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[ID: fanart of Nia from Critical Role Divergence. she's standing with a unicorn, burying her face in the unicorn's mane, both of them peaceful with their eyes closed. END ID]

"I hope they believe in us still"

lovely moment from an episode full of lovely moments. thinking of making a decorated frame for this but i also like it plain, it feels more focused

(psst, i also have comms open,,, hehe)

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Of all the people to found the Cobalt Soul, it always had to be someone like Crokas. If you give the Orb of Avalir to someone seeking intelligence, seeking power, seeking mystery, or fame, you end up with the Cerberus Assembly at best. To be perfectly honest, I think in just about any other context it becomes a source of division rather than any kind of lasting foundation. It works because Crokas is the last person who would ever pursue it, but he's also the kind of person who is going to use it once he has it. He's not going to squirrel it away for someday because that's just not how he thinks and he doesn't see having it as something to brag about because he needs the time to understand what he has.

This whole order is built by a man who understood how to move through the world with strength alone but needed to learn how to learn, needed to discover what it meant to understand. For him, the ability to fight is innate, the ability to comprehend is earned. I would argue that for the large majority of people, this would be the other way around. In realms where knowledge is so sought after, most are taught to read and write, to think and to question before they are taught to fight because the priority of their pursuits is better served by the softer skills.

Crokas isn't like that. And so the place he builds is one where he is at home and where he is understood.

The Cobalt Soul, as we know it best, looks a little different now. It's had time to spread across nations and continents. It's grown to look a little more like you would expect at first glance. It's been built into a behemoth that obscures it's roots in a dragonborn monk with a complicated past, but there's still room for people like Crokas. Like Beauregard.

She comes to the Cobalt Soul with a complicated family background, no home to call her own, and more fire than patience. She knows how to fight, but not how to listen or understand. She needs to be taught the value of information and the possibilities that come from the vast wealth of knowledge at her fingertips. And it doesn't happen immediately because, again, behemoth, but she finds a place in this organization for a person who needs to learn how to learn. In spite of the fact that she doesn't fit naturally into an organization that prioritizes knowledge, she is afforded the time and opportunity to figure it out on her own terms. She is given a chance to find the balance.

They came to the Cobalt Soul a little bit broken, a little bit out of their element. They knew strength, they learned to listen. They became something great because they were given the space to be who they had always been, just with a little bit more. Crokas built a place for the people like him, and centuries later, Beauregard Lionett found it.

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[ID: Picture of Welly Hamdam, Boggy Rogers and Zudrick of the Murder from NaddPod's Skaldova Campaign. Welly holds a gauntlet with a sun rune, Boggy points an arrow and Zudrick is surrounded by crows. ]

Caldwell’s Skaldova art from his socials!

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the absolute dead silence for several seconds after emily said ossuary. i love her

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relistening to crown of dreams just to feel something. and let me tell you, i am feeling something

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So much amazing stuff in the cooldown. The amount of work Brennan did to tie the story together and build up to the Garen/Allhammer reveal is incredible, but the multiple layers of the poem especially. As explained by Brennan: the gate is the just the final component of the spell. The real spell is the life Garen's led, which the poem encapsulates: The door we make when lock we break breaking the lock on the portcullis at Rybad-Kol Will bridge the waters road to take the bridge out of Torm's Hill

The stones that stand to staunch the flood Garen building the wall to stop the flood Freedom found by toil and blood everyone fighting the soldiers in Torm's Hill

By stone betrayed the seal is made the stone that crushed Garen's hand, which he put the seal on The hands that hold, the heart that prayed pulling on concepts from Celtic lore, the idea that if the Allhammer is working on the world, hammering with his right hand, then Garen's missing left arm represents a piece of the Allhammer's left in the divine world, holding the world still in tongs. The stairs that shape the stairs to Lianna's vault The gate is shaped, the keystone laid Garen's dreams about his family are also explained - his family is literally all dwarves. "Father I'm scared" etc were the prayers of dwarves during the calamity.

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There was so much about the Divergence finale that Got Me, and I’ll probably end up blabbering about them all at some point, but the moment that really Hit first was when Erro gave his life protecting Garen, and that only got reinforced after the Cooldown because it confirmed how it was a perfect climax of not just one but TWO separate, completely coherent stories in one go. Even without the grand twist at the heart of it all, Erro would still be the cynical man who had spent the majority of his life keeping his head down for the sake of survival, operating pragmatically because sticking your neck out too far gets you killed, sacrificing his life to protect the man he argued with initially about what risks were worth taking when it came to altruism vs survival, saving Garen who had helped save him first from darkness both literal and metaphorical. But then of course, the twist does exist, and not only do we get the above story, but we also get a story about a brother that chased after his sibling to save him, even knowing he would lose himself in the process and would not remember, and still managed to protect him in the end like he’d resolved to do (It could have been any of the party that tried to save Garen, or that fire bolt might not have been deadly, or any number of other things might have happened). Neither Bahamut nor Moradin knew who each other were, and yet fate and faith brought them together anyway to accomplish the tasks they’d ultimately set out to do. Neither of these stories impede on each other (neither character knew about their other half, and only Liam was in on it above the table), they complement each other because they are distinct. The hardships and lessons learned and relationships built in their mortal forms aren’t tarnished by a greater knowledge or advantage, and the genuine leaps of faith and humbling of their divine selves ring true because they didn’t know and never knew until their mortal lives ended. Just… damn y’all.

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the world that you created... showing garen who is the allhammer who is matt the world that he created that he now must leave in new hands... on the 10th anniversary of critical role... i'm a puddle on the floor

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inventory notes:

-1 key

+1 timothy

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STOP FIDGETING.

FIEDRA MARROW THE WOMAN THAT YOU ARE!!!

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BRENNAN. HOW DARE YOU DO THE FIREWORKS SCARE AGAIN. HE CAN'T KEEP GETTING AWAY WITH THIS!!

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okay fine i got a beacon free trial to watch divergence ep 4 and also the cooldown. fiedra is one-on-one with this lord and i'm going to throw up from stress

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"my daughter is alive and my other daughter is ALSO alive and she can't die--oh my god, my daughter can't die, can YOU die???"

"yes"

"OH NO"

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the fact that rei'nia was a nurse, a preserver of bodies, before she was a healer granted divine power and even now she heals with that same energy. she crouches by the bedside and speaks to the patient and gives them her time and her hope and her love

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High Priestess of the Moonweaver: *puts her hands together in prayer for answers*

Rei'nia literally a second later: Hi, I have information for you

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you see that kid, crokus? that poor boy with the wound in his hand? we need to make him A Fucking Orphan, Crokus

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man i really wanted to watch live until the break at least but i'm SOOO tired so i might only get like an hour in rip