#Ship: Shadowidomauk

[devourm0us]

Witch

My part for the 'witch' prompt for the Shadowidomauk Bang :) (also can be seen on Bluesky HERE)

[stardusted-bookworm]

I think the wizards should kiss as a treat. I also think they should explore the full extent of Aeor and perhaps commit a couple lite war crimes as another treat.

Like a honeymoon.

And then they should bring the purple tiefling and all three of them should kiss and hold hands. As a treat for me.

[chi-arts]

Some Shadowidomauk for the soul!

This is actually my favorite ship to ever in all of critical role and somehow I only drew them now :’)  I totally blame Molly’s design for that lmao

also shoutout to altogether infinite, possibilities for continueing to feed us <3 go read it on ao3 it’s so, so good!

[keyleth-clay]

Critical Role Ship Moodboards: Mollymauk Tealeaf/Caleb Widogast/Essek Thelyss

[nephriteknight]

someone should write a caster!tav x lae'zel fic about lae'zel training tav to hold concentration despite... distractions ;) and title it "War Caster" and if none of yall do it that someone might have to be me.

[castiel-013]

shipping shadowidomauk because it means Caleb went from 1 polycule to 17 years of no romantic relationship to another polycule

[your-enby-antihero]

I’m on my shit again so bear with me.

Do you think that if Caleb had been given the power to go back in time and save Molly from the death that he had, would he? Would he hold his cheek and stroke the sweat stuck curls from his forehead like the first time Molly had broken Caleb out of his mind in that cave. Would he have told Molly that he would be okay and that they would take care of the rest as Molly fell into unconscious sleep. Would Caleb Widogast have shouted for Molly to take care of his health instead of using that Blood Curse? Would Caleb Widogast finally get to truly thank the person that sent him on a journey of healing and family?

Alternatively would Molly have held Essek’s hands as Caleb told him he was not truly evil deep down in the hull of that fateful ship. Would Essek have seen the bright colourful tiefling and seen the most in a second lease on life. Would Essek have gotten to walk alongside the saviour of his saviours.

Would Mollymauk Tealeaf have been loved so fiercely by people who owe so much of their growth to a silly carnival barker? What if given the time they had been allowed they went to love and be loved without fear of death stealing it away?

None of this makes sense but… I’m in my feelings about what could have been with shadowidomauk.

[quinn-of-aebradore]

CR Non-Endgame Ships Bracket Take 2

Hello my friends! Some of you may recall that just about 2 years ago now, I ran a series of polls for ships from Campaign 1, Campaign 2, and EXU Calamity that were not together at the end of their respective series. I excluded any Campaign 3 and modern era EXU ships, since at the time, those storylines were still open; Imodna weren't even together at that point. However, now that C3 has reached it's conclusion, I thought it was a good time to revisit the concept. I also didn't feature M/F pairings last time around and now is a good time to make that right too.

So! Let's get into the rules and paraments parameters:

The phrasing "non-endgame" was chosen as certain relationships present were together at some point in canon but are not longer (ex. Blumendrei) or there was an either mutual or one-sided attraction that did not result in a relationship (ex. Widojest). It doesn't feel right to me to simply call these ships "non-canon", though they are featured alongside plenty of purely fanon ships (ex. Verinwulf), so. Non-endgame. It's a little clunky, but it works.

I've reincorporated pairings from the first poll that lost in the very first round, potentially giving them an opportunity to shine further! Any ship from the first poll that made it further than that is not present this time around. These pairings are: Widofjord, Fjordwulf, Vaxmore, Fjolly, Jester x Reani, Polynein, Vexleth, Perc'ildan, Beaukeg, Vexahra, Beastrid, Beaureani, Polymachina, Beaujester, Lucigast, and Widomauk. Please do not ask me where they are.

Almost every ship will feature fanart of the characters in question, included of course with permission from the artist. Links to the original posts will be included and I highly encourage giving them some love if you vote! Any ship that doesn't have a piece of fanart has a little tableau designed in HeroForge by myself. Grogleth is the only exception, with a still from TLOVM.

This bracket is for fun. Ship hate will not be tolerated. You will be blocked if you act poorly in the tags.

