#laura bailey is a queen for this

[peachtreebones]

Jester & the Hag 🧁✨

did this for one of my illustration class :) the assignment was to create a narrative illustration of any story of our choosing, so of course I had to go with my all time favorite moment from campaign 2. also fun fact, this piece literally destroyed my old ipad and I had to finally get a new one.... there is still more work I wanna do on this ngl, and I especially want to play around with the background some before I call it super finished and get prints made, but I've already spent 30+ hours on this over the past few days, so I'm taking a well deserved break from it for now :]

[definitionofacritter]

Emhira ||| the Raven Queen

[floweroflaurelin]

I would have been lost without you. Thank you for guiding me, and always protecting me.

I don’t think you ever needed me as a guardian, though it was my life’s honour to do so.

��

Baby Emhira having a bright moment with her guardians Purvan and Galdric! I can’t stop thinking about Purvan helping to raise the Raven Queen as a baby. The mortal who became a goddess who became a mortal, and he’s there to watch her grow up. It makes me so emotional 🥲

[laurasbailey]

BAFTA Award winner Laura Bailey loves a dramatic, perfectly-timed gay pause

[johnnyspells]

just sisters being sisters

[loading-excuses]

talisen and ashley playing the mortal incarnations of gods they’ve played clerics for is makes so much sense but there’s something poetic about laura’s character being the mortal incarnation of the raven queen

i just miss vax, i hope he’s okay in his marble

[ludinusdaleth]

"If you created this space again, would they be dancing like they are now?"

-Critical Role Campaign 3, Episode 100, "Downfall Part Two"

[lavendertheys]

Part 1: Laura matching her human form's colors Part 2: Laura matching her true form's colors

[marvelousbelladonna]

Daddy’s mad

[leafspiritz]

imogen’s new outfit my beloved

[twinklestarss]

Campaign 3 Episode 109: A Test of Fate

[towards-toramunda]

Oh I’m obsessed

[shorthaltsjester]

there are literally no standouts in downfall because everyone sat down at that table and said hey you wanna see something cool and proceeded to Become their characters but idk if it’s because they’re beside each other and that aids the dynamic or just because it’s the delicious similarities and insurmountable distance between the god of death and the god of (in various ways) life but ayden and emhira’s interactions were so chewy and delicious. i’ll be thinking of their exchange fairly early on after ayden cast lesser restoration on that old man and emhira not cruelly but just simply stating “you cannot heal everything.” and ayden’s equally simple reply “we can always try.” emhira seeing the family trist has built and wondering at the presence of children, “surprised there is laughter in such a horrible place” and i know she’s speaking of hawk’s hill but i wonder if she is also speaking of exandria itself in some ways. the delicious space between in and out of character that only really happens in improv stories where as brennan is narrating and says “in this dark room” and nick interrupts and adds “it is not dark.” brennan’s incisive point in the cooldown that while the love that ayden and trist have for mortals and for exandria is warm and the kind of love someone would likely Want from gods, there is something maybe more honest or whole about emhira who says . actually these mortals are little shits that will kill you not because they fear you but because they hate you. whose very existence should be (and still often fails to be) a reminder that the gods can be usurped by mortals. the insight nick shared in the cooldown that ayden does not forget emhira’s origins but in a way dismisses them, that the god of death is a different beast. ayden wanting to find. way to save the people of aeor, insisting that the prime deities Win if they can find a way to do so. emhira reminding everyone that death is inevitable (and she does not add anything to clarify that she intends such a statement to only exist for mortals) as she argues for them to work to take down aeor and the people in it. the fact that the god with the most present connection to mortality is also the one given the most explicit clarification that she Is the god we know as SILAHA calls her the matron, brennan’s narration clarifies purvon is her champion, taliesin as asha asks for clarification on the recognition of emhira as a god and prompting the familiar spectre of a woman in a white mask.

i want to be very clear that when i say there are no standouts i Mean it because i’ve been awed and endeared and intrigued by every single character choice everyone made and as always brennan’s narration is so incredibly well suited for the mission impossible greek tragedy vibes that comes with this story and i’m so fucking delighted by the fact that laura, ashley, and taliesin are playing gods that their characters have known quite well in the past. i’m incredibly excited by what we’ve already gotten to see from abubakar, nashir, and nick and cannot imagine what other greatness is to come. i’m psyched to see the relationship between asha and the law bearer and am delighted that (perhaps for now perhaps for the whole arc) it is being seen through the lens of “my wife promised me a visit with apples and all i got was a rock ice emissary”. i also have many incoherent thoughts about the fact that, of the players who appeared as the same character in the opening and the story, taliesin’s ash and asha are the ones whose name remains the most unchanged.

i’m obsessed with the fact that this creature sent as a stand in by the god of law and duty believes his primary gift is love. while there is a certain mourning and sadness to every god we see, that SILAHA has a certain playful whimsy and jofyful curiosity about the world. that the only one of them who has been mortal before stops to steal an imp necklace from the neck of a drunk on the train (and that moment between brennan’s narration that this man will be dead by morning but, with death standing invisible in front of him, he is incapable of seeing it coming, and then laura as emhira breathing in deeply and brennan having that spark a coughing fit. they are Story Telling). asha seeing the erased image of a god, of a family member and saying “there’s a hole in all of us.” brennan narrating “this is a place where they tried to kill a story. it’s a very frightened thing to do.” (and god. the motif of fear. especially given the very present fear felt by the gods in current day exandria. they’re doing insane things in the critical role 3 part departure).

trist reminding ayden “he never tells the truth” and asha contesting “he only tells the truth, it’s just rotting.” emhira and asha both as perhaps the less Good™ much more neutral but doing so in such different ways, asha as bitter and hungry while emhira seems uncomfortable but there’s a familiarity and a certainty in her discomfort with mortality (the law bearer would also be included here but the emissary seems much more like trist and ayden (for now) than emhira or asha). something as insignificant as trist and her husband speaking to their children and affirming that little lies are okay while trist has lead a significant part of her life likely dishonest about who she is. the fact that there’s a certain childlike quality to the emissary who they’re all charged with ensuring makes it to the end of things even if they cannot. the fact that nahal (unclear which god they were, and i’m assuming it’s the first god of death but regardless still an absolutely compelling development in a short amount of time) in those opening moments is horrified by the concept of away which is unfamiliar to them only to soon after look upon their family and say. maybe away was better. Especially if those were words spoken by the god who would one day be replaced. these three episodes are going to haunt me and i’m excited to meet the ghosts.

[artificialhaunts]

🐦‍⬛👑

[johnnyspells]

later, as Slitch the imp:

[pocketgalaxies]

the fact that marisha said "hey laura you should be the matron" women are so hot you would not even BELIEVE.