#even on just beau and caleb

[wireless-telegraph]

Watch me consume TNEOL three times this year and still get upset every time because no one thought to try a remove curse spell in game

[c-kiddo]

one of my fave things about cr2 i think is that tmn as characters are impossible to separate from their setting, wildemount . like its intrinsically part of all of them. beau and caleb want to try their bests to cut out the corruption in the empire despite knowing its deep-rooted, because they grew up there. veths from the empire too but from a smaller farming community, she's less connected to the government or politics in that way but her being from that town that was destroyed in the war is what makes esseks actions so severely hurt her. yasha sleeps on the floor for comfort and eats odd things because she's been nomadic her entire life. she recognises the big weird lumbering beasts they see in the wastes and just shrugs them off. jester and fjord are always relieved to see the menagerie coast again. jester has drawn that ocean view from her bedroom window so many times, she recommends shops and foods from nicodranas, and fjord worships the sea he grew up besides and worked on. caduceus listens to beau and caleb because he's from the north, outside of the empire, and trusts they understand the complicated political aspects more than he does. in exchange he shares his tea and food from home with them all, and when he's having winter clothes made he brings fabric from home as an example - his family have specific fabrics and patterns they pass down. his tea is only grown in the grove, his staff is from there, grew there with him. and his armour! and lichen! he carries his home with him everywhere. theyre all so rooted in the continent and i love that

[pocketgalaxies]

beau and caleb butting heads so bad about what to do with essek...oof!

[essektheylyss]

I want to know where Athesias Uludan is. He is the only good-aligned member of the Assembly. He was boxed out of the Academy because the rest of the Assembly didn't trust him not to run his mouth. Is he dead. Is he in hiding in Nicodranas. Do the Nein know where two Cerberus Assembly archmages are but were well aware that one of them knows dogshit?

[incorrect-mighty-nein]

Jester: I JUST REALIZED WE DONT EVEN KNOW WHAT DINOSAURS SOUND LIKE! THEY COULDVE BEEN SPEAKING FLUENT ZEMNIAN FOR ALL WE KNOW!

Caleb: it’s too early for this shit

Beau: GUTEN MORGAN HERR PTERODACTYL!

Caleb: I regret everything

[stardustedknuckles]

I'm so fucking glad Beau's not softer, like. It's been 7 years and she's still restless and comfiest punching the shit out of things. Still impetuous, still half of the team with Caleb's more pragmatic tempering. Still looking out for each other. Still family. Still THEM.

[laurasbailey]

yes c2 has been over for a long time and the critical role fandom has always had a glaring misogyny problem so this post doesn’t say anything new but idc!

i want to talk about the very stale take (which apparently still exists because i just saw it???) that “early campaign beau is hard to sympathize with because boohoo she’s mean :( and we don’t learn anything about her for a long time so i am simply incapable of liking her until she’s more agreeable for my misogynist brain :(” and idk about you but nothing says “i’m only watching cr for the men” more than that statement because it’s the biggest lie lmfao

from the very beginning it was clear beau had been mistreated in the past and was using her bravado to deflect. that’s just... using literally the most basic form of human intuition lmao. by episode four we know that her father paid the cobalt soul to take her in against her will and as early as episode two she tries to deflect any questions about her family/home. at the end of ep 4 we have more clues about her trauma/past than any of the other characters! and we know her I’m So Tough act is just that because she gravitates towards quite literally the first little girl they come across who needs help. marisha even says on talks machina that beau is projecting with toya, and idk about you but when a young woman who’s been shipped off by her father tries to help a little girl with no family, i think it’s really easy to put two and two together.

no, trauma is never an excuse for your behaviour whether it’s mild or not, but to say you can’t sympathize with early campaign beau with all of those context clues is fucking wild. 

[dent-de-leon]

If Caleb gave Lucien a forehead kiss I think maybe he could have undoomed him from the narrative. Or perhaps broken through his control and reached Molly for a moment—

[sea-buns]

I was rewatching the marisharaygun highlight vid of the m9's flawless heist (y'know for old times sake) and the moment I saw Travis' face when the first gravity sinkhole gets cast, I had to pause to fully process the realization that THISSS WILL BE ANIMATED!

IN ALL ITS DISASTEROUS GLORY!!!

he's so real for this reaction and I'll be using it at every opportunity

[the-caleb-widogast]

modern day mighty nein college au but its the early aughts and jester has the most expensive sim plan ever because duh of course marion will get the best for her little girl and its also so that her little girl will be able to call and text her no matter how far apart they are and yeah jester does that but now unfortunately jester also blows up the rest of her friends phones and the nein have to learn how to carefully type their texts with as little vowels as possible because aint no way theyre spending more than twenty cents on a text to be able to fully respond to jesters insane messages and caleb yasha and cad dont even have phones but jester gets them phones just to be able to send them texts

[wizardnuke]

if fearne pickpockets a sending stone off of beau or caleb who would be the funniest for her to call. every option is killing me. yasha. essek. jester. astrid.