Block “cr non endgame poll” if you don’t want to see this further!

Voting will begin this Friday, February 14th, at 3pm CST. All polls will run for 24 hours. The first round will take place over two days, split into Parts A and B.

Matchup links and breakdown below the cut.

Round 1 Part A:

Laudna x Dorian VS Widoyussa

Polyhells VS Blumenshadow

Scanvax VS Dashrym

Dariax x Deni$e VS Shadowmauk

Beauvasha VS Percylan

Ludinus x Liliana VS Laudna x Fearne

Yu x Laudna VS Orym x Dariax

Kashleth VS Imofearne

Chetanna VS Vaxlethmore

Verinwulf VS Grogleth

Liliana x Otohan VS Yashter

Percy x Tary VS PolyCrownKeepers

Fearnechet VS Imogen x Otohan

Jessek VS Veth x Devexian

Luciessek VS Jester x Calianna

Shadowmoore VS Fjeth

Round 1 Part B:

Fjarrow VS Dashrymwill

Fearne x Braius VS Pikeleth

Widobrave VS Doomstorm

Ashrym VS Percy x Pike

Shadowidomauk VS Laudmoore

Shadowfjord VS Fearne x Opal

Verleth VS Greystorm

Blumendrei VS Percleth

Bashter VS Rubygold

Grog'ildan VS Kashvax

Jestermauk VS Doriax

Essek x Ludinus VS Widoking

Widojest VS Zerxus x Azmodeus

Laerryn x Patia VS Lucien x Cree

Esswulf VS Mariking

Jestrid VS Goldenshadow

[critter-rarepair-reccs]

Welcome to Critter Rarepair Reccs!

Hey y'all! Welcome to Critter Rarepair Reccs, a recommendation list aimed at fics written for ships that are largely under-represented, appreciated, and loved in our fandom! Now, let's address the elephant in the room first; rarepair is a misnomer here, knowingly. Some of the ships eligible to be recc'ed on this list might not be ones you'd consider a rarepair! So, the more proper welcome would be-

Welcome to Critter Underloved Ship Reccs

For brevity's sake, the URL is staying, though.

Now, it goes without saying, but before we get into the details here, let's get one thing clear: this blog is dedicated to spreading love and appreciation to fanworks and their creators. Ship hate of any kind will not be tolerated and will result in a block.

With that said, let's talk about the criteria for an underloved ship and why we're defining it the way we are.

Definition & Explantion

There is one qualifier for a ship to be eligible for this list: less than 100 fics were written for it and posted to Ao3 during 2023.

We landed on this metric for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it casts a very wide net for pairings while still narrowing the field a fair bit. The gulf of works between flagship pairings, endgame pairings, and some of the larger side/non-canon pairings is significant. Secondly, we wanted to take a look at how the fandom is currently, which is why we pivoted away from using the Wildflower System ( @cr-summer-wildflowers ) of excluding any pairing with more than 500 fics total. There are a number of pairings that were extremely popular at one point in time, but these days get far less love and attention. Let's take Widofjord for example. They have almost a thousand fics total and were in the Top 10 relationship tags for Critical Role on Ao3 for a long time. But last year? Only 27 fics were written for them. They have, functionally, become a rarepair.

So, to be fair to ships that exist in that same, nebulous space, we're looking at totals from last year, not lifetime.

For illustration purposes, here are charts (compiled by the wonderful @spottedenchants ) showing how many fics were written for each PC/PC ship last year.

Ineligible Ships

Which ships, then, don't qualify under that definition? It's not a terribly long list. PC endgame relationships, primarily, a handful of non-canon pairings, and some prospective endgame ships. For simplicity's sake, we'll break them down by campaign.

Campaign 1: Perc'ahlia, Vaxleth, Pikelan, Perc'ildan

Campaign 2: Shadowgast, Beauyasha, Fjorester, Widomauk

Campaign 3: Imodna, Dorym, Ashrym

If one of these pairings is secondary or background to a fic, that's alright! But the fic shouldn't focus or center on them. It's also worth noting that polyamorous ships that include one of these pairs are also alright! Shadowidomauk, for example, only had 61 fics written for it last year, so they're in the clear! The same goes for Dashrym, as another example, as they've only ever had 36 fics written for them.

