#[brennan voice] CALAMITY

[chaosgenasi]

The Vestiges of Divergence. In the Great Calamity, these weapons of war were created to strike down the gods themselves. Believed too powerful for mere mortals to wield, the vestiges were scattered across the lands. Buried, lost, forgotten. Or perhaps... waiting to be found. The Deathwalker's Ward is one such vestige.

[captaingeorge13]

y’all i work in construction and i was on a ledge 35 feet up being lazy lifting something in a, lets say non-OSHA compliant manner, and i swear right before i started pulling i heard brennan lee mulligan’s voice on the wind saying “are you weakest, do you feel, at the elbow or the shoulder?”

i stopped and went through correct safety procedure so damn quickly. thats what i call divine intervention.

[artemis-pendragon]

I'd literally kill for the CR movie to be Calamity. Imagine how fucking hard that would slap. The drama. The chaos. Bolo from Aeor. We could really have it all.

[rabbit-exe]

I very much do want to see the betrayer gods again because they are some hilariously petty bitches who would definitely try and pull some absolute bullshit, but also I will Never be able to picture Lolth the Spider Queen or Asmodeus the Lord of the Hells, in mannerism, in voice, or in appearance, as ANYTHING other than Aabria Iyengar and Brennan Lee Mulligan. they did it too good and now it's Them Forever

[annemarieyeretzian]

zerxus admitting “for my folly,” I know that’s right!!!

[justalittlebluetiefling]

Every time Brennan gets so loud I have to turn the volume on my TV down, I remember Hank Green talking about how loud he is and I send positive thoughts to whoever's job it is to balance his audio in post.

[smackaroni-samsonsite]

Oh fuck they brought children to the tragedy again

[ive-given-up-the-bug-diet]

This 9-syllable, 7-word long utterance - because it can NOT, according to what little I remember about what dictates one, be called a phrase - has been rolling around in my head since I first heard it-

A FUCKING WEEK AGO? IT'S BEEN THAT LONG? Shit well yeah it's been in my head for a week, jesus

Since I heard it from Brennan Lee Mulligan's mouth. And I'm warning you now it is not profound, it is not emotional, it is not especially important to the story, it doesn't have any sort of profound message or life-changing lesson. But still it persists at the forefront of my mind.

And this may just be a result of it being the only thing I've thought about for A WEEK, apparently, but I think it might be one of, if not the best, line I've ever heard and it is

"A face as tall as a cathedral..."

THATS IT

And let me tell anyone who gives a shit why I think it is, at least, one of the best lines I've ever heard:

I get envious of other writers and creators a lot. I envy worldbuilding ideas, and character concepts, cool lines of dialogue. "Oh I wish I'd thought of that!"

But I envy nothing more than GREAT description, and this line is perfect to me.

1. It is Novel. When common/frequently-used idioms or similes enter a person's mind it's sort of in-one-ear and out the other, right? 'Clear as crystal' or 'as blue as the sky' can feel like stock. So if you want description to stick it has to be novel. And I've never heard this line, or even this simile before.

2. But also, perhaps more importantly, the line is also Simple. Sometimes, in the pursuit of novelty, writers (cough aka me cough) will go too hard on a description and it can become convoluted and have the same effect as stock phrases. It's too much text, it's too purple-y and so your mind scans the wall of text, takes the important bits, and says 'ok this is the point they were trying to get to'. Simple + Novel is great for description, esp. Description that sticks in your head.

3. But it is still Beautiful. Now this point is flawed, personal, and pretty vain but I'm keeping it because 'Cathedral' is a beautiful word. Even just phonologically it is (imo) more beautiful than the words 'mountain', 'house', or any other tall thing you could slot in there. But also a cathedral IS beautiful and it HAS beautiful connotations to religion, divinity, and worship (which makes this description even better when you know what it's referring to, but I'm trying to say it stands on its own merit as a good description).

