#cr thoughts

[your-turn-to-role]

this is only one episode before bard's lament, too, which is my favourite episode for grog/percy stuff

because yeah, when they have this conversation, they don't know it's a matter of hours before their group explodes and everyone struggles to pick up the pieces in the aftermath

but the way percy and grog both respond to scanlan's outburst and decision to leave is exactly because of what you've written here!

percy does not cope well with losing people, and the more people he loses the worse it gets. he tries to hide it but it shines through at the seams, he has major abandonment issues because he can't lose another family like he lost his first one. and that's the reason he gets so angry at scanlan, and holds that grudge a full year until scanlan gets back (is still holding it for a while after that), because not only is he losing scanlan, but it's scanlan's choice. that kind of hurt and betrayal he can't forgive

i love his distant "i keep thinking i could just... shout, right now, and half a dozen guards would stop them" (and grog's following "yeah. it'd be half a dozen dead guards though." "what's half a dozen dead guards these days?"), because it's percy realising simultaneously that he has so much more power this time around than the last time he lost his family in this very castle, and yet at the same time, so much less. because the de rolos didn't choose to leave. scanlan did. percy could forcefully keep his family together this time, but at what cost? and is it even really still a family when it's your wishes against theirs? will you destroy your family for the sake of keeping it close?

and then you've got grog, who is the only member of vm capable of acting like a mature and rational person when scanlan leaves. he's sad, yeah, of course he is, scanlan's one of his best friends. but grog knows that sometimes you need space, and he trusts scanlan will come back when he's ready. he cares just as much as percy does, but he doesn't need to cling to their family in the same way because he has no regrets to haunt him.

grog is often silly but bard's lament (and the following episodes) shows us it's on purpose. when vm wants to scry on scanlan, and grog says no, vax tries to distract him by playing games, but grog stands his ground and ignores vax. he reminds them scanlan asked for privacy, and the least they can do is respect that. it's only once he has everyone's agreement that he turns back to vax and goes "okay now i'll play" with his usual grog lightheartedness. grog may have an intelligence of 6 but he's not ignorant, he understands what's going on when it comes to his family and the people he cares about. it's a choice to leave the bad behind and focus on keeping his family happy, because that's the kind of person he wants to be

(and i think you're absolutely right that percy sees that in grog, i've joked about percy being the grog whisperer but that understanding is another thing that comes through in the small moments if you have an eye out for it)

all of it culminating in my other favourite part of that conversation - "grog? i know we don't always agree and i know that i can be unkind, but... you know you're family, right?" "i don't know much. but i do know that." "it's... nice, having an older brother again."

i’m thinking about percy’s “i just miss an awful lot of people” speech again, and im thinking about all the wonderful commentary people have made about the things he said about his own grief and loss and death as he monologues. 

but more than that, i’m thinking about the last thing he says, to pike and grog. pike says “I understand” and he says “I know”, then grog tries so chime with “I just got it too.” and percy goes “I know you don’t, Grog. I’m so grateful that you don’t.”

and at face value, there’s definitely an element of ‘this is vulnerable for me, and i take mild comfort in knowing that not everyone is really privy to how much of my soul ive bared.’ but it also says so much about the sadness percy sees in his friends.

with pike, even though she has no horrible loss in her backstory, she feels sadness right into her core. her heart is so big and all-encompassing that she takes in sadness from everyone, friends or not. she feels sadness so strong that she oftentimes has to walk away from the party just to clean some of it up for others.

grog, on the other hand, knows deep loss, like percy does.

vox machina walked him to the doorstep of his demons in westruun, just like they did for percy the first time they came to whitestone. and they stood by and fought for grog, barely escaping with their lives, just as they did for percy. and they gave grog what little semblance of vengeance they could for the murder of his father and hatred he suffered from kevdak’s hand, just as they could for percy and the briarwoods.

the key difference, is that percy walks the halls of this building and turns every corner still expecting to see one of his brothers, but is met with vax or scanlan instead. percy lives among ghosts, no matter how hard his friends pull him down to earth. 

but grog picked up the titanstone knuckles and the blood axe, the exact same weapons that were used to throw him out of his own herd with disgust, and he did not pick up any of the ghosts that clung to the sides. he tore them from kevdak’s arms and cleaned the blood off and let those memories burn with his uncle’s body. he carries them with pride and with joy, and thinks only of the family who helped him retrieve them, it seems, rather than the family he lost to them.

and i think percy, who cares about him and finds his happiness contagious (though he may loathe to admit it), its very bittersweetly happy to know that even though to him, loss is a smothering coat, grog doesn’t really wear clothes.