It is also worth noting all accepted submissions must be respectful of character’s canon sexualities; for example, we will not take fics that feature an M/F pairing of a lesbian character, even if said pairing fits the “rarepair” criteria.

The caveat to the above would be queerplatonic fic! There will be an option on the submission form to specify, to avoid confusion due to Ao3’s lack of a designated QPR relationship tag!

So when does the list open for submissions?

Very soon! February 7th, next Wednesday! The opening theme with be Fluff, and that list will be posted a week later, on Valentine’s Day, February 14th! I hope we’ll see you then! 🩷

[mareastrorum]

Hmm… because I’m curious and wish to encourage violence… 13 and 23.

13. worst blorboficiation

Man, this is a toss up between Molly and Essek.

Molly was not a good person. Molly was unaligned and dipped into callousness. I truly mean that, Molly was cruel at times. Molly’s first instinct was to resort to violence to snap Caleb out of a stupor, even though it was followed up by a forehead kiss that most of his fans romanticize. He wanted to abandon Kiri as quickly as possible. He didn’t want to help the Schuester kids in Hupperdook until Fjord piped up that it was personal to him. Like, I eventually came around to liking Molly because that is a very daring character choice by Taliesin. Molly was a problematic queer, not because his queerness had anything to do with his bad traits, but because he wasn’t a saint, and that took guts to portray queer characters in a negative light given this audience. Then Molly got martyred and all that complexity was ignored. Now he’s just a soft blorbo.

Essek also isn’t a soft cushy boy. He did not care who got killed or hurt as long as he could do the research he wanted to. He did not care for anyone but himself. Those were choices. He didn’t hesitate to hurt or kill people, he just got nervous when he realized he was in situations where opponents could strike back. He cowered when he realized he was vulnerable. It took time for him to choose to take risks like that, to trust people when he wasn’t trusted, and he grew because of it. But a lot of shadowgast fans insist that Essek fell in love with Caleb during the stream or even immediately upon meeting, which, like, no. I think Essek was clearly hoping for friendship from Caleb and the Nein by E141, but I don’t think that had developed into anything romantic or sexual by then. But most portrayals of Essek are nervous, demure, and shy without the cutting, dry sarcasm that I love.

23. ship you've unwillingly come around to

Widomauk and Shadowidomauk. I know that’s surprising given the above answers, but here goes:

Generally, I am not much of a shipper. I tend to crackship for the lolz, especially when the ship is guaranteed to crash and burn. I am a fan of conflict. Because of that, those two ships didn’t appeal to me because most fan writers and artists tend to depict them as very soft, domestic, tame, etc. That’s not a dig on other people who enjoy that, it just doesn’t appeal to me all that much.

Then I learned the evil AU versions exist, and it hit me: they don’t even have to be in an evil AU to butt heads. They absolutely would have some conflict built in because of how Caleb’s background collides against Molly’s worldview and Essek’s hangups. There is so much potential for explosive drama and pain. THEY COULD BE TERRIBLE FOR EACH OTHER.

And sure, you could have them kiss and make up after, but I want the conflict first.

Choose violence ask game.

[devourm0us]

A Moment of Reprieve

A commission for the lovely @languishedlaughing, and a redraw of this meme! This was a pleasure to work on, and I'm delighted to be able to contribute more to the SWM content that's out there :D

If you’re interested in getting similar art, shoot me a message or submit a commission request form HERE!

[atrashmammall]

I am forever and always insane about any and all Caleb widogast ship dynamics, like yeah shadowgast is great because narrative foils, because wizard obsessed with time falls in love with the time wizard™ but all the other dynamics are just so!!!

Widojest??? You mean Caleb “I am the transmutation wizard but you are the one who changes people, I see it every day” widogast????? You mean the absolute fear he held in telling her the whole story of what he had done only for her to immediately turn around and love him anyway??? “Caleb that must have been so hard I’m sorry you went through that” AND IM NOT SUPPOSED TO EAT GLASS????