4. But of course none of this would work without the fact that it is Descriptive. Maybe this should've been the first point but I came up with them in this order so what are you gonna do. Obviously good description should be descriptive, and these points all help in that, but there are details that are just down to pure good description. This specific point is relative but I rarely see mountains, and combine that with how they are sorta unfathomably tall, I struggle to really conceive of their size. I see cathedrals all the time (again, this is relative, I live in a Catholic area in a Christian country), I can always see their tops from the ground, their size is fathomable and it is terrifying to imagine a FACE at that height. Speaking of which, IT'S JUST THE FACE. There is something perfect and so much more comprehensible than a "body the size of a skyscraper" in the idea of just one PORTION of a body being described as a similar height.

Anyway EXU: Calamity is fucking great and I'm going to be holding it in my mind forever

[queerlyvictorian]

Okay, I don't follow Critical Role super closely. I scroll the wiki occasionaly when I get curious about a meme or hear a random detail that intrigues me. But the amount of EXU: Calamity and The Legend of Vox Machina videos I've watched on YouTube means that I frequently get the most recent episode recommended to me soon after it drops.

Anyways, uh, C3E51 just popped up on my homepage, uploaded six hours ago...

I am nor exaggerating by telling you that my fiction-based PTSD from living through the early days of the Calamity came back in full force when I saw the title:

The Apogee Solstice.

Somewhere, Brennan Lee Mulligan has whispered to himself, repeating the words of his good friend, Aabria Iyengar, @quiddie:

"It happened and it mattered."

[watcher0033]

Me, having avoided social media for the past few days as I’m consumed by work and binging EXANDRIA UNLIMITED FUCKING CALAMITY and emerging—

[beedreamscape]

Why I say that I'm taking a break from watching the campaign, bc I may seem normal, but I go back to exu calamity first episode semi-regularly just to watch the Herald's Tome broadcast and leave

[helpimstuckinafandom]

So long, Scrumptious Scoundrels!

[captainsparklefingers]

If we don't get an EXU: Calamity movie at some point down the road I am going to scream.

Purvan Suul was too sexy we need Brennan Lee Mulligan back to remind us all that he was once a loser like the rest of us

[justalittlebluetiefling]

Honestly, coming out of the EXU Calamity opening sequence into Brennan's immediate, "Fire." will make me giddy every time.

[trimmedbushproductions]

if Crit Role does put out an animated movie I'm hoping for a Calamity adaptation (which seems to be something I'm hearing from a lot of other fans)

and specifically I think it would be really cool if they had Brennan narrate the film, and then during the final "Why do we tell stories?" monologue, they revealed a framing device: Brennan was actually voicing a member of the Agrupnin family as they pass the story on to the next generation using the information Maya found in Patia's orb

[majorkphob]

Ok but also in the interview Luis was like "oh, I twice tried to tell Nydas, my oldest friend", and then Brennan was like ">:) yeah I know- I had to run interference quick"! Like, of COURSE Zerxus was such an easy target, the whole world shoved him alone in a tower with not a single soul for him to confide in.

is ANYONE else thinking about zerxus ilrez on this fine evening because I am. luis asked brennan to give his character an encounter w a betrayer god and he thought that it’d be something like… he’d see one walking in the shadowy distance… and instead we got the devil crawling into his lap. 

did you know in the final talkback when they talk about zerxus’ backstory luis mentions how zerxus has been fascinated by and reading about the betrayer gods for a very very long time. imagining zerxus in the late hours of the night in avalir’s grand library with tomes around him about the betrayer gods. no WONDER he knew exactly what he wanted to say when he met asmodeus because he had probably practiced that entire spiel over and over until he knew exactly what he wanted to say if (when) he ever met one. and the surety of it and asmodeus showing up exactly in the way he knew would best appeal to zerxus’ sense of moral superiority like a pitcher plant laying a trap for a fly. like ohhhh my god of course he’d want to redeem him. of COURSE he’d want to help.