[curapicas]

Let's not kid ourselves, this is the real reason Percy was written off of the Thordak fight

[your-turn-to-role]

so in the original campaign percy was only dead for a day and vm killed ripley pretty quickly, meaning the old fans are just as in the dark about what's gonna happen next with them as the new fans!

but as a balm to everything that happened this week i wanna post the original scene immediately following percy's resurrection, because it's a cute character moment on multiple people's part

[arabella-strange]

the thing is, the campaign set us up to ask these enormous, important questions about what's right, what the appropriate limits of power are, who gets crushed under sweeping decisions where no checks are made or even possible -- and so it's hard not to be a little frustrated that the final option the BH chose was 1) Imogen and Co. rocking up to Vasselheim with a God-eater inside her, effectively squaring off to the tune of 'you will deal with us because you have to'... and yet 2) no real underlying conviction or plan or skills or networks to draw on, just the vibe of 'y'all gotta do better, I dunno how, and what "better" means is also pretty fuzzy, but anyway it's your problem now so figure it out'

like yes obviously everyone has to figure it out. that's... the problem we started with. can you contribute any new insights into the conversation? or did you just want to break something?

[tadfools]

It would be so fun if campaign four was the cast playing as the reincarnation of the gods….

Vax taking care of the matron just like Purvan did??? Ohohoh

[starii-cookie-dreamzzz]

THERES. CARDS?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?! I need them and I need them now.

I could be wrong, but I really like how they added a cookie on the pack thats unique to each game!!

Strawberry Crepe Cookie is only in Kingdoms

Lemon Zest Cookie is only is Tower of Adventure

Blue Slushy is only in Ovenbreak

Witchberry for Witches Castle

And then I *think* Herb Cookie is in all of them? I only really play crk and ob tho so I could be wrong!! I think I remember him in wc when I played tho!!

Either way AUGHHHH I WANT THESEEEEEE I WANT THESE CARDS. Literally YESTERDAY I was looking at pokemon cards and thinking "man I would really love it if there was cookie run cards" AND THEN I PLAY TODAY AND !!!!!!

Also side note im so excited for the new cookie reveal, the video was way fun so im so so curious!!! OKAYOKAY EDIT!!! I thought the silhouette kinda looked like stardust and the blues and stuff but I wasn't sure, STARDUST WOULD BE SO COOL IN OVENBREAK!! But they did *just* release a legendary cookie with DreamWeaver, so could it really be stardust??

[thekyanitedragon]

Okay but listen

THIS song

But from Imogen's perspective after becoming some form of vessel for Predathos

[shifting-diary]

Wow I didn’t realise how motivating having a shifting blog is I should post here more often

[guardiansvalor]

i think in a rewritten iteration of the beast yeast story, clotted cream and financier should accompany pure vanilla on the expedition. he has NO reason to send Literal Children other than plot and them being the protagonists.

i'm also still salty about clotted and financier being teased on the 3rd anniversary website then only having the vaguest mention of the créme republic </3 they were right there!!

it'd also be a funny experience for both characters. they doubted the possibility of a teleporter in the vanilla kingdom due to it exceeding the créme republican technology. now picture them meeting REAL LIFE faeries. fantasy creatures aren't a foreign concept to them but i NEED you to picture this.

would be more sense-making and a fun duo to tag along i just think. also feeds the fans

[pstelwitchcraft]

Rewatching the last 4-Sided Dive episode and Liam's description of what a Bells Hells tower would be like (in Caleb's voice!) just hits me very hard. The thought that they would just live in a treehouse with a bunch of tunnels that connected their rooms like an anthill will not leave my head.

Because that really hits their dynamic on the head imo and it made me think. For the Nein, at the very beginning, they were very distrustful, very cutting and even harsh with each other on occasion, they saw each other as allies and not friends. Most of them didn't even want friends aside from their immediate pairings, and that made for some delicious drama, some brutally honest conversations, and the whole evolution of their dynamics as the campaign went on was very satisfying and fun to watch. They were allies first and eventually became friends by proxy of working together and sharing time.

With Bell's Hells it feels like they were allies for .5 seconds before becoming friends. They tiptoe around each other SO MUCH because they care about each other's feelings more than they care about saving the damn world. Aside from some exceptions (both ashton/laudna showdowns come to mind), they very rarely will be brutally honest with each other or even risk crossing a line, and that, in the situation they're in, is absolutely dangerous.

It so perfectly feeds into each of their self-destructive tendencies that I'm actually surprised they are all still alive. For example, they consistently would rather coddle FCG and let them believe whatever they want even if it puts them in danger because the alternative is possibly crushing their spirit when they already struggle heavily with understanding their place in the world.