Widomauk? Oh you mean the guy that is so filled with self loathing he believes he’s a terrible irredeemable monster falls in love with the living embodiment of self love and confidence?? You mean Caleb learning to appreciate the world for what wonder it could bring? Caleb learning to live each day as it comes with Molly??? Insane truly!!!

CALEB AND VETH??? WIDOBRAVE??? YOU EXPECT ME TO BE NORMAL ABOUT HOW MUCH LOVE CALEB HAS IN HIS HEART FOR HER??? HOW MUCH HE BENT REALITY TO HIS WILL FOR HER??? OUAGHHH INSANE TRULT ABSOLUTELY INSANE

There’s just- ouaghhh there’s so many dynamics and all of them absolutely truly amazing in their own way, I haven’t even touched on polynein in general, or blumendrei, or shadowidomauk or literally any of the other combinations you can have when you throw bisexual polyamorous Caleb widogast into a group of people he has so much love in his heart for I’m so rgrggrhhhhhh

[jaskwritesthings]

Oooooo shadowidomauk pirates, perhaps? 👀👀👀

Kingsley looked over the hold of ill-gotten gains with a pleased eye, "What precious treasures I get to plunder."

Caleb snorted on a charmed laugh he desperately tried to cover as Essek glared down the Plank King, "I don't appreciate the amount of platinum we waste on ever increasingly twitchy crews because you insist on taking our ships captive to play out these fantasies of yours, King, we have work to be getting on with, and we can visit you via teleport whenever we feel like it, this," he waved a sharp hand around the hold of their ship and the very confused and slightly terrified faces of their most recently purchased crew, "is unnecessary and annoying."

"You'd never take a break from your academic studies if I didn't mount a sea-faring intervention once in a while," King gleefully pointed out as he came close enough to plant a chaste greeting kiss on Essek's cheek, he noted that the drow lowered himself enough to receive it, so he wasn't too upset with the interruption. Caleb welcomed him with open arms and a warm kiss as Essek sighed and went to reassure yet another seasoned crew that, no, they weren't about to walk the plank it was, in fact, just the feared Plank King's favoured courting practice, so sorry for the inconvenience.

three sentence au

[utilitycaster]

I'm actually glad you said something about the tagging because I tag a/b/c, a/b, a/c, b/c but not for traction purposes but rather because from my perspective as someone who ships all 4 dynamics, it never occurred to me that it would be annoying. Cause when I see a/b/c in b/c tags I'm perfectly fine with it even when I don't want to read it at that moment because I like both ships but also cause I vew polyships as individual relationships that work together.

So to me it always made since that yeah Widomauk and Shadowgast should be tagged on the Shadowidomauk fic, particularly if Essek/Molly isn't part of the whole dynamic because those are the relationship dynamics within the larger relationship. So it was housekeeping on the poly end to let people know hey this is a poly relationship but these are who's dating within it.

I never really realized it might be annoying or misleading to tag that way if someone was scrolling through Beauyasha fics and there's a Beau/Yasha/Jester fic in the bunch but after seeing your post I realize it's the same thing that irritates me about larger ships that tag smaller ships who show up only for two seconds and clog up the smaller ship tag.

So, something new to keep in mind.

Thanks! Yeah I realize I went pretty hard and like, people who genuinely did not realize this are fine; it's the people who, as you say, either throw smaller ships into their favored larger ship to get people interested in the smaller ship to look, or people who tack on their fave onto a larger ship for the attention they'll get.

For what it's worth, I also think this is a limitation in Ao3. Like, in real life, I know one polycule that's a straight man and his bi wife, her lesbian partner, and his long-term girlfriend (idk if she's straight or bi). The first three people also all live together and have a child together, so it's like, a trio and three couples; not every possible grouping of these people is sexual, romantic, or even queerplatonic.

I think it would be great to cover a dynamic on Ao3 of like, "A/B/C with A/B and B/C but not A/C" more intuitively. Sub-ships for poly ships? idk someone bring this to the OTW. But in the meantime yeah I feel the best way to handle it if you're talking about a poly ship and then individual pairings or groupings within it is to tag the poly ship and then put pairings in the additional tags so people looking exclusively for A/B (or for that matter A/B/C but not A/B/C/D) don't see it but people looking for poly dynamics can pick it up at a glance.