#C1 spoilers

[etoilesdeglace]

"That is an amazing D&D choice." (x)

[captain-xandis]

I come from a time a thousand years ago, when gods walked among mortals. And the world was ruled by magic. Like you, I protected my home as First Knight, a member of the Brass Ring, a group similar to yours. And also like you, I assumed the best of them. I was blind as my friends condemned our civilization with their curiosity. Their hubris.

You mean the Calamity?

The gods set to war upon Exandria, and in the chaos, I found myself face to face ith the Lord of Torment himself. But instead of destroying me, he gave me a choice. Die with the rest or join him, and spare my family. I thought if I had enough time, I could reach him, save him, tame his turbulant heart. For my folly, I watched my husband and son fade with the rigors of time, losing even the memory of me. As if I never existed at all.

season 3, episode 4 of THE LEGEND OF VOX MACHINA

[twinklestarss]

“Hello, my love, my home.”-Vax'ildan

Dalen's Closet

[leafybard]

Percahlia Week 2024 Day 4: Scars/Tomb

blame the wiki for describing dear percival as having been “gutted by raishan”

[liltaireissocute]

[PERC'ILDAN]

DAY 1: ANGST

Vax is dead. But why do ravens appear so often?

[aspiringsophrosyne]

Let's talk about Stream Ripley and TLOVM Ripley.

(Spoilers for Critical Role Campaign 1 and The Legend of Vox Machina Season 3 under the cut.)

What’s The Difference?

Stream Ripley has no extensive backstory or Freudian excuse. Instead, the woman’s actions and words paint the picture of a classic mad scientist. Her home empire did not support her ambitions, so she got pissy and aligned with fugitives from said empire to further her goals.

She’s an admitted supremacist; during her fight with Vox Machina, she tells Percy that they (humans) stand above the other races on their ingenuity. Percy does not grant this the dignity of a response.

As I mentioned here, TLOVM left out a detail from Ripley’s story: how she designed a black powder weapon when Percy invented them. In the show, it’s unclear, but in the stream, it’s explicit she copied his work.

Ripley and Percy

Since she couldn’t have devised it herself, stealing Percy’s idea ties him to her destruction. She unleashes the black powder weapons wherever possible, not just for her petty revenge and aspirations but because Orthax tells her it will drive Percy mad. And she's all about that.

In contrast, Percy doesn’t spread his invention beyond Whitestone but keeps a squad of riflemen to defend it. He understands having and using black powder weapons will lead to their propagation, but this never stops him. Percy knows the potential harm his creation could cause but stops right before he would take the steps to truly prevent it.

Stream Ripley is far more depraved than Percy, yet still reminiscent of him. That's what makes her effective. Two young people who became consumed with indiscriminate, destructive revenge after the death of their families? Sharing similarities? Not shocking. But Percy sharing similarities and a connection through their designs with a woman whose immense ego, pettiness, murderousness, carelessness, spite, callousness, and supremacism fuel her proliferation of such a dangerous stolen idea?

That is far juicier.

Ripley raises the question of how far Percy might fall. Is it possible for him to turn into her? Or something even worse? She stole his invention; he has far more destructive potential than she does.

How responsible is he for his ideas falling into her hand? How irresponsible was he for creating and using it? Someone was going to replicate his gun at some point, and he knew it.

According to Taliesin, for Percy, it was inevitable. The question was never if but when.

Consistency

This is the narrative advantage of making an antagonistic foil simple and wicked. But there’s a practical advantage as well. If Ripley’s just fantasy Elon Musk, she doesn’t need extra exposition. She’s characterized; we’re done. There are no questions about her backstory or her motivations that need answering.

But TLOVM’s flashback to her past raises questions.

For stream watchers, did Delilah help raze Ripley’s home with the other Assembly members? If so, did Ripley know? Did Ripley know and not care? Was Ripley even aware Delilah was ex-Assembly? Was Delilah even a member of the Assembly in TLOVM’s canon?

For show-only watchers, how exactly did a woman who supposedly wants to make it easier for the common folk to fight back against wizards wind up torturing children in the employ of a wizard? While there are potential reasons and explanations, none are provided.

That flashback introduced wrinkles to the story with those unanswered questions. Keeping this villain simple would have kept her more consistent.

It's possible to make a complex, complicated villain with contradictory motivations...but Ripley didn't have the right set-up for that, and S3 didn't have the time to put all of her new, disparate pieces together into a cohesive whole.

And in her case, why would you want to? It robs her of her efficacy and wastes time the show doesn't have.

And yeah, keeping this villain simple wouldn't have just tightened up the plot and her character, it would've saved precious time.

Time

Because putting the wrinkles aside, what do we get from this flashback? What do we get from dragging Ripley's defeat out? Admittedly, the fight on the boat was well-made, and we get a sneak peek of the Cerberus Assembly, but neither was worth giving up the group kill Ripley earned in the stream. Nor was it worth the time that could’ve been saved ending her life an episode earlier.

Keeping Ripley simple does not just make her a better villain who serves Percy’s characterization by being his dark reflection. It doesn’t just make it easier to keep her story consistent. It saves time. And for an adaptation of Vox Machina’s story, time is paramount. There are seven protagonists and a ton of plot to get through; TLOVM can't afford to waste a second.

[theroamingtrashcan]

god dammit Vax and your stupid tragic ending. I just want them all to be happy and it kills me that I know where his story is going.

[transfemmes4murph]

Petition for Aabria Iyengar to get some fucking

Chill

Listening to Worlds Beyond Number - Suvi ruining me as this child thrust out of innocence by war and violence, reunited with childhood friends and they can't seem to grasp how she has changed. The young girl who spent hours chasing a magical chicken, kneels down in the dark and the storm to slit a woman's throat.

Watching The Ravening War as Karna, my beloved chili pepper, gets caught up on war as the inheritor of a spymaster's legacy. She is still a child, who in her own words is used to being treated as dispensable. Why was she not allowed to live as a child? Will she be made a hero and a martyr, or a symbol of resistance - will they forget that she was just a kid.

I can't help but think of Murphy from Naddpod (C1e97).

"The world should have protected you, but you have been asked to protect it. What an honour. What an injustice. "

[kalolasart]

Perc'ahlia week Day 1 prompt Courage

@percahliaweek

[suaimhneas-gairid]

Critical Role, Campaign 1 Episode 85 - A Bard's Lament

Husbands 💞

[fjorests-of-wildemount]

I have so many things about this round of episodes that I loved. This show gets better and better, I swear.

But Percy . . . He is so fucked up about what happened and he doesn't even realize why yet . . . And this very young man, whose only example of a real relationship was probably his own parents, whose ideas of courtship are Courtly and Noble . . .

He gave Vex'ahlia his coat.

Next week he's going to give her a title.

And then she's going to give him her heart.

I love them.

[etoilesdeglace]

Percy and Vex'ahlia in The Legend of Vox Machina 3x03 "Vexations"

[captain-xandis]

Welcome to Marquet.

season 3, episode 1 of THE LEGEND OF VOX MACHINA

[twinklestarss]

Campaign 3 Episode 109: A Test of Fate

[simplysparrow14]

Oh my fucking god, the fact that these fucking gnomes are still just as awkward and just as deeply in love with each other as they were when they were younger is everything 💜💛

[blackmosscupcakes]

Allura just having flashbacks to that time Percy shot a kid's hand off in front of the palace and the time Vox Machina murdered an old lady in the middle of Emon and the time she walked in on Grog and Percy coming to blows over a cursed Githyanki skull and the time the Nein almost brought Halas back and honestly probably all the dumb shit her own group did back in the day (which I hope we find out about one day [novel plz???])