The point is they care a lot from the very beginning, and I feel like the real challenge for Bell's Hells is going to be the complete opposite of what it was for Mighty Nein, the friendship comes easier to them than it came to the Nein, but the allyship and sincerity came easier for MN than BH, and if they want to survive this, we are going to have to see them become allies too, instead of just friends, and that means learning to call each other out on their bullshit. Hopefully Beau is still alive to give them a crash course 😅

[halflingkima]

it's so fun as a die hard vox machina fan not watching tlovm and getting read everyone's analyses you're all so funny and correct and insightful and eloquent.

like yes that IS a character-defining moment and leaving it out changes the whole purpose of that subplot. yeah separating the group for big moments does impact the team dynamics and found family of it all. yes fabricating that death is pointless and erases later important subplots.

it's so nice to be adjacent to the only part of this site with reading comprehension and critical thinking <3

[curapicas]

I'm aware this is part of the trend of snarky, snappy dialogue we see for banter on the american television. But I like that it's also Cassandra's little sister instinct shining through - every time we see her in season 3 she's being a leader, a lady, someone who deserves to be at the discussion table; and that's all well and good. Except whenever she's one on one with Percy she's smart mouthing him, being snarky and lovingly annoying him, lol. I think that goes to show how she leans on her big brother, and does so in a way that brings out a more comfortable and youthful side of her. As much as the De Rolos are not huggers, he was clearly all the family she had left :(((

[your-turn-to-role]

other things about campaign vox machina i have now decided it's vital for tlovm only fans to know about - so they were all in the slayer's take for a while, there was a whole mini arc about it

and the way slayer's take bounties work are often "so and so magic user needs this magical creature's body parts as spell components, so go find one and kill it, and then bring back everything on their list - money will be taken off the final reward for any parts you failed to recover or damaged in the process"

which is where vox machina learned just how expensive everything on a dragon from its eyes to its teeth to its skin is

and they've got a vex in the party

so yeah they killed the chroma conclave for the good of exandria, and in the case of thordak and raishan, personal revenge

but then with every dragon they killed they stole as much hide and scales and claws and teeth as they could physically fit in their bags of holding/colding (and i do mean that literally, there was a lot of math done over what in there is worth less than dragon skin so they could swap it with yet more dead vorugal)

but they didn't sell all of it

we may get this at the start of s4 we may not, because this time skip is when they had them made

but i feel like it's important to note after this point in the story vex's primary clothing colour was white, rather than blue, because she had a full set of leather and scale armor made from the cured remains of vorugal

and percy grabbed a dragon scale from each dragon for every one of his friends, and commisioned a jeweler they had helped earlier on their travels to make all of vox machina jewellery pieces of their choice (not all were mentioned but keyleth has a clasp holding her mantle/cloak together, vex has a hairpiece, it was suggested grog affixes his to his gauntlet), that were the five colours of dragon scale fanned out and inlaid with gemstones, in recognition of what they'd achieved

(and because percy is percy, as a way to recognise each other if it ever came to that, because each one was in some way unique to the person carrying it)

and while i don't know if the show will do a full costume change for vex (they did for keyleth, so we'll see, but the dragon scale pieces are probably too intricate for animation), i'd love to see more fanart that includes these bc they're really cool

[plasticrabbits]

Emily being on CR helped me realize what C3 was missing for me. She is hilarious, but also great at following the hooks and "doing the thing" she should be doing. I think that D20 in general has a little more of a silly vibe undertone. Emily is bringing the silly undertones back to CR and I'm living for it.

C3 feels SO serious. I get it, the world is imploding and everyone's backstory is super srs no fun sad TM. But my god we need some laughs. The party being silly as hell is what I like the most. The Zelda one off solidified it. Emily is a ray of sunshine and a breath of fresh air and I hope she plays with them for a long time and returns to play a ton more side characters cuz omg. After Robbie left in early C3 the silly group dynamic fizzled. Sam does his best but FCG just doesn't hit the same as Scanlan or Veth for me. I need lulz to stay engaged. Emily is delivering those lulz en masse.

[thescrabblesmcjellyfish]

Rewatching random episodes of campaign 2 and Caleb is about to talk to Halas again after being in Eiselcross and I remember from the wrap up that if he had gotten back to his body he would've been a baddie for the next campaign or a problem for C3. I wonder if he would've been trying to free the red moon instead. Since he was in a similar prison for such a long time.

Also Sam did an AD in previous C2 episodes for his Tea N Tea "hombrew" campaign where he talked about Red Roibos tea breaking free and attacking and that's just funny if that throw away line is what brought forth Campaign 3.

[charrbones]

im still so glad we finally switched over to the second group in cr because, confession: i don't like chetney or fcg all that much. like, they're fine? in smaller doses i find them okay, but the more either is spotlighted the more... desperately bored i get. the joke characters wear real thin real fast for me tbh.

it doesn't help that we jumped right from major plot climax to it either.