and-a-half waltzes of caleb widogast > A series of vignettes in which Caleb shares four dances with four of the most important people in his life, and learns to embrace the magic of possibility. (Spoilers for all of Campaign 2, minus the finale.)

the divine transmutation of the self > In which magic changes Veth, and Veth changes her mind about magic. (Spoilers through C2E97)

drawn together > Making stuff for (and with) the people you care about is a love language. In which Beau decides to learn how to draw, and also learns a few other things along the way. (Takes place sometime post-C2E111)

a taste of summer > In which Caleb’s hidden talent for baking and Jester’s love of sweets collide in the best possible way. (Takes place sometime post-C2E111)

sunrise over eiselcross > A little scene between Fjord and Jester from the morning after their big conversation in C2E118.

you're still there > Beau has a nightmare about a path not taken. Yasha’s there to help her through it. Cuddles ensue. (Takes place sometime post-C2E111)

disguise selves > An AU where Caleb and Jester are (human) roommates, preparing for a Halloween costume party over Zoom. Jester being Jester, she insists on a photo shoot in costume. Everything goes better than expected. (no spoilers)

the nature of possibility > Two things possessed me to write this: the concept of including some actual thermodynamics in a fic about dunamancy, and the idea of hand contact during a spellcraft lesson. What ensued was nearly a thousand words of Shadowgast. (Takes place sometime post-C2E77)

an unnatural tide > Caleb doesn't normally forget things. But Rumblecusp isn't a normal island. What did he forget that last morning? Here's my best guess. (Spoilers for C2E105)

#writing #critical role #mighty nein #widojest #(mostly)#if you're new to my fic: here's a taster menu #like it's the last time is bittersweet but hopeful #a soft place to land is post-canon fix-it fluff #a dream within a dream is a character-driven magical adventure into caleb's memories and trauma #und andere Zemnische Volksmärchen diverges from canon right after Katzenprinz and turns into straight fluff #and a taste of summer is my take on a widojest baking fic. it is as sweet as a strawberry cake should be #that's just the widojest fics-- i also have a bit of shadowgast and beauyasha in there. check them out!

8 notes · View notes