#this isnt to say that laudna doesnt care about people!!! she very much does but theres a layer of acceptance that is fascinating

[sparring-spirals]

So I'd already been thinking about Laudna and Ashton, and about two characters with, presumably, near-death (or just, straight up death) encounters, and coming out with a "Nothing matters! :D" attitude. (Or at least, some very strong attempts at one).

And then in the last episode, we saw Laudna mending a trashed table to leave the place a little cleaner, a little nicer, and Ashton breaking it and then denting the floor because a shitty landlord was only thinking about a dead mans rent. And I kind of went, Oh?, and then I went "Oh, yes."

Because- you look death, your own mortality, in the eye, and you'll come out different. With a knowledge that your life is short and brief and maybe violent, and its end is inevitable so you might as well have a good time!

Except Laudna was killed as an unfortunate side effect of someone else's vendetta. A tragic, and personal death, but only to her, and then she woke up in a pile of bodies, death and lives and people all gone with a horrible sort of thoughtlessness.

And Ashton- we don't know entirely, but we can presume- a horrific incident, an irreparable moment and irreversible injury. (Friendship implies a level of trust I find unhealthy). Something personal, maybe. Something deeply and horrifically targeted and painful.

And so it makes sense.

It makes sense that Laudna regards lives and people with a level of terrible amusement, asks about death and tragedy and loss with a macabre glee. And yet, will comfort individuals, ask after them. Found some measure of joy, and peace, into cleaning up messes, making inhospitable, cursed places into prettier, nicer ones. Lives, and people, and death, are all fickle, and maybe a little pointless. But there's still some form of kindness and beauty and fun to be shared, isn't there? So you mend a table and clean up the place before it inevitably turns to rot.

It makes sense, that Ashton looked at their own near-death and their brain poking out of their skull and promptly decided that he was never going to trust again, and also, that, fuck it, things don't really matter at all, not once you're dead, right? It's about- not kindness, maybe, but about a person having a really shit day and not making that any worse. It's about someone feeling helpless or worthless and flipping off the asshole who is going to take advantage of that. It's about the people, about getting people sandwiches and not taking copper and fucking over an asshole landlord who doesn't care about a tenant beyond the rent they can't pay.

All this is to say: I would love for them to talk more, and presumably, to clash more. Until they realize their philosophies aren't really at odds at all, and become an absolutely unstoppable duo of individuals who have faced their death and plan on bringing everyone else on a ride as a result.

#this isnt to say that laudna doesnt care about people!!! she very much does but theres a layer of acceptance that is fascinating #critical role #cr spoilers #c3e8 #ashton #laudna #character meta #like it makes SENSE with what we know about both of them and it feels like two sides of the same coin #and i love it when character consistencies Make Sense #not sure how well i articulated the laudna mindset here but its NEAT and lovely #my meta #ashton meta #laudna meta #can i make their tag #dying buddies #(but in the communitychannel tone) (i have no idea if anyone will undersrand that reference) #speculation #spar speaks #god this got longer than it should have it was supposed to be a smol meta