[wardensantoineandevka]

Seriously, I do think Bells Hells having an overnight in Nicodranas, doing absolutely nothing of note in a beautiful seaside town after all these stressful recent events would do them a lot of good.

Yes, really, any town would do, going back to Yios would do it, but I'm saying Nicodranas specifically since Caleb and Beau are here, so it seems actually possible to end up there.

A lot of it is self-indulgence, but I do really think the party would benefit from taking a break in a seaside city nicknamed the Escape, a place where Bells Hells doesn't appear to have any shadows lurking over them there. Just fooling around and maybe some conversation.

[shadowtraveled]

i know i’m constantly chewing drywall over shadowgast and it is because there’s so much to drive me insane there and i’m extremely fond of them and their batshit fire/mirror dynamic but if i even Think about essek’s induction to the mighty nein or his feelings toward and friendship with them i will lose my fucking mind

[irissteth]

What's the bet Vox Machina are gearing up to come wreck shit because "They hurt our Kiki!"

Oh there's no doubt that the minute Vex finds out (which might take a minute because of, you know, the applebee solstice) she's going to summon absolutely EVERYONE. Percy's probably working on a telephone but will happily bring out a new gun he's been working on. Pike will close the shop the MOMENT her connection to Serenrae is even slightly broken and will run as fast as her little legs will take her to the castle and that's half of VM right there.

We already know Scanlan is on Marquet, he'll get there first if Kiki is still on the continent (my headcanon is he's traveling with Grog but that's just me).

Hell, Kima will probably join them if not Allura as well. We still dont know if tree-stride is a thing or not but if it does happen to work still then Vilya will be able to get them around even if Allura cant, and if all else fails? Whitestone has an airship.

Their first mistake was hurting Kiki-- but when Kiki tells them that they orb'd Vax?

Quite possibly the only thing scarier then an angry Imogen is an angry Vex'ahlia. Ludinus doesn't stand a chance if the band gets back together.

[nellasbookplanet]

An interesting aspect of Laudna and Imogen's relationship and how it has developed is the fact that they got together early in their campaign, long before either of them had any chance to work through their respective issues. Vax confessed his feelings for Keyleth early on (relatively so; c1 had been going for a while before it started streaming), but she explicitly turned him down at the time, and they didn't actually get together until she felt she was ready, later in the campaign. Percy and Vex didn't get together until after Percy had worked through his figurative and literal inner demons. Jester and Fjord didn't get together until he had moved away from Uk'otoa and his self-worth issues, and she from her romanticized ideas of romance. Yasha and Beau didn't become a couple until both of them had moved away from their self-destructive tendencies and Yasha had let go of Zuala and Beau of Jester. Caleb and Essek didn't get together until the epilogue, when Caleb finally let go of the past and embraced the future.

When Laudna and Imogen got together, Laudna was at one of her lowest points (and has since started digging), having just invited Delilah back in, and Imogen was (is) still struggling against the temptation of Predathos. While Imogen has since gone great strides in growing, Laudna has regressed, using her feelings for Imogen as an excuse to further give in to Delilah to protect her. She's too bogged down by her own self-worth issues to uphold a healthy relationship, and keeps hurting Imogen by hurting herself, not realizing how or why this upsets Imogen.

And I can't help but wonder, would Percy and Vex's relationship have been as destructive had they gotten together before or during the Briarwoods arc? Jester and Fjord if they got together during the pirates arc? Yasha and Beau if they got together before or just after Obann, when they were both self-destructing massively? Caleb and Essek if they got together while they were still low-key manipulating and honeypotting each other for information?

But even without the romance, Laudna and Imogen likely wouldn't have escaped the situation they're now in. They started out already kind of co-dependent, and remind me of Vax & Vex and Caleb & Nott in that way. But whereas the twins and Caleb and Nott's arcs had them learn to question each other and embrace love for other people rather than isolate themselves, Imogen and Laudna has only gotten more entrenched in each other's issues, and more unwilling to push each other to grow.

[arabella-strange]

maybe if we EVER GET SOME PRIVATE ROOMS jfc is everybody gonna have to continue to play slumber party in tents with 8 separate beds and NO PRIVACY forever???

Spending my weekend manifesting Orym and Dorian kissing in the Chetney museum.